#so that when he sees the real macaque he's reminded of the curse instead and the warped feelings around their encounters

[chipper-smol]

>:3c

(also munkie made a little drabble on the first post of these two so im linking it here)

[itsabouttimex2]

Hello! I have a request: How would Wukong and Macaque react if the reader accidentally got stuck inside the scroll of memory and met their "old brotherhood era"-selves?

And a little bonus concept: how would they react if their past-versions tried "adopting" the reader and attempted to keep them inside the scroll?

(I’ve done students and friends, so I thought I’d go with blood children for this fic!)

Sun Wukong’s first move is to panic. However it is that you get trapped in the scroll, he freaks out. The better scenario is that it was just an accident, and you put your hands on something you should’ve known better than to touch. Then he can compose himself properly, with nothing to light the fuse that his nerves have become.

If you were, however, explicitly imprisoned by an enemy, then the old Monkey King comes to visit in more ways one. Wukong attacks your assailant head on, ending the extremely one-sided fight the way he would have in his youth- bloodily and lacking in restraint or mercy. There’s no hesitation, none of his learned compassion, none of the kindly teachings of Tang Sanzang.

All that matters to him right now is that someone touched his kid, and that they’ll die for it. He wishes the manner and method could be more personal, but the important part is getting you back.

Then he can methodically track down every last bit of information about his mangled corpse of a foe, and snuff out anyone else who might be interested in laying a finger on you.

But those plans are for a later day.

Wukong leaves behind a few clones to take care of the corpse and approaches the ink-cursed artifact with a determined glare.

“Dad’s coming, bud. Just hang in there.”

With those few words, he dives into the scroll himself, ready to start rioting through his own past to find you.

He really, really hopes that you don’t see anything too awful. In spite of his modern-day oddities and long-lasting flaws, he really does care about being a good influence and keeping you out of danger. Wukong wants you to see the best of him- learning diligently under Master Subodhi, establishing the sanctuary that is Flower Fruit Mountain, defeating the Demon Bull King. The very best he is and has to offer, to the world and to you.

Instead, he finds you curiously watching in on one of his meeting with the demons he once called his brothers. With that knowledge in mind, maybe they could be called your long-lost uncles.

At least, you seem to think so, or at least think that they can’t be all too dangerous, because you jump down from the tree that you’re standing in to get a closer look at the mixed crew of demons and celestials. The dry leaves beneath your feet loudly crunch and fragment as you step on them immediately giving away your location to the team.

Past!Wukong; ever eager and far more reckless before he had matured in his great journey, is the first to go looking for you, honing in on your location with ease.

The real Wukong watches from a close distance, knowing that his old self wouldn’t try to hurt you. None of the sworn brothers would hurt you- they weren’t bad people. Just severely misguided and well-intentioned. He could wait for an opportune moment to snatch you up and escape. He wanted to rush in, gins blazing… but alerting the Brotherhood was a bad idea. Trying to take on everyone at once wasn’t exactly ideal, especially with you nearby. Even if no one was outright trying to harm you, crossfire was a very real worry.

So the Great Sage reminds himself- no one will hurt you.

Past!Wukong himself, especially. He might’ve been somewhat arrogant and power-hungry and misguided back them, but his intentions were good and he was far from a villain. He knew that.

And, he would never hurt one of his own kind.

The scroll’s version of the Monkey King stops short in shock, staring at you with wide, glittering eyes. Love at first sight, just the way the real one had felt when he held you in his arms, new to the world and bundled tight in a blanket made from strand of his own hair.

The simian’s tail sweeps across the ground, lightly thumping grooves into the dirt- a clear sign that he’s about to pounce. You don’t pick up on that in time, and aren’t prepared for a memory of your father to spring on you with wide-open arms.

Past!Wukong scoops you into his powerful, furry arms, holding you close to his chest as he jumps up and down, nearly squealing in glee. He swings you around a little too fast, nearly losing grip of you during his last rotation. And before you can argue to protest or shake off the newfound nausea plaguing you, he unceremoniously plops you down and starts to groom through your fur, chatting to you hyperactively. His words are fast and energetic, most of them about how he thought he and Macaque were the only mystic monkeys in the world, and how great it is to have another, and how much all of his brothers are going to love meeting you.

Wukong would be waiting for an opening for quite a while, it seemed.

In spite of his caution, he’d grow impatient soon enough. He didn’t want to share you, after all- not even with himself.

Not every parent wants a kid to follow in their footsteps. Macaque intentionally never speaks of his past to you, unless it’s something that will make him look or sound good. You don’t need to hear about him being a doormat to his sworn brothers. You don’t need to hear about him trying to kill a group of innocent pilgrims. And you don’t need to know that; in spite of his fighting prowess and shadow magic, he was killed by the greatest hero the world has ever known.

Macaque knows that you learning these things would shift your perspective of him, perhaps irreparably. He wants you to think of him as your personal hero, as a guardian and defender and as a warrior, capable of taking on and defeating anyone.

So he’s careful to curate the information that reaches your ears. Nothing about beating a holy monk unconscious. Or about manipulating, attacking and trying to kill the Monkey King’s successor. Or his brutal and unprovoked assault on the Dragon Palace of the East Sea.

You aren’t going to turn out like him- Macaque plans on making sure of that. Yes, he’ll teach you his skills. He’ll course you in chain whips and spiked staffs, put you through rigorous training to ensure that you become a master of the shadows as he is.

Macaque cherishes you more than anything else in the world. You may well be the only thing he cherishes at this point. And he understands that he might not always be around to protect you, or that an enemy might come creeping to you while he’s off. He won’t always be by your side, no matter how badly he wants to. So you have to train with him, learn his ways, master his skills. He’ll wrestle you out of bed and into the dojo each day if he has to.

But you aren’t going to be his sidekick or successor, no matter how much you beg or plead. Even if you break down crying about how much you want to help him, or how you worry about him and his safety, he shoots down your offers and attempts. He can’t lose you. He’s lost far too much by now to risk his child’s life.

Macaque understands why you want to help him, he really does.

The two of you had been separated for five hundred years. He had died when you were young, and left you alone in an ever-changing world, forced to grow and survive without him. You had been embittered by the struggle, but never allowed it to break you- you resolved to remain the person you had always been, the person he had taught you to be.

You had wanted to preserve his memory.

Five hundred years later, and you were just as he left you, though a little sour, and perhaps hardened from strife.

But it had been you.

Macaque had tackled you down on sight, bearing down on your form with wide open arms and teary eyes, allowing himself to be vulnerable for once. In return, you had wept into the fur of his chest, tightly clinging and clutching to his frame with arms and legs alike, refusing to be parted from the father you had lost so long ago.

It was supposed to stay like that. And it did, for a while, the two of you content and ready to start healing side by side.

But the Scroll goes and ruins everything, taking you from him as he stands and watches, helpless to save you.

He’s not too unlike Wukong here- his reaction massively differs depending on whether or not you were attacked or simply made a mistake and handled the scroll improperly.

Except he’s far more brutal than his rival ever would be. Wukong; even enraged at you being endangered, has the compassion (and urgency) to finish his foe quickly, settling for a single decisive blow over a hundred slow and torturous attacks.

Macaque’s sable hands do not spare that golden mercy.

He rips the attacker apart piece by piece, the shadows around him thrumming with white-hot rage as they pump out clone after clone. They angrily snag flesh with clawing hands and tear it away, slowly plucking the screaming assailant to the bone.

Allowing his thirst for vengeance to blind him, Macaque stands for a while over the fresh corpse, satisfied and content with the outcome of the fight. He laughs and taunts, kicking the skeleton around for a moment or two.

And a bone rolls right to the scroll that contains you.

The demon snaps into high gear, reminded that you that you’re alone and probably scared in an unfamiliar place, with no way to get back home.

Macaque rips the scroll open, plunging into inky depths before him without a second spared to hesitation. All he leaves in his wake is a single shadowy portal. He’ll create a second inside the scroll, allowing you both to escape unharmed once he finds you.

All that’s left to do is track you down- and he’s sure that he knows where to find you.

Because he spent such a needlessly long time with your attacker, you’ve already been swept up by his scroll counterpart, held in his arms carefully.

Past!Macaque is a gentler, softer version of your father. He’s worried about you, a simian like himself, scared and alone in an unfamiliar place.

You cling back to him, not ready to accept that you were torn from your father once more, just as helpless this time as you were the last. This man isn’t really your father- he’s not real at all. He’s an ancient facsimile, a lingering ebon remembrance of what Macaque once was.

But maybe a little bit of the real deal resonates in this raven replica.

Past!Macaque bears an immediate, intense fondness for you, wrapping you snug in his arms, trying to soothe your frightened tears. He gently pats your back, in the hope that he can console you enough to have a proper talk. For some reason he can’t quite understand, he wants to know more about you.

You only get a few minutes into that talk before your father tracks you both down and smashes the duplicates head open.

Revulsion and nausea turn your stomach in circles as the real Macaque carries you out of the scroll- you might be a little traumatized by what he’s just done, but it’s nothing that he doesn’t have under his control. (It is, actually, but he’s a little too prideful to admit it.)

But all that matters to your father is that he has you back. Aren’t you lucky?

[angstandhappiness]

NICE NICE NICE YOUR AT IS SO GOOD

>:3c

(also munkie made a little drabble on the first post of these two so im linking it here)