Wisps: Recollection (Ninjago X Reader)

15. Jaded

 A pale half-moon glides in the midnight sky, painting milky white strokes on the ocean's bleak waves.

"Are you sure they didn't see a face? Something other than a red hat?" Jay wearily asked, rubbing at the tired bags under his eyes.

"That's all they've seen Jay." You repeated.

"And when you tried to summon them nothing happened?" Lloyd muttered, far from the shore.

"Yeah, they're still alive." You licked your lips, the salty wind making them dry.

"We've been searching for a week." Jay kicked a rock into the rolling waves next to him. "And we've found nothing. Zane could be..."

"He's not dead!" Cole snapped. "Where are you getting that idea?"

"Face it, if we can't find anything on him, he's as good as dead." 

"Stop jumping to the worse-" Lloyd's interrupted by Jay knocking off the rose-tinted glasses.

"Where else could he be? He's been turned to scrap metal." He's speaking with all the truth in his heart. "Pixel might be-"

"Don't say that." You shot him down, not having it.

"You're being pessimistic." Cole pointed out, his tone of a sharpened blade.

"I'm being realistic."

Cole crossed his arms, holding himself back from ripping Jay's words apart.

"Oh yeah? How are you being realistic?" Cole asked, his thick brows knitting together. "Most of the time your wallowing in self-pity makes me wonder why she-"

"Cole," Lloyd warned him, knowing exactly where Cole was heading.

Jay ignored Cole, talking down to you.

"I appreciate what you're doing. I really do. But talking to ghosts and asking around isn't doing anything." His voice oozed with skepticism, fueling that irritation in you like gasoline.

"If I couldn't summon them-"

"In case you haven't noticed, Zane's a robot."

"That's not true, and you know it, Jay." Cole snapped.

Jay breathed through his nose.

"Yeah, Pixel and Zane aren't human." You said it through your teeth. "I'm not sure how death would work out for them. But we can't-"

"Okay." He shut his eyelids, and opened them again, glaring at the starless sky. "You guys keep doing that. I'm done."

"What do you mean, you're done?!" Kai yelled at Jay.

"You saw that arm. It's his! I've fixed him up a ton of times. Hell, you found a piece of his face there too." Jay's eyes clouded, rain brimming in them. "He's gone. There's nothing-"

"So you're just going to give up? Like that?" Cole clasped a hand on the top of Jay's head, towering over him by a head and a half, but Jay slapped off his hand anyway.

"I'm not giving up on him." Jay's voice quivered.

"Hey-" Cole's glare softened, hand reaching for him; it never made it, Jay smacking it away.

"I'm just giving up on wishing he was alive and chasing for more of his pieces. I don't want to find him dead and broken."

Cole's mouth is agape, his shoulders trembling. He couldn't go after Jay, he couldn't move. Jay's words hit a spot too close to home, one with a room that has been empty for a long time. He swallowed, because one more breath, and he would be a mess, "I need a break... I need- I need to think."