When Sha Wujing was an arhat up in Heaven, he began showing someone around to help her get used to the place and Tripitaka became jealous because the two just seemed so friendly and he thought it was almost romantic between the two. He tried a bunch of times to confess to the demon but he could never get the words out and realized he had waited too long and someone else had already stolen the other’s hearts.
After evaluating everything and realizing that his disciples are fine without him now and don’t need him, he decided to reincarnate to forget everything so they could live better lives without him and he became Tang.
Alternatively he didn’t reincarnate and has been wandering around the mortal world, still thinking his disciples are better off without him and deciding to tell their stories behind a scholarly persona to create some disconnect. He met Pigsy (either Zhu Bajie as he normally is or a reincarnation) and Pigsy introduced him to Sandy where he has to pretend he didn’t know them before. He and Pigsy don’t see Sandy for a few years until they need his help taking MK to Flower Fruit Mountain. Tang never tells them who he is.
Jasmineteashipping idea: Maybe Tang, Pigsy, Sandy and Wukong are looking through his room full of stuff (like in Dumpling Destruction, the room with the vases and dolls) to see what they can throw away vs keep. Tang picks up Tripitaka's staff and starts getting really excited and explaining its importance to Sandy, but all Sandy can see is his old master.
OW! Why would you hurt me like this? That’s a sad image ;-;
But anyway-
Wukong, Pigsy, Sandy and Tang walked into a room that contained a myriad of treasures big enough to form hills. Tang had a hand on Sandy’s arm which resulted in the demon’s heart doing a light flutter at the touch.
He ignored the feeling in favor of observing the room, this was a lot… but it was to be expected after what the king told them. The pig looked at the treasure up and down then placed his hand on his hips. “You have a problem,” he remarked to the king.
The king rolled his eyes and scoffed. “This is why I asked you to help me.”
“We’re goin’ to be here all night,” the pig complained.
“Would that be so bad?”
“Contrary to what ya believe, I don’t like spendin’ every wakin’ hour with you especially doin’ somethin’ like this.”
“Well that’s disappointing and here I thought you loved me,” the king snarked.
“In your dreams.”
“Awwww so you’ll appear in my dreams then.” He winked.
Pigsy stuttered and flushed crimson. “Quiet!” He took a second to recover before asking, “Now how are we goin’ to do this?”
“We could split up,” Sandy suggested. “Tang and I take one side while you two take the other. What do you think, Tang?” He asked the scholar who had been eerily quiet the entire time.
Tang didn’t answer, entranced by the objects that each held their own history. His eyes lit up and he was practically shaking from excitement. He rushed towards a pile and began digging, grabbing whatever was in reach and rambling on about this and that.
A bead of sweat popped up on the fish demon’s face while the other two snorted. “I guess that’s a yes then.” Again no answer as the human preferred to gawk at everything, Sandy had honestly found it cute, Tang was cute.
Wukong patted his brother on the shoulder, a small laugh emitting from his lips. He whispered, “Have fun, Wujing.” It was in such a quiet, soft tone so no one but Sandy and Wukong could hear, Sandy wasn’t exactly comfortable revealing his identity just yet.
“Tch. Thanks, big brother.”
“Now Pigsy and I will take the left,” he proclaimed in a louder voice.
Pigsy took the king’s hand and led him to their half of the room. Wukong shouted, “Oh by the way, if you find any memorabilia from any of my movies and acting or shows, something along those lines, don’t throw those out!”
“Okay,” Sandy yelled back and walked towards Tang.
“Sandy! Look at all of this! This is amazing!”
The demon smiled at the other’s enthusiasm. “Yes, it is! There’s so much around here!”
“I know right! So much history lies in these objects!” He continued picking up various items, some that sent a wave of nostalgia down Wujing’s spine.
He admired the scholar’s grand descriptions as much as he admired the other himself. Tang was incredibly smart, the amount of knowledge that could be pulled from his lips was astonishing.
It was one of the million things he loved about him. The scholar had his heart in more ways than one, that’s for certain.
Joy bubbled in the demon to see Tang rave about his passion, the raving helped overshadow Wukong and Pigsy’s argument on the other side about what the king should throw away and it was an opportunity to get a bit of the human’s attention. Something he had longed for for a while but never admitted out loud.
Tang never paid much attention to him, he had grander and better things to focus on, Sandy believed he was more of an acquaintance than a friend in the other’s eyes.
But that wasn’t surprising, it wasn’t as if it hadn’t occurred before.
He held back a sigh, some things never changed. Trip- Tang didn’t care about him just as it had always been.
At least there were moments where he could be around Tang without feeling the scorn.
“Sandy,” Tang shouted.
“Yea, Tang?”
“I have just found the biggest find of them all here!”
“Oh? And what would that be?”
“This!” Tang pulled an artifact out and Sandy felt his heart stop. It was his master’s staff, no, no, no. Wukong didn’t tell him he kept it. No, no, no. Tang grinned from ear to ear, doing a little twirl as he gripped it. “This is one of the biggest finds in history! This belonged to the monk Tripitaka. He-”
And white noise rang in Sandy’s ears. The human chattered but no words formed. Panic started to form in the pit of Sandy’s stomach. He closed his eyes and breathed softly then opened them to see a glow surrounding Tang, no, Tripitaka who held the staff.
He blinked rapidly in an attempt to wave the image away but it wouldn’t go away.
The monk was in his attire he wore in the Journey, a soft smile on his face, rambling presumably about the same thing Tang was and golden wings that Sandy was tempted to reach out and touch.
“Ma-master,” he managed out. This was just a hallucination, it wasn’t real, Tripitaka was gone and even if he wasn’t, he would never look at him that way.
“Wujing,” the hallucination said and took a step forward. Wujing leaned back but his feet were planted firmly on the ground.
“You’re not real.”
The monk curled a brow and tilted his head. “Am I or am I not?”
“Definitely not.”
“No matter. It is wonderful to see you, Wujing.”
“You-you too…”
Tripitaka took another step. “I have not had eyes on you in years, well I have. That is beside the point. Let me get a good look at you.” He reached his hands out to cup his cheeks. Sandy’s chest heaved, a heavy weight crushing his chest.
“S-stop.”
The monk frowned and did as he was asked. “Hm? Did I do something to upset you, Wujing?”
“You’re not real, master.”
“Why does it matter whether I’m real or not?”
“It matters to me.”
He huffed in response. “My Wujing-”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“Okay, I won’t. I do not get why you do not want me to get a good look at you. I missed you so much.”
“Since when?” He asked, his teeth grinding together.
“Since forever. Do you not believe me?”
No. Absolutely not. “I do believe you, master. I just… you’re not real.” You’re not real.
“I see my appearance has caused you much distress… I only wanted to see you. I will take my leave now. Goodbye, Wujing.”
Wind swept around the monk’s feet, Sandy stared at the wind confused. He was brought back by the snap of someone’s fingers in front of his face.
The hallucination had gone away completely with Tang in his place, staff still in hand. “Sandy? Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” If Sandy didn’t know any better, he could have sworn the scholar looked legitimately concerned.
Sweat threatened to drip down his face, he swallowed roughly and answered, “Yea, I’m fine. Sorry, Tang. Must have dazed off.”
Tang huffed. “So that means you missed my explanation. Do you want me to repeat it?”
“N-no, it’s-”
“Hey, Sandy,” Wukong called and waved him over. “Mind helping me with something?”
“Uh, sure! Sorry, Tang. Maybe next time.” He scattered away to help his brother. Wukong patted him on the shoulder, knowing something was wrong but not pushing the issue.
Sandy breathed deeply. That was almost too real. They were nothing alike.
He sorted out the differences in his head.
Tang was loud, Tripitaka was quiet.
Tripitaka was all about manners while Tang could care less.
Tripitaka did not give crass jokes while Tang did.
The only similarity there was they would never care about Sandy in a million years.
So many differences yet still one and the same, it left Sandy reigning in his tears.
This might or might not be how Sha Wujing and Tang meet and actually talk but…
Tang: sees that Red is a bull shark, was told by him that Sha Wujing said the transformation would wear off eventually. Notices Red’s distress and charges up to wherever Wujing’s mountain is at. You have to do something! He’s your successor! You can’t expect to keep him like this!
Sha Wujing: … -_-
What a great way to start off a relationship, Tang :D
I should probably add some of these to the headcanon list that have been in my drafts forever but I needed to get this out of my system.
Ideas under the cut (TW: mentions of death) this includes angst because I need to keep myself satisfied while still working on a fic
Tang brags that he has the amazing Sha Wujing as his boyfriend and the Great Sage as his brother in law.
SWK will take every opportunity to tease Sandy about his romantic interest and will actively try to tell Tang as many embarrassing stories as possible and Sandy goes “why are you like this?”
SWK would insist to be Sandy’s best man and won’t take no for an answer.
If Tang is Tripitaka’s reincarnation then Tripitaka tries to subtly get Tang to go to Sandy when he’s around and is confused and hurt when it looks like the demon doesn’t like being around his reincarnation and thinks that extends to him as well.
Tripitaka observes Sandy sometimes and just watches how he’s doing. He doesn’t spy on him all the time but does notice that he seems lonely even with his cats and cheery attitude.
Imagine there’s a moment where Tripitaka has to appear and obviously needs Tang, it really messes up Sandy for awhile and he doesn’t want to talk to Tang who probably doesn’t remember everything. The others are aware of it and Pigsy gets Sandy to tell them since he knows something. Sandy tells them but begs them not to tell Tang.
Tang gets insecure about his place with the demon because Sandy is so sweet and he’s not.
If Tang is Tripitaka in disguise then he always reminisces about the stories between them while emphasizing how Sandy is his favorite and will constantly bring up when he’s doing papers on him.
Now I put Tang as Tripitaka’s reincarnation and Sandy as Sha Wujing in my stuff but consider the reverse where Tang is Tripitaka in disguise and Sandy is Sha Wujing’s reincarnation. Sha Wujing perished in the battle along with Zhu Bajie which left the three in extreme guilt over what happened. Tang decided to live on Earth after a few centuries and encountered ZBJ’s reincarnation along with Sha Wujing’s reincarnation. He doesn’t bring up this fact to them and keep quiet.
He does tease Pigsy and freeload as revenge for the trouble his incarnation put him through. He attempts to talk to Sandy and the demon is sweet but it’s almost as if he’s hiding something and it appears as if he doesn’t want to be around him sometimes which he assumes has to do with Sha Wujing. He tells SWK about it and the king tells him to stop worrying since whatever it is might not involve him and the king doesn’t want to think about how much he failed those two.
Calabash jasmintea which is the main reason I’m making this. Sandy gets sucked into the calabash because the demon bros think it might be useful to use the Sha Wujing as hostage. Sandy wakes up and it doesn’t immediately hit him what happened until Tang goes up to him all excited and calling him ‘sweetie.’ He know it’s fake because Tang would never look at him that way or call him that.
He decides to find a way out but the fake Tang keeps trying to talk and be at his side which reminds him further of how it’s just an illusion but that illusion is giving him all the attention he ever wanted from the scholar. He briefly ponders giving in a bit before realizing how wrong it would be to use something with Tang’s face and voice when it’s clear the human doesn’t love him.
But he in some way or another finds himself following the scholar to pretend Pigsy’s shop and actually enjoys himself. He silently scolds himself for doing this but realizes that after everything doesn’t he deserve this? After all he’s been through, shouldn’t he have this for a little bit? He’ll find a way back but he just wants to pretend that for a moment Tang feels the same way he does, actually likes him enough to have him around. And he spends a couple days in there then all of a sudden, he’s out with the demon bros absolutely cowering at Tang who looks extremely pissed. The others just decide to let the human do his thing while Sandy is confused and sad at having the illusion broken even if he was going to break himself out of there.
Jasmine Tea where a demon tries to find Sandy because he’s from when Sandy was a rage filled warrior. The demon is from centuries ago when Sandy used Sha Wujing so the demon calls that name and Sandy desperately tries to avoid them.
MK tries to handle it but that demon keeps coming back because they really want to re-challenge Sandy.
Tang gets all excited that the Sha Monk is probably in their city. He has a moment where he gushes to Sandy about it and the other hasn’t told any of them so he stays silent.
Tang: Can you believe the Sha Monk must be here?
Sandy, nervously laughing: Yea, I can’t believe it.
Tang: I have to meet him!
Sandy: Is that really necessary, Tangy?
Tang: Of course it is! He’s so cool! I need to meet him!
I love how the Swap Au romances so far are "PAIN" "over a thousand years of pining" and "MK and Goliath singing 'can you feel the love tonight' off key"
WHEEZES
I love how accurate this is XD!
Goliath and MK would totally sing ‘can you feel the love tonight’ off key, either by accident or to be annoying.
Wujing in this au is not having a fun time. Also despite how obvious it is that Bajie and Wukong feel for each other, they still pine-
