Random Ninjago Stuff

Selfish

TW: talk of drugs, overdosing, suicide, depression

In hindsight, Lloyd probably shouldn't have gone snooping through the Ninjas' room. But he was bored after they'd left him to go on yet another mission, even though he was the Green Ninja for First Master's sake! Even Nya got to go, and Wu had left to pick up more tea, meaning Lloyd was alone on this massive ship.

So there he was, standing in front of the four heroes' quarters, reaching for the handle. It clicked as he pulled down, and the door creaked open ominously.

Undeterred, he sauntered in- because there was no one to hide his footsteps from anyway- and began searching the room for anything interesting.

The cupboard was filled with boxes of old clothes and items they'd managed to recover in the monastery fire. After rifling through them and finding nothing he could tease the others for, Lloyd turned his attention to the beds, and clamoured onto Jay's.

He snorted upon seeing the scruffy, blue stuffed animal tucked under the covers, deciding to keep that knowledge filed away in case Jay tried to start anything.

After a thorough search of Jay's bunk, Lloyd slid down the ladder to inspect Cole's bed.

A sketchbook was under the pillow, with some pages pinned up on the wall next to the bed. Lloyd sighed upon finding nothing worth taking- why was Cole so closed off and boring?- and decided to check under the bed.

He climbed onto his knees, peeking under the bunk bed. More boxes of who knows what. Lloyd grabbed one, sending a cloud of dust flying out from under the bed.

A photo album sat innocently inside the box, with a young boy who looked a lot like Cole on the first page. A woman was next to him, and Lloyd assumed it was his mother based on their similar features.

Strange, Cole never spoke of a mum, and when the Ninja competed in that talent show, they'd only met his father. The two looked close in all the photos, so why she was never brought up puzzled the blonde.

Setting the thoughts aside, Lloyd pushed the box away to make room for another.

He opened it up, finding a note in Cole's handwriting, along with a bottle of something.

Lloyd picked up the bottle, shaking it. Hundreds of little things rattled inside, so he checked the label.

Paracetamol. Zane gave him some after he scrapped his knee and the pain was really bad, but only after he put that horrible disinfectant on the wound.

Why did Cole have medicine stuffed under his bed? Was he injured? Lloyd hadn't seen anything that would indicate Cole needed them, at least not recently.

He turned his attention to the paper, reading it as best as he could- as it turned out Darkley's wasn't too interested in actual education, and being a drop out at eight seriously didn't help. Zane had been teaching him, but he still had a while to go.

However, Lloyd could still pick out some words.

'Sorry', 'too much', 'can't go on like this', 'please understand', 'my mum's death'.

Those phrases jumped out at him as he flicked along the page.

It didn't make sense. What was Cole apologising for?

Lloyd glanced back at the bottle, racking his brain for an answer.

Then he remembered something.

Now, while Darkley's didn't push much for their students' ability to read and write, they still cared about some of their wellbeing.