Day 4: September 4th
Prompt: Blanket
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Normally, he tried to forget about the bad things. Life was too short, at least in his opinion, to really focus on them too much.
But sometimes, the visions wouldn't go away.
He found that those days were the worst.
And he didn't really know what was wrong with him really. He was supposed to be the happy one, so for him to be struggling, it was hard. It was hard to not let everyone else know that he was having one of those days.
But he didn't like to be a burden.
And it was something that amplified the minute that he became a Father.
"Daddy's sad." Rain's voice broke him out of his thoughts, and he looked towards her with a raised eyebrow and a tired smile.
"Don't worry about me Dewdrop. I am happy. I'm with one of my favorite people in the whole wide world." Jay responded, a yawn escaping him almost immediately after.
"But you're tired." Rain muttered with a yawn, coming to him and laying down on his chest, which caused his heart to burst in affection.
"I don't think I am the only one, you silly little goose." Jay poked her nose before another yawn escaped his lips.
It wasn't his fault really. He had a mission late last night, and Nya was coming over a cold, so he offered to go even though it was technically her turn to go. And it probably would have been finished earlier if it weren't for the fact that Lloyd thought it would be a good idea to just send him, Cole and Kai together unsupervised.
The 3 of them together in a situation like that was always going to be a recipe for disaster.
"I just needed Daddy." Rain muttered, nestling her head into his chest and drifting off into a slumber.
He couldn't help but smile to himself as he kissed the top of her head and took her to her bedroom. He poked his head into their bedroom on the way and looked at Nya's struggled breathing while she coughed in her sleep.
Welp, as he supposed, at least she was sleeping.
If anything else about their daughter was known, it appeared as though she shared just about everything with him. That, unfortunately, included his messy habits when it came to bedrooms. The number of times he swore while almost falling over to put Rain to bed was astounding.
He really shouldn't be swearing in front of his daughter.
Especially when she was asleep.
She seemed to pick up on things that he did even better when she was asleep than when she was awake.
Nya would quite literally kill him if their 4-year-old daughter started dropping F bombs out of nowhere.
"Daddy?" Rain muttered tiredly as soon as he placed her on the bed.
"What is it, Dewdrop?" Jay asked her at once, a small smile on his face while he lowered himself to meet her eyes.
"Stay with me?" Rain begged, and Jay froze before he nodded and crawled into bed with her.
After all, he could never deny Rain of anything when she asked him.
Nya warned him repeatedly that Rain was going to end up spoiled because he couldn't.
He couldn't find it in himself to care.
At least, not now.
(He probably would regret it when she was a teenager, but he wasn't going to let his wife have the satisfaction of having her know what he knew was probably going to happen.)
Rain almost immediately curled into him, and Jay couldn't help but laugh slightly at the motion. After all, Nya did it without fail every single night for the past... God, probably since when they cuddled for the first time.
He grabbed the blanket on her bed and almost immediately froze. He had seen this blanket before. In all honesty, he had completely forgotten about it 2 years after Rain was born because he just... He just didn't seem to have time dealing with that when he was working long nights. He was disappointed in himself really. After all, this blanket was a staple of his and Nya's relationship.
Where could she have gotten this?
Of course, he knew who gave it to her. He just couldn't believe that he didn't realize that she had it until now.
A sad smile appeared on his face when he traced the outline of the blanket. It was still just as soft as it was back in the day. It was weird in a way. Weird to feel like he lost something when he looked at the blanket. He knew that he was just reminiscing about what things were like before.
But, if there was one person that he would have given the blanket to, of course it would have been his daughter.
However, it didn't stop the consistent thoughts that were infiltrating his head.
It didn't stop the memories.
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"You want to WHAT!?" Jay asked her, looking to the blanket on the couch and then to the TV and then to Nya all within the span of 20 seconds.
"I want to snuggle." Nya responded as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Jay .exe. had stopped working.
Really, he couldn't help himself. She had caught him completely off guard. They had only been officially dating for 2 weeks, and while they had spent all the time in the world together since then, he didn't realize that she wanted to do THAT. Well, he supposes that it shouldn't bother him.
After all, couples snuggled each other all of the time.
Or at least, that has been what he has been told. Nya was his first girlfriend after all. He had no idea how any of this worked at all. He was just taking it day by day, hopefully doing it right. HE didn't quite know anymore, especially when she goes and asks him to do that.
"Are... Are you sure that you want to do that?" Jay asked her, his throat feeling incredibly dry while he slowly approached her.
"I did ask, didn't I?" Nya responded with a raised eyebrow.
Jay took a deep breath before sliding in next to her, his body tense as he looked around the room. He really didn't know what to do now that he was here, and that was freaking him out.
But... It would get easier after the first time.
Oh god, it better get better after the first time.
"Jay, relax. It's just me." Nya muttered, laying her head down on his chest.
Oh, yeah.
That was right.
It was just her.
He sucked a breath forcibly through his mouth before wrapping an arm around her waist and focusing on the TV in front of him. As long as he focused on that, he would be able to control his breathing and his heart that felt like it was about to pound out of his chest and----
"JAY! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WITH MY SISTER?!"
Jay had never jumped up and ran out of a room faster in his life.
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"JAY!!!" Nya squealed, trying with all of her might to pull away from her boyfriend who was tickling her sides.
"NEVER!" Jay responded back, a grin never leaving his face.
"You are so unbelievable." Nya cackled, and Jay laughed once again before deciding to give her a break.
"In a good way or a bad way?" Jay asked her softly, pulling her to his side and grabbing the blue blanket beside him without much thought.
"I'll have to get back to you on that. I haven't decided yet." Nya told him, and Jay lightly smacked her arm.
Nya's eyes looked back at him in mock defense, and Jay tried his hardest to look as serious as possible, but he could feel his facade falling from the look of the smile that was threatening to appear on her face. He sighed and rolled his eyes before leaning down and softly kissing her head.
He got the satisfaction of Nya's entire face turning red at the gesture.
God, did he like to fluster her.
"Hi." Nya whispered, a drunken smile appearing on her face.
"Hi?" Jay asked with a small laugh.
"It's always in a good way. I hope you know that." Nya muttered, playing with the end of his shirt, which caused Jay to smile softly.
He pulled the blanket tighter to them before taking her hand and lacing his fingers together with hers.
"I know." Jay told her simply, kissing the top of her head laying his head down on top of hers.
It was silent for a minute, before Jay sighed and slowly let go of his fingers.
"I should probably go. If your brother found out that I was in here, he would kill me. And we weren't exactly quiet." Jay told her, not moving to get up quite yet.
"And who's fault was that?" Nya asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Woah, calm down there tiger." Jay told her with a small laugh.
"If you ever call me that again, I will push you off the bed." Nya told him, and Jay laughed again before quickly walking towards the door.
"Goodnight tiger." Jay saluted, sauntering out of the door while trying his hardest not to start cackling.
"JASON WALKER! YOU GET YOUR SMUG ASS BACK IN HERE!"
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"You know, this is the first time that I've ever done a blanket fort." Nya whispered softly to him, and Jay froze before angling his body to look over at her.
"Well, that's okay. I think you did splendid for a first time." Jay reassured her with a simple kiss on her cheek.
"Well, that was only because I had my wonderful Yang here to help me." Nya whispered with a shrug, her finger tracing his hand.
"You did all the work. I just watched for the most part." Jay disagreed, bring her hand up to his mouth and leaving a kiss on it before dropping it.
And then it was quiet. Typically, it wouldn't have bothered him if it weren't for the fact that she kept twitching ever so slightly every single time they made eye contact. And typically, he wouldn't have pried, but she had been weird all morning.
If he could have pinpointed it, he would have to say that it was after she came back from seeing her parents. She had been on edge, barely able to make eye contact with him. And then she suddenly asked him for help making a blanket fort, and he decided to even though what he really wanted to do was figure out what was bothering her so much in the first place.
But, now, she had no excuse to try and hide it from him.
"Penny for your thoughts? You've been... on edge all morning." Jay asked, rubbing her arm before noticing how cold she felt.
He looked around and grabbed the blue blanket next to him before wrapping it around her and rubbing it against her skin in hopes that it would warm her up faster.
"It's just... My mom said something, and it freaked me out a little bit. I'm sorry." Nya whispered apologetically.
"What did she say?" Jay asked her, pressing with a small frown.
"I... she.... Well, she was talking about grandkids." Nya muttered, a dark blush blooming on her cheeks.
"Ahh..." Jay whispered, not really knowing what else to say.
"I just...." But Nya was at a loss for words.
"You know... We don't... We don't have to have kids." Jay whispered, though it burned his throat to say that.
"WHAT? NOnonono. Jay. Babe... I want to have kids. I want to have your kids. It's just..." Nya reassured him, placing her hand on his cheek.
"It's just?" Jay prompted after she went silent.
"I didn't have a Mom." Nya whispered, but Jay understood what she was really saying.
And he didn't know what else to do but pull her into a hug and kiss her head while she started to sob into his shirt. Jay frowned and wrapped the blanket tighter around her while he let a few tears of his own escape his eyes and into her hair.
And even when she inevitably fell asleep, Jay couldn't seem to let her go. All he could find it in himself to do was to hold her tight into his chest so that she wouldn't forget that he was there.
"I promise, Nya. You are going to be the greatest Mom in all of Ninjago one day. I just know it."
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"It's going to be a girl." Jay told her, certainty ringing in his tone while his hand traced her stomach.
"No, it's a boy." Nya disagreed.
"Absolutely not." Jay said with a shake of his head, a small smile appearing onto his face with the blanket tucked around both of them, wrapping them into a little cocoon.
"I think I would know about who is growing inside my body, Jay." Nya muttered with the shake of her head.
"Yes, but as it is widely said, pregnancy messes with your brain. Why, just last week, you put ice cream in the cabinet instead of the freezer. You cried when Kai stepped on that ant at the park this morning." Jay argued softly.
"It had a life to live. And Kai and his stupid ass head took that from it." Nya started to cry again, and Jay sighed before pulling her tighter to him.
"I mean, I won't disagree about Kai's stupid head. But, darling, you have to admit you are much more... sensitive." Jay decided on a word, kissing her head lightly.
"YOU TRY GROWING A HUMAN IN YOUR----- Oh, I see now." Nya suddenly said, it finally hitting her what Jay had said.
"Hmmmhmmm." Jay hummed with a yawn closing his eyes.
"I still say that it is going to be a boy." Nya whispered.
"Girl." Jay muttered, drifting off into sleep.
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When Nya woke up and noticed that Jay wasn't beside her, she became worried. After all, it wasn't often that he wasn't there, especially when she was sick. And his side of the bed was cold. Far too cold, which meant that he hadn't been in bed for several hours.
In fact, the entire house was far too quiet. She loved her husband and her daughter, but they were literally the loudest people she had ever met in all of Ninjago. The house had never been this quiet.
And it was with that in mind that she went and stalked around her house, keeping her eyes out for something wrong. But she couldn't find them, and it caused her heart to pound wildly in her chest. Dread started to enter her stomach.
She dashed into Rain's bedroom and pushed open the door.
And....
And the sight caused a soft smile to appear on her face.
Because there was her husband snuggling their daughter in the blanket that was once theirs all of those years ago.