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Lloyd hated words. He hated admitting that sure, he "liked" the ninja to the point he would go out of his way and try to bake a cake for them before they got home from a mission.
Nya was out with Master Wu on some strange quest Lloyd didn't care about. And the ninja were saving Ninjago City once again from the serpentine(he still doesn't forgive himself for letting them out. But he doesn't apologize because he hates words.)
So Lloyd had the grand idea to use Zane's secret cookbook, which had every single ninja's favorite food in it. Including their favored deserts.
Lloyd looked at all his ingredients, then the numbers before the words, and he shrugged. Sure he doesn't know how to measure, how bad could a cake end up if he didn't measure some stuff right?
So Lloyd got to work, putting the flour in a bowl he found, then the butter, some eggs here, and he didn't have much milk so he put whatever he could in it.
He mixed it all, getting his black skeleton sweater dirty in the process. The counters were ruined, and for some reason, he had flour in his hair. With his tongue sticking out, he whisked the mixture into a slightly soft batter. When he deemed the taste test worthy, he grabbed some cylinder metal thing, and then a pan for cookies. He put the circle mold in the middle, and picked his bowl up, and quickly got to work on pouring the batter into the makeshift mold he had made.
When he was done, he smiled wide when he saw barely any batter made it out of the mold, sure it was slowly leaking out from under the circle, but he could just fix it after he was done.
So he turned the oven on, messing around with it for a bit. He read the book again, reading that he should let the oven heat up for a few minutes before he put anything inside. So he did exactly that. Only putting in his batter when he heard the ding from the oven.
Struggling to put the pan inside, the heat made him shake as he worried he might burn his hands and he'd only fail the ninja further.
Lloyd shook his head, the thought drifting off as he steadied his hands. With the entire thing in the oven, he closed it and let it sit. He didn't know what to do after, the instructions had become too cryptic for him to understand. So Lloyd let the oven do its thing.
With a starfarer coming in his hand, Lloyd lay on the couch, reading upside down. He heard the sounds of doors opening, and he smiled, he would show the ninja the cake he made for them and they'd be so happy and... and— Lloyd sniffed the air, a frown grew on his face as he smelled something burning. The same smell that only happens when Cole is cooking...
Lloyd sat up instantly, he jumped off the couch, leaving his comic on the couch as he sprinted down the hall and nearly slipped as he tried to make a right into the kitchen.
There were fumes of black smoke coming from the oven, lifting into the ceiling and resting there. Lloyd coughed, covering his mouth and nose with his arm as he shook his hand back and forth.
"Smoke... smoke! Guys the Monastery!!" Lloyd heard the Monastery doors burst open. Lloyd was shoved aside as Zane led the ninja into the kitchen, the heat from the oven dissipated as Zane used his power and suddenly the smoke was the only evidence left of the fire that had burst in the oven. Lloyd coughed again, lowering his arm and watching as Zane opened the oven door and smoke blew further. The smell of burning grew stronger and Lloyd knew he had failed.
He was a stupid disappointment.
Gazes turned to him, and he felt his heart beat a thousand times faster than he had ever felt.
"Lloyd? Did you do this?" It was Cole, and even he was covering his mouth and nose, his black gi nearly blending in with the black charcoal mess that was the inside of the oven.
Lloyd opened his mouth, his throat felt so tight he didn't know if he could even speak. Kai gave him a look, and his chest and lungs only seemed to close with a single glare. Jay also gave him one, but it wasn't as harsh as the one Kai was currently giving him.
The way Zane simply looked at him, awaiting an answer.
Cole didn't seem bothered, only a question.
Lloyd blinked several times, his tiny hands turning into fists as he felt utterly useless.
FSM, he hated words.
"I- I wanted to surprise you guys—"
"Congrats you did, now we got to clean this all up, why can you just listen-" Jay elbowed Kai hard in the side, and the red GI ninja scowled at him before his gaze turned back to Lloyd. His eyes widened when he saw the several big streaks of tears freshly running down Lloyd's face. The boy wiped them away harshly with his arm, his hands still turned into fists. His lower lip trembled as he stood there, all gazes locked on him and his cry-baby face.
"I-i just wanted to help," Lloyd whispered, his head falling as he tried to wipe the tears away, but only failed as they kept continuously coming, pouring and soaking his sleeves.
"Kid, I- we..." Before Kai could even finish his sentence, Lloyd turned and walked away, his slow steps receding down the hall before a door closed, they were all shocked Lloyd hadn't run down the hall and slammed the door.
Kai groaned, holding his head with both hands as Jay patted his back.
"Zane, I'll clean this up with Jay and Kai. I think it's your turn to go comfort the kid." Zane gave Cole a single nod before the nindroid walked out of the kitchen and down the hall. Stopping in front of Lloyd's door, the door had a simple green five on top of the handle, the same mark he had above his heart on his skeleton sweater.
Zane softly knocked on the door, and he kept quiet as he listened.
"Go away!" Lloyd's voice squeaked from inside. Zane tried the handle, and lucky enough it was unlocked. He opened the door, closing it as he stepped into the room.
It was dark. The curtains draw over the window and blocking out most of the light from outside. There was posters on the wall. Some drawings here and there. A framed picture frame on the nightstand was faced down.
"Lloyd? It's okay to make mistakes." Zane wasn't exactly the best at comforting. He was possibly the worst person to comfort the currently sobbing child curled up in his bed with blankets hiding him.
"Noitss not! I could've burned the Monastery, and- and Kai yelled at me- It's not okay." Lloyd yelled out from under his blanket, it was green and Zane couldn't see where Lloyd's head could be at. So he sat at the foot of the bed, his hand rising and resting on a small bump in the mound of blankets. He heard a sob, and he knew his hand had landed on top of Lloyd's head.
"Mistakes happen often, even Kai makes mistakes, even me, nindroid." The sobs quieted down, and Zane let the current train of thought continue. "Mistakes are okay, and sure you did one today. But it doesn't mean you're bad, it just means you're human, Lloyd." There were sniffles, and Zane let his hand rub a simple circle, he could feel Lloyd's body shift closer to his, a head bumping into his hip. "We'll clean it up, we can try again and this time I'll be there to help you. We can erase your mistake and try again," Small arms wrapped around his torso, he looked down and saw Lloyd's messy blonde hair peeking out from under the blankets.
Zane smiled. He didn't think he'd be able to comfort Lloyd, much less calm the boy down to where he understood.
"Can we make cake?" Lloyd's voice was small. "Of course, we can make anything you want."
After a few minutes. Lloyd and Zane got up, heading out. Zane froze before he could leave the room, looking back at the down picture frame. He turned and quickly went back inside, lifting it and fixing it to where it stood upright. He saw it was a picture of all of them, Wu, Nya, and Lloyd all in the center with the ninja surrounding them. Zane couldn't help but smile at that, the picture had been one of the few they had been able to get on a free day they had gotten months ago.
Zane walked down the hall, Lloyd waiting for him halfway to the kitchen.
When they walked into the kitchen. It was cleaned all except the oven still a bit dark.
"Oh, I have no idea how to clean the oven so I left it like that," Cole said as he put the rag he had in his hands down, spots of black all over it. Lloyd stood close to Zane's side. "I'll clean it." Zane did a wonderful job cleaning the inside of the oven. The sleeves of his white GI was dusted with black, but he didn't seem to mind as he lifted the sleeves and took the gloves off when he was done.
"Can one of you head out and grab some milk?"
Zane helped Lloyd with mixing all the ingredients together, Lloyd was given a step stool so that he could reach the counter without needing to sit on it.
"And then we pour it into this." Zane pulled out a round cake pan, the bottom and the sides all metal. Lloyd gently poured the batter into the pan, Zane holding it to ensure he didn't drop any batter anywhere else.
"And then we wait," Zane said as he closed the oven door, Lloyd standing far enough to where he wouldn't feel the heat.
And they waited. After a good forty minutes, Zane was pulling the cake pan out and placing it on the stove. "What color icing?"
"Green...?" Zane nodded, putting green food coloring into the icing and mixing it until it mixed into a well-colored green. The icing was easy, and Lloyd helped splendidly with putting it on.
"See. Next time you want to make something, just as and I'll help anytime." Zane ruffled Lloyd's hair as the kid ate a piece of cake, green icing sticking to his cheeks as he happily ate the chocolate-flavored cake.
Cole had come for his fill already.
Jay came holding on to Kai's arm and pulling the other ninja into the kitchen.
"Come on. Let's go." Jay urged Kai, pushing him towards Lloyd's direction at the table. "Hey, kiddo." Lloyd looked up, swallowing the cake in his mouth.
"Sorry I yelled at you earlier, I just snapped." Lloyd watched as Kai knelt, his gloved hand holding onto the edge of the table as he leaned forward.
"It's okay, I probably should have... asked for help." Lloyd didn't know why. But the words came out a bit easier than what he had originally thought.
Kai smiled, and he grabbed Lloyd into a bone-crushing hug.
Lloyd looked up at Zane, the nindroid giving him a thumbs up as he ate his own slice of cake with Jay.
Lloyd didn't dislike words so much.
Maybe they weren't so bad.