Chapter Text
There was a time when everyday was the same. There was a time when their life was simple.
There was a time.
There still is time.
But he can only think of the time that’s passed. The time which has slipped through their fingers like the wind which tangles his hair.
There was a time when he was able to brush out his tangled hair.
But now it is matted. It pulls against his scalp in greasy clumps, maggots and lice writhing amidst the dirt, the grime.
There was a time when they cared to get up, let their hair get tangled. When they cared to brush through it at the end of the day and smooth out the knots.
Now he sits in his room. And he thinks.
They can still see the pillar. They can still hear WuKong, screaming as he writhed against stone like the maggots in his hair.
Has WuKong ever stopped screaming? Did he ever get up and let his throat rest? Or is he still there?
There was a time when Xiaotian’s body was his own. Now, it belongs to an animal. They struggle to remind themselves that that animal is them.
They are the same as before. Their body has changed.
There was a time when he had the energy to hate this animalistic body.
He doesn’t have the energy for that anymore.
There’s nothing left in him. Nothing left to hate, to fight. Nothing left to love.
Pigsy and Tang speak to him everyday. He thinks he speaks back. Maybe he doesn’t.
Mei texts him everyday, nearly every hour. He tries to respond. She visits him, too, and he tries to pretend he isn’t too busy with work.
He fails, most days. But perhaps it would be best for him to grow used to failure.
WuKong has not spoken to him since they’ve returned from the pillar.
Macaque came once, he thinks, but Xiaotian remembers very little of that. Talking, mostly between Macaque and Pigsy.
“They just need time. A few days . . . tired.”
“WuKong wants . . . won’t leave . . . again.”
Xiaotian should have tried harder to listen.
They spend their time, mostly, in the room. Sometimes on his bed, sometimes on the floor.
They run their hands through their hair. It’s greasy, knotted, but not matted, not infected with bugs.
Odd. He could have sworn it was.
Nuwa’s face won’t leave him, her voice batters around his mind. He can still feel her scales, cold and dry as death, her face, flushed and warm as life. Her body had coiled into a circle. He thinks that might have been intentional. But perhaps he is over thinking.
He’s been doing a lot of thinking lately. There’s nothing else to do.
Better to think too much than not think enough.
He thinks of WuKong.
The Stone Monkey.
He thinks of himself. A monkey made of stone. He digs his claws into his flesh. Blood beads against his fur, staining it dark.
He pulls his knees up to his chest, runs his claws down the front of his calves.
Red.
The flesh beneath his fur is soft.
How can something so soft, so squishy, so bloody have been carved from stone?
It simply does not add up.
He thinks more.
WuKong, on his mountain, surrounded by a troupe of chittering monkeys. He stares ahead of him with wide eyes, red, because he does not care to censor his body today.
In front of him, a splintering stone egg.
Xiaotian brings his bloody hands to him cranium, feels his skull.
It is not soft.
If he peels back the skin and flesh, what will be waiting for him? Bone? Stone?
His claws peirce the skin.
But what next?
He must drive his claws the rest of the way through his skin. His must see if he has bones or rock under the layers of his flesh.
But his hands won’t move. Nor will his arms.
Nothing is moving.
Their body is not theirs. It’s something separate. His mind races, his body stays.
That’s fine. He does not need a body to think. So long as his mind remain in tact and his own he will be happy.
Lately, they’ve been using their body very little anyways.
— — —
WuKong is being unfair.
He knows this. And even if he didn’t, Macaque has made sure to tell him. Everyday. It’s something of a ritual now.
It’s only been two weeks. He just needs one more, then he’ll go talk to the kid.
“Why don’t you go visit them yourself?” WuKong asks bitterly. Again, he’s not being fair.
Macaque rolls his eyes, deciding to him or him.
“Because they need help. I don’t know how to help people. Moreso flimsy mortal children.”
“He’s not a child. He’s a fully grown adult. He’ll be fine on his own. At least for a few weeks.”
“You’re a selfish bitch,”
WuKong just looks at the floor of his little hut. Not much to say to that.
‘You’re right,’ he imagines himself saying. He would say this if he were a good person.
He isn’t. He stays silent.
“Fine. Maybe I will go talk to him. Tell him his mentor’s being a selfish ass and now I have to be the responsible one. Again.”
WuKong feels his face grow hot. He whirls around to respond. Macaque has already dropped himself through the shadows, presumably to visit Xiaotian.
WuKong glances outside. The sun is setting, where he is, which means for the kid it’ll already be dark. But Xiaotian’s always stayed up a little later.
It’s true, Macaque can’t help people. Not with their emotions, anyways.
But the kid needs to talk to one of them. It would be good for them to at least be around another monkie while he adjusts to his new body.
He knows it should be him going. He knows he’s the kids mentor, he took the kid under his wing. Xiaotian is his responsibility now. But he doesn’t want to be responsible.
He can’t face it.
He can’t face the thought of his ward throwing himself to his death. He can’t look in eyes so ready to die.
He needs to.
He’s supposed to be strong. He’s supposed to face challenges with a resolve of gold.
But he’s scared. He was scared when he found that stone egg on his mountain. He was so ready to be rid of the little cub inside.
And now he thinks of Xiaotian, the same monkie he readily gave away, doing the same thing WuKong did to him to himself.
He can’t face it.
How can he even face himself?