Ninjago Oneshots

Christmas Lights (Jaya)

Merry Christmas enby-el ! This ones for you!

And don't worry, it's not nearly as angsty as my previous and only other Jaya oneshot.

Summary: the Smiths and the Walkers are in an unspoken Christmas lights battle

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"Jay, honey!" Edna called from the kitchen. "Would you mind helping your father with the lights outside?"

"'Kay, Mom!" Jay yelled back, slipping on his shoes and jacket.

It was a tradition for the Walker family. Each year during the holiday season, the neighborhood held a Christmas decorations contest. What did the winner get? Well, nothing except bragging rights, but it was still a fun competition to take part in when the chilly weather set in.

The Walkers had been the champions for four years in a row, until last year, when a new family moved in. The Smiths.

Jay hadn't ever actually met them, but their house-light show was astounding. The first time he'd seen it from his window, he was pretty sure he'd stared at it for about ten minutes.

The Smiths lived across the street and up two houses from the Walkers. A few times, Jay had seen them (not in a stalker-y kind of way). There were four of them— a man with black hair, mustache, and goatee; a woman with long black hair; a boy looking to be around his late teens with spiky brown hair; and a slightly younger teenage girl with black hair that was always up in a ponytail.

Oh well. It didn't matter who they were. He wasn't letting them take his family's trophy again this year.

Jay's competitive side didn't come out often, but when it did, he would do everything in his power to get what he wanted. (Unless it meant breaking rules. He was nothing if not a fair player.)

Dressed in his comfortable blue zip-up hoodie and fleece pajama pants, the freckle-faced teen walked outside into the front lawn. His dad, Ed, already had the ladder set up and was surrounded by what looked like a few tons of Christmas lights.

"Ah, there you are!" Ed said. "You want roof duty again?"

Jay grinned and nodded. He loved decorating the roof. Once he'd gotten over his fear of heights a few years ago, he found roof duty to be so much more exciting then setting up the blow-up snowmen by the side of the house.

Ed climbed down the ladder and set it up against the lowest part of the roof. Jay grabbed a few strings of lights and clambered up.

"Holler when you run out of those," Ed said before taking the ladder back to where he was working on the side of the house.

It felt like a dream to Jay. Running and jumping around on his freaking roof like one of those ninjas his mom had told him stories about when he was little. Staring the ground in the face with no fear of falling had a strange sense of exhilaration accompanying it. He felt on top of the world, and as someone who didn't get to feel tall very often, that was big.

One by one, using pins and tape, he arranged the lights overtop the shingles. There was a kind of artwork to it— getting all the wires to connect in a way that simply stunned the eyes and the mind while simultaneously keeping all the stuff holding it in place invisible. Jay had a knack for it.

"Hey, Dad?" He called, walking over to the side of the roof just above where Ed was hanging lights. "Do we have another roll of clear duct tape?"

Ed glanced at the roll on his wrist, almost empty. "This was the last one I found. Ask your mother, and-"