Chapter Text
It had already been a bit of a shitty day by the time Mk came by. Everything was going wrong that day. He’d woken up ridiculously sore from a nightmare, his kettle, that had been on it’s last leg for a while now, had finally died, definitely not from him throwing it when it burned him as he tried to make some tea, and so now he was left with room temperature water and a couple of tea leaves uselessly soaking in the water, in rather empty hopes that they might steep and give him some tea.
Macaque trudged around his dojo to go and slump down on his couch, the poor old thing having the springs poking out, stuffing flying out when he sat, and depending on the day, it was harder than a rock to sit on. Today was one of those days, just to make his morning worse.
It was cold in the dojo, not that it was ever a particularly comfortable temperature, given that he didn’t really have heating or air conditioning, but at least when it was warm he could do something to cool himself down. When it was cold he just sort of had to hope he had enough blankets. Of course, most of his blankets were in the wash, leaving him with a thin little lap throw blanket that wasn't nearly enough to keep him warm.
He wasn't particularly feeling well, but he couldn’t place what it was that was ailing him, so he just wrote it off as his body hating him like he usually did, and tried to settle down on the couch to conserve his body heat. Then, of course, to top off his stellar morning, as soon as he got comfortable, there was a knock at the door, and Mk could be heard calling at him from beyond it. Macaque sighed in frustration.
Don’t get him wrong. On a normal day, Mk was great. He was a good kid, but on a bad day, Macaque didn’t want to see anyone, including Mk. It wasn’t an exclusive thing. And today was a bad day. So he didn’t want to see anyone today. However, Mk was at the door, and was not stopping his knocking. He seems to have figured out that Macaque would just ignore him with a few knocks, so he’d taken to knocking incessantly when he wanted or needed something. And, of course, Macaque was obligated to comply, given his whole ‘redemption arc’ or whatever the fuck Mk was calling it.
Honestly, there were times where he was almost glad that they hadn’t given up on him, but there were other times when he wished they still would. Today was one of those times. He finally gets annoyed of Mk’s knocking, so he drags himself out of his bed, cursing his tired limbs. Man, he must have slept really bad if he was hurting this much. It felt like he’s gone ten rounds with the monkey king and lost every one of them. Ten rounds of training, not… why did his mind go there? That was fucking… not normal. He didn’t want anything to do with Wukong, no siree.
He managed to make himself look presentable just before he opened the door, glaring at Mk.
“Do you know what time it is, kid? Trying to wake up the whole neighborhood?” Macaque asked, reasonably disgruntled for having been awoken.
“It’s almost four in the afternoon, Macaque, and you don’t live in a neighborhood, you live in a dojo,” Mk informed him helpfully, as if he didn’t already know that.
“Nuance. What do you want? I was trying to sleep.”
“We’re having a get-together on Saturday, I want you to be there.”
“No thank you, I actually have plans,” Macaque said, hoping that the level of confidence he put into his statement would get Mk to drop it.
“No you don’t.” Fuck. “You’re gonna be there.”
“You haven’t even told me where it is,” Macaque rolled his eyes.
“Pigsy’s. Figured you could use the socialization time.” Mk idly checked his phone.
“Thanks. Really feeling the love.”
“Oh, you know what I mean. You’re gonna be there! There will be food…” Mk said, as if the promise of food would be enough to lure out such a prestigious warrior, trained for centuries in the art of-
“Ugh, fine. What time?”
“Five o’clock. Don’t forget!”
“Yeah, yeah, now shoo, I was sleeping.”
“Okay, Count Macaqula, I’ll see you Saturday!” Mk grinned, and before Macaque could even ask about the weird name, which was probably another reference to something Macaque was too out of the loop to understand, Mk was gone, driving away in his tuk-tuk, leaving Macaque to contemplate his life choices.
The demon shook his head, rolling his eyes and disappearing back inside his dojo. Just the thought of having to interact with company made his body seem to sag harder, and the room felt a little bit colder, his stomach tying itself up into knots. As it began to feel greatly uncomfortable, he figured he may as well try to go sleep, before remembering his blankets were still in the dryer still. They might be done by now, and wouldn’t that make for a half decent break in this shitty day? Fresh warm blankets, straight out the dryer.
Sure enough, upon checking, they were indeed warm and dry, and he whisked them away to his bed, and before he could even register what he was doing, his hands were working by themselves, arranging the blankets. It wasn’t quite making the bed, and it took Macaque until he was done to figure out what it was that he’d been doing.
It was a nest, or nest adjacent. Why in the fuck had he done that? Did it have anything to do with how shitty he’d been feeling? Gods, he hoped not.
Whatever. It didn’t have to be a nest. It was a pile. It was a very specifically placed, nest-shaped pile. He was absolutely not looking too far into it.
Another wave of discomfort hit, and Macaque decided to stop thinking and just lay down, curling around himself. It would be better after a nap, he decided, and so he closed his eyes.
His eyes shot open seconds later, however, at the feeling of something wet between his legs, pieces beginning to click together as dread settled into his stomach like an indigestible meal. No. No, no no, that wasn’t right. This couldn’t be happening, he thought he was done ever since he’d died! This was not good, especially considering how long it had been since he’d had a heat, if indeed that’s what this was.
Putting together the pieces, though, the truth was staring him right in the face, and distantly he remembered the get together Saturday, and he thought that there could not be more inconvenient timing for that, especially since Mk would probably invite his mentor-
Shit. Wukong would probably be there. He couldn’t go, Wukong would probably be there. If he was already feeling this bad, then he couldn’t imagine how bad it’d get if he saw his former mate. Gods, it would be agony. Especially since he had no one to help him, no one that he trusted to help or no one that even would if he did trust them to help.
He should call out sick Saturday. But then people would probably come over and try to help him feel better, cause he couldn’t just say “oh, hey, can’t come, i’m in heat”! But he couldn’t just skip out, since his presence was mandatory due to his rehabilitation arc, and he couldn’t bear to endure Mk’s puppy dog eyes, or his lecture on goodness again. Even if he did have a good excuse.
Fuck. This wasn’t good.