Extinguished

Trusting

Kai's eyes blinked open momentarily as he sensed Cole standing in front of him. But he must've taken in the pale face, horrified wide eyes, and open mouth and decided he didn't like the confirmation held in Cole's reaction.

[It was bad. Like a metal shaft piercing through fleshy skin. Like blood seeping from the wound, glinting darkly in the dim light. Like chills running through Kai's body as he fought against the shock his body would surely enter.]

Cole stood in shock. This couldn't-he couldn't comprehend-there was metal [metal!] sticking straight through his brother's lower abdomen. And the blood - he knew it would be worse once they got the object out.

Cole's gaze travelled across the scene, from Kai, to the shaft in his side, to a scrap of heavy looking metal just to Kai's right. Peering closely at the object, Cole realized that it was piece of one of the many electronic billboards throughout Ninjago City.

His attention snapped to his brother as Kai chuckled weakly.

"Couldn't see where I was going," he mumbled. "All I could see was fire. Crashed us right through the damn thing."

Their eyes met briefly, almost a mirror of each other. Cole's deep browns still held horror, loss and incomprehension. Kai's normally sparking amber were a subdued, but doey brown, full of fear and desperation, but also...trust? Kai. Trust.

[Kai's eyes held trust because now Cole was here, and he wasn't alone, and there was hope now and before when he'd been t-trapped under that horrible hunk of metal, alone, unable to cry, barely able to breathe, there hadn't been hope and he'd almost given up hopes of getting the object off him because he was injured and weak and and-but then he remembered. He remembered who was down here with him. Somewhere off in the darkness alone. Maybe trapped, injured like he was. Maybe, maybe dea-no. No, he couldn't think that. So, with his mind focused solely on his brother (not the pain, not the cold, numb burning in his side), he drained the last of his metaphorical fire in pushing the metal aside. And that one effort was enough to bring Cole to him. And now, now he could breathe again. Not because he was healthy, but because he trusted Cole with his life. And Cole was here.]

After a moment, Kai's eyes slid shut, a single tear slowly dripping down his cheek as his mouth trembled.

That must've shook Cole out of his shock.

[Kai. Crying. Something that he rarely, if ever, had seen.]

"Kai, hey, hey, it's gonna be okay," Cole babbled, kneeling beside his friend, hands hovering uselessly as he searched his brain for the first step.

[Where was Zane when you needed him most?]

Kai seemed to sense his friend's panicked, unclear thoughts and opened his eyes. The lucidity in his eyes was one solace to Cole as the fire ninja reached out to grip his bigger brother's wrist.

"I know," Kai gritted, his will to stay brave and not fall apart showing through. "I'll be okay...I just-" A falter. A sob. Cole wanted to sob with him as he watched the fire ninja fight to not succumb to the pain. "I just need you to get this thing out of me."

The last part was a hiss - it was a desperate plea, and yet somehow also a show of Kai's strength. The amount of pain he was about to feel - no, that Cole would inflict upon him - was the least of Kai's worries. His concern was about freedom. Freedom from a foreign object sucking the life out of him by the second.

If Cole's eyes could grow more horrified, they did.

"Kai..." His voice cracked, the realization of what he had to do, dawning on him.

Kai's fingers curled tighter into Cole's skin. [Cole would've said it burned, but it didn't. Kai's fingers, normally sparking with light and burning power, were weak and cold, piercing Cole's soul more than fire would've burned his skin.]

"Cole, please," Kai pleaded. "Do it before I chicken out." He tried to make it a joke. But they both knew what he really should've said.

[Before I bleed out.]

Cole numbly gripped the metal shaft, trying to swallow the lump that rose in his throat when Kai whimpered in pain and anticipation for more.

[Whimpering. Implying the worst type of pain. Implying vulnerability. Because a noise so soft and sad could only be produced when one was reduced to the deepest sort of agonized pain. Because someone like Kai - a bright and shining, overconfident Master - could never be that vulnerable unless he didn't have the strength to control himself.]

"Ready?" Cole asked, bitterness hanging his tongue at the useless question.

Kai could only mouth, Go.

It happened in an instant, but the aftermath felt like eternity. Cole's strength allowed him to pull the point out quickly and cleanly. At first Kai's reaction was a sickening gasp of pain, but then he was doubling over, arms protecting his middle as he writhed. For a moment, Cole knelt [useless] near his friend's side. His horror kept him in a stupor.

Then, Kai gagged, and a sickening mixture of acid bile rose from his throat and he heaved onto the pavement. He coughed, giving a pitiful cry of pain as he tried to prevent himself from collapsing in his own bodily fluids. His hand slipped in the repulsive liquid, and he almost face-planted in it, but Cole snapped out of it and pulled his friend into his chest.

The blood pooled out from the wound, and Cole distantly realized they shouldn't have pulled out the object until they'd made a plan to slow the bleeding. But Kai was in his arms, shaking and crying, getting colder and paler by the second, and his precious life force was gushing onto the ground. Cole lowered his friend to the ground, pressing worn hands onto the wound, Kai biting his lip and squeezing his eyes shut, fingers curling around Cole's arm until it was almost painful - but the black ninja didn't say anything.

"It's gonna be okay, Kai," Cole's voice couldn't stop the hitch. [He was so so useless and Kai was so so cold, and he had to stay strong and do something here but, but he was frozen, and and-]

Kai gasped a breath and tugged on Cole's gi. Cole looked down, meeting his friend's wide-blown eyes, full of emotion as raw as it comes. [Terror, pain, vulnerability.]

"I know what to do," Kai whispered, and somehow found it in himself to try to sit up, much to Cole's added horror.

Cole pressed him down ever so gently, eyes questioning and nearly just as scared. Before he could even ask what Kai meant to do, the fire ninja was weakly attempting what he normally did with such ease. He held his hands above him with shaking arms. He closed his eyes, releasing a shuddering breath. His palms soon flickered with dim flames, and Cole's stomach dropped.

"No...no, Kai, there's no way you can-"

Kai's gaze met his again, but this time they were more than terrified. The only word to describe that look, Cole thought, was haunted. [Haunted. As if Kai knew that what he was about to do to himself, would scar him for the rest of his life. As if he already knew the permanent mark it would leave on his life.]

"I have to, Cole," Kai said [so weak yet, so, so strong]. "It's my only chance. And you have to hold me down."