#u know what they're all here but its mostly lloyd

[lloydskywalkers]

exposure therapy

Prompt three for @ninjago-angst-week , this one’s “hunger” - I’m taking a kind of...loose interpretation of it, I guess?? Listen hunger can go for a lot of things and I’ve been wanting to write something about Lloyd and abandonment issues for forever so!! That’s what this is.

it’s also the longest prompt yet oops 

(Takes place between s7 and s8!)

Lloyd is about four years old the first time someone leaves him and doesn’t come back.

He says about because he doesn’t really remember it all too well – he’s listened to the others bicker enough to know that technically you don’t start forming concrete memories until like, age five or something, and any that you do form before that you probably forget by the time you’re old enough to care.

Lloyd remembers the sting, though. In his eyes, that is – the ache in his chest was a whole lot worse than a sting, but it’s not like he’s going to spend that much time trying to describe it when he’s trying to get over it. And he is – over it, that is. He’s over being left alone on the doorsteps of some dumb school as a kid because no one cared enough to take him in. He’s over being the kid without a family for years and years because his parents left him and didn’t come back, because his uncle didn’t care enough to visit him, because clearly there was something wrong with him—

No, that’s – no, he reminds himself. They were busy, that’s all. With way more important things than some snot-nosed little kid who was pretty much useless at the time, and even better at causing trouble.

There’s nothing wrong with Lloyd. He’s over it, has been, and will continue to be, because someone in the mess that’s the family line of the First Master needs to have themselves together.

And if it does sting, sometimes, when he thinks about doorsteps and windows and how stupid he felt when he realized no one was coming back—

Well. It’s not worse than what the others have to deal with, is it? Lloyd should be thankful that’s all he’s been dealt.

(That and the whole, like, green-ninja-savior-of-the-world stuff, of course, but that’s — kinda whatever, at the moment. No one’s asked him to fight an ungodly being anytime recently, and Lloyd isn’t gonna complain.)

__ __ __ __

The thing about carefully constructing nice little (enormous) walls in your head to block out all the messy stuff is that, eventually, you’re going to have a few cracks in them to patch up. And while Lloyd’s dealt with those cracks before, he kind of wasn’t…really expecting this one.

“Oh,” he says, and he’s proud of how his voice doesn’t waver. Twice proud, really, because it’s been threatening to crack a lot lately, and that’s not just from emotion. “Yeah. That does make sense, I guess.”

Kai nods. “I mean, I don’t like the idea of us all splitting up, but it’s the best way to cover ground.”

“Additionally, this is a rare time in which Ninjago is not facing any immediate threat,” Zane chimes in. “If danger does occur, we should have plenty of time to regroup.”

Nya taps her foot. “I don’t like it,” she mutters. “And I don’t like leaving Ninjago City on its own.”

Especially with someone running around with my Samurai X armor on, is her unspoken complaint.

“We’re wasting time just sitting around like this,” Cole retorts. “The sooner we get out looking, the sooner we find Sensei, and the sooner we can come back.”

Lloyd looks down. The pain in Cole’s voice is obvious, and Lloyd knows he misses Sensei Wu. Lloyd misses him, too, but Cole’s always had a close sort of relationship with him.

Lloyd takes a breath. He’s leader now, right? Time to act like it.

“I can stay behind in the city,” he says, even as his brain gives him a nice little Lloyd what the heck warning. “That way I can keep an eye out for trouble, and listen for any tips on Sensei.”

Kai immediately looks concerned. Nya’s eyes spear into him. “You’re alright with that?”

Lloyd shrugs. “Finding Sensei’s first priority,” he says. “But someone’s gotta make sure the country doesn’t burn down.” He flashes Kai a smile. “Seriously, I’m taking the easy job from you guys. I’ll be fine.”

“Pixal can watch out for him on comms, as well,” Zane says, slowly. “That way you won’t be entirely on your own.” Kai nods at that, and Nya relaxes a bit.

Lloyd sours. He’s not a child anymore — they can stop treating him like one. They just made him leader, didn’t they?

A small part of him (a large part), though, has to admit that the thought of Pixal being with him brings no small amount of relief.

“Alright,” Lloyd says, trying to sound authoritative. “That’s it, then. We’ll split out at the end of the week. And we will find Sensei.”

“Fingers crossed,” Jay murmurs.

No one looks particularly excited about the plan, but they’re at least eager to start moving. Lloyd, for his part, takes the building amount of dread at the thought of watching them all leave, shoves it in a corner, and locks the door on it.

It’s not like they’re leaving-leaving. They’re coming right back, obviously. Lloyd is just – being paranoid, that’s all. His team is strong, and Kai definitely isn’t gonna go down to some low-level crooks while traveling the countryside.

(They aren’t like – her, either.)

And speaking of his family — Lloyd finds himself wondering, later, when exactly he started calling Wu sensei in his head, instead of uncle.

He thinks it might have been after Morro. That was around the time he started to feel like he didn’t have the right.

__ __ __ __

He says goodbye to the others at the end of the week. Jay and Cole are going together, and so are Kai and Zane.

He and Nya will be on their own.

No one is super excited about that development, either, but it makes sense. The guys are taking the more dangerous areas, so they’ll need backup. He and Nya can handle themselves just fine on their own – Lloyd isn’t even leaving the city. He’s got it easy.

Besides, the guys are used to working in groups. He and Nya are more experienced with functioning on their own. They’ve had to be, that’s all. They’re more familiar with fighting while knowing there’s no one watching your back.

They close up the monastery for now, everything in neat boxes and beds made indefinitely. They don’t pack much – either from convenience or hope that they won’t be away long, no one’s really sure. They say goodbye and make promises to check in as often as possible. Kai hugs Lloyd extra tight, his spiky hair ticking the top of Lloyd’s forehead as he’s crushed against him. Lloyd doesn’t mind, not even when he’s pretty sure Cole almost cracks a rib with his.

And then they leave, all trailing off in different directions, leaving Lloyd standing alone on the edge of the floating island, wind whipping cold through his hair, the monastery eerily silent behind him.

And it’s…

…he’s fine with it.

Like — there’s this weird sort of ache in his chest, kind of like he forgot to eat this morning, so he’s all empty and yearning inside, but that’s – that’s fine.

Perfectly fine.

__ __ __ __

It occurs to him, after he has what’s definitely not a breakdown that definitely does not last long at all, that he’s volunteered to look after Ninjago City, and Ninjago City is a considerable amount of distance from the Airjitzu Temple.

It hits him immediately after that moving to Ninjago City requires somewhere to live. He probably…should have thought of that before everyone left. Maybe he should call—

No. Lloyd shakes himself. He’s leader now. He can’t keep relying on the others for everything. He can find an apartment or something all by himself — how hard can it be, right? The guys found one for all of them back when they were a bunch of half-trained ninja and Lloyd still came up to about Kai’s knee. This is one apartment, for one person. And Lloyd’s got money — he thinks. Somewhere.

…maybe.

Stupid sensei creeds of peace and their obsession with not owning anything material—

Okay fine, so Lloyd’s got zip-zero-nada in the way of family inheritance, but his mother, who took off last week — yeah, she’s leaving too, big surprise —

Lloyd shoves down the spark of bitterness. Misako has better things to do than babysitting him, like finding Sensei Wu. And she did send him money, so he doesn’t even know why he’s feeling all empty about it. She’s made sure he’s not gonna starve and she sent him the name of a housing agent, Lloyd can’t ask for much more.

Maybe a nice landlord, but that’s about it.

__ __ __ __

On the list of bright sides to look at: finding an apartment isn’t as mind-numbingly difficult as he’d thought it’d be. He didn’t name drop or anything, but he did kinda have to fill out his full name on the application, so maybe that’s why. Either way, it wasn’t as bad as he’d worked it up to be, so that’s nice.

On the not so bright side — standing in the middle of his brand-new and also completely-empty apartment, it occurs to him that he should probably have asked for like, curtains, at the least. Or a table. How much do beds cost?

On the whole, though, it’s not a bad place. Really. Like – okay, he does need to get a bed and stuff in here, but – the walls are a nice color, and it’s got a little kitchenette off to the side, and the shower works, and the windows provide both a nice view and an easy way to slip outside to the rooftops. His neighbor is also pretty nice, in the way that he doesn’t hate Lloyd’s guts on sight, so that’s cool.

(Look, the way his life goes, guts-hating is just something you prepare for.)

His landlord is actually a landlady, and she’s mean, the kind of mean that makes Lloyd think of one of his Darkley’s teachers. But she’s got about eight cats that roam about the apartment at will, and she lets Lloyd bring in the stragglers he finds late at night on patrol and adopts them sometimes, so Lloyd could honestly care less if she actually was a teacher at Darkley’s. He gets to pet cats! On a daily basis!

(And maybe cry into the fatter one’s fur at two in the morning when he stumbles in from patrol sometimes but nobody needs to know that part.)

It’s like he’s off to college, he tells himself as he stares at the ceiling trying to fall asleep, in the apartment that’s completely empty except for him. If college was a full-time job that included regularly getting shot at by criminals and the police on the occasional bad night, of course, and if he’d actually finished high school, which he’s pretty sure you have to do if you want to get into college…he thinks. School is not a strong point for Lloyd, considering about eighty percent of his education came from Jay, Nya and Zane trying to stuff advanced algebra down his brain.

Either way, the analogy holds. Lloyd can just pretend he’s off to college, and before he knows it he’ll be back home and everyone else will be too. They’ll all come back.

They will.

__ __ __ __

He likes to think he has reason for being scared about it all the time, even though he’s the green ninja and team leader now so he shouldn’t be scared, much less of something this stupid, but it just. It blends together, sometimes. Whether he’s watching through cage bars or lingering after a funeral, held on the edge of a plane or standing on the deck of the Bounty while war rages below.

People leave. That’s life, that’s all.

That doesn’t mean Lloyd has to like it, but he does have to live with it. And he’s gotten really, really good at that.

__ __ __ __

He starts a growing list of bright sides to focus on, in what’s totally not a desperate attempt to keep up the optimism angle. His first attempts are decorating his apartment, which is actually kinda fun. He scrounges up a couch somehow and sinks entirely too much of his budget on little house plants and cool wall prints he finds in the market, and he probably didn’t need the little dragon lamp, but Mystake pawned it off on him when he stopped in for tea one day, so he starts basing the general aesthetic around that. See, bright sides.

Another one of these bright sides is that Ninjago City starts putting in sky trams the week he moves in to his apartment.

He’s a little wary, at first. Sky trams are like subways but in the sky, which means a whole lot more trouble if someone decides to hijack a subway and hold it hostage, or something. But then he pulls himself up on the roof, clambers over onto a station, takes a few tentative steps out over the thick steel cables, and — oh yeah, he gets it now. Lloyd’s never been scared of heights, and dangling this high above the city, skipping over traffic jams and cutting his patrol time in half, is something he can definitely get used to.

He gets in a whole lot of trouble the first few days for scaring the operators half to death, but all in all — worth it. Once the trams start running he trades the cables for the top of the cars, letting them steer him wherever they want in the city. It’s got a pretty great view of the sunset, which he’s been missing since leaving the Airjitzu temple, and the others are gonna love it when they come back.

Because they are coming back.

Lloyd’s just dangling one leg over the edge of the sky tram, considering dangling the other so he can drum them both on the side of the empty car, when his phone blares loudly and nearly sends all of him off the sky tram side.

“Hello?” he manages, clinging to the side of the sky tram with one hand, holding the phone to his ear with the other.

“Lloyd!” Kai’s voice is loud and cheerful over the phone, and Lloyd winces at the volume. “Hey bud, how’s it goin’? I didn’t catch you in the middle of anything, did I?”

Lloyd watches where his feet dangle over open air, the city far down below. “Nah,” he says, and carefully pulls himself back up. “Just finishing up patrol. How — how are you doing? Is everything okay?”

“Oh yeah, we’re good,” Kai assures him. “Just stuck between towns for the night, Zane didn’t wanna drive anymore.”

“Good for him,” Lloyd says. He bites his lip. “So uh, any luck?”

Kai sighs heavily over the phone. “Not yet,” he says. His voice picks up in determination. “But we’re still looking. We’ll find him, okay? No one’s giving up yet.”

“Yeah,” Lloyd exhales what might be a laugh. “I know.” He glances toward the horizon, the setting sun leaving white spots in his vision. “How’s it been, though, for you? Where all have you guys gone so far?”

“Oh man, we’ve been everywhere—“

Lloyd leans back on the roof of the sky tram as Kai fills him in on their ongoings. He closes his eyes, letting the conversation wash over him, Zane’s voice occasionally interjecting a point as Kai argues back.

Lloyd swallows. Kai’s voice is warm and familiar, and he feels a sudden ache of homesickness so bad that tears almost prick at his eyes.

Get it together, he thinks frantically, swiping at his left eye. It hasn’t even been a month yet.

“Lloyd?” Kai’s voice has turned uncertain. “You okay?”

Lloyd startles up, shaking his head. “Yeah, yeah I’m good,” he says, quickly. “Just a little tired. My uh, my landlady has a bunch of cats? And I stayed up late chasing one down last night.”

Kai snorts loudly. “I feel like you’re gonna have a lot of stories about cats when we get back,” he sighs, and the hollow part in Lloyd’s chest warms at the fond note in his voice.

“Or a couple cats.”

“Yeah, sure, good luck with that.” Lloyd can hear the grin in Kai’s voice. “Aw — shoot, I gotta go, but I’ll check back in, okay? In the meantime, take care of yourself before the cats, Master Lloyd.”

Lloyd rolls his eyes. “Will do, mom.”

“And that’s enough snark from you this evening, young man.”

Lloyd tells Kai goodbye on a laugh, and waits for him to end the call first. The evening grows unusually quiet without Kai’s voice to fill the silence, and Lloyd bites his lip.

Master Lloyd, he thinks absently, swinging his leg out over the edge as he watches the lights of the city turn on down below. He snorts without humor.

What does it say, he wonders, that they make him master, then immediately decide to jet off all over the country before he can actually lead them?

Probably something bad, Lloyd thinks to himself. He shakes his head, stifling a yawn. He’s too tired to even imagine what the others’ answers to that question would be. It’s not like they’re here to voice them, anyways, and Lloyd would probably get them wrong.

__ __ __ __

Kai’s text comes in clockwork as promised, reminding him to eat and take care of himself and eat, please, something other than just junk food. Nya’s follows almost immediately after, reminding him to do laundry and take care and take a shower, I know you’ve been skipping—

Normally Lloyd might have some snappy remark to send back about mother hens. This time he ends up staring at the texts until his eyes water, the empty ache in his chest growing tight. Half of him is considering blocking off his schedule so he can video call them for a couple hours, like they used to pester him with when he was off being the Golden Ninja around Ninjago, when his dad was still—

Right. Anyways. The team stays solid on their promise to keep in touch, and two hours later he gets a text from Jay. It’s a slightly blurry picture of him throwing the camera the peace sign as Cole struggles with camping gear, with a quick “hope you’re doing alright!” that follows after.

Lloyd laughs at the expression on Cole’s face, then spends the next two hours trying not to cry into his pillow, because yes, he’s that pathetic.

He wants to go home.

But see – it’s stupid, ‘cause he can’t. He can’t go home, because there is no home to go home to. His home ran off all over Ninjago and sure, while he can call them, he can’t go home to them because there isn’t – a home that’s home because they’re all there anymore.

“I mean, that probably doesn’t make any sense to you,” he finishes, ducking his head. “But that’s like…where I’m at.”

“No, I believe I understand.” Pixal’s voice is soft over his car’s radio. “Your home is people, and they’re out of reach from you. You could run to them, but there’s no guarantee they will stay.”

“Yeah, that’s — that’s exactly it,” Lloyd blinks.

Pixal makes a quiet noise. “My home is a person as well, Lloyd,” she admits. Her voice turns rueful. “But I cannot go anywhere. Not really.”

“Oh.” Lloyd’s stomach twists. Geez, he’s here feeling sorry for himself when Pixal doesn’t even have a body. Why doesn’t she have a body? They should get on that—

“Don’t worry yourself about it,” Pixal says gently. “I am fine. And our people will return, we just have to be patient. It’s only been a month.”

“Just a month?” Lloyd glances at his phone, checking the tiny digital calendar. His eyes catch the date ahead and his stomach turns. Oh. He hadn’t known that date was — that soon.

He quickly thinks of something else.

“Hey,” Lloyd says, breaking the silence. “What if I like – what if we snatched some old robot model from Mr. Borg for the day, and we checked out that new market downtown?”

Pixal is quiet for a beat, and the silence sounds almost guilty. “That wouldn’t — I’m afraid that’s not quite possible at the moment.”

“Oh.” It’s Lloyd’s turn to fall quiet for a moment. Then—

“Okay, but what if I brought you with me as a radio? I can just lug it around the whole time, and you can look at – aw, shoot, you gotta be able to see too – what if I brought you as like, my phone or something, like a laptop and I just have Skype running the whole time—“

Pixal sighs. “The radio will work just fine.” Her voice is more amused than exasperated, and Lloyd feels a wild surge of relief that he didn’t just drive her away, too.

__ __ __ __

Look, he knows he didn’t drive them away. Okay? He gets that they needed to split up. And he’s used to it. People leave all the time, and he should just be glad this isn’t one of the permanent ones. Because he’s had a lot of people leave him for really, really long times, too. He’s used to it.

The only problem there is that if he is, in fact, used to it, he should be desensitized to it, and not – feel as much, about it.

It’s not even like they leave him, really. It’s Lloyd. Lloyd is the one complicating things or driving people away or failing one too many times or just – sending them to Cursed Realms and losing them in a time stream because he couldn’t—

It’s Lloyd. He can’t go blaming them for his own issues.

Besides, it’s not like this time is – it’s not the same. Again, the ninja aren’t leaving-leaving him. They’re splitting up for a mission, they’ll be back.

This isn’t like with Zane. They’ll be back, on their own this time. Lloyd won’t have to wear them down, or lure them to a tournament, or anything. This is different.

It’s different, he tells himself fiercely, staring up at the cracked ceiling of his apartment, the ceiling fan drifting in slow, dizzy circles. This is different.

__ __ __ __

On Lloyd’s list of Things He’s Never Going To Voice Out Loud, To Any Sane Person: sometimes he feels like Morro’s still in his head.

Like – it’s trauma, he gets that. It’s bad memories and flashbacks and whatever acronym Zane keeps throwing at him that Lloyd can’t remember.

But sometimes the voice is just – it’s Morro’s grating timbre pitch for pitch, all mocking and bitter and sneaking up on him at the worst of times. Like right now, when it’s been two weeks since he last heard from anyone, and the silence in his apartment is getting too loud.

It’s you, the voice’ll say. That’s why they left. They grew tired of you. You drove them away.

Shut up, Lloyd thinks.

You’re not useful to them anymore, you know that, right? You couldn’t even save your own uncle, much less lead anyone. Why would they keep you around after that?

Shut up! Lloyd thunks his head against the wall, eyes squeezing shut tight. A throbbing pain echoes from the impact, and he winces.

Oops, he thinks, staring dully at the dent in the bathroom wall. Of all the things to get charged extra rent for.

Lloyd shakes his head, as if to shake off the thoughts as well. His wet hair swings out as he does, sending little droplets all over the bathroom mirror. Lloyd makes a face. As if he needed more evidence that his hair is getting too long.

And it is, really. His usual haircut’s almost entirely grown out, shiny blond locks long enough that they can form wavy little curls now. Lloyd brushes one from his face as he digs through the cluttered drawer of his bathroom vanity for scissors. It’s taking him a minute, because it’s a bit of a mess, but he’s not going to just admit that, not when Pixal’s been hounding him about cleaning your bathroom a lot lately.

It’s not like she has to live here, Lloyd grumbles to himself. He snatches the scissors from the bottom of the drawer, running a hand through the tangles in his hair and preparing to cut it back into the more familiar style—

Lloyd’s hand suddenly hesitates, his fingers stilling on the scissors.

It’s his father’s style. He’s known that. But looking in the mirror right now, at the sharper edge of his cheekbones and the dark red of his eyes, he realizes that he’s starting to match a little too—

Lloyd swallows. And there’s a reminder. He’d almost forgotten, that the date’s coming up. He isn’t gonna call it an anniversary, because that makes it sound like a celebration, and it’s definitely not, it’s just…an unfortunate date, in Lloyd’s history.

At any rate, he won’t match his dad. Not when his dad’s dead.

And who killed him, I wonder.

Lloyd chucks the scissors back in the drawer so hard he’s pretty sure he hears them break. He slams the drawer shut, exhaling shakily.

You know what, he’s kind of liking the feel of longer hair right now. It looks okay, he thinks. It looks like — well, Lloyd, he guesses.

__ __ __ __

His bathroom is a mess, though. Lloyd should probably clean it. He should probably call the others, too , just because — well, he needs to — he’s leader, so—

He needs an excuse.

Lloyd sighs, toeing the bathroom door shut. Aw, whatever. He can clean it tomorrow.

__ __ __ __

With the benefit of hindsight, Lloyd should probably retract his earlier claim that he’s used to fighting on his own enough not to screw up.

Probably because he screws up.

It’s not even his fault, really. How was he supposed to know that the rumors about the local biker gang getting more aggressive were under-exaggerated? They’re bikers, Lloyd can explode stuff with his hands, it should’ve been an easy fight.

And it was, right up until the part where the biker with the red mask whipped a gun out and shot him through the leg.

Jerk move, Lloyd thinks hazily, half-hopping through his apartment door, trying to stop at least some blood from getting all over the floor. Real jerk move.

He didn’t even catch the guy, either, which makes this whole thing so much worse, he thinks darkly to himself, as he stumbles his way to the bathroom. He probably should’ve just sucked it up and checked himself into the hospital, but Lloyd hates the hospital, and it’s really not that bad. He’s got plenty of medical supplies he stuffed in the sink cabinet of the bathroom, so he can just — patch it up with that real quick, then sleep it off.

You can’t sleep off a gunshot wound, Zane’s voice echoes in his head, and Lloyd blocks it out, carefully lowering himself down to the floor so he can—

His leg suddenly shifts wrong, and it flares in an agony so fiery that Lloyd’s vision goes white for a beat, a high-pitched keening echoing like a bomb’s been set off in his face, except it’s not his face it’s his leg, FSM that hurts, that hurts—

Lloyd braces himself on his forearms, drawing in strained breaths through his nose. It’ll stop hurting in a minute, he knows it will. He just has to give it time. But in the meantime, it’d be really nice — if he could just be sure — it’d be nice to ask Zane, you know, or have like, Nya here, or Kai, or—

The pain in his leg is finally starting to subside, but Lloyd’s still swallowing a sob. He wants his family here. He wants them here now, right now, so they can make it better—

His leg throbs again, and anger lights in his gut. No, you know what? He doesn’t want to see them. He doesn’t want them to come back, because he’s angry at them — he’s angry, they left him here alone and they should feel bad about it, should feel bad that Lloyd’s here all alone with his stupid leg bleeding everywhere, should feel bad when Lloyd doesn’t even wanna see them because he wants them to feel how he feels, all torn up and scared and dumb and miserable—

Lloyd exhales on a gasp, and the dam breaks.

He’s being an idiot, he tells himself fiercely, through hot tears. That’s something nine-year-old brat-from-hell Lloyd would think. Of course he wants them back. It’s not their fault Sensei went missing. None of this is their fault, Lloyd would give his right arm to have them back right now, if he could.

It’s not their fault Lloyd is—

Fine.

He’s fine.

Mostly.

__ __ __ __

Patching his leg is easy, once he manages to stop crying and choke the painkiller down.

Lloyd scrubs at his eyes, sniffling miserably. His nose is horribly stuffed and his head feels like it’s about to explode, but the awful need to sob is finally ebbing into residual shudders that leave Lloyd wrung out, miserable, and just – exhausted, he’s exhausted, that’s the word. Tired. He’s tired of getting up and feeling miserable every day, he’s tired of feeling sorry for himself, he’s tired of missing everyone, and he’s really, stupid tired of bikers that get lucky hits in when he’s got his guard down.

He stares at the dirty floor through grainy eyes. There’s blood all over the linoleum tile, and an old stain right by his foot that looks a lot like dried blood. It probably is blood, he thinks. And now he’s just adding more. Gross.

That’s…probably unsanitary.

On second thought, Pixal has a point. Lloyd does need to clean the bathroom already.

__ __ __ __

Several hours later finds Lloyd on one knee — the other is sprawled out awkwardly as it occasionally sparks green, which he’s ignoring right now — the sleeves of his too-large hoodie pulled up and his hair pushed back by the hideous purple-blue tye-die headband that’d been on sale at the checkout counter when he’d picked up groceries a while back.

He’s hauled the radio into the bathroom, and it’s playing some new synth-pop music that echoes weirdly off the tiles. He thinks he might like the music — that or he’s just been listening to it for too long.

His nose wrinkles as he strains further over the shower floor, scrubbing harder at a particularly stubborn stain. He’s really gotta start taking better care of this place, he thinks.

His leg twinges, and he winces, closing his eyes and taking a breath.

He should…probably start taking better care of himself, while he’s at it. He’s been doing a pretty sucky job, apparently.

Lloyd just wasn’t meant to live alone, he decides dully. It doesn’t suit him.

__ __ __ __

By the fifth day out Lloyd’s leg is starting to heal up pretty nicely. There’s a very large part of him that suspects the unusually quick healing time has something to do with the vivid green that’s bleeding into his irises, growing by the day. He’s not sure where suddenly having green eyes gets off equating to accelerated powers, but he can walk to the grocery store before he starves, so he’ll take it.

He buys himself enough to last a few weeks, which ends up being one grocery bag too many, so climbing the stairs to his apartment is a pain, especially when Minerva, the fat cat, runs between his feet and almost trips him back down the stairs. He finally manages to reach his floor and shakes the key from his jacket, balances the grocery bags in one hand, and keys the door open.

And promptly has a heart attack.

“Hey, about time!” Kai says brightly — Kai says brightly, where he’s sprawled across his cheap sofa, in his apartment.

Why is he in his apartment? Lloyd blinks once, hard. Still there. Is he hallucinating—?

“Need help with those?”

Nya is suddenly in his apartment too, grabbing a grocery bag from him and setting it over by the kitchenette.

“Sorry we didn’t warn you,” Cole says, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, and — FSM, are they all here? “Pixal told us where you lived, so we’d all planned to meet here, and I guess we…kinda all…forgot to tell you.”

“We all assumed the other group would,” Zane says, spearing Cole with a look. “Our apologies for barging in.”

“It’s a great apartment, though!” Jay exclaims, where he’s bent over his book case. “I wouldn’t have guessed you’d be into the whole interior design thing, but this is pretty nice.”

“Admit it, you were betting he’d moved into another volcano,” Kai snorts.  “Seriously though, green machine, how many plants do you need—“

“Leave him alone, I like the plants, I think they’re a nice touch—“

“Lloyd?” Nya’s voice is suddenly quiet. “Are you alright? I really am sorry we didn’t call first.”

Lloyd just stares at her with the same blank look he’s been staring at them all with for the last few minutes, still frozen in place. Is this what shock feels like? a part of him wonders.

“You’re here,” he says, blankly. “You’re all — here?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jay says, as if it’s obvious. “We said we were gonna check in, right? You didn’t get hit in the head while we were gone, did you?”

Nya whacks him on the shoulder. “Of course we’re here,” she says. “Your apartment is super easy to break into, you know. Gotta get a better lock.”

“Oh,” Lloyd says, weakly. “Um. Yeah. I — sorry, I just…wasn’t expecting, I guess. You guys to come now, that is.”

The mood suddenly shifts, and Lloyd’s not sure to what, but they don’t look as bright and happy anymore. Kai lifts a shoulder, then drops it, suddenly looking a little unsure. “I guess we should’ve checked, about the date,” he admits. “But we, uh, we just wanted to be here, for you.”

Lloyd blinks rapidly. “You wanted – why?”

Kai looks at Cole, chewing on the inside of his cheek briefly. “Well it’s…the day your dad got banished, isn’t it?”

The breath rushes from Lloyd’s lungs like a freight train, and oh. Oh. They remembered. They remembered, all by themselves, and they came back without him even asking, and—

“Oh,” Lloyd says, quietly.

Kai looks stricken. “Oh no,” he says. “You’re not going to cry. Lloyd, please, every time you go off I go off, so don’t — oh Lloyd, no.”

He tries, okay? He tries to stop it. But the cracks in his walls have turned to cracks in a dam, and the dam’s gotten a lot higher than he realized, and the cracks are suddenly big and torn and gaping—

Lloyd opens his mouth to reply and ends up hiccuping out a sob instead. “I’m sorry,” he croaks. “I just—“ he wipes fiercely at his eyes. “I really missed you guys, and that’s — that’s really nice of you, and—“

“FSM, Kai, suck it up.” Cole’s eyes are sympathetic, and suddenly Lloyd is in a very warm and very tight embrace. “This isn’t about you.”

“That’s not what I—!”

Kai cuts his own self off and joins the hug, and then Nya’s there, and a couple more arms that are Zane and Jay and Lloyd’s kind of suffocating a bit because the AC still isn’t on yet, but—

They came back.

Oh wow, Lloyd really wasn’t fine about that, was he.

__ __ __ __

They all stay in Lloyd’s apartment that night, which is a horrible decision, because he’s got one bed and one couch that shouldn’t really be called a couch, and there’s no room at all, but it’s free, Jay argues, so they can suck it up for the night.

They do, and Zane makes dinner with the few edible items Lloyd has and it actually tastes good,  Cole gets music on and Jay’s chattering with Nya and Kai’s hounding him about his hair, and it’s the loudest Lloyd’s apartment has been in months.

His landlady’s gonna give him heck about it, but Lloyd can’t find it in himself to care. He spends that night on his terrible sofa, crammed up between Nya and Kai with his cheek smushed into Kai’s shoulder, listening to Cole snore a room over, and it’s easier to fall into a sleepy lull than it’s ever been here.

“Hey,” Nya whispers to him, after Kai’s breathing evens out. “I really missed you, by the way.”

Lloyd rubs at his eye, yawning. “I missed you too,” he murmurs. “I mean, it hasn’t been awful, but—“

“Being alone sucks,” Nya finishes. “A lot. I miss everyone.”

Lloyd is quiet. “I do too,” he finally whispers.

“It’s too quiet,” Nya continues. “I keep having to blare music so I don’t lose it.”

“That’s what I’ve been doing,” Lloyd whispers. “Hey, have you heard, uh — it’s that weird sort of synth music—“

“The only thing they play on the hits channel now?”

“Yeah, that one. It’s not half bad.”

“Please tell me that’s not what you’ve been listening too, Lloyd. I thought you had taste—“

Lloyd stuffs down a giggle, burying his head into the couch. He knows it’s not gonna last much longer, and soon they’ll be off again, but—

They’ll be back. And for now, with them here—

That aching hunger in his chest doesn’t feel as much like starving.