#oni horns are sensitive.. the power this gives me for garmadon and lloyd... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

21st-century-ninja · 2 years

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Ahhhhh Fabro my beloved, again much congrats for this achievement!

📝 uhhhh I for the life of me can’t think of a good prompt lol so… surprise me! I know you know me good enough to know what I would like lol

aaah thank u rosie!!! i actually went into this one trying to purposely write h/c so you'll have to tell me how I did XD I gifted this to you on ao3 but lemme know if you don't want it and I'll take it off :D

got a crown on my head

setting: ns8 characters: Lloyd, Cole wc: 999 words other tags: oni!Lloyd, h/c ninbingo prompt: hugs on ao3 here

There's a saying that Lloyd heard once before, back before the prophecy had even been fulfilled, back when his father was still alive and he was just a little kid with overplaced confidence and a lack of understanding.

He'd been up to get a glass of water from the kitchen when he’d heard hushed voices. He’d plastered himself against the hallway wall and strained his ear for words.

“I feel bad for pushing him, but he has to be trained. Even if that means spending every waking hour preparing him for the Final Battle, that’s just how it’s got to be.”

“But he’s still a child!”

“He’s the Green Ninja,” Zane said, something heavy weighing his voice.

"Heavy is the head that wears the crown," Kai'd added somberly, and there had been noises of agreement.

At the time, Lloyd hadn't really gotten it. There was no crown on his head, although it would have been sick if there was.

Now, years later, after the Overlord, after Morro, after Harumi – he does. The title of Green Ninja, the reality of being Garmadon’s son, have brought hardships down on his head time and time again.

Now, he might not be wearing an actual crown.

But the newly-grown horns sprouting from his forehead are just as heavy as any crown, figurative or otherwise.

Lloyd grips the edge of the bathroom counter, trying to calm his heartbeat. The ritual is over. They stopped the ritual in time, and Harumi’s being carted off to prison, and the ritual is over so why haven’t the horns gone away?

His head tips forward without his permission, unbalanced by the black points rising from his temples. There’s a horrible crunching noise as the tips of them sink through the wall. Panicking, green sparks fly at his fingertips as he boosts his power and yanks his head back with all his might. He goes crashing into the opposite wall, chunks of drywall and part of the beam still clinging to his horns.

“Ugh.”

“Lloyd!” Footsteps rush a suspiciously short distance to the bathroom door, and Cole’s voice lifts in concern. “Are you okay in there?”

Lloyd clenches his hands into fists. “No, sorry, I’m okay. I just-”

He trails off, unable to verbalize all that’s just wrong. Cole is silent for a moment. And then the bathroom door handle turns and he says, “I’m coming in.”

Lloyd doesn’t look up when he enters. All he hears is Cole’s quiet, small exhale, and then there are warm hands on his cheeks and his eyes raise to meet Cole’s. Cole smiles gently.

“There you are. Looks like you got in a bit of a pickle.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Lloyd grouses. He lets Cole pull away the debris, wincing at the tugs against his sensitive horns.

“Sorry,” Cole says, setting it all to the side. His fingers linger on his horns, his eyes on the color that darkens his fingertips. But he drags both of them away a second later and sits back on his haunches. “That better?”

“Yeah. Thanks. You know, I’m starting to think I should just live in here to avoid destroying anything else.”

He laughs. Cole doesn’t. Even without looking at him, Lloyd can feel the weight of Cole’s eyes. “But that’s not really the reason you’re hiding in here.”

Lloyd bites his lip. “It’s not.”

“Wanna tell me about it?”

The words are non-expecting – like if he says no, Cole really will let him drop it. And it’s that of all things which has Lloyd’s mouth opening and spilling his thoughts.

"What if- what if everyone thinks I'm horrible now? That I'm a monster, now that I look like this?" He gives in and rests his forehead against his arms, taking the strain from his neck and probably screwing it up in a whole new way. “She said she was drawing on my oni traits to bring him back. That this has always been inside me.” He clenches his fists again. “Maybe – maybe I am a monster.”

If Kai were here, or Nya, they’d jump to Lloyd’s defense immediately. Cole is silent instead. But when he does speak, Lloyd listens with his full focus. "You know, I was a ghost this one time."

Despite himself, Lloyd can't help but snort. "'This one time'?"

“Shush, just listen!” Cole chides good-naturedly. He sits down beside Lloyd, pressing warm against his side as he leans back against the wall. “Yeah, I was a ghost, and it was right after ghosts had destroyed Stiix, remember? And I was just so afraid of people’s reactions. Like, I was the same now as the things that had ruined thousands of people’s lives. It would make sense for them to hate me.

“And yeah, sure sometimes there was a dirty look or mean comment thrown my way. And sometimes people would see me and clench their drinks like they weren’t sure if they wanted to throw them at me and watch me disappear.” He breathes in a shuddery breath. “Sorry. But do you know what made it bearable, especially for those first couple of months?”

He looks over at Lloyd, and his eyes are soft. “It was you guys.”

He reaches forward and unclenches Lloyd’s fingers, squeezing gently over the indents his pointed fingertips dug into his skin. “You never treated me differently – and when I say “you”, I literally mean you this time, Lloyd, even when you would have been totally justified to.”

He opens his arms. Like a magnet, Lloyd falls into them. Cole pulls him close.

"You're still the same Lloyd Garmadon, horns or not. And we’re still your brothers, oni or not. Got it?"

Lloyd resigns himself to the fact, again, that any kind words from the others are still enough to get him sniffling. Cole smiles into his shoulder.

“Hey, at least we stopped the ritual,” he says. “Just imagine: two oni running around Ninjago.”

Lloyd laughs wetly. “Yeah, no thanks,” he says. “I’ll pass.”

#ninjago #fic #my fic #lloyd #cole #ninbingo 22 #ninbingo #999 follower event

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