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He stayed under the covers. It was warmer under the covers. He tried giving himself a glamor like his parents but it wouldn’t work. He tried sparking some sign of fire from his hands but it wouldn’t work. Nothing he ever tried would ever work.
That training trip with Bàmā was a year ago the next week and Peter was forced to face his failures. He expected Bàmā to try again but the suggestion never came. He just looked at him with that sad, disapproving and disappointed look.
The same look Peter gave himself in the mirror.
He was a failure.
He couldn’t do anything.
He whimpered as he gave up holding back the tears. “Even Xiaobo is better off than me…”
The door creaked as it opened slowly and he heard the sound of Bàba’s hushed voice. “Peter? What’re you still doing up?”
He curled in on himself, refusing to let himself be seen like this, and held his breath. He was twelve now. He couldn’t be caught crying because if Bàba knew he was crying then he would tell Bàmā and if Bàmā knew then he would have all the more reason to hate him.
“Are you feeling sick?”
A comforting touch landed on his back and he let out a whine. “N-no… No Bàba, I’m - I’m okay…” He wasn’t okay.
“You don’t sound okay. Here. Let me look at you.” The blanket was pulled off with ease despite his attempts to hold it in place and Peter was left with one more piece of evidence as to how weak he was.
He looked over his shoulder, deciding to give up on hiding, and only felt worse when he didn’t see any monkey features in front of him.
“You’re not in your true form?”
Bàba tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. “Why should I be? Do you want me to be? Do you like that form better or something?”
Peter hiccuped a small cry, bringing a hand to his mouth in an attempt to cover any other sound up. Of course Bàba’s eyes grew because of it and he started petting his hair back.
“Whoa, whoa, what’s wrong? What happened?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m so weak. I’m sorry there’s nothing special about me.”
Bàba’s entire being seemed to freeze. Not just his motions, but his expressions as well. So Peter figured it was as good a time as any to finally apologize to him for everything.
“I’m sorry I can’t do the glamor so you have to see this scary bull form all the time. I'm sorry I’m a bull and not a cute monkey. I’m sorry Bull King Yeye is always trying to get me to stay with him. I’m sorry Bull King Yeye scares me while Xiaobo really loves him. I’m sorry for always making Monkey King mad. I’m sorry I don’t have any super cool awesome powers. I’m sorry I can’t age like Bàmā did like Xiaobo’s doing. I - I -“ he wrapped his arms around Bàba’s waist and sobbed into his shirt. He had been holding all of this for so long and now that it was out, he was scared Bàba was gonna hate him.
Instead, though, a gentle touch went through his bright orange hair and a soft voice calmed him. “Shhh, shhh. It’s okay. None of that were things you need to apologize for. Especially the stuff you can’t control. Like not knowing how to use glamor yet or how you’re maturing faster than Xiaobo. Seriously, why do you think I would care that you don’t have some cool power? I wasn’t born with one! I just happened to be in the right place at the right time for my powers!”
Peter sniffed and then looked up at Bàba. “But… Bàmā tried so hard last year to unlock something in me. And it didn’t work and ever since he’s looked at me like he’s mad.”
“What?”
He winced. Suddenly Bàba was looking very scary. It was like there was an aura around him that was darkening and becoming more turbulent by the second. He let out another whimper and in an instant that terrible feeling went away, replaced by a smile.
“Alright, hun. Listen to me. You don’t need to worry about any of that. Erase it from your mind. I have never once felt disappointed in you. Ever. And I don’t want you to wish to be anything but what you are. Understand?”
Feeling a little better and not knowing what else to do, Peter nodded. He closed his eyes as the light kiss touched his forehead and let himself be moved around and tucked back into bed.
“Now. You go to sleep. It’s well past your bedtime and, honestly, we should all be taking advantage of Xiaobo actually sleeping on time for once.” Bàba smiled at him and Peter smiled back before yawning. “Goodnight, Peter.”
“Alright! Alright! Alright! I’ll change!” At the yells, MK stopped himself mid-throw. He still held tight to the book in his hands as he glared at Red Son, though. The source of his current rage grumbled out some annoyed complaints before switching into his true form. The big red-furred bull that Peter took after.
He continued grumbling while picking up the previously weaponized books and walking to the other side of the bed where MK stood and the bookshelf was set up.
MK glared the whole time. Even as the grumbling became more audible.
“I don’t understand why you’re mad at me. I’ve told you time and time again why I don’t like being in this form and why I hate the way it lo-“ He cut himself off with a cry of surprise and hopefully some sort of sting from the smack in the back from the staff.
MK huffed. Still not saying anything.
“What the heck?! First you make a loud ruckus that might wake the kids up, then you summon the staff just to HIT ME?! For WHAT?!”
“Stop saying you hate your true form.”
Red groaned. “Noodle Boy don’t tell me this is all about that self-confidence body-positivity nonsense again.”
“It’s not nonsense! And if you bothered to watch how much you say that, then you might notice your own son hate’s his true form, too! Which is made worse by the fact that he hasn’t learned how to hide it like you!”
Red Son tensed. “Xiaobo hates his true form? Why? I’m fairly certain everyone’s always telling him how cute he is. And besides that, he shouldn’t be worrying about such things yet.”
MK groaned and brought his hands to his head. Red could NOT be this stupid.
“Why did I marry such an idiot?”
“I beg your pardon?”
MK growled and glared up at him. “I saaaaaid ‘Why did I marry such an idiot?’! You know - cause you’re acting like such an idiot!”
“What are you talking about?!”
“Not Xiaobo, that’s for sure! I’m talking about Peter and that ‘bonding trip’ to your old training grounds last year!” The wince was enough of a confession.
MK set the staff aside for now in favor of hitting Red repeatedly with his fists. “Idiot! Stupid! Dummy! I can’t believe you! You’ve messed him up! And he’s been sitting with that for a WHOLE YEAR! I don’t -“ he slowed his blows and stared down at the floor, feeling his eyes water. “I don’t know if I can fix him..”
The strong hands of a full demon Red gripped MK’s upper arms and he knelt down to stare at him. “What are you talking about? What happened to Peter?”
MK tensed up before forcing himself to relax his muscles and look Red in the eye. “You did. That trip happened to him. I caught him crying himself to sleep and he started apologizing to me. Saying he’s sorry he’s a ‘scary bull and not a cute monkey’. That he’s sorry he can’t hide his true form. That he’s sorry he has no powers. Basically, he’s sorry he’s not Xiaobo. He’s sorry he’s not more like you.”
Red Son visibly winced and whispered “Shit..”
MK huffed and went back to glaring. “‘Shit’? Really? Is that all you have to say for yourself?!”
“Look, I’m sorry! I didn’t realize he was that upset about it. I might have gotten a little frustrated on that training trip. I put him through all the same stuff I was put under - with my supervision keeping him safe, of course - but he wasn’t responding. He was… well, he was being a crybaby! And I might have called him that.”
“Red Son, he was ELEVEN! And he ages the same way I did! Of course he would have been freaked out by your crazy training regimen! Stupid! Why didn’t you ask me?!”
“I wanted it to be a surprise! I wanted to unlock something great in him and then come home and have you be super shocked and ecstatic about it!”
“So, what? You just let him see every day for a year how disappointed you were that he couldn’t do that for you?!”
“I was never disappointed in him!!” Now it was MK’s turn to wince. Red’s grip on him tightened too much at that point. If he didn’t relax it soon, his bones would probably break.
“Red…” his silent plea was understood, thankfully, and his idiot husband let out a relaxing breath while looking away.
“I was never disappointed in him. I was mad at myself. I saw how upset he was. I knew he felt like a failure. Sometimes, when I would see him spacing out, I would get lost in my own thoughts. Wondering if I could’ve done something different. I didn’t - … I never thought he would think I was angry with him.”
MK took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He needed to calm himself. This wasn’t entirely Red’s fault. Well, it was, but it also wasn’t. At the very least he never meant anything malicious, despite Peter taking it that way.
“You’re going to therapy.”
Red’s eyes grew and he snapped his head back to facing MK. “What?”
“Yeah. You and Peter both. Actually, we’re all going to therapy. As a family. You’ve got some SERIOUS generational trauma happening here and I’m ending the cycle now.”
The groan was very much expected. “Light…”
“Oh don’t you dare use that nickname now! You messed this up and now we’re putting it back together!”
“I was just trying to help him reach his full potential.”
“Ya fucked up a perfectly good kid is what you did! He’s got anxiety!” He huffed and then sighed. “Look, Red, this is serious. We’ve both suffered a lot from our biological parents. I don’t want Peter to feel like he has to run away to escape it all like I did.”
There was a long moment of silence where MK miiight have purposefully made himself look as cute as possible. Including switching to his monkey form while trying to make it look like an accident. Then Red groaned and nodded.
“Fine… fine. I’ll do whatever you ask. Anything you think will make Peter feel better.”
MK smiled and kissed his husband on the cheek. “Thanks, Babe. You’re a good Bàmā. You just need a little help.”
“Then I’m glad I have such a good Bàba to help.”
That made him grin wider than ever.