Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Really Mk should stop being surprised by the absurd situations that he gets himself into. But honestly can you blame a guy for thinking that they can get just a few days of peace. The past 2 days have been practically bliss for Mk, delivering for Pigsy wasn’t so bad, they got to hang out with Mei and he didn’t have to go train with Monkey King until practically next week. Those were practically cheat days for Mk. Hell even the demons he had to fight were relatively weak so they would only take a couple of minutes out of his day to deal with. Then he would be back to just chilling, but nooooooooo, something just had to happen. Mk knew he was a trouble magnet, but can’t the heavens grant them a little break, like please, like right now.

Unfortunately the heavens decided to not hear his pleas and now he was stuck dealing with….. well whatever this is.

Mk had just gotten off of work, cause Pigsy had let him go early, EARLY! So naturally Mk decided to just wander around, after all he had so much free time to kill. They decided that a walk through the forest wouldn’t be too bad, get in touch with nature and all that jazz. The more he walked, the more he lowered his guard, and a calm settled over him. It was nice, to just have this time to himself. After everything that has happened the past year, they’re glad that they have this time to just unwind. The birds were chirping, the sky had a few clouds drifting about, and everything was so serene. Mk finally had a chance to just breathe and observe the world he helped save, the world he is keeping safe.

That thought makes Mk feel giddy, that warm feeling spreads over his chest and he can’t help but giggle. His giggles then turn to chuckles and soon he’s full on laughing. They end up laying on the forest floor just laughing without a care in the world. It’s amazing, they’re so happy.

“Man, to think that the Lady Bone Demon wanted to destroy this…” Mk manages to chuckle out.

But suddenly that single phrase manages to sober Mk up almost immediately, making him sit up. His thoughts can’t help but drift to her final words to him.

Gah he can’t let her get to them from beyond the grave, come on she’s gone, her chapter is over and Mk just needs to move on.

But then again, her words do hold some truth, no matter how much he wants to deny it. To fight means to hurt, to fight for what one thinks is right will cause pain.

But as Mk looks around them, and sees how life is thriving he can’t help but think, maybe it is all worth it.

Suddenly he hears a branch snap, but it’s most likely just one of the bigger animals walking around. He decides that he’s had enough sitting on the floor and gets up. Turns out he sat weird or something because he managed to cut off the blood flow from his right leg and now his whole leg feels tingly and numb. So as he waits for his leg to go back to normal, he just stands there taking in the forest and watching the animals go on with their lives. That’s when he hears it, something large crashing into the trees. Then the birds and animals seem to scramble out of their hiding places and away from whatever beast seems to be causing the noise.

Mk decides that he should just check it out, after all if it’s causing the animals this much distress they should probably deal with it. Taking out the staff from his ear, he holds it loosely in his grip and starts to walk towards the noise.

As he gets closer, the sounds from the forest life begin to fade out. It’s honestly quite unnerving how the forest could go so quiet in a split second. But no matter how uncomfortable it makes them, Mk continues. As he nears the sound, Mk begins to tighten his grip on the staff, preparing for any sort of attack that might come his way. As Mk reaches a small clearing, they finally see what was causing the noise.

It was Macaque but in his large shadow form, the one that Macaque used in order to trick Mk. His kaiju form, as both Mei and Mk have decided to call it. The form is still as intimidating as ever, towering over the trees. A giant glowing x where its right eye should be, which seems to glow brighter than the last time Mk saw it. Then there are also strands of shadow that seem to mimic bandages around its neck. Honestly nothing has really changed about the form, Mk is only surprised that Macaque is just in the forest for some reason. Mk decides to store the staff back in their ear once they realize that there really isn’t any immediate danger.

“Macaque..” Mk softly calls out.

Only to realize that Macaque probably didn’t hear them. That or Macaque just didn’t bother paying attention to Mk. Then again, considering how Macaque could still be a jerk, it was most definitely the second option. So instead Mk decides to do what he does best, be loud.

“Hey Macaque!” Mk shouts as he cups his hands around his mouth. “What are you doing here!”

Macaque doesn’t respond to Mk, he merely tilts his head to the side and focuses on Mk who is now waving their arms in the air to try and grab Macaque’s attention.

“Macaque what are you doing in the forest! I thought you were staying at your dojo!”

Macaque still doesn’t respond, but instead he begins to lower his head to be closer to Mk. Seeing this, Mk decides to quiet down, just a bit.

“Macaque, why aren’t you talking to me? What, you can’t speak in this form or something? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you talk in this form.”

Mk begins to poke at Macaque’s face, now that it’s closer to them, trying to rile up the shadow monkey. That and because Mk has been curious to how Macaque’s shadow would feel, now was his chance to see. Macaque just continues to stare at Mk, not even reacting to Mk’s prodding. Mk continues to poke and prod at Macaque’s form until he feels the form shift underneath his hands.

All of a sudden, on Macaque’s form a crack appears and it seems to open its ‘mouth’. Mk, who was still poking him, feels their arm almost go into the mouth before he quickly pulls their arm back.

“Holy shit…” Mk breathes out as he starts to turn away in order to run. He really does not want to be eaten by Macaque’s Kaiju form. Then without warning, they’re suddenly grabbed by the hood of their sweater and lifted off the floor.

“WHAT THE FUCK MACAQUE!” Mk begins to yell “Put me down! Seriously dude this is really high up!” Mk starts to wiggle and twist trying to at least loosen Macaque’s hold on him, even if just a bit.

Macaque doesn’t react and merely begins to walk with Mk just dangling from his mouth, like some sort of misbehaving kitten.

“Macaque where the hell are you even taking me!” Mk is only met with silence.

“Macaque if you don’t tell me where you’re taking me I will start talking about Monkey King non-stop!”

They’re met with even more silence and that is all the encouragement that Mk needs to just unload all the info and questions he has on the Monkey King.

“So did you know that we truly don’t know how many layers of immortality that the Monkey King has. There are so many factors like how we don’t really know how many peaches of immortality the Monkey King ate. After all that one time he ate a whole orchard's supply of peaches. And then after that he got his hands on some pills of immortality and then also drank wine of immortality. All of that combined for all we know he has hundreds, if not thousands of layers of immortality. Then there is also –”

Mk kept on rambling about Monkey King the whole way, only ever stopping to catch their breath. All the while Macaque just kept on walking, not bothered by what Mk was saying.

Chapter Text

Macaque was having a wonderful day, thank you very much.

Things seemed to be finally turning around for him now, first he somewhat reconciled with the whole Monkie Kid team, besides Wukong the bastard, Mk was stopping by his dojo more often to give him noodles and just talk, and he found another abandoned place that he could turn into another hideout.

It was a lucky find, Macaque was just wandering the forest as one does when he spotted a cozy little cabin. Of course his first thought was to just pass by it. After all, it could've just been someone’s private property and he was trespassing on it, not that he actually cared about laws. But curiosity got the better of him and Macaque just had to check, to make sure, and boy was he glad.

When Macaque entered the place via his shadow portal, he was immediately met with the smell of dust causing him to sneeze ….multiple times. Once he settled down and stopped sneezing so much, he saw that the inside of the cabin had been an utter mess. Dust covered every surface available, and it even looked like it had multiple layers of dust built up over the time span that the cabin was left alone. There were spider webs everywhere, in every nook and cranny that he could see. Some of the windows had been shattered, the furniture was destroyed, and the curtains were eaten through by moths. Really it was surprising how much of a mess the place was, after all the exterior didn’t seem to be as destroyed as the interior.

After seeing the disheveled shape of the cabin Macaque had a decision to make. Should he fix the place up and make it his own or should he just leave it be and move on? Who was he kidding of course Macaque was going to take the place for himself, one can never have too many hideouts, especially an immortal. But just to make sure that nobody would be coming back and claiming this cabin as their own, he unfurled the rest of his ears.

Usually when he was out, Macaque would keep two sets of his ears hidden, it would keep the noise at a more bearable level. However right now he needed all his ears in order to find what he was looking for. See, Macaque has a strange ability, whenever he focuses on his hearing senses, he’s able to hear the sounds of the past, present and future. Though after being killed and resurrected, this ability weakened, but it didn’t disappear, it was just a pain to use sometimes. Now in order for him to use this ability he has to completely concentrate on what he’s hearing. Whenever he tries to listen he hears static with some words said but cut-off, almost like trying to tune a radio or those spirit boxes ghost hunting shows use to communicate with the dead. Eventually, after enough time, Macaque will be able to hear the sounds of the past and future, but it takes too long so he doesn’t use his ability as often as he used to.

But, now was the perfect opportunity for him to practice more with his hearing, after all maybe with enough training he’ll be able to shorten the time it takes him to make out coherent words. So Macaque decides to sit down, after sweeping the floor of as much dust as possible and meditates, concentrating on his hearing.

For the first 5 minutes, all that he could hear was the static, until he finally made out some sound, silence. Macaque would’ve been worried, if it wasn’t exactly what he was searching for, after all he had to make sure the cabin was truly abandoned and hearing complete silence just further proved that it was. However Macaque wasn’t satisfied with his find, so he stayed in his concentrated state for a bit longer, listening to the silence and finding comfort in it.

Eventually though, he got curious, he should probably try to listen in on what the future holds. And that’s exactly what he did, or at least tried to do. Unfortunately it didn’t yield him the same results, instead what he heard was just static. But this didn't deter him and Macaque kept on meditating. At one point he thought he heard the sound of laughter, but it was gone before he could even try to analyze whose voice it was. Frustrated that he wasted so much time, Macaque gets up and storms out, slamming the front door open.

Before he can make it even two steps away from the cabin, he hears it. A loud crack from splintering wood and Macaque mutters under his breath “Ah… fuck me…”

He turns around slowly, afraid of seeing the damage he caused to his new hideout. Once he finally sees the results he winces and lets out a low hiss.

Right before his eyes he sees that the wood did not stand a chance in the face of his anger. It has been cracked in half, with the top half of the door laying pathetically on the porch. The bottom half of the door wasn’t doing any better with it barely hanging on by its hinges. Of course to make matters worse there seemed to be cracks in the wall where the bottom half of the door was launched.

“Well, that could’ve been worse” Macaque spoke into the wind. Then, because the universe just loved messing around with him, the cabin trembled and swayed dangerously. He only grumbled, hoping that he wouldn’t jinx himself anymore and began to come up with a plan.

He couldn’t just leave the cabin, not with the weak state that he had just put in it. The best plan of action would be to just start working on it now, after all, there was no time like the present, right? Macaque hummed to himself as he began to summon his shadow clones. That’s when a question arose in his mind, did he even know how to fix up a wooden wall? The answer, no, but it couldn’t be too difficult. Shrugging to himself he barked out some order to his newly summoned clones.

“You” he pointed to a clone off to his left side “start stealing some wooden planks from some hardware store and you..” he pointed to a clone that had decided to poke at the door that was on the ground “go with the guy going to the hardware store and steal any tools that we might need.” The two clones just disappeared through the shadow portals that had appeared below them and Macaque turned towards the rest of the clones.

“Alright you guys are going to go in there and start to move the destroyed furniture out of the place.” Some of his clones saluted him before going inside, others merely nodded before going to do the task given to them. “However..” his clones stopped in their tracks turning to listen to him “one of you is going to have to go around the whole cabin and catalog the damage.”

When none of his clones seemed to want to do the task, he groaned. Rubbing a hand down his face Macaque merely sighed once more. “Alright since none of you guys want to volunteer we’re going to have to do this the hard way.” Some of his clones perked up, others seemed to almost groan wanting to protest, and others just resigned themselves to their fate. “Alright…” Macaque did a dramatic pause, it was funny seeing that some of his clones began to twitch with anticipation. “NOSE GOES!” he shouted and suddenly there was a flurry of movement, his clones quickly raising their hands to touch their nose. Then there was only one clone left, too busy panicking to realize and reactions too slow, sealing its fate. Its shoulders and head slumped, almost sighing, but it didn’t complain.

With that issue solved Macaque simply portaled away, somewhat trusting his clones with the tasks he left them with. After all today Mk was supposed to stop by his dojo and bring him noodles and who could say no to noodles. Not this celestial monkey no siree.

Mk stopped by right on time, however they told Macaque that Piggsy wanted them back at the noodle shop as soon as possible in order to make noodles together. Macaque merely nodded, slightly disappointed that he wouldn't be able to talk to his the kid, but understanding nonetheless.

However this didn’t stop Macaque from playfully ruffling Mk’s hair. They just yelped, swatting away his hands to keep him from messing up their hair even more. As Mk tried to fix his hair to the best of their ability Macaque decided to ask “Hey kid, why do you always insist on bringing me noodles, you know you don’t have to do that, unless…” Macaque paused for a bit “Do you really miss me that much?” he teased.

Mk didn’t respond, they merely turned their head bashfully, almost like a kid who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

Macaque on the other hand was stunned, “You're kidding…”

“Well…” Mk started as they rubbed the back of their neck, something they do when they’re nervous Macaque mentally noted, “it’s just that even after the whole LBD thing you’ve just stuck to yourself and it kind of worried me…” Macaque didn’t say anything, but Mk wasn’t deterred by his silence. “I know that you like to put up this whole ‘I’m a loner and I don’t need anyone’ front but I also know that it’s just an act.”

Macaque wanted to get angry, to feel frightened that someone, let alone some mortal that hadn’t even known of him til last year was able to see through him. But he just couldn’t find it in himself, after all this wasn’t just some mortal. It was Mk, Sun Wukong’s successor, his student, his kid. Instead he simply sighed and answered with “Kid, you don’t really know what I’ve gone through…”

Mk didn’t seem bothered by his response, and instead replied with, “I know. I know I don’t know much about you. I don’t know your past, I don’t know what really happened between you and Monkey King, heck I don’t even know your favorite color. But that’s why I’m here. I’m here so I can get to know more, so we can talk and build trust. You’ve been hurt before, but if you keep isolating yourself it won’t fix anything. I’m not asking you to start trusting anyone, all I’m here to do is to get to know you more, to get to know the real you.”

Macaque didn’t know how to respond

There was just silence from both parties and Mk started to fidget. Had he spoken too much, did they say something wrong, what did they do wrong, did he just ruin- his train of thought stopped as they felt Macaque place his hand on their shoulder. “Mk, you’re a good kid, you really are…. but it isn’t your job to look after me. After all I’m an immortal being that has lived over 4,000 years and you’re like what 20?”

“But that doesn’t mean that I can’t offer you a helping hand. And also I’ll have you know that I’m 23 so HA!” Mk cried triumphantly.

Macaque just chuckled, “Ya but compare your 23 and my 4,000 and you can see that you’re practically a baby in my eyes.”

“Nuh uh just because you’re an old man doesn't mean you get to call me a baby.”

“Sure, sure whatever you say Mk. You know I’ve already kept you long enough, the pig is going to call you any minute now.”

Almost, as if on cue, Mk’s phone started to ring from his pocket.

“AW SHIT, I guess I got carried away.” Mk said as they started to pull their phone out of their pocket. “And hey Macaque…”

“Ya what’s up bud…”

“Just so you know I really do want to be able to hang out with you more. I don’t care if you find me annoying or you think of me as just some kid, but I really do care about you and I want to get to know you more.”

And just like that Mk started to leave and Macaque just let him.

So there he stood, staring at Mk’s back dumbfounded. Macaque had no clue the conversation would veer into such a sensitive territory only for it to end just as abruptly. It gave him emotional whiplash and only left him feeling out of loop. So instead of trying to think about the insightful conversation he just had, he teleported to the cabin he found. Of course it was because he wanted to check in on his clones, totally not because you couldn’t handle his emotions and needed a distraction.

So that’s how Macaque ended up at the cabin, or at least where the cabin was supposed to be. Now all that was there was an empty space, with the cabin seemingly having collapsed in on itself. The clones hadn’t even noticed him yet, they were just panicking and running around like headless chickens. Some of them were even attempting to put up some wooden walls that they had built only for said walls to fall back down.

His eyes twitched. Seriously he left his clones alone for what 10… 20 minutes and this is what he came to!

Macaque simply turned towards the heavens and started cursing them out.

After he let all of the frustration in his system, even though it took him a solid 15 minutes, he faced his clones once more. Only to mutter, “This is going to take awhile to fix.”