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“Pathetic, that the Beast chooses to stay with King Pure Vanilla Cookie. It’s almost domestic.”
“Ha! Yeah, really. The ‘almighty’ Beast of deceit with the Beacon of Truth? It's not hard to tell who has the high ground.”
“I worry for our king. I could never- how brave he is to allow a monster into his life.”
Shadow Milk should’ve crumbled those cookies right then and there.
He had been wandering the halls of the castle, vandalizing various portraits, pranking servants, wallowing about his imprisonment. The usual.
Then these two, puny little cookies- meaningless side characters in his theater, really- walked by. They hadn’t noticed Shadow Milk ruining some random meeting room as they passed.
The jester had zoomed to the door when he first heard the two, hiding behind the wall with a grin and prepared to scare the life out of them.
But he didn’t. Shadow Milk listened to them, gnats blabbering about things they knew nothing about while he hid behind the door and simply… let them pass. How unlike him.
Shadow Milk has been on edge, to say the least, since his defeat. Being here was not at all helping. Something about the passive gossip had sort of… pushed him off the ledge he had already been teetering on. Anger blossomed quick and strong. It was overwhelming.
To think that he chooses to be there? That he wants to spend his time with that mushy old man? In this perfect, prissy, dump of a kingdom? They didn’t even know half of it. Who were they to talk about his life, as inferior as they were? Things Shadow Milk could destroy in an instant, and they still had the gall to talk about him like that. It was stupid, it was unthinkable, and it made Shadow Milk so, so furious.
The worst part was, as witless as those cookies were, they were right. Pure Vanilla was harboring a monster. Shadow Milk was not one to deny it. Someone- something that could blow up at any time, that could hurt and destroy until all that remained was a heart-broken Pure Vanilla. He could almost see the terrified look on his face. Shadow Milk idly imagines the healer realizing how wrong he was about him.
The unrelenting affection from the king was sickening. It clearly was of no benefit to Pure Vanilla. The amount of care he’s received since he got here was all so wrongly given. It was disgusting, it was almost laughable in its lunacy.
There was this other, gross feeling festering underneath his anger. He couldn’t name it. Shadow Milk supposed that it was what kept him from lashing out at those cookies. He could have hurt them easily, left his place hidden behind the door and showcase his power, remind them of their place. Normally, he would have. But whatever this feeling was, it had stopped that from happening. It was probably also what had him unraveled so fast. What made him a heavy breathing, furious, shaking mess.
He was not the type to lose all composure so easily- Shadow Milk was the perfect actor, he’s meant to stay in character, and this thing boiling in his core was a humiliating liability.
It may be sadness. That wasn’t quite the word. Hatred? No, far too familiar- he would know it when he felt it. It was like… a punch to a gut. Or something along those lines. It was pointless to put a word to it- whatever it was, it’s embarrassing.
Shadow Milk’s thoughts began to spiral, he lost touch with his surroundings as his fury pressed down on him. It overcame all perception, his senses, and replaced any reason in his head. He hardly noticed his shaking physical condition, his anger was so palpable-
He shouldn't be here, he doesn’t belong here. He stands out here, in a way that made him feel scrutinized rather than special. He should still be in the Spire, he misses the spiraling darkness of his own domain. No- He should still be in the Silver Tree. They shouldn’t have let him get out, he doesn’t deserve this light and warmth, the Faeries were right about him, the Witches were right.
Shadow Milk needed to get out of this vile, beautiful place, he needed to break something and destroy something, and, and– he stopped. There was a hand on his shoulder.
“Shadow Milk? Are you alr-”
Shadow Milk’s facade slipped into place in an instant– well-practiced and perfect in its chaos.
He was quick to whip around and face the cookie who’d touched him. He knew it was Pure Vanilla. They made eye contact– familiar, infuriating blue and yellow eyes peering into Shadow Milk’s own. They were soft, Shadow Milk might even say innocent if he didn’t know better. Immediately, subconsciously, shadows swallowed their surroundings, faster than he could keep track of– and the two were isolated within Shadow Milk’s bubble of darkness.
Shadow Milk loomed over Pure Vanilla Cookie, whose hand had flinched away. Rightfully. The saintly thing that Pure Vanilla was, he stuck out here. His light was permeating, defiling Shadow Milk’s deceit.
“Ah, the man of the hour!” Shadow Milk exclaimed, voice sing-song and more abrasive than necessary. “Your attempts at consolation are cute, really, but aimless. You’re looking for something that just isn’t there, silly!"
Pure Vanilla didn’t answer him, couldn’t. Shadow Milk watched as his breath quickened and spiraled out of his control, as his head darted from one side to the other in obvious fear.
For a split second, he looked like Truthless Recluse. Something heady and foul coiled in the Beast’s stomach. A wide, giddy grin suddenly split across his face.
“Are you scared of me, Nilly?”
The eyes scattered within the bubble focused tensely on the out of place thing shaking in their center. Pure Vanilla, who couldn’t help but back away, was trying hard to steady his breathing, to stop his shaking.
“No, I am not scared of you,” He stated, his voice firm but trembling. Shadow Milk is the Beast of deceit– he knows a lie when he sees one.
“Lying isn’t exactly your thing, but a noble attempt!” Familiar anger was creeping back into his voice, it threatened to take him out of character.
Shadow Milk watched as the thief steadied himself, recollecting and calming as if he wasn’t in the presence of a monster. It was almost disrespectful.
“Shadow Milk, I don't fear you. I know you, you will not harm me.” He restated, firmer this time.
“Foolish! You complete, utter, fool!” Shadow Milk practically yelled, delirium creeping into his voice now. “You keep a Beast in your quarters, holding its Soul Jam, no less, and you don’t think I'll hurt you?” He barked out a laugh. “Oh, you are just so silly!”
The jester grabbed Pure Vanilla’s cheek, claws gripped tight around his jaw. Their faces were inches apart. Shadow Milk's smile was wide and twisted as he dragged his pointed fingertip beneath the other’s eye. A thin, vertical line formed through his face under Shadow Milk’s finger– blood quickly beaded along the cut. It matched the dark blue scar beneath Shadow Milk’s own eye. How poetic.
Pure Vanilla let out a shaky breath, his mouth twitched in pain, but he didn’t move away. Why? Why does he stay?
“You know full well I could end you right now. I’ve done it before! I could rip you open, torture you and destroy you until you’re nothing but a pile of crumbs. Oh, how fun that would be! The oh-so-powerful Pure Vanilla cookie would be no more!”
“Maybe so, but you won’t.” He was unflinching. There was blood running down his cheek, there was nothing but darkness enveloping him, he should be scared.
The healer just stood there, mismatched eyes looking into Shadow Milk’s own, his abominable, ever present light mocking him. Pure Vanilla brought his thumb to his cheek, carefully wiping the blood away from the cut Shadow Milk carved into his perfect face.
He wanted to ruin him, tear apart the pretty, pristine face before him, just for being so perfect. For being what the Witches liked more, for being better than him. Better? Better than the Shadow Milk Cookie? Original holder of the Soul Jam of knowledge? The one and only Beast of deceit? Ha! The thought made him laugh.
Shadow Milk laughed, then– at nothing, really, nothing but his own thinking. He laughed and laughed, loud, assured and almost joyous. He laughed until it morphed into something more pitiful than anything, a desperate noise of rage.
The other cookie cocked his head almost sympathetically– what was there to sympathize with, he wondered– and brought his hand up to Shadow Milk’s cheek. The gesture caught him off guard. It was far gentler than how he had grabbed Pure Vanilla’s cheek. He was quick to slap his hand away, recoiling back into the dark.
“Don’t touch me, thief.” Shadow Milk rasped. The other frowned at that.
“Shadow Milk…” Pure Vanilla started.
“No, don't you dare start with any of that ‘I’m all loving’ bullshit,” He spat, cutting the other off. “You’re naive to think I’m fixable, or- or whatever you want from me.”
“Shadow Milk.”
“You know I'm a Beast, you fool. Your stupid quest is doomed, you’re practically running around in circles!! Can’t you just leave me be, I don’t need you to-”
“Shadow Milk!” Pure Vanilla yelled- was he angry now? Maybe. It sounded like it. Shadow Milk hoped so.
“I’m not trying to fix you! You are a Beast, and you’re right– I would be naive to deny that. I am allowed to acknowledge your Beasthood while wanting to be around you.”
“Oh, sure! Real enduring, Nilly.”
“Stop with the theatrics, please, Shadow Milk! You may not be a good man. You may have hurt people in the past. But I still know what I want. I want to be around you.” His voice was gentle, even under the layer of his frustration. Not in a way that made him feel coddled, though. It made something in Shadow Milk weak.
“I’ve been awful to you. I tortured you in that place! How stupid could you possibly be to put your trust in me?”
“Underneath the ‘evil’ you so badly want to embody, I have gotten to know you. You’re funny, entertaining as you choose to be, you’re impossibly smart, you have proven again and again to have the capacity for kindness. I enjoy your presence, and your past will not change that.”
A thousand witty remarks, comebacks, sprung to Shadow Milk’s lips, but none came out. As if Pure Vanilla’s words had disarmed him of any response. When there was no reply, Pure Vanilla continued without one.
“I know you were terrible, to me and to others. And I–” Pure Vanilla swallowed down a voice crack. “I will never forget that. There is no way I could.”
Shadow Milk swallowed thickly, turning his gaze down to his shaking hand, away the light of the man in front of him.
“Yet, I still keep you here, allow you into my home, trust you with my citizens. Do you truly believe I would do so without reason?”
“Stop it,” Shadow Milk hissed.
“It’s because I understand it now. I understand why you did what you did. You wanted someone close to you-”
“I said stop.”
“You wanted someone close to you and your cruelty was the only way you knew how to get it. It does not make it acceptable, but I understand it.”
“You don’t understand any of it,” Shadow Milk spat. “I knew what I was doing, I wanted to hurt you, I- I…” He was stumbling over his words, his deceit was spilling out of his control like water in his hands. Was that even true? Did he want to hurt Pure Vanilla?
“I believe that no one should be given up on, even the Beast of Deceit,” Pure Vanilla continued, his voice painfully righteous. “You are more than a monster. You are here because I like you. I wish you could understand that. I like you, Shadow Milk Cookie. You cannot argue that away.”
His knees buckled– Shadow Milk hadn’t noticed how weak his legs had gone until he fell to the floor. How pathetic that he reacted like that. Pathetic, that the Ancient didn’t sneer, didn’t look down on him, didn’t so much as bat an eye when he hit the ground. Shadow Milk would have, had it been the other way around.
He wasn't powerful or fearsome like he had been when he first pulled Pure Vanilla into his shadows– was he even fearsome from the start? Now, he had been reduced to a mess of darkness and shaky eyes and loathing. He didn’t know if it was loathing for Pure Vanilla or for himself.
“Geez, Vanilla- you don’t quit, do ya?” He said through a weak laugh.
“No, I don’t,” Pure Vanilla replied, with a weary but warm, always warm, smile. “Not when it’s someone I love.”
Pure Vanilla lowered his hand, offering it out to Shadow Milk, still crumpled on the floor, pathetic and unworthy.
The darkness surrounding them melted away with Shadow Milk’s control, spilling into the floor and falling back to its creator. When the shadows fell away, the natural light from the window behind them slammed into the room, harsh and no longer hidden by Shadow Milk’s design. He felt especially vulnerable in the light.
Immediately, the sun hit the back of Pure Vanilla’s head. His face was framed perfectly with light, bouncing off of his skull in a way that could have been a halo.
If Pure Vanilla Cookie was holy, then Shadow Milk felt like Lucifer.
The feeling of powerlessness, of being lesser than– a sensation that often accompanied Pure Vanilla and his attempts at bonding– was achingly reminiscent of an earlier him.
Shadow Milk thinks back to his time as the Fount of Knowledge. He doesn't often, he’d rather not, but it manages to work its way into his mind anyways.
He remembers the harsh touch of the Witches as they stripped him of his Soul Jam- the way they held him down, the weight of them on his wrists and ribcage, on his mind. The sensation was similar to being ripped open and dismembered as they wrenched that piece of him away.
He remembers the hand of his creators as they carved the sigil of knowledge over his eye, the burning pain as the hands that made him teared through his face to forever remind him of his sin. Shadow Milk brought his hand to the scar tissue on his right eye. It was a mockery now.
He remembers his prison, how he was caged by that wretched silver. He remembers, most of all, aching to be touched again. To be touched by his creators, to be loved like they loved the Fount of Knowledge. The worst part was not that they had tore open his face, or that they had dug inside of his soul to take it from him, but that it would never happen again.
He had screamed until his throat was sore in that place. He would scream until his throat couldn’t take anymore, and then he would wait until he could scream again. Mostly Shadow Milk screamed for forgiveness. He spent his days desperately begging the void of the Silver Tree for absolution, repeating that he could repent, he could, he could. Repent, repent, repent.
Repent for what? What was his sin? Shadow Milk still can’t understand his punishment. At the time, he had not seen his lies as something to be punished. Knowledge had weighed heavy on the Fount of Knowledge’s mind, a burden to be beared for the sake of cookie-kind.
He didn’t want others to carry this weight, because it hurt. No one wanted to know the true purpose of a cookie’s creation– of course they didn't. The fount of knowledge didn’t want to know that. He remembers having often wished to have never learned it in the first place.
Deceit was only a means to make his knowledge simpler for other cookies, at first. Lies were meant to ease the pain of the truth. He couldn’t comprehend Witches’ anger at the time, he didn’t know what he had done wrong, why he deserved thousands of years of rotting in that Tree.
Now, though, Shadow Milk would be quick to rebuke knowledge for the sake of deceit. He has come to the conclusion that truth does more harm than good. His intelligence is nothing but a tool for him to support his cunning.
Those screams for forgiveness eventually turned to screams of rage. The more time he spent between those silver bars, the more his mind grew saturated and unraveled, the more his resentment for the Witches grew.
Shadow Milk’s corruption had festered and grew in his isolation until only flickers of the Fount of Knowledge remained– as well as the Fount’s piety. He grew to despise the Witches for taking his power away from him, for taking a piece of his soul, for letting him rot and ruin there. By the time Shadow Milk was finally, finally free, there was nothing he hated more. It was why he hated Pure Vanilla so much when the two had first met.
What made Shadow Milk the most sick was how much Pure Vanilla reminded him of the Witches. He had flinched when he saw his other half for the first time. His freedom was still fresh, his powers were still weak.
Of course, Pure Vanilla had stolen his Soul Jam; they were undeniably connected, they literally shared a soul, and it was impossibly hard for Shadow Milk to face at first. But that wasn’t exactly why he reacted that way.
There was a distinct warmth to Pure Vanilla. A warmth that was given to him by the Witches when he became an ancient. A warmth the Fount of Knowledge tried so hard to earn, a warmth Shadow Milk had grown to hate. A warmth that he almost leaned into after so much time in the cold and the dark of that place.
Even now, the light radiating from the healer, the heat of his hand, the softness of his touch- it was achingly similar to the sensation of the hands of his creators. It makes him hate Pure Vanilla, it makes him want to be loved by Pure Vanilla, it makes him crave to be held by him and to be forgiven by him.
And forgiveness was right there in front of his face. It’s been there since the second he was defeated.
The idea of Pure Vanilla accepting him made Shadow Milk ache a certain way. It felt like he might as well be accepting the Witches with him.
More so, it was foolish. He’s nothing like the absolute saint that’s so set on befriending him. He’s made that abundantly, impossibly clear. Shadow Milk was sure it would never make sense to him.
But he needs it. Even if he hates to admit it. He needs love.
Shadow Milk allowed himself to be lifted by the other’s hands, and he was brought into an embrace.
Shadow milk wracks his brain for the last time he’s had a hug. It was definitely before he was imprisoned. There were, obviously, no hugs in his isolation. After he broke free- well, touch was never a priority. He was too busy by then.
The touch of the witches was almost a similar sensation to this- the weight of another living thing on you, its skin against yours. And that warmth, of course, of course. With that instance being the last real sensation he felt before being locked away in the silver tree, it sat with him for thousands of years. There was a point where it seemed like that touch was the only way touch could be.
Pure Vanillas arms were firmly wrapped around his body, his head was slotted next to shadow milk’s own, his chin dug into the crook of Shadow Milk’s neck. Shadow Milk’s arms had come up to the other’s back too.
The jester was enveloped with white robes and blond hair, enveloped with light. Shadow Milk felt frail here. Weak, small. It reminded him of the way he had felt under the hands of the Witches.
Though, it was also safe. He felt safe. It overpowered that lingering reminder of the Witches. It was comforting, undeniably so, the way the other’s arms were squeezing him, the way they touched each other so thoroughly this way.
The rage and resentment he held for the other almost faded with their embrace. It almost didn’t matter why he hated Pure Vanilla so much in the first place.
Shadow Milk had forgotten how nice it is to be hugged.
This was, Shadow Milk realized then, not the same as the touch of his creators. Not even close.
Maybe, he thought as Pure Vanilla’s hands tightened around his back— Maybe he was the one who made no sense.
The sheer amount of pain and suffering of his creator's hands on his body made it barely comparable to this. That was nothing like the satisfying sensation of another’s body wrapped around his. The only thing tying them together was the fact that touching was involved at all.
He associated touch— touch and Pure Vanilla Cookie with the Witches, and all the suffering they’d caused him. But they were not the same, he understands.
Maybe it was just a hug. It didn’t mean his pride had to be broken, his ideology shattered. Maybe Pure Vanilla did like him, and it was as simple as that.
It gets tiring, evidently, to constantly push against love and kindness with everything you have, when you know it feels so right.
It's amazing, truly, that Pure Vanilla has persisted despite Shadow Milk’s never-ending hatred. He’s just… so… good. He is good, unrefutably and intensely good.
“You are unrelenting in your kindness,” Shadow Milk murmured into Pure Vanilla’s shoulder.
“I am.”
“It’ll ruin you one day,” he said, one final, weak little push he wasn’t even sure if he found it true or not.
“No, I don't believe it will,” the healer hummed. He said it like it was simple. Shadow Milk, for once, believed it was.
He allowed himself to lean into the warmth. Not warmth of the witches. Just the heat of affection and another body.
Shadow Milk did not feel monstrous here, in the arms of his other half. He felt safe, maybe even forgiven.
He felt loved.