Work Text:
Macaque wakes up aching.
This in itself is nothing new. Macaque aches all the time, whether it be for one particular reason or not. It's a fact of his existence that he has learned to live with. Just another thing he brought back from the Diyu.
Yesterday, he ached. Tomorrow, he will ache. Today, he aches. Although it's noticeably more significant than usual.
Something is surrounding him. Warm; soft. He curls into it with a quiet, groggy noise in the back of his throat, pulling it tighter around his body. It's a blanket most likely, but he doesn't know quite why he would have a blanket. He certainly didn't return home after the battle with the White Bone Demon last night. Surely he would remember that.
The battle with the White Bone Demon. Macaque's eyes snap open before he can think better of it. Thankfully, it's dim wherever he is, but just where?
Wait. He knows this smell, and this interior, and the faint glow of the television coming from the other side of the room. The wooden walls of Sun Wukong's hut in Shuilian Cave surround him on all sides.
It's hard to see through the lack of light and the fact that he is currently cocooned in a thick blanket, especially with his lack of a right eye, so Macaque lets his magic slip away from him, guiding it along the walls and using it to feel out his surroundings. He notices then that the thing he is lying on is not a carpet but a mattress, thin but soft, pushed up against the back wall.
Movement on the couch. The chatter from the television pauses and something in the darkness shifts, and Macaque pulls back his power, gathering it around himself in a pool of purple tinged shadow that spreads up the entire back of the hut, threatening to devour whoever steps too close.
There's shuffling, then a quiet breath. A lantern is lit, followed by another, and slowly the small space is filled with light. Sun Wukong reveals himself then, arms crossed and eyebrows lowered.
"Can you not?" he says, annoyed. "I just fixed everything. Drop the theatrics."
Macaque knows without having to check that his glamor had faded in his slumber, but he's too tired to reapply it, and too busy staring at Wukong. Slowly, the shadows return to normal.
Wukong seems satisfied at that, beginning to move around again. Some objects are tossed carelessly as he ruffles through his things, clearly searching for something. Macaque watches him warily, a multitude of questions circling through his head.
Suddenly, something comes sailing through the air towards him. Always quick to act, a ribbon of tangible shadow whips out, catching it before it can hit him. Macaque squints at it. His working eye is still blurry from sleep and the little lighting, so he only realizes what it is when the thing is lowered down to his face. An apple.
"What is this?"
"Food," Wukong says, straightening so that he is visible on the other side of the couch again. "Unless you're not hungry."
Macaque scowls. "Why am I even here?"
"You don't remember?"
Silence.
Wukong sighs deeply, striding forward. He crouches in front of Macaque. "Once the White Bone Demon was beaten, you passed out in my cave. Ring a bell?"
Macaque frowns, wracking his brain. He remembers the end of the battle and the events leading up to it, but after that, everything is a haze. He remembers the sudden, dizzying exhaustion that had slammed into him the second the White Bone Demon's mech crumpled, and he remembers dipping into his own shadow quickly. It must've spit him out in Shuilian cave, then.
It isn't like it's his fault for passing out. He had maybe the worst week of his life (lives?) with the Bone Demon's threat of execution looming over his head unless he completed the grueling mission of having to catch MK and his friends. Granted, he did not exactly try very hard with that task—he may be selfish, but he's not stupid.
Still, he thinks that he would certainly remember tumbling into Wukong's hut, regardless of whether he was still fully conscious at that time or not. The only feasible explanation is that Wukong must've put him here instead after discovering him, and that is… out of character, to say the least.
He huffs softly, hunkering down even more—if that is even possible. "Why the blanket?"
"You were shivering."
He's always shivering nowadays; yet another consequence of being the White Bone Demon's unwilling champion. He does not say this, and Sun Wukong does not ask.
A few beats pass. They look at each other in silence; Macaque trying to formulate a plan of action, and Wukong watching to see what Macaque will do. Surprisingly, there's not an ounce of wariness in his body language. His posture is relaxed, his arms crossed not as a defensive gesture but more just so they don't hang loose at his sides, and his tail sweeps across the ground slowly, side to side, idle.
Mount Huaguo is the safest place in the three realms. Macaque knows this well. And he's admittedly very comfortable where he is. It's quiet and warm and cozy here, and if Wukong wanted him to leave, he would say so.
"I'm tired," Macaque admits finally. The words scratch against his throat, coming out in a rasp that floats into the space between them, nearly a whisper.
Wukong's arms uncross. He turns around with a small breath, tail flicking, figure lined with orange-gold from the light of the lanterns. "Then sleep."
It is the closest thing to an invitation that Macaque will ever get. Wukong goes to sit back down on the couch. The television starts up again, and Macaque eyes the apple still dangling in front of him, glossy and red.
He sets it to the side, slowly, letting the last of his magic seep out of the darkness. He's so tired, and his bones ache. Sun Wukong may be a cheeky monkey, but he has his own sort of honor when it counts. Macaque will be safe here, for as long as he is allowed to remain.
So he lies back down, snuggling back into the mattress. The blanket is warm. He presses his nose into the fabric, six ears quivering slightly.
A deep sigh leaves him. He is out within moments.
For the most part, Macaque just sleeps. He wakes up occasionally, never for long, typically just to look around or listen to the world for a bit before drifting back into the land of dreams.
Sometimes Wukong is there when he wakes, watching television or flipping through the books scattered around the shelves, but a lot of the time he isn't. Macaque is never sure what he is doing, but he doesn't concern himself with it.
The apple remains on the floor beside his makeshift bed, uneaten. He doesn't know when, but somewhere along the line a few other fruits join it. Two plums and a banana, and then a handful of loquats. All his favorites.
He sleeps through days one, two, and three. On day four, he wakes up long enough to eat the plums and the banana, before curling up again and passing out. On day five, he sleeps.
On day six, he wakes up, and he isn't tired.
By now, the feeling has been pushed into the back of his brain. It lingers there like a storm cloud, and it goes without saying that too much of any sort of excitement will just tire him right back out again. He feels hazy; untethered. Like he isn't completely inside his own body.
Wukong is there too, on the sixth day. He is sitting, surprisingly, facing Macaque, folding origami. A few other origami animals lie scattered around him; birds and dragons and lions, mostly.
Macaque watches him for a few minutes. It looks like he's folding a monkey with purple paper, or at least attempting to.
"You're doing it wrong," Macaque whispers eventually, voice rough from disuse. Wukong perks up at that, lifting his head to meet his eyes, surprise faintly visible.
They look at each other for a moment in silence. Eventually, Wukong turns his gaze back downwards, crumpling the paper in his hands with a sharp huff. "Obviously."
A beat. Macaque shifts slowly, managing to worm his way out of the blanket cocoon he had created for himself. His muscles are sore and stiff. They tend to be stiff and only loosen up once he does his stretches, but right now it's painful to move them, and definitely a result of not only the White Bone Demon but also the fact that he's done nothing but lay around these past few days.
Even such a simple task leaves him breathless. He stares up at the ceiling, jaw clenched.
"Are you going to eat something?" Wukong asks.
He's not really hungry, but he knows that he should. The only problem he has is the fact that reaching out to grab the fruit by the side of the bed seems to be too much for him right now. "I want to go outside."
"No one is stopping you."
I'm stopping me, he thinks, annoyance flashing through him. His nostrils flare and he huffs sharply, turning his head to stare at the wall. Through gritted teeth, he says, "I can't."
"Why not?" Wukong sounds confused, and reasonably so. Still, he feels his insides squeeze out of embarrassment and annoyance and everything in between.
He hears Wukong shift, the distance between them shrinking gradually. Macaque lets out another breath, squeezing the blanket with aching fingers.
"I can't," he repeats again, keeping his voice carefully controlled. "My joints."
It's infuriating and embarrassing, and he hates it. He curses his time in the Diyu and he curses the White Bone Demon for not even bothering to fix something like this when she dragged his soul back into his body. She had done the bare minimum to ensure that he could function properly, reconstructing his internal organs and stitching his skull back together but nothing further than that. She had left the rigor mortis that stiffened his limbs and left the complete blindness in his right eye and left the hazy, unclear vision in the other and left all the aches and the pains and the nightmares and everything else. Like a reminder of what he was and the purpose for his return to the mortal plane.
But in the end, he'll take all of this in exchange for life, no matter how much it may inconvenience him now. Anything is better than the Diyu. Anything.
Wukong creeps closer. "Your joints," he repeats. Perhaps he thinks that this is a result of the White Bone Demon infecting him with her power in the lantern city, and the odds are that he wouldn't be completely wrong. The icy nature of her magic more than likely worsened it, so Macaque does not bother to correct him.
A few long moments pass. Macaque stares at the wall, unable to bring himself to look at Wukong. His jaw clenches. "I want to go back to sleep."
"No, you don't." Wukong is closer now, heartbeat steady in his ears. "You want to go outside. You just said that."
"What about this are you not getting?" Macaque snaps. "I can't get up, Wukong. Just… let me go back to sleep."
"You've slept the past week. Sleep any more, and you'll just rot."
Then let me rot, Macaque thinks. I'm tired.
But he doesn't say this, and a second later Wukong tries again. "Just… come here."
He finally turns his gaze away from the wall with a sharp scoff, immediately meeting Wukong’s golden stare. The other monkey is leaning over him, having perched himself on the side of the mattress. Macaque lifts a hand with some effort, his shoulder aching as Wukong takes it. Slowly, he places Macaque's hand on his collarbone, and then says, "Other hand."
Macaque's jaw flexes as he lifts his other hand, slowly placing it on the other side of Wukong's neck. It feels natural then to let his hands slip a little further, fingers linking behind Wukong's neck, although the Monkey King has to stoop over even more to allow him to do so, hands going to rest on either side of his body.
Carefully, those hands then slip under Macaque, pressing lightly against his shoulder blades.
"Ready?" Wukong says.
Macaque forces himself to nod. Slowly, Wukong begins to lean back, bringing Macaque with him as he goes.
It hurts in the way that muscles hurt when one stretches them after a long period of remaining still, but somehow not quite like that. The difference is that stretching unused muscles feels good, and while this does too in its own way, it also hurts, in its own way. Macaque exhales shakily when Wukong finally manages to sit them both up, his throat tight.
"See?" says Wukong, sounding rather satisfied with himself. "I told you it was fine."
"Shut up," Macaque says with no real heat. "Standing is the hard part."
Wukong gives a little hum, head tilting. His hands slip away and Macaque allows his own to draw back, carefully not thinking of how warm Wukong had felt, allowing him to sit back and get to his feet.
The mattress he's been staying on is placed on the floor, resulting in Macaque's legs being curled close to himself. Wukong rolls his shoulders, phoenix feathers swishing softly as he does, then smirks down at him. "You ready, bud?"
Macaque gives a mute nod. Wukong kneels back down again and opens up his side, silently prompting Macaque to wrap an arm around his shoulders.
He does, hesitantly and slowly and with a hard swallow that makes the lump in his throat ever more prominent. In return, Wukong's arm goes around his waist in a mimic of a side hug.
"All good?" Wukong asks.
"Just go."
They stand slowly. Macaque grits his teeth so hard he can hear the way they grind. His legs scream out in protest as his knees unbend, and the left side of his hip throbs and it's overall painful. But it's good, too; a relief to know that he can get up after all, albeit with a bit of help.
Wukong's help, for that matter.
They move slowly towards the door. Wukong opens it with his tail and they have to maneuver into an odd sideways position to make it through without Wukong having to let go, but they make it. Sunlight sinks into his skin the moment he steps out of the awning of the porch, flooding down from the hole at the top of the cave. He stops there for a long moment, tilting his head up and closing his eyes, letting himself relax as much as he can.
"What now?" asks Wukong.
He thinks about it for a moment. "I'm gonna sit down."
Thankfully, he's tall enough that he can sit on the edge of the porch without his feet dangling off the ground. Wukong sets him down there and watches for a second or two, like he's waiting for Macaque to ask for help with something else. But that doesn't happen, and so he disappears briefly into his hut before emerging again, fresh origami paper in his hands.
Wukong settles down a tail's length away from Macaque, turning his attention down to his hands. In the meanwhile, Macaque stretches out one leg first, breathing in slow, steady breaths. Then he places both hands on his thigh, one on top of the other, and slowly leans forward, pushing himself until he's bent over with his hands settled all the way on his ankle, leg still straightened out.
These stretches are familiar. He repeats this process a couple of times before doing the same with the other leg, until finally he feels better. When he's done with that, he takes a break and leans back with a soft exhale, feeling slightly better.
The island is peaceful today, and quiet. Wukong hums a song under his breath, tail swishing absentmindedly through the air.
It's… a weirdly tranquil existence for the two of them, especially considering everything else that had occurred just a few weeks ago.
Macaque turns his head to look at Wukong. Close like this, he can watch him focus almost entirely on his origami. He seems to have gotten a hold of the folding process for this particular monkey. His brow is furrowed slightly in concentration and the tip of a pink tongue can be seen poking out of the corner of his mouth as he works.
Macaque turns away after another moment, leaning back against one of the wooden pillars of the porch. He releases a breath. "Why are you letting me stay?"
In the corner of his eye, even with his terrible vision, he can see when Wukong pauses. He goes back to what he's doing a second later, shrugging slightly. "I said you could."
"No, you didn't."
Wukong huffs sharply. "I implied it, didn't I?"
"That's a generous way to put it," Macaque retorts. "And it doesn't really explain anything either way."
"Whatever." There is a beat of silence, then Wukong sighs. "Consider it, uh… payback. I guess. For helping."
And fighting me when I was possessed, he doesn't say, but it hangs heavy in the space between them regardless.
"Payback," Macaque echoes, not quite sure what to make of that kind of response. This whole thing has left their relationship in a weird spot, swinging like a pendulum between enemies and rivals and something like friends, although he'd never dare to use that word to describe it.
"Yeah." Wukong finishes his monkey, holding it up to the light. The paper is an almost transparent purple kind that becomes lighter when it is in the sun. "Unless you want to fight again?"
"Some other time." Rest over, Macaque flicks his tail and decides to stand. He does it slowly and carefully, not asking for Wukong's help, though he can feel the other's eyes on him as he gradually pushes himself to his feet.
As he starts up his stretches again, Wukong goes back to his origami. The purple paper monkey is placed gingerly to the side, and out comes a sheet of pink paper, this time. It looks as if he's going to turn it into a lotus.
"You can stay here until you're better," Wukong says as Macaque bends down to touch his toes. "And then I don't care what you do. Okay?"
He pauses for a fraction of a millisecond, hesitating mid-stretch. But Wukong doesn't look up, staring resolutely down at his origami, and so Macaque forces himself to continue, not wanting to linger in surprise for too long.
"Okay," he says after a pause. And that is the end of that.
Things get better after the sixth day, even if it's gradually. Macaque still sleeps more often than not, and in the days following Wukong still helps him get up. But he gets up, and he does his stretches and goes outside and walks laps around the cave when he feels strong enough to do so.
Wukong seems to have taken to origami. He moves from folding animals to folding trees and makeshift rocks and bushes and other things, constructing an entire little forest on the coffee table in his hut. Occasionally, when Macaque's fingers don't ache as bad, he helps, and they watch TV while they do it and argue about what to watch. All eighteen seasons of Monkey Cop are put down as a firm 'no,' regardless of Wukong's insistence.
On day nine, Macaque gets out of bed on his own. And the day after that. And the day after that.
It goes without saying that Macaque can leave at any time. Wukong's statement is enough proof of that, although he never outright pushes Macaque to leave. It seems that he really did mean it when he said he was willing to let Macaque stay for as long as he needed.
If Macaque were to be honest, he would probably be fine on his own now. He doesn't need Wukong's help to stand, and he can walk and stretch and run laps around the cave just fine now. But, he stays, and Wukong does not push him to leave.
The cold has receded into a quiet thing, only really noticeable if he pays too much attention to it. With the White Bone Demon dead, he is sure that it will fade eventually. It just takes time. These things always do.
Wukong is sitting on the couch when he comes back inside after his walk, gaze fixed on the television. He doesn't acknowledge the door opening, but his tail shifts quietly off the length of the couch, leaving an open space that Macaque takes. He pulls his knees up to his chest and with a quiet flick of his tail, summons a portal to allow the blanket from the mattress to fall into his hands. He wraps it around himself like a cocoon.
"Why do you even have this?" he mutters, not really expecting an answer as he runs his fingers over the dark red fabric. "You don't even use blankets."
"Dunno, I just dug it up somewhere," Wukong responds, not taking his eyes off the screen. "Does it matter?"
"Where do you sleep?"
"Around."
Macaque frowns, turning to look at Wukong. His knees are pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around them—hunched slightly into himself, fingers curled loosely into his sleeves.
He's shivering.
All at once Macaque remembers that Wukong, too, had been infected with the White Bone Demon's power. Whereas Macaque was being frozen from the inside out, she had dug her ugly claws into Wukong's very soul and held him there for a solid amount of time before he was eventually able to break free—though not without an ample amount of blood, sweat, and tears on both of their parts.
Wukong must've been cold this entire time, just like Macaque has been, if not on a worse level.
He shifts quietly, and grips the blanket a little tighter. "Are you… cold?"
Wukong is silent for a moment, as if he's contemplating denying it. It wouldn't work either way; Macaque, even with his shitty vision, can see the minute shivers running through him, and he can hear the way Wukong's heartbeat quickens when he asks.
The moment passes. Wukong's lips part briefly, then press together again into a thin line. He turns his head an inch to the right, just enough that his expression is no longer visible to Macaque.
Then, quietly, "I still feel her, sometimes."
Macaque exhales. The television drones on, mindless chatter that he pays no attention to.
The idea of Wukong being cold in any capacity is… worrying. Wukong has been warm for as long as Macaque has known him; a fact perpetuated by the time he spent in Laozi's furnace. Sometimes, the sheer heat from his body alone is akin to walking under a beam of sunlight.
A beat passes. Two. On the third, Macaque makes up his mind and turns his gaze back to the TV, although he hardly pays attention to it at all. He waits a second, then scoots a little bit to the right.
Wukong does not move or acknowledge the movement at all, although his tail curls noticeably closer around his legs.
Macaque takes a breath. He inches a bit closer again.
Still, Wukong does not react. He stares resolutely at the TV, absolutely silent. And he continues to keep his attention there as Macaque repeats this process a few more times, until they are close enough that their arms press together. Wukong is shivering, but he is still warm, even now.
"I'm cold too," Macaque murmurs finally. His heart thuds in all six of his ears as he waits, and waits, and waits.
And slowly, Wukong presses ever so slightly back, head tilting his way.
"Shh," is all he says in the end. "We're getting to the good part."
Macaque snorts, and really starts to pay attention to the show.
The glow from the TV lights up the origami forest and its animal inhabitants, sitting on the coffee table in front of them. Macaque leans a little further into Wukong, soaking up his heat and sharing his own at the same time, and they are quiet.
It is day thirteen. He aches, still, but it is better now.