the lack of dev patel fanfics is criminal so im planning to post a monkey man fic to fix that 😔 i do have a hard time choosing a background for my oc (help me out)
choose pls…
they’re a journalist visiting india to cover a story
@relmint did this to me. Monkey Man Maid cafe AU. Tiger's Temple is an underground maid cafe instead and Kid cleans up the bodies of his enemies when Tiger's not looking.
Kid is drawn respectfully, I draw Tiger like he's about to be in a NSFW anime 😔
It had been months since the assault on Kings, police tape around the front entry still blowing in the wind. Sita, first overjoyed at her newfound freedom, had to deal with her new reality. She needed a job and fast. Luckily she found one quickly.
The sports betting office was dingy, tucked into the business district of the large city. And while Sita still found herself in the shadows of those skyscrapers, this time she felt anonymous, losing herself in the job. She knew her looks helped win the old man who hired her over but her meticulous work sealed the deal.
She was good with numbers. Always had been. That’s how she knew exactly what percentage of her pay Queenie and Kings stole from her. How much they owed her. And she tried, she really did, to tamp down that anger. They’d lost their lives for it, for all of what they’ve done to her and everyone else. They’d paid in blood. But that didn’t stop the anger, the shaking of her fingers, at night when she couldn’t sleep.
Things had changed. She could admit that. And while change is usually slow with big machines like the government the streets felt different now. Like the pseudo gods had been pushed back, kept at bay now. Scared of their own mortality.
She’d thought of him everyday. Of what he did for her, for them. For all of them. She’d figured he was good as dead for what he did, who he killed. She hadn’t seen him around and hadn’t expected too. But that nagging want, need, hope to see him again turned her stomach at times. She knew want and need were just as bad as faith and hope. Pointless. Useless. But still…
She first heard the whispers that he was alive from the old women in line in front of her at the bank while running an errand for her bookie boss.
“He slipped out into the night, became the one thing that could protect him,” the woman with the young baby in her arms whispered in a hushed, but not secretive tone, to the silver haired cashier.
Sita’s ears perked up.
“I heard the same thing, that he slipped out of Kings and into the darkness. That he survived the hell fire he rained down on those assholes,” the cashier replied.
“They say he must be a god, or of the gods anyway.”
Sita smirked, remembering the lanky, clumsy waiter she’d first met. The way the ugliness of Kings made him pale, sweaty. But she also remembered the way he held her gaze. The way he saw her and didn’t turn away.
Goosebumps raised on the skin of her arms when she thought of the way he’d look at her. Like she was something, someone, special. Someone to be respected. No one ever looked at her like that.
“The papers say they have no leads, but I heard he’s hiding out at a temple, outside of town. In the country somewhere,” the cashier continued.
Sita knew the temple the woman spoke of, she was from the country, she’d seen it once or twice while growing up. Anyone who didn’t know of it would have a hell of a time finding it.
That night while Sita lay awake like so many other nights the noise of the city never dying down she thought of the temple. Of how she hoped, that word again, that he had made it there. That he was safe.
Then she cursed herself, why do you care, she asked out loud in the darkness of her bedroom.
When she couldn’t stop the thoughts of the temple and then the dreams started she realized the only way to kill her curiosity was to see for herself. She needed to prove to the little voice in her head that said ‘maybe’ that he wasn’t a god, that he wasn’t indestructible that there was nothing to hope for because it’s safer that way.
On a day off she slipped away from the city, following a path she knew only from memory.
The temple was just as she remembered it, carved into a hillside, blending in with its surroundings, a part of the landscape, not apart from it.
She took the stairs slowly, afraid of what she’d find at the temple door, whether it was true he was there, or true he’d never been there. She was nervous for either outcome. But deep down, she felt him. She felt a peace she hadn’t felt since she was young in that hillside.
At the top of the stairs her heart beat wildly in her chest. She breathed in deeply through her nose, willing her heart to slow, her breathing to even out.
Before she could change her mind she raised a shaking fist to knock against the sun worn temple door.
When no answer came she debated knocking again or turning away. She could turn back now, go back to the city and dream whatever ending she wanted, she could live in the limbo of not knowing the truth and while that would hurt, knowing the truth might have hurt her worse and she was tired of being hurt.
Just as she was about to turn away the door creaked open slowly, exposing the cool darkness inside.
A man, a woman, with long hair and golden bangles running up their arms peered out suspiciously.
Before Sita could speak the golden hued puppy from the alley pushed her way through the cracked door her tail wagging while she sniffed Sita’s sandals.
Despite herself Sita smiled, bent to ruffle the fur behind the dog’s ears, “You remember me?” she asked.
“Who are you?” the temple keeper asked, voice stern.
They were put on guard by her clothing, she’d done too much she thought, her attire too business like for the countryside. She’d dress down next time. Next time she thought. What a curious thought.
She straightened and swallowed. Sita didn’t know his name, his real name, she’d realized. She suddenly felt guilty about that.
“I’m looking for Bobby,” she said, hating the way the western name felt in her mouth. It didn’t suit him.
The temple keeper frowned, “There’s no Bobby here, you must be mistaken.”
The door started to close and Sita’s stomach dropped. She’d been right. It’d been futile to hope.
“Sita?”
She heard her name, like a song.
It was him. His soft voice, she’d heard it in her dreams so many nights.
When he appeared in the doorway her heart stopped, it was like seeing a ghost.
“It can’t be…” she breathed.
He looked…healthy. All his sharp edges just a little less so. The cuts she’d grown accustomed to seeing on his face all healed. His curls longer, softer, falling into his face.
Her cheeks heated when she realized she’d been staring.
“There you are,” she said, holding her chin up.
His eyes softened, the corner of his lips twitched in an almost smile, “Here I am.”
“Well come inside,” the temple keeper replied, a little exasperated, a little amused.
“You kept the mutt,” she said, words harsher than her tone as they strolled the temple grounds together.
He nodded, “Couldn’t leave her behind.”
Sita thought about how she told him not to give the puppy hope, but that wasn’t what he had been doing. He kept his promise, whatever promise he made when he fished out that food from the garbage to offer the starving dog. He saved her, like he saved them.
“How are you?” he asked as the silence stretched a beat too long between them.
She bit back a smile. Such a simple question that wasn’t simple at all.
“Good,” she replied, “I got a new job.”
“Do you like it?” he asked, genuine concern etched between his brows.
“I do,” she replied, reassuring him, “It’s good. And you?” she asked.
Tension was beginning to build in her shoulders, in her palms. In her stomach. This wasn’t the conversation she wanted to have. There’d been so much, too much, that happened since they saw one another last, but he owed her nothing, she knew that. His kindness of seeing her was just that. But yet here she was. Pulled to him.
He shrugged.
She stopped him with a hand on his arm at a grove of trees lining the back of the temple’s property.
“You never thought about it did you?”
He frowned, meeting her gaze, “About what?”
“About the after.”
He looked away from her, gazing intently at the dry grass as it swayed with the late afternoon wind. “I didn’t think there’d be an after.”
“You went there to die?” she asked, surprised at the way her voice caught.
He nodded.
She shook her head, he’d been so foolish she thought not for the first time.
“Was it worth it?” she asked.
He turned back to face her, this time she saw the fire licking at the dark edges of his glittering brown irises.
“To be able to stand here, with you now, free, both of us, yes. Yes, it was worth it.”
A young boy ran up to them then, wrapping himself around the legs of the man she still didn’t know the name of.
He smiled, reaching down to ruffle the boy’s hair. Leaning down to whisper something against the boy’s ear making the boy smile before running off again.
She watched him, how patient he was, how gentle.
She didn’t know how to be soft, or gentle like him.
Maybe she could learn because he made her feel safe. He gave her peace.
“Dinner is soon,” he said, “stay?”
She nodded, she hadn’t come this far to let him out of her sights so soon.
And at dinner, while the sun burned orange on the horizon, his fingertips brushed over her knuckles, his smile soft.
