Chapter Text
Macaque is a shadow on the ground, crawling and fumbling against the rocks and dirt that dig into the palms of his hands. His fingers clench and loosen again with each pull forward and blood makes a home under his nails. He's shaking, breathing hard and heavy with lungs that rattle against his ribcage with each sharp inhale. He can't see, so he doesn't know where he's going—he just needs to move, to get away.
He's crying. Loud, choking sobs burn at his throat and tears leave red tracks down his torn up cheeks; he can't hear himself past the ringing in his ears, the sharp blinding pain in his skull is like a piercing wail echoing in a closed cave. His face burns and burns and he can't see.
Something drops on his limp tail, shattering the bones and pinning him in place. He screams.
"Don't you dare run away from me!"
Macaque hears it through the cacophony of agony and understands it as it is—an order from a king, who, once, never demanded anything of Macaque. He rolls onto his side, throwing a dirtied hand up to his eye. His own claws tear into his brow, but it stops the mess that remains of his eye from slipping out of its socket. He hiccups as he looks up into the dazzling sun and the silhouette that almost blocks it from view.
Sun Wukong paints a terrifying visage above Macaque. He stands tall, his shoulders lifted and squared and his back straight. He holds his staff pointed to the sky with the other end digging into the ground by Macaque's feet—there's blood on it, splattered across the golden hoops and spreading through the carved patterns. It's a gorey sight, and one that's reflected on Wukong's face.
Brilliant, red eyes and golden pupils stare down with an unmatched fire, a smattering of blood on one peach-tinted cheek. Wukong's expression is stoney, an anger that contorts it in such a way Macaque had never seen directed at him—or anyone, for that matter. Macaque's stomach churns at the sight and his throat closes off his breath, weak gasps escaping from behind his clenched teeth.
When Wukong meets Macaque's remaining eye with his own brilliant ones, they don't soften.
"What the hell were you thinking , Macaque?" Wukong asks. The way he asks is not kind; it is unforgiving and cold.
Macaque cowers away from the burn of Wukong's voice. "Stop. Please, just… stop, Wukong," he cries, barely above a whisper.
Wukong pushes more weight onto the foot holding Macaque's tail down, ripping a wounded cry from the fallen warrior. "What were you thinking?" he asks again and this time he drops his tone into a deep growl and steam hisses out from the corners of his mouth.
Macaque drops his mouth open, but does nothing more than choke on a vile mixture of spit and blood. His hand, pressed into his eye, grows weak. His arm trembles and threatens to fall away; he twists his face with agony as another sob forces its way out of him.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Macaque repeats again and again, voice raw and weak. It disgusts him; he shouldn't be apologizing—he wasn't the coward who ran from his fears.
The temperature rises. The land around them is cast in the shadows of mountains that curl around them like the walls of a grave and the sun, brilliant and young, strikes through those peaks to shine down on the great Monkey King. Macaque, as always, is stuck in his shadow, left to watch as the golden light crowns the king brighter than even the delicate circlet pressed to Wukong's forehead.
Macaque wants to go home. He just doesn't know where that is anymore. His heart is as broken as the ground beneath Sun Wukong's feet, cracked and gray with dust and rubble and a void in between the splintered ruins. The mountain, where he had been given promises of forever, wasn't his and he couldn't return, not with its— his —king tearing his claws and teeth into Macaque's fur, diritying crisp armor with blood and gore.
The shadows warp around the two, faster than Wukong can pull his staff back. Macaque falls into the cool embrace of his own magic, his form shifting and becoming seamless with the dark. His mind is empty, dull, and blank as he is dragged down, barely a breath escaping from his stiff lips.
A scream, not entirely foreign to Macaque's ears, is ripped from the Great Sage. The king howls in rage as the warrior vanishes from beneath his feet and he strikes down with one fist, only for his knuckles to meet the unforgiving ground. A shockwave is forced out around him, but the magic that Wukong is so familiar with (that dark, cool and comforting magic, like a relief on a summer night when the sun falls behind the horizon and the stars flicker to life beyond the heavens) is gone without a trace.
To Macaque, Sun Wukong is no more. He falls and falls into the blanket of his shadows, the familiar magic wrapping comforting hands around him. He aches for safety and comfort, and his shadows answer—they do not take him to the mountain; he knows, deep in the recess of his heart, that he will never go back no matter the longing that will burrow deep in his wounds.
Macaque crawls from his shadows, half blind and delirious, into an unfamiliar space. He coughs and hacks up blood, his chest seizing without air to fill his lungs; he thinks one might be crushed under several snapped ribs. He doesn't manage to fully pull himself from the shadows before his arms give out and he collapses to the ground, his cheek pressed to cool, polished stone. There's a steadily growing pool of blood forming around his head that matts his fur and soaks the scarf around his neck, but he cannot bring himself to do anything about it.
The familiar heartbeat of Sun Wukong is gone and the adrenaline keeping his limbs from locking has fled from Macaque. He can't command his hands to lift, or his eye to stay open as the pain in his body is replaced by numbness. It's comforting, he thinks, that he can't feel anything as the shadows begin to reclaim him, unweaving each strand of his body like threadwork, starting from his tail.
He blinks, drowsily, when a large, blurred hand enters his vision and rolls him onto his side. Macaque lets out a distressed chirp as he's moved, the pain suddenly returning in full force. His ribs scream with each movement, forcing raspy, blood-clotted coughs from his lungs.
"—que! Macaque!"
Macaque hears his name, called in a familiar voice—it's not sunshine and not rage, but low and careful, soft and strong.
He lets out a quiet trill to protest as he's lifted away from the ground, aching for the cool relief it provided his far too hot body with. He finds himself laid into large arms and he stuffens, suddenly aware. He tries to clear his eyes but finds he can't; one is gone entirely and the other is coated in blood and tears. He begins to thrash, his limbs blindly striking out at his captor.
"No, no, no, it's alright! You're safe, Macaque. I've got you, I've got you," comes that soothing voice again.
It registers in Macaque's ears, as something brightly colored blue and orange appears in his singular vision as shifting features. Macaque may not be fully conscious of where he has been sent by his shadows but he knows this—
It's Azure.
Macaque falls limp. He sinks into the embrace holding him steady, accepting the comfort. His vision goes dark as he gives into it, only to quickly snap back as something taps against his cheek. It is not a gentle tap and pain spikes through his head, sharp and agonizing.
He wants to scream, but only a pained whimper comes out.
"You must stay awake, Macaque," Azure says. He says it urgently and loudly, as if Macaque wouldn't hear him otherwise.
He probably wouldn't hear Azure, if he wasn't pressed tightly against the lion's chest as they moved. He was held as still as possible, cradled with a sense of security he didn't expect—as if Macaque hadn't been at odds with the three remaining members of the brotherhood just a few weeks ago, cursing them for even daring to think anything bad of Wukong.
"...right," Macaque mumbles.
Azure's breath hitches in his chest, loud and clear against Macaque's ears. "What was that, Macaque?" he asks. There's a pain in his voice that Macaque recognizes as pity, almost. It makes him sick to his stomach to hear such a thing directed at him, but he can't help but feel like he deserves it, with how broken and used he's been rendered.
"You were right," Macaque repeats. It hurts when he says it because, finally, he realizes it's true—Azure was right; Wukong had left them behind and this time, he wasn't coming back.
He still longs for it to be false, despite the broken bones, ripped flesh, and ruined sight he's been left with.
Azure does not say anything, but Macaque can hear the low sigh the lion tries to keep to himself. It isn't a sigh of disappointment; it's one that begets the resignation of the situation at hand and the tragedy of it all.
The shadow warrior had fought, tooth and nail, against the Camel Ridge kings' declaration of hostility toward Sun Wukong, and now look at him. It's funny, Macaque thinks, pulling his face into a grimace and giggling through the mess of his throat. It's wet and cracked, the delirious cackling of a man tripping down the staircase to madness.
Macaque cries.
Azure rubs soothing circles into Macaque's side. He's mindful of his claws, drawing them back so that only the rough skin of his paw is able to catch on the ragged clothing of the shade. It's an action meant to be comforting, but to Macaque, it's all too reminiscent of sunny days spent under the shade of peach trees and waterfalls, small hands running through his fur and ridding it of knots.
Macaque is beginning to lose consciousness. He feels the closing void on the fringes of his being—the numbness in his fingers and toes, the lethargy in his muscles, and the quiet creep of cold that's beginning to settle in his bones. His chest hurts with each inhale and he wants nothing more than for the insistent pain to go away.
Sleeping… sleeping sounds nice.
There's a sudden shift in the arms that encircle him and he's jolted back into his body by a burning pain in his side.
"We are almost there, Macaque. I need you to hold on just a little longer," Azure asks.
"'M tired," Macaque replies with a mumble.
"I know you are Macaque, I know, but you can't sleep yet."
Azure does not sound like he usually does. His voice is strained and heavy, relayed through quickend pants—as if he's been running. It's then that Macaque registers the wind blowing through his fur and the loud, hammering heart in his ears echoing from the chest he's held against. There's the strong stench of something vaguely metallic, though Macaque quickly pushes that from the forefront of his mind.
Macaque hates it. He's useless and broken; he's not good enough to care about. Azure shouldn't be worried about him, not when Macaque had left on such bad terms (the way Macaque has always left, it seems).
Yet, there's that part of Macaque still beating that sings at the attention and care over the way he's being so gently carried, over the soft circles being pressed into his side, over the warmth radiating from the lion that keeps him from going cold.
"Don't worry," Macaque says, letting his eye close. "I'll wake up."
It feels oddly final to say that.