Work Text:
There’s something incredibly ironic about what happened. Something that moved past the kind of dramatic irony we use in our every day. No, this rivaled the Greek Tragedies, it made Oedipus killing Lauis look like highschool, this was going for the degree.
He wasn’t entirely sure what he expected to come from the final encounter. On one hand, he’d expected Wukong to be as swift and vicious as he had been to anyone else, but deep in his gut he’d prayed they could move on. Maybe this would be what drags him from the delusion. It’s always ironic, being wrong. Maybe that’s why it hurts so much worse.
The conversation had so quickly turned fatal, from the taunting and the arguing to the gnashing teeth. Somewhere in their starting banter, Macaque almost saw them in their youth. They’d bait one another on, jabs about skill, about popularity, until a play fight melted into naps in trees. They’d go anywhere together back then. Macaque expected Wukong to follow him into death someday, somehow.
In a way, he did. Ironic.
The staff is lodged in his skull, the grooves of the engravings filling with dark blood. In the moonlight it looks black, Macaque thinks, still processing the actions that passed moments prior. He remembers the way Wukong reeled back over his head, the way the large cudgel felt as it crushed through his skull. He remembers laying on his back in the dirt, his gaze up to the stars, unable to move. He remembers Wukon’s burning eyes as he stood over him.
He can see just past him now, past that satisfied expression, up to the stars. They’re beautiful. When he was young, he’d listen to Wukong count them, he’d boast that he had known them in Heaven after his second stay, and Macaque would scoff and humor him. There’s irony in that, too. They lay in starlight and Macaque finds himself the only one gazing.
When he can no longer see them, his only eye open wide, he feels something ache deep in him. In some way, Macaque knows that he will never see them again. He misses them, though he knows it won’t matter. His hands feel cold, he can no longer feel that puddle of blood beneath him. He can’t feel the slide of the staff from his wrecked corpse, he can’t feel anything.