Chapter Text
Lloyd was fine with things, until he wasn’t. It was always like that for him. Things were always just like that. He was fine with being like Garmadon, until it was revealed he’d be the green ninja. He was fine being a ‘bad boy’, until he realized how isolating it really felt at Darkleys. He was fine with being a little ‘chubby’, until he wasn’t.
In the normal sense, Lloyd wasn’t fat. He wasn’t the skinniest though. His metabolism just wasn’t very fast, despite having been on the streets for a while before the ninja picked him up.
Starving hadn’t helped — so why would anything else? Training was slow with helping his weight. Which, actually, wasn’t bad. It was just how he looked. Maybe it was because he was short, or his hair framed his face bad, maybe his clothes just weren’t fitted for his body right. For whatever reason, Lloyd felt like he looked gross.
It wasn’t the most normal thought for someone of his age, he knew that. Anyone at Darkleys who would’ve expressed such insecurity would’ve been picked on relentlessly. It would’ve been small comments, no real physical harm, but it was better that Lloyd said nothing about those thoughts. He knew that Cole had struggled with something along the lines of his struggle. But Cole’s was just more losing some weight on his own, he hadn’t ever said anything about feeling gross.
Besides, whatever Cole had done had happened prior to Lloyd releasing the Serpentine. He just had no clue what Cole had been through and what he hadn’t. Jay had always been skinny, according to him. He assumed Kai had never been chubbier because he was a blacksmith. It wasn’t his best assumption. And Zane… was a nindroid. He couldn’t be fat. He’d have to be designed that way. But Zane was designed with average measurements in mind. Nya was probably the same as Kai.
Which was fine! Lloyd didn’t mind! He didn’t mind until he after the Tomorrow’s Tea and food felt less and less appealing. It was then that his metabolism finally started catching up with him. But not fast enough for his liking.
Each time he looked in the mirror, or a piece of clothing felt a little too tight, it made him feel guilty. Neither of those things were his fault anymore though. His training and eating habits hardly helped his weight, it was momentarily out of his control. It felt like everything was stunted because of the strange age situation. Constantly he threw up whatever he’d eaten — it wasn’t very good for his stomach. Which constantly hurt no matter if he ate or not.
“Lloyd, have you eaten today?” Cole sounded almost concerned. The sound of someone’s voice snapped Lloyd straight out of his thoughts. Before he could speak, Cole continued, “I feel like I haven’t seen you eat in a while.”
The blonde was momentarily stunned into silence. When had he eaten last? “I ate a little this morning,” It was a total lie. “it was before training though.”
“I was up before training.”
Fuck.
Lying probably wasn’t Lloyd’s best go-to strategy. But truly, he hadn’t known Cole had been up before they’d all trained. If he’d known, he just would’ve admitted he hadn’t eaten that day. Lloyd probably would’ve said he’d eaten the day before though. Which he hadn’t. So he would’ve lied anyways…
The green ninja sighed. “Fine, I didn’t eat.” He said nothing for a moment, his voice lowering as he continued. “It doesn’t matter.” He really did act like a moody teenager sometimes. That was a realization that wouldn’t come to him for a long time though.
Maybe Cole would just ignore it, maybe he would force Lloyd to eat something. Probably not the former, it was likely to be the ladder.
The older teen eyed him for a brief moment, eyes narrowed. “You know that you have to eat right? I know you didn’t eat yesterday either.” Cole easily picked up on habits of the other ninja. Too easily for his own good. Then his expression softened. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
“Not really.” Lloyd was a little quieter than he had been earlier.
Cole stared at him. “Too late,” he smirked. “you don’t have a choice.”
“Then why did you even ask me?”
“To make you feel like you had a choice.”
Lloyd dropped his head onto the table. It made his hair look a tad bigger than it really was. He couldn’t care enough to keep up any act of being mature. On any other occasion he’d at least try to. He felt the need to do such a thing. A normal person at 14 would be more mature than he was. But they also probably hadn’t jumped from 9 to 14 and hadn’t gotten abruptly slapped in the face by puberty and all the mood swings along with it. The ninja still treated him the same — well, mostly the same.
He sighed. “I don’t know? It just…” He huffed. Lloyd did a lot of sighing and small huffs. More of the moody teenager mannerisms. Cole took note of that. “I just feel bad about it.”
Cole froze for a moment. He had just assumed Lloyd was too caught up in training to eat. “Lloyd.” He started slowly. “What do you mean you feel ‘bad’ about eating?” He already knew what the blonde meant.