Chapter Text
Macaque was bored.
Bored, alone, mildly terrified (though he refused to admit it), and kind of cold.
He was so-and-so many miles underground, after all, and his fur wasn’t doing much good. Not being as thick as a regular monkie's fur made for some very cold and lonely winter nights.
The fact that he was in a cold stone room with a cold stone floor and- guess what? Cold stone walls wasn’t helping either.
The door opened suddenly, letting the teensiest amount of light in possible, along with a shape that groaned when it was tossed onto the floor.
The door slammed shut again, a few locks clicking along with the magic barrier being put back up.
“Hi,” said Macaque, as cheerfully as he could manage.
“Shut the fuck up,” said the thing, not very cheerful at all.
This was going to be interesting.
***
Macaque was slightly less bored, a bit more terrified, and still cold.
The thing hadn't done anything since it was tossed in except mutter to itself, and seeing as it had been doing that for the last 6 hours, Macaque was getting kind of worried. Mostly for his own safety rather than anything else.
He cleared his throat, and the thing said nothing, not even pausing in it's muttering.
"So," said Macaque a few moments later, "what's your name?"
"I don't need to tell you my name, you filthy peasant- " the thing's snarl was cut off as the door was flung open with enough force that Macaque flinched, and the thing was very unceremoniously dragged out, quite literally hissing and scratching.
Macaque caught sight of something torn and red, along with the cave they were in.
More yelling from the thing occurred, until it was apparently gagged as the door slammed shut once again.
Yelling.
Red.
Macaque was starting to put some things together.
***
"You're Red Son ?"
"Shut the fuck up."
The thing, who was apparently Red Son, child of the great Demon Bull King, one of the only ones able to defeat Sun Wukong himself, the demon who may be able to get them out of this whole mess, slumped against the wall with an annoyed (and mildly strained) "hmmph".
It was only then that Macaque noticed the strong scent of blood.
"...Red?"
"Don't call me that." The other demon managed a sitting position, likely not wanting to make it obvious that he was injured. "Tell me your name, peasant ."
"Don't call me peasant and I won't call you Red. You know my name."
"I don't know very many names, but I can tell you with certainty that I don't know yours."
"Oh, sure y'do! We've met."
"When have we apparently met?"
Macaque pulled himself into a sitting position as well, facing vaguely where Red Son was. "When you were training with Guanyin- you remember, I snuck you out to get you to your mom after your dad was put under that mountain? I'm the Six-Eared Macaque?"
"It would be hilarious if I remembered training under the goddess of mercy, as I was with my mother when father was put under the mountain."
Macaque decided to bury that particular worry for now as the smell of blood grew slightly stronger as Red Son shifted. "...Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Red snapped out the words a little quicker than necessary, wincing as he pulled himself over to the farthest corner from Macaque.
"'s weird that she hurt you. I've been here a few days and she hasn't hurt me yet, you just got here what, half a day ago?"
Red Son laughed dryly. "Please. I've been here for much longer than you have- a month, maybe two. How long has it been since the Spider Queen invaded?"
"Since who did what?"
Macaque could feel Red staring at him wide-eyed. "You missed that?"
"Must've slept through it. What day was it?"
"...New Year's."
"Oh. I was… busy that day."
(Once again mourning a lost love and a lost life, that is.)
Macaque thought for a moment. "Wait, you've been here for four months?"
"Apparently." Red Son shifted. "Have my...parents come looking for me at all?"
"I wouldn't know, I doubt they even know I exist anymore." He paused. "How'd you get captured, anyway? Can't you teleport?"
Red stiffened- obviously he didn’t exactly want to tell how he’d been captured.
“Alright,” Macaque said slowly, “...so why’d she hurt you?”
“That’s nothing you need to know,” Red snapped, shifting noises coming from his corner. “...Interrogation,” he said finally. “First she was harvesting my power and strength…” he trailed off, obviously realizing what he had just said. “I’m still perfectly able to rip you to shreds, however.”
“Right. Sure.”
“I am!”
Macaque held up his hands. “No, yeah, I believe you. It’s just...weird. Like, if she still needs us to power her stuff, why hurt us?”
Red Son was silent for a moment. “She thought I knew where Sun Wukong was.”
Macaque’s heart stopped.
“She- what?”
“For some reason, she thought I knew where he was. I didn’t. She wasn’t happy about that.”
“...Did she say anything?”
“Only that it ‘wasn’t over’ and ‘that monkey is probably planning something, but he won’t get very far.’ She said something about a weapon, too.” His voice got quieter. “...And she was looking for my parents.”
“Oh.” Macaque thought for a moment. “Why?”
“She wants to repay them for freeing her- and I don’t think she means repay in a good way.”
“Oh,” Macaque said again. “That’s… not good.”
“Nope.”
“Hm,” Macaque said finally, leaning back against the wall. His tail twitched, curling around himself. “‘M gonna sleep.”
“I’m not stopping you.” Red fell back into his muttering after that, not responding when Macaque called his name.
Macaque shrugged, and did his best to sleep on the very hard, very cold floor.
He did not sleep.
The next morning, he was cold and tired and getting a bit annoyed. Mostly because he had been (mostly) alone for the past four days, without any food, water, or warmth. Light was an issue too.
Demons could go a bit longer than humans without water, of course. Maybe up to a week if they were lucky and weren’t running a marathon- Macaque was stuck in this cell, so he was fine at least for another two days or so. Demons didn’t really need to eat, either, but they did get hungry. And Macaque was hungry.
Red Son seemed… fine enough, except for his wounds which he wouldn’t talk about and the possible broken bones. Also the way he wasn’t really able to fight back against anything, and the way he was obviously trying to act like everything was fine when everything was, very clearly, not fine.
Hey, at least he had stopped muttering like a crazy person.
Macaque had asked him what he was talking about, but Red just glared at him and threw a rock at him.
It was a small rock.
It was also kind of pathetic.
Right now, Red had been silent for the past couple hours, and Macaque had thought he was asleep until his tail strayed a little too far and Red’s hand immediately slammed it against the ground.
That had hurt.
That had not been kind of pathetic.
Macaque sighed, rubbing at his (now bruised) tail. He stood up eventually, making his way over to the door. Red’s now-dull eyes watched him from the corner, but the other demon said nothing.
Macaque banged on the door (ow), and in his attempts he noticed there wasn’t a doorknob. Or a hole where the doorknob would be. That was annoying and also very inconvenient for escape purposes.
“Uh, hello?” He banged on the door again. “Anyone out there who doesn’t want to kill us?”
An eye-level tiny door swung open, and several eyes glared back at him. “What.”
Once Macaque got over his mild sudden heart attack, he straightened. “Hello, good sir/ma’am/captain. Would you mind letting us out please?”
The other person paused for a moment, then; “No.”
“Oh.” Macaque considered that for a moment. “That’s rude of you.”
The door started to slide shut again, and Macaque jammed his fingers in with enough force to stop it from closing and also for it to really fucking hurt.
“Hey!”
“Sorry.” Macaque pushed the door back open. “Then can we at least get bandages? And water. And food. And a flashlight or something? Oo, and can I have a blanket-”
“Shut up!” The person (spider?) sighed, forcing the door shut. Their muffled voice came from the other side. “I’ll get you something. Just. Shut. Up.”
“Got it!” Macaque shook his hand a bit, trying to get the feeling back into his fingers. He turned back to face the room. “See, Red? All you had to do was ask them. Also try to murder them when they open the door to give us food.”
Red didn’t say anything, only flicked another rock at him and muttered something about “peasants” and “asking for help makes you pathetic” and “bla bla bla abandonment issues”.
DBK had always said Macaque was good at selective listening!
There was a knock on the door, and another, smaller door slid open at the bottom. It was like a dog door for mini dogs. A tray slid through, holding water, some food, a roll of bandages, and a flashlight. After it clattered on the floor, there was a grunting sound and then something dark and thick was starting to be pushed through the door. Macaque grabbed it and pulled, stumbling back as the blanket came through and landed on top of Red Son.
Ignoring the other demon’s surprised curses, Macaque paused in front of the door. “Thanks!” he said cheerfully.
And then he dropped down and attempted to shove his head through the hole.
***
In hindsight, it was a really bad idea.
Macaque had successfully managed to shove his head through the hole, to the surprise of all parties present, except his head was sideways and there was still the issue of his shoulders. His ears still stung from scraping against the metal- he wasn’t entirely sure there wasn’t a rock in one of them.
Still, he had managed to see a little, even if he had gotten stuck and there had been spider(s? Really hard to tell all the legs apart) in his face the whole time.
They were in a cave, which was really looking quite destroyed and not very good at all. There were three spider-people there, a big purple one, a slightly smaller purple one, and a purple one who kind of looked like he had used to be human. They also all looked very uncomfortable, which may have been because Macaque was sticking his head through the door hole and attempting to bite them.
He had eventually been pushed back through, but it took a while because Macaque did not feel like going back into that hole, especially not with a demon who employed the word “Fuck” regularly.
Said demon practically tackled him as soon as he was back in the cell. “What the fuck was that?!”
See?
“I,” Macaque said, “think you swear too much.” He shoved Red Son off. “And, I was getting this, thank you very much.”
He held up a key, and Red Son froze.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. A little “thank you” would be nice, please.”
Red Son did not say thank you. Red Son instead grabbed the key out of his hand, which was grabbed back by Macaque, which resulted in a grabbing match which also gave them enough time to ensure the spiders had left the cell relatively alone.
Macaque won, eventually, shoving Red Son back onto the blanket. He walked over to the door, feeling for a keyhole.
…
And didn’t find one.
“Hm.” He reached down blindly below, sticking his hand in one of the cups of water before managing to grab the flashlight, which he pointed at the door and turned on.
It was a really bright flashlight.
Both the demons hissed, and if Red Son had had his powers Macaque was sure he would have burnt the flashlight to a crisp, furtherly blinding them because fire.
Macaque covered the end with his hand for a few seconds, eyes struggling to adjust from days with only dark (and occasionally dim) light to an eternal flame in his hand.
Or something like that.
Eternal flame only until it ran out of batteries.
Eventually getting used to the light (though Red Son was still covering his face with the blanket), Macaque pointed it at the door again.
And there was still no keyhole.
Could the door even be unlocked?
Was it just made up of a multitude of smaller doors?
All good questions, all waiting to be answered.
“So,” Macaque said, “I have good news and bad news.”
Red Son groaned, lifting his face from the blanket as Macaque clicked off the light. “What the fuck did you do.”
“Language! Anyway, the bad news is that this is useless.” He tossed the key away, somewhat regretting that he wasn’t able to zip his lips. “Good news is that we’re gonna be able to get to know each other more!”
The other demon groaned again, though this one turned into more of an eternally pained scream as his face returned violently to the blanket.
Macaque sat down beside him, and they stayed like that for a few minutes.
Finally, the demon monkie spoke.
“They gave us bandages. I could fix you up.”
Red’s response was muffled and hoarse, and to be honest Macaque wasn’t entirely sure he heard it right based on what Red said. “Get yourself fixed up. One of your fingers is probably broken and your tail got messed up earlier.” The demon didn’t mention that he was the cause of it. “And stay away from me.”
Macaque stopped, then slowly slid himself over to the other side of the wall. “...Got it.”
(The blanket was tossed over to him a few moments after that, and when Macaque looked over, there weren’t any visible eyes staring back at him.)
(Demons are seen as too tough to cry, you understand, but that night both wished that they were strong enough to allow themselves the privilege.)