Work Text:
(and say goodnight, say goodnight — chapter nine)
Before the warehouse was where MK and Red Son would sit curled together beneath the stars, it was Red Son’s escape. Before DBK had been unsealed, when his mother was losing hope, growing more and more restless and desperate and when the pressure would become unbearable, he’d run away to the abandoned warehouse he’d spent years turning into a proper, cozy home and say:
“This is it. This time I’ll say something to her. Once I get back home, I’ll be calm, and she’ll get it.”
Then, he would return home laden with apologies and get to work so his mother could be happy again and he could make his father proud.
Before he even collapsed, face down, over the back of the beat-up old couch he’d stolen a few years back, he knew this time would be the same, mostly.
—------
The first time he went there, it wasn’t intentional.
Red Son was not a good son. He was well-aware of this, had spent a long lifetime learning this. He’d been a misbehaving brat before his father was sealed under a mountain, and he’d been weak and dumb and useless in the decade since. His mother didn’t say it, but he could see it in the look in her eyes sometimes.
Sometimes, he couldn’t see anything in the look in her eyes. She was just blank, and empty. Grieving. Red Son didn’t know how to grieve—he didn’t know if he could, if he had the right, when his father was still alive, just out of reach.
Instead of succumbing to it, he picked up sturdy lengths of wood and made levers, digging under the mountain his father resided in like he could lift the whole thing on his own. He built and tinkered and tried to bring his family back together, so his mother could have the good husband, and maybe look at him like he was the useful son. He wasn’t striving for more than that.
His mother didn’t like the digging.
She told him that directly. She chided him for making so much noise, for disturbing his father’s slumber, like there wasn’t a city slowly coming into being around his father’s jail, hammers and mallets slamming away against nails and thinly-cut planks of wood, day and night. Red Son heard the clangs in his dreams. Red Son decorated, built walls around his father’s cage and hung gas lanterns, so he wouldn’t be blind in the dark when he was freed, because Red Son knew it had to be soon. He didn’t know what he would do if it wasn’t soon.
Four more centuries passed.
Red Son’s mother hardly looked at him anymore. He studied engineering as the field came into existence, and he built an army of robots, and his laughter was loud and cruel and without an audience.
Red Son was cruel.
It wasn’t a new thing for him. He’d been unkind as a child, brash and reckless and loud. He’d learned respect and manners under Guanyin’s teachings, learned to control his anger and his fire along with it, keeping the smoke in his lungs and the ash cooling in the spit beneath his tongue. He’d never been taught kindness—for all that Guanyin was merciful, Red Son found it difficult to describe her as kind.
Maybe, when Red Son was very small, his parents had looked upon him fondly. When he was born, stronger than any demon before, so strong he was nearly killing himself with it, overwhelmed and punching himself until he bled. They’d loved him when he was imploding. He remembered his father’s strong arms holding him gently.
He wanted his mother to look at him like that again.
Often, she looked at him like she was seeing right through him. Like he was a statue in the throne room, and it was not only a given that he’d be there, but that he was hardly even a person anymore. Maybe they were both statues, stuck in stone beside the mountain. Sometimes, he thought maybe her personhood had been taken from her, had been sealed under the mountain with his father, but he knew it wasn’t true, and it was uncharitable, besides. Princess Iron Fan had always been strong on her own, she was just — grieving. And Red Son wasn’t invited into her grief.
Sometimes, without warning, it exploded out of her.
“What are you doing?” Princess Iron Fan’s voice came from behind him. She sounded dead. Red Son’s shoulders went stiff. He was seated at his workbench, soldering the horns of a bull clone mask. He wasn’t sure what had called her attention, the light or the noise. It wasn’t very loud, though, nor very bright. The lair was lined with braziers, fire arcing towards the high ceiling, casting the room in the same orange glow that burned against the iron Red Son molded. He thought, maybe, she was just looking for a fight.
“Our servants,” he said, his voice pitched low and cautious like he was a servant himself. His mother hummed, and he heard the click of her heels when she stepped forward. The flame at Red Son’s fingertip flared, startling him, melting a hole into the base of the horn, and he dropped the mask with a faint clatter. “Oh, geez.”
Princess Iron Fan clicked her tongue, and he could see her shadow over his desk, now. “Not your cleanest work.”
Red Son swallowed. His stomach felt hot, and his lungs tight. Quietly, he said, “No, mother.”
He watched her shadow shift as she shook her head. “Is this what you want your father to come home to?” Come home to. Like he was just out on an errand. Like it hadn’t been 400 years since they’d settled in this city near his prison.
“No, mother.”
Red Son couldn’t breathe.
“Do better.”
He couldn’t even nod, watching her shadow disappear as she skulked back to her throne, and, suddenly, Red Son needed to leave. Pushing up with a composure he hadn’t thought himself capable of, Red Son left all the half-formed metal on the table and made his way to his room, unsurprised when his mother didn’t call after him. He probably stopped existing to her the moment she turned around.
His room wasn’t far enough. The door swung shut behind him, and Red Son realized the room was actually suffocating.
He picked a blanket up off his bed, an old scratchy one he usually kicked to the footboard, and he wasn’t even really sure where he planned on going, but he threw the blanket in a worn workbag, tugged hard at his hair to tighten his ponytail, and slipped out of the lair. His mother didn’t notice that, either.
—
It was night out. Red Son could never tell the time of day from the lair. Meteorology was only just emerging as a field of study, and there weren’t any post-boys brave enough to carry the morning paper to the lair every day. He’d know it was raining by the sound of thunder.
The skies were clear, though. Small blessings. Red Son tugged at the collar of his jacket, pulling it tighter around his neck, and crept through the back alleys, headed for the heart of the city. It smelled like shit. Literal human waste. From the main streets, Red Son could hear drunk partygoers stumbling about, home or to the next bars, but he was staying away from those areas. It wouldn’t do well for him to mingle with humans.
Without his conscious say-so, Red Son found himself in the smoggy factory district, where the clangs of industry had been relegated to keep the noise away from the richer inhabitants. Manufacturing had hit the city within the past decade, and it didn’t seem to be leaving. There were some houses around, some bunk-style lodgings for workers, but Red Son wouldn’t be welcome there. He didn’t really want to be welcome there, either.
A clatter sounded from behind him, the low murmur of a city falling asleep, followed by the louder crash of a drunken fight. Red Son tucked his bag closer into his body, looking up at the metal walls around him—up high, on what was probably the top floor of one of the warehouses, was a broken window.
On his way in, he snagged the bottom hem of his jacket on the jagged edges of the glass, and it tore. He decided he didn't care.
Red Son stood on a rickety loft, the wood rotting and creaking and covered in dust. It smelled like mildew and mold. Most of the windows were dirty, boarded up, or shattered, and the walls were thin on the top floor, letting in drafty air through the metal sheets. Down at the bottom, when Red Son peered over the loft's edge, the first level was built from concrete, cinderblocks, and the floor was largely empty but for a few counters and an old drafting table.
It was disgusting.
Red Son jumped down from the loft, several stories, catching himself on bent knees.
He dropped his bag on the drafting table, tugged out the scratchy blanket he’d packed. Down on the ground floor, the cinderblocks muffled the noises of the city, and he sat down with his back to the legs of the drafting table, leaning into them, wood digging in between his shoulderblades.
It was so disgusting.
Falling asleep, hidden away from the eyes of the city, from the weight of his mother's grief and expectations, Red Son felt more secure than he had in centuries.
—
Red Son returned to the lair just as the sun crested behind his father's mountain.
Princess Iron Fan was nowhere to be seen.
He was fairly certain she'd never even noticed he was gone.
—------
“I miss him, too, Mother,” Red Son said. His hair was down around his shoulders, tangled and dry, because he couldn’t make himself care enough to run a brush through it. He wasn’t sure what time of day it was, but he could hear the gentle rumble of thunder outside the lair.
Another 50 years had gone by. She’d never asked about his torn jacket. There was a veritable army of demon bull clones populating the lair, because sometimes Red Son thought they were the only reason his mother talked to him at all. She loved him, he knew, but he was fairly certain she loved his scientific progress more. Once, when he’d gone a bit too long in the lair without anyone to talk to, he gave a batch of clones voice boxes, scratchy and stilted and near-inaudible under the radio static, and Princess Iron Fan had destroyed them.
“Clones don’t speak,” she’d said imperiously. “They’re servants. And, darling, you’ve grown a bit old to talk to toys.” Red Son had nodded, seemingly his default state when he spoke with his mother. Their speech capabilities had been rudimentary, anyway.
It was cruel, but at least she spoke with him. If he was being scolded, it meant she wouldn’t look right through him. He’d take her reproach over her disregard.
Now, his mother stood still beside him in the lair, bent over Red Son’s workbench where he’d fallen asleep the night before, the metal end of a screwdriver a bit too close to his face. Her elbows rested along the line of millimeter marks he’d carved one afternoon, and the backs of her hands were pressed against her forehead. Her hair was pinned elegantly, because she would never let the throne room see her weak, even if it was just the two of them. She already knew Red Son was weak, so his appearance didn’t matter.
She was grieving. Red Son was trying to learn to grieve, but it still felt strange, his father being alive, and all, so he tended to channel it into his projects. The blueprint for a heavy-duty saw, to cut through the Monkey King’s staff, was pushed to the far end of the workbench to make space for his mother.
Princess Iron Fan scoffed into her sleeves. “You miss him,” she said, disbelieving. Maybe a little mocking. “What do you have to miss?”
For a moment, Red Son just stared at her. His mouth opened, then closed. To give his hands something to do, he reached out for the saw’s schematics.
His mother glanced over at the crinkling of paper, and laughed lowly. “Well?”
“My father?”
She scoffed again. “You hardly knew him. Spent your whole childhood messing around until you got in trouble with Guanyin.”
It was somewhat true, Red Son supposed. He didn’t know his father very well. But he knew the Demon Bull King loved him, just as he knew Princess Iron Fan did. Red Son hadn’t been fully grown when his father was first sealed, had spent a long time studying and being forced to learn manners and self-control, so maybe Princess Iron Fan had a point. Maybe Red Son just missed the idea of his father’s love.
He picked up a length of charcoal, dug the end of it into the drawing of the saw, tracing the outline pointlessly. “It’s Wukong’s fault I was away so long.” He wanted to blame her and his father for not teaching him manners or self-control in the first place, letting him run around causing problems as a boy, but he knew it wouldn’t go over well.
“You were foolish,” hissed Princess Iron Fan, glaring at him. “And you still are.” She picked up the paper Red Son was pretending to work on, abruptly enough that a line of charcoal dragged across the page, and she scowled. “If you missed him, you’d do better work than this.” His mother ripped the page down the middle, jagged, and then dropped the two uneven halves down on the surface of Red Son’s workbench.
Without another word, she turned on her heel, fixed her robes and her hair, and strode back to her throne.
Red Son stared down at his schematic. Schematics, now.
He’d known the idea was a long shot. He’d been working on that one for a while, since before the talking bull clones, and he still hadn’t planned on building anything for a while yet. Slowly, he reached out, and realigned the two pieces of paper. It was frayed already, crumpled from her grip, but it was legible.
He looked at the table. At the schematic. A beat passed.
Then, he carefully rolled up the two halves, stuffed them in his bag, and fled the lair.
—
The warehouse had grown a bit cozier over the years. His scratchy blanket had worn softer with use, and he’d pilfered pillows from various rooms of the lair to make a strange little bed of sorts against the cabinets, so his neck didn’t hurt quite so much when he slept there, but it had become obsolete since he’d found a ratty old sofa the month prior.
It was a hideous piece of furniture. The fabric was an offensive shade of orange, it was lumpy, and the left back-cushion had a mild vinegar scent. Red Son had picked it up from the side of the road, undeniably garbage, alongside throw blankets with rips large enough he’d needed to sew them to each other to make one functional blanket. He’d found the blankets in the rich center of the city, where they could afford to throw quality items away rather than mending them, but the couch had been left just outside the warehouse.
There wasn’t quite so much dust around, and little piles of scrap metal cluttered every empty surface.
Red Son kept a tool kit on the drafting table, which already held several rolls of abandoned schematics, as well as a half-built effort at a blender. Red Son wasn’t sure what he’d use it for once he finished, but it seemed like the sort of thing he should have on his counter.
He set the torn schematic on the table.
He didn’t keep tape in the warehouse, which was an oversight, so he rolled it out flat and stapled the edges, leaving a flap in the middle. The saw wasn’t one of Red Son’s best ideas. None of the blueprints in the drafting-table pile were, really. About half of them were rejects, and most of them had nothing to do with his father at all, which was why he worked on them at the warehouse, hiding his distractions from his mother. She was right to tear the saw, he thought, looking down at the re-formed blueprint. He took up a little piece of charcoal, fixed the little connecting areas where the frayed paper no longer matched up with the other sides. It was never going to work.
Pushing the paper to the side, Red Son dragged the half-built blender towards himself. It was a hunk of junk and guesswork, a project started after he’d seen blenders in advertisements and store windows. He had no blueprint for it, and he was pretty sure the blades he’d placed at the bottom were too sharp and too plentiful, looking more like long flower-petals than the normal pinwheel kind of shape. He wasn’t the best at shaping glass, and so the blades would probably nick the walls and destroy the whole thing as soon as he turned it on. He had no idea how to make the lid.
Already, Red Son had destroyed several casings, had tried tempering the glass but had only a vague idea of what that meant in this context. Something to do with chocolate? The decision not to look at how blenders were built was a point of pride.
It was a fixation.
It was, Red Son knew with a shiver of guilt, a hobby. His mother was right. If he cared about his father, he wouldn’t have any hobbies.
Red Son dug through his toolkit and pulled out a screwdriver, using it to loosen the blades.
There was a reason Red Son hadn’t told his mother about the warehouse.
—------
He started rescuing all the broken-down gadgets and appliances he could find, snagging them from curbs and dumpsters and even just the middle of the sidewalk—that was how he’d found his first mp3 player, a neon orange one to match the ugly couch, with shitty speakers he tried and failed to fix. They added a high-pitched wailing to every song he played.
He found a TV that way, too, several TVs. One flat screen that worked offensively well for having been left on the curb to be crushed by the dump-truck—he’d found that one, like the nice quilts, up where the old families lived in mansions and houses with multiple garages. The flat screen had a minor bleed on one of the corners, which Red Son had fixed with ease, and propped up on a small table he’d requisitioned from a dumpster a few years back.
The other TVs were older, boxes. One had a VHS slot, which Red Son, admittedly, had little use for, despite having been alive when VHS was kicking. Another had ports to attach a DVD player, and so Red Son had started to keep an eye out for old video discs and tapes, and had a slow-growing collection of movies and shows he mostly kept around for background noise.
He set the boxes at the edges of the counter he’d decided was his kitchen space, bracketing junk appliances and a beat-up fridge he was itching to replace.
Sometimes, he turned them on just to feel the fizzle of static when he pressed a hand right up against them. He told himself it felt warm.
—------
Red Son finished building the blender the same day he sketched out the first blueprints for the claw—the invention that would actually set his father free.
Years had passed since he’d first salvaged the stupid machine. It was a bit like Theseus’ ship by the time he was done with it, every part fixed and replaced time after time. He’d long since restored and upgraded just about every other appliance he’d dragged into the warehouse, looking at manuals and guides for those until he was familiar with how they’d worked. The blender, though, was his and his alone. He’d even removed the old maker’s logo from it, and had long forgotten what it used to say.
The blender sat in its place of honor, plugged in and fully functional on the counter of the warehouse. It shook vigorously when on, and he had to hold down the lid so it wouldn’t pop off. The noise was beyond deafening. Little scratches scored the inner walls of the jug.
Red Son drank a dragonfruit smoothie triumphantly, and it tasted kind of terrible, like chunky sugar-slush, but it felt like victory behind his teeth.
Then, he’d gone home, to the lair, to his workshop. He’d been given a proper room for his projects, because all the scrap metal at the workbench was cluttering up the throne room. Bad look, for all the visitors they didn’t have.
He stood over a blank blue page, fingers flexing around his chalk, and he drew a hand. Gave it claws, for style. A long arm. He wasn’t really thinking about practicality.
Red Son took a step back, and looked down at what he’d drawn. He cocked his head, just a bit. It could, maybe, be something.
—
His presence was suffocating.
The lair was suffocating.
Red Son didn’t know how to exist around his father. He was beginning to wonder if it was even possible to exist around his father. The Demon Bull King oscillated wildly between treating Red Son like the small, weak child he’d been 500 years ago, and like another one of the bull clones Red Son had built himself. He was worthless or he held the same value as the mindless bots he’d created.
He was sure it came from a place of love. His father hadn’t been able to watch him grow up, remembered him as stupid and brash and young, and maybe Red Son was doing some dumb showboating that didn’t help that reputation.
Maybe Red Son really was just as stupid and brash as he’d been, and his father was right, because Red Son had started spending his nights in the enemy’s company, hiding from the harsh air of the lair.
It wasn’t fair, though. At least, Red Son didn’t think it was fair.
His father didn’t know about any of Red Son’s new recklessness. Even if he did, Red Son wasn’t the little kid his father remembered—he was grown. 500 years had passed. Things changed, Red Son had changed. Probably. He thought he did.
It was a powder keg, and it exploded accordingly.
“You live under my roof,” the Demon Bull King declared, glaring down at his son. Red Son wasn’t even sure what he’d done to set his father off, but he couldn’t hold back his own scoff. Red Son had built that roof. “You’re my son. You follow my rules.”
Rolling his eyes, filter gone, Red Son replied, “Yeah, and I lived how long without you and your rules?”
The Demon Bull King went still. So did Red Son. He didn’t mean that. Maybe he did, a little bit. Not for real. He watched as a scowl twisted the lines of his father’s mouth, eyebrows drawing forcibly downward. Guilt (shame?) settled in his chest like hot coals.
Red Son knew his father grieved the time they’d lost, that the Demon Bull King had been absent as his son came of age. Red Son figured he probably grieved it, too, but he still didn’t think he was all too good at grief. There was hardly any point when nothing was dead. It seemed to be the centerpoint of his life, mourning and reminiscing and wishing for the impossible.
Sometimes, Red Son thought that maybe he’d been grieving his relationship with his parents for a long time.
He swallowed hard, looking up at his father. “I’m sorry—”
“Get out of my sight.”
—
He didn’t have anything but his phone when he arrived at the gas station. He paid for two red slushies, tap-to-pay, and ignored the pink-haired cashier’s curious stares, probably wondering where the Monkie Kid was.
The texts he’d sent MK were still marked delivered, but Red Son sat on the back doorstep and sipped at his own slushie, and waited for a reply. It was how they worked.
MK would come.
Red Son was imploding. He was self-destructing, gas expanding with heat inside him, gunpowder and soot blackening his teeth, lining his throat. His saliva tasted like oil, like gasoline, and his blood was boiling. One spark and he’d set it all off. He wanted it.
He wanted someone to see him destructive. He wanted MK to tell him he was real.
If Red Son let loose his iron grip on his control, if he punched himself in the face until he reopened his scar and felt something spark, his parents might look at him. His father might hold him.
He checked his texts again. Still delivered. Better than read, he supposed.
Red Son left one slushie on the doorstep, and retreated to the warehouse. He told himself he didn’t care that MK hadn’t appeared.
—
He couldn’t quite remember what happened next.
Red Son’s blender laid broken, now, on his counter. He didn’t know what he’d done to it. He knew, from one glance, the motor was fried and the glass was shattered, and he didn’t bother looking deeper.
He couldn’t bring himself to fix it.
—------
The warehouse was starting to get dusty.
Red Son knew the reason why, much as he didn’t like it. Fraternization. He was spending all his nights away from the lair with the Monkie Kid, with his stupid naive enemy who looked at Red Son like they could be friends.
The warehouse was, possibly, the only place in the world Red Son would call his own. He had the workshop, and his bedroom in the lair, but they weren’t his. Not really.
Princess Iron Fan still stared right through him, and it was harder to tell himself it was just how she processed her husband’s imprisonment when the Demon Bull King was back, and he was loud and strong and constantly at her side. They were rarely at Red Son’s.
No, the rooms at the lair did not belong to him.
The warehouse did.
The warehouse, which was getting musty, felt colder and colder every time he went back.
And maybe, just maybe, the employee lot at the gas station was starting to feel like his, too. His and MK’s, marked by slushie cups in the garbage can.
Red Son didn’t know what he was meant to do with that.
—------
He wasn’t sure what it would take to feel like he was a person, at the lair. He dragged a lumpy mattress up to the warehouse roof, and he didn’t think about it.
—------
MK’s first visit to the warehouse was a bit of a whirlwind, so Red Son didn’t actually give him a chance to appreciate the place. The second time MK came in, Red Son sat back and watched him give himself a tour.
He poked at the broken blender. “You should probably replace this,” MK said casually, and Red Son had to force down red-hot anger, a feeling darker like betrayal, to cross his arms over his chest and shake his head.
“You just don’t get it,” said Red Son, and he made sure he smiled when he said it. MK gave him a strange look, but didn’t call him out. Red Son supposed they weren’t there yet.
He moved on, over to the old box TVs, flinching at the static when he pressed the power button and then pressing his face against the fizzling display.
“Dude,” MK said, a note of respect coloring his voice, “nice.” He stepped back from the TV, turned it off, spun around to look at the larger space, lingering by the counters like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to step further in. His expression was open, sincere as it ever was, and Red Son could feel the warmth in his face before MK even spoke. “You did a great job with this place.”
Pride and recognition.
It had been a while since Red Son had experienced either.
—--------
Things changed on a normal night. The moon was high in the sky, just past midnight, and they laid side-by-side on the rooftop mattress, staring up at the stars. Usually, on a night like this, MK would have pointed up at three planes already and called each of them the North Star. Red Son was pretty sure MK only did it to irritate him—at least, he liked to think MK wasn’t dumb enough to think the North Star was green.
There were no comments about the planes, even though several had already passed by overhead. MK was quiet, but he didn’t seem upset, and Red Son wasn’t sure whether he should be worried. A finger nudged his own, but when Red Son tipped his head to face MK, he found his friend had turned away. Red Son frowned. He nudged MK’s finger right back, and watched the shudder of MK’s chest as he exhaled a slow breath. Haltingly, MK hooked their pinkies together.
Red Son waited, tipping his head back against the mattress, watching the stars and the planes.
Eventually, MK took a slow breath. “Okay.” His voice was low, nervous. “So. Okay. You know I'm aromantic, right? I feel like that should preface the next question.” Red Son paused, fighting the urge to look at MK. He wasn't sure what he’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been that.
Slowly, drawing out the vowel, Red Son said, “Yes…?”
“I want to date you.”
The words came out in a rush, lingered in the air.
Silence fell between them. Red Son was pretty sure his brain just stopped working, that or his ears. After a couple breathless moments, MK’s pinkie twitched as if to pull away, and Red Son tightened his grasp to keep him in place.
“Wait.”
“Sorry.”
“Stop. Just. Give me a minute.”
There was a tightness in his stomach, in his throat. His tongue sat heavy in his mouth, and his ears were hot at the tips. His skin felt overly warm, and Red Son wouldn’t be surprised if his fingertips were trailing soot across the mattress. He didn’t know what his face was doing, but he kept his voice carefully neutral. It wasn’t hard. “Elaborate.”
Red Son couldn’t quite get his thoughts in order, but he was aware of two facts. Firstly, Red Son didn’t have many friends. MK was just about the only one, unless the bull clones counted. Secondly: MK didn’t date.
MK cleared his throat. Again, he said, “I want to date you,” and then he paused and looked at Red Son expectantly, but Red Son’s throat was dry, and his mind was blank. Grimacing, MK asked. “What do you know about QPRs?”
Those were just letters. Slowly, looking between MK’s eyes, pinkies wrapped together tightly, Red Son shook his head.
“Queerplatonic relationships. It’s, like, kind of like dating. Like partnership. No romance.”
Red Son swallowed. Hesitantly, he said, “I’m not aromantic.”
MK rolled his eyes, and then seemed to feel bad for having done so. Red Son’s palms were sweating. He rarely felt so dumb outside the lair.
“I know,” said MK. “That doesn’t matter. It’s just — I want you to know that this is significant. More than friends.” MK waved his hand between them, the one twined with Red Son’s, and smiled, but it still looked nervous. “I want you to be my partner.”
I want you.
Red Son was aware of two facts.
Firstly: Red Son didn’t have many friends. MK was about the only one.
Secondly: Red Son couldn’t remember the last time he’d been wanted.
Tentatively, he loosened his grip on MK’s pinkie, readjusted to thread their fingers together, and he couldn’t meet MK’s eyes any more than he could stop the little smile curling at the corners of his lips. His chest was warm, buzzing, but it didn’t feel uncontrolled. “Yeah,” Red Son said. “That sounds good.”
MK’s fingers curled into Red Son’s grasp. It felt like absolution.
It felt like he could never go home again.
—------
In reality, Red Son had nothing to worry about at home. He was gone all hours of the night before he got with MK, and his parents hadn’t cared. They didn’t start keeping track of him just because he knew there was a change in status around.
It was funny, in a way, how paranoia made him forget he didn’t exist there.
It was probably inevitable, another powder keg, when it finally made him explode. At least, when he ran away from home, he knew they were looking at him.
—------
Red Son knew MK was probably going through something when he stopped replying, what with Wukong being gone on his stupid vacation or whatever he was doing. He knew it probably wasn’t about him, so he tried to be patient. Didn’t check in too much. They’d only been together for, like, a month, and it wasn’t like they talked every day.
He tried not to worry when MK didn’t show up to the gas station, buying two slushies and putting them in the fridge.
The warehouse felt empty, but Red Son had a lot of practice at being alone. It didn’t matter. He wrapped the heavier blankets, the mended quilts, around himself and slept on the sofa.
He woke up worried.
[Idiot Noodle Boy]
ME: you didn’t show up last night??
(Delivered)
Red Son didn’t know what to do with the radio silence. Against his better judgment, he passed by the pig’s noodle shop, looked in through the dark windows, closed during opening hours. Empty.
He’d been to dinner with his parents a couple times since his big blowup at them, and things were better there. They were. But he hadn’t slept in his old room since he’d walked out, and he didn’t know if he’d ever actually want to. The lair was suffocating still, crowded with the clones he’d made for attention, crowded with all those old expectations he’d never been able to carry. The warehouse was empty, but it was his. Most nights, it was his and MK’s.
More days passed, and the warehouse was just Red Son’s. No MK.
Red Son hadn’t truly realized just how much space MK took up in his life. His partner had only known about the warehouse for six months, spent a good amount of his nights back home, at Pigsy’s, but MK’s absence still managed to be its own physical presence. A second blender, one MK had brought over, sat just beside the still-broken one Red Son couldn’t bring himself to do anything with, was already coated in a thin layer of dust. The dip on MK’s side of the sofa—MK having a side of the sofa at all—was sagging and settling without him there to maintain its form. His clothes probably smelled better for it. In Red Son’s fridge, a banana was slowly going bad. MK had said something about peanut butter smoothies. MK knew how to kick the TV just right to get the cables working, but Red Son couldn’t figure it out, so he just watched the words No Signal jump about the corners of the screen.
The slushies had long melted into juice.
—
[Idiot Noodle Boy]
ME: I haven’t seen you in days.
(Delivered)
—
[Idiot Noodle Boy]
ME: fine.
(Delivered)
—
Red Son jumped him. Pulled him into an alleyway, dragged him to their warehouse, and made him talk. Red Son helped, because that was something he did, now. For MK, at least, it was something he did.
Things were better. MK was warm, always, brought it with him even when he was stressed and scared and all those other negative emotions Red Son was ill-equipped to handle. When MK was around, Red Son almost thought he didn’t need to bother with his family, thought he had all the warmth he could ever need right there.
It was a thought he hated himself for having.
The chill lingered at his back. His parents were trying, he knew that. He wanted to bother with them. If he repeated it enough, it would be true, and home would be safe and he would stop being cold.
Red Son wasn’t sure it was possible to stop being cold.
—------
“Can I help?”
Red Son peered out the corner of his eye at his partner, then back at the half-played game of solitaire he’d laid out in front of himself. “It’s kind of a one-player game.”
“And those are always better with two!”
“It’s, like, in the name. Solitaire. Solitary.”
“Yeah but why do you still have an Ace out?”
Red Son looked down at his cards. There was, in fact, an Ace of Hearts in the third column. Flushing red, moved the card to the side, flipped the one under it to find a Queen of Clubs. “Whatever.”
He turned back to MK, who was smiling smugly, reaching to move a Jack of Diamonds into place. Leadingly, MK said, “So…?”
“You can play.”
—------
The first time Red Son walked into the warehouse and found MK already there, he’d been territorial.
By the fifth time it happened, Red Son was a little less caught off-guard.
He leaned over the edge of the loft, peering down into the main space, scrunching his nose against a sneeze because he never bothered dusting up there. Humming drifted up from below, and Red Son could just make out the bright red of MK’s headband tails flicking about his head as he bobbed it to a song Red Son couldn’t hear. His yellow jacket was strewn over the back of the couch, where it would probably pick up that old vinegar scent, and his white t-shirt was stark against the gray cinderblocks of the walls.
A loud grinding noise, the blender, though Red Son couldn’t quite make out its ingredients from his vantage point. He heard the clatter of two glasses being placed on the counter, though, and couldn’t stop himself from smiling. There was a loud beep, followed by the low whirrs of the microwave.
“I know you’re up there,” MK called up to the loft, casual, not even turning to look. It was a trust Red Son still could hardly believe he’d earned. He did his best to school his face before jumping down, but he wasn’t sure how successful he’d been. “You’re always loud with the window.”
“Well,” said Red Son stiffly, tugging at the sleeves of his red jacket, “I suppose I’m not used to guests.”
MK turned the blender off, pouring a startlingly green smoothie into two glasses. “Get used to it, then.” He handed one of the glasses to Red Son, then grimaced down at the drink. “The veggies were gonna go bad. Hope the mango masks it.”
Red Son looked down at his smoothie. It smelled like a fruity salad. MK had turned back to the counter, cleaning up his mess, and Red Son was relieved for the privacy when he took his first sip, because he was certain he would not have managed to keep a straight face.
It was disgusting. The mango masked nothing. Red Son wasn’t sure the mango even made it into the blender.
Red Son watched as MK squeezed soap into the blender’s container, rinsing it with a grossed-out expression, using the warehouse kitchen like it was no big deal whatsoever. He looked like he belonged there. He looked like he’d used that kitchen a hundred times. Eyes lingering on MK’s back, Red Son took another sip of the smoothie, and nodded.
“It’s good,” Red Son said. “Really.”
MK peered over his shoulder, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Are you lying to—”
Something exploded in the microwave.
—------
(and say goodnight, say goodnight — chapter eighteen)
Sometimes, Red Son thought of home and all he could picture was a dark, drafty warehouse filled with rundown, garish furniture, rickety appliances he’d built from scrap, blankets that he’d found ripped and sewn together.
Red Son thought of home and saw a gas station, neon lights in a parking lot at all hours of the night, a bubbly cashier and a couple of cherry slushies, his tongue stained red and mouth curved up into a smile.
Red Son thought of home and saw a rooftop, a lumpy mattress and a warm, faded old quilt, takeout boxes of rice and carefully balanced soy sauce packets, a night sky filled with stars and an optimistic little hero he should never have befriended.
Red Son thought of home and saw—
(“Red Son…” Demon Bull King grasped Red Son’s wrist gently, and tugged his son closer to the pair. “My son, there is no universe in which I would not have torn down the very stars in the sky to save you from such a fate.”)
He did not see this dark fortress, and he did not see the lair. He saw laughter, and joy, and warmth, and connection. He saw gentle understanding and care and love. He could not remember the last time he’d felt any of those within the fortress; likely back before his father had been imprisoned beneath the mountain.
—------
After the journey and the Lady Bone Demon and the Samadhi Fire, Red Son returned to find the warehouse covered in dust. He supposed he was lucky it wasn’t bone or ice. There was no sign of MK’s having been there, and he didn’t think about it as he got to making the place nice again. As nice as it ever was, at least.
Red Son was used to loneliness, but he didn’t find comfort in it, not anymore. He deserved it, though, maybe. He could wait. MK was right to be mad at him. Red Son could wait.
Red Son was getting the hang of mourning. Wishing and hoping and grieving, the centerpoint of his life, the only way he knew how to live. It was an inevitability. He had to come to terms with that. All he knew how to do was grieve. Everything else was extra — subcategories of wishes and hopes and failures.
He did his best not to open his messages with MK, did his best not to draft up apologies he’d never send, and his best wasn’t all that great, but he never actually sent anything, because he could wait.
He used wipes to clear the kitchen counters, washed all the utensils and cutting boards even though they were already pretty clean, sponged the good blender inside and out, because MK liked cutting the fruit for his smoothies himself. He lit candles and walked around wrapped in blankets to fend off the chill of the drafty building, and he waited. Red Son waited.
—
MK reached out, and they fixed things, and Red Son was still waiting.
He didn’t know what for. He met with MK’s family, and things were awkward with Mei but it was… good. He bonded with his parents, cooked with them. He slept through the night at MK’s side, at the warehouse, and everyone knew they were together and no one hated them for it.
Still, Red Son was waiting.
He thought, maybe, he was the kind of person who couldn’t exist without some kind of anticipation. Maybe waiting was just part of him, now. Waiting for his father to return, for his relationship with MK to blow up in his face, for Eunice to sell them out, for MK to say things were over, for the trust and ease to come back.
He didn’t know what he was waiting for. Half the things he waited for never even happened, and, maybe, the waiting didn’t have to be a bad thing.
Red Son was sure he would wait forever, felt the anticipation like a brand on his wrist, felt it like shocks of warmth through his veins. He wondered if waiting was just another way of grieving.
It didn’t feel harmful.
—------
Red Son was the one to change things.
It felt like a change, at least, but nothing really did. Nothing new started—nothing new was meant to start. Red Son stared at MK, his face in profile, his hair outlined in silver by the moonlight, drool on his face where it pressed into the mattress, and Red Son had a thought for the first time, one which had been coming on for so long he wasn’t even surprised by it.
Butterflies buzzing in his stomach, Red Son thought, I love him.
It wasn’t scary. That was the most surprising part, that Red Son wasn’t scared of it. He’d been scared of smaller things, but he’d never been able to quantify his relationship with MK. It was ephemeral, he’d say, when he was feeling poetic about it. If he said it out loud, MK would make fun of him, and Red Son would make some stupid jab back and feel the butterflies like the revving of a motorcycle.
The larger part of Red Son wanted to say it didn’t matter. MK was aromantic, and Red Son didn’t want anything more from their relationship than he already had, so there was no point in making a thing of it. The part of Red Son that was concerned with MK’s self-esteem, and the promise he’d made to stop keeping things from his partner, told him not to let it lie.
He wasn’t worried about it.
Red Son reached out and lifted MK’s headband from his forehead, gently, brushing against MK’s hair as it fell back against his forehead.
He thought, maybe, he’d felt this way for a long while. Like he’d been ignoring the buzzing of the emotion, pretending it was nothing, and then he thought, again, it didn’t matter. He’d figured it out. It was safe to love MK, now.
Red Son threaded his fingers through MK’s hair, and his partner let out a little disgruntled noise, eyes opening to slits as he glared up at Red Son, who smiled. “Hey,” he said. “I love you.”
MK’s brows furrowed. Still half-asleep, speech slow with confusion, he replied, “I love you, too?”
“Different.” Red Son shook his head, still smiling. “I love you differently. You should know that.”
Tension crept into MK’s shoulders. He blinked a couple times, pushed himself upright to look Red Son in the eyes, dislodging Red Son’s hand from his hair. It looked a complete mess from Red Son’s fiddling, and the butterflies buzzed louder. MK stared at Red Son, whole body held tense, and didn’t say a word.
“Romantically,” Red Son clarified, and MK’s mouth was a flat line, his fingers were twitching on the mattress, and he was looking at Red Son with something like fear in his eyes. The butterflies died in Red Son’s stomach, and he felt like a total idiot. Words tripping over themselves on their way out his mouth, Red Son went on, “I know you don’t, like, do that. I don’t want you to. I just thought you should know, since it’s. I mean, it feels like it’s okay, now?”
The silence was deafening. MK looked less afraid, but there was still a measure of caution in the way he regarded Red Son that made him feel sick.
MK shifted. When he spoke, his voice was cagy, but he looked Red Son right in the eyes. “I can’t be what you want me to be.”
Red Son was proud of him. For, like, communicating. Red Son also wanted to hit him, because it was clear MK hadn’t taken in a word he’d said after romantic.
“You already are,” said Red Son, agitatedly, digging his nails into the mattress they did all their talking on. “That’s what I’m saying. I don’t want things to change. I just don’t like feeling like I’m lying to you.”
MK’s shoulders loosened, but he still looked tense. Red Son didn’t like it.
“We love different.” Red Son reached out, hesitant, for MK’s hands, and was relieved when MK met him in the middle. “We’re allowed to do that.”
—
A few days later, MK sat on the gross orange sofa with noise canceling headphones, and Red Son melted down the broken glass of his first blender to make it anew, fusing wires and figuring out what he possibly could have done to the motor, during that breakdown he still couldn’t remember.
He threw a dragonfruit in it with some sugar for his first drink, this time poured into two glasses, and it tasted just as sugary and chunky as it did when he’d first built the blender, and MK told him:
“It’s really good.”
—------
The sun rose over the warehouse, and Red Son was safe.