Chapter Text
There was an imposter in Macaque’s body.
It was an indisputable fact, a concrete point narrowed down and brought into startling clarity under the glare of the summer sun.
The singing of the cicadas blurs together into white noise. It drowns out all other distinguishable noise, deafening the Monkey King with their restless cacophony. Wukong could not think past the ruckus, could not process anything besides that one crucial piece of information repeating brokenly in his mind.
Macaque. Macaque Macaque Macaque—!
The incomprehensible buzzing reverberates in his ears, vibrating through his eardrums and syncing with the thunderous echo of his own heartbeat. His blood sings in his veins with the crippling weight of what stood with him now.
Before him was the Six-Eared Macaque, alive once more.
He looked the same. He was as beautiful as he was in life; as unchanging and unblemished as Wukong’s dearest daydreams.
He smelled the same, too. The way his mouth moved as his lips formed familiar shapes was indistinguishable from the way they did before, and although Macaque’s voice reaches him as if Wukong was underwater, there is a gut-wrenching certainty in the pit of his chest that pounded with the knowledge that this Macaque was the same.
Wukong feels set alight.
His body was electric, each neuron and synapse firing a kaleidoscope of brilliant, blistering heat, information scattering uselessly as blood pumps thunderously in Wukong’s overwhelmed brain. He feels scraped raw, flayed open and exposed, ready to be picked apart and dismantled by the hand that loved him.
It was, by all intents and purposes, his Macaque, having found his way to Wukong once more, but— Wukong had buried him.
It could not be his Macaque, because Wukong had taken his spear and struck down, relentless and unforgiving and consumed with divine purpose. He had been blinded and deafened by rage as he shattered through fragile tissue; splintering bone and splattering gore and viscera across the both of them with ruthless abandon.
Wukong had already buried him; had already brutalized and left his shadow for dead, had already picked up the pieces left behind and drove them so deeply underground they never should have been unearthed again.
Wukong knew better than to believe what stood before him now.
He knew what he had done. He knew not to trust his senses even as they screamed out in recognition.
The Monkey King knew all too well the aftermath and repercussions of his own actions, the damning choices he had made that day.
Wukong had knowingly desecrated the bond they’d once shared, willfully committed an irredeemable sin that could neither be forgiven nor erased. He’d painted himself as an aberrant force of baseless destruction; the mantle of traitor and kinslayer was one he’d welcomed with his own filthy hands.
Macaque’s memory was burned into Wukong’s retinas. Even as the Macaque before him takes a step towards him, smile tentative and eyes trusting, Wukong can’t bring himself to react.
How could he ever hope to move, if moving would dispel this mirage?
The spill of familiar blood and the begging gasps of his dying friend — his partner — echoed in his ears even now. It was an intangible brand fashioned from his biggest regret, imprinted across his skin and haunting him.
It was the noose he’d tied around his own neck, hanging him even now.
These were the hands that had pinned Macaque down by his throat, that had caved in his skull and peeled away flesh— Wukong was the one that had stripped away all remnants of hope from those once-bright eyes, that laid waste to the foundation of their home and the fragile camaraderie they’d built.
It was not something he could ever scrub clean. The guilt had claimed him as its own.
There was no coming back from what Wukong knew he had done, but here Macaque was now; Wukong’s very own nightmare and blessed, treacherous daydream, all rolled into the smiling corpse of his best friend.
Wukong could not close his eyes, could not tear his gaze away from where it was fixed.
The false Macaque huffs a soft laugh at the sight, fondness creeping in and hesitation bleeding out as his bright eyes track the expressions flitting across Wukong’s face. He tips his head to the side, white streaked hair spilling down his shoulders to further reveal his perfect, unmarred face and the faintly derisive smile stretching across his mouth.
The monster reaches out a hand towards its counterpart — expectant and beckoning and certain — and calls out one word.
“Wukong.”
There is no hesitation. Wukong’s body moves before he even knows it, consent and barriers stripped away.
He takes the hand outstretched towards him.