ninjago imagines

destiny can't be earned or returned | zane j., lloyd g.

Whumptober 1/31

Prompt: Isolation/Found Family

TW: Blood and injury, self destructive behavior

— ——

Zane's systems tell him it is approximately 4:54 am when he is awakened by an exceptionally loud crash in the monastery.

In a split second, almost before he can register the time, Zane is on his feet, hands reaching for the blade he keeps hidden in his bedside drawer. (He will admit that he has briefly considered keeping it under his pillow, as seems to be the case in many instances of popular media, but it takes him less than a minute to tally the amount of times any one of his teammates have tackled him in bed before he dismisses the idea promptly.)

The moon outside is dull, sending faltering light through the windows as he creeps towards the kitchen, pace picking up with every step as his anxiety heightens.

The wood floors of the monastery click as he walks, painfully loud in the silence as he steps through into the kitchen. He briefly considers going in the opposite direction to wake another ninja, maybe Kai or Jay, but a robber clumsy enough to make such a racket couldn't be too big of a issue. Besides, he thinks back to their waxen faces earlier, gaunt and tired after their return from another endless patrol and discards the idea. He'll incapitate the robber, take him down the station, and check on the others after. Maybe start breakfast, if he gets back in time.

Then again, he hasn't cooked since— since returning from the Neverlands. He never needed to eat to keep up his strength, like others, so he never found a reason to do it there either.

He holds up the knife a little closer.

The door creaks, and he lifts it, tensing—

"It's just me."

Zane lets a breath out, his chest tight as the blade falls to his side, and illuminates his eyes, sending a dim blue glow through the room.

Lloyd sits at the kitchen table, twisting his fingers together aimlessly as he stares into the wall. His gi hangs off his frame, dark stains littering the fabric. The nindroid's gaze falls to his face, shadowed in the dark, but his green eyes are bright and he spots a purpling bruise across the younger teen's cheek.

Ah.

"Bad patrol?" Zane asks, voice gentle as he can make it.

"I guess."

It takes him a few more seconds before he spots the source of the crash, a burst of glittering glass strewn across the floor. Blood drips across the floor, trailing back to the table. Lloyd runs a finger over the gash on his hand silently, spreading the dark color across his skin. He shifts his eyes to the blood pooling across his palm, gaze empty.

"Sorry. I'll clean it up."

Zane isn't sure what to say. Maybe he should wake Kai after all. The fire ninja would know what to say, what to do, to pull Lloyd out of this and muffle the sharp edges of the situation. Zane, despite his long years of experience, is stumped.

He settles for first aid intervention as the most important thing first, and edges to the freezer, picking his way through the glass. He ruffles through the frozen food and selects an ice pack covered in frost, the silence cutting into him deeper every second, and wraps it in a cloth by the sink before handing it to the blonde. "Hold it to the bruise."

Lloyd says nothing but takes the ice pack, fingers staining the white cloth stark against the darkness, and presses it to his forehead stiffly. His eyes flicker towards the glass shards, and Zane catches a trace of guilt, despite the darkness of night settling deep into the room. The moon has withdrawn back into the clouds, leaving them with the dull glimmer of his eyes.

"Do not worry about the glass. It's just a cup." Zane prys open a rusty cabinet latch, picking out a worn out first aid kit, pieced together over the years. "Your health comes as a priority, always."

He winces at the sound of his voice echoing in the kitchen, cold and metalic without other sounds to drown it out.

The nindroid sits down across him, reaching to pull one of his injured hands onto the table. He presses a antiseptic wipe to the edge of the laceration mechanically, and Lloyd hisses through his teeth, fingers shuddering. Zane flinches. "I'm sorry."

Lloyd offers him a dry smile, unclenching his fingers. "I'm not a kid anymore, Zane. I haven't been a kid for a while." His voice is thick, a hint of a sob entangled in his throat.

"I know, " Zane replies, and hesitates before he resumes cleaning the wound, this time without a flicker of a response from the other ninja. He wishes he didn't know. He wishes Lloyd could just be allowed to be a kid, or a teenager. He wishes for a lot of things, even if he isn't supposed to be selfish. (But it doesn't matter, because none of them ever come true.)

He picks through the box after he finished cleaning, pushing a pile of bloody wipes to the side before he settles on some butterfly bandages. The cut doesn't run too deep and Lloyd's energy gives him a bit of a boost in healing, so they should be sufficient for this purpose.

Lloyd looks up, meeting his eyes, and Zane blinks, gaze flicking back down to the bandages. Blood seeps onto his fingers, deep and red, and he forces his hands to hold steady.

"We'll never—" he pauses, and Zane waits, silent. "We'll never be done, will we?" Lloyd chokes out, voice painfully small in the kitchen.

Zane bites his lip, looking down at the bandages in his hand. "I— I don't know what you mean."

"We'll never—"

Zane does know what he means. He has considered it himself some nights, lying in the dark as everyone else drifts off to sleep, when they will be finished with their role of the ninja, the saviors, the heroes of Ninjago City and more often than not other realms as well. If the title is a permanent one, if their choice as mere children has solidified their future, or if it is simply until they die, in battle or from injury. If there is a difference.

He considers it after the Never-Realm, when they return to walls that feel alien and unreal after so long spent away from them, feeling the weight of decades on his shoulders break him down. Can you still save realms if you have destroyed one yourself? Maybe it is his penance for the rest of his life, to continue fighting to make up what he can never repay.

"I don't know", he hears himself saying. Lloyd glances down at him, closing his fingers over the bandage, and doesn't say anything else.

Behind them, the sun begins to rise.