Work Text:
I) Love
"You paint such a pretty figure... Why? Surely I don't look all that lovely, do I?" It's meant as a tease, a hook for the slight chance of seeing the painter flustered before him.
Instead Blueberry Milk finds heat creeping up his neck to the very tips of his ears at the answer given to him, a fuzzy sort of sweetness wrapping him in its gentle hold.
"Isn't it exactly so? You are lovely and that is why I paint you as such. It is your grace in every movement you make that I'm allowed to paint with such smooth and sure strokes - If only to capture a fraction of your elegance, of course." The painter smiles, his eyes curved in soft crescents.
There's a fluttering inside Blueberry Milk, a thrumming within not unlike the magic of his soul jam. It's comforting anyhow, and the feeling only grows when the painter speaks again.
"There is plenty more about you that I find beautiful as well, but..." His eyes fall on the painting in front of them before darting towards the flushed face of the headmaster. "I fear there are some sights I'd like to keep for myself."
His hand is warm against Blueberry Milk's burning cheek, the sweep of his thumb against the curve of his jaw leaving the headmaster melting like sugar.
"Let me show you all the ways I love you, my muse."
The painter draws him in and he falls easily onto him.
Blueberry Milk had never known how sweet love could taste like until he had it pressed against his lips and mapped out on his tongue. He had felt how love stuffed one's head with honey when driven mad with pleasure, a sinful worship that could stray even the most devoted from their faith.
Love, oh love! Addicting in its tenderness and warmth and all the more dangerous because of it. Blueberry Milk yearns for more when they kiss, aches for the full weight of love on him even as their limbs intwine and he's begging for more, more please.
It is only when morning comes that they part, unwilling as they both are.
"You'll think of me, won't you?" The painter leans in, pressing a kiss against a giggling Blueberry Milk's forehead. And just because he can, he leaves another one on smiling lips, short and sweet.
"Yes yes, of course you big oaf. I'll think of you lots alright? But only if you promise to come back soon so I don't go missing you too much."
"If my heart so desires it, who am I to deny him? I'll be back before you know it love."
He was a fool to have believed him.
---
II) Deceit
His beloved had vanished without a trace. At least, that was what everyone believed.
Blueberry Milk knew better. He had seen the Witches' banquet, stared in horror as they gorged on silver platters of their own creation. Their hands were stained, sticky with jam and dripping down onto the mess of crumbs below.
He heard the horrid screams from crumpled heaps of cookies, desperately crying out for loved ones knowing they couldn't call upon their gods - Not when it was all a ruse, a lie to lead the faithful to their slaughter.
And his beloved, he...
He had called out for Blueberry Milk, the painter's voice always sweet and kind now distorted with terror. Blueberry Milk couldn't find him before his screams went silent.
There isn't much he remembers of that day, beyond the numbing haze of hate and loss.
---
III) Beast
Blueberry Milk was baked with all the trappings of a god. The Witches' pet - An immortal, unparalleled in his gift of Knowledge, sent to help the common masses and bring solace to those in need, to grant them false enlightenment.
And much like a god, he had all the rage of one.
What did their gods, the Witches, do in their hunger? What do gods in their fickle fleeting emotions do when they're bored?
Ah, questions questions, the driving force of knowledge and yet so little answers.
So here's what he will tell you:
Destruction. Disasters. Disease.
Death.
Death of a beloved and an uncaring, mindless slaughter of his kind just to sate a passing craving.
And if his creators could be so cruel, who's to say he can't be as well? Afterall, he was made a god with human emotions - a most terrible mistake on the Witches' part, by the way - and he had fallen to the most human experience of all: Love.
Love, oh how he loved him, still loves him. He had indulged in the sweetness of it all, stuffed himself full with all the honey and warmth that came with living, truly living - For once, in all the centuries since his creation, did his heart stir.
A heart that the Witches took from him the day his beloved died at their hands.
It was only fair for him, with all his divine wrath and might, to take away every little crumb of what the Witches held so dearly, to rend everything in sight.
For what else could a being baked in deceit do, but lie and destroy?
---
IV) Reflection
It doesn't take long for Blueberry Milk to notice the portrait's change.
Gone were the gentle strokes that made his smile, replaced by a wicked upturn of the lips and his eyes, once closed in eternal serenity now stared cruelly back at him.
His love, ever the romantic, had told him once, how paintings were a reflection of its creator.
"They are a part of me as much as my blood and flesh are, a mirror of how I see the world. My feelings on a subject, be it the sun at dawn or a simple bouquet of flowers, are impossible to hide."
"To create something with your own hands is a sacred thing, an art that requires days and months - years even - of my life. How could I not leave a part of me behind when I'm finished?"
Blueberry Milk can't help but wonder if this was how his beloved would view him now.
Twisted, ugly - An unsightly stain on the only thing left by his beloved.
"Perhaps that is why I enjoy our sessions together, headmaster - My art has seen much more beauty since I met you."
All he could see was filth.
"Hah... HAHAHAHA! So this is what it come to. Oh my dearest, you must understand... I'm doing this for you, everything, all of it for you." Blueberry Milk reaches out to the painting, once made with love now tainted with his sins. His soul jam in the portrait swirls with black ink. "So please..."
"Please don't look at me like that..." The resounding silence offers nothing to his plight, neither damnation nor salvation. His reflection stares back at him.
Blueberry Milk does the only thing he can.
With a single clawed finger, he rakes it clean across the portrait's nametag. Blueberry Milk was lovely, beautiful - Someone to make a muse of, someone worthy of his love.
Someone he was not.
His deed now finished, Shadow Milk allows himself a semblance of a smile. It feels as warped and crooked as the one in the painting.
---
V) Key
It's empty in the void as it always is, cold and stuffy despite how endless the darkness stretched on for.
Still in this - dumb, stupid, absolutely boring - prison, Shadow Milk yearns. He missed him, his one and only heart, though he can't clearly remember all the details he loved about him.
Shadow Milk loved his voice that was always gentle yet he couldn't remember the sound of it. He loved the way the painter smiled, eyes scrunched and tender yet he couldn't picture the face it belonged to. Even his beloved's name had slipped past his mind, now lost to time forever.
Shadow Milk loves him and that's all he knows.
"Oh, what a lovely brooch!"
The voice sends Shadow Milk jolting, and the light that follows blinds him briefly. A rift in the void, a tiny window to the outside world and sparking with magical essence - His, to be specific.
When he peeks through the gap, he sees the missing half of his soul jam being picked up by the owner of the mysterious voice.
There's an ache in his chest when Shadow Milk sees the thief of his soul jam, a feeling he can't quite name as he stares at the warm smile on the cookie's face. It is not an unfamiliar feeling.
Shadow Milk quickly decides it as anger instead and perhaps, a little spark of hope that he could finally, finally escape this wretched place.
---
VI) Light
"You don't have to be lonely... I'm right here." The saint takes a step forward in all his golden light, driving the shadows away. He stretches a hand towards Shadow Milk, a smile on his face and eyes crescent turned.
"Please..." His hand is warm, so very warm, against the cold of Shadow Milk's skin, scorching heat across his cheek.
For a brief moment Shadow Milk sees his beloved right in front of him, the painter's adoring gaze overlapping that of the saint.
Give in. Something within him coos, a figure lurking in the dark made of sugar and honey, its voice a temptation. You must have known, the whisper is almost drowned out by the thumping in chest.
You must have known why your soul jam chose him.
Shadow Milk finds himself sinking into the heat, shadows melting around him. The saint's hold is tender - familiar - and it feels like salvation.
For is it not the same reason why your heart belonged to me?
From the corner of his eyes, he sees his beloved bathed in light and smiling sweetly at him. He's gone in a blink and all Shadow Milk can see is Pure Vanilla in front of him. His soul jam and heart both, tremble beneath the saint's soft gaze.
"Won't you let me hold you again, my muse?"
Shadow Milk still isn't sure if he can believe a word he says, to trust as he did before.
But love? He had never once stopped loving him.
When Pure Vanilla pulls him in, Shadow Milk finds himself falling just as he once did oh so long ago.