Work Text:
Zane knocked on the door. A quiet "come in" answered the rapping of his knuckles, and he gingerly opened the door. Cole was sitting on the edge of his bed, pensively watching his own hand move, winding his fingers around each other and rubbing his fingertips together.
"May I sit?" Zane said softly, clasping his hands together patiently.
Cole looked at his slightly trembling hands for a moment, then turned his head to Zane and stared blankly. Snapping out of his trance, he blinked a few times and gave a small nod.
Zane sat down beside Cole and gazed straight ahead, not daring to make eye contact. He ran his hand lightly over the blanket he was sitting on and took a deep breath.
"Is it nice?"
Cole looked up towards Zane, setting his hand down on his lap. "Is what nice?"
"Being able to feel things again… Is it nice?"
Cole looked back down at his hands for a moment, feeling their warmth, their rough calluses. "Yeah," he hesitated, "it is. I missed it."
"I'm sure," Zane said, coaxing Cole to keep talking.
"It hasn't even been a whole day since I turned human again. It felt like I was a ghost for, well, forever." Cole said, then changed subjects abruptly, losing his train of thought. "I couldn't feel…"
"Feel what?"
"I couldn't feel… anything. I couldn't feel the warmth of the sun, or taste the food you made for dinner. I couldn't feel my soft bed,” Cole gripped the sheets, trembling, “or the hard rocks below my feet. Snow didn't feel cold to me. I couldn't feel my own heart beating," Cole clutched his chest. "I just felt.. Nothing."
Zane remained silent, for once not knowing what to say.
Cole looked up into Zane's eyes, searching for some kind of solace or understanding. "Have you ever felt like that, Zane?"
"I… don't know," came Zane's slow and thoughtful reply. "I know what emptiness feels like, I suppose. I never knew who I was or where I was from, until the falcon led me to my father's home. Up until that point, I couldn’t feel, per se, but rather just felt empty, if that's what you mean."
Cole’s chest filled with dread. Zane, too, had suffered this all-consuming nothingness that had torn apart Cole’s fundamental understanding of existence.
Zane noticed Cole's anxious expression. "But once I finally knew, it was like the world came to life for me. Colors seemed more vibrant. The scents of the world were stronger than ever and the sounds of nature seemed twice as loud. It was… groundbreaking.”
Cole lay back on his bed, sighing. "Now I get it. I understand how you felt. I’m so sorry you ever had to feel that way, Zane."
Zane stood up.
"Where are you going?" Cole said, confused at the sudden change in pace.
"I only came to check on you and see how you were adjusting. I did not mean to talk about myself for so long." Zane wandered around Cole's room, looking at all of the trinkets and trophies he had collected and displayed on every flat surface available.
"Wait," Cole sat up. "Don't leave yet... it's nice to have someone who understands."
Zane was silent, looking down at Cole's dresser, as if he hadn't even heard.
"Zane…?"
Zane turned around, holding something in his cupped hands. He looked down, then looked up to meet Cole's eyes.
"Is this... me...?" Zane spoke softly, yet his voice seemed to quiver inside his throat. He held up a brutally ripped and mangled chunk of a face, made of some kind of silicone-like material. Paper white skin was dirtied with bits of asphalt. Torn pink lips were pursed together tightly, severed wires poking out from the back side and a stern eyebrow was furrowed above one baby blue eye that stared straight into Zane's core. "Where did you get this?"
Cole’s feet shuffled across the ground as he met Zane in front of the dresser. "That was all that was left of you after you— after you died," Cole's voice trailed off. "I found it on the ground under a sheet of ice and dug it out. It was all that I had, and I wasn't going to leave it there."
"Why do you still have it?" Zane's breathy voice wavered. He did what was necessary to save Ninjago; surely everyone understood that.
"Zane, I—" Cole paused to collect his thoughts, forming careful words before continuing. "When you… died… that was the only thing I had to remember you by,” Cole shuddered at the memory. “Even though you were gone, I still had a piece of you to keep with me. I tried to convince myself that you were still around."
"You were that affected by the dissolution of my physical form?" Zane’s tone lowered to a whisper as if he might disturb someone who was sleeping.
"You don't even know half of it," Cole said, taking the silicone face in his hands. "I've never felt so alone as I did when you were gone. And when I turned into a ghost, I started feeling that loneliness… that emptiness, even though you were back. I would just sit in my room, talking to your face, saying all the things I was too scared to say to anyone else. And when I touched that torn piece of you, I could feel things again."
"Why did you never come to me?” Zane tilted his head. “Surely my new appearance wasn't that startling."
Cole's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, n-no, of course not! I just had things that I felt that I could say to your face, when I couldn't say them to your face, if that makes any sense."
"Er, sort of,” Zane shrugged. “What sort of things could you not say to me?" He stepped closer, afraid that his friendship with Cole had begun to drift away through all of the turmoil the team had faced.
"Oh, just… how I had missed you… corny stuff like that."
Zane gave him an unbelieving look. “But… you did express that to me. Would it have been awkward to say it twice?”
"You know me so well by now," Cole said, frustration building in his chest, "can't you figure it out? You know, just compute an answer?"
Zane switched glances between his old face and Cole, who was looking down at it, thumb rubbing the skin of its cheek in tiny circles.
"I- I don't understand."
Cole put a hand over his face, trying to cover up the veil of crimson spreading over it. "Zane, come here."
Cole sat down on his bed and folded his legs under each other, patting an empty spot beside him. Zane soon joined him. Facing one another, their heads were within range of knocking together at the slightest shift.
Cole took a deep breath through his nose and let it out shakily. "I've been saying something to this face for a while now... ever since you left.. for all the time between then and when I found you on Chen's island… and for all the years after. It's something that I never thought I'd get to say to you—the real you. So I've just been practicing and rehearsing to this little piece of you over and over, hoping that one day you'd figure it out and I wouldn’t have to say it at all.”
Zane double clasped Cole's hand. "You can tell me anything. I am your friend, yes?"
"That's just it, Zane," Cole said. "I don't see you as a friend anymore."
Zane drew his hand back, his luminescent blue eyes brimming with anguish.
"Hold on," Cole said, carefully taking Zane's cold metal hand back in his own warm and calloused one, "I haven't finished.”
He paused.
“I'm a little scared to finish now."
He took one last unsteady breath and clasped Zane's hand a little tighter in reassurance.
"You were more. I really care about you Zane, and it hurt me so much when you were gone, and I—”
"Yes..?" Zane urged him on gently, leaning closer.
"I realized that I wanted to be around you all the time. I see you as so much more than just a training partner, or a coworker, or a friend. You're so much more to me than that… ugh, I'm losing my train of thought!" Cole slouched over and put his hands over his face. "Can I just start over? Please?"
Zane nodded wordlessly, being the kind and patient person Cole had always known him to be.
Cole took a deep breath, and carefully rehearsed words came spilling out. "Zane, I like you a lot and I think you're the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met and when I'm with you I feel like the world has so much more to offer… Everything is so much better when you're around and I can feel things when I'm with you and I really want to be more than just friends with you but if you don't feel the same way I completely respect your opinion and I hope we can continue to be the close friends that we always have been…” He nearly passed out, gasping for breath as he flopped backwards onto the bed.
A tiny smile crept to the corners of Zane's mouth. "Feel better now?"
"A little bit, I guess. But you—you probably think I'm—I'm just a—a stupid lovesick idiot now," Cole panted, wincing as he turned his face away. "Sorry for—for throwing all of that at you all at once."
"It's okay, really." Zane seemed to hide behind his words in an uncharacteristic manner. "I understand what you are trying to say and… I reciprocate.”
Cole's eyes popped open, but he didn't dare sit back up. "Excuse me..?"
"I merely expressed the same sentiment that you did, stating that I reciprocate your feelings." Zane tried to hide himself behind large words. "What I’m attempting to say is, I like you too."
"Are you serious?" Cole propped himself up on his elbows to look at Zane.
Zane’s expression was determined and steadfast.
"Oh god," Cole sputtered, covering his eyes with his hands.
Zane could see his body trembling as he mumbled to himself. Shyly Zane rested a hand on Cole’s wrist. When Cole lowered his hands from his face, Zane noticed a glistening sheen trailing from Cole’s eyes.
"Oh my, what's wrong Cole? Are you hurt?"
Cole wiped his eyes and smiled at Zane, a relieved laugh threatening to explode from his chest. "I don’t think I’ve ever been less hurt in my life. I've been wanting to tell you that for years, now, Zane. Years."
"Cole?"
"Yes, Zane?"
"May I… kiss you..?"
Cole blinked a few times. "Come again?"
"I understand if you don't want me to. I… assumed that it was the appropriate thing for people who "like" each other to do; at least, that's what I have observed from Jay and Nya."
Cole burst into unbridled laughter, the sound of his voice bellowing through the halls. "You're too much, Zane! I would love it if you kissed me.”
Tenderly, Zane pushed Cole’s hair back and gently placed a featherlight kiss on his forehead. His fingers were delicate and light with their touch as he let them caress the side of Cole's face.
"I hope that I, as a whole, am better than just a piece of my face." Zane pulled away to look into Cole’s sparkling eyes, a soft smile gracing his face.
"Way better," Cole’s shoulders dropped in relief as he chuckled. "There’s just one thing, though…"
"What is it?" Zane fretted, hoping that he hadn't disappointed him somehow.
"I think you can do better than that." Cole winked as he tapped his forehead.
"May I try again?" Zane’s eyes glanced down and back up Cole’s face.
"How could I ever say no?" Cole felt his heart flutter as he responded, still halfway in disbelief.
Zane’s thumb grazed over the glowing green scar above Cole's eyebrow adoringly as he drew closer. Cole’s breath hitched in his chest as his nerves overcame him. Zane, picking up on this, paused.
“Everything alright?” His voice was barely above a whisper, breathing the words against Cole’s parted lips.
“Y-yeah,” Cole stuttered, his breath still uneven, “you just… you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in years,” he smiled. “God, I’m so lucky.”
Zane couldn’t hold back his smile as he closed the gap, letting his lips finally meet Cole’s in the middle. The sensation was new and exciting and bursting with color, and Cole could barely believe that any of it was happening.
It was… warm.
It was real.
And for the first time in a long time, Cole and Zane truly felt alive.