Archive of Our Own ^beta

MK was excited. 

Wukong could tell, based on the overpowering smile and energetic…well, energy coming off of his successor. The kid had shown up for training and, instead of asking what they would be learning that day, had almost instantly started rambling. Something about a new game? Wukong wasn’t entirely sure. MK spoke so fast and there were a lot of younger monkeys running around at the start of MK’s explanation, so Wukong hadn’t managed to fully… get what MK was saying, and he didn’t want to interrupt by asking the kid now, since it had already been a good few minutes of the kid rambling off. He thinks he’s starting to get the gist of it, the new game seemingly having a character inspired by himself and- 

Realization dawns on him, and Wukong interrupts his successor, stating the name of the game as well as the fact he needed to approve the script for it. MK freezes, and for a brief moment Wukong worries he got something wrong, that now wasn’t a good time in the conversation to interrupt with this fact. Maybe he should have waited until he was sure MK was entirely finished? 

MK surprises him by jumping back into excitement mode at full speed, shifting gears from just talking about the game to asking if Wukong can give him any early access spoilers in zero seconds flat. 

“C’mon, please? At the very least, just one hint.” He gets down on his knees to emphasize just how badly he wants to know, and Wukong barely keeps himself from rolling his eyes at the overdramatics, forcing back the memories of a certain… ex-friend of his doing something similar. (He’d been dragged to so many plays way back when). 

“Well…. I guess I can tell you one thing.” Wukong chuckles, giving in, and kneeling down to whisper a small spoiler into MK’s ear that, based on the kid’s rambles, he just knew would drive MK wild . 

And it seems he was right, as MK practically jumps up, and Wukong smiles at his successor’s excitement- 

Only for that smile to drop as MK starts jumping up and down repeatedly, flapping his arms and shaking his hands as though trying to shake the energy out of himself.  

Wukong quickly fixes his expression to a neutral smile before MK can notice. Not that it would matter really, the kid was so focused in on moving around that he wasn’t even looking at his mentor. But, as he watches MK continue to do his thing, he has to wonder. 

Did… Did he pick that up from him? 

He couldn’t have, right? Wukong had completely managed to get rid of his “destructive and annoying habits” by the time the journey had ended. 

So why was MK doing the exact same thing he used to do? He was so certain he’d stopped doing… any of that altogether. Had he slipped up and fell back into it at some point? The kid surely would’ve commented on it if he had, right? Oh no- how long had the kid been doing this for? 

That thought struck a chord of pure fear in Wukong’s mind. How long had MK been doing this for?? Had his friends and family noticed?

It occurred to Wukong that he should take MK back to the city and, at the very least, apologize to Pigsy for accidentally passing down his old habits onto MK… somehow. He still wasn’t sure how MK had picked this habit of his up. 

…Would it hurt that much to ask? 

“Hey- uh, Kid, how did you-” Wukong started, then blinked, realizing that all that stood before him were the monkeys and a small indent in the ground. For a beat, he just stared at the indent in general confusion, briefly glancing up at the sky in a split second of wondering if something had fallen to the ground and he hadn’t noticed, before the dots finally connected in his brain and he shook his head, glancing off in the direction of the mainland, activating his golden vision to see MK vaulting his way over the ocean back towards the city’s shoreline. The kid had probably told him goodbye and he hadn’t even noticed it from how deep in thought he was. He hoped that MK wasn’t too upset that he didn’t answer. 

…Albeit, considering the kid had outright left instead of staying for training, it finally clicked that something must’ve happened in the city. 

Still swallowed by his earlier concern about MK’s new habits, Wukong turned himself into a bird and followed behind his apprentice. 

-

Thankfully, it ended up just being Jin and Yin wrecking a little havoc again, a situation MK easily dealt with. 

Unfortunately though, this meant that MK returned to Pigsy’s noodles with the exact same amount of energy coursing through him as he had before the fight. 

Wukong winced as he watched the kid’s friends converge on him outside of the Noodle Shop- as far as he could tell, it was the usual checkup to make sure that MK hadn’t been injured (like he even could be, albeit, he supposed it was a fair concern, he wasn’t sure if any of them had noticed that he’d been slowly peeling back the magic seal to let MK be invulnerable again. It wasn’t at full strength yet like it was before, but it was starting to get there. …Actually, had he told MK he was doing that? He couldn’t remember. Huh. Maybe he should bring that up at their next training session- oh shit he was getting distracted again-), but the injury checkup wasn’t really what had Wukong concerned. 

No, what made him outright cringe from his perch on the edge of a nearby building, was when MK began rambling about the game once more…and started doing the motions again. 

He got himself ready to hop down there, to apologize, promise he’d fix it, like how he’d been fixed, and very nearly did when he saw Mei start copying MK’s gestures, assuming that she was making fun of him- 

But paused, as their expressions finally registered in his mind, and it hit him like a truck that the dragon girl wasn’t making fun of MK. 

She was joining in. 

Wukong could feel his bird transformation drop, changing him back to his normal monkey form out of shock, and he quickly dove down behind the roof’s ledge before anyone could look up and see him. For a moment, he just sat there, staring at nothing, panic starting to grip at him. Had he somehow managed to influence not one, but two kids? Did he need to do double the apologies?? 

Taking a deep breath, he grabbed hold of the edge of the roof, lifting himself up slightly to peek over again, just to make sure, and only just barely stopped himself from letting out a noise as he saw what was happening below. 

Which was…nothing. 

Or well, it was something, MK and Mei still doing the gestures happily, talking back and forth, but- 

The others… didn’t look mad? 

It was like- 

They all seemed to be acting like this was normal. 

It took a moment, for that to sink in. 

This was considered normal. 

And now that he was really thinking about it, no-one passing by on the street were giving the Monkie Kid or the Dragon Girl a second glance either. If he had been doing the motions as publicly as MK and Mei were doing them, he would’ve certainly been receiving dirty glares by now. 

But for some reason, that… simply wasn’t happening. 

…Wukong wasn’t an idiot. He knew he had been isolated, and hadn’t interacted with the mortal world for some time. But- was it really- 

Was it really true? Not some sort of prank?? This kind of thing was just… accepted now? 

Wukong grabbed hold of his tail to keep it from swishing back and forth, taking a deep breath as anxiety pooled in his chest. 

If this was normal now, it was arguably a good thing he hadn’t voiced any of his thoughts in front of MK. What if he had hurt the kid’s feelings? He could’ve. He almost did. 

Wukong let go of his tail in favour of covering his face with hands, and slowly dragging his hands down his face, proceeding to resist the sudden urge to repeat the action. Standing up, he briefly glanced down again, just in time to see the small group happily entering the Noodle Shop, and he just as quickly looked away, not bothering with either his cloud nor his transformations as he simply teleported back to his house on the mountain. 

Collapsing face first onto the couch, he rolled to the side, staring at his laptop, wondering if maybe he should use the internet to look into the motions MK and Mei had been doing. 

He tossed the notion away as soon as he thought about it. Confirmation that it seemed to be a normal occurrence now aside- Wukong genuinely felt… almost afraid to find out what the motions meant. What he had missed. 

…How the people he’d trusted might’ve been wrong. 

Wukong turned back over so that he was on his stomach, his head face down into the couch cushions. His hand briefly skimmed the surface of the side of the couch, and he practically bit his tongue resisting the urge to do that again- 

…Except it didn’t really matter, did it? 

He paused. 

The repetitive actions of Mei and MK, out on full view in the middle of the street, were deemed acceptable by modern society. Plus, there was no-one in here with him at the current moment, right? Nobody to get annoyed by his repetitive motions. He could do whatever he wanted. Without consequences. 

Without consequences. 

Tentatively, Wukong let his hand brush over the side of the couch again. And again. And- again. Speeding up slightly, to get m o r e of the sensation, before slowing down once his hand got tired, going back up in speed once his hand no longer felt like it was going to fall off. 

Something about the- the texture, the repeated action of brushing up against it felt- almost soothing? Relaxing. Wukong could feel his muscles untense as he got lost in the sensation. 

So lost, in fact, that he barely even noticed the time passing, until MK’s voice calling his name made him startle hard enough to fall off the couch. 

Almost instantly the sound of running feet approaching him reached his ears, and he barely managed to pull himself off the ground and into a standing position before MK was stumbling into the living room, barely managing to stop himself from crashing into a wall due to the speed he had built up. 

“Ah- hey bud!” Wukong lifted the hand he hadn’t been using to give MK a lil wave. His other hand still felt… tingly, almost incriminating, and he hid it behind his back, hoping the kid wouldn’t notice anything off. “Back to finally do some training today?” 

MK, for his part, looked somewhat guilty. 

“Sorry- were you napping? I didn’t mean to wake you up.” MK shifted nervously back and forth, rocking on his feet. 

Wukong subconsciously found himself mimicking the rocking motion, before he just as quickly stopped himself, glancing off to the side. He’d found himself slipping into rocking motions around the kid before, and stopped them without pause, but now that he was thinking more about it, he felt almost… self-conscious? Maybe. That kind of seemed like the best word for it. Ashamed was another one, but he didn’t want to think about it like that too much… 

Shaking those thoughts out of his mind, ignoring MK’s confused and concerned expression, he decided to focus in on the kid’s question. 

“Napping? Uh-” He was about to deny it, before thinking better of it. Napping certainly was a better excuse as to why he had spent so much time on the couch to the point that it probably had left a decent mark on his face that the kid had picked up on, a far better excuse than what he had actually been doing. “Yeah, I uh, woke up pretty early this morning to deal with some… issue or other that the lil monkey’s had. I was just catching up on the extra sleep before you came back!!” 

It seemed like a decent excuse. It was a perfectly reasonable scenario, in Wukong’s opinion. 

But for some reason, MK still looked at him with doubt. Wukong, for some reason feeling like the kid could see right through him, glanced off to the side again, hoping he wasn’t being as obvious as he felt he was, the nervous energy growing in his chest and slowly extending it’s reaching fingers into his limbs. 

“Are you o-” MK started, and Wukong instinctively reached back to grab hold of his tail as soon as it started swishing. There was barely a pause as MK quickly, and suddenly, switched gears. “Okay, I’ve been ignoring this for like, a while but why do you keep doing that?” 

“Doing what?” Had he done something wrong?

“Grabbing hold of your tail whenever it starts swishing like that.” MK clarified, and Wukong winced, letting go of his tail immediately- swapping out the action instead for doing his best to remain perfectly still, almost biting the inside of his cheek as unease and a sense of just… generally being uncomfortable took hold of his body. MK’s eyes narrowed. “You’re hiding something. Again.” 

“What?! No. I uh- I… only just woke up?” Okay, even Wukong knew that was a lousy excuse, wincing even as he said it, feeling a nervous smile starting to form on his face, actually drawing a small amount of blood from how hard he was biting his cheek in an attempt to prevent the nervous smirk he knew would appear from growing. 

MK didn’t even bother to dignify him with a response, instead simply raising an eyebrow, just… staring. It took everything in Wukong’s power to not shift his feet nervously. He just knew the kid had picked up that look from Pigsy, somehow. It had just as much power on MK as it did on the respected pig demon. As in; a lot of power. 

He only barely managed to hold out for half a minute before he caved in. 

“I just-” Wukong started, then paused, thinking. How was he even going to explain this? Where should he even begin? From the point he first saw MK doing the motions? But that would require explaining his thoughts and- what if the kid got hurt by it? Wukong still wasn’t sure on the- specifics and everything, but it was obvious that it was considered a normal thing, and if he revealed he had thought it was bad, well- that’d- that’d definitely hurt the kid, right? Wukong didn’t want that. So how should he start then? 

MK was still rocking back and forth on his feet, awaiting Wukong’s explanation. He had to say something. But where would he even begin???  

“I… I followed you back into the city during the attack today.” He chose to begin there, hesitantly. “Um, and I stuck around for a little bit after Jin and Yin ran off- oh! You do know that I’ve been slowly making the seal less powerful right, your invulnerability is slowly returning to you, the others don’t need to be as worried about possible injuries as they are-” 

“I kinda figured that out on my own, Monkey King.” MK said, calmly, almost gently in a way that made Wukong want to flinch. “It’s kinda hard to not notice when I don’t take any damage from a 3 story fall other than a small bruise on my elbow. But that’s not what you wanted to tell me, is it?” 

No. It’s not. But in fact, he’d rather not tell MK about any of this at all. 

But he’d been trying to communicate better with MK and the other’s lately. It had been insisted upon near a hundred times that in order for trust to be achieved they had to actually talk to each other, and tell the others when something important was happening- 

Or when they needed help. 

Wukong let out a breath. 

“Okay. Okay okay. So- followed you back to the city. Not a lie.” He clarified, “But it- wasn’t because of the attack. It’s- I was worried.” 

“Worried about what?” MK stood a little straighter, his rocking stopping as he gave Wukong his full attention. “Did something happen?” 

“No- well- not anything- important, it’s- I.” Wukong ran his hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face as he tried to figure out how best to phrase what he was going to say without offending the kid. “When… When I was younger. I used to do these… motions. And- I was. Taught? Told. I was told that these motions were… not good.” 

MK slowly nodded, seemingly following, but still confused as to how this related back to the situation at hand. Wukong sighed. 

“And, this morning, I saw you doing those same motions, and-” 

“Oh.” 

“-and I got worried that you picked that up from me-” 

“ Oh.” 

“-So I followed you to the city, and I saw Mei join in with you, and I thought she was making fun of you, but she wasn’t-” 

“Monkey King-” 

“-and the others didn’t seem to mind, and everyone was acting like it was normal, and- I know that I’ve been gone from society for a long time, which means it probably is normal now, and I was just being stupid for worrying about it-” 

“ Sun Wukong.” 

Wukong froze, looking up, not having realized until that moment that he had started curling into himself. MK very rarely used Wukong’s name, usually reserving it for moments of utmost importance. (And the occasional call out, but those were also, in fact, usually important. The only time it wasn’t from what Wukong could recall was when the kid had called him out on his stagefright, but that was more of a statement of all his titles, really, so he didn’t count it). 

MK looked deadly serious. 

“Monkey King, do you not know what stimming is?” 

“...Swimming?” 

“No, stimming. ” 

“I…no?” 

MK inhaled sharply. 

“But- you’re- you so obviously-” He stumbled over his own words for a moment, before pausing, marching forwards and grabbing hold of Wukong’s hands. “Have you been resisting doing the- motions?” 

“...Yes?” 

“ How? ” 

The word was spoken with a sense of urgency, and Wukong immediately had the sense that his answer wasn’t going to make MK happy. 

After a few moments of silence, MK’s grip on Wukong’s hands tightened. 

“ How, Monkey King.” 

Wukong allowed himself just a few seconds more of hesitation, of delaying the inevitable. 

“...Biting my cheek, sometimes.” He muttered, “Most often that’s it- or some other form of mild pain, ‘s usually enough to make the feeling go away. Biting my cheek is just the one people are less likely to notice. …Let me tell you though, blood tastes awful, I have no idea how vampires put up with it-” 

“I’m taking you to see Mr. Tang.” 

“You- what?” Wukong didn’t even get an instant to process, as the next thing he knew, MK was using his grip on Wukong’s hands to drag him out of the house. “MK-” 

“We’re going to go see Tang, and that’s final.” MK summoned the staff, glancing back at Wukong. “Are you going to cooperate and come on your own free will, or am I gonna have to drag you to the Noodle Shop?” 

Wukong considered the idea of running away from this situation for just a second too long. 

Next thing he knew, MK had shifted his weight, as well as his grip on Wukong’s and was using the staff to vault into the air. 

-

They landed in front of the Noodle Shop with enough force to crack concrete. Wukong stumbled as MK let go of his hand, taking a moment to regain his balance (it had been a while since he vaulted with the staff, sue him), and MK gave him the briefest of moments to recollect himself before he was pushing Wukong into the building. 

Thankfully, it seemed like it was currently a slow business hour, as the only other people in the Noodle Shop were Tang, and, of course, Pigsy. MK directed Wukong to a chair. 

“Sit.” He said, not really giving the monkey much of a choice as he pushed down on his shoulders, forcing him into the chair. “ Stay.” 

“I’m not a dog, kid.” Wukong mumbled, but obeyed the request anyways, crossing one leg over the other and looking out the window at the people passing by outside as MK rushed over to whisper… something to Tang. A pair of chopsticks slipped out of Tang’s hand as the man froze in shock, and Wukong’s ear twitched as they clanged against the table. He could make a guess that MK was simply telling Tang what Wukong had told him, and he only barely repressed the shudder going down his spine. It was fine. This was fine. It was bound to happen anyways after telling MK, that was the point of this, being open about these things meant being open with all of them. 

A bowl of sliced peaches slid it’s way in front of him, and Wukong wished he could say he didn’t jump at it’s appearance. Pigsy didn’t say anything, instead simply nudging the bowl slightly closer to him again, before turning back around and refocusing on cleaning some dishes left over from the lunch hour. Wukong stared at the bowl with a blank mind for a few seconds, before he slowly took a piece and started nibbling on it. 

MK and Tang were still talking. 

…Wukong could just leave, right now. 

There was nothing keeping him here, no magic spell. He could just go back to the mountain, avoid the other’s questions, and maybe, in a week, they’d all forget about it.

…But these peaches were really good. (He’d have to ask, later, where Pigsy had bought them from). And, well, he knew better. The others would never let something like this just… drop. He knew that from experience. The last time he had tried to hide away, Mei had quite literally broken a hole through the wall of the safehouse he’d been hiding in. He still hadn’t bothered to fix it, instead just using a magic placeholder to make it seem like it’d been fixed. Now that he thought about it, he should probably get around to fixing that up eventually- 

A tap on his shoulder broke him out of his thoughts, and he very nearly choked on the peach slice he’d been eating. He coughed for a moment, catching his breath, before turning in his seat to find MK and Tang standing behind him. When had they moved? Wukong hadn’t even noticed. This whole thing must’ve been bothering him more than he had thought if it had shot his concentration like this. 

“So.” Tang said, “MK tells me you need my help.” 

“Wha- psh, help? Please. I don’t need help.” Wukong wasn’t sure why MK thought that he needed help from Tang of all people. He’d already figured out that his thought process had most likely been wrong, and he’d already corrected himself. Simple. Easy. There wasn’t anything else to do. 

…Was there? 

MK had seemed very concerned by Wukong avoiding doing the motions… 

But that was fine, right? He’d already kinda started on that, he had allowed himself that little couch thing, earlier- he didn’t really want to tell MK about that, considering how deeply he had lost himself in it, but maybe if he did MK would realize that he didn’t need any help? Surely they were making a big deal out of nothing, or something. 

His tail started swishing back and forth again, and subconsciously Wukong reached out with his hand to stop it, before freezing in the middle of the action. MK had only called him out on this whole thing earlier because he had stopped his tail from swishing. Maybe he should just… let it happen instead? 

He let his hand drop back to the side, allowing his tail to continue to swish, hoping that he didn’t look as self-conscious about it as he felt. He was fairly sure he didn’t, but something must’ve been showing on his face, as MK made a sort of ‘Do You See What I’m Talking About’ gesture in his general direction, and Tang made a nod of confirmation. Trying to ignore how kinda-uncomfortable this was making him feel, Wukong turned back around to put another peach slice in his mouth. 

There was some rustling behind him, and his ear twitched, but he did his best to ignore it, for a while. Just, giving himself a bit of time to mentally prepare himself. 

And then there was a metal clang, and Wukong spun around out of both concern and curiosity- 

“Okay, how on Earth did you manage this.” Wukong deadpanned. The other tables and chairs in the Noodle Shop had all been shoved to one side, leaving a large open space, just the perfect size for Tang to have set up a projector screen, as well as the projector itself. A quick glance to the side showed that the Noodle Shop’s sign had been flipped from ‘Open!’ to ‘Closed’. “Literally- I don’t think even 3 minutes passed just now, how did you do this.” 

“This isn’t the first time I’ve needed to do this.” Tang said, pulling out a laser pointer from… somewhere, about to click it on, before glancing back at Wukong and, seeming to think better of it, tossed the laser pointer over his shoulder (Wukong swore he didn’t hear it hit the ground, where the fuck did it go-), and pulling out a ruler instead (okay, there was no way he had been hiding THAT in a pocket, why did no one else think this was weird?). MK pulled up a chair next to Wukong and sat down beside him. Wukong spared him a glance, and upon seeing how the kid was focused on Tang, turned back to look at what seemed to be his impromptu teacher for the day. The projector flicked on, and Tang lightly tapped his ruler against the screen. “So, first of all, it seems we’re going to need to start from the beginning with what stimming is-” 

-

Wukong sighed as he finally collapsed onto his couch again. Tang’s presentation about stimming had taken just about three hours. Thankfully, MK seemed to be fine with missing one day of training, as Wukong genuinely didn’t think he had the energy left in him to go over fighting techniques, and he especially no longer had the energy to have a half decent spar. 

Laying on his back, he stared up at the ceiling, slowly letting the information settle into his brain. 

Okay. So. the motions- stimming, stimming wasn’t a bad thing. And, apparently, preventing himself from stimming was bad for him. (The others had been wrong, his friends, his family, they’d been wrong……. Would they have reacted differently, had they known all the information provided in Tang’s powerpoint? …He didn’t want to think about it too much). 

Tang had also gone over multiple different kinds of stimming. Some of them Wukong had already known about, he’d used to do them all the time after all, while some were newer to him. (Apparently Macaque’s habit of chewing on his scarf counted as a stim? Wukong had simply assumed he’d done it out of pure habit, or as a replacement for chewing gum). 

Letting out another, heavier, sigh, Wukong held his hands up in front of his face, studying them. Slowly sitting up, he started shaking and flapping his hands, mimicking the stimming he’d seen MK and Mei do earlier, memories of doing the same thing in the past appearing in his mind. 

It felt…nice. Calming, almost. But it was also tiring, like it took effort to do, not as natural as breathing as he remembered it being, or how MK and Mei had made it look. 

Not to mention the looming sense of tingles in a circle around his head. 

He stopped, instead moving his hands to gently trace around his head, trying to soothe the feeling, before flopping backwards to be laying down again, feeling slightly drained from the effort, but still like there was a bit of restlessness that needed to be let out, after putting up with the emotional strain of the day. He couldn’t think of anything else he could attempt though- 

The memories of when he had been on the couch earlier that afternoon slammed into him like a truck, and he rolled over, staring at the fabric of the couch in contemplation. 

Slowly, he rubbed his hand over it, before doing the same with his other hand, deciding to use both hands for it this time. A rush of sensation flooded over his palms, and the only thing stopping him from digging his claws in to try and get more of the feeling was the knowledge that he’d end up tearing a hole in the fabric. This didn’t feel like it took nearly as much energy as the hand-shakey one did. 

Soon, he found himself getting lost in the feeling again, hardly noticing when a purr of comfort started up in his chest. 

This was… wonderful, actually. 

Maybe he could try some other stims, see what stuck, maybe see if he could bring his old ones back, tomorrow. 

…Right now though, just rubbing his hands back and forth against the fabric was more than enough. 

Baby steps.