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Stifling a yawn, Cole leaves the comfort of his bed and makes his way to the bathroom. Normally, the dark-haired ninja would be asleep at this hour, but lately he hasn’t been able to sleep. The dark bags under his eyes reveal that it’s been this way for a couple weeks now, though there’ve been a handful of different reasons.
For that dreadful week where the ninja had thought Zane was dead, again, Cole had lost his other half, again. It’s not surprising then that sleep did not come easily.
While in the Never-Realm, the bitter cold made sleep almost impossible, not to mention the constant distressing thoughts Cole had of how Zane was faring.
Now his partner is back, but Cole finds that worry still rolls around in his gut at night, leaving him with racing thoughts. Zane is hiding something from him, from all of them. Of course, he doesn’t ask the Nindroid what it is. He’d rather the man himself be comfortable enough to tell Cole about it without prodding. In the meantime, Cole tries not to freak out whenever he wakes up from one of his rare moments of sleep and finds that Zane isn’t beside him.
The first time it happened, the night after Zane’s return, Cole went out to look for the other. He found him sitting on the edge of the Bounty, deep in thought, moon bathing him in its glow. Cole had decided not to approach his partner, ignoring the questions asking what may be going on in that beautiful head of his that had, and continue to, surge in his mind.
So yes, Cole knows that Zane isn’t in danger when he wakes and the Nindroid isn’t there, but he’d still much rather wake up with his boyfriend’s cool metal body beside him.
Cole’s black eyes meet his reflection’s. He looks about as tired and wrung-out as he feels. His locs are flat and frizzy, which isn’t unexpected considering that he hasn’t been maintaining them like he should. How could he? Between the devastation, the danger, and now the distress, there’s been no time for making sure his hair is wrapped up at night.
It feels weird, Zane keeping something from him. Their relationship has always been one of immense trust, of unshakeable acceptance of each other’s whole being. The other is always the first person they go to when something’s wrong. Like when Cole became a ghost, it was Zane he went to, and not just because of the man’s first-hand experience at having such a core part of their identity stripped away by an unforgiving universe.
On second thought, maybe it’s more than just that it “feels weird.” Cole doesn’t like it at all. There’re no secrets between them, never have been. And yeah, it’s completely in Zane’s right to not tell Cole everything going on with him, so of course Cole will respect that, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it.
Turning the sink on, Cole splashes some water on his face. A little counterintuitive considering he wants to go back to sleep, but it does well in shaking him out of his horrible anxiety over his boyfriend.
Once he dries his face off, Cole slips back into his and Zane’s shared room (they’d finally gotten one in the Bounty’s most recent renovation, which happened shortly after they made their relationship known to the rest of the team. Cole still smiles at the memory now—he was so scared to tell their friends even though he knew they’d be fine with it. It’s only that when he was growing up, you just didn’t talk about relationships like theirs. It was so funny, they had already been dating for a while at that point, but it seemed that unlike Cole, Zane had earnestly forgotten to let the other ninja know about their relationship. Once Zane realized that fact, he and Cole decided to tell everyone over dinner. Of course, just as Cole expected, he and Zane were very obvious, and so the announcement wasn’t surprising. In fact, it won Lloyd fifty dollars from a betting pool).
Zane is still asleep in bed, which settles some of the worry in Cole’s heart. Maybe Zane won’t be seeking a lonely audience with the moon tonight after all.
Getting back under the covers, Cole is just shutting his eyes when Zane shoots up next to him, covers discarded. The Nindroid’s breathing is heavy, which is probably not a good sign since Zane never lets himself act winded, despite keeping up breathing as a habit.
Immediately Cole is by his side, but when he goes to place a hand on his boyfriend’s shoulder, Zane flinches away from it, hard.
“Don’t,” Zane grits out, and Cole can see that he’s shaking. The involuntary movement just makes Cole want to scoop the man up in his arms and never let him go, but he controls himself by considering Zane’s earlier reaction.
“Sn—Zane, what’s wrong?” It takes what little brain capacity Cole has this late at night to not automatically call Zane one of the many special pet names he’s given him, all of which have to do with snow or ice. Last time he called the other ‘Snowflake,’ the night of Zane’s return, he gave Cole a look so deeply sad and horrified, and then told him that he’d prefer to only be called by his given name for a while.
Cole didn’t question it, but he had a sinking feeling that it had something to do with the Never-Realm. Cole hasn’t questioned a lot of things about that time, at least outwardly. Even though Zane didn’t argue when P.I.X.A.L. proposed that his memories of most of his time in the Never-Realm had been erased, these past few weeks Cole has started to suspect that the Nindroid knew more than he let on.
Next to him, Zane wraps his arms around himself, his shaking growing worse. He turns his face away from Cole, who looks on with increasing concern.
“What are you doing awake at this hour?” Zane asks instead of answering the question. Even his voice sounds like it’s trembling, which Cole thinks shouldn’t be possible, considering he doesn’t actually have vocal cords.
“Couldn’t sleep, are you okay?”
“Oh, you shouldn’t worry about me…” Zane trails off, which is unlike him, and is he inching away?
“Of course I worry about you, you know you’re everything to me, and I hate to see you upset.” Cole wonders if that was the right thing to say because somehow Zane seems to become even more tense. He’s about to ask what’s wrong again when Zane whips his head around to look at Cole, eyes burning almost white. The sudden movement makes Cole lose his balance, and it takes all his extraordinary strength to not fall off the bed.
“Why? Why do you worry, why do you care?” Zane shouts, a bit of chill shooting through the air. His eyes are unfocused, and Cole can tell that he’s a little bit somewhere else right now. “I’m not someone you should care about, I’m a bad person and I’ve killed a lot of people, so many people, and I’ll hurt you too so you should just—!”
Zane stops, and Cole watches clarity bleed back into his eyes, which seem to almost be getting dimmer. He realizes with some alarm that those beautiful blue eyes are filling with tears.
“Oh…oh First Spinjitzu Master, I didn’t—I shouldn’t—I’m sorry I-I—“ Cole can see Zane beginning to shut down, beginning to try and build up those walls that had crumbled in his outburst. He’s backing away, looking horrified at something Cole can’t see.
Wordlessly, Cole pulls Zane into a hug, and this time the Nindroid accepts the touch, reciprocating even. He grips the fabric of Cole’s shirt tightly, and he sobs, sobs harder than Cole has ever seen him cry. Curiously, Cole notices that Zane is cold, far colder than usual, and all Cole can do is hope that he brings his boyfriend some warmth.
They sit like that for some time, melting into each other’s embrace, Zane crying loudly and muttering apologies. Tears also fall from Cole’s eyes, but he’s careful to be quiet about it, he doesn’t want to give his partner any reason to refuse his comfort. He simply rubs circles on Zane’s back, letting him stay in the embrace for as long as he wants. And if Zane wanted it, Cole would never, ever break it.
Eventually, Zane’s grip slackens, and Cole feels him start pulling away. Reluctantly, Cole lets him.
“I believe…there’s something I should tell you,” Zane says quietly. He gazes at the blankets and sheets on their bed, now in disarray. “But first, can we move to the floor? I believe it would be better to do it there.”
“Yes, of course.” Cole’s not sure why exactly Zane wants to move to the area just in front of their bed, he thinks as he follows the Nindroid there, but if it makes Zane more ready to let Cole help him with whatever’s been bothering him, he won’t show even the smallest sign of confusion.
Now on the floor, seated cross-legged across from Zane, Cole waits with bated breath for the other to let him in on what’s been hurting him, though he already has an idea as to what it could be, an idea he hates. Cole can see Zane steeling himself for the admission, fidgeting with his fingers and looking away, so Cole takes one of Zane’s hands in his and rubs it with his thumb.
“The Never-Realm,” Zane begins, looking pained. “Do you know how long I was there?”
“Not really, I know it was longer than the rest of us.” Cole hopes that this isn’t Zane trying to retreat from telling Cole what is going on, and so he decides to play along with the questions, because maybe it will put Zane at ease. In any case, it’s true that Cole doesn’t really have any idea how long Zane was there, but from what he could piece together from the stories of the villagers, he knew it was on the order of years, if not decades.
“You’re correct in your assessment. It was, much, much longer.” Zane closes his eyes, and it starts to seem like he won’t be saying any more, so Cole decides to break his no-prodding rule just this once.
“How long, Zane?”
“It was,” Zane exhales harshly, speaks slowly, and Cole struggles to prepare himself, “It was nearly sixty years, Cole.” And just as Cole is beginning to process those words, Zane looks at him with trepidation, “And I remember all of it.”
And there it is. Cole’s not surprised, far from it, but he still feels horror, anger, and despair for his partner. Decades upon decades of torture, Zane was forced to go through, all because he dared to save their master, because he was protecting the people he cared for. Zane’s robotic capabilities were abused over and over and over because he was the most human of all of them. It makes Cole want to cry. It makes Cole want to scream. It makes Cole want to go back to the Never-Realm and give that man a proper punishment. The raw emotions cut deep into his heart, something to be expected from anything involving his other half.
“Oh, Zane—"
“I should have told everyone when it came up the first time,” Zane interjects, eyes shifting away again, “I should have told you. I apologize for being so dishonest.”
“No, no apologies. It’s okay to keep things private sometimes.”
“Even when they make me dangerous?” Zane’s bright blue eyes bore into Cole’s. It feels like a challenge. It feels like fear. It feels like Zane isn’t saying what he means.
“I know you would never hurt me.”
Zane looks down at his and Cole’s hands, still intertwined, “But that’s the issue, Cole, I don’t know that. I want to say that I would never do so, but before I went to that place, I never thought I would commit such atrocities either, that I ever could.” Zane pauses, and Cole can feel his hand becoming a little colder, “I’ve spent the majority of my life being the Ice Emperor, and it’s all still in here,” Zane points to his head, “I never used to see anything when I slept, unless it was a vision, but now every time I close my eyes another memory appears, like a reminder. Perhaps there’s just too much of him in me now, perhaps that’s just who I am now, and being back in Ninjago is just me pretending. That means there’s only a matter of time before I drop the pretense.”
Zane looks back up at Cole, and the other nearly flinches at the pain he finds there, “I don’t want to hurt you, Cole, but I will.”
Before Cole can reflexively tell Zane that no, he doesn’t believe that he will at all, Zane continues, though his expression is a bit shuttered from what it was moments ago and his eyes have moved away, and his voice has fallen back to the more stilted and robotic cadence that Cole would normally adore, “Logically, we don’t know what my time in the Never-Realm has done to my programming. It’s quite possible that I could revert to being the Ice Emperor, whether it be due to a glitch, or due to me being under stress, or maybe for no reason at all. That makes me a danger to the team, and to Ninjago as a whole. The most logical thing for you all to do is to eliminate me—”
“No! What? No, absolutely not,” Cole shakes his head almost violently, trying to forget that he ever heard Zane even imply what he just did. But of course he would, this is Zane, always ready to put himself on the line if it meant saving just one person. “Why would you even think that? You can’t ask us to do that,” Cole grips Zane’s hand tighter, bringing it a little closer to his chest. Zane looks back to Cole, shock lining his features. “How could you ask me to do that?”
Cole can see the self-loathing on Zane’s face clear as day, “I’m sorry, I never should’ve—it seems all I do is hurt you, one way or another.”
“Hey, hey, that’s not true,” Instinctively, Cole moves to cup Zane’s face with his free hand, and before he can correct his mistake, to Cole’s surprise his boyfriend actually leans into his touch, cool metal meeting warm flesh, “Zane, listen to me. You don’t hurt me. You never have, and I know you never will, because you’re kind and good. You’re the kindest person I know, and you always make sure everybody else is happy before yourself. That’s one of the reasons why I love you.”
“But—“
Cole barrels through, “You’re not bad, you’re not a monster, you’re not any of the things I know you’re saying to yourself in your head. That’s all on that man. You worry so much about hurting me and the rest of the team, but Zane, he hurt you. He made you do all those horrible things and now he’s made you think that you’re horrible too, that you’re nothing more than tool, than a robot. But Zane, that isn’t true. You’re so much more. You’re a person, an amazing person, my person. You’re loved and you’re valued and your loss would be devastating to everyone and I hope that one day you’ll be able to see that, to see that the one risking their life doesn’t have to be you every single time. I love you, Zane, and I’m so lucky that you’re in my life.”
The cold presence on Cole’s hands snaps him out of his reverie, and he starts to wonder if maybe he said too much for Zane’s clearly fragile self. Cole looks at his partner’s face, really looks now that he isn’t caught up in a sweeping declaration, and there he sees probably the most adorable expression Zane’s ever worn. His mouth is ever-so-slightly agape, and his eyes are wide, bright as a star and blue as a sky, and if Cole didn’t know any better, he’d say they were almost sparkling.
Precious moments pass like that, and now Cole is really starting to worry that he was a little too forward. Zane is often blunt and often prefers that treatment in return, but Cole may have just found the limit of that preference, considering he was rambling about the deepest feelings in his heart for several minutes. Never has he seen Zane speechless for so long. He moves his hand off Zane’s face and sets it on the ground. Cole wonders if maybe he should tell Zane that there’s no pressure to respond to all or any of what he just said, that he was a bit caught up in the moment, even if he did mean every last bit of it.
Before he can act on the thought though, Zane finally seems to regain control over his voice, “Cole, I—“ his cutely shocked expression melts into one of the warmest smiles Cole’s ever seen from his boyfriend, “Thank you.”
Zane takes Cole’s other hand in his, and continues on, “Keeping this all to myself, waking up from another memory knowing that I’d have to deal with it alone because of that choice, it has all been so difficult. I know I should’ve told you sooner, I should’ve told you the night I came back. But I was afraid. Even just one person knowing that I can remember it all, that makes it more real, makes it something I cannot run away from. And I didn’t want to burden anyone with that knowledge, even you, even though I know you would always support me.”
“Of course, I’ll always be in your corner, Zane. And I’m always gonna be here to listen.”
“There’s so much to tell, six decades is a long time, by both of our standards. I’m not even sure if I can or if I’m even ready to talk about everything I saw, felt, or feel now. The simple task of finding the words to even express those things feels insurmountable.”
“That’s okay, we have time, and we do this at your pace. You can tell me whenever you’re ready. You don’t even have to talk about it anymore tonight if you don’t want to.”
Zane shifts his eyes away, “But I know that you’re curious, and the rest of the team—”
“Doesn’t matter,” Cole softly interjects, “What matters here is you and what you want. And until you’re comfortable, this can just stay between us. When the time comes, they’ll understand.”
Zane laughs lightly, and Cole forgets to breathe for a second, “Now I feel a little foolish for being scared. What else can I expect from my loving partner, who often tends to have just the right words to say?”
“All of my words are for you, love.” Ah, looks like Cole isn’t done being a romantic tonight after all.
“I must say, I’ve missed hearing the names you’ve given me, but I still don’t believe I can stand being called anything even tangentially related to ice for a while.” Zane almost looks ashamed.
“You don’t need to worry about that. Besides, I kind of like calling you by your name for once. It feels…special.” Truly, it does. Cole’s pet names for Zane are special of course, but so is calling him by his name whereas everyone else in his life gets a nickname.
“What did I do to deserve someone like you?” Zane smiles, “I’ve woken you up in the middle of the night with my own troubles and you’ve done nothing but show patience, understanding, and that it is I who is lucky to have you with me.”
“No such thing as deserve between us,” Cole says, and although he knows instilling that in his partner will take a long time, it’s for Zane, so he’s up to the challenge, “I love you, and I never want to be asleep when you’re hurting.”
This time it’s Cole’s turn to be shocked as Zane quickly pulls them into another hug. He whispers to Cole, who’s head is now on the Nindroid’s chest, “I don’t have such a way with words like you do when it comes to expressing my feelings, but I hope that you will understand all that I feel when I do this. I love you too, Cole.”
And then Zane’s lips are on his, and Cole feels like he’s ascending, floating amongst the stars that shine bright in his beloved’s eyes.