Monkey Business in Gravesfield 4 (Patreon)

Monkey Business in Gravesfield 4 - or ‘A Tale of a Saiyan, a Basilisk, and a Human’ (Post-DBZ Xenoverse x Pre-Finale The Owl House, Saiyan!OC)

Masha was having a blast.

Jay was back! This made the whole year ten times better than they could have expected it to go. First, they made a new friend in Vee, now they also got their best buddy back from his crazy unplanned year-long school session outside of Gravesfield!

Now he was back, and he hadn’t changed much. At least, not in terms of personality. He was a bit more ‘mature’ as he justified some of his super-cautious attitude, but it wasn’t that different from what Masha was familiar with when they handled their first friend ever.

It was like the perfect storm. But actually good. Things were bound to be close to how it used to be, if not better!

Except that… Well, it wasn’t truly the case.

It wasn’t Jay’s fault at that, Masha wouldn’t give him that sort of guilt considering how mortified he was to have noticed the message only recently. But Masha also felt that this whole situation was baiting them again into the fuzzy mindset they felt back when he left.

Masha could remember the unease, the agonious need to tell him two things. First, coming out to him as a non-binary person. And then, as they were celebrating the coming out, also admitting to be in love with him.

While many would be surprised by how that was being structured, Masha had planned this from how things went for the two of them. It was a bout of randomly-assigned detention that made them know each other, then it became all about… well, being two morons that enjoyed doing stuff away from others.

It was true that they were quite similar in quirkiness to Vee’s sister, Luz, but where Luz Noceda wanted to make friends, Masha and Jay wanted to just be ‘weird alone’. It was why not many knew of their friendship.

So, no one could exactly understand why Masha hit a bit of a bump when he left. The message going unnoticed became a source for a lot of anguish for them. Masha thought it was maybe because he couldn’t answer since he was traveling, then because of classes, and then it became a bit of a self-accusation. Maybe they had made a mistake to trust him- no, maybe they had come out a bit too suddenly.

Jay was missing from school for a while, and it took them a moment to visit his uncle and aunt’s home to realize that Jay had been put on a bus to a distant school a day before Masha came out.

That explained so much, but it didn’t draw back the pure upset they put themselves through at the idea that he had betrayed their trust. The fact he had gone to a school where no phone made it clear he didn’t just see their message. And Masha felt twice a dumbass for thinking it was the fault of either themselves or Jay’s. No, it was well beyond their planning. Yet it didn’t mean the aborted confession didn’t still weigh on their mind.

Masha was clearly into him, enough to feel bad when he couldn’t be around to talk with them. Months later, they were in a better state of mind and fitting better with others. They tried to make some friends, but only Vee remained as the true female friend that stuck around.

Then Jay came back and… now things were somewhat normal. Masha smiled, they were glad they now had two friends to have fun with but- but the old feelings weren’t  gone.

Those unfinished businesses were indeed left unfinished, and they knew that a solution had to be found.

So, instead of running away from it, Masha did the one thing that had proved to be telling of what they had to do about it: resume that old friendship and see where that would take them.

Two weeks into the school year, Masha had the ‘bright’ idea to hit the local lake.

Originally, Vee had been expected to come along, but she mentioned something about this being the ‘time of the month’ and Masha could only accept the good excuse as one can’t exactly stop nature at that point.

So, it was just Masha and Jay. Like they used to be, back again to ‘terrorize’ the lake.

“I swear, we are not kids anymore but…” Jay sighed, smiling back to them. “But it sure felt like it’s been a while. I missed doing this.”

“More like centuries! Can’t you see my mighty beard, you barbarian?” Masha teasingly rebuked, the ‘barbarian’ thing connected to the stupid stuff that Jay said about the ‘fur circle’ around his trunks being a ‘fashion choice’.

More like a fashion suicide.

Masha wasn’t exactly into fashion herself, but they found that to be atrocious. And they knew Jay was lying because he was as shit as they were. Still, it didn’t matter much to them as they went on to swim around, try to out splash each other, do a competition of cannon balls from the rusty plank leading to the muddy water and then-

And then they took a moment to sit and bask under the soft sun. Smiling, Masha looked at the clouds before they leaned down to rest on her back. Jay mimicked her and the two just stood there, enjoying the pleasant moment shared together.

Then, Masha glanced at Jay, sighing in relief at how good he got. The muscles and abs were definitely getting them to act up a bit, but the girl knew better than to go ‘ooga-booga’ before a pair of abs. Even though it was abs that their object of affection had.

Soon their gaze went lower and they frowned at the fur thing. It looked so impractical, and Masha got the idea of just snatching it away and calling him out for being a moron.

It was stuff they used to do and…

"Ouch!"

It kind of didn’t go as intended.

The fur thing- it kind of unraveled. And formed a tail. One that was moving way too freely for it to be one of those sex-toy some people trying to be ‘animal people’ would put up their butts.

“Oh, that’s not an ass-plug.”

…

“A-And the way you decided it was by just pulling at me until you realized it doesn’t come off?!” Jay replied with some pain-induced anger, forcing Masha to let go of the tail.

“Nope, can see it gets right above your pretty butt. And the fact that it can move like that,” Masha quickly replied, trying to sound flat, but realizing they had just mentioned his butt as ‘pretty’. “So, what’s all that about?”

He huffed and then looked away for a moment. “So… I kind of… never went to another school.”

“Oh?”

“And the reason why that got covered up like that is because I kind of got pulled in a big adventure.”

“...One that turned you into a monkey-man?”

Jay frowned in clear lack of amusement. “I’ll let that one pass, but nah, it’s… Well, I kind of got turned into an alien.”

And now things got very interesting. Masha had known for a while something crazy was going on in Gravesfield, but they could tell Jay’s situation was far more different than just that.

In fact, it was astronomically far bigger than anything conjured within Gravesfield.

Working as some sort of timeline police for a group of powerful people that trained you to fix things and stop dangerous baddies trying to erase existence through multiple occasions sounded like a lot.

Enough to leave Masha a bit concerned for Jay as he was explaining this to them. The girl wasn’t stupid, they knew Jay enough to know he had been shaken up a bit from the early steps and that going back to ‘normal’ wasn’t easy.

But what really stood out to Masha wasn’t much of Jay’s own struggle, but the fact that the girl had unconsciously shifted to be onto him. He was laying down again, and they had moved to rest their arms on his chest and lean onto him to find a pillow.

Despite how rough the skin seemed at a glance, it was actually soft and smooth. Strong for sure, but not exactly unpleasant to rest upon like that. As the tale ended, Masha had a lot to digest.

A lot to think about later on as that was a fucking lot more than they had expected. Still, Masha could tell it took a lot from Jay and… this shouldn’t change anything!

Sure, Jay was now a monkey-man… but what about it? He wanted to behave normally, he was still their friend and- and he had trusted them. He even told them that he was really mortified about the whole messaging thing and apologized again for missing it as he just didn’t have the phone on him when that happened.

So… Masha had to raise this point the only way Jay could understand.

“Jay, you mentioned that you are, like, super-strong and all but…” Masha offered a cheeky grin as they asked this. “Are you still ticklish?”

Still recoiling from retelling his year-long adventure, Jay was distracted. “Yeah but- Wait, no-Ohohohohohohoh!”

With deft fingers, Masha struck their best friend ruthlessly, making sure to obtain the most hilarious chuckles from the moron for getting so depressed so suddenly.

“Ah, I knew it! You’re still Jay! So, what if you got a monkey tail? You still got an amazing bod from that!”

And then, to finalize the ordeal, Masha was flashed by a nervous smile and a bit of a blush plastered on Jay’s face.

This hangout revealed a lot, but Masha knew this was just the beginning. And she had yet to realize Vee wasn’t that different in situation to her best buddy.

—------d-d-d-d—------

AN

Jay told Masha the truth… or maybe not. Not the full truth. Some stuff he reasonably omitted to not open some awkward questions in regard to friendships. Nah, it’s not about jealousy shipping, but rather about… Well, unfinished businesses.

It’s always about that for these two. And Vee. I wonder what the lil’ Basilisk will do with that.

Also- POV: Masha learning their boyfriend can teleport them out of a bad spot so jail is no longer a threat for their smug ass.