Yay! So this fic is a part of my new series (Okay, not new, just...first time I've talked about it outside my profile) Voice of the Dark, which is a Ninjago re-write set in the context of our world. The first book of the series, Serpentine Rising, should be coming out in the next couple of months, but in the meantime I have this!...Angst. This fic works out of two headcanons; The venom brought Garmadon and Wu closer rather than shoving them apart, and Garmadon was constantly in internal conflict over basically everything that he said and did. And the second: The FSM (Enmei in this) was a neglectful parent. It's not super important why in this fic, since I'll explore why later on, but it um...seriously affected Wu and Garmadon. Duh. So...yeah. TW for that. Also, alcohol consumption is mentioned earlier on in this fic, but it's just implied.
Wu wakes to see the sun creeping through the window, over the messy floor of his bedroom and onto his bed. He wakes because the sun is in his eyes, and slowly sits up.
Muscles immediately protest. His brain isn't too happy about waking up, either, but Wu doesn't want to go back to sleep. His eyes roam the cluttered room, and suddenly he's sick of it. He's been sick of it for months, fed up with himself and his behavior and with the chaos of his bedroom and how it just makes him feel worse.
"C'mon, Wu, even my room doesn't look this bad." Garmadon's voice needles him, teasing almost. Wu bites his lip, gazing around for a few more seconds before standing suddenly and sweeping all the dirty laundry into the basket. He makes his bed for the first time in what feels like years.
He picks the picture frame up from where he dropped it the night before, expression falling as he gazes at eight-year-old Morro's face. He's grinning brightly, both front teeth missing. They'd gone fishing the day this had been taken, and Morro had been so excited when he'd caught his first fish, a decent-sized trout. It's before, of course, the pressure came hammering down on the child. This is before Wu made so many bad choices that Morro eventually crumbled under the weight of it all. Wu shoves the picture under the bed. He can't deal with that today. Today-today, his main goal is to get the Monastery back into a suitable living space.
"Maybe don't neglect your chores next time, and you won't have so much of a problem." Garmadon's voice comes again, and Wu's head snaps up, because this time he can almost hear it. He can almost hear his brother's voice floating down the hall, as if he never even left.
As if last night didn't happen.
Wu grimaces. He's going to have to send in a report to the Emperor, about this. He'll find out eventually, anyway, when Garmadon doesn't show for the next Parliament meeting.
But Wu can only handle one thing at a time, right now.
"Don't forget." Garmadon's voice follows Wu down the hall, and out onto the backsteps where Wu pours out the remaining liquor from the bottles. "Finally. It's about time you quit languishing."
Wu grits his teeth. "I'd like to see you lose Lloyd." He mutters. But he wouldn't. He never would, not really. He just wants his brother's voice to go away.
"I never wanted you to copy me, Wu." And then the tone his brother uses is quiet, the contemplative one that made Wu squirm when they were children because it meant that Garmadon was feeling guilty, and sometimes that was almost worse than when he was angry. "I shouldn't have left the alcohol in the Monastery when I moved out."
"I'm perfectly capable of making my own bad decisions." Wu replies, and he guesses it's supposed to be a retort, but it comes out too tired to be that.
Garmadon's silence is a testament to what he thinks of that particular statement, and Wu shakes his head and goes inside, leaving the liquor bottles to dry in the sun.
(O)
But Garmadon is there.
Wu catches glimpses of him as he goes through his day, but every time he turns, Garmadon is gone. He slips through the corners of Wu's eyes and Wu can't stop him from leaving, just like he couldn't stop the venom from stealing his brother. So Wu tries to put it out of his mind, tries to ignore the way his brother's presence still manages to stretch over him like an over-zealous shadow despite him being gone. But that's hard to do with the comments.
"You're doing it wrong." Garmadon says, and Wu catches a glimpse of him leaning against the doorway like he always did whenever he was silently judging someone's training. It was a common place to see him, and it always made Wu just slightly more nervous than usual whenever he was practicing katas. But he's not now. Right now, he's just trying to mend the awful crack in the cobblestones from last night's fight.
"You're not the Master of Creation," Wu retorts, in no mood to listen to his phantom brother's lectures.
"That crack won't heal."
Heal…..? Strange wording choice, even for Wu's poetic brother.
"Not unless you want it to."
Wu casts an irritated look at the doorway, only to find it completely empty. He rubs his eyes. Maybe he just didn't get enough sleep the night before.
"You must let go, Wu." Garmadon's voice insists, and he's back in the doorway, out of the corner of Wu's eyes.
Wu sighs, slightly tempted to roll his eyes like he would have when he was twelve. "Let go of what?" He asks.
"Me. We knew this would happen, brother. It shocked no one."
"Did Misako know?" Wu questions. But Garmadon doesn't answer, because, after all, this is only in Wu's head. This Garmadon can't know anything Wu doesn't.
Wu sighs. He gives up on fixing the crack, going into the kitchen to make himself tea.
(O)
Wu should think of Garmadon as he is now. It will make the coming road much easier, the pain he is sure to inflict on his brother seem less cruel. Less hard. More deserved.
He wonders why he must think of him in the way he really does-in the blacks and greys and whites, in all the colors. Wu can't explain it, exactly, but Garmadon can. Garmadon has always been better with words than Wu, better at explaining, better at telling, better at understanding.
"I was more than the venom." He says one afternoon, after Wu's broken the news to Ray. It goes down as one of the most heartbreaking conversations Wu's ever had. Ray cried. Ray never cries. "I was more than the venom," Garmadon repeats. He's sitting on the counter while Wu's back is turned as he sits at the table, struggling to put into words that awful night in a way that qualifies as a decent report. The third time Garmadon repeats himself, Wu finally acknowledges him.
"I know." He replies.
"But no one ever saw me like that. Well, except for you, and Ray. And Misako."
Wu isn't sure that he qualifies for that list, not anymore, but he keeps his silence, almost ready to snap his pen in half.
"It wasn't enough but I tried to make it enough." Garmadon continues. "And when it was too much I could always go to my writing."
Yes. Garmadon, a tale spinner in his own right. Wu remembers before, when their Mother was still alive and life was peaceful and happy, and there was a semblance of normality. The Eden of his childhood. Garmadon told stories even then, eyes crackling with light as he made up legends out of pictures he saw in stars.
Wu looked at the stars and saw stars. Garmadon looked at the stars and saw more.
Even after the accident, after the light in his eyes had faded to be replaced with darkness, Garmadon still looked at the stars and had hope. Hope enough for him and Wu, and now that Garmadon is gone, how is Wu supposed to hope?
What an odd paradox. Garmadon, the root of most of Wu's real problems, is also the one person Wu thinks he can never live without. For all the damage he did when the venom flared, the mood swings and nasty tempers, Wu also remembers the times when Garmadon picked him up after he fell down, insisting that he never give up. Pushing him forward when he was nervous, making sure he wasn't forgotten or abandoned.
He hadn't understood, at the time, why Misako had chosen Garmadon over him-all he'd felt was hurt and bitterness, and anger towards both of them. That had waned. It faded, just like Wu's anger always does. He can't make it stay. But he thinks he understands now, Misako didn't fall for the venom-ridden, sick, angry Garmadon. She fell for the man separate from the venom, the man that the venom was attached to like a parasite, the man underneath who was kind and caring, and so overprotective that Wu had felt smothered sometimes.
That was the Garmadon Misako fell in love with.
And that's the brother Wu misses.
"I'm sorry." Garmadon's voice murmurs. How many times has Wu heard those two words? Whispered late at night or muttered half-bitterly during training, or shouted in a way that meant Garmadon didn't mean them at all. So often that they've lost meaning on Wu, a mere courtesy that he's eager to move past.
"I know." He says, hoping to move on.
Garmadon does not. Even when he's just a voice in his head, Wu's brother is infuriatingly stubborn.
"No, you don't." Garmadon replies, and he sounds angry, the kind of angry he always is with himself. "You don't understand, Wu. You don't know. I'm sorry, I'm sorry for so many things. I suppose Enmei can only prove himself more right, then, now?"
"Yes." Wu replies. His gaze flicks to the counter, and Garmadon is gone. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to help me write this report, would you?" He mutters, not really expecting an answer.
And, accurate to his real-life self, Garmadon only replies, amused, "The practice will be good for you, brother."
Wu sighs, and crumples the paper and starts a third time.
(O)
It takes five tries, but Wu finally deems his report suitable and sends it in. In days, paparazzi begins to pop up outside the Monastery walls, but Wu barres the doors and ignores the cameras.
"If I were here I would go out and yell at them." Garmadon observes. Wu is sorting through a chest of old scrolls in one of the storage rooms, still stubbornly avoiding cleaning out the room Garmadon used to occupy. He'd attempted walking into his son's room the other day-and hadn't been able to do more than stare. Morro's things haven't moved for two years, a few more weeks won't hurt.
"Yes, you would." Wu replies. He's given up ignoring his brother, it's pointless, Garmadon's voice jabbers on whether Wu wants him to or not. It does, however, beg the question of whether or not Wu's finally had a full mental breakdown.
"You could stand to try it, sometime." Garmadon huffs. "Not all yelling is bad."
"That may be your way, but it's not mine." Wu retorts, stuffing another scroll into a different trunk. Misako, the last person in recent memory Wu can recall bothering to go through any of these, evidently only got half-way through organizing them.
"The Monastery is a mess." Garmadon says.
"Yes, I know."
"You could at least clear out Enmei's room."
Wu balks at the idea. In fact, he balks at changing anything about the Monastery, because that would mean admitting that Garmadon, and Father, and Kaida, and Morro are gone. Permanently. It's illogical, he thinks, to be so attached to simple objects, especially when his father hated that kind of attachment so much. He cringes. Even with his father dead, somehow, Wu still manages to fail him.
"It must be done, Wu." Garmadon insists, pacing just out of Wu's vision. He can even hear the footfalls. "There is a next generation, after all."
Wu swallows, hand stilling over the final scroll.
"Changes come with life, Wu. Clutching at broken pieces won't put them back together."
Wu knows. He knows. But that's all he has left, broken pieces.
"You should draw again." Garmadon suggests. "Maybe it'll help."
Wu huffs. They both know he hasn't bothered with art since Kaida died. So many things died when she did.
"I'm serious." Garmadon insists. "Even if I am just your projection of me."
And Wu wonders how his mind has managed to re-create his brother in such striking accuracy. Maybe, subconsciously, Wu knew his brother better than he thought he did.
.
.
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Yay! You read all the way through! Thank you so much! (Side note; Kaida is Wu and Garmadon's youngest sister. Garmadon accidentally killed her during the Serpentine War. She was born without an element and was the original Samurai X. That's pretty much all she's important for in VOtD) #God'snotdead!