Work Text:
They all feel it at the same time. The jokes and quips fade to silence, Baije’s knife still raised over a piece of cabbage as all heads whip to the closed door of their master’s room.
They all rush forward at the same time, but Wukong always was the fastest. In less time than it would take for a mortal to blink, he slams the door open and freezes.
Tang Sanzang is sitting in his chair, pulled up to the bed that he rarely left in the last few weeks. Sun is shining over his closed lids, a small, content smile on his weathered face. It almost looks like the man is just asleep, bound to wake up at any moment now to scold his disciple for barging in like that and scaring him.
But Wukong has seen enough death to know what he’s looking at.
(Yet, rarely did it look so… peaceful).
Distantly, he can hear his brothers stop next to him, sounds of choked sobs filling his ears, but he can’t look away from the man by the window - though it is just a body now, isn’t it, the mighty spirit that inhabited it now gone-
Gone. The word rings in his mind, louder and louder until it is all he can think about. The whole world narrows down to him and the body he can still distantly see in front of him. He’s gone. His master is gone and he’s not coming back. Not in a way Wukong remembers him. Not in a way that remembers him in return.
He should- be angry, he thinks? Or should he cry? No, no, he should be helping his brothers, they are still there next to him, somewhere outside of this tiny world he’s stuck in. He should be supporting them right now, always a shoulder they can lean onto. He should gently usher them out of the room and start making preparations for the funeral (and that thought alone is almost enough to make his heart cry out in pain, if he still had one, if there wasn’t instead a hollow emptiness inside him where a heart used to be, one that Tang Sanzang took with him to never return).
That’s what his master would want him to do right now, but he was never a good enough disciple to listen, so instead all he does is stand there and look. Maybe that would be all he ever did now, until the universe collapsed around him and buried him with it, if it wasn’t for Ao Lie, his sweet little brother Ao Lie, standing in front of him now. He tries to focus on the face but what was once an easy action seems impossible now, his eyes sliding unbidden back to the body. The dragon says something, but Wukong can’t hear it through the distance that separates them now. He wants to offer his brother comfort but his body refuses to move, so heavy in its stony stature that moving a finger right now is harder than trying to remove the mountain from his back.
(He truly once thought nothing could be worse than the punishment given to him by Buddha. He knows now that he was wrong.)
Suddenly, a long sleeve falls over his eyes, smelling faintly of the ocean and its deepest fires. With his eyesight taken away (with the body no longer in his view), the other senses finally snap into action. Wukong hears, again, the breathy cries of his brothers. He can feel the way his shoulder is soaked through with Wujing’s tears and how Baije on the other side is squeezing him hard enough that if he were weaker, his bones would break from it. Can even feel the soft pressure of Ao Lie’s head on his chest, the trembling in his hand as it is held over his eyes.
It takes more effort than anything in his life ever did, to lift his hand and place it on his little brother’s back.
It takes less effort than anything in his life ever did, to let go and allow himself to grieve alongside his brothers.
==========
“Can you show me some more?”
He thumbs through the drawings, finally picking out one and lifting it up so Ao Lie can see it from where he’s lying down next to him.
“This one I’m still working on, but you’re going to love it when it’s finished, trust me.”
It’s a very basic sketch of Ao Lie himself in his dragon form, as his brother’s been needling him over ‘drawing him looking cool’ for a while now, but he never really had the time to finish it.
(He regrets not working on it sooner, now).
The dragon hums approvingly from his spot.
“Can you finish it right now? I would-” his voice wavers and Wukong feels his hold tighten around the edges of the paper, smile hurting as it is etched into his face. Ao Lie coughs weakly and smiles back. Both of them are good enough at ignoring the suffocating atmosphere in the room, heavy with the knowledge that neither of them wish to address.
“I would really like to see it right now.”
Sun Wukong takes a moment to smooth out the drawing where he almost ripped it at the edges.
“You know I can’t draw and talk at the same time too well. I will lose the thread of conversation and start babbling nonsense and I’m supposed to be entertaining you right now.”
“But big brother Monkey is so amazing and talented, he will surely be able to keep me entertained even as he draws me being oh so cool.” Ao Lie croons, tilting his head ever so barely. Wukong sighs mock-exasperated around the lump in his throat.
“I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to butter me up so I do as you say. Like the time you convinced me to carry you on my back even though you were supposed to be the horse.”
Ao Lie laughs, though it sounds less like the airy sound they both are so used to and more like soft, quiet exhales. Even that seems to tire him out as his eyes drift closed for several moments too long.
“I remember that… master was very grumpy over it, even when Baije offered to carry him.” He finally says and Wukong lets out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “Can you blame me for trying it right now? Indulge me one last time, brother.”
One last time.
“How can I refuse my dear little brother’s plea?” He never could, after all, and it would be far too late to start now. And so Wukong clears the space next to them and uses a hair from his head to make a brush.
Ao Lie asks him questions at first, about their friends and their families, then about Flower Fruit Mountain and its monkeys. Wukong answers them to the best of his ability, though he does get distracted as he knew he would and ends up pausing and backtracking several times. Thankfully, Ao Lie doesn’t seem to mind, only humming in acknowledgement whenever it happens. After a while he goes silent, only deep sounds of his breathing and movement of his coals an indicator that he is still…
Wukong does his best to fill in the silence, as he always did. He’s pretty sure he is just rambling about the way there will be ink stains all over the tiles of the Dragon Palace and they are so getting in trouble for it when his brother says his name almost soundlessly, prompting him to go silent.
“Brother Wukong… This isn’t your fault.” Ao Lie whispers, quiet but resolute, like he needs to get it out while he still can.
(Isn’t it? They will never know it, now, if the piece of the Samadhi fire that wedged itself into Ao Lie on that fateful day shortened his years of life or if they would still be sitting here just the same were Wukong more careful, less overconfident. Of course, it would be useless to blame himself for what could have been either way. And yet.)
“What are you talking about?” Sun Wukong laughs, giving his brother a carefree smile. And Ao Lie, sweet timid Ao Lie who never liked conflict, who knew his older brother well enough to understand the silent plea in his smile, shakes his head and lets it go.
“Is it done?” He murmurs instead, trying his best to keep his eyes opened.
“Almost”, Wukong lifts the drawing up carefully, mindful of the drying ink as he shows it off. “Just a few more details to fully capture the spirit of the coolest dragon the Great Sage has ever met.”
Ao Lie smiles at him, eyes sliding over the paper. An icy grip settles over Wukong’s chest when he realizes that the dragon’s eyes can no longer focus enough to see it.
“I love it.” Ao Lie wisps, eyes drifting closed. “Thank you.”
The grip shifts, holding him by the throat now and he takes a deep breath, using all his will to keep his voice from shaking.
“Let me finish it first, then you can thank me.” The brush in his hand trembles when he holds it over the paper and he grips it tighter, wooden handle splintering in his grip. “Now, where was I…”
He doesn't stop talking even as Ao Lie’s breaths slow and fade into nothingness. Doesn’t stop drawing even as his vision blurs with unshed tears.
Only when he’s done, the memory of his (amazing, strong, caring, wonderful) brother fully committed to paper, does he pull himself closer, hiding from the Heaven’s and Earth’s gaze alike in the coils of his (little, soft, hurt, gone, gone, gone) brother’s body and cry.
===========
He hisses as the wooden spoon connects with his fingers, more out of principle than any pain since he doesn’t really feel it.
“You’re going to eat me out of my home, Monkey.” Baije grumbles before turning back to stir the soup bubbling merrily. “Don’t you have enough food back on your mountain? Eat there.”
“If you want me to go back to my mountain so badly, stop inviting me to help care for your children.” To prove his point, Wukong points at the sling attached to him now, with Baije’s youngest snoozing soundly inside. The rest of the children are in the garden right now, playing with one of his clones. His brother just rolls his eyes, not even bothering to look away from the pot. “I am doing you a favor, the least you can do, as a good host, is to feed me.”
Of course, that is not exactly true. This was as much of a favor to Wukong as the other way around: it gave him a good excuse to be around his remaining brothers a lot more than felt reasonable otherwise and the kids (or would piglets be more accurate?) were a good distraction back when he was still drowning in the grief of losing his master.
(He is still grieving, of course. Just no longer drowning).
Still, he tries for the dumpling bowl the second time and pulls away just in time to avoid the spoon’s wrath.
“It's not time for dinner yet!" Baije scolds him for the fifth time in the last half hour. "Where is your famed patience?”
“It’s still around. But you know I get hungry when I’m-” the front door is opened and he perks up, but a quick look reveals it’s just one of the older children back home from work. He drops back onto a chair with a huff, hand cradling the baby's head, “-troubled.”
Baije looks back at him then, taking in the tail that swishes back and forth in agitation and a crease in the stony brow. With a put on sigh, he picks up one dumpling and puts it into the monkey’s paw. Wukong thanks him quietly, biting into it. The way hot broth slides down his throat does make him shudder, but soon the warm filling joins in, soothing the yawning pit of nerves bundled in the bottom of his stomach, if only for a moment.
The kitchen is silent as he chews, save for the bubbling of the soup and the child’s quiet snores until his brother speaks up again.
“He’ll be back. You know he sometimes goes off on his own, this is nothing new.”
“But it was never for this long.”
“He’ll be back,” Baije repeats, more firm this time, “before you know it, he will walk through the doors and greet us like he always does and when I tell him about how worried you were, I’m sure he will have some words to say about how lucky he is to have such a caring mother.”
Wukong grimaces, almost tempted to throw something at his brother (he only doesn’t do it because it might wake the baby up), but he’s right. There is no need to worry. Wujing does leave every now and then, but he always returns to them eventually.
They just have to wait.
—--
Baije is wrong, like so many times before. Sha Wujing never comes back, not even after Monkey King goes looking for him and returns empty handed after a few years of searching. Him and Baije go out to the river where they first met the demon and they sit down and drink wine and talk about the old times.
And that’s all there is to it.
===
He rolls the peach between his hands, trying to look casual as he asks.
“I know you said ‘no’ last time I asked you but I wanted to know if maybe you have changed your mind?”
Baije looks at the immortality peach in his hand, then back at him. He pretends not to notice.
“I’m sorry, brother. But I haven’t.” Wukong smiles bitterly, closing his eyes. He might have hidden it with someone else, but there really is no point in that now, so he lets the tiredness show.
“I understand.” And he wishes he didn’t.
===
Sun Wukong wakes up in the middle of the night to a jolt of pain in his chest. It’s not unlike being stabbed, which he knows enough about, or having his chest cavity scraped clean of any remaining pieces of his broken heart, which he knows less about, except there is no wound and no attacker. There’s just him and the pain and the sinking feeling that he has one more funeral to attend now.
—-----
He doesn’t want to go. He still goes, bringing out the same clothes he wore to all the other funerals. At least he can take solace in knowing he won’t need them again after this.
It is all pretty mundane as far as funerals go. There are far too many kids and grandkids (and great-grandkids) for his liking, but he sticks to the sidelines for the most of it and tries to pretend he is sad and not just tired and hollow.
Baije’s youngest daughter pulls at his sleeve to get his attention as she always did, her wrinkled face heavy with resignation rather than grief.
(They all knew it was coming. That didn’t make it hurt any less.)
“Father wanted you to have this.” The package she presents him might be wrapped but he recognizes it right away, even before his fingers close around the handle of the rake.
“I thought the Celestial Realm might want it back now?” he asks. He doesn’t much care for what the Celestial Realm wants, but it is still something he has to keep in mind.
She rolls her eyes, just like her father used to, and waves her hand dismissively, just like her mother used to.
“Oh, they did. But father told them forever ago that you have it, so if they wish to retrieve it, they can go to your mountain and ask you.”
Wukong laughs and it sounds like crying.
“Yeah. Of course he would say that.” He pulls the rake close to his chest and nods. “I would be honored to take it.”
She smiles back at him.
This will be the last time they see each other.
=======
He does keep the rake. And the khakkhara and the staff. They all sit in the place of honor in his treasure room as it slowly gets engulfed in things he needs and even more in things he doesn’t. He clears the space around them at first, almost daily. Then every other day. Every other week. Every once in a year. At some point he must have forgotten to do it at all or maybe he just got too tired of seeing them and eventually they too get lost in the clutter.
He doesn’t even notice it when it happens.