This is Day One (out of Seven) for Ninjago Pride Week 2020 hosted by myself and nightlybirdie on tumblr! Today's prompt was "Comfort". Hope you enjoy, and feel free to check out our blog for the challenge ninjagoprideweek!

"Cole?"

"Hm?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you look like shit."

In retrospect, Cole really shouldn't have been surprised that Kai caught on to his mood swing. While he considered himself a fairly good actor—he used to be in a Performing Arts school, for spinjitzu's sake—he knew he could never fool any of his friends.

He could certainly try though.

"It's fine," Cole said, not bothering to look up from his sketch.

"Is it?" Kai asked, taking a seat across from Cole on the table. As tempting as it was to look up at him, to come face to face with that pair of dark brown eyes and get lost in them like he always did—no—yes—no. Yes, it was tempting. No, he didn't, couldn't, do it.

"Whatcha drawing?" Kai asked with a playfulness in his voice that made Cole's heart drop. Pull yourself together, you have to pull yourself together, you have to— "Is it a dragon?"

Cole nodded, trying to ignore the warm feeling rising up to his cheeks. He was fine. It was all fine. At least for a little while. He spent the next few moments drawing in silence, occasionally reaching for his eraser—it was way too close to Kai's side of the table—but of course, with the master of fire right there, the silence didn't last too long.

"You know, they that the artist tends to copy their own expression on paper when they draw."

"And?" Cole asked, and why did he ask that? It was as if he was begging for Kai to make fun of the, quite possibly, dumbfounded expression on his face. He tightened his grip around the pencil, awaiting for Kai's dismissive comment to—

"Well, you're about to draw a very sad dragon."

Cole physically felt a burden slip off his shoulders. At the same time, another one arrived, though not as heavy as before.

Of course that was what Kai picked up on; yet another shitty day amongst countless others. It was only then that Cole allowed himself to look at Kai, and for the second time since the start of the conversation, something tightened in his chest.

Kai was leaning on his hand, cheek pressed on his palm, fingers reaching all the way back to his ear. He must have had a shower earlier that day, because although his hair was dry, no product had been put on it. Instead of spikes, a few strands of hair fell lazily on his forehead. His eyes were mostly hidden by them, but Cole could still see them clearly, glimmering right back at his, and that was all he ever wanted, to stay there forever and look at Kai and—

Cole turned the page on his sketchbook.

Not a second later, Kai placed his hand down, eyes widening, and no, no, no, that wasn't what was supposed to happen, no— "Cole, hey, I'm sorry, I didn't—"

"Stay still!"

"Wh—What?"

"I'm trying to draw you, just—" Cole made a reverse motion with his hand. "Go back to how you were before."

Cole couldn't believe he'd managed to say that out loud. For a moment, he thought he'd messed up, and considered apologising and walking away, to continue drawing his dumbfounded dragon in peace, but Kai's expression softened again. "Okay."

So Cole went right to it.

He clumsily scribbled his head, then started adding the details in no order in particular. He didn't let himself spend more than a few minutes on each body part, because he found himself getting too caught up on the details, getting too distracted. He did spend more than enough time on the eyes though, and yet he never quite manage to capture their liveliness on paper.

"You know, I—"

"Shut up," Cole said, raising up a warning finger.

"I just wanted—"

"No talking," Cole said again. "You're sabotaging the drawing. Stay still."

"I'm starting to think this whole scheme is just a trick to get me to shut up," Kai said, and Cole let him.

"Probably," Cole said, a smile finding its way on his lips. He had no idea where this new-found confidence came from, but he sure as hell was grateful for it.

"Probably?" Kai said. "You're supposed to—"

"Shush."

And Kai did shut up.

Cole decided to leave the eyes alone for a bit and go back to Kai's mouth. He added some shadows, but something didn't look right. Cole looked up at Kai, then back at the drawing, and so on… the right curve wasn't quite right. Neither was the left. None of the curves looked the same as—

"Something the matter?" Kai asked.

Cole considered not answering, but he supposed it was too late for that. "Yes, actually," he said, looking back and forth again. "You moved."

"No, I didn't."

"You did," Cole insisted, but couldn't find it in him to remain serious. "You weren't smiling when I sketched this."

"Wasn't I?" Kai said, and shit, Cole could even hear the smile in his voice.

"Nope."

Cole turned the drawing around so that Kai could see for himself. Of course he knew that Kai was just teasing him, but he was pretty proud of his drawing.

"Hmm…" Kai said, taking a closer look. "You're right, this does look pretty serious."

"Told you—"

"You sure you weren't just copying your own expression, artist?" Kai asked, shifting his hand so he was leaning on his fist. "You still haven't told me what's up, by the way."

Cole sighed, placing his pencil down. "I'm starting to think that this scheme was a trick to get me to tell you what's wrong," he mumbled.

"Is it working?"

Cole really didn't want it to work.

He tried to shake it off by rolling his eyes, if only to avoid Kai's gaze, but couldn't help the gasp that escaped him when he felt something warm covering the back of his hand. He threw it a quick glance, only to see that Kai had placed his hand on his.

"Seriously, are you feeling okay?"

He supposed there was no point in hiding it anymore.

"I'm fine," Cole said, and he could almost feel Kai raise his eyebrows, but he was more occupied with savoring his touch. "I'm fine, it's just… My Dad."

"Everything okay?" Kai asked.

Cole nodded. "Yeah. We were on a call before and it's been a long day for both of us, so we just… took it out on each other, I guess."

"Cole, it's okay."

"I know," Cole said quickly. "That's why I didn't want to bring it up. But you're stubborn." He paused for a second, then added, "As always."

Kai huffed. "And that's news to you, how?"

"Who said it was news to me?" Cole asked, suddenly too aware of Kai's hand on his.

"I don't know what to expect from you these days," he said.

Cole's throat was so dry that for a second, he didn't think he could bring himself to speak. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Kai shrugged. "You've been drawing a lot more."

"Maybe you just haven't been paying enough attention."

"We live together."

"You don't know everything about me," Cole said, preparing himself for Kai's comeback, but was surprised when it never came.

The ninja of fire let go of a deep chuckle, his eyes meeting Cole's again. "I guess I don't."

Cole felt as if he'd been slapped across the face.

The long stares, the smiles, the giggles, the physical contact… He'd always brushed them off as part of Kai's personality, but the more he thought about it, the more he realised that these moments were saved just for him and—

"You okay?" Kai asked, a hint of worry hanging from the tip of his tongue.

And Cole took a leap of faith.

Without breaking eye contact, he turned his hand around so Kai's hand could slip into his—rough and calloused from his work as a blacksmith—and squeezed. "More than okay," he said.

Kai's features relaxed and he smiled kindly again. A few seconds later, he squeezed back, and Cole couldn't hold himself back from grinning, nor did he want to.

He wouldn't need to put this moment on paper to remember it.

I know I haven't written for Ninjago in a while, but I still love these funky lego ninja with all my heart. I'm extremely busy with exams and figuring out what's going to happen with college, so I couldn't flesh this out fully (I have six more one-shots to post, after all), but I really had fun with this!

As always, feel free to check me out on tumblr (evelinaonline) and scream to me about whatever you like! You can also find my Ko-fi and commission info there, so I'd really appreciate it if you gave it a look.

And of course, if you want to participate in this challenge yourself, check out the ninjagoprideweek blog with all the prompts!

Thanks for reading, hope you have a nice day!