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“Why’d you do it?”
The first answer that surged up was fuck off.
But the words never took form. Perhaps it was from the disuse of his own voice, perhaps it was the barbed wire that’d wrapped itself around his trachea and threatened to pierce through if he so much as breathed too heavily. Either way, Lloyd didn’t speak.
He swallowed– or, tried to.
Morro sat across from him, his semi-transparent figure leaning back against the grimy, yellowed wall, one knee pulled to his chest, the other outstretched across the tile and under the stall beside them as though nothing was amiss. Though Lloyd wasn’t looking, he could tell he was staring at him. He had been for the last twenty minutes, eyeing the blond as he leant against the toilet, arm curled over the lid, head resting against his own shoulder, utterly and embarrassingly helpless.
Though the freedom over his own body was a welcome gift, Lloyd hardly felt like his limbs were his own. He felt like a product of every cold and flu he’d had over the years, multiplied tenfold. And the bathroom– or, what used to be a bathroom– sure didn’t serve as a source of comfort.
Stiix was a cold, damp place, and it showed. The ceiling paint was peeling in uneven strips, and the yellowed light overhead flickered just enough to illuminate the stall and the dead bugs trapped within the cracked plastic. Black mould spread like ivy across the far wall, and Lloyd was half-sure if he even attempted to flush the toilet, it would just sputter out a few drops of water before giving up.
Just like me, perhaps.
The world around him was rotten. It was taking everything in him not to let that rot seep inward.
Morro spoke again.
“Gonna say something?”
A pause. Lloyd grit his teeth against the nausea. The other cocked a brow.
“…Or are you just gonna sit there sulking until you kick it?”
Sulking? Lloyd thought, face twisting slightly. You’d be the one sulking if you’d had your body worn like a puppet for the past week and a half.
Still, Lloyd knew exactly what Morro was prying about. God, of course he fucking knew; he had full control over Lloyd’s damn body. He was bound to find out eventually. Lloyd just… didn’t really think he’d have the balls to ask. But this was Morro they were talking about. The ego on that man-ghost was abysmal.
The blond forced his eyes open a slight and murmured through tight, chapped lips. “…Leave me alone.”
Morro’s brows raised a little as a silent and unimpressed, ‘Seriously?’. Then, he inhaled slowly, and let his head loll back against the damp stall wall, like this whole conversation– which he started, mind you– was just another pain in the backside.
Typical.
“You’re not easy to talk to,” he mumbled, eyes fixed on a particularly nasty-looking stain that’d somehow ended up on the ceiling.
Lloyd would’ve rolled his eyes had he the strength. “You’re not easy to trust.”
“What,” Morro started, turning to face him, arm curled around his knee, hand clasped on his wrist. “You think I don’t see your thoughts?”
Another stretch of quiet. Only the faint buzz of the light and the drip of a leaky tap out of sight broke the silence. Lloyd exhaled weakly, shut his eyes, and let the cold porcelain cool his clammy cheek. What he wouldn’t do to just… disappear.
“Y’know, if I didn’t need your strength back, I could slip right back into you and find out myself.”
No response. Lloyd didn’t open his eyes. Just lay draped across the toilet, legs bent uncomfortably against the damp tile.
“…Unless,” Morro spoke, though it came out more a mocking hiss than anything civil, “you wanna tell me yourself why the fated green ninja would be slashing his own wrists.”
Lloyd lifted his head slightly, opening and narrowing his eyes until black met green. His head spun the moment it left the ivory, but he held it steady. As steady as he could. This time, the answer came quickly.
“Fuck off.”
Morro huffed out a half-scoff. “Harsh words for someone who can’t even sit up straight but sure, tell me to fuck off, if it makes you feel better.”
Lloyd’s nailbeds whitened as he gripped the bowl, but Morro paid no mind. He rolled his shoulders back and broke eye contact, half-lidded gaze returning to that stained strip of paint. “I’ve gotta hand it to you…you’ve been deep.”
God, why did this even matter? Morro wanted Lloyd’s body to free the preeminent, not to quiz him on the story behind each and every slash to his skin. Though, Lloyd could only be grateful that Morro was the one to discover his cuts, rather than Kai or Cole, because then it really would be over for him.
Just thinking about it made him stomach churn; oh, what they’d say.
What they wouldn’t say.
Lloyd was snapped out of his daze as Morro abruptly shifted his position, stretching out his bent leg to press his foot against the far wall and began to talk. Again.
“I just find it funny that someone like you, the prophesised, revered, legendary Green Ninja,” he taunted, “would be the one to do something so… drastic.”
“Drastic,” Lloyd echoed almost silently. “’S not drastic.”
Morro didn’t hear him. Or perhaps he just didn’t care to listen. “You know, with me, cutting made sense.” He gestured vaguely towards himself before folding his arms across his chest. “No family, no friends, no future. No green gi, which– by the way–” he let out a dry chuckle, “was meant to be mine.”
Lloyd almost muttered a backhanded comment about Morro’s ‘Green Ninja’ status, but Morro was quick to cut him off yet again.
“My scars have a purpose. A tally or something, of how many times I went wrong, of how many times I failed, of how many times the world reminded me that I wasn’t good enough.”
The blond eyed him as the ghost turned his head, and stared flatly, coldly, at him. The air tensed, but Lloyd’s body was already prickled with goosebumps. “But you…” Morro spat, “you have no reason. You waltz into Wu’s life, his beloved nephew, and into the arms of a crew who love you. I’d know, they keep trying to fuckin’ kill me.” Morro paused as if in thought. The overhead light stuttered, and if he looked hard enough, Lloyd could just about see the cracked bases of the sinks beyond the stall through the ghost’s semi-transparent frame.
None of this felt real. He closed his eyes again.
None of this should be real.
And that voice didn’t help. He sounded raspy, slightly echoed, like he’d been trapped in a tin can, or something of the sort. It only sent Lloyd further into the depths of painful derealisation. “You have people who love you. You have everything I–“ Morro stopped, jaw clenched. “Everything so many people– would kill for.”
Fuck. Lloyd felt the backs of his eyes begin to sting. He squeezed them shut as tight as his failing muscles would allow and held back the sobs that began prodding at his chest. Each word that slipped from the ghost’s mouth just made it all worse.
Because yes, Lloyd might’ve had everything Morro wanted– but Morro had one thing Lloyd didn’t. Freedom. Freedom from destiny, from pressure, from the soul-crushing notion that the world rested solely, entirely, on his shoulders. Lloyd lacked control. Not only over his future, but over his life. His childhood years had escaped him– and his teenage years weren’t far from ending. And all the while, he’d worked. Those scars weren’t just self-inflicted. Because between them, hidden in the pink, jagged, raised slices, were scars from outside. From his training. From the fights. From his father.
“Tell me,” Morro snarled suddenly, “tell me, Lloyd.” His voice was almost shaking, not quite a shout, but… getting there. “Tell me what gave you the goddamned audacity to act like you have it any worse than–“
“Leave me alone!” Lloyd cried suddenly, head shooting up despite the tumble inside. His eyes were red and glassy, and burning. “Leave me… alone,” he choked out again, voice breaking as the wall of willpower he’d attempted to enforce crumbled. Tears– hot, painful ones– began to fall.
And then, barely above a cracked whisper, “You know nothing about me.”
“Don’t I?” Morro called instantly, slapping a palm to the ground and pushing himself up slightly. “I don’t know you?”
Lloyd shook his head, a damp strand of blind hair flopping in front of his face. He couldn’t muster the strength to push it away– but it didn’t matter; it was something to hide behind. Small and pathetic as it was. Morro only narrowed his glare. “I know you, Lloyd.”
Lloyd’s lids closed again as he choked back a wry sob. “You… you don’t know half of… half of what I’ve been… through.”
“And what would that be?!” Morro yelled, his voice echoing and reverberating not only through the stalls but through Lloyd’s skull, bouncing and pounding, until all that was left was a Morro-pitched staticky buzz behind his eyes. A few seconds passed, and in those seconds, Lloyd just folded in on himself and cried. Scrunched his eyes shut, shoulders shaking, breath hitching, and cried, in wet, ugly bursts.
“Quit that!”
Morro’s bark was so loud it almost made Lloyd jump– but he had no strength to. All he managed was a strangled gasp, and another painful sob. He dropped his head further and coughed into the toilet bowl.
He could hear Morro’s breathing quicken, grow harder. There was no sight, and if he had opened his eyes, it probably wouldn’t’ve been much more than a hazy blur. But he heard it– Morro pushing himself to his feet, stepping the short distance towards him.
“Tell me, Lloyd! Tell me what gives you the right–“ he bent down and seized Lloyd’s left arm with both hands, yanking his sleeve to his elbow and tearing the fabric like paper in the process. “What gives you the right– to fucking slit your wrists!”
“Stop it!” Lloyd choked out, instinctively jerking away and clamouring at Morro’s hands, which did absolutely jack, as his hands just fazed right through the ghost’s. “Get o-off me!” His breath hitched as he caught sight of his own bare arm; jagged, ripped– pink, white, and raised in all the wrong places. “Let go– s-stop!”
“Tell me!” Morro yelled again, but this time– it cracked halfway through. “Tell me! TELL ME!”
The thump of Lloyd’s heart could barely catch up with the sheer volume of adrenaline coursing through his blood, but somewhere in the panic, he caught it. The faint wobble in Morro’s screams. The subtle pain behind his demands. And slowly, he looked up.
…
But Lloyd only saw himself.
Not exactly, but close enough; a sick echo of his anger, of his self-loathing– of all of it– staring back at him, with Morro’s face. A twisted version of his own reflection.
All the while, Morro stared, never removing his hand from Lloyd’s wrist, unblinking. But Lloyd could see it. Ghostly, wet streaks. Tears. And for that moment in time– the stall was quiet. Nothing but Lloyd’s quick, uneven breaths– and Morro’s heavy, laboured ones.
“I–“ Lloyd started, voice barely tethered together.
“You have everything.” Morro said, but his voice was no longer raised. It was strained and barely audible. “Everything I hurt myself for,” he whispered, grip loosening on the other’s wrist with what looked like sheer exhaustion, “you have.”
Lloyd blinked at him through tears that refused to cease.
“You never had to try in order to be great. The only thing you ever did to deserve your title… was exist.”
A sharp sting ran across Lloyd’s forearm. A hot, red line drew itself down his scarred skin and onto the cracked porcelain from where Morro had squeezed a scab a little too hard and reopened a wound that hadn’t yet healed. He didn’t look down. Just listened to the soft pats of blood as droplets splashed across the ivory.
“Look at me, Lloyd,” Morro spoke, the pain in his voice carried by the hoarseness of it all. “I died trying to be you.”
Each translucent tear down the ghost’s cheeks settled in the hem of his gi, the gi that Lloyd knew without a doubt– Morro would trade for his in a heartbeat, if fate had ever offered him the chance. “And I think,” he continued, “if the desperation of finding purpose hadn’t killed me in that fucking tunnel,” Morro sniffled a little, and his fingers had grown slack over Lloyd’s forearm, but he didn’t move. “My own hand would’ve done the job.”
Silence.
If it hadn’t been for the faint hum of the dying bulb or the drip, drip of Lloyd’s blood– there would’ve been entirely still.
Just… two boys.
Two boys who grew up all too fast, staring at each other in the cramped confines of a rickety old bathroom stall.
Two boys that, if they could rewrite the hands of destiny… probably would’ve taken each other’s place.
Lloyd, peacefully dead, somewhere dark where no one would look. Morro, thriving, fighting, carrying the title of The Green Ninja like it’d always belonged to him.
But alas, fate is not written by the hand of which it mangles. Fate is simply… fate. And as fate has it– Morro was dead. And Lloyd was alive.
Morro broke the silence as he stood upright harshly and scrubbed a hand across his face, dragging the heel of his palm over his glassy eyes. His right palm bore blotches of sticky red liquid, but he paid it no mind– he’d seen worse. He’d caused worse. He was used to it.
“Fuck,” he whispered into his palm, before raking his fingers through his green-streaked jet hair and tugging at the roots. “Fuck I’m–“ he paused, taking a deep breath and letting his head fall back, “you don’t make any goddamn sense.”
Lloyd risked a quick glance down to his arm. It wasn’t the only part of him that was scarred– both he and Morro knew that– but… it was the worst part of him. There was no fooling anyone; they weren’t battle scars– not from the field, at least– and they sure as hell weren’t accidental. They were deep grooves and angry scars, stretched pink lines that crossed and overlapped simply because he’d ran out of space. Cat scratches from Darkley’s when he got his hands on a screwdriver for the first time and decided to dismantle a pencil sharpener for something other than a prank; harsh, uneven gashes from the nights he hadn’t even bothered stumbling to the bathroom, so had simply reached for whatever sharp weapon was closest, too far gone to care what it was.
Scars, and Morro didn’t need to ask how– for when Lloyd glanced back up, at the boy leaning his head back, hand gripping his hair, sleeve slightly loose and hanging halfway down his forearm– he knew; the Master of Wind had done it too.
Slowly, Morro took a few steps back until his back met the stall door, never removing the hand from his hair or opening his eyes. He weakened against the cold metal and buckled at the knees. Lloyd watched him slide to the tile and cover his face with both palms, no doubt spreading Lloyd’s blood across his cheek by accident. Probably the closest he’d ever get to having hallowed blood he’d be.
Drip… drip.
Slowly, the dripping ceased, and Lloyd gently draped the ripped sleeve fabric back over his scars.
His voice came out small and hoarse. “I… was eight.”
Morro lifted his head slightly, pulled his hands down a fraction, and glanced at Lloyd between wet lashes. “…What?”
Lloyd swallowed, his throat tightening as he spoke the words he hadn’t let himself think about in years. He pushed himself more upright and braced his hand against the tile, despite the pounding in his skull and the sting in his sinuses. “I was eight and,” he repeated quietly, half to himself. “And my uncle told me that I… I was the Green Ninja.”
Morro’s brow furrowed. “Why are you–“
“He also told me,” Lloyd murmured, his words cracking on the way out, “that my father was the one I am destined to defeat.”
This time, Morro was the one sitting and watching through bated breath.
Lloyd leant back against the metal, cradled in the damp space between the toilet and the stall wall, and took a breath. “I never knew my dad.” He rubbed his palm to his eye and continued. “He uh… I guess… was always off doing other stuff. And my mom…” he glanced back to Morro, who was staring at him fully now, hands hidden in his lap, knees pulled to his chest. Lloyd looked back down. “I guess she never had much time for me either.”
Morro’s shoulders slackened a fraction. Lloyd didn’t sound bitter– far from it. Not like Morro, who would’ve torn an entire forest down just to get back at the parents who’d abandoned him. But Lloyd just sounded… tired. Morro felt his lip tremble, but he clamped it between his teeth before it could become anything more.
“I didn’t ask for this.” Lloyd mumbled. “I just wanted to be…” He trailed off, drawing a hiccupping inhale that made his stomach hurt, and wiped his nose with the back of his good sleeve. He blinked hard, but it did nothing but force the tears into beads hanging from his lashes.
And then, in the tiniest whisper, the whisper of the child he never got to be–
“Just wanted to be normal.”
And, to Morro… he supposed… perhaps…
“I don’t know I just… I didn’t want all this stuff,” Lloyd said, speaking more to himself and the tile than the boy sitting a mere metre away. “The prophecy. Or… being the Green Ninja. Or… any of it.” He swallowed thickly and tapped his thumb nervously against his index finger. “I never got to pick anything. Not once, ever.”
Finally, he looked up. His head still spun, and his body was still slick with sweat and grime. The pair locked eyes. “You… you didn’t get to pick either, right?”
Morro just stared, barely breathing. If he hadn’t had fresh streaks of silver racing down his cheeks and into the crevice of his lips, Lloyd probably wouldn’t have been able to tell how he was feeling at all.
So, he continued. “They just tell you who you are and… and that’s it.” He let out a small, unsteady exhale and murmured– “I don’t have control over anything. ‘Cept my skin.”
…
He didn’t say anything else. And Morro didn’t, either. They just sat.
Lloyd, legs folded awkwardly to the side, pressed between the toilet and the wall, a small patch of his torn gi stained with red. Blond hair stuck in wavy patches to his forehead and cheeks; his green eyes glassier, duller, than they’d been in a while.
And Morro… he looked exactly as the day he died.
Frays in the hems of his sleeves. Dirt powdered in the creases of his gi. Eyes too sunken and hollow for someone so young– like a doll left in the closet for a month too long, abandoned and neglected enough for the seams to unravel on their own. He sat like a child, hands tucked into his lap, hidden by his knees, fingers shaking.
Two boys who looked, on the surface, like they should have nothing in common.
But beneath that– something they shared.
Loneliness. Abandonment.
A childhood they never got to live.
Scars.
They sat in the shared silence, eyes never drifting from the other’s. And for those few, fleeting moments– moments that felt more like hours than the handful of seconds it likely was– Lloyd wondered if perhaps… he’d got through to him. If the torture, the endless pain of being piloted while you’re still stuck inside your own head– was finally about to end.
…He should’ve known better.
It was stupid to hope.
But hope was that one, childish thing that Lloyd had never quite managed to grow out of.
Perhaps it was the kid in him– the gullible, trusting child he once was– finally believing that he’d found someone who understood him. A friend.
Morro was never a friend.
The ghost reached out abruptly and pushed up from the tiles, his gi creased at the knees. He stared down at Lloyd without lowering his chin, eyes hollow. He drew in a slow, steadying breath.
And then–
“Tch.” The sound was sharp and cold, condescending in a fraction of a second. “So that’s all it takes to break the Green Ninja.” He gave Lloyd a mockingly pitiful look. “You really are pathetic.”
He stepped backwards, just twice. But it only took two steps for him to phase through the door and disappear. Just as quickly as the conversation had started– it ended. Lloyd was alone.
He started at the empty space Morro had left behind. And gullible and wistful as he could be– Lloyd wasn’t stupid. He’d heard it. The way Morro’s words had cracked; the way he couldn’t quite bury the ache underneath it all.
Spiteful and jealous– perhaps.
But no matter what words he chose, how cruel they were– Morro couldn’t hide the weakness in his voice.
…Lloyd didn’t cry after that. Just sat slumped, breathing.
When Morro inevitably returned, as he always did, to seize control of his body once again– he didn’t fight it.
He knew.
And when their minds slid back into place, overlapping–
Lloyd only heard silence.
He wasn’t stupid. Nor was Morro.
They weren’t so different, really.