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The first time Macaque understands the sheer extent of what Wukong is hiding, it’s a mundane, casual event.
Wukong’s carefully picking twigs and dirt from his fur after a day of roughhousing, and he’s trying not to doze as the feeling of warm, gentle fingers run across his shoulders.
“Honestly, I think I deserve an award for how long I’ve kept up my glamours. The Demon Bull King disagreed when I told him, which I think is so unfair. I was perfectly nice to him when he went through all my tissues sobbing over Iron Fan! Seriously, if he was half as open with her as he was with me then he would’ve asked her out ages ago.”
Macaque blinks, the relaxation of sleep disappearing like it had never been there in the first place. From his perch behind him, Wukong doesn’t seem to notice.
“What?” Macaque asks, dumbfounded, interrupting whatever tangent Wukong had sent himself down. At his questioning noise, he says, “What’d you just say?
“Uh… That the Demon Bull King cried after Iron Fan asked him out?”
“ No, no, not that. Before.”
He’s still not entirely certain he heard it; the remark was a quick slip of the tongue, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it phenomenon. Wukong doesn’t share his unease.
“The glamours thing?” Like it’s the most natural, normal thing in the world to admit, Wukong laughs a little. “Yeah, embarrassing, right? It’s been, what, over a thousand years since the eyes, and I still haven’t gotten over them.”
Over a thousand years. Wukong’s been keeping his glamours on for over a thousand years?
Now that he knows what he’s looking for, Macaque can sense the trail of magic that winds its way across Wukong’s body, weaving pretty pictures and hiding the real him from sight. It’s a slow but steady pulse, likely natural by now.
How much magic has been dedicated to this? he wonders, stomach twisting uncomfortably. Then, unbidden, a remnant of centuries of hostility: how much magic must he have, to maintain glamours and still perform such feats?
(of course, though his death remains a blur of pain and tears and sharp words trying to counteract blunt strikes, very little magic was used in the end.
no; their partnership ended with brute force, gentle touches turned damning. at least it wasn’t impersonal, at least he had the opportunity to reach up one last time and drag his claws down wukong’s cheek, drawing blood.
there were no winners in that fight.)
Now, his tongue feels clumsy with all he wants to say, unsure of how to say it. They’ve gotten better over time – after their truce against the Lady Bone Demon, things eased – but neither of them are quite ready for that level of vulnerability.
“It’s not embarrassing,” Macaque manages, and feels Wukong’s fingers do a funny little twitch before resuming their gentle ministrations. “You– You know you don’t have to have them up around me, right?”
“I know,” Wukong says, quick to reassure, quick to keep the peace. He’s missed this as much as Macaque has, maybe more (there wasn’t much room for thought between the decades of torture, after all); it’s only natural that he doesn’t want to deny anything.
His voice is hollow, agreeing for the sake of agreeing.
He lets it go, biting down the words that rise to the tip of his tongue. It’s clear that Wukong doesn’t want to speak about this, no matter how much Macaque wants to make him.
—
Ever since finding out about the glamours, Macaque’s found himself watching Wukong a lot more, trying to figure out what’s changed.
There are some things that are likely the natural progression of time – lean muscle, for one, or lightening fur as winter ends – but he refuses to believe that Wukong is keeping up glamours just for the sake of it.
In the end, though, a simple accident hands the answer to him on a silver platter.
Sun Wukong, Great Sage Equal to Heaven, had sneezed so hard when trying to clean up his treasure room that the entire mountain had shaken. Macaque, wary of a fight, had arrived to see him dig himself out of piles of collapsed treasure.
This was not unusual; no, what was unusual was the fact that everything about Wukong was… smaller. A little hysterically, Macaque thought, did he sneeze so hard his glamour fell off?
That brings him to now, blinking down at Wukong. In truth, he’s only an inch or so below Macaque, but even that is so… what?
Wukong, for his part, looks incredibly uncomfortable. Still, he tries: “Hey, Macaque…!”
“You’re… shorter than me.”
The words are out before he can stop them, but, please, forgive him for having his entire world upended.
This made no sense. Back before Macaque’s death, before that damned Journey and the burning of Flower Fruit Mountain and everything, Wukong was taller than him.
It had made their sworn brothers tease him to no end, that even Wukong – tiny, mighty Wukong, barely up to their chests yet stronger than them all – could lean his chin on Macaque’s head.
Of course, it had been fond, back then; there were no rivalries, no hidden politics that Macaque couldn’t discern and Wukong barged right through.
It was just the velvety pads of Azure’s paws on his back, the affectionate pecks from Peng’s beak, the impromptu resting places on Yellowtusk’s namesakes, the bone-breaking force of the Demon Bull King’s handshakes.
(and wukong, of course, had taken every opportunity he could to lord his height over macaque.
in the beginning, he was wary of scaring off the skittish macaque, but as they grew closer he became bolder. hands on shoulders became casual side-leans, and by the time wukong was resting his cheek on macaque’s head they barely even noticed they were doing it.
macaque knows, somewhere deep down, that this was one of the many pieces that fractured their brotherhood. how could he not, when he and wukong became more and more obviously distinct from the others?)
Wukong’s tail flicks, something pained and embarrassed crossing his face. Despite all that’s happened between them – or perhaps because of – Macaque doesn’t like seeing the expression replacing his usual bright smiles.
“Yeah, well,” Wukong says finally, more than a little bitter, “being stuck under a mountain for half a millenia tends to stunt growth.”
Macaque bites his tongue to avoid saying what he thinks of that particular punishment, and then bites down again on his own macabre joke.
After all, being torn apart then reassembled over and over likely stretched out his limbs like well-worn clothes. Dead things don’t grow.
The silence weighs heavy, neither wanting to address the elephant in the room – that things have changed, that they have changed, and it’s just one small, simple thing but speaks of so much lost time.
“Well,” Macaque says after a moment, teasing, “at least you know how I felt having to look up at you. How’s it feel being the shortest, huh?”
Wukong huffs, left ear twitching. “Do you ever get tired of being insufferable?” Still, he doesn’t leave; in fact, he leans just that little bit closer.
And, well, Macaque would be remiss if he didn’t take the opportunity presented. With far more grace than Wukong’s stone-heavy limbs ever allowed, he drapes himself over his King’s shoulders like a blanket.
Like this, with his arms hanging limply over Wukong’s chest and his head resting in the crook of his neck, he can both feel and hear the slight hitch in his breathing.
Wary of crossing a boundary, he’s prepared to move away, but then Wukong lifts a paw to rest on his sleeve. Even through the layers of clothes, the touch burns against his always-cold skin.
(two tails intertwine, swaying gently just above the floor, but that’s a level of intimacy macaque refuses to acknowledge yet, not with all the unspoken history between them.)
“This isn’t so bad,” Wukong says after a moment; Macaque feels the vibrations in his throat against his sensitive ears. Then: “I knew you just complained for the fun of it.”
“Wh– I did not!” He exclaims, not even bothering to pretend to move away. “I’m being nice right now. You used to just drop on me out of nowhere!”
“Mm, I don’t know. I seem to remember a certain someone trying to sneak into my scarves during winter…”
“Everyone knows I can’t handle the cold, and they were my scarves anyway! You just kept stealing them for no reason.”
Gently, Wukong shifts away, and it aches for all of a second until he’s actually looking at Macaque. There’s something impossibly warm in his gaze.
“Well, if it got you to cuddle with me, then that’s reason enough, right?”
He opens and closes his mouth, thousands of little things slotting into place, then settles for just biting the spot beneath Wukong’s bicep. It’s not even hard enough to break skin, but Wukong screeches like he tore out flesh.
“Aiya! Don’t bite me, you little pest!” Searingly warm paws bat at his face, but when he ducks away he can see Wukong’s smile back on his face, indignant and joyful in equal measure.
Macaque, too, finds himself grinning; it’s not the mocking one he’s taught himself, but not the open, natural one he used to have, either. It’s somewhere in the middle, straining unused muscles but feeling all the better for it.
Maybe, one day, it’ll feel comfortable on his face.
The thought makes something hopeful curl in his chest, and he sees it reflected in Wukong’s eyes. Like a coward, he flees.
—
After that little interaction, Wukong’s taken to dropping a few more of his glamours around the mountain, when it’s just him and Macaque and the veritable hoard of little monkeys roaming around.
Now, if Macaque was a good friend (regardless of how much he shamefully wants to be more) who was trying to make up for everything he’s done to hurt the kid and his King, he’d encourage this.
He’d only mention the changes in passing, and only in a positive light. He’d continue rebuilding his side of their burnt (obliterated, really) bridge with no real reference to the slow lowering of walls.
But Macaque’s weak, Gods he’s weak, and the reveal that Wukong’s shorter than him has already shaken him enough. Couple that with everything else?
Well. It’s a good thing the kid’s over for training today, because that means Wukong will be distracted enough that he won’t find Macaque bemoaning his newest ailment to a group of the little monkeys as they pick through his fur.
“I can’t do this much longer,” he tells them, completely seriously; one of them, a mother combing through his tail, looks up at him and blinks.
“No, seriously, I can’t. Did you see him yesterday? Gods.”
He buries his face in his hands, dislodging a younger monkey trying to untangle a particularly harsh snag. Another monkey, one picking through the fur on top of his head, pats his temple sympathetically.
The incident yesterday was, by all intents and purposes, minor: he’s had a few days to adjust to the height thing, but then Wukong was blinking down at him from a tree and his red eyes had caught the light and–
Well.
It was such a stunning contrast to the gold, so familiar it had taken his breath away. He hadn’t seen Wukong’s true eyes for centuries, as he’d taken to hiding them a few months after returning to the Mountain.
With the full weight of them on him, glinting in the warm spring sunlight, combined with the completely relaxed line of Wukong’s body as he lounged on a tree, Macaque had almost bitten his tongue clean off.
“Mornin’, Macaque,” Wukong had greeted, like he wasn’t made up of gold and ruby, like he wasn’t holding Macaque’s heart in his hand like the peach resting lazily between his fingers.
“Morning.” Macaque’s voice was strained, he knew, and Wukong was clearly coming to the wrong conclusion. Redirect, fast. “Do you want to– eat? Together?”
It had clearly taken Wukong off guard, before a grin spread across his face and he hopped down. Macaque, of course, caught him, even though the stone monkey weighed about three times as much as him.
…He noticed, with a touch of fondness, that Wukong was still shorter than him.
“ Gods,” Macaque groans, tired of reliving the memory (it had haunted him in his sleeping and waking hours for the rest of the day), “I’m actually going to die. Again. Little monkey, I’m going to die, and it’s his fault. Also again.
“Why did I realise that eating together would mean him looking at me?! I know him! I know how touchy he is! Of course he’d cling to me for the rest of the day,” he continues. Chittering is his only reply, sounding vaguely chiding.
“Okay, okay, I won’t die again, sorry.” The clearing lapses back into comfortable silence for all of a few seconds before he has to speak again, the words bursting from his chest: “But he’s so pretty, how am I not meant to?”
Clearly fed up, the mother scrambles across him (stepping particularly hard on his stomach, ow) and taps his cheek a few times. Her unimpressed expression says all he needs to know.
“I thought you were supposed to like me,” he says, betrayed, but she just nudges him in the direction of the various crashes on the other side of the trees. When he doesn’t move, she headbutts him, stubborn.
“Alright, fine! I’m going. Thanks for listening, guys.” With that, his impromptu audience watches him slip into the shadows. He reappears in the cool shade of a small cliff, watching as mentor and student separate, panting.
They’re both dirty, which is an improvement, but it’s clear that Wukong’s still leagues ahead of the kid. Still, when they exchange words, MK lights up as Wukong ruffles his hair.
That’s his cue to step into the sunlight; they both turn to him, surprised, as he makes his way over.
MK sends him a strange look when he saunters across the field to lean against Wukong. It makes sense: to him, Wukong is still as tall as he pretended to be. That is, taller than Macaque.
“Heya, bud,” he greets, and the kid, bless him, waves back. “Good training session?”
Under his arm, Wukong’s shoulder relaxes. MK’s eyes light up, bemusement clearing, and he kicks off into a long-winded ramble about their most recent fight.
Apparently, he’s been improving rapidly; he even shows Macaque a rapid-fire shift of forms, proudly claiming that it was three more shifts than he’d been able to do last week.
“Woah,” Macaque says, genuinely impressed. From the beam on the kid’s face, he can pick up on it, even though Macaque’s voice just sounds naturally sarcastic. “Well done, kid. Maybe one day you’ll even be able to beat me in a spar.”
Very carefully, he does not think about the past few fights they’ve had, but he can feel ice crawling beneath his skin nonetheless. From the sudden tensing of Wukong’s muscles, he’s thinking of the same thing.
But the kid looks… excited, really, at the prospect of fighting him. “Wait, are you serious? I’d love that!” He turns the full force of his puppy-dog eyes on Wukong, who absolutely doesn’t stand a chance.
“Monkey King, can we please invite Macaque to one of our training sessions? It’d be so fun! He– wait. You do want to, right?”
“Yeah, ’course, bud. I’d like to see what good ol’ Wukong over here’s been teaching you in person.” And, ideally, not in a real fight.
“See?” MK’s practically pleading now, and he feels more than hears Wukong sighing in defeat. Still, there’s a smile tugging at his lips, and he reaches over with his free arm to ruffle the kid’s hair.
“Alright then, Macaque can join us. I dunno though, bud, he’s probably getting rusty in his old age. You might have to teach him some tricks of your own before he can stand up to us.”
“Oi, watch it, Monkey King,” Macaque snaps, nudging Wukong with his elbow. As he’s taken to doing, Wukong collapses like he’s been stabbed.
“Oh… such violence, and against your King, too…” Even his voice is hoarse, and MK drops to his side, half-pulling Wukong into his lap.
“No, Monkey King!” He cries, getting far too into it. When Wukong lets out a rattling breath and falls still, MK gasps. “No! Wake up, Monkey King! You still haven’t taught me how to control my laser eyes yet!”
Now that is not something Macaque wants to see, and he steps closer to them, bending over to fix Wukong with the most unimpressed look he can muster. Considering his centuries of practice, it is very withering.
“You are having too much fun with this,” he says flatly. Though Wukong’s eyes are still squeezed tight, a smile is twitching at his lips. “Wait, hang on. You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”
MK lets out the smallest, quietest snort; it rings in Macaque’s ears like a siren. “You are! Who’s the pest now, huh?”
Reaching down, he grabs Wukong by the scruff of his collar and picks him up. Stone monkey or not, he will throw his King into the side of a mountain.
Miraculously, Wukong comes back to life, squawking when he notices the glint in Macaque’s eyes. “Hey, wait, wait, Macaque, buddy, darling, you wouldn’t– you wouldn’t throw me, right?”
“Oh, I dunno, Monkey King,” MK says from the ground, watching them with amusement, “he does seem like he’s in the mood for it.”
Wukong shoots his kid a pained, betrayed look, then turns his attention back to Macaque. There’s a glimmer of magic; Wukong’s feet hang just a little bit further from the ground.
“Getting shorter won’t help you,” Macaque grumbles, shaking him just a little. “Just ’cause you stopped growing doesn’t mean I’ll take pity on you.”
“You’re, like, actually the worst.”
Macaque shakes him again for good measure, but now Wukong’s tail is wrapped around his arm and he’s being fixed with imploring red eyes. He is… He is not a strong man.
“Fine, whatever. I’ll just throw you into the mountain another time.”
It looks like Wukong’s going to make a joke – his eyebrows raise and his grin turns into a leer – but MK gasps. Macaque had… kind of forgotten the kid was there.
“Monkey King…” MK says slowly, and Macaque can see the exact moment that the walls begin to clamp around Wukong’s chest again. “You’re so tiny!”
And then Macaque’s being shoved to the side as MK sweeps his mentor into his arms, clearly delighted by the reveal. Even like this, they’re likely the same size, but it doesn’t stop MK’s bright laughter ringing out.
A little confused, very much nervous, Wukong looks to Macaque for help. “Uh…?”
When it becomes obvious the shadow monkey isn’t moving, Wukong slumps into the hug. MK’s arms only grow tighter; a small, pleased smile crosses the Monkey King’s face.
Macaque lets them have their little moment, watching them with a strange, flickering fondness, then reaches out to pull them away. “Alright, alright. You should get going, kid, it’s getting late.”
MK, clearly still giddy, grins up at him. “Alright! I’ll be back soon, Monkey King, and I’d better see you there, too, Macaque. See you!”
And then he’s off, a whirlwind of movement and backward glances, tapping away at his phone. Macaque turns to his King.
“You okay there, Wukong?” He asks, only partially teasing. Those gorgeous scarlet eyes blink, a little dumbfounded, before it’s his turn to be tackled into a hug. “Wukong–?”
“I’m just…” Wukong’s voice is soft, aching with unsaid emotion. “I’m just really happy.”
Well, then. If that’s the case, Macaque is content to continue lying there on the ground, tails intertwining and gentle fingers carding through his fur.
—
About a month and a half after Wukong dropped his glamours for good (at least on the Mountain), they just… come back again.
Macaque’s not ready for how much his chest aches at the loss when he heads into the kitchen and has to look up at his King once more. No longer are there lighter, thinner patches of fur; no longer do his eyes incarnadine his features.
It’s just… perfect. Golden fur, glossy and fake; golden eyes, alert and fake; Wukong, fake, fake, fake.
It’s sickening.
“Hey, Macaque!”
His jaw works, but no sound comes out. He shouldn’t feel hurt, but he does; has he done something to make his King lose what little trust they’d worked so hard to rebuild?
All he can think of is–
“...Your glamours.”
Immediately, Wukong stiffens; ah. So this was a conscious decision, then, and not just habit formed over a thousand years. On weak legs, Macaque steps forwards.
“Wukong. Look at me.”
Gold eyes slide to the side, very much not looking at him. With an irritated huff that makes Wukong’s nose scrunch at him as air puffs between them, Macaque grabs his face with both paws.
Wukong, despite himself, lets out a pleased little hum and melts into the touch, which unfortunately means his eyes flutter closed. It takes a headbutt (not too hard, but certainly enough to ache) for him to open them again.
“ Wukong.”
“...I’m not in the mood, Macaque,” Wukong says finally, sounding vaguely pained. “If you’re just going to point out everything wrong with me, I don’t want to hear it.”
“Are you stupid?”
The question tears from his throat without him even meaning to, but it’s worth it for the way Wukong stares at him, flabbergasted. Still, Macaque doesn’t take it back.
“No, seriously, are you stupid? I haven’t been able to take my eyes off you all week – Gods, all month – and you think it’s because I’m, what, making fun of you?” It’s ludicrous, even to Macaque.
Clearly, Wukong’s self-hatred surpasses even logical reasoning, because his tail flicks and his eyebrows twitch. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Gods above, Wukong,” Macaque snaps, squeezing his hands together a little, just to see Wukong’s cheeks squish, “I’m not lying about this. You are, irritatingly enough, very cute.”
He can watch the exact moment that the words really set in for Wukong, because his jaw drops open in shock. An orange-pink flush steals across his cheeks, damnably dashing, and if Macaque weren’t already in love then that would have pushed him over the edge.
“Please,” he says, softer, “don’t… don’t use your glamours around me.”
Slowly, like he’s waiting for the moment that the shoe will drop and Macaque will laugh at him, Wukong’s fur loses its glossy sheen. When there’s no reaction, he shrinks down to his natural height.
And then there are two big scarlet eyes framed by long, thin lashes, averted as if unable to look at whatever expression is on Macaque’s face. He’s holding his breath.
For his part, Macaque can barely breathe for an entirely different reason. Even so, he has to say it before the words choke him to death.
“You’re so gorgeous, Peaches.”
There are, going by vague, societal standards, flaws: the discolourations in golden fur and deep red eyes have become, for lack of a better word, demonised. These, coupled with all monkeys’ sharp teeth and bristling fur, can paint a terrifying figure.
It’s hard to see that, though, when he has the Monkey King himself like putty in his palms. Absently, he rubs a thumb over Wukong’s cheek, and smiles at the answering rumbling purr.
“Can I kiss you?” Wukong makes a surprised noise, a little mrrp? that Macaque copies on reflex. “Sorry, I’m just– Sorry.”
He goes to pull away, but Wukong’s grip on his hands only grows stronger. “Peaches–?”
Whatever the question would have been dies on his tongue as Wukong surges up, bringing the smell of spring rain and fresh fruit with him. Macaque melts into the kiss, trilling somewhere low in his throat, and Wukong answers with gusto.
When they pull away, Macaque’s breathless. Wukong’s grin is familiar, the cocky, arrogant tug of lips that accompanies many of their joint memories, but it’s tinged with something new, something fond.
(maybe that was always there, and neither of them were brave enough to admit it.)
“I suppose you may, my dear Plum,” Wukong says with all the gravity his title demands. Despite it, there’s a bright flush spreading across his cheeks, one that is surely mirrored on Macaque’s own.
His theory is confirmed when a paw comes up to rest along his cheekbone, and he leans into it, purring. Wukong makes a delighted little noise, and then another paw is threading through the fur on top of his head.
It would be enough to fall asleep right then and there, but there is something Macaque has to do, or else he’ll never forgive himself.
So, with great reluctance, he pulls away from Wukong’s gentle touches. Something akin to hurt crosses his King’s face, which quickly turns to surprised joy when Macaque takes his face into his own paws and presses a kiss to his cheek.
“My King,” Macaque coos, and revels in the way Wukong’s tail curls around his ankle, “may I continue?”
“Yes,” Wukong breathes, “you may,” and Macaque wastes no time in pressing kiss after kiss to the patches of thinned fur on his face, his neck, behind his ears.
“Peaches,” he murmurs between kisses, “you’re beautiful. I can’t think of a single sight that could compare to this.”
Paws pull him back, and now it’s Wukong’s turn to leave butterfly-light kisses across his nose, trailing up and down the tips of his ears. Instinctively, he tries to shy away, but the steady yet kind grip keeps him in place.
“I could probably think of one,” Wukong says, impossibly soft. Macaque feels his smile against his lips when they lean in for another kiss, and doesn’t bother to shove down the butterflies trapped in his stomach.
—
(later, when he asks wukong why he was so insistent on macaque dropping his glamours while keeping his own a secret, wukong shifts nervously.
“i just… you know. you’re a lot nicer to look at than me.”
there’s not a single hint of a lie in his words, just genuine, plain truth. as for macaque… he can barely understand it.
how could he, with his coarse fur and brutalised eye socket, be nicer to look at than wukong? wukong, who shone brighter than the sun itself, who had entranced him from the moment they met?
“you’re being stupid again,” wukong mutters, leaning over to press a gentle kiss over his browbone. “whatever you’re thinking, quit it.”
macaque hums, warm and comfortable, and wukong peppers more kisses across his face, tracing the marking around his eyes. “let’s just agree that we were both being stupid and move on, okay?”
“ha.” he can feel wukong’s exhaled laugh on his forehead. “is this the first time you’ve admitted i’m right? i think it is. oh, what an honour.”
“shut up, idiot,” macaque grumbles, reaching up to pull wukong down on top of him. “you’re stupider. do you know how many times i had to beat demons off with a stick?”
“mm, probably fewer than my demon-beating count. are you sure they weren’t just after the status?”
“considering the fact that half of them asked after the golden monkey, rather than the monkey king, i’m pretty sure they just thought you were cute.”
this close, macaque has the pleasure of watching wukong’s face burn, and he laughs brightly at the irritated bite he receives to the ear. “okay, okay! you’re very fearsome, my king. very powerful. the mighty tremble before you.”
“...you’re making fun of me. i can tell.”
“oh, no, absolutely not.” macaque can’t hide his smile as wukong finally, finally leans in for a proper kiss. it’s fine; wukong’s smiling too.)