A/N:
Hails: "Who wants S8-themed Lloyd angst?" I ask, flipping through several pages worth of other projects I was supposed to be working on instead of this. Ha... haha... Uh, this just kind of takes place between episodes eight and nine of S8 just after Harumi goes to jail but before Laughy's, you know... when this show careened straight into Angst City. And yeah, I know, Lloyd being sick isn't canon but I needed fussy teammates + parents. I just... I needed it.
Lloyd wakes up feeling like death warmed over. This is nothing new where being a ninja is concerned but it is three-hundred percent the absolute last method of rise-and-shine he wants to suffer. He stumbles off his bunk, mutilating the syllables for 'good morning' as he trods past Cole and half buries himself in the bath cabinet at the back of the cabin to find his shampoo. He's already aware something is wrong, the way he's half content to snooze with his head in there is one solid indicator. The other is several colorful blurs converging in to immobilize him like fantastically overprotective siblings.
"Your temperature is 101.2 degrees Fahrenheit," Zane informs him, pushing Lloyd back down onto the bed by his shoulders. Lloyd's already vehemently tried to fend off his family and sputtered down into a coughing fit so strong he almost hacked up a lung, so it's clear he's not weaseling out of Zane's inpatient program from the Underworld. "You need to stay in bed."
"I'm fine," he manages through more coughing.
"You're not," Zane says, already blocking Lloyd's path to the door.
"Have to clean up the Temple of Resurrection," Lloyd protests. "I have to be there."
He catches the fretful glimpse Nya and Jay share. The past week hasn't exactly been a walk in the park, what with Lloyd tearing down the freeway on a motorcycle while the Sons tried to kill him, free-falling from the Bounty in a storm, nearly drowning twice, and then being locked in a cage for the umpteenth time while his ex (?) attempted to summon his father from the Departed Realm. It's anyone's guess how he's sick.
"We'll put it off so you can go later," Zane assures him, already regretting his choice of words.
Lloyd can't help the lopsided smile his expression takes on. "Never put off until tomorrow-"
"What can be done today, we knoooooow," Kai hisses. "You're in no shape to act today. But since it's so important to you, we won't go without you."
Lloyd grumbles, picking through his repertoire for some kind of argument, anything. Alas, thrown in with the coughing and the death-like feeling and the suddenly very noticeable clogging of his sinuses is the inability to think straight. So, he's forced to take a rain check on squeezing into a mission plan anytime soon and let Cole handle patrol organizing for the next little while.
As he drifts off to sleep, however, he isn't sure whether or not he should be grateful that they won't touch the temple grounds without him.
After all, that place is crawling with evil.
Lloyd dreams about Harumi that night—or a creature that looks like her. She has barb-like hair and keen claws and massive, snarling fangs and there's a deep violet husk crawling over her skin. She murmurs something sweet and crooning, towering over him with an oni's smile.
"You love me..."
Her voice sounds distorted and heavy, not at all like the light-toned, gentle princess he crushed on in the Jade Palace. She repeats that phrase, barking it out whenever it fades as if commanding him to submit, and soon it begins to mingle and overlap with the words from the summoning ritual. He squeezes his eyes shut and covers his ears to drown out the noise, the accusations: "it's all your fault." "My family is gone because of you." "You're worthless." "I could have had everything!"
The cacophony fizzles out like static. Lloyd takes a shaky breath and cracks open his eyes. There's no sign of Harumi anywhere to be seen. His father stands before him, a sad smile on his face.
"I already had, in you."
Two days later and Lloyd decides he's not sleeping anymore. Kai can threaten to tie him to the bed all he wants, Lloyd is going to that temple and expunging every last bit of the Sons of Garmadon's ascendancy from there because if he has to live in a world where Harumi and her quote on quote siblings—what a riot, that term, and frankly Lloyd considers it an insult because he knows what siblings are supposed to be like—exist anywhere except locked up tight in Kryptarium, far away from him, he's going to lose every last one of his marbles.
Nya, of course, wants him to prove he can handle clean-up duty through a sparring match. Lloyd rolls his eyes, scarfs down half a bowl of oatmeal, then knocks back a cocktail of medication. Antihistamines, antibiotics, and Vicks for the most of it and just to get Zane off his back he shoves two whole honey-flavored cough drops in his mouth and dares his overprotective brother with just his face to try to pry them out. He then proceeds to wipe the floor with Nya. Suffice to say, everyone finally relents and they set the Bounty's course for the temple.
"This place..." Jay starts, kicking aside a broken piece of the palace wall. "Has some bad vibes."
Lloyd grumbles and burrows into the scarf Cole stuffed him into, keeping some swears to himself about the biting cold. The first thing he noticed here was the half-snapped contraption used to dunk both him and his mother into a vat of frigid water. Him... and his mother. For all the Sons' worship of Garmadon, they've barely given his mother any of the respect she deserves.
"Where do we start?" Cole looks to Lloyd, who glares in turn at the pair of cages. He opens his mouth to start rattling off commands to dismantle it when Cole beats him to the punch. "Right. Listen up, everyone, we need to start by removing the most dangerous stuff. If it's sharp, made of metal, or can be used to hurt someone, tote it out to the dump trucks out front."
"What about the rest of the palace?"
"Any restoration of the Jade Palace will have to be done by professionals. For now, let's just focus on the deep clean."
The ninja steadily get to work, weaving through the copious amounts of debris and muck. An awful, purple goo coats one-third of the ground and after all their luck lately, no one is willing to test their prowess against it. Not even Jay, who at any other opportunity would gladly start making sludge-balls to hurl at Cole, jumps on the idea. Everyone is morosely silent, keeping to their jobs and only conversing when necessary.
At least, they do so for the first half-hour. After a while, the depression starts to take its toll and Jay gets sick of it enough to start cracking jokes, even at the expense of Kai trying really hard to clobber him with a bent metal pipe.
"What sound does a sleeping t-rex make? A dino-snore!"
"Jay!" Kai snaps, swinging the pole at the lightning ninja.
Jay bounces away, using airjitzu to lift himself onto the roof. "How do you put a baby alien to sleep? You rocket!"
"Jaaaaay!" Cole summons a rock from off the ground and chucks it at Jay like he's a preacher on the wall. Jay dances to the side, grinning from ear to ear as the rock sails past, then deftly hops from one piece of debris to another until he's standing three feet in front of Lloyd.
"What do you call a bear with no teeth?" Jay asks, visibly holding back laughter.
Lloyd glances up at him, halfway done with setting aside another cart to carry out. He puts on his best 'not now' face, praying Jay will take the hint. There isn't a ton of luck for the team's glorified baby brother because Jay keeps egging him on, bouncing up and down on his feet. Lloyd ducks his head, trying to hide the smile pulling at his lips and unwilling to admit that the enthusiasm is just a tiny bit contagious.
"Come ooooon, Lloyd," Jay sings, having solved all of Lloyd's body language years ago. "What do you call a bear with no teeth?"
"Don't answer!" Kai calls from across the courtyard.
But Lloyd finally relents. "What?" He asks curiously.
Jay lights up like a barrage of fireworks, a huge grin spreading across his face. He digs into his neverending hoodie pockets and yanks out a brightly-colored candy package, presenting it directly in front of Lloyd's eyes.
"A GUMMY BEAR!"
He breaks down into a fit of almost delirious laughter as he shakes the packaging around, meanwhile, everyone face-faults straight into the dirt and Nya struggles to decide whether or not she needs to douse her boyfriend. Lloyd chuckles a bit, glad to see that the majority of his team is doing well and isn't overly traumatized from the incident. He supposes that if he can find it in himself to laugh, then maybe he's going to be okay too. He won't trust anyone outside of his family for a while and he's definitely not going to take up dating anytime soon. But he'll be okay.
By the time late afternoon hits, half of the wreckage has been hauled off and Ninjago's sanitation workers are thanking Lloyd and his team for the help. They stay behind a tad longer to try mopping up the goo, which does spark some more jokes and bantering. Kai has taken to grabbing one of the mops, which is now stained a horrible shade of bright magenta, and starts chasing Jay around.
Lloyd crinkles the gummy bear package from his pockets, having relieved it from Jay ("For protection purposes, so Kai doesn't corrupt them with the mop.") and has been surreptitiously eating all of them while watching the chaos unfold.
"Jaaaaaay~ Come here!" Sings Kai with a dangerous tone.
"YOU STAY AWAY FROM ME, YOU HEATHEN!"
"Lloyd!"
He whirls at the sound of his name and finds his mom climbing over the rubble, baby Wu assiduously balanced in her arms. She huffs as she slides down a shored piece of the wall and resolutely approaches him, almost bulldozing everything else out of her way.
"Mom," Lloyd calls, breaking into a jog to meet her. "What are you doing here? It's not safe."
"Checking on you," Misako says. Wu fusses enough that she has to roll her eyes and let him down. He zips off at the first opportunity to go find Cole. "Zane told me you were sick."
'Of course, he did,' Lloyd thinks drily, his good mood immediately drained away. Because Zane will make sure anyone who can fuss over him will fuss over him. 'Thanks a lot, Frosty.'
"Should you even be out here when you feel this way?" Misako places a hand on his forehead, blanching at the heat. Her next words come out in a gentle scolding. "Lloyd, you have a fever."
Lloyd's jaw tightens as she frets over him and suggests he call it early and head back to the Bounty. He's not in any frame of mind to be alone, though. If he sets himself aside he's going to start thinking about the past and his father and Harumi, all the things he dreamed of when he was stuck in bed and it's... well, it's not fun. He'd rather drink Mystake's nasty seer's tea again than let his memories crawl all over him.
He knows better than to snap at his mom, regardless of how he's feeling. But with his master literally balanced on a teammate's hip due to his unfortunate size and the memory of his father almost clawing his way back into the land of the living—thanks, Harumi—Lloyd's on the cranky side, just a bit. His congestion from the depths of Hollow's Trench isn't doing him any favors either.
And that reminds him that the medicine must be wearing off. Fabulous.
"I'll be fine, mom." Lloyd slips out from underneath her reach, candy package crunching in his pockets again. Misako eyes him suspiciously, knowing full well that he's not carrying cough drops. Thankfully, she doesn't press the matter.
"Alright," she concedes, turning her attention to the sudden swell of raucous singing coming from his teammates. They scream something about going to Laughy's, which igh, Lloyd can do without. But hey, they deserve a break, so he'll see if he won't give them a hard time when they inevitably come asking. "Just, don't stress yourself out, okay? I know things are rough."
She reaches over, entwining her fingers with his. She cups his cheek, gently turning his gaze towards her. There's a sad look on her face, the same one he knows is usually on his father's face whenever he imagines Garmadon's strong, steady figure from the last time Lloyd ever saw him.
"I miss him too," Misako says.
Lloyd leans down to let Misako kiss the top of his hair. He won't resist her and he loves her, he promises himself he does, and they've... they've never truly ended their conversation about her decision to leave him at Darkly's. It's always just a continuously growing snowball of anxiety and subjects that need a delicate touch but she's trying, and Lloyd appreciates that, and to reiterate, yes, he loves her. But... it's just... he wishes that sometimes she wouldn't try so hard. Especially right now, when he doesn't have the mental capacity to think about recent events without threatening to turn into a supernova.
With his father, he was always warmed by the outpouring of passion and pride that Garmadon never possessed any shortage of. The second he could afford, he showered Lloyd in all the love and attention he could ever want, he never made Lloyd feel like he had to work for it or that he had to compete with something else to be his first priority. Even evil, everything he ever did was for Lloyd. To be made the center of someone's entire world from the get-go? As a child, the sensation had been overwhelming, a thunderstorm raging, wind howling, a tidal wave crashing down and sweeping him away in a torrent of warmth.
All he'd needed to be for Garmadon to love him was his son and it's with some grinding note of clarity Lloyd realizes that Harumi almost stole that from him.
Lloyd suppresses the desire to growl and snap his teeth like an animal. As harsh as his thoughts careen, he's glad Harumi's rotting in prison now.
"What are you doing out of bed?"
Lloyd freezes mid-step on his way out of the kitchen, struck by the impatient silhouette of his father at the end of the hall. It's with no small amount of sheepishness he turns to face his father. Garmadon's arms are crossed and there's a playful scowl etched into his features.
"Uhhhhh..." Lloyd trails off for a blank second then gestures to the glass in his hand. "Getting water?"
He has to shove down the coughing fit rising in his throat as Garmadon approaches, a warm, calloused hand finding the center of Lloyd's back. Garmadon places the other on his son's forehead, testing his fever. Sick for little more than a day and already Lloyd is up and wandering around when he shouldn't be. He clicks his tongue and shakes his head disapprovingly.
"You could have asked me to get you some," Garmadon says, gently ushering Lloyd back down the hall and toward his room.
"I didn't wanna bother you," Lloyd says. He sips from the glass, eying his father with a hint of nervousness. Garmadon relieves him of the glass and places it on the bedside dresser, gingerly pushing Lloyd back down onto the bed by his shoulders.
"You wouldn't have been bothering me," Garmadon replies, tipping Lloyd's chin up. He meets his son's gaze—a deep, faded maroon finding a dull red—and discovers a hint of fear, as though Lloyd believed asking for something as simple as a glass of water would have been too much trouble. "You wouldn't have been bothering me," Garmadon repeats. "You're my son, I'm supposed to be taking care of you."
Warmth blooms in Lloyd's chest and stretches outward across his soul like a soothing balm as Garmadon leans down and presses his lips against his son's head. There's something so raw and bracing about it that Lloyd's never experienced before. A familiar pressure starts pushing against the backs of his eyes, menacing him to break into tears. He clenches his jaw, determined to avoid such a fate. If he starts crying, he's just going to blame it on the fever making him delirious.
He leans into his father's touch regardless, holding it, afraid to let go—afraid because somewhere inside the confines of his mind, a voice whispers that he might never find this kind of love again