Chapter Text
“ —just started freaking out—”
“—swear, if this is more monkey madness you’re putting him through—”
“—not.”
Words and voices faded in and out. What was going on? His head felt like it was going to explode. Everything was fuzzy, and he hadn’t even opened his eyes yet.
Come to think of it, he probably shouldn’t open his eyes. He didn’t want them to know he was awake.
MK fought to keep his breathing even, just barely suppressing a groan.
He hadn’t escaped.
He was in the “hospital”, no doubt, completely surrounded by those fake shells of his friends. He had to get out of here.
“—think he’s waking up!”
“—id! Kid, can you hear me?”
Shit. They knew he was awake. There was no getting out of this.
He fluttered his eyes open, sitting up with great difficulty.
“MK? How are you feeling?” Fake Tang asked. He looked so real, too.
MK scanned the room as subtly as he could. The door wasn’t blocked. He had to make a run for it. It was a long shot, but if he could just get to his staff, then he could get out of here. But it was so far away.
Pretend Monkey King took a step closer, reaching out a hand to put on MK’s shoulder — or to kill him .
“Don’t touch me!” he demanded.
“Oh, kid— ”
He scrambled off the bed and onto the opposite side, nearly collapsing entirely at the immediate searing pain that came from it. He’d forgotten about his leg.
“Shit, kid, sit back down!” Not-Pigsy said, like he was panicking and genuinely worried for MK’s safety and well-being.
As they advanced on him, MK backed away, using the wall for support. He had to get away.
He made it to the door, but immediately bumped into something — or some one . He turned around, stifling a pained gasp at the action. Pretend Sandy was there, almost totally blocking the doorway.
He looked back behind him, terror growing as he saw the concern etched on his not-friends faces. It looked so real, and that only made it worse.
He had to get out of here.
He faked left. As predicted, not-Sandy followed. MK quickly changed his direction, sliding past him and making a break for it down the hall.
The violent burning crawling up his leg was, quite literally, his downfall. His leg gave out, and he was sent sprawling to the floor, and then he was being surrounded , by nurses and his friends alike, and then… he didn’t remember much, after that.
He woke up again in the same blindingly white hospital room. It felt like he was missing more than he knew he was.
This time, he was alone.
Hope soared in his chest. If he wasn’t being watched, he could get out! He went to sit up, but was stopped short by straps that were holding him down.
“No,” he begged, tugging on them desperately. “No!”
He was trapped. Done for. They were going to kill him, and there would be nothing he could do about it.
Oh god, he was sure now that they’d make it extra slow and painful. Of course they would. They had to despise him, by now.
He heard someone approaching from the other side of the door, and immediately, he went limp, pretending to be asleep again.
The door opened.
“Oh, bud…” he heard pretend-Monkey-King say. “You’re gonna be okay.” they must have known MK was awake. There was no other reason they’d be spewing this bullshit. Maybe they could watch him even without a human puppet around.
MK couldn’t take it any longer. “Just drop it,” he said, staring numbly at the ceiling. “You don’t have to act anymore. The jig has been up for a long time.” he blinked back the tears that were pushing at his eyes. “So, who am I talking to? Jin or Yin? Or both? I don’t know how this Calabash shit works.”
MK couldn’t see not-Monkey King’s reaction to that. He just kept staring at the ceiling, blinking away his tears. His head was beginning to hurt.
“ Those bastards? You think—? Oh, MK …”
Oh, great, now they were playing from this angle. When would they just give it up ? He knew it was them.
“I don’t think. I know.”
“Oh, come on, bud, you don’t really think they could replicate my stunningly good looks, do you?”
In spite of himself, MK laughed. That was just like his mentor.
Monkey King smiled. “Really, bud, it’s me. Wukong.”
MK glared at the ceiling. “Nice try. The real one wasn’t… I wouldn’t have called the real one by that name.” he never had before. The demons clearly hadn’t done enough research.
Pretend Monkey King’s confusion was so fake it hurt. “What do you mean?”
“We’re not that close, you know. Hell, I doubt he even actually knows my name. Just — god. Kill me. Don’t try to make me believe it’s really them. Just get it over with!”
“ Dammit , MK, we’re not going to kill you!”
“Whatever.”
For a moment, fake Monkey King looked genuinely upset. He sighed. “Get some rest, kid.”
And then he left.
MK spent the next few minutes in silence, struggling to get out of the restraints. But they were tough . Fucking hell.
But he didn’t give up. He couldn’t afford to. He had to get out of them, he had to get home , to his real friends. How long had he been in here, anyway? Pigsy would probably be pissed at him for missing work.
The door opened, and this time, it was the fake version of Mei. He didn’t even get the chance to wonder what she wanted before she spoke.
“Ask me something,” she demanded. “Monkey King told us what you think is going on, so ask me something . Something only you and I would know.”
Oh, so they could make it all worse by making him see just how much they knew about him? Hard pass.
At his lack of reply, Mei began to talk. “We’ve known each other since we were 13. Pigsy took you in a year or two after that. Your favorite season of Monkey King: the animated series is season 8, because you think whatshisname is hot.”
Okay, sue him , he had a thing for redheads! But that wasn’t important right now. “So what? Anyone could find out stuff like that!”
Mei huffed, continuing on. “Your favorite coping mechanism used to be writing fic about Monkey King adopting you. You wrote one of the biggest fics in the fandom ever.”
“ And? That’s not that hard to figure out!”
Mei looked like she was about to scream . “Your parents were bad people.”
MK, who had been struggling, immediately went still.
“They were bad people, and they were even worse parents. You told me not to go after them, even after you got kicked out. Because you’re too good to have ever even considered it. What else do you want from me, MK? When you defeated DBK—”
MK had to admit, he’d almost begun to believe her. “You almost had me there,” he admitted, “I don’t know how the hell you found out about any of that, but if you didn’t notice, the DBK thing didn’t work last time either.”
“...What?”
“Oh my god, I’m not that dumb. I would remember locking away DBK if it had really happened.”
“But… it did?”
“Yeah, sure. I really did lock away the entire Demon Bull family, yeah. And Tang and Pigsy have some weird gay relationship going on, and Mo can just talk now, and Sandy is hosting romantic river cruises, of all things. And you ,” he said, forcing down the vomit. “are in love with me!”
Mei made a face. “Ew! That’s disgusting. Wait, okay, I think I have one. What if I tell you what MK stands for? Then will you believe it’s me?”
MK rolled his eyes. Nobody knew what MK really stood for but the real Mei. Even demons would have a hard time figuring it out. Hopefully.
“Whatever.”
They were probably bluffing, anyway.
His name, what MK really stood for, was a nearly perfectly kept secret. Especially in… recent times.
“MK stands for Monkey King, “because he’s like, my hero! And doesn’t MK have this super cool and kinda mysterious edge to it?” she replied, imitating him badly and hardly missing a beat. “And, even though you think it’s a super cool name, you’re embarrassed about it, and keep it to yourself.”
MK glared at her. “I don’t know how you heard that—”
“What will get you to believe me?” she begged.
“Nothing! Absolutely nothing! I’m not falling for this bullshit again!”
“Ask me something! Anything! Please .”
MK thought for a moment. There was maybe one thing he could think of that they wouldn’t know. Something real. Something they would have no reason to.
He sighed, weighing it over in his mind. There was no downside, he supposed. “What did you say when I first told you about… me?”
Again, Mei didn’t even need a moment to think. “I told you that I was really happy that you were comfortable telling me, and that I would love to take you shopping sometime to get you some better clothes, and then I demanded to know where your father lived so that I could scoop his eyes out with a plastic spoon, because he doesn’t deserve to even be able to lay eyes on you. And then I said I would keep him alive, but only barely, because an asshole like that deserves to suffer.”
MK’s blood went cold. It was too oddly specific, and had happened years ago. There was no way they could have known. Which could only mean…
“Mei?”
“Yes!” she cried, nodding frantically.
He couldn’t help himself, the tears he’d been so desperate to hold back earlier finally beginning to fall. “It’s really you?” he sniffled.
Mei nodded. “It is, I swear.”
Carefully, she wrapped him in a hug. It felt so nice and comforting. For a moment, MK just let himself be swept away by it.
Until the door opened.
He pushed Mei away gently, wiping his eyes furiously.
“You uh… feeling alright, bud?” Monkey King… the real one…? asked.
“I’m okay.”
It was real. Pigsy and Tang, they were both real. And Sandy, and Monkey King, and Mei. God, he was so stupid.
“So… you thought you were in some evil magical illusion? Why?” Sandy asked.
“Because I was there before, and—” MK cut himself off. “Wait, no , this is still wrong. I would remember defeating DBK. That never happened .” But they knew — but he also would have remembered — he didn’t know what to believe. Oh god. How was he supposed to know for sure? How was he supposed to be confident in his decision? What was he supposed to do ?
The others shared a look.
“You defeated them weeks ago,” Tang said, slowly.
“In like, April,” Mei added.
“It’s March ,” MK corrected, his breathing picking up.
“It’s definitely May,” Pigsy said.
“I don’t… but…” MK took a deep breath, trying to ground himself. He didn’t feel so good. His head hurt so bad. He wanted it to stop.
His eyes were hurting, too. Was the world always so covered in little black spots?
“MK?” someone asked, their voice a thousand miles away. “Are you alright?”
The darkness fully overtook his vision, and MK didn’t have the chance to answer.
———
“— kill you, monkey asshole —”
“—do I have to do with this?”
“—our kid a — concussion!”
“—my fault?”
MK groaned, feeling faintly like he was going to vomit. He didn’t try to sit up, this time.
“MK, how are you?”
He eyed his maybe-friends warily. “Trying to figure out if I’m being tricked.”
“Yeah, about that. You’ve got a concussion, kiddo.”
Well, that was a lousy excuse. “I didn’t even hit my head,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Try again.”
“What about that earthquake earlier?” Sandy offered.
“That lasted for like, ten seconds.” Not even. It had been over before it had even actually begun . They needed to try harder than this to fool him. He’d almost fallen for their lies the last time he’d been awake. He couldn’t risk it happening again.
“It definitely lasted for longer than that,” Pigsy said.
“No?”
“Yeah?”
“I bet that’s what happened, then. You hit yourself on the head during the earthquake, forget some important shit — I mean, stuff — gave yourself a concussion, and then you went on a quest that I like to call how badly can I scare my parentals? ” Pigsy said, all but yelling by the time he was done with his explanation.
Out of all of that, MK couldn’t help but hone in on one part of it. “...parentals?”
Mei sighed. “You’ve forgotten a lot.”
MK looked at her for a long moment. He still just wasn’t totally convinced. But if there was one thing he knew Yin and Jin would jump at, it was this. One last try. “You know what? I changed my mind. I am in love with you.”
“I — what the fuck, MK?” Mei asked, looking sick at the thought.
“Oh, thank god,” he said, sighing in relief. “Okay, I believe you now.”
Thinking about it, he supposed it all made sense. It didn’t make it much less disturbing, though. In fact, the growing sense of horror he was getting was almost worse than thinking he was inside the Calabash.
But god, it had all been so obvious. Besides the initial earthquake, there had been nothing else like it the entire day. No glitches, no inconsistencies, no random people surrounding him and insisting that this was completely and totally perfect. Yin and Jin would have probably jumped at the chance to gloat once he’d initially figured it out, too.
In short, MK was just… really fucking stupid.
Shit, it was really hitting him now. He must have seemed absolutely fucking crazy all day. Especially considering he’d never told anybody about his first experience in the Calabash.
His friends really had been concerned about him. And with good reason. To them, he’d just lost his mind out of nowhere.
He’d attacked them. He’d actually landed a hit on Mei. He’d been so sure that they weren’t really them . Oh god.
He couldn’t breathe.
He was so stupid . He’d freaked out over nothing, and had very obviously put his friends through enormous stress. All because of a little paranoia that had snowballed into — well. This.
He’d gotten a fucking concussion , broken something in his leg, he’d attacked Mei, he’d fought with everything in him against the people who were only trying to protect him. And all he had in response was to try to hurt them.
He was an idiot.
“C’mere, bud,” Monkey King said, crouching down beside the bed and wrapping MK in this sort of embrace that was all warm and soft and fuzzy. It was so comforting and nice, and probably more than he deserved. “I’ve got you.”
From the other side of the bed, Mei leaned over, hugging MK from behind.
The others, to the best of their ability with the limited space the hospital bed provided, joined in, however uncomfortably.
It was like being completely cocooned in warmth and love.
They… still wanted him around.
He’d completely flipped shit for no reason, had attacked them and screamed at them and done everything in his power to get away , but they still wanted him around . He’d been so sure they would be disappointed in him, would be angry that he’d fought them so viciously, or even hate him.
But if this was anything to go by, they didn’t.
In fact, he’d never felt so safe.
“You’re gonna be okay,” Tang assured from somewhere to his left.
For the first time in the last day (two days? more?), he actually believed it. His friends were real, they weren’t out to end him, and the danger, for the most part, was gone.
The Demon Bull family was gone, locked away under a mountain. Jin and Yin had nothing to do with it, this time.
Also, Pigsy had willingly referred to himself as MK’s parent figure , and wow was that strange.
Strange, but not unwelcome.
And, if the day’s interactions were anything to go by, it seemed like Monkey King didn’t just tolerate him, but actually… actually cared about him?
He wondered if he’d felt that way at the point in time where MK’s memory stopped.
It was startling to know that everyone else in the room was much better informed about… well, everything, than him. They knew about thoughts and feelings he’d had that he didn’t even recall experiencing. They knew about his greatest battle, about how his relationship with all of them had developed in that time, all of it.
And he didn’t.
There was an uncomfortable gaping hole in his mind that he hadn’t even known was there. He felt sort of… naked without it. Like he’d run to work without his pants on and for some reason or another, couldn’t get back up to grab a pair.
His stupid brain was locking the door so that he couldn’t retrieve his pants.
But it would be okay. Something deep within him told him it would be. Or maybe it was the pile of people crowding around him in a group-hug, who knew. Probably a little bit of both.
But really, he was somehow certain that it would work out. He would regain his memory, and in the meantime, the others could fill him in on everything that he’d missed.
It was all going to be fine. It would take some adjusting, and it would be hard, but they still wanted him around . That was, in of itself, a miracle.
“Wait, does this mean he doesn’t remember that Tang and Pigsy are together?”
“ What? ”