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ninja-knox-ur-sox-off · 2 years

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Happy Anniversary to the biggest disaster i’ve ever written

Alas, due to some personal life setbacks I was not able to finish pt 2 in time for the anniversary (and given how rocky things are here, it might still be a while before it’s completed y’all have waited this long ig it’s been a literal year bGKAOWMEF) BUT HEY, I CAN GIVE U PART OF WHAT I HAVE RIGHT?

SO AS A TREAT TO MYSELF HAVE THE A SNIPPET OF THE BEGINNING OF THE NEXT PART OF (Teach Me to Be) Tougher Than Leather, Softer Than Silk: Safety and Care? I’ve Never Been There. (title still being reworked but thats what i got for now ghsldafjsa lol) it’s a bit of a sickfic filler before i go onto the more plot heavy parts, but still angsty and filled with hurt/comfort as heck

3k words

Enjoy o7

Chapter 1

The dream started like this:

An endless empty space.

He was small and alone and it was dark. He used to be afraid of the dark, but he learned quickly that it was an ally just as much as it was an enemy; darkness was the closest thing he had to safety; darkness meant he could hide.

He curled up tight to make himself smaller, to be as small as he felt, to be small enough that he could become invisible. He hid without hiding, curled up in the dark, endless space. He was always good at hiding; he had to be. He knew firsthand what happened if he couldn’t hide.

Faceless, nameless beings walked past him. Footsteps echoing all around him, treading over him, every shoe just missing him as it came down, the owners of the feet unaware of the small being curled up in darkness and shadows under their feet. They didn’t seem to exist above the knees, no one ever existed to him beyond how they could harm him. Kicking, grabbing, hurting--

He knew he was hungry, but the ache that usually accompanied it wasn’t there. It was supposed to be, he could tell, he could almost imagine stabbing and pinching at him, but it just wasn’t. Instead there was an empty nothingness all around him. He was detached, not quite there, but trapped in the little body all the same.

He remained braced for the feeling of a heavy foot crushing him, he was bound to be stepped on eventually with the endless, bodiless crowd walking over him. He couldn’t get any air into his lungs when he was curled up so tight, but oddly enough he didn’t need to breathe. He curled up tighter and tighter and tighter until he was folding in on himself, a buzzing growing in his ears, drowning out the footsteps and then that too faded out as the world seemed to fold in and shift around him and he was left in complete silence.

He was in someone's arms. Steadying, warm, wrapping around him for a moment, then he was slipping back out into the cold, unable to hold on and falling falling falling--

Macaque woke up.

And regretted it immediately.

The numb, empty, lack of feeling he’d been lingering in a moment before was gone and it left him in an aching too-hot discomfort.

There was a pressure built up in his head, seeming to both press against the inside and outside of his skull, one of the more intense types of headaches he was familiar with. He could tell it was light out, but he didn’t dare open his eyes to experience the sure stabbing pain that would come if he did so. The fridge and electricity buzzing firmly and constantly didn’t help the feeling, adding a sensation not unlike pins and needles inside his ears and against his head.

His fur was damp, he was hot all over. He swallowed the dry feeling in his mouth and his throat made itself known in the scratchy, sore discomfort that seemed to stretch over it. He attempted to suppress the resulting cough as it wracked through him, making his body shake. Everything ached. His fingers, his hands, his arms, shoulders, back, every inch of his skin aching but just barely enough that he had to question if it really did ache or if he was imagining it. His head felt fuzzy. Staticy. Built up with that pressure, stuffed full of cotton and stabbing him relentlessly.

Sick.

His nose was horribly clogged. He opened his mouth so he could breathe, face pressed into the mattress. Blankets were heavy over him, too warm, much too warm, burning, hot.

He was sick.

He coughed again, after inhaling too deep and having the air tickle his dry throat.

He was sick. He needed… He needed to get somewhere safe. Somewhere he could wait out the rattle in his chest and the uncomfortable ache that clung to his skin and seemed to settle in his bones--a concealed spot, alone, in the cold, where he could burn through the sickness, and no one could see him or find him, somewhere no one and nothing could hurt him.

He got about halfway off the bed before he slipped off the edge of the mattress, his arms too weak and shaky to properly hold him up and face-planted directly onto the hardwood floor, crumpling beside the bed in a heap of limbs and blankets that had been pulled off alongside him with a dull thud. Light exploded alongside the headache.

The throbbing from the fall overshadowed the tickle in his throat and dry cracked lips only for a moment before it faded and the ache settled back into his skin. He wondered if he could fall off the bed again to get it to quiet.

The rest of the sheets slipped off the bed after him and part of the blanket flopped down over his head, covering his face and muffling the sounds around him, which was actually kinda nice. His face pressed against the cool hardwood floor, providing some relief from the throbbing headache. He forgot he was trying to get away for a moment, relaxing into the slightly uncomfortable crumpled position and letting his eyes close, enjoying the coolness seeping through his fur from the floor and into his feverish skin. Uncomfortable position wise, but it somehow seemed to make everything hurt a little less so long as he didn’t move.

Maybe he could just stay there for a while. If he was lucky no one would know where he was and he could just sleep like this until his body burned through the worst of the sickness. That would be nice. He wouldn’t have to find some sort of cave somewhere if he stayed with his face pressed into the floor.

Just as he started to doze again, footsteps snapped him back awake and he flailed intending to untangle himself from the sheets--an attempt that was wildly unsuccessful.

A door handle jostled and clattered loudly, making his heart leap into his throat in alarm, and then the door was being pushed open, creaking on its hinges, grating on Macaque’s ears, making him wince. He struggled more feverishly at the restraints keeping him captive. He needed to get up, get out, get a glamour up, he was vulnerable, this was bad--

“Macaque?”

He stilled. Then the tension fled, draining out of him almost completely and Macaque was confused for a moment as to why, before his mind processed who the voice belonged to and, right, yes, Pigsy. Pigsy was safe. He was safe. He was in Pigsy’s room. He’d fallen off of Pigsy’s bed. This was Pigsy’s hardwood floor. He could hear Tang breathing in the other room of Pigsy’s apartment.

Safe. Fine. Safe.

He slumped back against the floor, body relaxing. He let his eyes drift shut again and exhaled slowly until he was nothing but a limp tangle of limbs again.

The floorboards creaked at a volume that he could tell was probably quiet for most others, but it was still rather uncomfortable for him as Pigsy walked over to him. He stopped a foot or so away, pausing for a moment before he crouched down in front of him.

“You alright?” he asked. There was genuine concern behind the hesitant, gruff way he said it. Reassuring in it’s unsure way. Familiar.

Macaque’s intent was to say yes, he was fine, but it came out as more of a muffled, croaky groan than an actual word.

So much for that.

His ear twitched when the floorboards creaked as Pigsy’s weight shifted. Then there was something brushing on the outside of the blanket draped over his head, and his impromptu headcovering was being gently lifted.

He cracked his eyes open against the light flooding through it, wincing and showing his teeth in a silent snarl of protest, throat too scratchy for him to want to risk a growl at the stabbing feeling that resulted. He blinked away the streaky blur in his eyes and looked up at Pigsy out from under the lifted blanket.

The light from the bedroom window fell across his face in such a way that it almost made his eyes look like they were glowing gently, and he looked down at him with a small frown, brows drawn together. “Hey,” he greeted softly, as though he knew that if he spoke any louder it would hurt his ears.

Macaque blinked slowly up at him, squinting at the brightness.

He had yet to change into his chef’s uniform, still comfortably in his shorts and tank-top that he usually wore to bed. Macaque liked it when he wore the tank top. The thin layer of fur he had was soft, but just prickly enough for Macaque to feel through his own fur when he was curled up beside him. It was nice. He really wanted to rub his face against his shoulder right then, and hide from the headache prodding at him.

The winkles at the corners of Pigsy’s glowing blue eyes seemed to soften the longer he went without responding.

Responding. Right. He should… do that.

“Hi,” he finally managed to croak back. He coughed once, closing his eyes as he winced at the sharp feeling. He didn’t bother opening them back up, not wanting to see the pitying expression that was likely making its way onto Pigsy’s face, opting to simply let them stay closed and pressed his face against the cool ground like that might somehow miraculously cure him of whatever illness he’d been so unlucky to catch.

He didn’t remember hearing anything about a bug going around. Usually he’d hear something, or someone else would catch whatever it was before him and he could avoid them and everyone else until it passed through; usually he got some warning.

If he closed his eyes and ignored the sound of Pigsy’s heartbeat he could almost pretend he wasn’t there looking at the pathetic heap of demon on the ground. It wasn’t so horribly overwhelming to be so blatantly exposed as he was expecting though. Probably because he was used to it; it was a near-constant feeling whenever Pigsy looked at him after all. Still, he would have much preferred to have known ahead of time so he could find some abandoned warehouse to curl up in and avoid being seen weaker than he already was. He hadn’t felt this terrible in a near century.

It must’ve been something Mk brought over from Flowerfruit Mountain or something. Some monkey-demon-only bug, that would explain why no one else seemed to have gotten sick. There weren’t many monkey demons around. He wondered if Wukong would catch it--it wasn’t often he’d get sick but when he did he used to practically latch himself to Macaque’s side for about six hours then pass out for the next thirteen straight before he was back on his feet like nothing had happened.

Just another perk of being untouchable; Sun Wukong could sleep as much as he wanted. He wondered if he’d found someone else to attach himself to when he wasn’t feeling well nowadays.

Gods, he was thinking too much.

His head hurt.

Pigsy moved after a bit, seeming to tell he wasn’t up to responding any time soon. Macaque expected him to head out of the room to get ready for work and leave him in the heap on the floor--that's what he would have done--except Pigsy wasn’t him, so of course he wasn’t going to let it lay.

It started with a hand on his arm.

Having his vision obscured by the sheet over his head, Macaque actually hadn’t seen the hand coming, and he wasn’t exactly thinking clearly so he could blame that for how he jumped, kicking out in alarm--

“It’s just me,” Pigsy grunted.

He felt like a right idiot.

The sharp intake of breath resulted in a coughing fit, and he wheezed between hacks, doing his best to clamp his mouth shut so he wasn’t tempted say anything stupid, like sorry or something equally compromising for being an idiot.

HIs heart was still pounding.

Pigsy gave him a moment to collect himself and catch his breath, keeping his hand on his shoulder, whether to keep him from attempting to leap up again, stop him from falling over, or simply to comfort him, Macaque wasn’t entirely sure. He waited for another few seconds after he’d relaxed at least a little before moving again.

He bent down, crouching a bit as though bracing himself to lift something heavy. He pushed his arms between Macaque and the floor. Macaque wasn’t entirely sure what it was he was doing, thinking maybe he was attempting to pull the blankets out from under him, which made sense, he probably didn’t want his bedding all over the floor--until he was heaving upwards with a grunt that cut off Macaque’s every thought.

He flailed wildly for a second as Pigsy scooped him up, sheets, blankets and all, right into his arms with seemingly very little effort, mind going completely blank. He could feel the firmness of the arms under him, steady and strong, and could hear the way Pigsy exhaled, heart steadying in his chest as he found his footing with the extra weight Macaque provided. The floor creaked under them like a banshee. Even with the sheet half-covering his face he knew he could probably just lean in and rub their cheeks together with no effort whatsoever and Macaque--

Macaque choked on his next inhale, face heating up horribly quickly, bringing his high temperature to something feverish. He descended into another coughing fit due to the abrupt inhale, shoving part of the blankets over the bottom half of his face so he didn’t end up coughing directly in Pigsy’s face, suddenly grateful beyond words that the red in his face could be blamed on his current condition rather than their position.

It was over almost as quickly as it began, with Pigsy lowering him onto the bed, dropping him the last couple of inches, muttering something about how he needed to remember to eat more cause he weighed less than a sack of flour, which Macaque wasn’t sure he should be insulted by or not, and then he was in a much more mortifying position with Pigsy leaning forward and firmly placing the palm of his hand on Macaque’s forehead as he sat there.

Blissfully cool. His eyes fluttered shut without thinking, his mouth hanging open slightly as he breathed through it, and he pressed into the touch that pushed away some of the hot ache on his skin.

There was a click from Pigsy's tongue, a small tsking sound that Macaque barely registered. He pulled away, taking with him that blissful cool and instead of chasing it like he wanted to, Macaque let himself fall back into the sheets and curl onto his side. He shoved his face into the tangle of blankets, the coughs that started up at the change in position covering the small noise of protest he made.

"You're sick," Pigsy informed him.

Macaque groaned. He didn't even bother with a sarcastic comment about observing the obvious. Seemed like too much effort. Effort better spent rubbing his face against the sheets until his skin felt numb and tingled louder than the headache.

Pigsy was quiet for a moment, but Macaque could feel him watching him. He shivered a bit under his intent gaze. Then he let out a long slow breath.

Pigsy didn’t move for a moment, watching him, then he sighed and turned, boards shifting under him. “Right. Stay there. I’ll go let Mk know the shop’s closed for today.”

Macaque gave a half-there response, really only reacting to the sound of Pigsy’s voice rather than the words. It took an extra few seconds for him to process.

Shop closed. It wasn't a shopping day, was it? Emergency grocery run perhaps? Though he usually just mentioned the shop opening a little later than usual if that happened rather than closed all day.

The little digital click came, alerting him to Pigsy’s phone being unlocked.

He shot up into a sitting position, vision blackening and blurring at the edges from the sudden movement. “No!”

Pigsy froze, fingers hovering over the phone.

Macaque stared at him for a moment, blinking hard to try and banish the headache and the blurring in his vision. He coughed once, wincing, then said again, “No, that’s uh…” he covered his mouth with his hand and coughed again. “That’s not necessary.”

Pigsy raised an eyebrow. Macaque managed to hold his gaze for about three seconds before he was hacking up another lung.

He suppressed the urge to groan and curl up on himself once the coughing fit had subsided, and instead wiped the side of his mouth where some drool had escaped with the back of his hand then looked back at Pigsy.

He was watching him with an unamused look, eyebrow still slightly raised. “Not necessary. Huh?”

“I can take care of myself,” Macaque croaked, wincing at the sound of his voice and the way the words hurt his throat, but he kept hold of his gaze. “You don’t need to close the shop just to hang out here while I sleep this off.”

Pigsy looked doubtful. He hesitated. “...you sure?”

Some of the tension drained out of Macaque’s shoulders. “Yes.” He took a moment to swallow thickly, trying not to aggravate his throat.

They held each other's gaze for another few seconds as Pigsy seemed to mull it over, considering it, Macaque squinting in the light.

“I can stay.”

Macaque nearly threw himself off the bed at the sound of a new voice, muscles stiffening and fur on the back of his neck standing up in alarm. He would have gone intangible and sunk into the shadows right then and there if a twinge in his headache didn’t stop him. He slammed his glamours back up and squinted through the stabbing pain to the source of the sound as Pigsy turned around to look as well.

Tang stood halfway in sight at the edge of the doorway, head tilted so he could see them both properly from behind the frame. Macaque’s ears flicked. When had he gotten there? He’d completely missed the boards creaking outside the room and the soft padding of his footsteps as he’d approached. An unease settled under his skin at the ease in which Tang had snuck up on them without him noticing.

“I can stay,” he repeated, voice light in a way Macaque’s headache wouldn’t let him examine properly. The lightness sounded almost… forced? Or was it just the pounding in his head? “I don’t mind keeping an eye on him.” He was wearing one of Pigsy’s tank-tops, Macaque noticed. Must’ve stolen it when he’d done his laundry last week.

Pigsy glanced down at his phone then rubbed his face. “I dunno, Tang…”

“Let’s ask him,” Tang said, looking past Pigsy and right at Macaque, making his fur bristle.

Pigsy turned around to look at him as well, a hard crease in his brow that spoke of worry. It softened a bit when he looked at him. “You good with that, Monkey?”

No. He didn’t want anyone around, actually. If he had it his way he’d see them both off then lock every door and window and carry all the bedding into a closet that he could lock himself into. Macaque’s ear flicked and his tail gave a swish, eyes darting back to Tang for a moment before resting on Pigsy. “Yes,” he lied.

“Alright then,�� Pigsy shrugged, pocketing his phone. Then specifically to Tang. “I’ll get Mei to stop by with some lunch for you both. Don’t use my kitchen while I’m gone.”

“Pigsy, I am appalled,” Tang scoffed, placing a hand on his chest in an offended manner. “I would never set foot in your kitchen without your explicit permission!”

Pigsy grunted. “Uh huh, and that’s why the toaster was broken last week.”

“The monkey did it, obviously.”

Macaque’s head snapped to him and he opened his mouth in outrage to protest and defend himself but was stopped due to his abrupt inhale that triggered another coughing fit.

He glared at Tang once it subsided, face scrunching up and eyes narrowing at him.

Tang gave him a smile that was borderlining smug, and Macaque almost stood up to wrestle his way out of the blankets so he could throw something at him.

Pigsy stepped in front of him, blocking his view of the man keeping him from doing so however. Macaque craned his head to look up at him, blinking at the sudden closeness.

“Stay with Tang,” he told him firmly.

Macaque blinked.

“Macaque.”

“Stay with Tang,” he repeated hoarsely, averting his eyes, his shoulders sagging. “Fine.” Then, in a mutter. “I didn’t break your toaster.”

“I know you didn’t,” Pigsy said, the beginnings of a smile on his face. He brushed back the damp fur on his face so it wasn’t sticking to his sweaty skin. “I’ll be back later. See if you can sleep in the meantime.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Macaque grunted, waving him away. “I know what to do, not the first time I’ve been sick. Go.”

“Yeah, aight, I’m going,” he grumbled. He gave him one last look over his shoulder before he lumbered away to the bathroom, snatching his uniform off the dresser where it was neatly folded. Macaque’s head snapped to look at his glorified babysitter the moment the door clicked shut.

They stared at each other for a moment before Tang turned his head away. “I’ll go make some tea.” And with that he disappeared down the hall.

Macaque waited until he heard him enter the kitchen and open a cupboard before he flopped back down onto the bed, shoving his face back into the sheets and groaning quietly to himself.

Great.

#KNOX WRITES (me)#I hope y'all know i write them as a QPR #Squidinknoodleshipping #Pigsy #Six Eared Macaque #sickfic #writing snippet #Monkie Kid #LEGO monkie kid #I know the titles for the special have arrived but yesterday was rough so i'm kinda ignoring them rn bGKMAOWEF SO YOU GET THIS INSTEAD OF ME #FREAKING OUT #UR WELCOME GBSAFM;WE #Teach Me to be Tougher than Leather Softer Than Silk #endgame is actually freesquidinknoodleshipping i need y'all to know thatbKMAOWFE #has been since the start #i'm freenoodleshipping trash you can't expect me not to #ANYWAY MORE CRACKSHIP CONTENT TAKEN SERIOUSLY FOR Y'ALLS #can't wait till we actually get to the tang and macaque part HAHAHHAHAHAHA #oh and the wukong and macaque part that one's fire and real sad #we've barely started this series bGKAMWEOF #i can only hope that a week like last time hits me again #completed that first fic in four days #BG;LAKWMEF #ANYWAY HERE IT IS #ITS BEEN A YEAR ANYBODY EVEN REMEMBER THIS SHIP??? BGASFMAOWF

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