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Sun Wukong, Great Sage Equal to Heaven, is perched the apartment rooftop like a street cat. Pigsy would laugh at how mundane it looks after what they’d just gone through, if he were in any mood to be laughing.
But he isn’t. So he doesn’t.
He had, before. But the near-death high has long since worn off, and so now he’s quiet as he stares out the window with a furrowed brow, pausing from washing the bowls from that evening’s victory noodles to consider Wukong’s figure beyond the glass. The Monkey King’s shape is wreathed in the shadow of night and is almost completely immobile, the only sign of his irritation being his angrily lashing tail. Pigsy rolls his eyes internallly.
The pig demon has got a ton of shit he’s been biting his tongue about when it comes to Sun Wukong. The Monkey King has had very little qualms so far with throwing MK into this whole mess with nothing but a glorified stick and a sheet of paper, has been needlessly and awfully vague with sharing his motives throughout the whole thing, and has frankly been such a pain in the ass that Pigsy had had to stifle the urge to throw him out the window plenty of times during their trip to gather the Rings of Samadhi. And that’s not even including that whole mess up at the ritual and then the bigger mess after that.
The most tame word he could use to describe him would be infuriating, to say the least – the least tame ones linger as a sour aftertaste in the back of his throat that itches to be spat out. But Wukong is important to MK. So those words stay firmly unsaid.
Times like now, though. Those words have surpassed sour and are now turning spoiled on his tongue.
Pigsy rumbles another sigh through his nose and turns away, only to be met with Tang, leaning against the doorframe to the kitchen with that perpetual bowl of noodles balanced in the palm of his hand.
“Hey, you,” he says, smiling behind rounded glasses.
“Not you again ,” Pigsy grumbles, but there’s already a grin creeping up his face to match Tang’s. This man. “How’d you even get those noodles? I been in the kitchen this whole time and you haven’t come in here once before now.”
The scholar’s grin widens. “Some things I just don’t tell you, hun.” He steps forward to set the bowl on the counter and drapes his arms around the Pigsy in greeting with a happy little sigh. Pigsy takes note of how Tang actively avoids making contact with the pig demon’s hands because they’re wet with soap and water from the sink and then remembers that the scholar hates that texture, so he makes sure to dry his hands with a wipe to his shirt before embracing his husband in return.
“You’re upset,” Tang deduces swiftly without even asking, tilting his head down to consider the pig demon and blinking as his glasses slide slightly off his nose as he does so. Pigsy moves a hand to correct them automatically. “Not at me, I hope.”
“No,” Pigsy says in response, but makes no move to elaborate. If he knows Tang well enough, he knows that the scholar will pick up on the rest soon enough anyway. “How’re the kids?”
“Just fell asleep. MK was spiralling a little, but Mei got him to calm down. I think it’s the near-death—“
“—high wearin’ off, yeah. Had that happen to me just now, actually.” the pig demon scoffs to himself, moving his head so he can side-eye back out the window. Tang, perceptive as he is, picks up on it immediately, shifting his head atop Pigsy’s to see what he’s looking at.
Tang makes a little ah noise as the pieces click in his head. “Is Wukong annoying you?”
“Yes, Tang, he is.” Pigsy heaves yet another sigh through his nose and untangles himself from the scholar’s embrace to pinch his brow in between his fingers. “God, all that, and he doesn’t talk to us at all? He was quiet the whole way back here, and for what? We don’t even get an apology?”
“He apologized to MK,” Tang points out softly; not as an opposing viewpoint but just as an observation. The scholar is the type to make sure all the cards are on the table before anyone can draw any conclusions, which makes him a well-needed antithesis to Pigsy’s yell first, ask questions later personality, but right now, it’s only making the pig demon’s irritation lift from a simmer to an agitated boil. Because— “what about us, though? M’ glad that he’s talked to the kid, but we were there every step o’ the way, too! And he says nothin’ to us?”
“Hey, hey, no, I agree with you here,” Tang raises a hand to poke Pigsy’s forehead lightly, turning his attention back out to the window and to the shadow of the monkey beyond it. “So it’s no help ranting about this to me. You should tell all this to him, properly.”
The pig demon huffs sourly under his breath. He is so, so sick of talking.
(There’s a primal, darker side of him that aches to tear limb from flesh from bone, to roar about the empty words and broken promises that had fallen from a so-called Great Sage’s lips and how they’d hurt his friends, hurt his son—)
But no. He’s better than that. So instead he breathes in and says, “you’re right.”
Tang gasps, a sound so overly dramatic that it earns a lighthearted eyeroll out of Pigsy. The scholar had minored in theater, after all. “I’m what? Sorry, what’d you say? Didn’t catch that over how right I was being.”
That manages to prompt a chuckle from the pig demon. “Why do I put up with you at all?”
“Because I’m pretty and because I was right, so.” The scholar moves to press a swift kiss to Pigsy’s cheek before moving toward their bedroom. “Well, go do your thing, Piggy. Tell me what happens after! You know I love Sun Wukong drama.”
“Okay, Tang,” Pigsy says softly with a fond grin and a tiny shake of the head. Again. This man.
Tang vanishes around the corner in a blur of gold-rimmed glasses and a dazzling smile, and with that, takes the positive energy of the conversation with him. The pig demon is left, again, with both the high-speed thoughts ricocheting in his brain like a goddamn ping-pong match and the infuriating monkey shaped figure outside, and so he takes both those things and does something with them.
The glass is freezing against his hand as he reaches out to open the window, the evening air beyond it even more so, making his nose go numb. It’s not a quiet procedure, getting through the opening — he’s a potbellied, forty-something year old man trying to get onto the roof, for fuck’s sake — so by the time he gets through, grunting a little from exertion, the Monkey King is already well aware of his presence.
Wukong doesn’t move when he speaks. “Zhu Bajie. How nice of you to join me.”
“Not him,” Pigsy says. He tries to keep his voice steady, but there’s still a marginally harsh growl laced into his words that he can’t shake. He’s still pissed, after all. “You ain’t cold?”
Wukong remains carefully still. In the ghastly blue glow of the night, paired with his almost complete immobility, he doesn’t look alive. He doesn’t even look real, honestly. “Can’t really feel cold. Might be a stone monkey thing.”
“Ah.”
A drawn-out moment of silence between the two of them, undertoned by the faraway, bustling commotion of the city at night. It’s familiar and comforting, but Pigsy can’t afford to be comfortable right now, so he’s just about to break the peace and start spewing the white-hot words scorching the back of his throat when he whips around and realizes that Sun Wukong is crying.
It looks weird on him, because it is weird. A celestial being, one with more power in his thumb than most countries have in an entire military and more arrogant pride to challenge even that of politicians, blinking out tears. A has-been hero, facing the consequences of his actions. In his earlier years, before he’d even met anyone as mild-mannered and kind like Tang, Pigsy would have probably called Wukong pathetic right to his face.
The Monkey King brings his knees up to his chest, tail moving to curl around his legs. His voice comes out muffled and a little angry — at himself, most likely. “You should all hate me.”
And Pigsy kind of does, honestly. Because Wukong is impulsive and careless and forgetful and stupid; speaks before he thinks, promises before he plans. Drags a kid into his battles, lets a girl burst into flames. And yet he still gets to be immortal and invincible? Gets to face no consequence for a fight he started, that MK had to finish? He still gets to be the all-powerful Monkey King, and still gets those unwavering admiring eyes from MK, despite everything, so what, pray tell, did this man have to cry about?
Pigsy isn’t good with words. But he uses them anyway. “We should. We really should. You are… some piece o’ work, Monkey King.”
“I know,” Wukong says quietly, brow furrowed. Like he’s admitting defeat.
“Like… I can’t even start. You dragged all of us across the desert with a plan you didn’t have yet? We almost died, and you didn’t even bat an eyelash. You lied about the three rings and about your great plan.”
“I know.”
“We trusted you because we thought you knew what you were doin’. Life isn’t a card game for us like it is for you and your immortality; when we die, it sticks forever. We thought you knew about that, cared about it.”
“I know.”
“The kid believed in you more than anythin’, and the miracle is that he still fuckin’ does, after everythin’. I don’t think you deserve it. Do you even care if we die? Do you care if he dies?”
Something suddenly sparks at that, so quick Pigsy doesn’t even have time to breathe. The Monkey King abruptly whirls to face him, lunging with bared teeth and eyes hard as flint, snarling heated breath across the pig demon’s face. A hint of a clawed hand hovers near Pigsy’s throat.
“Call me anything,” Wukong growls. “Call me worthless, call me idiotic, call me a shit mentor, call me a shit person. But don’t you ever insinuate that I don’t care about that kid. Don’t ever. Because I care so much it hurts.”
Pigsy blinks fast, startled, but stands his ground, meeting the Monkey King’s blazing eyes with his own. Because while Sun Wukong is a god, a sage, and a king, Pigsy is a father. “Then act like it. Protect him when he needs protecting. Because that’s your job.”
Wukong suddenly cackles, high and sour. He’s still crying, so he looks just about manic at this point. “You guys asked to tag along! I told you not to! I knew I wouldn’t have been able to protect you, protect him, from what would happen, and yet you came! You don’t get it , piglet. You’ve been taking care of him almost his whole life, but I’m new to this. I’ve never been the responsible one. It’s scary as hell. Which is why I was gonna do this whole thing alone.”
“I know that. I know that better than anyone—”
“But I’m trying so hard. I try to make sure he learns the lessons I’m trying to teach, I try to protect him from my mistakes. Maybe I'm not doing good enough, maybe you know better than me and I’m doing it all wrong, maybe I should just let Macaque mentor him and I should just never talk to him ever again, but I need you to understand—” his voice breaks. “I care more about him than I know what to do with.”
And… Pigsy is not an exceptionally forgiving man, but those words are so achingly familiar that it makes his searing fury subside a bit. because these are sentiments echoed almost exactly from when Pigsy had first taken MK under his care — back when the kid was small and dirty in a borrowed jacket, eating the first free bowl of noodles the pig demon had ever made, and Pigsy had suddenly thought, oh, shit.
This is my responsibility now.
He sees that sense of awe and panic in Wukong now, that age-old internal debate of I’m doing the best I can and I need to be better , paired with that little spark of I can’t believe this kid is mine wedged between the creases . This scenario’s a little different to how Pigsy had experienced it, but those feelings were so monumental to the pig demon that he can recognize them even in a shape as confusing as this one.
Pigsy grumbles a little at himself. Of course he’d somehow managed to empathize with this stupid monkey man. Of course.
Wordlessly, Wukong eases off and sits back down where he had perched before, knees drawn into his chest and head in his hands, heaving a sigh like he’s carrying a mountain on his back. Pigsy inches forward to sit beside him.
“I still don’t like you, Monkey King,” he says finally, after a thick beat of silence.
“I still don’t like you , either,” Wukong scoffs through tears, crossing his arms to rest them on his knees. “Thinking I don’t care about that kid, the nerve. I know I’m probably not showing it right, but he means a lot to me. He’s the first person I’ve actually ever felt scared for, aside from Tripitaka — but that was different.” His brow furrows. “Tripitaka needed help; he couldn’t have made it through his journey without us. With MK it’s more like… I know he’s perfectly capable of handling his own but I know how the world hurts and I don’t want it—“
“—to hurt him, too,” Pigsy finishes quietly. “Not like it hurt you.”
Wukong nods slowly, eyes glimmering with surprise before narrowing with disdain as he turns back out towards the sky. “Fat load of good that did him.”
“Yeah, well.” Pigsy says. “Sometimes our efforts feel like they’ve been wasted on him; like we’re not doing enough to protect him, I get that. But we can’t stop the kid from going through stuff; we can’t baby-proof every corner of life for him. Best thing we can do is keep bein’ there for him. Help where we can. Keep doin’ our best, y’know?”
The Monkey King stops a little at that, lashing tail falling still as he considers. His furrowed brow makes the pig demon chuckle lightheartedly.
“That kid sure is somethin’, in’he?” Pigsy says when Wukong doesn’t respond, more to himself than anything. Because MK is — all fun and bubbles and light and warmth, despite anything, everything. Pigsy is a little envious of it, honestly. Of the kid’s ability to remain good and true even through the worst of things, even with fire under his arms and steel at his throat and cold eyes and colder smiles staring him down. The ability to just . Dust off and move. And to keep on moving.
“Yeah,” The Monkey King says, softer than breathing. “He is.”
They sit there for a bit without trading any words, watching as the streams of cars on the roads below them start to dwindle and the streetlights turn on one by one. Pigsy stares at the golden lights lining the paths and scoffs.
“Alright,” he says, standing up with a grunt. Geez, he certainly is not getting any younger. “Come inside. MK will never forgive me if I leave ya to freeze outside like this.”
Wukong breathes a surprised little laugh in response, despite everything. “I told you I don’t feel cold.”
“Well, I do. C’mon.” The pig demon extends a hand out toward the Monkey King to pull him up. It’s funny how this feels almost achingly familiar — a pig and a monkey, united by a common goal once again. Once by a monk and a journey; once again by their shared love for that damn kid, it seems.
It’s nice to have found a kindred spirit, Pigsy thinks. Or less lonely, at least.
Sun Wukong takes his hand.