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Lloyd feels this merge quake before it even opens.
He’s already on his feet and heading out of his room before his brain has even realise he had gotten up. On the way outside, they stumble over their own feet or trip on the tiled ground— they don’t know which and they decide that they really don’t want to be out here doing this. Actually, he wants to be back in his room right now.
When the merge quake finally breaks open not even five minutes later, he stands there frozen for a long moment. It’s so big and it’s getting bigger and bigger the longer he stares at it and he’s only one person and this is a really big merge quake and
No. He’s gotta— he has to be big right now. Otherwise how will he deal with this? Little him’s coordination is rubbish on the best day and he needs to be coordinated to blast it with elemental power.
And then, the Bounty is here and Kai is too. Their older brother is here and they would have attacked him if they hadn’t realised who they are jumping at the last second.
Lloyd’s vision goes blurry as tears start collecting in his eyes. He brushes them away quickly on his sleeve when he realises he doesn’t have his hood to conceal them. He’s quick enough Kai doesn’t notice. But he manages to not start crying right then and there, even if he has to wipe away tears again and again.
As soon as this merge quake’s been dealt with and things are peaceful again, his headspace threatens to sneak back up on him again now hard and fast. But they can’t regress again yet, though they know Kai wouldn’t mind and would look after them, he has only just gotten home after being away for years. His brother deserves to be able to rest for a bit without having to deal with a clingy toddler, even if Lloyd really wants a hug right now.
He doesn’t have much say in it, in the end.
Almost the very second they make it back to their room, their headspace crashes down upon them hard until they feel smaller than they did before rushing out earlier.
It’s harder than he expects to pull on the hoodie (the older grey one he’d nabbed from Nya’s closet not long after the Merge had happened) that he’d abandoned by his bed, but once it’s on and he’s blanketed by its warmth.
Lloyd scoops up one of the only stuffies big him allowed himself to have in all this time from where he’d abandoned it in a hurry on the floor, whispers an apology, and hugs it tightly against his chest.
Fuzz stuffs itself more and more into their brain then until it’s really hard to think past all the confusing feelings swirling around inside of him.
…This is the smallest he has felt in ages, if ever. That’s really scary.
Right now, he feels so scared and lonely but also so safe — but that doesn’t make any sense because he hasn’t been safe in a long time — and kinda floaty?
Tears gather in the corners of his eyes again and he feels like he’s going to burst into tears all over again. He drags his sleeve over his face— he can’t cry now either. Not when he’s still gotta put his sword away and tidy his room again and his sippy is almost empty so he’s got to fill it up and— that’s so many things…
Anyway, he’s gotta be an adult right now!
They tuck the stuffy into their hoodie so its head peeks out of the neck of the hoodie just under their chin so they can use their hands to pick up their sword and other weapons scattered around their room to put it all back properly in the racks.
Once that’s done, he heads out of his room towards the kitchen, stuffy still tucked into his hoodie and annoyingly empty sippy in hand. He’s an adult, he can do this…he just wants some company. Adults can have the company of stuffed animals, right?
Please, go find Kai; you don’t have to be like this alone anymore. The logical, adult part of him whispers as he struggles to unscrew the lid of his sippy cup.
But he can’t do that…is his older brother even here right now? Yeah sure, they did talk earlier and he had hugged him and they had dealt with that merge quake together, but Lloyd has hallucinated his family finally coming home before.
What if this is just another hallucination? What if they go looking for him only to find out they are the only one in the monastery all over again?
At the same time, his brain is convinced he can relax properly now that someone else is home to keep him safe. But he hasn’t been able to do that at all in the last few years, how can that be true now?
All of that just makes them feel even sadder and the sadness makes them feel even smaller in return.
This time is going to be much like the other ones when he’d regressed in the last two years, they just know it. He feels the same icky mass of feelings that he had those times when he’d cried so hard he’d passed out (though he prefers that more over the times when he was stuck regressed for days and days).
Lloyd barely feels the tears that start dripping down his cheeks but he knows they’re there.
He’s crying so hard and so lost in the confusing mess of scared—safe—alone he doesn’t hear the approaching footsteps or the voice softly trying to talk to him.
Kai is in the bathroom having just finished taking his first proper shower in FSM knows how long when a certain sound has him speeding through putting clothes back on and hurrying out into the hallway.
Lloyd’s crying, he realises abruptly as soon as he’s walked out of the bathroom.
He follows the sound further down the hallway and around a corner until he ends up in the kitchen where finds Lloyd curled up on the floor. His gi is rumpled and twisted so that the ends of the tunic part is squished underneath him and the floor. There are tears running down his cheeks and by the looks of it, have been for a while now.
There’s an uncapped sippy cup on the floor near him.
“Hey, Lloyd? What’s wrong?” he asks softly as he looks them over for injuries.
When he finds none, Kai has his suspicions that the blond might be regressed or at the edge of headspace at the very least. In the past, when Lloyd has been crying this hard, it’s been when he’s little. The thumb that’s slipped into his mouth and the abandoned sippy cup just confirms it.
Kai doesn’t get an answer; Lloyd just keeps sobbing hard into his knees.
So he tries again.
And when that doesn’t work again, he switches tactics and hugs him. Tightly. The kid makes a startled squeaking noise as he wraps his arms around them like they don’t realise he’s with them. As he fully expects, Lloyd buries his face in his shoulder next.
Lloyd had already been on the thinner side before everything, but now he can feel the bones of their spine through the hoodie and that makes him even sadder than finding his little brother sobbing alone in the kitchen does.
“…Kai?”
If being able to feel his spine was saddening, the mix of confusion-hope-worry in his little brother’s voice is heartbreaking.
“Hey, kiddo,”
Lloyd nearly starts crying for the second time that day as he’s trying to apologise for things he definitely doesn’t need to be apologising for.
A little later, he scoops his little brother up after Lloyd’s sobs have died down enough for the second time in so many minutes and he’s managed to reassure him that there’s nothing he needs to apologise for.
It’s worrying all over again how easy it is to carry him to the bathroom.
Lloyd wraps his arms around whatever’s in front of him and pressing against his chest.
They’re a bit confused because they know big them’s never let them get Foxie (their biggest stuffy) out of the box in their closet, so how could they be hugging it now?
But then Not-Foxie moves and Lloyd realises very suddenly this isn’t Foxie he’s hugging at all but a person. That is such a big shock he stops crying, because someone is seeing him sobbing like an idiotic baby and—
Oh.
It’s Kai.
He only feels even more embarrassed when he works that out, because it means that his big brother is watching him sob on the floor right now.
“Kai?” they ask like if they do, their brother won’t only stop hugging them but also stop existing entirely as they have been quietly afraid of happening.
That doesn’t happen.
“Hey, kiddo,”
“I— ‘m sorry! Didn’t meanta— I didn’t mean to be littl’. Tried so hard to not, rea’y I did,” The words tumble out of his mouth before his brain’s fully realised what’s going on. “Sorry I failed,” he adds, quieter.
“Greenie, what are you sorry for? You haven’t failed at anything?”
“I did. Failed as th’ leader ‘n for failed t’ protect Ninjago,” he explains like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, because it is. “It just hard— it’s just so hard a lot of the time,”
“First off, you haven’t failed at anything, alright? And also, I think you’re well past needing a break by the sounds of it, kiddo,” his big brother decides for him.
But he hasn’t really done anything in months? It’s been hard to do anything other than exist in his room and sometimes go deal with merge quakes.
“But I don’t wanna,” Lloyd whines without moving from where he’s curled up against his chest.
“Why not?” Kai asks like he really has no idea why.
They choke back a sob.
“I’ve still gotta clean my sword and tidy up and water all th’ plants and—”
“Hey, hey. Okay. You don’t have to worry about any of that right now either,” Kai cuts him off. “You can just be little,”
What?
That isn’t right.
“But I’ve gotta or who’s gonna?”
“I will. I’m here now and I’m going to take care of you, okay?”
“…Okay.” Lloyd agrees softly.
He’s too tired to argue any more and a part of him is so happy with the idea he can finally have someone look after him after looking after himself for so long (which sucked, so much).
“But I’ve gotta, or who will?” his little brother asks, like he genuinely doesn’t understand why Kai’s telling him to stop.
Most likely, he actually doesn’t right now.
The thing which breaks Kai’s heart the most is the realisation that all of the progress they made on getting Lloyd to finally be fully comfortable with his regression before the Merge has been undone entirely. They’re right back to square one like when Nya had found Lloyd tiny and in the middle of the worst panic attack any of them had experienced not long after the Oni were defeated.
Not for the first time since it had happened, he finds himself wishing the Merge hadn’t happened.
When Lloyd’s finally gotten his brain to calm down and all these emotions under control again, he decides with very little fuss or fanfare that it’s shower time. Even though all the steps involved with that sounds like the last thing he wants to do right now, he feels gross and sticky from sweat and it’s been a few days since he last showered, but baths haven’t been an option in a while.
Kai asks him if they want his help when they bring it up and they barely stop themself from immediately agreeing, because they should be able to at least take a shower on their own even feeling this little. So he refuses and heads into the bathroom.
The clothes Kai leaves in the bathroom while they’re in the shower are very obviously not theirs, which makes sense given all of his have been dirty for…a while now. There’s also a hoodie with the bundle of clothes, it’s a light grey-silver colour so it’s one of Zane’s. Lloyd doesn’t know how he found it, they didn’t know Zane owned any hoodies at all— don’t they only wear sweaters?
He gets changed into them with only a small bit of struggle (these clothes not having any buttons or zips doesn’t escape his notice).
Lloyd’s suddenly feeling shy as they step out of the bathroom to find Kai leaning against the wall waiting for them.
“Can I…is it ‘kay if I’m li’l li’l?” Lloyd asks, carefully. “Like if ‘m even young’r than six?”
He can’t bring himself to look at Kai then, not when he’s too terrified that it’s not okay (he doesn’t know what he’s going to do if it isn’t, run away probably), so instead he hugs his arms around himself tightly.
“Absolutely. Now come on, it’s cold in here,”
His big brother holds out his hand and they take it, standing up.
“If you want a dummy, you can go get one,” Kai tells him carefully as they walk. “You know I’m not going to stop you or judge you, right?”
And Lloyd hates it. Not Kai for saying what he’d very obviously been thinking, but hates himself for even wanting one in the first place. He thought he had grown out of needing that— he shouldn’t still be feeling the desire for it. Even if it did help…a lot…and it felt really nice…
“Can’t,” they whine sadly.
“Why not?”
“‘m not ‘llowed to have a dummy. Gotta be ‘n adult ‘cause—,”
Kai cuts them off again for the second time that day. “Hey, no. You said you were feeling little-little right?
He nods.
“Then don’t force yourself to be big right now, you can just be little. And if you want a dummy too, there’s nothing wrong with that,”
“Rea’y?”
“Really.”
Lloyd hurries ahead then, to close the short distance left between them and his room. When he arrives, he throws open the wardrobe doors and pulls down the box with his little gear from the top shelf. Its dusty but a lot of that dust falls off as he opens it. Inside it is
Their brain’s going all floaty again, now they’ve got a dummy; it’s the kind that’s usually bad but it isn’t bad right now. Not when he has his big brother here to protect him and keep him safe.
And now they’re in the kitchen, Lloyd’s not sure when they got here or how long they’ve been here for. His brain’s still all floaty.
Kai’s looking in the fridge and he looks sad.
Why is he sad?
Did Lloyd forget to throw the yucky food in the fridge into the bin again?
He’s supposed to have done that for a really long time now.
He must’ve forgot because why else would Kai be looking like that?
When Kai opens the fridge, he finds a nearly entirely empty one like he expects but there is also the slimy, stinking remains of what had once been food a long time ago.
“When was the last time you ate something?” he asks.
When the blond doesn’t say anything, he looks back at them. That silence can’t mean anything good. It never does.
“Lloyd?”
“I…um…don’ remember?” he admits. “Been a while,”
Looking at these rotten goopy remains, it’s no wonder Lloyd doesn’t remember the last time he ate. So if Kai wants to make sure they eat something now, he will have to go get something from Ninjago City himself; given that no food delivery person delivers to the monastery anymore.
“Hey, Leafie,”
His little brother looks up from where he’s been very intently staring at a scratch in the kitchen bench. “I’m going to go get us some food from Ninjago City. I won’t be gone for more than half an hour—”
The absolutely terrified expression that slams onto Lloyd’s face after says that is the absolute last thing he’s expecting to happen.
“No! Why?? Don’ go!!” they cry, grabbing onto his wrist with a grip that’s nowhere as strong as it was the last time the two of them had sparred together. “Don’t wanna be ‘lone again...”
“What if we go together?”
Lloyd nods so frantically it would be cute under other circumstances, but right now it’s just sad.
Lloyd’s favourite pale green and silver dummy is securely in between their lips as the two of them leave the monastery. He doesn’t know he’d been so against having it, this is so much better than when he hadn’t had it.
They’re sitting next to Kai in what might be Cole’s car but they aren’t sure anymore (Kai originally wanted to take his own motorbike but he had been worried they would fall off and get hit by a truck so they’d switched to this car).
The idea of anyone in the city seeing him like this is even more intimidating (and scary) than it had been before his siblings found out that he regresses. No one except for his siblings and Wu have ever seen him like this. But no one’s seen him in months— what if someone tries to talk to him and finds out? No one would ever respect him again if they found out that the Green Ninja became a baby to calm down and it’s not just Ninjago that would find out now, it’d be all the lands that got merged—
But then Lloyd remembers that they’re wearing a hoodie and hoodies have hoods (duh) so they pull it up over their head. It’s big enough on him that its hood obscures his face entirely and almost entirely hides the dummy too. It’s perfect!
He almost falls asleep on the drive. It’s not their fault! It’s just been really hard to fall asleep all alone again recently, so he hasn’t slept much in the last few days. And the soft noise from the engine and slight rocking feels really nice…
When the two of them make it to a restaurant — a small one that’s barely in Ninjago City — Lloyd hides behind Kai as they walk in and even while they order. Even though he has to peek around Kai to see the menu. When he tries to read it, the words swim in front of his eyes like the books he’d tried to read to himself a few days ago, and
The shop owner stares at him for a long minute but when she opens her mouth to say something, Kai beats her to it and starts ordering.
When their food arrives, Lloyd’s stomach grumbles really loudly when he sees it.
Oh...so he really is hungry.
“I can eat myself!” he declares, already reaching for chopsticks.
A lot of the small bowl of rice ends up on the table, but enough of it ends up being eaten too.
If Lloyd has been falling asleep on the drive to the restaurant, then on the drive back to the monastery he absolutely dozes off a few times. By the time they make it home, he’s well and truly asleep, having been pulled into the warm darkness by the combined effort of the gently rocking car and having just eaten.
But when Kai wakes them up so they can get out of the car and go sleep somewhere more comfortable, Lloyd snaps out of being sleepy so quickly they almost tip forward onto the floor.
His big brother’s right, he can’t sleep yet— he’s still gotta water the plants and tidy both his room and the kitchen!
The other one follows him back into the monastery and steps in to steady the watering can he uses on the plants so Lloyd doesn’t drop water on himself as he waters his plants.
But then Kai asks, “Leafie, what are you doing?”
“Tidy’n up?” he tells him, because isn’t it obvious?
But then he stops him from doing that, saying that he can leave it for now given he looks like he’s about to fall asleep standing up and yeah, maybe he is that tired but also he’s not done yet.
Kai heads back to the kitchen to deal with the goopy mess in the fridge and also to tidy it up a bit after Lloyd’s been put to bed. For as resistant as the kid had been earlier, he gets into bed with surprisingly little fuss.
The quiet lasts for all of fifteen minutes, just long enough for him to have scooped most of the rotting goop into a rubbish bag before Lloyd’s frantic voice makes it way down the hallway.
“Kai?!” Lloyd’s voice shouts, sounding slightly frantic.
He shouts back, “In the kitchen!”
“Kai?!” he repeats like he never hears him. This time they’re definitely panicked, not just frantic.
Oh no.
And then Lloyd comes bolting into the room, his socked feet slipping on the wood.
“You’re still here?” he asks, which is a weird question.
“Yep,”
“You’re real?”
What.
Regardless of how confused he is by that question, he doesn’t hesitate to answer. Because Lloyd’s looking at him like he might vanish into thin air if the blond even as much as breathes wrong right now.
Leaving the kid to sleep in his room alone has been the worst decision he could’ve made. Kai wants to smack his head into a wall when he realises that, because being in there mean they were alone and he had seen how terrified they had been of that just hours earlier.
But he doesn’t do that, mostly because of how he’s currently got an upset Lloyd clinging to him like a limpet.
So the two of them relocate to the TV room (the rest of the kitchen can wait to be dealt with later), where Lloyd curls up on the sofa to be close by where Kai settles himself at the table to work on cleaning both his own swords and the blond’s too.
They fall asleep there pretty quickly after that, being out like a light and lightly snoring against the cushions in less than five minutes.