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A migraine.
A migraine, apparently, was one of the few things able to rouse Godzilla from a nearly year-long hibernation.
He was still curled in the Colosseum, barely starting to move, when the alarms around his new “nest” started to blare. A warning for the humans to stay away. As if anyone would be stupid enough to linger around, even if he had been in a deep sleep.
The alarms were already beginning to grate on his ears— but practically everything the humans did annoyed him, so it wasn’t new.
He waited, albeit impatiently, for the humans around to clear the way to the river. They hadn’t even bothered to rebuild the bridges. He frequented the river so much the humans had decided to leave it that way after the loss of several bridges. Not that he did it out of malice. His size had consequences.
Godzilla slowly uncurled, carefully rolling onto his front and stretching his spine— cat style— before finally standing. He shook off the dust that had accumulated on him after practically a year and carefully stepped over the walls of the Colosseum.
As soon as he stepped into the river, his body was already honed in on the nearest Hollow Earth portal without him even realizing. His subconscious knew him better than he knew himself, it seemed.
Before he knew it, he was out in the deep sea, where not even the light could reach. He’d pass by the occasional deep-sea creature, careful not to accidentally harm them. He wasn’t even halfway to the portal when tentacles wrapped around him from above, and a small weight settled carefully on his back.
Na Kika, bless her heart, had started to use him as a free ride whenever he happened to be passing by. The only reason he didn’t shake her off was because she was well-mannered and, honestly, great company.
And quite the gossiper.
A year of hibernation meant a year’s worth of gossip, and Godzilla would be lying if he said he wasn’t interested.
Surprisingly enough, not much happened. Rodan and Behemoth had gotten into a tussle over territory— which wasn’t new. Rodan was an instigator and picked fights with practically everybody anyhow.
She kept chittering on and on about the littlest things, trying to prevent the silence. Godzilla didn’t usually respond back. He wasn’t great at comversations. He was, however, absolutely great at listening.
Na Kika didn’t have many aquatic friends. And those in the ocean were either violent or solitary. Godzilla was occasionally both, but only if he had reason.
He had no reason to turn Na Kika away. She was polite and it gave him something to listen to whenever he needed to swim for a prolonged period. Plus, the free ride also worked out well in her favor.
The closer he got to the underwater portal, the more the currents began to pull.
She detatched herself from his dorsal plates, and he shook her off with a goodbye nuzzle. Off she went to go find someone else to talk to, and off he went to hurl himself down a portal.
The travel through the portal itself wasn’t an issue. It was the landing.
You’d think after frequenting the portals between Hollow Earth and the surface for millenia you would develop the ability to land gracefully. Not in Godzilla’s case. He’d land in a groaning crater afterwards.
He learned it was worse when you landed with a migraine painful enough to annoy a god.
Godzilla lay on his front in a pathetic pile of himself. He didn’t even get up for a few minutes, debating whether he wanted to nap for a few centuries or pull himself up.
The latter was the option, obviously. How else would he annoy the other king?
He heaved himself back onto two feet, shaking himself like a wet dog just to get the dirt and debris off. A few rocks imbedded themselves inbetween his dorsal plates, and he tried his best to ignore it.
It wasn’t until he started walking that he realized; he didn’t know exactly where Kong was. Just the general direction.
Knowing the ape, he was probably hunting.
Afternoon usually meant Kong was out chasing something.
As Godzilla walked, he tried to focus on anything but the migraine that had apparantly been insistent enough to awaken him from hibernation. He shook his head as if that would jostle the migraine right out of his skull.
The smaller, annoying creatures of Hollow Earth had pinpointed the large spiky creature walking and, weirdly enough, decided he was worth the hastle to try and take down.
Their teeth didn’t even begin to pierce his skin, nor were their bodies even bigger than his hand. Alas, the tiny creatures assumed a group of them meant he was easily killed. He wasn’t, of course. Just ailed by the worst migraine in recorded history.
A low growl was enough to send the group skittering away. Back to his hike he went.
It wasn’t long before he stumbled upon a lagoon. He paused at the edge before wading in, letting the cool water soak into his dry-skin.
The ocean wasn’t enough— he liked to laze in the cooler water and let his gills take in the unpolluted water.
Humans, in their greed, had polluted the oceans above. Few places remained on the surface where he had the ability to just… relax for once.
Relaxation didn’t last long for him. It fled as soon as he was able to close his eyes.
Splashing came from the bank of the lagoon— but it wasn’t distressed. It sounded more like something trying to deliberately wake him up.
He ever so slightly lifted his head out of the water to take a peek at whoever was ballsy enough to be in his presence.
Kong’s child. Suko. The brat that was insistent on riding on Godzilla’s back whenever he was down to visit.
Knowing Suko, he’d likely been tailing Godzilla ever since he crash-landed from the portal. A talent learned from Skar King. If only Suko didn’t carry his blood in his own veins.
Once Suko registered that he had Godzilla’s attention, he started chittering and happily bouncing around.
Godzilla huffed and lowered his head back down, hoping Suko would lose interest.
Suko, however, had no fear of the water, unlike Kong. Godzilla shouldn’t have been surprised when Suko jumped into the water and doggy-paddled over to Godzilla, climbing directly onto his back and chittering louder.
Godzilla contemplated rolling over right then and there just to get Suko off, but knowing him, the kid would just get more excited and think Godzilla was playing.
The king finally crawled out of the lagoon with Suko climbing all around his dorsal plates.
It took five minutes before Godzilla got annoyed and shook Suko off, only to bite down on the scruff of the kid’s neck and grunt.
Suko pointed toward the horizon, and Godzilla took that as “go that way”.
The walk was shorter when there was company.
He saw Kong in the distance, sitting in a field while gnawing on the leg of what used to be some type of bird. Godzilla couldn’t tell. Its body was too maimed to be identified.
Suko started squealing as soon as he saw Kong— or rather, lunch.
Godzilla let go of Suko, dropping him. Suko wasn’t fazed by the sudden drop, too focused on food to care about whatever Godzilla was doing anymore.
The first few times Godzilla had found Kong while carrying Suko hanging from his maw, Kong nearly fainted. He’d thought Godzilla had finally snapped and killed the poor kid just for being a slight annoyance.
Kong was used to the sight of Suko limply swinging from Godzilla’s jaws now. But he was pleasantly surprised to see Godzilla out of hibernation after a year.
Suko had bounded over and took a piece of meat Kong had ripped off for him, before bounding away again to go eat it by himself.
Godzilla greeted Kong with a soft bump of his snout to Kong’s temple, purring when Kong reached up and rested his hand on top of Godzilla’s head.
A year was too long. Next time, he thought, he’d hibernate in Kong’s home.
Kong went back to chewing on his catch while Godzilla moved to lay down, curling his entire body around Kong in a circle while Kong moved to lean against Godzilla’s side.
The ape had tried offering the other king bits of food at times— even willing to sacrifice the choicest bites of meat if it meant Godzilla would eat it.
Godzilla never did. Kong figured it was just a taste for those big exploding things the humans made instead. After all, he did hear from Mothra about the time a human had given him one in its final moments.
Godzilla, for his part, was content to rest his head on Kong’s thigh. His dorsal plates would pulsate from tail to head as Kong scratched under his jaw, earning the ape a low, rumbling purr that vibrated through both of their bodies.
The larger titan would return the favor by leaning up to lick the gore from Kong’s beard.
Kong had been annoyed the first few times. Godzilla was always insistent on grooming Kong until not even a speck of dust remained. He assumed Godzilla did it to get Kong to present in a more ‘king’-ly manner, until he realized Godzilla only did it simply because he just genuinely enjoyed it.
And to also steal a taste of whatever Kong was eating.
It wasn’t often he was able to groom Godzilla in the same way.
There was no blood to clean off of him, no wounds to tend to.
The dorsal plates, however, he could work with.
Still burdened by the debris stuck between the plates, Godzilla barely protested when Kong pushed him down onto his front.
His growl slowly morphed into a purr as Kong carefully plucked out bits of degrees, flicking them elsewhere.
Godzilla let out an audible sigh as soon as every piece was meticulously picked. Bless Kong and his fingers, and their many uses.
When Kong finished, he pulled back and slowly moved to lay on his side next to Godzilla, head resting on his arm while his free hand reached over to rest atop Godzilla’s head.
They stared at each other for a moment, finally getting a chance to really look at the other after a year.
Godzilla blinked slowly. Kong mimicked him.
Both leaned in at the same time, rubbing their faces together with enough force to crush a human. Godzilla crawled closer on all fours, hauling himself up slightly to rest his entire body weight on directly onto Kong’s chest.
If Kong didn’t know by now, he would have thought Godzilla was trying to kill him— well, if Godzilla planned to kill him via cuddling to death, it was certainly going to work one of these days.
Maybe it was Godzilla’s plan all along— to go from stomping his ribcage while looking like death itself, to resting on Kong’s chest while blinking up at him innocently.
Godzilla rested his head directly on the scars that littered his chest. It was almost humorous to have the artist laying atop the art.
The surface king had his own scars that Kong felt guilt for plenty of times. The one on Godzilla’s thigh blended in with the rest of his skin, but Kong knew. He could feel the raised skin whenever he ran his fingers over it.
Godzilla, thankfully, held no bad blood or malice for past grievances.
If anything, he only got annoyed with Kong if he wasn’t being given attention. Even then, the most violent he got was harmlessly biting Kong’s shoulder in play-fights.
He’d been mellowed out for years now. Whether it was from having too many near-death experiences, or having near-death experiences with Kong, neither knew. All they knew was that they liked to nap, and that it needed to be with each other.
Just as Kong was about to close his eyes and relax, he felt Godzilla’s entire body tense and go still.
Before he could even pull away, Godzilla’s tail had slithered around his legs, keeping them restrained together.
They’d done this dance about a thousand times now. Today would make it a thousand and one.
Kong had tried to grab Godzilla’s snout with his hand, but Godzilla was faster— pinning Kong’s arms down with his claws.
Godzilla, of course, didn’t have muscular arms like Kong did, nor was he blessed with the reach Kong had. It was easy for Kong to pry his arms free, and thus, the dance officially started.
The surface king bit down onto Kong’s shoulder. Not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough that Kong had growled and flipped their positions. Godzilla on his back, and Kong on top.
Godzilla’s jaw was still latched onto Kong’s shoulder, clearly holding himself back from accidentally piercing skin with his razor sharp teeth. The rotation had disoriented him temporarily, but he quickly focused back onto Kong, flipping their positions once more.
That was their dance.
Constantly flipping the other over, constantly fighting for dominance via play-fighting.
It’d concerned Monarch the first few times. Granted, Godzilla had never before been observed to have ‘fun’. The humans saw him as a stoic, no-funny-business Alpha titan.
Kong saw him for what he was— an egotistical, needy cat that would hiss at him if he ever stopped petting.
They’d rolled a few more times, with Kong finally ending firmly on top. He stopped when he noticed Godzilla not fighting back and just looking… tired.
He’d spent enough time with Godzilla to know what exactly the ancient titan was feeling. But he couldn’t quite place what was wrong now.
He tenderly rolled off of Godzilla, watching the larger titan roll onto his front and rub his snout onto the ground.
Kong walked on his fists to sit criss-cross in front of Godzilla, extending one hand forward, palm up. Godzilla lifted his head to rest his chin on Kong’s palm, a deep purr already rumbling in his chest.
The ever-present migraine had apparantly decided to make itself known just as Godzilla thought it was gone.
He let his eyes close slowly, allowing his head to rest heavier in the palm of Kong’s hand.
The ape knew by now that it was nap-time. Although, all the time was nap-time, knowing Godzilla. Hell, he’d sleep for centuries if his duties would allow him. But there was always someone— or something— that called for his attention.
The surface king had started shifting again, this time crawling on all fours to lay on his side. He glanced up at Kong, reaching out towards him and making subtle grabby hands with his claws.
Kong chuffed but obliged, laying on his side and positioning his back to Godzilla’s front, letting the larger titan curl around him.
Suko had bounced over, saw the two curled up for a mid-afternoon nap, and quickly bounced away. The child had no intention of taking a nap, clearly. Kong mentally prayed that Suko wouldn’t bother Shimo too much, knowing how much his energy could be for the lady.
Shimo never minded, of course. She wasn’t as young as she once was, but it didn’t stop Suko from convincing her to a game of tag.
Godzilla, meanwhile, had curled his tail around Kong’s leg again. It wasn’t restraint this time. Just… an anchor. A subtle reminder to himself that Kong was indeed a live body next to him, and that he wasn’t going anywhere.
Kong was already dozing off.
The ape had been worried about sleeping in the open the first few times Godzilla yanked him down for a nap. Down in Hollow Earth, the fauna had learned to not bother the king. Or the other king. Or anything big, pretty much.
Despite the migraine still lingering, Godzilla ignored it in favor of curling around his favorite ape.
When the two woke up later, the ‘sun’ was already on its way down towards the horizon.
Kong stirred first, making the rookie mistake of attempting to pry himself already from Godzilla.
Godzilla— King of the Monsters, the Alpha titan that commanded the Earth itself— whined pathetically, tail coiling tighter around Kong’s leg.
Kong groaned and laid back down. Kong knew not to protest it. Kong was smart.
Nap time was over, but now came the part of trying to convince Godzilla to actually get up and not just cuddle and snuggle for millenia. Even if that was all Kong wanted, too.
He’d learned by now that a clingy Godzilla was an even more of a hassle to deal with than a homicidal Godzilla.
But he also learned that Godzilla much preferred the promise of a nest to sleep in, rather than lazing out in the open for so long. It wasn’t like anything as big as them was going to come out of the woodwork and threaten them. They’d practically taken care of every threat on Earth, anyways.
Shimo was reduced to a retired old lady, enjoying her days and actually able to freely roam now.
Kong huffed and finally detached himself from Godzilla’s deadly snuggle, righting himself. Godzilla groaned dramatically, figuring he might as well follow Kong back to his home.
After Skar King’s death, Kong had put the axe behind the boulder.
It didn’t take a genuius to notice how Godzilla stared at it sometimes. Whether it was because it was one of the other king’s plates from millenia ago, or a distant relative’s, Kong didn’t want to ask. Godzilla didn’t want him to.
The two were content to ignore the ancestral tug that constantly reminded them they were mortal enemies. But that was a past life now.
Nowadays, Godzilla was a giant housecat. The most violent he ever got with Kong was biting him during play-fights, and he barely even broke skin half the time.
Kong knew he himself had mellowed out. Perhaps it was just age, but he was definitely more relaxed than he was when he was still on Skull Island. To be fair, he was being constantly hunted by Skull Crawlers and was half the size he is now.
Godzilla himself had started to see the appeal of hibernation these days. Though he had no intention to sleep for centuries. Kong was too important for him to sleep practically half of the ape’s lifetime.
By the time Kong had climbed up to his home, Godzilla was still making the trek up. It wasn’t easy for the larger titan to climb up steep hills and cliffs. Kong had dexterity, while Godzilla had clumsiness.
He made a mental note to find a better way up to Kong’s home later.
Godzilla heaved himself the last way up, stepping under the waterfall. Kong was already sat at the ledge overlooking Hollow Earth. He flopped down heavily next to Kong, watching the sun set slowly.
Suko was already back with Shimo, leaving the two alone for the night.
The migraine that had plagued Godzilla ever since he woke up was but a gentle throb compared to the headsplitting pain it once was hours earlier. Perhaps it was just being able to see the ape again after so long.
Kong sat criss-cross again, his body facing Godzilla entirely. He cupped Godzilla’s jaw in one palm, his other hand gently petting down from Godzilla’s head to his neck.
A low purr started deep in Godzilla’s chest, elicted from Kong’s touch, just as it had thousands of times before.
The ape leaned down, bumping their snouts together. Godzilla returned the touch, moving to rub his temple against Kong’s before resting his head on Kong’s shoulder in the most awkward position ever.
A year was a lot to make up for. They had time.