Work Text:
"911, what's the address of the emergency?”
~
“Leave!” He remembered shouting. “Leave and never return! I never want to see you again!”
And his father left.
But he came back. Because he cared. Then he left again.
Now his father doesn't even remember caring.
He used to be a nuisance. Used to annoy everyone around him.
He hated everyone, and everyone hated him.
Except for his Uncle.
But when he arrived to actually stay with his Uncle, he felt like an insect.
A parasite.
It didn't help that that was how the others treated him.
He was to be the destined green ninja, but even that didn't help with the teasing and the nagging.
He felt guilty for taking up space in the perfect family dynamic all the others had already created.
He felt guilty for existing.
And it ate away at him.
~
“Okay, how did you get there?”
~
It eventually got better. He saved the world. People loved him.
Sure, he got arrested once according to Jay, but nobody cared anymore. Nobody hated him anymore.
But then Master Wu disappeared.
He noticed the signs in himself before anyone else did.
The isolation from the team. The refusal to get out of bed in the morning. The starvation. The basic lack of self care. The emotionless states.
The feeling that he was a parasite in everyone else's lives.
So he started to mask. Started to fake all the emotions he was missing from inside.
He was a kid taking on a grown man's position. What else could he do?
He couldn't let the others see the cracks.
He wouldn't let them.
But he was aware when Kai started noticing it all.
However, with enough time and effort - which drained him even more - he managed to make Kai forget that Lloyd ever felt off in the first place.
Truth be told, he didn't want Kai to help him.
Because he deserved to feel this way.
. . .
I'm pretty sure Harumi was the catalyst. For everything.
First, she made it seem like she loved and cared about Lloyd, but then she betrayed and nearly killed him.
Sure, she turned around at the last fucking moment and became good for her last minutes of life, but the second she came back from the dead, Harumi gallavanted off to serve yet another dark lord.
Harumi realized her mistake far too late. Somehow, though, she convinced Lloyd to trust her and let her join the fight for good.
What a help that was.
After the battle, she said that she was “done doing evil,” as if we hadn't heard that one a bajillion times.
But Lloyd believed her.
First Spinjitzu Master, he trusted her.
But then, not even a week later, she left just as soon as she wasn't satisfied with what was being given like the parasite she is.
Just left a note on the counter saying she “didn't really want to be around us anymore.”
Lloyd started spiraling even more after that.
But then he started being happier. Started coming out of his room more often. Started being around the team more and more.
I thought he had finally gotten better.
I convinced myself of that.
We all did.
We all trapped ourselves in this fantasy that Lloyd was great, that he was okay, and that he wasn't feeling bad for existing anymore.
Until the truth became too real to deny.
~
“Hello?”
—
“I think he just shot himself.”