Chapter Text
What do you do when you spend your whole life feeling empty? What do you do when being yourself only leads to immolation? What do you do when half your aching, ashen power belongs wholly to another?
What can you do? You are never enough.
Red Son picks up the dragon plushie and makes a choice.
-
A month has passed since the defeat of Lady Bone Demon. Red Son has spent it fussing over his parents, who for once in their immortal lives agreed to his suggestion-threat-temper tantrum to rest, though even with almost four decades worth of Cooking With Chang’e reruns he can tell they are growing restless. Though the uneasy peace he has with them is growing to an end, with it, he is rather glad to be rid of the strange, hidden tenderness they have not expressed in…centuries, since his fire was taken from him (since he was saved. Or — no. Since the world was saved, and he was no longer the catalyst of finality). Having grown unused to it, it prickles at his skin now, stokes fires of annoyance and a meditative kind of resignment. He knows that stupid Noodle Boy would insist that it is never too late to change, but — is it so wrong, to find comfort in the back and forth blows? What does it matter to that monkey, that he is most at home in fires of war and machinery?
Enough, he thinks to himself, gritting his teeth. A puff of smoke escapes his lips, annoyance manifesting tangibly. The other downside of spending all his free time on his parents is that he spends far too much time thinking about the battle and his…allies. Megapolis rebuilds quickly, and his allies recover at twice that speed. Dragon Horse Girl (Long Mei, his mind begrudgingly supplies) had grabbed his phone in the time before they separated from each other and made him follow her Twitch.
“The Demon Bull King fortress is soooo far out,” she complained, her arm burning a hole into his shoulders. He tried to shake her off, but she was like a barnacle, refusing to detach. “You’ve gotta keep up with us in Megapolis somehow!” In the end, as much as he would never admit it out loud, he let her do as she pleased. After all, he had…grown fond of her, and that aside was indebted to her for saving his parents.
So, yes, sometimes when he’s working on his knick knacks or upgrading his Inferno Car, he puts Mei’s streams on in the background as white noise. Not because he misses her, or because his forge suddenly feels too quiet and small without myriad voices echoing around him in pointless and banal banter, or anything stupid like that, but because if something happens again and they need his help, he can graciously lend it to them.
(Mei is always live. He quickly becomes a regular in her chat, easily wins points when betting occurs, and dominates the leaderboards. He can be a good friend if nothing else, at least.)
He sighs again, placing his screwdriver down gently back in its box before stomping off to take a shower and get rid of the grease stains painted across his hands. Flickers of fire peel off his hair, frustration born of boredom twisting in him. He, too, is growing restless; where he used to spend time fighting MK or running Demon Bull Barbecue, now he just sits around and idles away. Not even tinkering can help him now, in these rare times of relative peace.
He feels empty, unfulfilled. He tries not to think about it; he has always lived with a throbbing ache in his chest a little lower than his heart. It’s nothing new; in fact, it’s his oldest wound other than the scar on his face. He had accepted that it would be that way forever. He’d grown so used to it that he no longer even felt it.
Here lies the issue: when in his desperation to save Long Mei he stepped into the Samadhi Flame, he could feel himself burning for the first time in his life. Flame licked his skin in painful, searing motions, smoke clogged his lungs, and for once he understood what his long-ago victims felt in their final moments. But above all else, overwhelmingly consuming, an unignorable pulse in the backline of his singular plea to control the flame, was the feeling that he was finally complete.
It makes sense, of course. The Samadhi Fire was his to begin with. It was ripped from him because he could not control it. He should not be angry that he was so powerful they had to rip him to shreds just to save the world and so his parents could have their son. He should not be angry that it is with someone who already mastered her inheritance. He should not be angry that he was the only one who could have helped her in that desperate time of need. He should not, but in the shower, as usual, steam fills the room, sizzling muffled by the roar of water.
He cannot be angry at Mei. He knows this. Sun Wukong’s usual negligence and recklessness reaching back that many hundreds of years is hardly her fault, nor is Ao Lie’s desperation to protect Tripitaka from the Monkey King’s foolishness. She did not want his power; it hurt her to hold it, the same as it hurt him. She did not want to be the arbitrator of the world’s fate. He said as much: she would not fail because she could not.
These thoughts have plagued him for the last two weeks. It is an inevitable cycle of self destruction. He hates how it only widens the gap he feels, like a seam ripper making its way across the fabric of his being. He needs something, anything to stitch himself together without that Flame, hold the far off sides of himself against each other and melt them back into one perfect shape.
It comes to him when he returns to his room. His phone is ringing incessantly, beeping to the tone of a ridiculous pop song he never remembers setting as his ringtone. With a disgruntled sigh, he picks up, ready to yell threats into the receiver.
“Red Boy!” Mei’s voice lodges itself in his ear, and he grunts, willing himself not to melt his phone in his hands out of surprise. “Finally! I’ve been calling you forever!” He checks the call log; Super Awesome Dragon Mei has called him 6 times. This is the 7th. He rolls his eyes at thin air, settling down onto his bed.
“If you called 6 times and I didn’t pick up, why would you keep calling?” He tersely replies, and he can hear her laughter as she speaks.
“Hey, don’t set your matches alight! I know it’s totally not because you’re ignoring me,” she cheerfully says. “You literally have shown up in chat without fail every day for the last month. So, like, you were probably busy with something, and this is deffo the fastest way to get your attention.”
“If you must know,” he grumbles, pulling the covers over himself, “I was taking a shower. Skin as perfect as mine needs more than immortal superiority to maintain.” Mei laughs again, melodic and boisterous. “What do you want, Dragon Horse Girl?”
“MK and I wanted to hang!” He almost drops his phone, his bangs flaring with surprise. “It’s been a whole month since we saw each other and noooot gonna lie, it’s been so boring without you!” She wants to… hang… with him?
“Must Noodle Boy be there?” He asks offhandedly, his mind already disconnected from the conversation in order to dissect her sentiment. It has been an almost embarrassing length of time since Red Son has had anyone who willingly wanted to spend time with him outside of his family, and even then that’s sparing. People simply cannot handle his personality: he is too abrasive, too arrogant, too callous, too condescending…the list goes on for several more points, all alphabetically arranged. And - it is not like they are wrong, to be fair. He’s Red Son, the son of the Demon Bull King and Princess Iron Fan, and a masterclass inventor and engineer. He has every right to flaunt his title and his skills. For the sake of Tiantang and Diyu, he created a gauntlet that could lift the Monkey King’s staff! But his refusal to disrespect himself for others leaves him wanting for company and approval, as unwilling as he is to admit it.
“Of course, he’s been asking about you! And I’m sure you guys would get along great if you just stopped spending all your time together by MK kicking your ass. But that’s besides the point — you do want to hang out! So when are you free?” He sighs again, sinking further into his pillow. What has he gotten himself into?
“I suppose I can spare the time for you both tomorrow,” he grumbles and groans about it even though he already knows Mei can see straight through his facade. Something that feels oddly like a spark of hope flares in his chest when she cheers and says they’ll see him at the anti-gravity arcade near Pigsy’s Noodles tomorrow at 3 PM sharp.
“Now that that’s settled, though,” she says, and he stops paying attention to the little spark in order to focus back on their conversation. “Guess what happened today? Tang almost nailed Pigsy in the ear with a pair of chopsticks!” Mei continues to excitedly recount her day, a soothing and familiar droning, and before he knows it, Red Son is fast asleep. Mei doesn’t hang up, even right before the evenness of her breathing can be heard through the tinny speaker of his phone.