Work Text:
Kai turned over onto his back, his blankets bunching up beside him as he did so. He rubbed uncomfortably at his singed arms. Three days since he had discovered his true potential, three days since finding out Lloyd was the green ninja, three days since he’d lost the last fang blade.
Three days, he’d been stewing in self hatred and guilt. He glared at the bars holding the mattress up above him, listening to Cole’s quiet snoring from above. Everyone had been telling him he had made the right choice, saving Lloyd was absolutely the right thing to do.
A choice he had made correctly, but no where near fast enough. He should have made that move from the beginning, he shouldn’t have scrambled for some stupid blade, he should have gone straight for the kid. What kind of hero was he if he couldn’t get out of his head long enough to save someone that needed it.
He rolled over again, onto his side. His eyes were still adjusting to the low levels of light in the room, but they soon landed on the spare bed tucked away in the corner, the spare bed that now held Lloyd. The boy was curled up in a fetal position, mop of blonde hair peaking out from under his blankets.
Kai didn’t know what made him notice it. Training as a ninja? Spending countless nights counting the breaths of his team? The countless nights before that tuning in to Nya’s breathing to make sure she was sleeping okay?
Point is, he notice the rise and fall of Lloyd’s blanket was absent. He wasn’t breathing. Well, that was a bit misleading. He was breathing, but only small breaths at a time. He’d take in a deep breath and then he would hold it, then after several seconds let it out shakily.
“..Lloyd?” Kai whispered, raising an eyebrow when the boy completely froze, breathing stopping completely. Was he trying to pretend he was asleep? Going frozen wasn’t exactly the way to do that. “..People breathe when they’re asleep, kid, I know you’re awake.”
Lloyd let out that shaky breath, and the blanket shifted as he wriggled under it, rolling over to face Kai. Just his eyes poked out from under the blanket, staring at the older ninja. Kai noticed the way the limited light reflected off his eyes a bit too much. He’d been crying.
It explained the whole thing about holding his breath, the kid was probably trying to muffle his sobs.
Kai sighed, “You okay?” He asked gently, more gentle than he had really spoken to anyone in.. a few years, at least. He still felt guilt about the whole thing with Lloyd, still heard that voice begging in his head,
Kai! Help me!
The voice he had thought —if only for a second— of ignoring.
Lloyd didn’t answer his question, still just staring at him. Kai stared back for a moment before he glanced to the side, “You know.” He started, trying to coax the kid a bit into opening up, “I know where Cole keeps his secret cake stash..”
He tried not to grin as Lloyd’s eyes lit up a bit, peaking a bit further out from under the blanket. Hook line and sinker.
He didn’t ask if he wanted to come with him, he simply tossed his blanket off of himself, swinging his legs over the mattress. Kai always made sure not to sit up fully while he was in bed, not wanting to bang his head against the top bunk. He lifted a finger to his lips as he snuck to the door.
He cracked it open, slipping outside, he looked back at Lloyd, who hadn’t moved from his spot. Kai had to nod his head toward the hall before the kid got the hint that he was being invited.
He was.. not as quiet as Kai was getting out of bed. His socked feet thumped as he got out of bed, and Kai winced softly at the noise. He opened the door wider, lifting his arm up for Lloyd to step out of the room. He closed the door quietly, glancing down at him, “You gotta work on your stealth, kid.” He teased, nudging him, “You’re a ninja now.”
The words seemed to be the wrong thing to say, because Lloyd’s little shoulders tensed. Kai blinked, staring at the back of his head before placing a hand on his shoulder, “C’mon.” He said, figuring the best thing would be to skip past that, at least for a bit.
He lead Lloyd quietly down the hallways of the ship, toward the armory. He glanced back at Lloyd’s baffled expression and he had to laugh. “I know, right?” He murmured, “He has a mini-fridge in his locker.”
That caused Lloyd to laugh a bit, following Kai into the room and to the wall where the wall of lockers were. He stepped up to the first one, trying the lock. He sighed, sometimes Cole or the others would forget to lock their lockers back, tonight was not one of those times.
He frowned, glancing back at Lloyd, who looked at him with a disappointed expression. “What’s that look for?”
“..it’s locked, isn’t it?” He asked.
“Yeah? And? What’s the first rule of being a ninja?”
“Uh.. not to steal?” Lloyd’s feet did a little shuffle, feeling a little nervous at being quizzed.
Kai grinned, “Ninja never quit, Lloyd,” he answered, moving over to the second locker. He knew for a fact Jay didn’t lock back his stuff. “Cole isn’t the only one with a secret stash of things, in fact, we all have things that probably shouldn’t be stored in these lockers.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?” Lloyd asked with curiosity, standing up on his toes and trying to look over Kai’s shoulder into Jay’s locker.
“Cole’s got his cake, Jay’s got his gadgets and gizmos, Zane’s got.. I don’t know what Zane’s got,” he shrugged, tugging out what he was looking for from the mess, some type of lock pick he had seen Jay use one time after he locked himself out of his own room in the monastery.
“..What do you have?” Lloyd asked innocently, stepping back as Kai moved back to Cole’s locker, turning the device over in his hand as he tried to figure out how to work it.
Kai paused, standing up a little straighter and glancing over at Lloyd. They made eye contact for two seconds before he looked away again. “Stuff.”
“‘Stuff’?”
“Yup, stuff.” The device clicked, making Kai let out a sigh of relief. A bit of steam came out of it which was a bit concerning, but the lock clicked open fine. He grinned, glancing over as Lloyd with a mischievous look.
He hopped open the locker, revealing an extra change of Cole’s clothes, his old sythe, and tiny mini fridge. “Go run and get us some plates, kid,” he instructed.
Soon enough, he had fixed them two plates, and he closed Cole’s locker. “C’mon, let’s go onto the deck,” he decided. He held both the plates as they walked, Lloyd in front, up the stairs and out side.
Kai passed him, nodding up at the mast, “Go a head and climb up there, kid,” he said, “I’m right behind you.”
Lloyd looked between the crows nest and Kai before silently nodding, moving to the rope ladder and climbing his way up. Kai waited until he was up there and settled, the ladder swaying slightly. He took a deep breath, putting his foot on the first rung.
Climbing up with two plates in his hand was awkward, leaning against the ladder as he wrapped his arms u comfortably around it, using the inside of his elbows to hold onto the rope on the outside. He hit his face more than once as he ascended, and he could hear Lloyd giggling at him from above. “Shit up,” he muttered, “Or I’ll drop yours.”
He set the cakes in the ground of the nest before climbing the rest of the way up. Lloyd was quick to grab his own plate, settling against the mast. Kai grabbed his own, sitting cross-legged next to him.
“You want to talk about why you were crying?”
Lloyd stiffened immediately, which Kai expected. He didn’t quite expect Lloyd to immediately start shoving his face full of cake without warning. To give him an excuse of not?
“Dude, slow down. It was a question if you wanted to, you can say no.”
Lloyd paused, bite of cake mid way to his still-full mouth. He looked at Kai like the idea was foreign to him, someone asking him a ‘question’ and he was allowed to say no? He swallowed, shifting a bit. “Okay.” His voice was small, “Then.. no.”
“No it is, then,” Kai nodded, leaning his head back to look up at the sky. He let the wind fill the silence, both of them content to dwell in their stolen spoils.
That silence stretched on until Lloyd took the last bite of his cake. Kai glanced down at him, then at his own half-eaten one, he held his plate out to Lloyd, “I don’t like chocolate.” He lied.
Lloyd took it, and Kai waited until he had settled back before he spoke again. “You know, when I first started, I didn’t want to be a ninja?”
Lloyd looked up at him with a bit of surprise evident in his green eyes, “..You didn’t want to be a ninja either?”
Either. Kai had had a feeling that’s what all this was about. He didn’t comment on that just yet, he just shook his head, “Nope. In fact, when I first met your uncle, I pretty much told him to fu— to buzz off.”
“You can swear. I’m not a baby.”
“Yeah.. you’re like, six.”
“I’m eight,” Lloyd retorted with a huff, “And I’m almost nine.”
“Wowww, we got Mr Ancient over here,” Kai teased, reaching forward to playfully mess up Lloyd’s hair. The boy let out a squawk of offensive that bled into laughter, a quiet, unsure laughter, but a laugh nonetheless.
“Anyway,” Kai continued, nudging Lloyd’s shoulder, “I didn’t want to be a ninja, I didn’t even almost wanna be a ninja.”
“..why not?” Lloyd asked, “You’re good at it.”
Kai paused at that, looking down at Lloyd, at the boy’s bandaged hands. How could someone he had let get hurt say he was god at this? He couldn’t dwell on that long, Lloyd was looking at him, waiting for his answer.
“Because my life had finally started to settle.” Kai answered. “The blacksmith was doing okay, not great, but it kept food on the table for me and Nya. When your uncle came and told me I was supposed to be a ninja, I didn’t want to, because I didn’t want to admit that I still needed people.”
“So what changed?” Lloyd asked, setting the second empty plate on top of the first. He brought his legs up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and leaning his cheek against his knees.
Kai paused, “..Well, your dad kinda kidnapped my sister a little bit. I joined because of her.”
Lloyd deflated a bit at the mention of his father.
“Everything turned out okay, though. On the way of getting my sister back, I gained three brothers. That’s part of why I stayed.”
“Part?”
“..Yeah. Along the way I realized I also wanted to help people. Not just my new siblings, but.. Ninjago. It’s our home, and I’m not going to sit back and let someone take it over.” Kai looked through the cracks of the railing.
“Well..” Lloyd started, and Kai forced himself not to look back at him, not wanting to spook him into backing out of what he was about to say. “I don’t wanna be a ninja because I don’t wanna fight my dad..”
“..you scared of him?” Kai asked carefully, not looking directly at him still, but he caught Lloyd shaking his head from the corner of his eyes.
“No.. well.. no. Not really,” he curled up tighter around himself, “He wouldn’t ever hurt me, but I.. I know he sometimes hurts other people.. I’m scared that he’ll hurt other people ‘cause of me, that he’ll hurt you guys.. I’m.. I don’t wanna be a ninja, I..”
“Sounds like you’re fine being a ninja,” Kai answered, he scooted across the floor of the crows nest, leaning his back against the trailing rather than the mast so he could look at Lloyd, “Sounds like you just don’t want him to be the enemy.”
Lloyd stared at him, his green eyes staring at Kai before they grew wet with tears. He hid his face in his knees, and his next words were thick and wet, “I know he hurts people, but he’s not.. he’s—“ Kai could tell Lloyd was fighting with his words, trying to say ‘he’s not a bad person,’ but that wasn’t true. It just wasn’t.
“…He’s not a bad dad?” Kai offered, even if that felt too like a stretch. He’d left Lloyd behind to prioritize his own evil plans. Maybe he came back to help, but where was he before that?
Kai watched as Lloyd held his breath again to try to muffle his cried, “First Master, kid, breathe. You— you’re allowed to care about him, you know that, right?”
“But we’re not on the same side-“ Lloyd hiccuped, sniffling.
“..So? Sensei Wu loves him, they’re brothers, of course he does. You’re allowed to love your dad, Lloyd. Some people may not get it, and it’s gonna suck at times, but.. you can’t help it, it doesn’t matter what he’s done or will do, you can acknowledge he’s not a good person and still love him regardless.. that’s what unconditional love is about. What love between a kid and his dad is supposed to be.”
Lloyd looked up at Kai, tears trailing down his face, he was still trying to hold his breath but it didn’t help anymore. He hiccuped, wiping tears and snot onto his sleeve. “He’s the only one that ever loved me.” He sobbed, his little shoulders jolting with each big cry. “And now I have’t fight him-“
“That’s not true,” Kai answered immediately, “Wu loves you, you’re his nephew, and— the rest of us love you too, you know that, don’t you?”
Lloyd hiccuped again, blinking up at Kai. He lifted up his shirt to wipe his face off again, not that it helped much. Kai was learning that Lloyd was a messy cryer.. but the kid clearly needed it. “You.. you do?” He asked, sniffling.
Kai paused, before nodding firmly, “Yeah.” He confirmed, “We all do.. even before.. you took a bit to really grow on us, sure, but you’re a good kid.. and you’re our brother now.”
“..Yeah?” He hiccuped again, wiping his face once again. Kai held back a sigh of relief when he decided the tears were slowing to a stop.
“..Yeah. And Lloyd? I’m sorry I didn’t show you that sooner.” He reached forward, taking a hold of Lloyd’s bandaged hands, “This? These burns? Will never happen again. Not if I have a say.”
Lloyd sniffed again, squeezing his hands into fists. “..promise?”
“Promise. The fire’s on your side, now, Lloyd.”
Lloyd blinked at that, before he tugged his hands away, tucking into himself. “That’s really cheesy.” He muttered, but Kai caught the smile.