Chapter Text
The clock struck 4am. An hour and a half since Noodleneck kicked everyone out of Triangle’s temporary room. An hour and a half since Triangle went into goddamn surgery. An hour and a half since Monkey grabbed his axe, refused to let it go, and began pacing the room like his life depended on it. The axe was unnecessary, even Russel knew it was unnecessary, but Monkey still held onto it like a lifeline either way. So as the time ticked on by, all Cole could do was watch helplessly as his brother unraveled. It wasn’t fun just sitting there on his cot, watching his brother repeat the same exact steps over and over again, and in fact it was starting to make his head hurt! But what could he do?
“Ugh, Russel sad.” The smaller, bulkier kaiju muttered from behind Cole. The Ape turned to give Russel a sympathetic nod. “Everything suck. Not working way it should!”
“Yeah, I feel you there, pal.” Cole agreed, turning back to watch his brother carefully. “A week ago, if you’d have told me I’d be waiting on Goji during his surgery, I’d have laughed in your face!”
“Russel would bite face! Goji too strong for surgery!” Russel bit back without even a hint of sarcasm in his voice. Cole cringed at the thought. “And then Russel would tackle, because Russel not friends with Monkey and Cole.”
“What? But I thought we were friends…” Cole faked his disappointment, leaning back dramatically to show Russel just how ‘Hurt’ he was.
“Not week ago.”
“Oh.”
Cole leaned forward again, pinning his attention back unto Monkey. His younger brother was still relentlessly pacing, holding his axe close to his chest like a threat could appear at any given moment. Again, completely unnecessary, but also understood. Kong never did things without reason, after all.
However, as Cole continued watching his brother pace like a mad-man, he remembered something similar had happened not too many years before. Mom had left the Troupe, and dad had spent hours that night pacing, pondering what to do with his too many children now that the only parent they liked was gone. Cole had been there for nearly the whole thing, was forced to watch his father break down by his tree as his world seemingly came crashing down. Cole was much younger then, Monkey even younger. The smaller Ape hadn’t done something so strikingly similar to his father in… A long, long time.
And then all of a sudden, as if the gates to Hell had been opened on their own with no warning, everything punched Cole square in the face in that moment for no reason. All the days spent searching for people he didn’t even know. All the hours spent in a house he didn’t own. All the moments spent wondering why he went from big to small in so little time. The times he was left to ponder how he even got there, why he was there, what the tubes had to do with him, and… His family.
A twinge of something akin to guilt and longing stabbed clean through Cole’s heart. He turned away from Monkey, a scowl unknowingly on his face, and then finally laid down. He kept his eyes far away from Monkey, not wishing to see that again. To see him again. Not in him. Please not in him!
“Cole?” Russel called, his voice much softer than it should’ve been. “What wrong?”
“Nah, nothing’s wrong, R.” Cole lied, staring daggers into the ceiling like it was about to swallow him whole.
“Ape lies!”
“I’m not lying, Russel, I’m just thinking!”
“About what?”
“Nunya.”
“What that?”
“Nunya business! Aha!”
The conversation came to a sudden stop, then. Russel seemed almost disappointed in that answer, and turned away as if he’d been burned. The poor guy always took everything too literally sometimes. It wasn’t any of Cole’s business, anyway.
When he turned back toward Monkey though, just out of curiosity, he noticed his gait had slowed. Like before, a memory resurfaced of him seeing the exact same thing in one of his siblings. Monkey paced just like his father, just like Ashe while planning a mission to escape the Hollow, and just like Rock when he had to compensate for her failure. The memory wasn’t fresh, but it burned Cole all the same. He flinched away when Monkey turned towards him, a question seemingly on the tip of his tongue.
It wasn’t fair.
“Why do you wanna know so bad, anyway?” Cole dejectedly asked a saddened Russel. The monster perked up a bit at the question, the small gesture meaning far more to Cole than it should.
“Russel is… Very scared.” Russel started, not yet turning back toward Cole. The Ape sat there, suddenly very interested and willing to take in every word. “Don’t know where… We are. Don’t know what happening to Triangle. Russel want to know something. Russel want noise.”
“Noise, huh?” Cole sat there, thinking on the words like her were prepping for a human quiz. “You should know me well enough by now to know that I’m already pretty noisy.”
“Well, uh…” A new, but still familiar voice started from just above Cole. The older Ape looked up, shocked, and found Monkey standing there awkwardly, finally having ceased his pacing. He still held on tightly to the axe, and his hands lightly shook with a nervousness Cole hadn’t seen in years, but he still stopped. That was good enough for Cole. “You could talk about… Our family.”
At that, Cole himself perked up at his youngest brother. Immediately, a million emotions began to wake inside his guts, excitement and terror being the first and most prominent. They swam in the sea of stomach acid and blood, hitting all the wrong organs in all the wrong places. It was so sudden, so wrong, that Cole genuinely thought he was going to throw up. ‘Our family,’ was Monkey’s exact words. Two words that held so much more meaning than he could even imagine. Cole’s family. Monkey’s family. Kong’s family. Their family. Ours.
What was Cole even supposed to say to that? How was he supposed to feel? Proud? Happy? Glad that Monkey finally brought it up? Sad that he didn’t even know where to start? Did Monkey remember anything about them? Did he remember Her Leaving or his Naming or the fight his siblings waged the very day afterwards? What did he want to know? How much? How little? Where did Cole even begin?
Disregarding all of those questions, Cole took a long, hollow breath. He closed his eyes, turned away from his brother again, but instead opted to stare at the floor. At his cot. Their temporary living arrangement while Triangle healed. He thought back to the day he first arrived at Monkey’s home, crashing into a couch he didn’t feel, grinning at a brother who didn't remember his face. He thought long and hard, about basically anything! The pancakes, the introductions, Destroyah existing, Rodan being a pain as usual, Noodleneck treating him with far too much hospitality to be normal…
Monkey immediately running to Triangle’s side after their first introduction. Monkey mentioning without fanfare that he shared a bunk-bed with Triangle. Monkey quickly but not too quickly leaning his head against Noodleneck’s shoulder. Monkey panicking like the world was ending when Triangle didn’t come back after just ten minutes. Monkey jumping from a 10-story building for Triangle’s sake. Monkey falling into despair without Triangle by his side and relying on Noodleneck to figure things out. Monkey pacing back and forth for someone Cole barely knew.
He thought about that. Cole thought, and he held onto those thoughts, grabbing on for dear life and refusing to let go. The closeness. The fear. The alikeness. That was where he would start.
“We have a lot of siblings.” Cole began, still staring at the floor. There was an unintentional pause as he tried to remember what his siblings even looked like. “There was me, the oldest. Then only a few years later there was Ashe, and then Rock right after. It was just us three for a while, but another few years later and mom surprised us with Hue. Then finally, it was you and Lila.”
“That’s… A lot of siblings.” Monkey mused, sounding actually surprised.
“Heh, yeah I told you!” Cole agreed. “Dad always wanted a large Troupe, so mom obliged, I guess. Uh, you were probably the closest with Lila. You caused all sorts of trouble when you two were kids, Lila especially! She had a particular distaste for rules when you were tots, only following them for a certain time and then hating them for the rest of her life! Weirdest little girl I’d ever known!”
Cole paused again, but only to look up at Monkey. The Ape was staring, not entirely at Cole, but seemingly at the abyss. Probably at someone who wasn’t there. Awe and wonder gleamed in his big eyes and all at once, Cole was home again, even if it was just for a short moment.
“Lila really liked swimming and baking, and was pretty into the human music scene, too.” Cole recalled way too fondly. “I remember her screaming about a trampled city for hours because they had ‘The best crepes in the western hemisphere,’ or something. I don’t really know how she got her hands on anything, but that girl was a menace if left unchecked! Not really surprised, haha!”
“Sounds like a handful.” Monkey commented as he slowly sat down beside Cole. The gesture alone made Cole beam. “What kinda menace-adjacent stuff did she do?”
“Funny you ask that, because a lot of the stuff she did was blamed on you.”
“Huh.”
“Made it impossible to defend your honor since you also had a reputation.” Cole continued without shame. “For example, there was this one time where you two tried breaking out of the Hollow with each other! Threw Lila and other shit at the roof, it was hilarious! You two were so committed to the bit that you started stealing resources from neighboring Apes and chucked them into the rivers. For as long as I was around, that story continued to spread like wildfire, yall never heard the end of it!”
“The… Hollow?” Monkey asked as if the Hollow was a new thing he’d never known about.
“Where we live for many years.” Russel chimed in from where he lay. Cole had honestly forgotten he was there for a time! “Monsters been stuck in Earth for years, but Goji break free and save everyone! It was… Dark and scary place.” He continued, his voice growing more somber as he remembered. “Not much food or resource. Russel almost die every day just for eating.” Russel perked up again though, his smile just as bright as it always got whenever he brought up “Goji saved Russel many times before Russel freed. Russel… Owes everything to him.”
“O-oh! Yeah, that does sound like Triangle…”
At the reminder of his friend, Monkey’s face fell. His curious smile drifted away, replaced by a sad, lonely frown. It was the face he always got when dad refused to listen to him. The same frown he wore whenever his siblings got yelled at and he bore the consequences. It was the face of someone who had both nothing and everything to lose all at once. Cole reached out, wanting to suck all the pain dry from his baby brother, but stopped himself. Monkey reached for something else, his axe, and lightly squeezed its handle when he found it. Well, that just wouldn’t do at all!
“Not everyone was happy to be free of the Hollow’s malice, though.” Cole reminded Russel. The kaiju nodded, knowing all too well what that meant, but Monkey still seemed confused, so Cole happily offered up another story. “The Hollow made everyone mad for power and blood! It was just in our nature at that point. So when Goji destroyed the barrier and made the Surface Lands free for everyone, we ran rampant! Destroyed cities, villages, government capitols, anything that got in our path! That included each other.”
“Like… Gang fights? Like Fast and Furious?” Monkey questioned, his grip easing on the axe once more. Cole huffed, not really expecting that assumption. “All I know is that Triangle and I fought a lot, and he’s talked a bit about that. Said we always fought over which part of Earth to conquer for ourselves. Must’ve been weird.”
“Eh, that’s part of it, K.”
“Apes and Lizards never friends!” Russel supplied haughtily. “Even before the Hollow gone, monkeys always fighting Lizards! Just tradition.”
“Huh? Lizards?” Monkey asked, seeming way more confused than before. The axe, again, was completely forgotten. “What you going on about, fool?”
“Our family names.” Cole answered with far too much pride in his voice to be normal. “Every monkey-shaped kaiju within our specific gene pool is known as the Apes. We’re not solitary creatures, but once a Troupe member breaks away from their family to start another, that’s that. They start their own Troupe and the cycle continues. We’ve been stuck in a generational war with the Lizards, a species of dying kaijus that are known for having god complexes.”
“Hey, that’s not- Wait… No, yeah, that tracks actually. That sounds like Triangle.” Monkey nodded seriously then, seeming to get a better understanding of how things worked in the past. “So that would explain why Triangle and I hated each other, then.”
“Well… not exactly.” Cole winced. “Yeah, a part of it was the war thing and us being trapped in the Hollow for too long, but you two never actually tried to kill each other. You just hated him for no reason. We…” Cole paused then, his earlier worries floating back up to the surface once more. “Our Troupe was never… Keen on keeping up with all that.”
“What… Do you mean?”
Wow. What a simple question. ‘What do you mean?’ As if the years Cole spent suffering due to his family’s reputation and legacy was nonexistent. As if everything he put up with for nearly fifteen years meant nothing! Cole swallowed his pride, pushed down his sudden confusion and exhaustion, even though remembering still made him sick. Cole shoved it all away, because he knew Monkey knew nothing. He knew there were no memories of the past, that was why they were talking at all, wasn’t it? Still, the question was so menial and small, a question anybody asked at any given time. It felt… Demeaning. Dismissive. But it wasn’t Monkey’s fault.
Cole continued as if he didn’t feel a thing.
“We learned.” He started, his voice cold as ice. “We adapted. The Surface Lands were much kinder than the Hollow, so as we grew up we too became kinder. You and Lila just had it in your blood, but the rest of us had to relearn our worth.”
It started off small. When Cole was 6, he asked mom why she stopped dancing even though she loved the art. She bounced baby Rock in her arms and said she’d dance if she were able, that her child-bearing body couldn’t handle her mace anymore. Cole looked at her then, really truly looked at her. Noticed the tiredness in her eyes. The lack of a spark. The babe in her grasp. And then it clicked. Not an immediate ‘Oh, I understand now’ click, a first of many clicks that came to him in moments of understanding.
The next click was bigger and held more meaning to Cole. Rock was starting his training with dad when he slowed down after ten minutes and got beaten for it. Dad yelled, screamed, kicked and whaled his entire fury unto Cole’s brother. The poor kid was barely 3, and the weight of his father’s expectations got too much. Rock screamed and cried in Cole’s arms that night, blood staining the older Ape’s fur.
Another, much more violent click sounded off in his brain. Ashe was next, and she wasn’t any better. She wanted, more than anything in the world, to become the Troupe’s next King. Mom was newly pregnant again with her fourth child, and she along with her husband hounded on Ashe for ‘Being a brat.’ She ran away for eight days, only returning for the sake of her new sister-to-be, as well as her brothers. She too cried in Cole’s lap upon her return, wailing about how cruel the world and especially their parents were. Another, softer click resounded from inside Cole’s once hollow skull.
There was more to come. More examples, more clicks, more reasons why they didn’t adhere to a generational expectation. The Surface Lands, their mother’s passing, their wants, desires, personalities, their love for each other…! Everything around them screamed to not listen, to forge their own paths, to be their own people! And Cole…!
Cole refused to say anything about that.
Not yet.
Not now.
“So, without spoiling too much, we basically rebelled.” Cole said instead, shrugging nonchalantly as if that was it. As if the years spent suffering, spent wondering ‘Is this it?’ As if all the time spent raging all on his own about his own family meant nothing. Like it never even happened. “The whole nine yards and everything. Disobeying direct orders, ignoring dad when he got mad, making bad friendship decisions, the works. You were the second one of us to make such big choices, Little King.”
“Huh! Sounds fun.” Monkey responded, at the very least sounding impressed. “Who beat me to it?”
“Ashe.” Cole replied, the fondness returning much slower than it should’ve. “The second oldest in the family and the second most insufferable Ape to ever walk the planet! She was respectful but deadly. Cold but warm. Everything you don’t want in a female mate. Ashe hated how everything worked because she didn’t want to be like mom. She wanted to remain a fighter till the day she died, and she made sure everyone knew that day after day. Whenever we sparred, we’d go on for hours and she’d still somehow have more to give! If you and Lila were menaces together, you and Ashe were a horrifying monstrosity! You could pick a fight with literally anyone and as long as Ashe was nearby, it’d be a guaranteed win. The Surface Lands hated her guts!”
And then he laughed. Cole laughed, unabashedly and unashamed, as the memories of his sister came flooding back into his mind. All the weird tricks she’d pull on other kaijus, the rules she disobeyed, the meals she squandered just to be petty… She was far from perfect, but Ashe was honest. A brutal, violent honest.
“And honestly, Rock wasn’t much different!” Cole continued, not even giving the others a chance to speak.
Not that it seemed like Monkey was going to speak, anyway. His mouth was agape, drinking in all the information Cole gave up like tree sap. It was adorable!
“Those two were like the definition of a dynamic duo! Ashe was the brawn, and Rock was the brains, though they both shared quite a bit of each. Rock especially was always more into history and reading stuff compared to Ashe’s love for violence. But he wasn’t against joining her in random fights! He wasn’t nearly as good on the battlefield, but his skill with strategy and his cold precision did him wonders either way. He was a braggart too, which got on all our nerves real quick. Ugh.”
Then there was a giggle. A small, innocent, familiar giggle that filled up that entire room. Cole turned, a bit surprised, but smiled way too wide when he saw Monkey grinning from where he sat, the axe completely forgotten in the shadows. He looked up at Cole, his eyes sparkling, and his own smile just as bright. The sight was nearly blinding.
“How many people did they kill?” He asked, his tone way too light for the question.
“A lot.” Cole answered in a similar fashion. “Too many to count. But of course, Rock kept score because that’s just what Rock does! He’s kept a scoreboard hanging in one of his trees ever since we got to the Surface Lands, I think the last time I checked it said like 50-something? Maybe?”
“Alright. So then what about the other one? The… I think you said his name was…”
“Hue!” Cole perked up automatically, his smile still shining bright. His heart beat like it was connected to a monitor. “Oh man, Hue was the best! Arguably the stupidest but most creative in our entire bloodline! He’s got the least willingness to fight in our Troupe and from day one refused to eat a single human! Instead of getting violent like the rest of us too, he just made a little home and started making shit! I remember going to check up on him and he already had a whole house with an interior and everything! It was downright insane!”
“Wait. Wait, seriously?” Monkey by that point was in absolute awe, his big eyes wide and glimmering with something that looked like adoration. He leaned closer, very intrigued, and that only served to make Cole laugh more. “He made an entire house by himself? Just after getting out of the Hollow?”
“You can bet your flat Monkey ass on it!” Cole cackled, his laughter echoing in the nearly empty room. Monkey was halfway to a pout before he continued. “And- And when I asked him how he did it, he just shrugged and said ‘I dunno, I just did it. You want some snacks?’ And then opened the door to a kitchen table with an already full fruit bowl!”
“What.”
“I know! It was so unexpected!”
“Cole.” Monkey leaned in again, slapping his hands against his brother’s shoulders. A serious look overtook his awe momentarily, and he glared at Cole as if he were a demon. “Cole you have to understand, that is not just being creative. Hue has a goddamn super-power. Hue is the answer to all my woes. How- I need to know how he did that. Now.”
“Well you ain’t getting it from me!” Cole cackled, both shocked and relieved. The warmth from his brother’s hands spread like a blazing fire to his heart, blooming there in the space that once was empty. How amazing. “Maybe he could give you a tutorial once we break him out of his tube. Or find him, since he might also be out there uh… Doing Hue things…”
And then Cole turned away. He didn’t… Monkey didn’t know how long it’d been since Cole had last seen Hue. He didn’t want Monkey to know, not yet. Not for a long while.
“What’s wrong?” The fellow Ape eventually asked, because of course he would ask! It was simply in his nature.
“Naw, nothing’s wrong, M.” Cole reassured, shrugging the awkward feelings away. “Just thinking.”
“Wow, that’s a real shocker!”
“Do you want more stories or no?”
“Yes. I want. Monkey want.”
“Pfft- Alright alright, then shut your big mouth and listen! Geez, you’re such a child.”
“Wha- Hey! No I am not! I’m like 18 years old or something! I’m no child!”
“Yeah, and I’m 29. What’s your excuse.”
“You’re 29…?”