#shadowlion

Macaque ran as fast as he could. He ran until his feet trembled, but he didn’t stop. His whole body burned, begging for rest. He couldn’t use his magic yet—he still needed to recover.

He knew it was stupid and completely impulsive. He wasn’t the impulsive one, after all. But Macaque couldn’t stay hidden while the person he loved was being imprisoned.

He knew his partner wasn’t a saint. He knew his partner had committed crimes, and that despite his warnings, he hadn’t listened. He had hoped that after giving birth to their cub, he would change his mind.

But it was useless to think anything would change.

Deep down, he knew that even though they had fallen in love and had a child together, that would only make his partner more determined.

As soon as he heard that Heaven had ordered his capture, he immediately set out to save him. He only prayed it wasn’t too late.

But what god would listen to his prayers?

When he arrived at the scene, he saw Sun Wukong walking away with the pilgrims, a scroll in hand, and Macaque knew he was too late.

They had already captured Azure.

🌙

Macaque growled as he woke up. He opened his eyes and tiredly looked at the ceiling of his dojo.

He had fallen asleep on the couch, he remembered belatedly, and his whole body ached from the position, but he didn’t care. He didn’t have much time.

He stood up and stretched, ignoring the pain as he walked toward the kitchen.

His kitchen wasn’t big, but it wasn’t small either. It was cozy, unlike a few weeks ago, when he didn’t care if there were dirty dishes in the sink or if the shelves were barely stocked.

Now everything was clean, and the shelves and refrigerator were full of food, fruits, vegetables, juices, and more. It hadn’t mattered to him before, but ever since the group of heroes—MK, Wukong, all of them—since the world had almost been destroyed again, since MK’s sacrifice, since he tried to stop him… everything had changed.

Macaque’s life had taken an unexpected turn more unexpected than he thought but it wasn’t as if he could just ignore it.

He and Wukong hadn’t interacted much since they had almost held hands. And Macaque felt like they were one step away from truly reconciling. But he didn’t have the time or energy to go to the mountain and talk to Wukong. He hadn’t shown up there in weeks because he had been too busy.

Remembering just how busy he was, he quickly made himself a coffee and drank it in one go, not caring if it burned or tasted bitter. Then another, and another, three more cups in total.

He sighed as he felt much more energized and focused on quickly cleaning his living room, organizing all the mess.

He saw on the news that it was going to be a sunny day and told himself he’d go to the park later, as he returned to the kitchen to make breakfast.

He finished everything in a record 30 minutes and gave himself a moment to sit on the couch and simply rest.

He rested for about three seconds before hearing crying from his room and immediately got up, heading toward the sound.

He felt relieved he had finished cleaning, at least, as he opened the bedroom door. He couldn’t help the small smile that formed on his face as soon as he entered and the little cub crying calmed down.

His cub looked at him with big, round golden eyes, waving its little hands as if asking to be picked up.

Macaque couldn’t refuse as he picked up his baby and held them against his chest.

“Hello, little star” he said in a gentle, sweet tone. The baby babbled and smiled at him with its tiny toothless mouth.

Macaque felt his heart tighten, hugging his baby closer as he left the room and walked to the living room, where breakfast sat on the table.

He sat on the floor, placing his baby on his lap and grabbing the bottle to feed them.

He watched with a smile as his baby finished all the milk, still looking at him with those golden eyes.

He set the bottle aside and gently patted their back before placing the baby on the floor and watching them play with their toys. He began eating his own breakfast, not taking his eyes off his child, alert to anything, until his ears caught the news.

He had forgotten to turn it off. When he reached for the remote, the image of Xiangliu stopped him.

He listened as they reported on the different people who had gained powers after the cracks in the sky, and how the group of heroes had once again saved the world.

But Macaque focused only on Xiangliu’s face, labeled the villain of the entire disaster. He frowned, wishing he could wipe that arrogant smile off his face—but he knew he was gone, at least for now.

He tried to forget the danger and the threats, but it was difficult the more he felt the chaos inside him, the chaos he had unintentionally taken in.

He looked at his baby, who was playing with a snake plush, and then back at Xiangliu’s face.

The resemblance was too strong. Anyone could tell who the father was.

Oh man, yeah Mac and Wukong have enough problems that they needed to settle and put behind them even without Azure coming back from the underworld! I think in this version of season 4, when Azure suddenly shows back up and the effects of the love potion activate again, Macaque would for sure join up with him again and Wukong would be fucking furious over it!

He probably assumed things were getting better, and he and Macaque were not friends yet, but perhaps on the road to reconciling thanks to MK's help... but like, even MK isn't able to pull Macaque away from Azure once he shows up. Nothing he says gets through to him, and he is just as obsessed with the lion as he was back during their brotherhood days.

Sun Wukong is too mad to see what's happening. He just assumes Macaque never meant any of those small steps towards redemption that he's made previously, and goes right back towards feeling deeply hurt and betrayed hating him. Not only that, but those feelings of betrayal towards Azure Lion are probably doubled. He'd never admit to it out loud, and honestly probably doesn't even fully recognize that this is what he's feeling, but he's so furious that what he was rebuilding with Macaque has been dashed because freakin Azure Lion had to show up and steal him away again! How is this happening AGAIN?!!! He can't even stand to think about it let alone reason out how it's possible!

MK, on the other hand, is shocked that none of his pleading is getting through to Macaque anymore. It doesn't make any sense.. the guy was never, like, a good guy from his perspective, but he at least was reasonable. When MK would try to get him on their side, he would argue back with points that were logical- concern for his own survival, pointing out when he isn't strong enough, that sort of thing. Now, though, he doesn't argue at all. He just kinda dreamily sighs as he talks about how great Azure Lion is and it's... weird. It's super out of character.

"I'm worried about you, brother."

"Why?" Macaque chose not to look at his visitor. He was much more focused on checking the ripeness of the peaches up in the trees, a few monkeys doing the same in other trees. "Because I'm by myself? I'm with the monkeys."

Even if he was still bitter and angry over his fight with their king, Macaque couldn't leave the little guys.

"That is part of my concern." Footsteps signaled Azure walking around the tree. Macaque caught a glimpse of gold but continued to look up. "As intelligent as they are, I don't think the monkeys make good conversation."

"Because you never bothered to learn, brother." Macaque huffed, offense welling up. The monkeys were plenty intelligent, thank you very much.

Besides, he knew what Azure really wanted.

And it wasn't him.

"I'm satisfied here, for now, Azure." Macaque finally looked down. Azure stared up at him, although his eyes were a little hazy. Imagining someone else in Macaque's place. He grabbed a peach and winced at the hardness. Not ripe yet.

On second thought...

"I'll let you know when your stand-in for Wukong is interested." Macaque plucked the peach off and threw it down. Azure caught it. "For now, however, I'm good."

Azure stared at the peach.

He didn't deny the accusation.

Summary: Macaque once lived a life of envy; ruling Flower Fruit Mountain alongside the great and powerful Monkey King. Take that away, and where does that leave him? A shadow with nowhere to go.

Except that this shadow has a few tricks up his sleeve, and knows how to play a convincing part. After all, he was ruined by a king once.

It may have come up before, but the tags for these AUs I talk about on here can get so deep and have so many threads that it’d take some digging to find again. So let’s talk about it as if it’s brand new 😊

Sun Wukong if he discovered in the modern day that his best friend and the person who he loved the most had only left him and betrayed him because of a love potion that Azure Lion slipped him.. he would be devastated. The old Monkey King might have gone berserk, destroying things and demanding revenge against Azure as his anger took control of him and led him on a rampage. However, Wukong is old now. He’s lived so long and been so alone all that time with nothing but his memories of his mistakes and the friends and family he’s lost along the way. Finding out that some of those mistakes were caused or encouraged by others’ actions would probably just depress him. He would be upset at Azure Lion, to be sure, but mostly he’d be disappointed in himself for not realizing what had happened.. Macaque was his closest friend, he knew him better than anyone else and yet he was still so wrapped up in his own ego and assuming that everything the monkey did was somehow about himself that he couldn’t even see that he was under a spell the whole time. His beloved moon has been under a spell this whole time.. and Wukong just let that go on for centuries and then killed him when it finally drove him to madness instead of reaching out and trying to help.

There’s no rampage by the Monkey King when he learns. No, he just curls in on himself and falls apart when he realizes how different things could have been if only he’d paid more attention.

MK’s reaction would be a little different. By the time any of this is brought up, he already would have learned that Azure Lion is a bad guy. So when Macaque shows up and appears to be on his side too, I think he’d just be disappointed that the shadow monkey is going back to being a bad guy again… he probably had high hopes for him after the whole Lady Bone Demon thing, and there had been definite steps towards making amends and maybe everybody could all be friends! Well, when he sees the way Macaque rushes to Azure’s side, that kind of pisses him off.

It’s frustrating how Macaque went right back to being a villain and everything, but it isn’t like it’s the first time he’s been pitted against MK and his fam by the threat of another powerful demon.. so, once the initial anger wears off, MK might start to think that it’s possible Macaque is being coerced again, like with LBD. So, he reaches out to Macaque. He asks for his help to save the Monkey King from the shattered tile.. and, while Macaque is definitely under the effects of the love potion and wants to be with Azure, he also hasn’t changed how he feels about Sun Wukong. Nor MK…. Plus, his beloved Azure did look so upset when the tile accidentally got cut, didn’t he? The reasons to help kind of pile up and finally Mac relents and leaves to go help.

The scene where MK and Macaque rescue Sun Wukong from the tile is pretty much the same.. it’s when they get out that it all goes to shit again. Macaque goes to leave again, his work of helping save Wukong all done so he’s going to go back to Azure. MK tries to give him the whole speech about being a good guy and they can work things out and he doesn’t have to fear Azure or whatever.. Macaque gives this bubbly laugh, more like a giggle, which freaks out everyone a little, and insists oh no, he’s not afraid of Azure! He’s in love with him! This, of course, pisses off Wukong all over again who is like “UGH! STILL??” And tries to argue with Macaque that Azure is a BAD GUY who is going to destroy all of Heaven and probably Macaque too if they don’t do something to stop him!! Anyway, Macaque’s lackluster response to the impending doom of the world is what finally clues MK and the rest that something is probably wrong here.. This guy whose sole motivation previously seemed to be saving his own skin is suddenly okay with hanging around the guy who is going to crack reality open and undo it at its seams? That’s not right.

One thing leads to another, Macaque is restrained (somehow), a little more probing and research leads them to realize Macaque is enchanted. MK’s furious about this, of course, but he doesn’t have all the context. As far as he knows this is a new development. It’s only the reaction of his mentor that leads him to realize just how big of a deal this is. Instead of wallowing, he gets right to trying to find a way to reverse it. (This of course means he starts harassing Tang to do some research on how to reverse it.) He also has to have a talk again with the Monkey King reiterating that they can’t change the past, but they can build a better future… maybe if they can help Macaque… who knows what that future could be?

Wukong: He and Macaque were best friends, but they never became more than that. They had feelings for each other, but Wukong was too busy seeking for more power and exploring the world to do anything about it. Macaque felt insecure and inferior, so he didn’t act on it either.

Azure: He and Macaque were neutral toward each other. Although Macaque didn’t really like Azure’s ideals, he partially respected his good intentions, but was frustrated by the way he planned to achieve them.After the fight with Wukong beneath the mountain, he met Azure again. Even though he didn’t support the Camel Ridge idea, he and Azure shared an intimate moment, confessing how they felt about everything that was happening.They grew a bit closer after that, and one night they slept together, resulting in Macaque becoming pregnant. Little by little, they fell in love before wukong trapped Azure in the scroll. They had one child together.

Erlang: Unlike what was said, Erlang didn’t burn FFM out of anger towards wukong, but rather by order of the jade emperor, to take revenge on wukong for all the trouble he caused. To avoid hurting anyone, Erlang went to Macaque to warn him, and together they created an illusion strong enough that no one would realize it wasn’t real, making the mountain appear burned and destroyed. Without realizing it, they created life together by merging their magic. After the incident with the scroll, and Macaque’s death and subsequent resurrection, Macaque discovered their creation growing in his belly. He set out to find Erlang, who had already noticed his return and offered his help. He and Macaque had twins.

Mayor: He and Macaque hated each other. That’s it. There was a lot of sexual tension between them before LBD resurfaced, and when she was defeated, macaque more or less adopted Bai He. The Mayor was arrested, and now he has weekly visits, since Bai He believes that now that he’s no longer possessed, it’s worth seeing if he can become something better.

Xiangliu: After Macaque stole the chaos from him, he decided to use it to his advantage and forced their magic to merge, creating a child. Macaque didn’t really feel anything for him.

This is an awesome idea, and honestly I could definitely see Sun Wukong coming to this conclusion eventually 😂 One day Azure finds himself in a cuddle pile of monkeys, both of them glaring at each other as they snuggle up under his chin, each trying desperately to get his attention away from the other.. he’s… well, it’s a lot.

I could see him thinking that his plan worked from this and going ahead and curing Macaque.. of course, assuming that this didn’t happen in the span of a day or two, this would require Mac to have his memories reset. So one day Macaque wakes up, goes to find Sun Wukong and sees him snuggling all over Azure, shooting nasty glares over at Mac as he does.. and he has no idea why that’s all happening, but probably just decides that Wukong was in the mood to spend the day with Azure. They do share quite a bit, so it happens. When Macaque just turns around and goes off to do something else, I think that’s when Sun Wukong is like “oh good, he’s given up at last!” And rushes after him, leaving Azure in the dust.