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Exhausted.
Kong was exhausted— something he hadn’t felt in awhile.
It hit him out of nowhere today. One moment he was patrolling his usual route, albeit a bit slower, and the next, he was having to sit down on the earth below his feet.
It wasn’t like he didn’t rest last night.
In fact, he got more sleep than usual, thanks to the surface king that occasionally decides to rest his entire weight on Kong in the mornings before they both went to oversee their respective kingdoms.
Maybe… maybe it was just illness, Kong reasoned.
But he’d never had an illness that made his own legs give out from under him. Sure, they made him weak and fatigued, but never like this. This was sudden and somewhat alarming.
Nonetheless, the need to reign over his kingdom was stronger than his leg’s protests. He hauled himself up, ignoring the fact his legs wanted more rest.
Kong continued his walk, his gaze sharp and alert as usual.
The ape titan made it another half an hour before he felt it again. It returned tenfold, as if his legs were punishing him for not listening.
Great.
This time, Kong had been on uneven ground. He fell sideways, letting out a pained roar.
His hand went down to cover what he assumed was a swollen ankle, only to be met with an exposed flesh wound. His ankle had been bent to the side so suddenly, causing a gash and his bone to be exposed. The grass under him was starting to stain a deep red.
The ape tried to stand up and realized he couldn’t move his foot.
Correction. He couldn’t feel his foot. The nerves had been entirely severed.
He wasn’t queasy. He had seen guts and gore and had even been the one who revealed some titan’s organs to the open air— but seeing his own muscle and bone made him feel… different.
Kong groaned. No other titan— that he trusted enough— was around to carry him back home. Nor was any titan strong enough to at least let him limp against him.
Godzilla was long gone, likely deep below the sea and unable to get to a vortex fast enough to respond. Shimo was back in the lava caverns, watching Suko as usual. His subjects were likely still in the caverns as well, still too scared to venture out without Kong’s guidance.
And then he saw it.
In the sky, high above him and on the other side of Hollow Earth, were wings. Wings that had eyes resembling the surface king’s on the ends.
Mothra.
Kong knew he hadn’t established a two-way telepathic bond with the queen, so his next thought was that she heard his pained roar. Or she had just been watching him the whole time.
Humiliating, he’d admit.
As soon as she locked onto Kong, her targeted descent was rather quick, ignoring the gravitational barrier and coming straight for the ape.
If they weren’t allies, Kong would have thought she was hurling at him with murderous intent. He knew she meant no harm, she was likely just worried.
Within seconds, she was fluttering right in front of him, landing on the hand offered to her.
Kong heard her voice in the back of his mind, and it felt as if she was physically digging through his thoughts for a moment. Now he knew why Godzilla would shake his head so often.
Her wings folded up as she skittered along his arm, coming up to his shoulder and climbing over his face to crawl down his chest. The ape sputtered for a moment, blowing scales and fluff off of his lips.
It seems she had no sense of personal space either— likely the one Godzilla developed his habits from.
Thankfully, he could barely feel her weight on his wound, but it did feel a bit weird to have something skittering along a literal open flesh wound.
He was confused about her intentions for a moment before he felt something pierce the edges of the gash. His leg kicked out, instinctively trying to ward her off but she stayed firmly planted on his leg.
Once the ape calmed down after the initial stab, the moth continued her work. She began to spindle her web through the edges of his gash, threading it shut as much as she was capable of.
She was used to Godzilla’s rough skin whenever she had to stitch his wounds up, so it was nice to actually have skin that didn’t yield as much to her stitching.
It reminded Kong of how a human that worked for Monarch used to close up his wounds. That human had been long gone for years now. They all had. He didn’t like to remember them, even when Shimo had told him that “talking about his grief” was important. He wasn’t as sentimental as her.
Maybe Shimo had spent too much time with Mothra. It was making her philosophical.
Mothra shuffled around when she was done stitching up the ape’s leg, her wings fluttering for a moment before she made her way back to Kong’s arm. She pushed herself off of Kong’s arm, taking flight and hovering next to him.
Despite his wound being stitched, Kong knew he couldn’t make the walk on his own, but he was also too far from the caverns to wait for Mothra to go get help from Shimo.
The moth lowered herself slightly, her fragile legs holding onto Kong’s arm and surprisingly pulling him up.
Slowly, Kong was starting to realize why even Godzilla occasionally bowed down to her– because God she was stronger than she looked. No wonder Godzilla never sparred with her and chose the ape
Kong had seen her in battle before, but he’d never seen her in a physical dispute. Rather, the queen typically acted as support, restraining rather than attacking so other titans could handle the brawl work.
Figuring he shouldn’t have Mothra do all the work, he started to hobble back towards the way he came. His patrol had ended early– for a good reason, he supposed.
It was probably good Mothra found him before Kong decided to push himself further than he needed to. If she didn’t come to him when she did, he probably would have kept limping while doing his route despite bleeding out.
That was something even Godzilla himself had to come down to talk to him about. He had somehow sensed how tired Kong was one day after fighting off wartdog after wartdog and came down to help.
After that fight, Godzilla had to forcefully drag Kong back to the caverns to rest since the ape kept trying to continue his daily patrol.
Kong already knew Godzilla was likely propelling himself towards the nearest portal and was expecting to hear a distant boom sometime later, signalling the king’s very much graceful crash into the ground.
Mothra was surprisingly adamant about getting Kong home before something caught a whiff of the blood and came looking for scraps. While she could handle herself in a fight, she didn’t feel like fending off a wartdog horde from an already injured Kong.
Kong listened to her trills as they slowly travelled back to the caverns, noting the tone of her noises that made it sound like she was scolding him for pushing himself too hard.
He swore he could feel her prying into his subconscious again, but it stopped as soon as he thought of it.
Kong had been laying on the ground of the cavern for what felt like hours now while the queen sat on his wound, resting her body over it as she focused her energy into regenerating the gash faster.
Occasionally, she’d gently rub her wings together to dust off some scales, and Kong assumed it was some kind of numbing agent considering how he wouldn’t feel her poking at his flesh for a few moments after.
He’d only seen her tend to wounds once before, and that was after the fight against Skar King, where she had done the same to a cut on his palm before moving onto whatever wounds Godzilla had earned.
Mothra’s antennae twitched a few seconds before Kong heard a distant boom, signalling Godzilla’s late arrival. She would have guided the king to where the ape was now resting if she hadn’t known Godzilla visited so often to the point he knew Hollow Earth better than his own realm by now.
Kong was drifting in and out of sleep, his body still screaming for more rest as it had done earlier. Perhaps it was his age getting to him, he thought. He wasn’t that old though, was he? Sure, he had quite a few grays– lies, he had gray fur nearly all over him by now.
He wasn’t in denial about it, he was just… a bit upset. He thought he had more time before his bones began to crack with every step, before his muscles began to give up on him.
And maybe the other titans around him were noticing too. Suko had been assisting him with walking these days more than he’d like to admit. The Queen of the Monsters herself had gone through the trouble of practically dragging him home, and Godzilla? He could tell.
The god hadn’t been sparring with the ape as much as he used to, and when they did, Godzilla would find an excuse to stop. It had been subtle, but Kong was realizing now that he was becoming too fragile to even wrestle with his own counterpart.
It hurt more than Kong realized.
Not a physical pain, no, a mental pain, he concluded. The idea that he’d be here no longer was stuck in his head.
He finally registered that Godzilla was laying his head on his chest, looking up at him. Kong’s hand instinctively came up to rest on the larger titan’s snout, just as it always had.
Mothra had crawled onto Godzilla’s tail as it gently snaked around Kong’s ankle, holding firm but not enough to hurt Kong’s still healing wound. It grounded the ape, reminded him that Godzilla was there, weighing him down as he always did.
It used to annoy him. The way Godzilla would prevent him from moving, the way he used to growl at him for even daring to shift under him.
Now, the feeling was comforting.
Godzilla purred into his palm, his rough tongue coming out to lick at Kong’s fingers. The ape groaned at the feeling, pulling his hand back. Godzilla only followed, determined to annoy Kong.
How else was he supposed to show the ape his love? Being affectionate? Blasphemy. He had to get under his skin to properly show him his love.
Kong had given up after Godzilla had practically rearranged himself just to lick his face instead. There really was no escaping the other titan’s… unusual way of affection.
It was one of the more tolerant ways, Kong could admit that. Far better than being chewed on in the fields they’d lie in at night.
Godzilla had grown a terrible habit of biting Kong. He didn’t know why or how— but he would occasionally rest with his hand enclosed over the other titan’s snout just so he wouldn’t be tempted to chomp on Kong’s shoulder.
The ape registered Mothra’s presence for once and looked down to see her staring at the two.
She looked… judgmental. It was hard to tell, since she didn’t show too much emotion, but she was definitely judging in some way. Definitely.
Godzilla couldn’t have cared less.
His focus was on the ape and the ape alone. Nothing else. Not even the moth probing into his mind. Not even the way he could sense Kong’s life beginning to dim.
It wasn’t dimming much. Just noticeable enough for Godzilla to know what would happen. He wouldn’t admit it, but the inevitable made him sad.
Maybe he should have killed Kong all those years ago. Then he wouldn’t have to lay here like this, curled around the aged ape.
The moth had taken flight out of the caverns, likely off to go find the ice titan lurking somewhere else.
It gave them alone time.
Alone time as in nap time.
Nap time as in sleep for a few days straight.
Kong had long since dozed off. Godzilla shifted their bodies so the ape could rest along his side, his tail moving to rest over the ape's scarred chest.
It wasn’t a nice feeling to know he’d been the cause of most of those scars. Of course, he had some from Kong as well. Some from fights, others from… other kinds of fights.
Godzilla laid his head on the stone floor, the warmth radiating from his own body a soothing balm for Kong’s increasingly aching muscles.
His tail subtly wrapped tighter around Kong’s arm, pulling him impossibly closer. Maybe if he held on tight enough, he wouldn’t ever have to let go.
He did have to let go.
It’d been weeks since Kong’s ankle healed, thanks to Mothra’s help, but he’d gotten physically worse.
Kong would wake up later in the day, and would uncharacteristically cling to Godzilla for his warmth, even during the day.
The surface king found himself staying in Hollow Earth longer and returning within less than a day. The titan’s on the surface seemed to understand what was happening below.
Just as Godzilla could feel it in his bones, the surface titans could feel his emotions practically radiating from the ground.
Even Rodan, ever the trouble-maker, had burrowed himself into a volcano, falling into hibernation.
Kong was sitting in the middle of one of the fields he and Godzilla would take their day naps in, staring off into the distance. Godzilla laid next to Kong’s side, arms tucked in and looking like a loaf.
He rested his head on the ape titan’s thigh, gazing up at him. The ape gazed back, his eyes more glassy than usual.
The ape’s hand came up to rest over the top of Godzilla’s head as he laid back in the grass, barely registering Godzilla turning around to lay down with him.
His heart had been slowing down throughout the day, Godzilla could feel it. It was slowly growing weaker to the point even Kong knew.
They both knew.
Sometimes Godzilla hated not being able to age along with his beloved subjects. But Kong wasn’t just a subject. He had been something else.
And now he was leaving. Right in front of him.
It was better than Kong leaving him while he was miles away on the surface, that was for sure.
Kong’s heartbeat became slower again, until it was agonizingly slow for Godzilla to listen to. He didn’t want him to go, but no amount of Mothra’s healing could stop him from growing old.
Godzilla pressed his snout against Kong’s temple, purring softly. The ape made a weak noise that sounded like a mix of an annoyed growl and a pleased grunt, his hand coming up one last time to rest on the back of Godzilla’s neck.
He would have bit him if it wasn’t for the state he was in. If it wasn’t for the state they were both in.
But as Kong took his last breath, Godzilla didn’t move. He didn’t want to. As much as he protected the natural order and the circle of life, he knew the scavengers would be here if he wasn’t lying down next to the ape.
He’d lie here for weeks, he decided. For months if needed. He’d let himself be buried under the dirt as well, let himself fall into hibernation.