Chapter Text
MK woke up well before his alarm went off to get ready for work, an unfortunately common occurrence due to the nightmares that came after..well, everything. Though he didn’t like to think about it longer than he had to.
Knowing that peaceful sleep would evade any attempt he gave at falling back into slumber, he sat up and got out of bed.
Only to immediately trip over his own tail and fall to the ground.
Panic was the first thing to take over MK, he had only used his monkey form during big fights or if he accidentally got too stressed. Seeing it now, his association with the monkey form only with bad things made him anxious. Once he repositioned in a way that he wasn’t sitting on top of his tail from the ungraceful fall, he reasoned that it was probably just taking over because of the nightmares, nothing he couldn’t control, right?
He had been visiting Sandy on orders from Pigsy to talk about his recent world ending experiences, so he had a few techniques to help him calm down and be here and now.
The different breathing exercises helped ease his heart rate for a bit but did nothing to make the fur go away, seeing it still there and feeling his tail swing behind him instantly countered all the progress he made in calming down. He was back in panic mode.
Why wasn’t it going away?? He never had this problem before. Sure, it has been showing up more often, but Sandy said it was just a reaction to all the stuff he went through! He thought if he worked at it, it was supposed to get better and eventually lessen! Maybe even go away for good!
MK got up and started pacing his messy room, his tail knocking over a few things that were not already on the floor. He stopped and glared at the furry limb with annoyance. It hardly ever stopped moving.
Trying to redirect his attention, MK decided to start getting ready for work. Yes, it was early, but if the monkey form chose to stick around it would make getting ready take a little longer anyway. And maybe if he was lucky, the routine might relax him and get him back to the noodle delivery boy everyone knows.
He got dressed, the biggest annoyance there being the feeling of static electricity all over his body from his fur rubbing against the clothes as he took them off and put new ones on. Then moved to the bathroom. He put on his headband and brushed his teeth. The actions took longer, not just because of his tail knocking all his toiletries everywhere. But because he just stared at himself in the mirror, wishing he could see his normal, human self.
The fangs, fur, tail, and yellow eyes all felt unfamiliar to him. Why couldn’t his mirror just be kind and lie to him today, showing his not sharp teeth, furless skin, and brown eyes that he is used to seeing.
He sighed before turning away from the reflective glass.
He finally walked out of his apartment and downstairs to Pigsy’s noodles to clock in for work, only to be stopped by his dads once they saw his current state.
Pigsy was starting to prepare the first of the day’s noodles, while Tang was doing his normal morning reading and preparing to pester Pigsy for noodles all day.
The scholar was the first to say anything, setting with book down and trying to meet MK’s averted stare that was anywhere but his dads.
“Oh my! MK? Are you alright?-“
Pigsy cut in to question his son
“MK! What happened? Did some demon hurt you? Did Wukong put you in danger again? ‘Cause if he did I swear I’ll!-“
Tang took the chopsticks he had sitting on the counter near him and hit Pigsy on the head with them.
“PIGSY. Stop interrogating him! You’ll just make it worse!”
Tang cleared his throat.
“MK? Is everything okay? Your uh, your monkey form is um…did something happen?Remember we are always here to talk.”
MK, still not looking either of them in the eye, muttered, “it’s fine really, I uh, think it’s just from nightmares..”
The chef looked at his son and then his husband before stating, “Alright. Kiddo, you can’t lie, you’re not fine. I worry about you y’know. Your ‘monkey panic attacks’ as Mei called ‘em are getting more frequent and lasting longer and I can tell it’s weighing on ya.”
Pigsy looked to Tang for the next bit.
Tang continued for Pigsy. “I know you said you didn’t want to, but I really think it’s time to go to Monkey King for this.”
This got MK out of his tired and down state, and instead into a fake bit of energetic optimism.
“Whaaaat no. I said it’s fine! And besides, I don’t wanna bother Monkey King with something like this. I’m sure it’ll get better soon.”
His tail swishing nervously behind him and his strained smile did not help his flawed argument, if you could even call it an argument.
Tang adjusted his glasses and picked up his book again. Just to take one last check at it before speaking to the boy.
“I’ve been trying to see if there was anything in these texts that might help you make the monkey form subside but there has been nothing on it. We’ve tried our best on our end. I understand Monkey King can be a bit, eeh, well, not the most reliable. But he’s our best bet at fixing this.”
MK was only motivated by the prospect of fixing this. Maybe he was being dramatic, and all it would take was a quick visit to Flower Fruit Mountain and this whole ordeal would be over with.
What if talking to Wukong about it wasn’t as big a deal as he was making out to be in his head. He never told either of his dads, or even Mei this, but the real reason he didn’t want to see Wukong wasn’t because he was worried about bothering him. He was scared Wukong would be mad that he hated his monkey form.
The two men could see that he was finally considering it and being convinced because his ruffled and messy fur finally started to ease out a little bit. And his constricted yellow pupils dilated a little bit with the bit of tension that was relieved.
The timer on the counter went off which made MK jump slightly like a skittish cat. Pigsy went and turned it off and continued working on the next batch of noodles.
The scare brought MK out of his thoughts and back to his stressed reality. Now battling with what to do in his head, he had the input from his dad’s that going to Wukong might fix this, but the voice inside his head told him it would make everything worse.
MK shook it off and decided to ignore the problem best he could, and grabbed the first order of noodles to deliver.
Pigsy was working with his back turned to the boy and started talking to him, “if it won’t take too much time you could go over real quick and see if Wukong has any solution.” Pigsy closed his eyes and turned around while continuing to talk “I could always make Tang cover for ya’ would be good for him to get off his lazy aaa…”
When he opened his eyes mid sentence he realized his monkey son had already ran for it, on his way to deliver the noodles, trying to avoid the conversation.
Pigsy sighed while his husband jokingly glared at him for the lazy comment and threat of work, which made the chef snicker despite the worry he held for his son.