Work Text:
Bump.
“Ow.”
Tap.
“Ow.”
Flop.
“Ow.”
Everything hurts. Everything hurts and the world is terrible. Even just tapping the mattress makes pain throb through MK’s whole arm. The pain radiates through his whole body, but it’s particularly concentrated on his hands, teeth, eyes, and oddly enough, his tailbone. He can’t even sit down without yelping.
It’s also hot as fuck. Did the thermostat break? He should get up. He should check. He’s already in hot water (no pun intended) with his finances after Red Son burned his apartment and he had to rent a new one. A spike in his electricity bill is the last thing he needs. Unfortunately, the more he thinks about getting up the heavier his eyes are. Being expected to get out of bed is just unreasonable, really.
A sudden buzzing sound fills the room. MK groans and rolls over, reaching over to the nightstand and swiping his phone screen to answer the call.
“Hrmph,” he says by way of greeting.
“Kid, where the hell are you? Monkey King just showed up saying you were supposed to be at training over an hour ago!”
“Mmmmph,” MK mumbles incoherently, wincing at Pigsy’s abrasive tone. “Don’ w’na.”
“. . . You . . . don’t want to?” Wukong asks, sounding confused. Ah. Pigsy must have the call on speaker.
“Listen, just come to the shop and we can--,”
“Noooooo,” MK whines. “Too hot. Hurts.”
The line goes quiet. He can practically see the confused looks on his friends’ faces as they turn the words over. MK never refuses to go to training. Most of the time, Wukong has to force him to take a break.
Somewhere in the background, Tang pipes up. “Is he okay? What’s happening?”
“We’re coming over, kid. Hang tight,” Pigsy says, concern clear in his voice as he hangs up.
MK groans, turning over so he’s on his stomach and hugging one of the pillows. He’s too hot, but he can’t bring himself to kick the blankets off. He simply doesn’t have enough energy. Letting himself relax, he immediately drifts into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
❂ ❂ ❂ ❂
“Gods, he’s burnin up! Tang, go get a cold towel.”
“R-right!”
“Was he showing any signs of a fever last time you were training?”
“I don’t know!”
“The fuck do you mean, you don’t know?!”
“I mean, I don’t know! I’m immortal, and immortal beings don’t get sick like this. I don’t know what the beginning of a fever looks like.”
“Augh, you’re useless. Y’know what, go sit in the living room and take a nap or something. You're just gettin in the way here.”
“I got the towel!”
❂ ❂ ❂ ❂
Slowly coming back to consciousness, the first thing MK notices is the distinct lack of pain or heat. It’s like someone took a straw and sucked all of it out of his body while he slept.
The second thing he notices is the damp rag folded up on his forehead. He grabs it with his hand as he sits up, tossing it across the room and missing the laundry basket by at least three feet. He sighs and stands up to go get it.
That’s when he notices the third thing. The thing that whips behind him when he stumbles. The thing that follows him when he staggers away from the bed. The thing that he feels when it hits the floor.
MK has a tail.
It’s a long, sleek tail with a slightly thicker tuft of fur at the tip. It’s the same dark brown as his hair with a few thin streaks of black. It’s twitching a lot, which he realises Wukong’s tail also does when he’s agitated.
Staggering quite a bit, MK makes his way to the bathroom where he stares into the mirror at a person that’s him, but also not. His hazel eyes have turned a solid glowing gold with white pinprick pupils, contracted in shock. He sees fangs peeking out from his mouth as he gapes, and when he pulls his lip up to look at them, he realises he also has claws. And black paw pads. And his skin is covered in a soft, thin layer of tan fur. And there is a jagged black mask-like pattern around his eyes. And--
Okay.
Breathe.
In four, hold four, out four.
Okay.
This is fine. This is fine. He just changed race and consequently turned into a demon, but everything is fine. He’ll just go back to bed and when he wakes up again, everything will go back to normal. Right?
He turns and leaves the bathroom, still stumbling way too much to be normal. Trailing his hand along the wall to try and stabilise himself, he’s almost to the doorway of his room when his tail tangles around his ankles--
CRASH
He trips and falls on his face, knocking over a small table and leaving claw marks in the wall. Footsteps immediately start up behind him, turning down the hallway and ending abruptly with a sharp gasp. He twists so he can blearily look over his shoulder at Wukong, who’s staring with undisguised shock.
“. . . MK?”
“Surpriiiiiiiiise,” MK mumbles.
After a moment of stunned silence, Wukong wordlessly turns and goes back to the kitchen. MK slumps against the tile, pressing his cheek against it and closing his eyes as water starts and stops. The footsteps start again, this time accompanied by the sloshing of water in a cup (since when could he hear that?).
A soft clink of glass on the tile, and strong hands are slowly lifting MK into a sitting position against the wall. Wukong blinks worriedly for a second before carefully lifting the cup of water into MK’s trembling hands.
“You alright, bud?” Wukong asks, his glowing golden eyes clearly concerned.
"About as alright as I can be, considering all this," MK rasps, gesturing to himself. "Any ideas on what the fuck is going on here?"
Wukong moves into a cross-legged position, leaning against the wall across from MK as the latter takes a sip of water. The King's tail is tapping the tile, his expression now less worried and more plain confused.
"Honestly? Not sure," he admits. "I've seen humans become demons before, but not to this extent. My best guess is that your access to my full powers just kinda demoned your body accordingly."
“But I had your full powers before you minimised them to help me control them properly. Why didn’t I shift then?”
“At that point, you’d only had them a few days, a week at most. At this point, you’ve had them for over a year. It makes sense that it would take a lot longer for your body to really absorb the power.”
MK nods and takes another sip of water. His thoughts are circling like crazy, and his newly heightened hearing is picking up everything it couldn’t during the conversation. The buzzing of the refrigerator down the hall, the ticking of the grandfather clock that had come with the apartment, the wind blowing outside, Wukong’s quiet breathing.
The rapid beating of his own heart.
Actually, he might’ve been able to hear that even before the shift.
The near-silent pap pap pap of Wukong’s tail tapping. The faint murmur of conversation in the apartments above and below. A bird flapping its wings outside the window, the rustle of a plastic bag, footsteps coming down the hall and stopping outside his apartment door.
Wait, what?
The click of the lock makes MK jump and Wukong perk up with a grin, immediately hopping to his feet.
“We’re over here! Hallway! You gotta see this!” the King yells excitedly, making MK wince and cover his ears.
The footsteps hurry through the kitchen and into the hallway to reveal Pigsy carrying a bag with a box of noodles from his shop, followed by Tang and Mei. Their eyes fall on MK, and their expressions grow so shocked he’s surprised the noodles don’t fall to the floor.
After a long stretch of silence, Pigsy is the first to speak.
“What the fuck?!”