- WARNING -
This story contains graphic depictions of self harm. Please do not read if this could upset or trigger you.
It starts right off the bat and includes graphic details, so please don't go any further if that's not something you want to read.

This story takes place in the Lego Ninjago Movie universe, not the tv series universe. This is the Lloyd from the movie, and has nothing to do with the show.

This was originally a vent story, but then I continued and ended up with a happy ending. So yes, poor Lloyd is definitely struggling, but he gets a little help from an unexpected friend.

I do have a headcanon that Lloyd struggles with self harm in the movie. To me it just seems like his situation is terribly lonely and also rather abusive. The way he just accepted the 'boo Lloyd' cheer the cheerleaders came up with seemed sort of self deprecating, and the fact that he hopes so hard for his father to care about him is a recipe for disaster. He clearly knows he will never be accepted by the majority, but he tries to pretend it's fine, and his hurt just leaks out all over the place and he seems to have too much of it to be able to hold in.

I'm not sure if I will add onto this or not, I think I'm just going to leave it. I have had a much longer story regarding this topic in the works for a while, but I wanted to get most of the chapters done before I began to post it. I would be better off working on that instead.

So please enjoy this dark little oneshot and hopefully it can also be a bit uplifting in the end.

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Lloyd flipped the blade over in his hand for what was probably about the 30th time, his heart not having stopped racing since before he picked it up.

His sleeves were rolled to just above his elbows, out of interest of not having his usual green hoodie stained in brown or vivid red. Below him, the traffic noise was raging with the sounds of a few too many thousand vehicles traversing the city's busy roads. People pushed by each other on the footpaths that ran parallel to both sides of the road, ducking in and out of brightly lit shop fronts, restaurants and bars. None of them so much as glanced upward in Lloyd's direction, but it was natural that they wouldn't have suspected they were being watched from above. It was a hiding place.

Lloyd uncrossed his legs, and crossed them again in the other direction, eyeing the sharp metal between his fingers nervously. It was going to be different this time. Lloyd could feel it. It wasn't going to be little scratches this time, or gashes that snapped closed when he pulled his hand away. He knew that, and that was why he was so nervous. He wasn't really sure what kinds of things happened when you went deeper than that yet. Wasn't sure how it would feel. All he knew was that he wouldn't forgive himself if he didn't do it this time.

Steeling himself, he switched the blade to his left hand, bringing it to gently prod into the skin on the back of his right arm. He was going to find out what it looked like underneath that blade. He was going to see what he looked like inside. He drew back again, and prepared to make the cut.

He just heard it as it sliced through him, despite the noise of the street below. His flesh opened up wide and white, the little cut sitting comfortably open on its own. He saw no blood, so he immediately went again. Pain shot through him for a second time this session, and this time he saw the blood straight away. It didn't stop him. He was here. He was doing this. He would be damned before he wiped the blood away only to reveal another cut that was too small for him to be satisfied with. He was going to take it as far as he could go.

He did it again. Blood spilled over the edge of the cut, obstructing his view of what he was doing completely. Lloyd presumed it for the best that he couldn't see what he was doing. It would make it easier to do it again. He went again. It hurt. It hurt a lot but he had to keep going. Stopping for a moment, he drew the blade up to his lips, carefully cleaning it with his tongue. The blood was dripping to the rooftop beneath him, at a steady, even pace, and Lloyd did his best to ignore it. He had been preparing to cut through it again, but his chest constricted as he caught sight of the wound. It almost looked... Dare he say, deep enough?

Lloyd took the cloth he had with him, and pressed it against his creation, clearing away the obstruction for a better view of his work. As he pulled it away, it began to fill itself again, and it was only a second before the little, bubbling, fountain like stream had spilled over his arm and onto the tiles again. Lloyd had seen enough to know his cut while perhaps it was deep enough, it certainly wasn't long enough. He went in with the blade again. Somehow, it hurt even more to cut it longer than it did to go in deeper. Once he got past the white into yellow, it didn't feel quite the same way as before. It was still terrible, but he knew he could do more. With the cloth, he wiped the blood away again, and just as he was preparing his blade for another go, something hit him in the face. Lloyd almost dropped the blade in surprise, turning his injured arm away from himself, and reaching up with his clean hand to wipe at his assaulted face. The back of his hand came away smeared with blood. Just a little bit, Lloyd observed, but how on earth had it gotten on his face? It couldn't have been from when he licked the blade?

Lloyd turned his attention back to his bleeding arm, bringing it up into the light to get a better look. As Lloyd gazed at his arm, it wasn't what was on it, but what he saw when he looked right past it that ended up answering his question. Past his arm, the lights of the street corner service station shone bright in pink, yellow and white. What obstructed the light was a thin black line, starting from his arm, and extending up goodness knew how far. As he observed this strange phenomenon, he noticed something even more unusual about it, which was the fact that it was actually moving. Not very much, but moving. Pulsing, almost. Like a heartbeat. As if it was having pressure put on it for just a moment or so, only to have that pressure briefly lapse, only to be reapplied again. On it went, in a pattern of appearing to be pulled taught, and briefly relaxed, then Lloyd moved his arm slightly, and the funny line moved with it. Realisation crashed through Lloyd's head like a road train. The line was actually coming from Lloyd's arm.

Lloyd turned his arm to face himself a little more, and looking at the wound, while still holding his arm against the lights, he could confirm that the line started from inside his injury. Lloyd dropped the silver blade into one of the deeper dips in one of the many roofing tiles, and fumbled with his free hand for his phone. Using his clean thumb, he pulled down the screen with the icon that represented a torch, and clicked on it to have the brighter light shine from the flash on his device.

The silhouette of the pulsing line showed up red in the light, and it became blatantly but gut wrenchingly clear to Lloyd that his arm was shooting blood. Panic sparked through Lloyd as the information slammed itself into him, and he prepared to reach out for the help of the fabric he had on hand in order to stop it, but then he hesitated. This was what he wanted, right? Lloyd asked himself silently as he watched the stream pulse on. He wanted the next wound he made to be more serious. A bit more fun. Something he could gawk at in disbelief and play with. This was certainly worthy. It may not have been what he expected, but it certainly fit the criteria.

Lloyd kept the phone torch directed at the blood stream as it exited him, and turned his wrist over so as to direct it to the ground. He shone the light onto the end of the stream as it splattered into the divot of an old and broken roofing tile, staining the light orange pottery a vibrant new shade of red. Carefully, Lloyd shifted his legs out from underneath him and poised into a crouching position, moving away from the items he had placed on the space around him. Stepping gingerly over his backpack, he moved to another part of the roof, and left an astonishingly neat line of red in his wake. Slowly, Lloyd began to experiment with the discovery, seeing if he could spell out his name. He began with a capital 'L', for Lloyd, and it went surprisingly well. Just as he was moving to spell the next few letters, he stopped himself, considering the possibility of somebody coming up here, and finding it. He decided against spelling out the entirety of his name, and opted to draw some patterns with the valuable liquid instead.

Eventually, the stream's pulsing patterns became more prominent, and more of a burden to his artwork. The blood no longer came in a neat and pressurised line, but a wavering little pulse that seemed to be struggling to keep up. Then it stopped altogether. Lloyd turned the torch back onto the cut on his arm, and examined the place where the blood had been coming from. It was still wet, still dripping, but the blood appeared to have slowed itself considerably under coagulation. His body has done its job. Lloyd wiped his face again, remembering the first thing that had happened when this started, and a few dry and crusty spots of blood compliantly fell off of his skin. Taking his cue, Lloyd stood on shaky feet, and took great notice of the way his heart rate soared with the movement. Why that was, Lloyd couldn't be sure. He had a few theories, but he didn't feel like giving any of them the smallest bit of credit.

He reached the place where he had left all of his things, and sat back down in his original spot. Putting the phone face down beside him, he reached into the backpack and felt around for his bandaging kit.

He kept the corner of his eye focused around him in the unlikely case that someone would climb up here in the dark of the evening and find him. He had not actually believed that anyone would come, so he was very startled when he heard the sound of something hitting the roof nearby.

In fact, Lloyd almost threw his medical kit across to the next building in shock, but still managed to quickly turn off the light on his phone as he glanced around to see what or who had made the sound. At first, he saw nothing, and Lloyd briefly wondered if he had made the whole thing up. Then a shadow caught his eye, and a dark but small silhouette blocked out some of the street front lights. A small padding noise approached, and the shifting sound of pottery tiles, before a warm and soft object suddenly pressed itself up against his elbow.

"Brrru." Lloyd heard the little shadow say, and at once, a warm joy spread throughout his empty chest. Reaching up around its hard little head, Lloyd spread his fingers to run them gently through its fur, the little creature humming in delight as it received the contact it was looking for.

"Hey kitty." Came the boy's soft voice. "How did you find me up here, hey?" Lloyd clicked his tongue a couple of times as the animal circled around the back of him, rubbing itself against his middle, before turning back to demand more attention from his outstretched hand.

"What a sweet kitty."

The cat was vibrating under Lloyd's gentle touch, rubbing its head against his elbow trying to convince him to be a bit more rough with it.

Lloyd leaned back using his hurt arm to hold his weight, the blood having completely coagulated and almost having dried. The cat moved closer to him, behaving as if it wanted to get into his lap. One tiny paw at a time, the dark little creature braved itself to climb up onto Lloyd's warm legs, making itself at home right there on top of him. Lloyd moved his free hand to scratch its ears as it settled, purring in content with its fine choice of company.

Lloyd was just as content with the unexpected company, and he realised although he was being coerced into staying here in the place he came when he was hurt, he was also being forced into stopping what he was doing to himself. He could certainly learn to relax here instead, Lloyd thought as warmth started to spread through him, starting from the cat in his lap. Perhaps he had just needed to be shown how to do it.

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Lloyd was back on the same rooftop a few days later. He had managed to keep himself away from the spot, feeling obliged to honour the animal who had talked him out of the last thing he had done to himself up here, but he soon found himself unable to hold off any longer.

Lloyd dumped his backpack down in a rush, huffing to get his breath back as he ripped his bag open to retrieve what he was searching for. He had ran all the way over here from school, and was glad to have finally made it. Soon, he had the object in his hand once more, and he prepared himself some fabric, and some bandages for the cleanup to come.

Lloyd rolled up the sleeve on his left arm this time, not wanting to disturb the bandages still protecting his other wrist, but just before he could put silver blade to skin, he heard something hit the roof.

Padding feet, shifting tiles, a soft pressure pressed itself against his elbow, and Lloyd's eyes widened as he felt it.

This time was earlier in the day than the last, and with astonished eyes, Lloyd was able to observe the beauty of the animal that had taken to him in the light of the dying sun. Lloyd still gripped the menacing blade in his hand tightly, fingers pressed against all the right places to put as much force on it as possible in his hatred towards himself, then the cat moved towards it.

Lloyd quickly shifted the blade to the other hand as the cat grew increasingly demanding of his attention, but the pain in his heart was still raging on.

The little cat purred out an affectionate meow, and pushed it's wet little nose into the palm of Lloyd's hand as it started to purr. It rubbed his hand, and against his leg, its tail curling around the back of him, as it seemed very happy to see him again.

Lloyd, on the other hand, was still working on getting his breath back from the run. He sat hunched over himself, as if this would somehow alleviate the ache in his chest, and bit his lip carefully as it began to tremble. He had come so close. He had done so well, but it hadn't been worth it, and now that he was finally ready to cave, something got in his way again- but this wasn't just something. It was someone. An animal, here, comforting him when no one else would. Lloyd didn't know what to think let alone what to feel. The push behind his eyes grew hotter as the tears started to come forward. Lloyd squeezed his eyes shut to stop them from coming out, but they still forced themselves out past his lashes, and his breath hitched slightly as he felt a paw reaching up onto his lap.

Up the little cat climbed, and Lloyd couldn't bring himself do do anything about it as the warm animal settled comfortably in his lap. Now he couldn't cut. And the ache inside his chest was hurting more than any injury ever would. Lloyd opened his eyes and tipped his head upwards, unsure of what to focus on as thoughts raged inside his head. He allowed his features to contort, and he stopped trying to hold back the tears. Arm outstretched, his fingers loosened their grip on the blade, and it dropped with a clatter to the tiles, and he moved his hand to stroke the soft coat of the cat instead, and it purred a little louder from the contact.

Lloyd's tears finally flowing freely, he choked out a little sob. It was as if this had broken a barrier, because as soon as that one sob came out, there were more, and Lloyd let himself do it. Still stroking the cat with one hand, the affectionate cat rubbing it's nose into his other, Lloyd's pain continued to escape through his eyes and his throat, until his voice was hoarse, and he ran out of tears.

The cat never left him. It stayed there in his lap, keeping him warm, its relaxing vibrations helping to sooth him as it waited patiently for him to be finished letting go of his pain. After taking a slow and shaky breath, Lloyd acknowledged his friend verbally for the first time that night. "Thank you." He whispered.

To Lloyd's surprise, the cat actually responded, not quite with a meow, not quite a purr, it was something in between, a very funny sounding noise that sort of went "brru-eow." Lloyd laughed. He had never heard that sound before. "You... you're so-" Lloyd's voice broke, his eyes still wet and voice still ragged, but he was smiling. He couldn't even think of a word for what he wanted to say. Accepting, wouldn't do. This was more than that. Protective, wasn't right either. This was something innocent, born of love, ripe with trust, but there also seemed to be some awareness in there, it was almost as if the cat knew what it was doing.

"Thank you." He repeated again, and moved to give it a scratch behind its soft ears.

The sun, at this point, had just sunk below the horizon, and the red and golden lights it had cast onto the clouds had started to fade, and darkness settled over them.

Lloyd felt the animal rise, slowly removing itself from his lap and giving a relaxed stretch. It didn't say a word or glance back at him as it left, it just padded off, but Lloyd knew he was going to see it again. Lloyd was now draped in darkness, the familiar lights of the shopfronts and cars replacing the shine of the sun, and he took a moment. It was a good thing he had brought tissues with him, because he was going to need them for his face if not for his arms. He ended up using quite a few of them. The pile of tissues grew as Lloyd cleaned himself up, and he thought it had been a long time since he had cried this much at once. It had hurt, but it had also sort of... been good. His tears almost seemed to have replaced the blood he would have shed. They were certainly able to use as many tissues at least.

With a sigh, Lloyd began to pack up his things. He was exhausted. He had decided he was going to go to bed. As soon as he got home, he would brush his teeth and go straight to sleep. He packed the blade back into its little box, the used tissues got shoved in a ziplock bag. The fabric was folded, but otherwise packed in a similar fashion, and everything else went into the pocket inside his backpack, zipped up and hidden away where even the bullies who went through his bag wouldn't find it. He got up and had a stretch of his own.

As he stood, he realised he had given himself a headache, so he could add a paracetamol into the plan for when he got back to his room. It was only a short trip home luckily. If he didn't go now, his mum was going to worry, but this time he wouldn't have to lie about being okay. He was coming home uninjured for the first time in a long time, and he would be glad to be able to flash his mum a real smile when he got back to her. He had needed help. He couldn't have done it on his own, but for once, Lloyd was glad he was going home clean for another day.

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Congratulations, you made it all the way to the end. Thank you for reading. If you liked it, please make sure to let me know. If you didn't, I completely understand and I am aware the sort of detail I used can come off a bit strong, but I like to acknowledge issues even when they are unpleasant.

Like I said, I don't think I'll be adding onto this, as it was originally meant to just be a vent. But I am already working on another story that explores how Lloyd got to this point in the first place, and I'm currently mapping out how things can get better in the end. It's not an easy situation, but there's no way I'm going to let things continue to get worse for him. I will also be keeping the descriptions of self injury much much more mild, so keep a lookout for that if you're interested.

With that said, I hope that none of this was reflective of anything going on in your own life, but if it is, I'm here for you. Really, feel free to pm me for a chat if there's anything going on that you need to talk about. Just let me know you read my note and that you'd like to take me up on it.

Anyway thanks again for reading, and I'll see you in the next one!