AN: Welcome to chapter nine of "Nature Versus Nurture!" I refer to this chapter as "the Despicable Me chapter" because, well, it reminds me of Despicable Me, or the foreshadowing chapter, because when I went back and edited it I just threw foreshadowing in willy-nilly. The key song and its selection for this chapter is "There Goes My Life" by Kenny Chesney, "I love you, good night, there goes my life." The other songs and their sections for this chapter are "I'm Not In Love" by 10CC, "It's just a silly phrase I'm going through" and "Big Girls Don't Cry" by Fergie, "It's personal, myself and I, we've got some straightening out to do."
"All right, you little rascals, time for bed," Lord Garmadon growled playfully.
"But we're not tired! We don't want to go to bed!" Kai complained loudly, bouncing up and down on his bed with an excess of energy.
"Yeah, well, I'm tired, and that means it's bedtime," Lord Garmadon stated plainly. It had been a long day of training broken up only by meals, bathroom breaks (a surprisingly constant and common occurrence, Lord Garmadon didn't think his- the boys, THE boys, he meant 'the', not 'his'- boys drank that much, yet one of them was always whining about needing to go), and the occasional board game.
"We could do something that doesn't need a lot of energy," Cole offered. "Then you won't get any more tired."
"And wwwe wwwon't have to go to bbbed jjjust yet!" Jay cheered, thrusting his fists in the air at what he considered a victory.
Cole shushed him quickly.
Lord Garmadon laughed a little at their antics. "All right, all right. I suppose we could do something that doesn't need a lot of energy."
"Something fun," Kai added. "It's gotta be something fun, okay?"
"Something fun," Jay echoed, nodding eagerly.
"Soooo, knitting?" Lord Garmadon offered.
Kai faked gagging.
"No, something fun!" Jay shouted, probably not even knowing what "knitting" was but knowing the joking tone of his father's voice.
"Puzzles?" Lord Garmadon
"I like pppuzzles," Jay agreed amiably.
He was quickly overruled by Kai shouting, "No, something fun!"
"Drinking prune juice?" Lord Garmadon suggested, barely holding in his laughter.
"No, something fun!" Cole gave in and repeated.
"Something fun, hmmm?" Lord Garmadon mock-thought about that for a moment. "How about… A movie!"
"A movie?" Cole and Kai gasped in unison, hopping off their beds. They turned to each other and fistbumped.
"A mmmovie, a mmmovie, a m-m-movie!" Jay cheered, turning to Ghost and shaking him excitedly.
Ghost looked very confused.
"I'll get the Serpentine to bring in a TV and some sort of movie player, I'm not up to date on movie technology. Oh, and some movie choices," Lord Garmadon added.
"Can we get Daffy Dale: the M-marvelous M-movie?" Jay squealed.
Lord Garmadon blinked at him. "I'm- not sure, but we can try. Spitta, Lasha!"
The two Venomari looked up, Spitta glancing up from a puzzle and Lasha taking a break from trying to "solve" a bead maze.
"I want you to go out and get a TV, some sort of thing to play movies on the TV, and some movies to go in the player. Pick age-appropriate movies, stuff my- these boys would like," Lord Garmadon ordered.
"Ssso, no Poisssonousss Sssweetiess From-" Lasha began.
Spitta elbowed him quickly and said, "Yeah, probably not. We're on it, Lord Garmadon."
The two scurried out the door.
"What's a Daffy Dale?" Cole wondered out loud after a moment.
Jay gasped. "You've never read or wwwatched Daffy Dale?"
"Mostly I read choreography manuals and watch old musicals," Cole admitted.
Frowning, Jay asked, "Wwwhat's a choreography?"
"What's a Daffy Dale?" Cole repeated.
"What's a choreography?" Jay shot back.
"Daffy Dale," Cole said again, smiling.
"Choreography," Jay said again, distinctly not smiling.
"How about you tell Storm what choreography is and then he tells you what Daffy Dale is, Midnight," Kai suggested lazily, leaning back against his bed.
"Yeah. B-but you go first, 'cause I'm curious," Jay ordered, drawing himself up to his full height of almost-but-not-quite reaching Cole's shoulder.
Cole laughed. "Okay, fine. Sure thing. 'Choreography' is how you're supposed to move around in like a dance or a play or things like that."
"Why would you read about that?" Kai butted in, scrunching up his face in distaste.
Cole shrugged, a little sheepishly Lord Garmadon noted. "Dunno. If you grew up in my house, you probably would too."
"Okay, now I get to tell you about Daffy Dale!" Jay cheered.
Before the little boy could expand on his choice of media, there was a knock on the door.
"Come in," Lord Garmadon called.
Spitta poked his head in through the doorway. "We've got the ssstuff."
"That was quick," Lord Garmadon commented.
"After the whole 'weather day' thing, Skales moved samples of every weird thing you could possssssibly want down to the room down the hall," Spitta explained.
Lord Garmadon hummed thoughtfully. On one hand, taking initiative to help out was a handy feature in henchmen, or henchsnakes if one was inclined to say so. On the other hand, he definitely didn't want Skales to get too much initiative…
"Anyway, we got the stuff," Spitta stated again, clearly tired of waiting for Lord Garmadon to finish thinking and wanting to prompt the man.
"And it'sss heavy!" Lasha complained from somewhere behind him.
"Ssstop complaining, you big baby. After all, I grabbed the TV and the ssstand. You've only got the media player and the moviesss," Spitta reprimanded, walking into the room toting a large television screen and a bench to put it on.
Lasha followed, a media player and a box propped up in his arms. "Moviesss weigh more than you think, Ssspitta."
"Mmmovies!" Jay cheered, distracted from his mission to bring his brothers in on everything he knew about Daffy Dale. He dashed over to Lasha, following the snake from the door to the side of the room where Lasha placed down the media player and box of movies down next to the bench and TV that Spitta had just placed there. "Lemme see the m-movies, lemme see!"
"I wanna see too," Kai protested predictably, heading over to the movie box and peering in alongside Jay. "Oooo, we got a lot of options here."
"Like what?" Cole asked,starting to head toward the newly made movie area. After a few steps, he stopped and turned around, going back, grabbing Ghost, and pulling the smallest boy over the movie box with him.
"Daffy Dale: the Mmmarvelous Mmmovie, Daffy Dale: the Spectacular Sequel, Daffy Dale: the Passable Prequel, even Daffy Dale: the Substandard Straight-to-TV-Special?" Jay squealed, pulling a set of movies from the box.
"Oh, I've seen those. I don't like them, but my sister does," Kai remarked, then he gasped and grabbed a movie out for himself. "The Grand Time-Travel Allegiance? But I thought that didn't come out for another year! How?"
"Your father has his ways," Lord Garmadon said merrily, all the while sending death glares at Spitta and Lasha for not picking movies appropriate for the age the boys had come from.
"Clutch Powers!" Cole cheered, clutching a movie to his chest.
"Wwwhat's that you have there, Ghost?" Jay asked, prying a movie away from the younger boy. "Age of the Assassin Androids? Is that even a kids movie?"
Ghost shrugged and scuffed the floor with one foot.
"I want to watch that one," Kai butted in, prying the movie from Jay in turn.
"I don't," Jay said, and he pulled the movie back from Kai and tossed it into the box. "How about Pppeculiar Pppirates: the Complete Collection? I like p-pirates."
"No you don't, you like androids," Kai insisted, pulling the movie he and Ghost had chosen back out of the box.
"I don't think you even know wwwhat an android is," Jay said, scowling at Kai but not dismissing the point. "Bbbesides, that mmmovie looks scary. It looks like p-people wwwould get hurt or killed in it. I don't like that at all. Dad? Are wwwe even allowed to w-watch that one?"
"I don't think so," Lord Garmadon concluded. "Give it here, Blood."
"Awww. I wanted to watch someone bite it," Kai groaned, but he relinquished the movie and looked back into the box. "What about this one, Dragon Den? It's a cartoony movie, and it's got awesome dragons on the cover."
"Does it look scary?" Jay asked, jumping up and down to try and see the movie case over Kai's shoulder.
"Nah, it looks funny," Kai said, turning and showing Jay the cover.
Jay considered it, then said, "I'd be okay with that one."
"Midnight?" Kai asked, turning the tallest boy and brandishing the movie at him.
"I still kind of want Clutch Powers, but I could compromise for Dragon Den," Cole allowed. "I've seen it before and I like it. The dragons are a little scary, but-"
"What, you scared of dragons?" Kai teased playfully.
"No, not the cartoon ones!" Cole defended. "The cartoon ones are fine, I'm not scared, I said I'd compromise!"
"Wwwhat about you, Ghost?" Jay asked eagerly, getting into the idea of the movie Kai had picked.
Ghost looked thoughtful, then he held out his hands.
Kai placed the movie carefully into the littlest boy's grasp.
Tilting his head to one side then the other, Ghost scrutinized the movie cover. He tapped on a large dragon on the case's cover, the only one in chains, then looked up at the older three boys.
"Oh, that's Johnny. He gets captured by the evil king and forced to keep the lonely princess captive, but he doesn't want to, and the other dragons get worried and go out to find him and, well, I'm not gonna give away the whole story, but he gets away in the end. Everything turns out okay, " Cole concluded.
Ghost nodded decisively. Turning to Lord Garmadon, Ghost held the movie up toward the man.
"Everyone wants Dragon Den? Okay, great," Lord Garmadon said, taking the movie case from Ghost. He opened it up, took the movie out, and placed into the media player that Spitta had just connected to the TV. Lord Garmadon turned on both the media player and the TV to reveal the menu screen of the movie.
"Don't start it yet! I gotta move the couch in front of the TV!" Kai exclaimed, running over to the couch by the bookshelf. He valiantly shoved at the couch, trying to move it, for a solid fifteen seconds, before admitting, "Okay, maybe that's more of a 'us' thing than a 'I' thing. Dad!"
"Spitta, Lasha, move the couch," Lord Garmadon said immediately.
The two Serpentine grumbled complaints at being asked to move more things, but they did as he asked, heaving the couch in front of the TV and huffing all the while.
"Very good. Now go make us popcorn," Lord Garmadon ordered, picking up the remote and sitting on the couch.
"Pppopcorn!" Jay cheered
"With butter and salt?" Kai checked, looking to Lord Garmadon.
"With butter and salt," Lord Garmadon called after the two Serpentine exiting to do his bidding.
"Woo hoo!" Kai whooped, throwing his hands in the air. He ran at the couch in its new position, jumped over the back of it, and flopped down next to Lord Garmadon.
"Oh, I love popcorn," Cole said reverently, joining Kai and their "father" on the couch and wriggling back to place himself snugly in between them.
"C'mon Ghost, let's sit down," Jay encouraged, pulling the little boy after him. The two youngest sat on the couch on Lord Garmadon's other side.
"Everyone ready?" Lord Garmadon asked, looking around at his- the, the boys.
"Ready!" Kai and Jay chorused.
"Wait!" Cole blurted out. He untangled himself from between Kai and Lord Garmadon and ran over to the door, flipped the light switch next to the door so that the room went dark except for the light coming from the TV and a bit of light that snuck in from the hallway outside, then ran back and snuggled back his position on the couch. "Okay, ready."
Ghost nodded eagerly.
Lord Garmadon hit "play" on the remote and the movie began.
It was a good movie, a bit nonsensical and rather on the childish side, but that was only to be expected of a cartoon. Lord Garmadon, however, gave up on watching the movie maybe a quarter of the way through in favor of watching something more than a little more interesting: his (the) boys.
Cole really enjoyed the movie. He mouthed the lines along with the characters and outright quoted along with the movie on more than one occasion, leading to Kai scolding him into quiet each time, but Cole had an indomitable spirit and kept going.
Kai enjoyed the movie too. Sure, he bounced up and down and fidgeted during the exposition, but by the time Johnny the dragon was kidnapped, he too was captivated, but by the movie rather than by an evil king.
Jay seemed to love the movie. From the moment the first dragon flew across the sky, his eyes were glued to the screen and his mouth hung open slightly, except for when he laughed along with the movie, which was often.
Ghost, well, Lord Garmadon wasn't sure how Ghost felt about the movie. Ghost smiled and frowned in all the right places, but he also fell asleep the moment Johnny got to safety and stayed asleep throughout the rest of the movie.
But then again…
By the time the credits rolled and Lord Garmadon looked to the boys to see how they had enjoyed the end (which Lord Garmadon had simply had to watch for himself, it was too good), all the boys were asleep. Kai's head was lolled on Cole's shoulder, Cole's own head rested on top of Kai's, Jay was slumped into Lord Garmadon's stomach, and Ghost was lying down across Jay's lap.
Carefully, Lord Garmadon extracted himself from the group of sleeping children. As soon as he left, the four boys collapsed on each other, forming a lump of arms and legs and torsos and heads all flung across and under and around each other.
Lord Garmadon couldn't help it. He chuckled at the sight of the sweet spectacle made by his boys.
His boys.
HIS boys.
Lord Garmadon froze. They were HIS boys now, weren't they? They were his, and he was theirs. Something warm and sweet bloomed in Lord Garmadon's chest at the thought, something he thought just might be called "love."
Groaning softly under his breath and trying (and failing) to suppress the feeling, Lord Garmadon shook his head at himself and muttered, "How do you get yourself into these things, Garmadon?"
"Somethin' wrong, Dad?" Kai asked sleepily, waking up a little as Lord Garmadon spoke.
"Nothing wrong, Blood, go back to sleep," Lord Garmadon said automatically, responding to the title as if he had been born to it.
Kai yawned and rolled over, almost rolling right off the couch.
Lord Garmadon caught him narrowly and gingerly hefted him up, using all four arms to be as gentle as possible. After a moment of indecision, he carried Kai to his bunk bed and setting the boy gently on it, but not without pulling down the bedding before and tucking Kai in after.
"Might as well get them all in bed. They need their rest, they've been working so hard for me," Lord Garmadon thought fondly.
He returned to the couch and surveyed the remaining three boys. They were intertwined, arms splayed across each other, legs tucked under each other, hands tucked into each other's hair and gripping each other's shirt fronts.
Carefully, Lord Garmadon untangled the easiest of the group, Cole, setting aside Jay's right hand from where it had been grabbing Cole's shirt sleeve and lifting Ghost's head momentarily to get Cole's chest out from under him. He picked the oldest boy up, cradling him slightly.
Cole murmured something indistinct and snuggled into Lord Garmadon.
He took Cole to his bed, tucking the oldest boy in, then returned to survey the two littlest ones to find that Jay and Ghost were almost inseparably tangled.
Lord Garmadon sighed fondly, then set to work. After several minutes of gingerly scooching the little limbs around, he finally pried Ghost out of Jay's grasp and was able to put the smallest boy happily to bed.
Coming back to the couch, it was easy work for Lord Garmadon to pick up Jay and carry him to bed. When he put the boy down, though, he got a surprise.
Jay's eyes were open, and he was looking up at the man. The little boy smiled sleepily up at the startled Lord Garmadon, then closed his eyes and whispered, "Love you."
"Love you too," Lord Garmadon said back automatically, his voice all choked up for some reason (who was he kidding, he knew exactly what reason).
"W-we all love you. I j-just think you oughta know that," Jay said, eyes still closed and voice drifting off as he drifted back into sleep even as he spoke.
"And I love all of you," Lord Garmadon whispered.
And, as he left the room with heart full and hands empty, Lord Garmadon found that he meant it.
