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Monkey's never been part of a surgery before. Never been badly hurt enough to need it, and never had any interest in healing. Thus he'd had a vague idea that it was a gentle art.
He's wrong. Very wrong.
Pigsy takes pity on him ten minutes in. "Go sit in the kitchen. Sandy can help with this."
"I'm good."
"Seriously, I need to focus and you throwing up is going to be a distraction."
Monkey gives up on having any pride and retreats behind the curtain. His hands are shaking, even though he hadn't done anything more than watch. He doesn't understand how Pigsy can be so calm. Even Sandy managed to be quite matter-of-fact about the whole thing, ready with a cloth to wipe away the blood as Pigsy…
Monkey barely makes it to the bucket by the door before he throws up the contents of his stomach. Was this something gods were meant to know nowadays? Were they just expected to sooner or later dig pointy objects out of people? Maybe the Master should have been teaching him how to stitch a wound instead of messing around with letters.
He’s just cleaned his face and emptied the bucket when Pigsy calls him back into the common room. "Monkey! Bring us those bandages, would you?"
Monkey hastily finishes washing his hands before bringing out the bowl of bandages he’d sterilized. "Does she even need these?” He asks, trying not to look at the bloody instruments sitting on the towel at Pigsy’s elbow. “She's just going to heal, right?"
"She will, but the pressure will hold the wound together until then.” Pigsy speaks absently as he starts winding the bandages around Tripitaka’s middle. “With demons, the important thing is to make sure you don't leave anything in there, because it's a bloody nightmare to get them out again. No one wants a bit of broken-off metal floating around their insides for a century."
Monkey shudders at the idea. Maybe an indepth lesson or two on demon physiology wouldn’t have been out of place either. Though in his defence, he’d never thought he’d come across a demon that he cared to keep alive. His biggest problem had generally been making them stay down once he put them there.
"She'll be okay though?"
"She'll be fine. Do us a favour and get her into bed. We need to clean up."
Relived to have a job – any job – Monkey assures them he can do that. It’s only when Pigsy and Sandy have gone back out to the kitchen that Monkey realises Tripitaka doesn’t have a shirt on. Not that he can see much at the moment with her lying on her stomach, but that'll change if he has to pick her up.
Tripitaka's cubby doesn’t provide any solutions. He finds her spare shirt and pants in a bag with other laundry, waiting to be washed. Her old monk vestments are folded up neatly at the back, but when he shakes them out, he finds they’ve been worn nearly to pieces. Even her travel bag only contains a set of scrolls.
Typical, he thinks fondly. Barely any clothes but an entire bag of scrolls to read. That’s so like Tripitaka.
He puts everything back where he found it and heads out back to the kitchen. Sandy and Pigsy are deep in discussion, breaking off when he enters.
“Everything alright?”
“Just looking for a shirt for Tripitaka. I thought maybe–”
“Sure, sure. Bottom of my pack.”
Monkey heads over to Pigsy’s pack and digs through. His friends go back to whispering, probably forgetting how good his hearing is.
“…just saying she needs time.” That’s from Sandy.
“For what? It’s already been four months. There’s things she needs to learn, and quickly.”
“She’s a demon, Pigsy.”
“Thanks, I'd never have noticed if you hadn't said something.”
“You can’t just pretend like nothing has changed…”
Monkey finds the shirt and goes back out to Tripitaka.
“I think they’re fighting about you,” he tells her as he’s carefully maneuvering the shirt over her head. Then, on the off-chance she might be conscious enough to hear that: “I’m pretty sure they’re just letting off steam, though. We’ve all been worried.”
Getting the shirt on her without seeing or touching anything he shouldn’t is an exercise in dexterity and inventiveness. Then he very, very carefully lifts her up and carries her over to the sleeping cubby, lying her down on her stomach. After a bit of internal debate, he takes off her boots and belt to make her more comfortable and is just unravelling her braid when he hears the backdoor slam.
“Everything okay?” He calls out.
“Fine.” Pigsy calls back. “Sandy’s just gone looking for Monica.”
“She’s still not back?” Monkey feels a spark of concern.
“Not yet.” Pigsy brushes past the curtains, and pulls up a chair, setting a bottle and a couple of glasses on the table. “It’s odd. You’d think she’d have left a note. Drink?”
“Seven hells, yes.”
Monkey tucks Tripitaka in and slides the cubby door half-closed before coming over and pulling up a chair. Pigsy pours them both drinks.
“Don’t feel bad. Everyone throws up their first surgery.”
“I did not,” Monkey says heatedly. He deflates when Pigsy arcs a knowing eyebrow. “How’d you know?”
“You were a lovely shade of green. It was either throw up or pass out.” He nudges a glass across the table. “Here.”
Monkey takes a gulp and waits for the warmth to settle in his belly before asking: “So what was that about with Sandy?”
“Oh, this and that.”
“Not about Tripitaka, then?”
Pigsy pauses a beat. “Ears like a bloody bat,” he sighs. “How much did you hear?”
“Not much. Are you fighting over who gets to apprentice her?”
“Funnily enough, no. I want to do it, Sandy thinks I’d do a better job, we’re agreed on that. Unless you want to throw your hat in the ring…?”
Monkey scoffs and shakes his head. “Please. I’m not even–” He stops.
Ever since he met Sandy and Pigsy, he’s been careful to avoid questions about his age. The last thing he wanted was to lose whatever precious little authority he had with them.
“I mean,” he starts again. “Because an apprentice is a big commitment, and I don’t feel ready for it. That’s all.”
“Right.” Pigsy sips his drink calmly. “That and you’re not even a hundred years old.”
Monkey’s face heats. “Gwen told you,” he guesses.
“Nah, back in the day. You were all anyone could talk about for a while there. Some green kid that hadn’t even hit his first century going crazy and stabbing his teacher in the back.” Pigsy swallows thoughtfully. “Always thought that story was a bit fishy.”
So he’d known all along. Great. No wonder he never took Monkey seriously.
Monkey folds his arms, trying to scrape back some dignity. “Well, I’m not the youngest anymore. Tripitaka’s way younger.”
Pigsy snorts. “Actually, developmentally, you’re probably about equal.”
“What?!”
“Demons awaken after puberty, not before. It makes them less crazy. I’d trust the judgement of a twenty year old demon over a twenty year old god any day.”
Monkey opens his mouth, closes it. It makes a sort of sense. Everyone says that late bloomers are harder to teach because they’re set in their ways, but some gods prefer them, claiming they’re calmer and of a more mature frame of mind.
It occurs to him suddenly that if Pigsy’s right, Davari couldn’t have been as young as he’d thought. He’d worked out later that they had to be close in chronological years – at least back before he went into rock – and he’d assumed that meant they'd been close developmentally as well.
But if demons matured faster than gods, then mentally Davari had probably been a lot older than Monkey when he befriended him. That creeps Monkey out, for reasons he can’t quite put his finger on.
“So you weren’t fighting over Tripitaka?” He says, turning the conversation back to a more comfortable subject.
Pigsy shrugs. “Sandy thinks I should wait a few weeks before bringing up apprenticeship with Tripitaka. That she needs more time or something to settle back in.”
“She’s got a point though. Tripitaka’s kind of jumpy after what that god did to her.” Monkey sips his drink and looks up to find Pigsy giving him an odd look.
“What god?”
“The one that put that scar on her face.”
Pigsy’s frown deepens. “She told you that?”
“Not in so many words,” Monkey admits. “It was sort of implied.”
Pigsy re-fills his cup. “Tell me everything she said, starting from the beginning.”