Woohoo, then! Glad you guys weren't too thrown in for a loop with that last one. You're a daring bunch, y'know that?
Guest reviews! Yay!
Anonymous: YESH. Yesh indeed I am. ^_^ I can't guarantee it's going to come to a satisfactory conclusion, but it will definitely be addressed some more. Glad you're enjoying it so far!
GUEST05: Exams?! Argh. I feel ya. T_T Good luck then! Knock 'em out of the park.
Nonononono, I completely don't mind the rambling! I love hearing people's theories and opinions on stuff. Too bad you don't have an account, though, then we could ramble at each other all we wanted. ^_^''
Anyways! Heh, yeah, that was kind of how I came around to Cole too. And yeah, he's definitely got that awkward streak! I could see it being his dad; either way it kind of works for an "earth" kind of personality. He's very comfortable with actions (out of the guys he was the only one to hug Zane when they found him again), but he's not a man of fancy words.
Man, glad you liked the last chapter. Particularly the writing. That thing was altered or completely rewritten SO MANY TIMES; I like reading heart-to-hearts as much as the next person, but boy, do I suck at writing them. XP
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like? -Jean Cocteau
Once he'd dumped the pinecones into the storage room, Lloyd went to see about getting the pine sap off his hands—his palms were so sticky he could barely use a doorknob. To his frustration, sap did not respond well to soap and water. He tried rubbing alcohol, which stung sharply; there were deep scrapes in his hands where he'd tried to snatch that branch.
Sighing, he set down the bottle of rubbing alcohol and leaned on his arms, watching his sticky palms squish against the cold rim of the sink. His thoughts fizzed back and forth, too fast for him to catch hold of one and get a good look. Kai hadn't seriously intended to hurt him. Somehow he felt sure of that—the fire ninja was notoriously impulsive when under pressure.
But that impulsivity had usually entailed throwing a punch a little too hastily, or snapping at someone with something he'd later regret. In the case of enemies, lunging at someone with a bare blade he tried to avoid actually using on the living. Immediate firebomb? Never before. It wasn't that Kai himself had become more touchy, just that his responses had become more dangerous. What in the world had they done to him at that slither pit? What kind of brawls went on in there, that deadly force became a reflex instead of a last resort?
And now that he had developed that kind of reflex, was it going to go away?
Lloyd shook his head and finished rinsing down his hands with the rubbing alcohol. Maybe he'd sorted the situation out enough in his head that he could handle a reasonable talk now. Maybe.
Wandering into the kitchen, he found Kai perched on a stool next to the little spit of countertop that jutted out into the room. An array of bottles and glasses was set up before him, and he himself was slouching over a glass of fizzy dark liquid.
Lloyd wavered for a second, still torn. At last he took a deep breath, stepped over, and climbed onto another stool next to him. Kai glanced up, then wordlessly pulled over another glass and began pouring the contents of various bottles into it. Lloyd watched the procedure: lemon-lime soda, a heavy dash of mint extract, a drop of Tabasco sauce, of all things, and finally a slug of cream. After swirling the glass around to mix, Kai slid it down the counter. Lloyd caught it deftly enough that it didn't slop too much and took a sip.
"Pretty good," he said. The silence hung heavy after that.
"Would you have drunk it if you didn't see me fixing it?" asked Kai softly.
"I'm more worried that you even ask that kind of question."
Kai shrugged, lowering his attention back to his own drink.
"They call that mix a 'Greenie'," he ventured, fiddling with the glass. "Short for 'Green Ninja'."
Ohhh . . . a peace offering, then? Inadvertantly Lloyd felt his heart soften, but he kept that to himself.
"Wow," he mumbled. "I didn't know they'd named a drink after me . . . "
"Flattered or insulted?" asked Kai, twisting a corner of his mouth back wryly.
"Neither?" Lloyd lifted the glass and studied it. "Both."
"Usually there'd be a shot of gin in there too, but I figured you'd want to skip that."
"Yeah. Thanks, I would." He looked over at Kai resignedly. "So you got pretty familiar with the slither pit's drink menu?"
"Only from watching the bartenders fixing 'em all the time," said Kai. "Never had any of the alcoholic ones."
"Huh. Really?"
"Yeah. I'd seen people trying the hard stuff for the first time." Kai made a face. "Not the kind of display I'd want for the Red Shogun's street cred."
"But . . . well . . . it's possible to maintain a street cred by drinking just juice?"
"Sure," scoffed Kai. "It's not about what you order. It's all about the way you drink it." He tapped the glass in front of him. "Cherry cola. You swig it with enough attitude, people will believe you're chugging arsenic and barbed wire. They won't bother ya. 'Course, it takes a lot of practice to get the method down right."
Lloyd leaned on one elbow and listened, bittersweetly amused. There Kai went again, playing the master of life, talking down and acting like he was the teacher and Lloyd was still just a little kid. He let him. Kai needed this.
"The important part though, is making yourself believe it," continued Kai knowingly. "That's all in the attitude too. You have to toss it back telling yourself that this is something you're not s'posed to be drinking. If you can do it right, you'll get all the perks of feeling evil without actually landing in jail or wrecking your liver. 'Cos—there's a line, you know." He traced an imaginary line across the counter, and his voice suddenly lost all its bravado. "And . . . the point is to walk that line and not cross it."
Lloyd nodded. They both regarded the invisible line on the counter for a moment, neither of them venturing to ask what happened if you did cross it. If it made any difference why you'd crossed it. If it fixed things if you hurried back over as fast as you could.
At length Kai shook himself from his thoughts and forced a light tone.
"G'wan, try it. Pretend that thing's spiked."
Lloyd eyed the still-bubbling "Greenie."
"I dunno . . . "
"G'wan, already. It's good for your nerves, and you never know when it might come in handy."
Lloyd lifted the glass again, looking uncertain.
"So, how do I do this? Like, just drink it really fast?"
"Up to you." Kai waved a hand graciously. "However you'd drink it if it were spiked."
"Huh." Lloyd considered a moment more, then took a violent swig, tossing back a huge gulp of the tangy drink much too hard. A little too much splashed into his face, and whatever did make it into his mouth went straight down his windpipe and left him spluttering.
"Like that, huh?" said Kai, eyes half-closed.
"Exactly like that," said Lloyd hoarsely, and resumed hocking soda from his throat. Kai shook his head.
"You're pathetic," he said fondly.
"Yeah, well." Lloyd gave a final cough. "I learned from the best."
Kai snorted, and silence fell again. The charade seemed to fall away with it. They'd run out of ways to pretend it was all right.
Seconds ticked by. Kai felt rather than heard Lloyd stifling a sigh next to him. He kept his head down, chewing his lip and trying to pull one coherent line of thought out of the tangled snarl currently occupying his head.
He couldn't help it. Lloyd was a good friend, virtually his little brother, but—honestly?—he still resented him. A lot. Not even because he became the Green Ninja, not because he had all the power and got all the glory, but . . . because he didn't deserve what he got. How in all Ninjago's cursed dimensions did he pass off as the chosen one? He was—he was such an innocent. Dammit, Kai'd been lying through his teeth, he really was a naïve idiot. And it wasn't just "kind of annoying." It was infuriating.
Kai swallowed, hoping that his tightening grip on his glass went unnoticed. He should have kept his mouth shut in the first place. They'd both been eager to get along again, they'd both opened up to each other a little, and—he resented admitting it even privately, but—he'd been longing to get the secret off his chest. A little understanding would have been nice. But he should have known better than to go looking for it here.
Because sure, Lloyd could pretend to be street-smart just because he knew a few slang terms for Venomari spit. But at base, he was still completely oblivious to the grim realities of life. Like a kindergartener parroting anti-drug commercials, clueless about the grip and pain of addiction, he had a lot of nice-sounding solutions—but they only looked weak and foolish and smug the minute you held them up to reality. He didn't understand.
And the worst part of it was, you couldn't blame it on his being sheltered from life's dirtier tricks. Neither he nor Kai had been. They'd both had their share of hard, hard knocks, yet Kai had become a cool-eyed cynic while Lloyd was still as pure as the proverbial driven snow. That was what was so infuriating. He was just—what even was he? Stupid? Blind? Uncaring? How else could you explain it?
Maybe Lloyd was blind. Maybe that was actually the answer. Maybe you had to be stupid and naïve to be the savior of the world. If you were actually competent—competent and savvy, like Kai—you would become a cynic just as fast as Kai did. You would lose faith in the people you were supposed to protect, become angry at the messed-up world you were trying to fix. You'd resort to desperate measures, become . . . corrupted. Or give up.
The realization didn't exactly come to Kai like a thunderclap, or a wave, or anything that violent. It just sort of settled quietly into his gut. He finally knew why he couldn't be the Green Ninja: he functioned too well in the real world, was too well-versed and comfortable in its ways.
Dammitall, he was overqualified. He almost laughed.
Sneaking another glance at Lloyd, who was poking sadly at the glass where the bubbles stuck, he felt his impatience fading. The kid's naivety was hard to tolerate sometimes, but it was worth it. A world like this needed blind devotion, something Kai couldn't give; his contribution could be keeping his mouth shut so driven-snow here would stay clueless. Talk about your messed-up.
But then again, that was to some degree the path that every older sibling trudged.
"Kai?" said Lloyd all of a sudden.
"Yeah?" Resigned. He tucked his thoughts away for later.
"I'm not telling Nya. I . . . I don't know anymore."
"Ya think," said Kai ironically. "I suppose you're going to encourage me to tell her myself?"
Silence. He'd hit home.
"Nope," he gritted. "Not gonna."
"Okay. Okay." Lloyd sounded resigned too now. Defeated.
"It's the way it works," said Kai, not understanding why he bothered to try softening the blow, but still trying. "Stuff changes. People change. Gotta deal with it."
"But not that much. You haven't changed that much," said Lloyd vehemently, almost desperately. He looked to Kai as if he could make it true just by believing it hard enough. "Only on the outside. You—you haven't changed your principles, the important stuff. You're—" his voice wavered "—still the same Kai, aren't you?"
This kid was the living end. Really, the only options left at this point were to punch him out of his chair or hug him, and Kai was in no frame of mind to make that decision. He settled for both.
"You are pathetic, you know that?" he mumbled as Lloyd processed what had just happened and squeezed him back. "But I guess it suits you."
"Suits you being Kai," Lloyd managed, fervently praying his voice didn't actually come out as unsteady as it sounded. "That hasn't changed, right?"
"I dunno, kid," sighed Kai. He pulled back and scruffed up Lloyd's hair roughly. "I hope so."
Lloyd hesitated, then nodded slightly, sighed, and stepped back. Halfway to the door he turned around.
"Stop calling me 'kid'."
"I lead you by more than two years and at least half a dozen words you're not supposed to know," retorted Kai, not looking up. "I think I have the right to call you 'kid'. Kid."
A roll of the eyes, the faintest twitch of a smile, and Lloyd was gone. Kai stayed hunched over his drink, glum. He felt like he ought to feel better now, but he didn't; he doubted Lloyd did either. Hugs were all well and good—they let someone know you cared, or that you weren't angry—but they didn't fix a thing. When the ache inside was this sharp and persistent, a hug didn't take any of it away. It was just the warmth and weight of someone's arms around you. Nothing more.
Sighing heavily, Kai reached for another bottle of cherry cola. If he slugged back a little more attitude, maybe he could talk himself into being hungover tomorrow.