I think @animemoonprincess and @winterpower98 are the ones with the sentient shadow au/hc so this is for you guys?
(this is set after season 3, basically, some demon is hunting Mac down and MK said, ‘we have to help him! Monkey king, he can hide with you right?’ and didn’t take no for an answer, so next thing Mac knew, he was on FFM and living in wukong’s shack.)
this got long? oops
For Macaque, living back on Flower Fruit Mountain was weird. Every nook and cranny held memories, both good and bad. Play fighting and huddling in the field by the brook, hearing distant echoing screams of monkeys down by the gorge, leaping through the waterfall curtain with a stomach full of nerves and giddy joy. It was a mixed bag really.
The strangest part through was how much his shadow seemed to take to exploring on its own. The ghost feeling of leaves and grass brushing his legs and arms became second place during the day, and the phantom feeling of a warm back against his at night nagged at him sometimes, but usually his shadow had a steady head on its shoulders. It was his own after all.
This past week, Wukong had been giving him strange looks over breakfast, teasing him about losing something. Macaque was using every ounce of self-control to not rise to the bait, but the raised eyebrow and knowing smirk painted over Wukong’s face was getting to him.
“What are you talking about?” He finally snaps out, and Wukong blinks in surprise. A shit eating grin grows on the golden monkey’s face, and Macaque feels his stomach flip.
“You really don’t know?” Wukong says mischievously. The Monkey King can barely sit still at the realization, drumming his fingers on the stone breakfast table, bouncing his leg as he waits for Macaque’s reply.
“Know what? I’ve just been minding my own business. If you’ve got something to say, spit it out.” Macaque rolls his eyes, trying to put as much bravado into his words, trying to not let Wukong see how much this was starting to get to him.
Wukong just laughs at him and leaves the table, taking his half-eaten breakfast with him.
“Bastard,” Macaque breathes out.
He sits for a moment more at the table, and sets his face on the cool stone, letting it leach all the residual heat out of his face. The feeling of something soft tickles his palm, and he absentmindedly wipes the feeling away on his pants before standing and stretching.
Today he was going to do the same thing he’d been doing for the past few weeks; Avoid Wukong as much as possible. The kid was supposed to visit for training this afternoon, and as fun as it would be to watch that, he’d rather not be bombarded by questions today.
Macaque slinks off into the shadows and emerges in a grove of trees, all set in a semi-circle around a large flat stone platform. He’d rediscovered the area a few days ago and had taken to cleaning the vines and foliage off the area meticulously.
This had been their theater, long ago. He still remembers Wukong lifting the slab of stone out of the hollow of the mountain with ease, almost whacking a few of the others with it. Wukong and he had spent the afternoon decorating it, making it the perfect little stage for plays and entertaining.
He’d preformed his first shadow play here.
Now it lay forgotten and half in ruins.
With a scowl, Macaque pulls out a sapling poking out of a crack on the stone and lays it to the side with a plan to plant it somewhere else in the grove. He spends the rest of the day there, replanted half-grown saplings and scrubbing the moss off of the stone as the sounds of fighting fill the air sometime after the sun hits its zenith.
When the air has cooled, and the sun set back into the trees, he finally slips back into the shadows and emerges back at Wukong’s little shack.
Macaque carefully tiptoes around the sounds of laughter and eating in the dining area to the baths, and with a heavy sigh, shucks off his dirt-stained clothes and sinks into warm water. He watches as mud washes off his fur and with a glance around to double check the baths were really empty, he drops his glamour.
Like the muck dripping off into the warm water below, so too does the black char coloured fur swirl away, revealing white. Macaque studies his hands for a moment, holding back a shudder at the blue stained scars that circle his wrists. With a blink, he drops his hands back into the water, and snaps his glamour back into place.
He gets out of the cooling water not long after that, and makes his way to his room. The fuzzy feeling of someone scratching behind his ears has him flicking the appendage in annoyance, and he tries to rub the feeling away.
‘What are you up to?’ He grumbles to himself, to his shadow, as he crawls under the covers. Macaque closes his eyes and hopes he doesn’t dream.
It’s a futile wish, and he’s plunged into a swirling dream of memories, both good and bad. He’s running for his life from a band of poachers, he’s being groomed by Wukong in the sun, he’s laying half-dead in a ditch, blood drying on his face, he’s holding one of the baby monkeys for the first time. On and on it goes, until he wakes up gasping, gripping the sheets and tearing holes in the thin fabric with his claws.
He lays there, staring at the celling in the dark, panting, and feels someone trailing a finger on the pad of his paw. He squeezes his hand into a fist, both grateful for the distraction, and hating how gentle the touch came through his shadow’s bond.
Fingers are threaded through his own and then a kiss is placed on his knuckles. The other hand unlaces itself from his shadow and he feels his hand being lifted.
It’s when the feeling of lips are carefully pressed to his wrist that he bolts out of bed, his skin burning as he stumbles through the hallways. Macaque almost runs into the doorjamb as he turns into the living room, and there, there is his shadow, curled around Wukong, an echo-y purr reverberating in the quiet space.
Wukong’s golden eyes flick up to him, the golden monkey’s mouth still pressed to his shadow’s wrist.
“Ah,” Wukong exhales with a smirk, and Macaque shivers as he feels the air dance across his wrist.
“What are you doing.” Macaque grinds out.
“Your shadow is touchy,” the golden monkey shrugs. He tugs the semi-incorporeal mass more into his lap, and the shadow nuzzles him in return.
“Besides, he’s a lot more responsive than you are. It’s like when we were younger,” Wukong laughs as the golden monkey trails a finger up the side of his shadow’s neck, and his shadow trills happily, a dusky purple blush covering where his cheeks would be. His shadow’s tail thumps happily against the cushions, and Macaque has to grab the tip of his tail to keep from doing the same. His corporeal cheeks are warm, and he knows if he looked in the mirror, a light purple blush would be steadily darkening over his face.
“Why are you doing this.” Macaque hisses, his eyes widening.
“You’re the one who kept following me everywhere, keeping tabs on me, and sleeping next to me. Isn’t this what you wanted?” Wukong tilts his head, and his shadow takes the opportunity to nuzzle into the open space on the golden monkey’s neck.
“See?” Wukong gestures to his shadow, still happily purring away.
“Shut up,” Macaque growls and tries to yank his shadow back into himself, but his magic doesn’t respond, his shadow just whining softly.
“You’ve been ignoring your feelings, haven’t you, Plum?” The golden monkey says softly, and Macaque feels like shattering right then and there.
“You don’t get to talk about feelings, Peaches.” He snarls, and his shadow vanishes with a pop. He turns on his heel, leaving a speechless Wukong on the couch, and steps into the shadows.
Part 2
https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/shootsun/689286035261259776?source=share
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