Chapter Text
Ninjago City smelled distinctly of fish. You couldn’t cross the street without brushing shoulders with someone, and everything had a thin layer of grime coating it. His lullabies were passing cars, street fights, upstairs neighbors that seemed to move furniture at exactly three a.m ,and scurrying rats. He scrubbed their apartment kitchen twice before he started cooking, and he still felt horrible guilt serving food from it. Their bunkbeds were arranged so close Jay’s foot would somehow end up on his face. Overall, there wasn’t much to miss about his time there. The city was at its best when it was a glimmering Jewel on the skyline far away from him.
It was a great time later when he realized he missed it. Not entirely but in a small nostalgic way that twisted his stomach. It was a before time. Before the final battle, before tomorrow’s tea, before he had died for the first time. A time full of stress, and fights, and little to no privacy but he had never felt closer to his brother’s.
He craved that closeness now that Lloyd was gone. Tiny visions of him danced everywhere. Lloyd sat at the bar to keep him company as he cooked, chasing after Kai in the hallway after he had stolen something of his, jumping up from the couch as he beat Jay in a video game, laughing with Cole in the courtyard while they trained, handing Nya tools as they worked in easy silence. Hunched over scrolls in the library, tapping his hand against the edge and looking far older than he had any right to. Worst of all when Zane closed his eyes, imprinted in the back of his eyelids was a little boy with a gapped tooth smile. A little boy who reached out to him when he was hurt, or sick, or simply needed to know he was there. And Zane hoped that he knew just by the squeeze of his hand that he etched the promise he always would be in the center of his soul. He only hoped now that he had kept that vow until the very moment he -
Paint splattered up onto his canvas from the force he set down his paintbrush with. The green edges were now splashed with tiny dots of dark purple. It’s not as if it mattered he supposed, he wasn’t even sure what he was painting. Curves of colors ran together with no determined path. Reds and blues crashed together almost violently descending into a madness of greens and blues and oranges. He hadn’t even registered his hands moving to put them there until now. Did he even remember coming into this room? It was after the funeral he remembered, the public spectacle they held for all the merged realms. Rows and rows of faces who didn’t know the sound of Lloyd’s laugh or the way his nose scrunched when he found something particularly vile. It had been his suggestion to hold a public ceremony. It was the logical course of events, what they have always had to do. But it was another piece of himself Lloyd had to sacrifice. A small part of all their grief they had to relinquish. Kai had once asked him a long time ago when it would be enough. Zane chose not to answer because the truth was something they already knew.
It never would be.
Don’t get lost Zane.
Lloyd’s voice echoed in his head, and Zane tried to hold it there knowing someday he would forget it just as he forgot his father’s, Wu’s, Nya’s. How many times did Lloyd tell him that? All of his family tell him that? It was the mantra that they all repeated often after the never - realm.
We will always pull you out.
Zane sent the legs of his stool scraping against the floor as he stood. He took inventory of where he was. The library was warm, and still smelled like Lloyd’s favorite candle scent. The sun dappled light against the shelves regardless of whether or not it fit there anymore. The blanket he wrapped around himself when he worked late at night was still draped over the back of his chair. Zane remembered when Jay’s mom had given him that blanket. She had made them all quilts for winter. Lloyd clutched it reverently. His mouth opened and closed wordlessly.
“You’re welcome.” Edna had said pinching one his cheeks.
Lloyd smiled and wrapped it tightly over his shoulders. Zane did the same now, letting the weight settle over him.
It was worn now, what used to be bright green squares embroidered with space warriors now a darker shade. Several spots had been patched up to varying degrees of quality. Zane had offered to fix it for him but Lloyd had always insisted on doing it himself.
Zane gripped the edges of the quilt.
Don’t get lost.
Zane felt like weights were tied to his ankles as he left the room. How could he not be lost in this? Swept up in the current and pulled out to sea where he would drown. He could handle it like he had when Nya turned herself into the ocean. With a flip of a switch, he would feel nothing at all. A dam against a waterfall. Yet, he knew all too well when the dam broke it the water would be twice as high.
Besides, he didn’t want to forget the love he carried for his siblings. Not ever again. It didn’t mean the thought wasn’t tempting. Just a flip of a switch and it could all be over. He could be that man on a throne again that felt nothing as people died before him again and again. Only this time, he wouldn’t have Lloyd to pull him out of it.
He shut his eyes tightly to banish the thought. Never again. No matter how easy it seemed at the moment.
Zane found himself in his room when he found some semblance of consciousness again. The standing mirror he had hung up next to his wardrobe reflected himself back. Slid into the sides of the frame were a note that read -
Whenever you’re ready, Pix.
And three photographs. One of him and his siblings at Laughy’s Karaoke Club, another of him and P.I.X.A.L sitting under a rainfall of cherry blossoms, and the last being of a much younger him baking with a little Lloyd. Zane’s face was twisted in concern as Lloyd mixed whatever was in his mixing bowl with a little too much vigor. Flour was dashed across his nose and every other visible surface of the counter. With a shaky hand he reached out to grab it. He stared down at it as if it could magically transport him back in time. That was simply not how any of this worked he knew. Eventually he settled for sliding it into one of his pockets
Don’t get lost.
Then he was walking again. Ambling around like a ghost unsure of where it was, only knowing that it was familiar. It was so quiet, so eerily still in a way that the monastery hadn’t been for a long time. There was always someone laughing, or shouting, or stomping around much too loudly at night. The young ninja were always running about the halls with a question or an ill advised plan they didn’t want anyone to know about. He never minded it. He quite enjoyed their questions, especially Sora’s. So bright, so kind, so inquisitive. But now it was as if the very heart of the monastery had stopped beating. In some ways Zane assumed it had.
Don’t get lost.
When he next came out of his haze he was in the attic. It was a place that saw more dust than people. He was sure he was the only one who remembered it existed. Boxes were stacked neatly against the wall, each labeled appropriately by season or person. Cole’s were on the immediate left in orange totes while Jay’s were on the right in electric blue. Within them Zane knew were folded old gis, first prototypes of inventions, old trophies and metals. He had kept everything he deemed sentimental enough to be important or someone had asked him to store.
In the very back is where he found himself kneeling over opened green boxes. He rifled through a folder with all his first attempts at photography, and smiled to himself when he pulled out the trophy from the Ninjaball Run. He set aside a photo album all the ninja had made cataloguing his life, signed by each of them on the first page. At the very bottom of the box was a faded black hoodie. Zane lifted it up and let it unfurl. It smelled stale from years of storage. The vinyl of the skeleton markings had peeled, leaving tiny holes in the design. The signature five was a faded version of itself in the background. He was struck at once by how small it was.
Don’t get lost.
He swallowed as he draped across his arm. The floorboard creaked under him as he walked forward toward a ladder on the opposite wall. With a climb and the pushing of a trap door he found himself on the roof of the monastery. The crisp air pleasantly bit at his cheeks, bringing in the scent of the Hygradenga gardens Lloyd had planted around the walls of the courtyard. They had bloomed just recently. Lloyd had been so proud, beaming whenever they were mentioned, and finding any reason to explain the ways he had encouraged them to grow.
Zane walked across the top of the roof until he found his perfect perch. It gazed over the landscape of ninjago below the mountain while also giving him a decent view of the courtyard. Night was beginning to fall and the lights of the city became a neon dot in the distance. He thought of himself from decades ago, sitting on their tiny fire escape in the middle of the night wishing everything wasn’t quite so loud. Lloyd would find him like he always did. Zane would hold him, tell him a story until he drifted back to sleep. For a tiny sliver of a second, Lloyd had true unequivocal peace.
Just one more time
One last night out in the open air. Zane could tell him one last story to get him to sleep for the last time. He couldn’t bear the thought of him going restless into the end. He deserved to rest well, content. If he would embrace him one last time and now he had shut his eyes knowing nothing but all the love Zane had for him. Zane spread the old hoodie out on his lap. He had created a museum for Lloyd, as if having all his things in one spot could summon him back. He had to come back. He had to know he was alright.
Zane closed his eyes, and reached out for him. Just one last time. It was a terrible idea. He had always been able to feel his siblings like tiny flutters in his heart. They weren’t obvious sensations unless he focused on them. Each was distinctly different in his chest. Lloyd sat in the center, and he had felt it collapse the moment he died. A cave in that left a lone explorer in the dark. A fire gone out in a blizzard. Anyone would then conclude that he wouldn’t feel him now but when that hollow feeling ricochet throughout him. It hit bone, muscle, and nerve until he was rendered paralyzed. Then he tried again, and again, and again until he doubled over. His breath was heavy and his body was trembling.
Don’t get lost, Don’t get lost, Don’t get lost.
Lloyd was already beginning to sound different than he had remembered. It was too high, no too low. He searched and searched for what he had known but it was already sand slipping through his fingers.
He plucked the photo up from his lap. He searched for new meaning in the photo, a new discovery about Lloyd he hadn’t known before. There had to be more of him somewhere. Yet, the image remained as it always did. Before he could even mourn that a gust of wind picked up and carried the photo out of his fingers. He reached out for him at the risk of tumbling off the roof but it was long gone from him. It spiraled down and down the mountainside. Zane stared at where it had gone with held breath.
He’s gone.
It slammed into him like a hammer to his head. He looked down at the hoodie in his lap. He saw Lloyd there with hair in his eyes. Zane always had to comb back for training. Hoodie over his head when he felt like he was defenseless against the world.
Don’t get lost.
But he already was, drifting along a river in a raft with a hole in the bottom
Zane crushed the hoodie to his chest, balling his fingers deep in the worn fabric. Curling over with a choked sob. It was undignified, and messy, and uncontrollable. It was foreign to him. What had he been called? Cool, cold, easy. This was none of those things. His chest ached, and his throat was dry.
But Lloyd was gone. He could no longer feel him so he let himself become other to himself because nothing would be right again.
Zane let himself get lost in it.