Work Text:
Cold air fills the space, slipping into every crevice it can find, spreading to suck in all of the warmth still alive in the shabby bedroom. Cole lifts the blanket a little higher to cover himself, as if that'll save him from shivering through the night. He pulls his arms closer to himself, conserving any little bit of body heat he has. He's never been too sensitive with temperatures, but here it's bad. He wonders if it's something to do with how the Never-Realm functions, or maybe it's just colder here than it ever was in Ninjago, but every night they've spent here has been accompanied by a light numbness in his limbs that’s never gone away.
Still, as Cole stays put in the creaky bed, he ruminates, and thinks no one has it as bad as Jay, who’s always been very prone to chilly weather. It seems he's been getting even less sleep than he usually does, and every morning he'd be out of bed earlier than everyone, shivering so much it was surprising he was still able to speak. Even now, he can hear in the bed beneath his the sounds of Jay's sniffling and shaky breathing as he turns from side to side, trying to fall asleep.
The bed sags under Cole's weight with an audible creak as he turns to his side and opens his eyes with a tired sigh.
The room is dark. He can see Kai facing away from him down below, resting in his bed. The howling of the wind surrounds them through the walls, as if threatening to slip inside through the cracks. It’s an uncomfortable thing, this nighttime quiet, where every little sound feels far too loud amidst the background noise of the storm.
Jay sniffles again.
“Hey, Kai?” Cole calls out, his voice unpleasantly loud as it cuts through the ambience. The silence that falls after is even more unpleasant, this unnatural feeling of waiting for a voice in a hush, as if breaking some unspoken rule.
There's the barely audible shuffle of blankets as Kai moves himself slightly to show he's awake. “..What?” he grumbles, partially muffled and still facing away. Seems none of them were getting any sleep.
Cole waits a moment before responding as he hears another sniffle from the bed under his. Jay doesn't say anything.
“Can you… d'you think you got it in you to make some fire right now?” Cole then asks, keeping his voice quiet and gentle as it croaks slightly in his throat. He's raised himself up a little on his elbows as he leans to look at Kai’s bed; it takes a few minutes for his eyes to get used to the dark, but slowly the shapes turn vaguely recognizable.
Kai shifts, turning around in the bed with a sigh, his body all tangled up in the thick blanket as he weaves himself out of it to sit up, the comforter still remaining a protective cover around him, but his arms otherwise free. His facial features smudge in the darkness, but even then it's easy to tell how worn down he is by exhaustion, as his shoulders slouch and he hangs his head, taking a moment to yawn.
“C'mere,” he says begrudgingly, sliding back a bit to the other corner of the bed so that there's more space. There's a nonchalant sort of tiredness in his voice, one that says ‘this has happened before, and it will happen again’.
Cole moves painstakingly slowly as he pulls the blanket around his shoulders like a cape, then drags it down the ladder to the floor, his feet getting caught on the cloth a few times in the process. He looks to Jay, who hasn't moved, and reaches out to poke him. Jay groans and turns over, wrapped tight in his blanket as a result of trying to keep warmth in. He blinks a few times, eyes focusing somewhere around Cole's face, a tired frown creasing his face.
“Come on, it'll help you warm up,” Cole says, patting Jay's side before his hands return to cling onto his covers. The cold of the wooden floor stings, even through woolen socks, and he tiptoes, swaying from side to side slightly as he turns around to climb onto Kai's bed. He then sits down beside Kai, bed groaning under the increased weight.
There's a brief silence as Jay looks at them, frozen still, before he huffs and moves himself off of his own bed, blanket kept wrapped around him like a protective cocoon. He almost collapses onto Kai's bed, clumsily crawling through the darkness to his friends.
Once there, they huddle in a circle. Cole throws his blanket to cover all of them, and Kai does the same. They all take a moment to just sit there, breathing. It's almost like they're making a blanket fort, like they would sometimes in the monastery, except they're all very tired and freezing, and any coziness is overwhelmed by the loneliness of knowing someone something is missing.
Then, Kai puts his two hands up between them. “Can't promise it'll work, but I'll try,” he says and tenses up, rough lines along his hands, face all wrinkled in a frown.
All they hear is his loud breathing as the seconds slip by; he focuses, and then–
Light.
A small flame appears above Kai's palms, fragile as it flails from side to side; it lights their faces up, the tiredness weighing on them now clear as day. Kai holds the fire like it's sacred, trying to breathe as little as he can in fear of extinguishing it.
Jay moves himself a little closer, closing his eyes to focus on the small warmth that comes. The shadows fall harsh on his face, making the eyebags seem even bigger. Cole feels something sad swell in his chest at the sight. He wishes he could wipe the weariness off of his friends’ faces, though he knows whatever exhaustion they had is mirrored on his own face.
As the three of them huddle around the little flame, it dances and dances, slowly growing bigger once Kai gets the hang of it. It's not much, but it helps ease the constant tingling in their hands. The Never-Realm is cruel, the cold biting onto whatever it can get its teeth around, but here, in the small, shabby bedroom, as they cling onto each other, wrapped around by layers of blankets, it's warm, even as the fire wavers.
Cole lets himself focus on this warmth, eyes instinctively closing. The warm breath of the flame envelops his face slowly, the numbness in his nose fading away. He can feel his friends shoulders poking into his when they slightly move, and the blankets that weigh down on his back, covering them like a shield. He opens his eyes then, and watches the fire twitch and twist in front of his eyes. Every once in a while, it gets smaller and smaller.
Then, as quickly as it appeared, the flame burns out.
Darkness sweeps over the room again, but it's warmer than before, even if only a little.
“..Sorry, it's.. hard,” Kai mumbles, his breathing audibly ragged. There's a slight embarrassment in his tone; even though no one blames him, it's hard not to think of how easily fire came to him before.
“It's okay,” Jay says with a sigh. His eyes are tired as they remain on where the fire just was. “It helped somewhat,” he adds, as if to reassure Kai. Kai, in turn, raises his head to look at him, the lines in his face smoothing out in relief. His shoulders sag and he takes a deep breath; the ordeal must've taken a lot of energy out of him, because afterwards he just flops down on the bed.
Cole yawns and thinks, hopes, that maybe, now that they've warmed up a little, sleep will come easier. He pulls on Kai's blanket and joins it with his to make a big layer of fluff to cover them. While he fiddles with that, Jay is already bundled up beside Kai, still wrapped around in his covers for extra warmth. Cole slides himself closer, before throwing the two layers over them all. The blankets settle on their bodies, heavy and soft, and he tucks their edges in to ensure the warmth is kept in. Cole then scoots beside Jay, draping an arm over him, far enough to reach Kai's shoulder.
Kai usually always had the added benefit of a constantly warm body due to his powers, though here, his abilities dwindled, he's almost as vulnerable as they are. Cole wonders what that must be like. He looks at the tired lines on Kai's face and wonders how much of that goes unspoken.
He reaches his hand to where Kai's arm rests between them, just enough so that there's a point of contact.
Jay's sniffling slowly quiets down the more time he spends hidden between his friends, his nose buried in his covers and his forehead pressed against Kai's shoulder. His eyes close eventually, though Cole can tell he's not sleeping with the way his chest rises unsteady.
“..D’you guys think we'll find Zane?” Jay mumbles then.
Someone was bound to say it eventually. Still, the following silence feels all the more deafening. It's not smart to indulge in worries like this, but at least knowing they're shared among all of them makes the weight a little lighter.
“I'm.. I'm sure we will,” Cole says, because he refuses to let go of the one thing that keeps him going. He'll hold onto it until there's nothing left, because he believes- he knows, knows that Zane is here somewhere, that he's okay, still the kind nindroid he's always been, even when lost in a distant realm. “Zane could never go out that easily. I'm sure he's waiting for us to find him,” he says, almost as if trying to convince himself. There's a cold sinking feeling in his stomach, but he refuses to acknowledge it even once and give it any fuel. “Lloyd is out there, looking for him. We need to take care of the village while he does.”
There's a barely visible twitch in Kai's face then, at the mention of Lloyd, his eyebrows furrowed.
Cole reaches out and pats Kai's shoulder. “And we have to believe in Lloyd. He's the green ninja for a reason,” he says, and his own words help to smooth out part of the unease growing inside. Kai opens his mouth, perhaps to say something along the lines of 'it should've been me' again, but it dies on his tongue.
“I know,” he mumbles instead, maybe for the thousandth time. His eyes remain somewhere distant, cold in contrast to the bright sparks that usually seem to fly around him. It's hard to imagine how much it gnaws at him, to know the person he swore to protect ever since discovering his true potential is miles and miles away, with no one at his side. Hard to imagine that he-, that Lloyd, could be lost as well, somewhere out there in miles and miles of ice, where Zane had faded into the fog of pale snow.
Cole can't bear the thought of it.
So instead, Cole offers comfort.
He pulls his friends closer, head placed on Jay's shoulder, hands kept as far as he can stretch them to hold Kai. Their legs tangle together in a way that'll surely be unpleasant to figure out later, but none of them care. They're here, pressed against each other, alive and breathing. Despite it all, they're still here, safe and sound, if freezing.
Cole breathes, nose buried into Jay's comforter. He sighs, and hopes for peace.
When sleep finally washes over him, its gentle fuzz comes in waves.
In the fog of slumber, in the blurry memory of a warmth Cole hasn't felt in weeks, he dreams of his friends.
He dreams of his arms wrapped around stark white.