Chapter Text
The smoke did not provide him with any more answers.
Not for lack of attempts of course.
Wu had tried. He reset the candles, lit them with a spark of his own elemental power and settled into meditative repetition.
The smoke smelled the same as it always did but the visions never came or at least not the ones he wanted. Which hadn’t happened in quite some time. Usually Wu would be able to focus on the subject and things surrounding that subject would come to him, brief flashes of color and detailed answers to any questions he may have passively asked.
But now? The visions were dull. Irrelevant and repetitive.
He tried to find answers in smoke for quite some time but none came. He felt a spark of frustration but it quickly faded away. No matter, there were other ways of finding the answers he seeks.
(He couldn’t help but wonder about his nephew. He was present at the festivity after the birth. Of course he would be, he was thrilled that Garmadon had found love and now had a son to love after as well. Even if he loved Misako as well, the choice was her’s and she chose Garmadon.
Wu was able to hold Lloyd that night. A small thing, wrapped in soft fabric. A patch of white gold hair that reminded Wu fiercely of his father and large pale red eyes that he certainly inherited from Garmadon. Who’s eyes had slowly darkened and turned a blood red over the years. In all honesty Wu was surprised his nephew had inherited such a trait, as in the beginning, in their childhood—Garmadon’s eyes were a light blue.
At first they worried that maybe Lloyd had inherited part of his father’s evil but as the child babbled happily and tried to kick his legs free from the swaddle, Wu breathed a sigh of relief. He could not sense any of the same evil that he sensed dully and constantly from Garmadon. Garmadon held his child and thanked the dragons of old for the miracle.)
Wu needed to find out why his nephew was running around without Misako. Had something happened to her? Wu had not been in contact with Misako for some time, since before Garmadon’s fall even. At first he waited to hear from her but he eventually came to the realization that she must’ve been grieving for her lost husband and surely she was angry at Wu for what he had done. Despite the evil in his brother, she still loved him. They had gotten married under moonlight, with white lilies in Misako's hair and black purple roses in Garmadon’s. It was a lovely ceremony.
They talked often. Regularly. The three of them, along with whatever other elemental master wished to attend, ate biscuits and drank tea together.
But when Garmadon found out that their father hadn’t taken the Golden Weapons with him…
Well the venom began speaking in earnest.
Wu had no choice.
But Misako didn’t see it that way.
She screamed, she yelled and never even bothered to remove Lloyd from the room. Maybe he should have said something, maybe he should’ve spoken to her before their relationship fractured beyond repair.
They had not spoken in some time.
Maybe he’ll send her a letter.
A peaceful, neutral letter. Asking after her health and Lloyd’s own wellbeing. Yes. That should be sufficient.
Hopefully he will find out why the vision of his nephew is marred by uncertainty and fatelessness.
Or maybe perhaps he should find her, deliver the letter in person.
No. A letter for now.
One asking to meet in person.
Maybe he should restock on tea.
Yes. Tea.
Hopefully Misako’s tea preferences haven't changed.
(::)
Kai was trying to teach Lloyd to pit-pocket.
Not the most noble way of getting coin but certainly the most logical one for them at the moment. Lloyd and — Rin— were eight. Ish. Eightish. They couldn’t exactly get jobs.
Lloyd was surprisingly open to it but then again— school for bad boys remember?
Kai was…fine with it. He did it plenty when it was just him and Nya. Even Nya did it.
And Lloyd was surprisingly good at it too. Maybe Kai shouldn’t be so surprised at this point.
So maybe Kai wasn’t trying to teach Lloyd to pit-pocketing more like he was opening Lloyd up to the idea. Because they couldn’t get jobs and the food from Darkely’s didn’t last very long. It didn’t even last them the week.
So.
Stealing.
Lloyd might’ve even been better than Kai.
—||—
Lloyd dumped fifteen different purses into Kai’s lap.
Kai stared.
Lloyd beamed, looking way too pleased with himself.
“Lloyd,” Kai said carefully. “Why are there so many?”
Lloyd frowned, eyes scrunching up thoughtfully. “You said the more the better,”
“I didn’t mean steal every wallet you can get your hands on,” Kai pursed his lips and picked up a sequenced pink purse with a cartoon dog key chain attached to the uper left corner. It was a crime against fashion. He lifted it and raised an eyebrow. Even though you couldn’t see his eyebrows, Lloyd seemed to get the idea.
“I got that one from a pimp,” Lloyd said proudly and way too innocently.
Kai froze and blinked slowly after a second.
“A…pimp,” Kai couldn’t believe they were suddenly talking about this. “Do you even know what that is?” Because Kai highly doubted he did.
“Yeah!” Lloyd crowed. “A gay person,”
“That’s…” Kai couldn’t decide if he wanted to laugh or scream. “Not what…”
—Rin didn’t know what a pimp was. His Dad called people pimps sometimes.—
Great. Now he….
Kai breathed through his nose. “That’s not what a pimp is,”
“Oh…” Lloyd's mouth twitched. His eyes lagged on the chunky pink purse. “But that’s what Trifen always called me whenever I…got sad about stuff,”
Kai’s fingers closed tighter around the purse, he would glitter all over his hands later wouldn't he? Of course that happened, of course —Trifen ran his mouth unless you punched him until he swallowed his own teeth—
“Trifen called you…”
“A gay pimp,”
Kai bit his cheek. Of course. Those kids would say stuff like that. Of course little boys would insult each other like that. Kai might’ve never been around kids his own age growing up but he helped run a school for a bit. Right before the whole ‘Overlord came back as a virus and was intent on destroying the world’ thing. Kai did not want to repeat that. At all. Thank you. But still, Kai doesn’t know what possessed Wu to give a bunch of fourteen year olds teaching positions at a school but Kai stopped trying to understand the old geezer a long time ago.
Kai had seen social hazing. A surprising amount for the short time he was a teacher. (Again: maybe let your own students grow up a bit before they start teaching kids a couple years younger than them? Hello?)
Insults were normal. Teasing was normal. Bullying was normal. Kai wasn’t happy about it but you couldn’t really change it. Kids were going to be jerks to each other to weed out who had it and who didn’t. —Nobody really bothered Rin after he punched enough of the other kids and never reacted to the fire ants in his bed. Because he always got rid of them before they could even touch him. Lloyd Garmadon was reactive. And that was all the b**tards needed.—
Kai doubted Trifen even knew what a ‘gay pimp’ was.
“You’re not a gay pimp Lloyd,” Kai made himself put down the pink purse, clenching his hands till his knuckles went white.
“You can’t even…” Kai muttered to himself.
Lloyd frowned. “Can’t even what?”
Kai’s eye twitched. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have. Ever. Really. Lloyd wasn’t supposed to hear that last part anyway.
Kai shook his head lightly. He picked up a standard leather wallet, it had some heft to it.
“Nothing, it doesn’t matter,” His tongue was heavy. He opened the wallet and noted that whoever had it must’ve had a weird coin collecting thing going on because most of the coins didn’t even look like they could be used in an actual financial transaction.
“...Rin?”
Kai huffed out a breath. “You’re not a pimp, the guy you took the purse from probably wasn’t a pimp, you shouldn't have called him a pimp and next time don’t take so many wallets. I don’t want to get arrested,”
Lloyd frowned even deeper. “But he was–”
Kai shook his head. He only felt marginally bad.
Lloyd shut his mouth.
Silence.
Silence that lasted too long.
Kai continued to go through the wallets.
Okay maybe he felt worse than just marginally bad.
“Lloyd don’t…” Kai started slowly. Kai looked up and met Lloyd’s rust colored eyes. “Don’t use words you don’t know the meaning of. It makes you sound stupid,”
Lloyd stared at Kai, playing with his hands but nodded slowly, looking down as he bobbed his head.
“Okay…”
Kai nodded too, his tongue was really heavy now. Guess he ran out of words.
The rest of the day didn’t go much better.
—||—
Stealing food from people in the Ninjago mall food court worked great. Sometimes.
—||—
“Go go!” Kai pushed Lloyd to go faster.
He didn’t think they’d attract the police this soon. Especially not mall police.
Both of them had food and drink in their arms. Quite the load too. A prepackaged muffin toppled off the top of the mountain in Lloyd’s arms. He jerked and moved to catched it but—
“Don’t!” Kai continued to run. The guy on the segway yelled after them, waving his baton. “We don’t need it!”
Lloyd nodded shakily and they kept running, using their tiny bodies to their advantage.
Nobody caught them. The overweight cop yelled profanities and people either watched horrified or covered their mouths to keep from laughing. (Some even filmed it.)
They got out.
Kai then later realized that —Rin didn’t like blueberries. At all. He’d rather have all of his organs painstakingly removed one by one then eat anything with blueberries in it.—
Kai did not eat anything with blueberries.
—||—
It was probably somewhere around 3am.
And Kai was not feeling good. He doesn’t really know what it is. His chest’s been feeling tight all day. His hands were shaking more than normal, he’s been staring off—spacing out way more then he should and Lloyd hesitantly asked if he was okay. Twice. (Okay maybe the last one wasn’t as big of a deal but still.)
Kai really doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. Things have been good the last two weeks. They aren’t sick, Lloyd’s doing great. They have food, they have shelter—it’s a spot under one of the bridges, it's out of the way and barely anyone goes under there at all—Kai even knows where the Ninjago pharmacy is. Everything, by all means. Is going great.
So why can’t Kai feel good about it?
The breath shutters in and out of him. His hands are shaking and he can’t help but feel like he’s going to have a heart attack or just nope out of his body entirely. (Technically Rin’s body, he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget that. Maybe nope-ing out wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe…
Kai shouldn’t be thinking like this. It didn’t help. It never helped.)
Maybe Kai should go on a walk.
Take a breather or something.
Kai glanced at Lloyd curled up with a discount pillow they bought from a run down WillGood. He was fine. He was sleeping. He probably wouldn’t even wake up if Kai left.
…
Kai left, but not before pocketing one of the many knives he began to collect almost religiously. You could never be too careful.
He walked. The night was cool. It had rained a little earlier so the air was slightly moist. If not a little dry if you breathed too long. There was a buzzing in the air, occasionally a car would drive past and Kai would smoothly hide behind a public waste bin. It would pass and he would keep going.
Kai wondered in the back of his mind if —if something would happen to him.—
His elemental power or whatever it was right now glowed steadily beneath his sternum, radiating heat and memory. He could just…burn someone if they tried.
Kai remembered. He remembered the heat, searing, scorching heat. Burnt flesh, cooked, roasted, soldered flesh. Blood, metallic and choking. The screaming, high pitched and dangerously close to breaking his ear drums. He remembered how it smelled like death and cooked meat. How it smelled like cinnamon and something exotic. Spiced. He remembered how fast it was. How one moment there was an entire person and how in the next they were nothing but a pile of charcoal dust and blackened bones on the floor. He remembered how fire sang in his blood and thundered through his bones. How it licked at his fingertips and asked for more. He remembered staring down what once was and feeling sick. Nauseous and horrible. A terrible sense of ‘I did that’ overcoming him and strangling him with iron hands. It came in his mind, over and over and over. There was no. Fixing it.
Kai froze, breath coming in sharp.
… oh.
He…
Kai stumbled. Backed up into a wall. His breath coming in even sharper. A wheeze, trembled in his throat and scraped along the roof of his mouth. He sank to his knees and pressed his shaking hands to them.
He…He…
—Rin killed someone. He—he didn’t mean to. He really—that person they—they were going to—Rin would’ve. He knew, he knew what—it. It was his fault. Maybe if he, controlled it better. Maybe if he made his power smaller, maybe they wouldn’t have died. Maybe if he was better they would’ve have—it was—he couldn’t—
Rin didn’t know what to do. It felt like glass. His skin felt like glass. Shattered and broken. He was shattered and broken. His lungs were on fire, burning him and hating him. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know—he couldn’t—what was he going to do—what if—
What if they found him? What if they knew where he was—what if they told Dad? What would he think? What would he say? Would he leave Rin like Mom left Dad? Maybe Rin really was just like Mom. Like—like Dad said sometimes—maybe— Maybe—maybe he would—maybe he was—
But he wasn’t—he didn’t want to be—
But it was, wasn’t it? Wasn’t he—
(Kai choked. Was he crying? He couldn’t tell, he was too busy trying to stop himself from making any noise.
He curled tighter, trying to make it all go away. Trying to make everything okay again.)
Rin didn’t know—he really really didn’t—it wasn’t his fault, but it was? He—
(Kai screwed his eyes shut. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to think, it hurt just to exist.)
What if he—how could he—could he even fix it? Was that—was that possible? Or, or, or, or was it bad forever? Would he—would he hurt more people. Rin may not have liked people all that much but he didn’t want to hurt anybody. That was—that wasn’t—
That's what Mom did. Dad said Mom hurt people and that’s why she left because she didn’t want the people she hurt to come after them? Or—or—or was it—was—was Rin like Mom now? Was he—
Was that good or—was—
(Kai shuttered, curling up even tighter. Pressing his face into his knees. Everything hurt. Everything hurt so bad.
Kai didn’t want everything to hurt.
He just wanted it all to stop.)
What could—Rin didn’t—
What was he supposed to do now?
(Kai just wanted it to stop.)
…
…
…
(It stopped.)
—He…he just wanted to go home.—
But he couldn’t go home. Not anymore. That…
Kai was selfish.
And he hated himself for it.