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Lloyd didn't mean for it to get so serious. Honestly, he didn't. It had started out as an accident during training one night, where he had absentmindedly gone to scratch at his arm and his sword beat him to the punch.
He flinched, the sharp sting of his skin breaking startling him more than anything. But as the cut faded to irritation, he found himself thinking back to the sting, and how his focus had tunneled to hone in on the small beads of blood forming where the sword had broken skin.
Although it was a relatively small cut, Lloyd could feel the skin shift as he put his sword away, deciding that he was done training for the evening. He wrapped that one section in a bandage before going to bed, mind tired and arm slightly sore.
It as later that week that Lloyd sat in the bathroom, resting his forehead against the cold white of the toilet to attempt to calm himself down. He was so stupid.
He needed to be perfect for Ninjago. He wasn't supposed to mess up, god damn it-
He felt his stomach lurch, and he pressed his skin more into the porcelain. Shivers crawled down his spine, but he was unsure if it was from the temperature or his own mind. Earlier that day swirled through his mind, thinking of the annoyed looks he had gotten from his teammates, and the even angrier look he had gotten from the shop owner as he stared at the store front that he had accidently hit with his energy. Why was he so useless?
He scraped his teeth against his lip, gnawing down a little too hard, which caused a bolt of ache to ripple through his skin. Without even realizing it, his mind drifted back to a few days ago, and his eyes cast downwards towards the now faded mark on his forearm. He remembered how consuming the sting from the cut had been, and his brain connected the dots with a jolt of his heart.
His fingers twitched, but he didn't move.
Lloyd sat paralyzed, blonde hair falling into his eyes as his mind buzzed. Could he even get away with that?
He looked away from his arm, rubbing his forehead even more against the toilet to move the locks from his face. He chewed on his lip with even more force, the metallic tang of his own blood staining his tongue with watery crimson. His breaths hitched in his throat, his brain reeling.
With shaky legs, he stood. His eyes quickly scanned the bathroom, not finding many objects of use to him, until they fell on the pair of scissors that Kai had used to cut his hair the day before. Opening them and tapping the ends to find the sharpest point, Lloyd quickly grasped them in his right hand, the metal barely hovering above the skin on his ankle, not daring to go somewhere so visible as his arm.
Was he really about to do this?
Emerald eyes were blocked by tears, and Lloyd threw the scissors to the ground with a sob, burying his head in his arms with a muffled whine. He sat and cried for a few minutes, attempting to muffle his noises with his shirt sleeve, the green fabric darkening. He waned off of the crying with a shudder, raising his eyes to find the abandoned blades resting silently on a tile a few paces away. With a quiet grunt and one last swipe of his eyes, he stood and placed the scissors back on the sink, shut the bathroom light off, and left for his room.
It was two days later that the same feeling sat in the back corner of his mind, but this time it was as he watched Zane chop vegetables for dinner that night. The cuts were so clean and effortless, surely it wouldn't leave that much of a mark if he just-
"Lloyd, are you alright?" Zane peered over his shoulder, his hands hesitating as he watched the green ninja zone out on his chopping.
"Yeah, yeah, sorry," Lloyd blinked himself out of it, and Zane cast a small smile his way before returning to his cooking. Lloyd's cheeks burned with embarrassment, and he decided that it was probably better to leave before he accidently did that again. So he bid Zane a soft farewell before he went to go wait for dinner in his room, fingers trembling in his hoodie pocket. He shut the door to his room with a thump, and moved to clutch his pillow to try and still his frenzied heart.
Thoughts moving faster than he could process, he pressed his face into the soft fabric, his throat closing with emotion as his breath shuddered out of his mouth. You can't even be around your friends without causing issues.
Without thinking, he ripped his hoodie sleeve up and raked his nails down his arm.
The sting hit him immediately, and he bit the pillow to muffle the noise that escaped him as distinct lines of pain burned his arm. His mind halted for a moment, focused on the way that he could practically feel the raised skin forming where his nails were, and he realized that this was the same way he had felt with the sword. Distracted.
To his relief, he realized that scratches on his skin wouldn't leave any lasting marks, and he pulled his hoodie sleeve back down when he went to dinner, the team none the wiser to the thoughts tumbling through Lloyd's head.
That night, he sat in his room, cross legged on his bed with his head hunched over, elbows resting on his lap. He had changed into a pajama shirt for the night, the short sleeves making it easy to see the faint marks left by his nails. He found them pleasing to look at, neat lines etched beneath a light dusting of blonde arm hair. However, they were incredibly light, as none of the scratches had even come close to drawing blood.
So when his thoughts predictably turned for the worse later in the evening, he crept to the bathroom once more. Kai's scissors were still on the sink, the Fire Ninja too lazy to put them away, and the other ninja not bothered enough yet to do it for him. Lloyd shut the door and locked it, knowing he could easily feign an excuse if someone were to knock.
So he sat on the ground, and yanked his pants up to his knee, cocking his leg to the side for better access to his shin. He held the grip the same way as he did the other night before he paused. Surely there was a better place than his ankle...
So he thought for a moment, heart beating like a hummingbird's as his eyes scanned his body, eventually falling on his upper thigh, where his skin met his boxers. He unceremoniously shuffled off his pants, and held the scissors once more, this time the tip rested on his thigh, and the slightly sting from the chill of the metal sent shivers up his spine.
You deserve this.
With a deep breath in and out, he dragged the blade across his skin. The pain blindsided him for a moment, his vision whited out as his breath hitched, the scrape into his leg turned red and angry quickly, small beads of blood forming where the pressure had been greater. He used his fingers to spread the cut curiously, enamored by the crack he had created in his own dermis. With fascination, he moved a little downwards, and repeated his actions.
This continued only a few more times, until three cuts had been made on each leg. One for each person that had been injured when he had blown that energy ball into the storefront. Lloyd's mind felt akin to gelatin, the negative feelings having been diluted by the pain in his thighs. With a light sigh, he rinsed the scissors under cold water, and set them back on the counter where he head found them. He put his pants back on, and the feeling of the fabric rubbing against his wounds irritated him less than he had thought it would. With his mind shut down for the time being, he went to bed, falling asleep faster than he had in a long time.
The next morning, a strange sense of giddiness swept through his stomach as he look at the scabbed over cuts, the lines much darker now the the blood had solidified. He lightly scraped his nails over the bumps, catching on the scabs before he hauled himself out of bed to start his day, eager for the night to come so he could repeat the process once more.
It was almost entertaining, to talk with Cole, spar with Kai, cook with Jay, and meditate with Zane, all of the while knowing that they were in the dark. This was the one thing they couldn't control for him. The missions they had kept him out of, his diet, even his leisure time were all usually dictated for him.
So the feeling of control was rather nice, in short.
Whenever he messed up in training, he added one tally mark to the mental list, soon to be imprinted onto his skin.
It became routine. Day after day, he'd count how much he'd messed up, even count things multiple times if they were really bad, and he moved onto his stomach when he run out of room on his upper thighs. He avoided the arms and the calves, knowing that those were the most exposed areas during training, and he knew the hell he'd get if the team saw methodic and evenly spaced red lines carved into his skin.
He loved Kai's scissors, and nighttime became his favorite time, when he could lock himself in the bathroom and dig as deep as he dared with the scissor blades, usually not drawing too much blood but relishing in the sting.
That is, until one day he remembered the box of extra razors that sat under the sink. That night had been especially bad, he had dropped some plates and Zane had gotten frustrated with him - something that was so unlike the Ice Ninja that it had made Lloyd huddle in his room after with tears streaming down his face. Zane had apologized afterwards, worry etched onto his brow, but Lloyd didn't quite believe that he didn't deserve it.
Fucking clutz.
So Lloyd fumbled with a blade in between his fingers, holding the edges against his outer thigh as his chest gasped, a feeling not unlike the first night he had used the scissors blooming in his gut. The feeling of pure, unfiltered adrenaline ran through his veins as he dragged the razor across the skin, and blood immediately started pooling where he had cut. Shit, he wasn't used to that-
He grabbed some toilet paper and held it against the cut, cursing himself for forgetting that scissors mostly scraped, but blades knew how to slice. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
After the initial wave of panic had passed, Lloyd once again found himself fascinated by the red staining the paper. It was odd, something so uncontrolled to come out of something that Lloyd had done himself. Yes, he used to the motion of the blade across his skin, but these consequences were more than what he was used to.
After the bleeding had subsided enough, he tilted his waist to the other side to allow access to his opposite leg. He repeated the stroke, but this time prepared for the blood. His thighs burned more than usual, the new type of cut unusual. He tried using the scissors once more on the top of his thighs, but found that the ache wasn't enough anymore.
So, he retired the scissors, and made sure to hide the bloodied tissue. When Kai brought it up the next morning over breakfast, Lloyd laughed it off as a nosebleed, and the team mumbled in sympathy, the altitude of their travels making them no stranger to their fair share.
He made sure to throw them away more discreetly in the future.
When he got hit by a snake's sword, he realized that he had never considered the possibility of getting hurt on the battlefield. It sounded stupid, sure, considering his line of work, but passing out and needing medical attention on his stomach was not really something he had planned for. So as he laid on the ground, vision hazy as Cole went to pick him up to bring him back to the Bounty, he let out a weak groan of protest and went to shove the Earth Ninja back. However, with his loss of strength from getting sliced, he didn't get too far.
Cole let out a grumble of pity, and Lloyd's last panicked thoughts before he went under made his heart seize, a voice in the back of his mind telling him that when he woke up, there would be hell to pay.
...
When he opened his eyes, he was alone. He was tucked into bed, bandages wrapped snugly around his midsection, and he had been changed into pajamas sometime while he was blacked out. His heart exploded. If they had taken off his pants, then there was no way that they didn't see the scars and scabs, some of them fresh from the night before.
The Green Ninja went to sit up, but found that it sent a shock of pain through his middle, so he reclined in bed and cried, hugging his pillow to his face to muffle the tears as he knew that the next ninja to walk into his room was going to hate him, was going to think he was weak.
Fucking stupid.
Useless piece of shit.
Why can't you get anything right?
He barely noticed when the door creaked open, only tensing when he heard it softly shut behind the guest.
"Hey, kid," Cole said soothingly, sitting down on the bed to run a gentle hand through Lloyd's hair. "It's ok, I'm not mad, you're ok."
"I'm sorry," Lloyd apologized, although it sounded incredibly pathetic as his voice cracked, which made him curl even more into the pillow he was clutching.
"Don't be, don't be sorry," The Earth Ninja continued to rub circles into blonde locks. "We're not mad at you. Anything you see as angry is probably just concern. We're not mad."
There was silence between the pair for a while, Lloyd trying and failing not to cry into his pillow even more, and Cole just simply being there, his hand warm. That is, until Cole felt like it was safe to prod a little bit.
"So... how long?"
"A few months, I guess. Haven't really been keeping track."
Cole hummed, although Lloyd wasn't sure if it was in acknowledgement or sympathy. Lloyd realized with a sinking feeling that he probably couldn't cut anymore, at least in the same capacity. They'd be watching now.
"You don't have to answer if you don't want to, because I know you probably don't want me here right now anyway, but why? What make you do it?"
"I- I..." Lloyd felt his throat close, and he shook his head into the pillow, Cole's hand moving down to his back.
"Okay, okay, too much. We can stop."
Soothing circles were rubbed against his spine, and Lloyd knew that the Earth Ninja could feel how shaky his breaths were.
"You probably can't move too much right now, but would you be ok if I let the others in? I promise that they won't flip out on you. They're just worried, and I think the longer you wait the more doted on you're gonna be, which I know you don't like," Cole rambled, and Lloyd shrugged.
"That a yes?"
Another shrug.
"Ok, I'm gonna bring them in. You want them to leave, just tug on my sleeve, yeah?"
This time, his statement earned a nod.
Lloyd felt like crying all over again when he felt a soft kiss on his forehead.
"Alright green-bean. I'll be back in a few."
And although Lloyd was scared, he couldn't help but feel relief when Kai pulled him into a hug, the Fire Ninja laying down behind him to tug him close, mumbling apologies to him all the while for not being there. Lloyd would think it overwhelming if he knew it wasn't from such genuine feelings. Jay sat by his feet, uncharacteristically not saying much. He let Kai talk for him, mostly. Zane stood, almost as if he was afraid that Lloyd might break if he stepped closer.
With his family surrounding him and his pillow still pressed up against his body, Lloyd started to cry once more, but this time, the others were there for him, and they wouldn't be leaving anytime soon.