Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The beast had purposely pried the Recluse’s staff from the iron grip of his hands, and so was being led in hazy vision by clawed fingers through the weaving layers and hallways of the spire; albeit, for what the beast had deemed to him a ‘small gift’.

This is how their relationship often felt; a labyrinth of haziness caused by purposeful misguidance, namely on the devils’ part. The Truthless Recluse had lost his recollection of the last time he guided his own path, the last time he had chosen something that wasn’t first suggested or coerced by touchy fingers or bundles of giggles at a makeshift teatime. Much like how this gift had first been suggested.

Originally, he had been dragged along by his palm like a used, ragged doll, the force of the beasts relentless pull causing his feet to trip every now and again as he caught on the edges of his robes.
But now, as they seemed to be ascending a winding staircase, Shadow Milk has some common decency to guide him more thoroughly by taking both his hands as they reached their peak; better than the Recluse gliding his forgotten hand against the curving cobblestone walls to try and gain balance, anyway.

He could see delicately as a smile began to raise on the beasts face; his cheeks somewhat rosy and coloured sclera glowing like burning wicks in excitement, or maybe fluster.

“I’d say close your eyes but, you can’t see anyway!”
He lets out a chortle at his own joke as he removes one hand to gently push against what must be a door - it’s creaking signifying some kind of old age but, to the Recluse, who knows anymore.

“Come…follow.” Shadow Milk whispers, voice soft as velvet. The way his voice was able to fluctuate so easily always made the Recluse’s ears wince.

Whatever they enter suddenly causes a burst of bright light against his retina, so much so he has to squint to observe, and gaze upwards at its looming dome ceiling that’s allowing the warmth of the sun to blaze through.
It appears to be a circular room, with its flooring layered as it builds up to different heights; the Recluse and beast seemingly stood in the lowest, but still most grounded area of the space.

“What..what is..”

Is all the Recluse can muster under his breath as he stands in the centre, spinning around as a ballerina in a music box would to better view his surroundings. Shadow Milk disconnects from him.

There’s multiple structures of fuzz and haze built in various areas around him; a notably large thing adjacent to the door they entered from being the most prominent formation.
As he breathes, he can intake and smell a floral and fresh aroma filtering all around him.
It was definitely not an old area then, unlike the stairwell; it was clean, and new, and most certainly held foliages of some kind.

He can hear the beast snicker under his breath; a whimsical tune hailing from his left.
He whips around as a prey would do upon hearing rustling, heart pounding; his cloak swinging with him dramatically.

“You probably want this nifty thing back..don’t you?”
Shadow Milk holds the long vine of his staff in his spindly hands, appearing out of nowhere, holding it out on display with his palms like an offering.

A beat of silence.

“Take it.”

The Recluse doesn’t wait. He swiftly moves to claim back his staff, and the static of his retina clears into a golden light of clean vision.
The first thing he sees, of course, is the devil himself; his slit pupils dangerously close and dilated, blue lips curled and long eyelashes batting softly.
The jester hat he wore over unruly hair framing his face in a sort of tiara, expanding his silhouette and making him seem all the more menacing, and rather confusing to the Recluse.
Bells on the end of said hat twinkling as his body seems to shake in giddy.

The Recluse’s upper lip twitches in annoyance at Shadow Milk’s demeanour; all the most common state to find him in around the Recluse for reasons he’d rather not come to terms with; all smiling and observant, eyes wide and dark full of insatiability.

When he’d first emerged and declared himself after his fall from the spire and into the river of rebirth, the beast’s attitude seemed to immediately blossom into something all the more demanding, and relative.
The Recluse had begun to feel like a hamster running aimlessly in a purposely placed wheel, whilst the devil watched all too close with claws waving celery with the way he’d started to be treated.
Every movement and expression he made was carefully watched and calculated by Shadow Milk, who would find imperfect or perfect pieces of his clay that needed to be fixed, or contrastingly polished and praised for nurturing.
Everything was a game. A test for a false reward.

Even now, he knew - he is being tested somehow, someway. But in contrast at least, this was not a game; they had not placed any pawns just yet.

“Getting a bit of…say, deja vu, are we there?” The devil finally says, breaking the quiet between them.

The Recluse doesn’t respond. Instead, he gives one last gaze into Shadow Milk’s eyes before turning his back, and viewing the room in a new, brighter light.

It’s a greenhouse.

A strangled noise escapes his throat, face contorting into horror.

It’s not any greenhouse.

His gloved hand flies from his open sleeve to cover his mouth.

It’s his greenhouse.
A copy of the one housed in his kingdom - a sanctum miles away, both in body and memory.

Everything is exactly as it was - is, a small, fragile voice reminds him to say.
All down to the various stations of growths of different and unique flowers and foliages he so enjoyed nurturing.
He realises that his minuscule garden is what structure he had previously noticed hails opposite the door, with its small pond and stream. His eye twitches from the flurry of buried memories.

Everything is as it was.

Except..

“What-…” The Recluse’s voice cracks in his shock, “have you done..?”

The white lily’s that grew in flocks surrounding his garden, were instead mass swarms of milkcrown’s.

Growing, curling, in shades of milky greys and whites. Slivers of whispers exuding in their nectars.

“Hah! Ta-Da! Whatdoyouthink?” The beast declares, his boots clicking against glass floor as he strides towards the Recluse’s shaking form, falsely oblivious to his visage.
He swings his arms out dramatically to further strengthen his grandeur.

The Recluse’s eyes grow dark as he meets the devils, hand curling down to grip at his high collar.

“Why..have you done this?”

“Oh, you insult me so! Do you not think of me as a most generous cookie?”

“Greatest from the sort.” The Recluse snides.

Shadow Milk seems pleased at his anguish; he always has done. He smiles a sweet smile as he moves a few steps closer.

“I’ve concluded that if I’m to invite you into my spire, I probably should invite apart of you into the spire too.
And what better way than to also encourage this little old hobby of yours? I enjoy the odd floral too, y’know.”
The beast taps the pointer and index finger of his hand rhythmically against his lips, creating a light strumming sound. White pointed teeth peak through his opening mouth.

“I’m particularly fond of…milkcrown’s.”

The Recluse clasps his hand tightly around his staff as the realisation of his foolishness overwhelms him. He was naive to think that this would be a fair game, that the beast would give him a chance to play his own moves and not immediately pry into his weaknesses.

But rather, the game had already been played and won; the greenhouse was the beast’s queen, and the Recluse even following Shadow Milk in the first place was an awaiting checkmate.

The Recluse had lost, and this greenhouse was both his punishment and Shadow Milk’s killing finale move to his mentality.

He sighs knowingly, but nonetheless doesn’t square down against the devil.
“And what? Do you expect me to be happy with this?..nurturing a place I do not have any care for will not bring anything good.”

The beast twitches at the Recluse’s rejection. In his cheek, in his face, in his body - something darkens.

“Oh, well..”
He begins low, leaning in further. The Recluse has to bury his face into his collar so as to maintain some distance between them.

“We both know that’s not quite true, don’t we?”
He tilts his head one way dramatically, hat and hair swinging in bouncing waves like a puppet in a jack-in-the-box. His eyes are bright and wide, slitting pupils sharp enough to cut. The Recluse feels them slice into him.

“Don’t we?”
“Yes.”

He mentally heaves at his pathetic cowering; just another toll for the beast to add to his winning streak.

Shadow Milk swings his head in the other direction at the Recluse’s response, fingers still drumming against his lips albeit more erratically than before; the Recluse notices, and fixates.

He hated this aspect of how the beast treated him; he hated it all. Ridding him of all emotion and plaguing him in his own despair, whilst still managing to weaken him and his sharpened tongue with intimidation and silent threats. All for what?
He could feel himself shrinking more and more under the pressure, ready to crack like porcelain.
The Recluse could try to convince himself that there was no diamond under the ruff, no ultimate goal that the devil was trying to find within him, only torment to whittle him down; only, of course, there was.

Still flickering faintly, a bruise that runs deep like roots waiting to blossom anew. Hidden under his shoulder cape, lying in wait.

He feels his hand move down to his chest at the thought as the beast falls away from him.

“Exactly.” Shadow Milk sighs, yet with a charming smile as if he is a pleased teacher rewarding an answer. His previous eldritch demeanour forgotten in seconds.

He swaggers away with long steps, high heels adding to his dramatic sway as if intensely pleased, yet nonchalant.
The Recluse still gazes in horror, hand over his heart and chin buried in his collar.

The devil turns around at the last moment as he reaches the door, eyes shooting to lock with the Recluse’s as if they had a magnetic connection.
Curling lashes batted out to his cheeks, almost titillatingly.

“You know where to find me, my recluse. Or,..” Shadow Milk says, giggling softly. “I’ll just find you! ..Ciao!”

The Recluse remains stood in the centre of the greenhouse as the door slides shut behind the beast in an agonising creak. Even if he had physically left, the Recluse could never rule out if he was still there with him, hiding and watching from creeping shadows and corners.

The sun glazes through at the peak of the greenhouse, illuminating the greens and florals in twinkling soft colours, much unlike the colour palette of the rest of the dark spire.
The Recluse peers around to the array of milkcrown’s that surround the replica of his garden; their aromas and shimmering silver blossoms whispering to him in a language he’s only beginning to understand. The haunting silhouettes of the white Lily’s still buried in his sub-conscious.

He groans, knowingly at the responsive milkcrown’s. Shadow Milk had an unnatural way of getting under his skin and infiltrating his mind, like a drug he’d never even taken, a drug fed to him since birth. Every minuscule thing he did created a poisonous root inside of the Recluse, slowly blossoming into flowers of deceit and despair; the devil would eat the petals if he could, or maybe crush them and make the Recluse swallow. The cycle of his anxiety and fall into duplicity churning again and again within him; the beast watching, flushed in enjoyment.

Or rather, perhaps Shadow Milk was simply the needle to the drug of misery; the unearthed memory of his greenhouse being the true drug now shooting through his veins, already hazing his mind with nauseous deja vu.

Chapter Text

The greenhouse had crawled around the Recluse’s head for numerous nights following the glowing day that the beast had presented it to him in a sickly honey glaze.
Within the dark chambers of the room he had been given, another agonising replica of a sanctum from a past home he lay awake, with thoughts of white lilies and milkcrown’s swirling and curling in his mind.

On certain nights, in the deep of a slumbering beast-yeast, the devil would join him in his bed. Manifesting from thin air and crawling up to his form; still complete in his hat and glittering jester attire.
The first odd nights where it had begun to happen the Recluse assumed it was of result of sleep paralysis, him blinking in and out of conscious and picturing the only face he had seen for months. For a somber melancholic reason, the previously insufferable insomnia he faced in a past life had been quietly cured, allowing him to sleep almost peacefully within the spire.

He began to realise it was real and the devil was, in fact, spooning him in his sleep when these restless nights of florals began; when he would lay awake in the night ill at ease, with a warm form nesting around him and decorative fabric itching against any exposed skin it could.

It annoyed the Recluse to no extent, but there was no essence of surprise within him left to give anymore; Shadow Milk didn’t need to sleep long hours, he knew, living within his own mind and playing by his own rules.
As such, whenever the Recluse would roll over to face the beast, he would be met with attentive eyes and pursed lips, staring into him as if to drill holes; or like an animal, waiting for attention. Only the witches know how many times he had felt Shadow Milk paw at his shoulder in the night, and he’d have to swat him away.

The Recluse sighs in his reminiscence. The night was still young, and so he had yet to feel a creeping figure nuzzle against his back under the covers.
He rubs his palms against his face, groaning; his cheeks hot and flushed. He didn’t want to spend another night in turmoil around the devil’s gift and its intention with his psyche.

And so, he clambers out of his bed and leaves his room, dressed in his only nightgown with his staff. He leaves for the greenhouse.

He finds it rather quickly; pushing open its door and feeling the immediate rush of shivering air blow against his skin.
The dark azure of the night shimmering through the greenhouse’s glass ceiling, casting soft shadows against the florals and foliage’s held inside.
It sat quiet, and calm; as the Recluse enters, all he can hear is the soft twinkling of water from the pond next to his garden.

He breathes any turmoil he felt away; the greenhouse is a beautiful place, he’s always felt this.
It’s always soothed him, and could possibly still even soothe him now - if he could treat it as his own, and not a doll to play with from the beast’s toy box.
It could be his.

The Recluse finds himself by a station of sleeping vanilla orchids, all peacefully swaying in the calm of the night-time. Some manifesting in growing beds similar to the milkcrown’s, and an odd few growing singularly in pots.
In his time with the Vanilla kingdom, he nurtured the odd few orchids in his greenhouse. He never felt the need to specifically grow them in large numbers, as they grew natively all around his land; utilised by him and his fellow healers alike.

This greater manifestation of vanilla orchids was something that Shadow Milk had purposefully added, it seemed. The Recluse pays it no mind.

He gazes across their sleeping forms, exuding an almost innocence in his mind in light of everything else.
He fixates on one in a potted plant, different from the others.

Its blossom droops to the left, petals slightly browning and curling in towards its sleeping eye; its stem and leaves not matching the rhythmic sway of its siblings.
The Recluse swallows dryly, his previous peace of mind melting into solemn once again; the vanilla orchid had died.

There would never be peace in Shadow Milk’s spire.

He leans his staff against the station, so he can delicately raise the orchid’s pot above the others to hold in his embrace.

Clasping the terracotta against soft palms, he thinks of the young children he once used to comfort in his timeless kingdom. Children and babies he would hold and comfort for others, who he would heal and care for.
He thinks of the children he first entered the spire with, a spark of care igniting at the thought of their whereabouts. There were no children seeking comfort in the beast’s spire; or rather, Candy Apple certainly wasn’t seeking any from him.

It had been a long age since he’d held a child. It had been a long age since he’d cared for anything softly.

He twitches softly at the melancholic grief.

Faintly, bells jingle a soft song from behind him. The Recluse recognises it all too well.

He turns to face the beast, who lounges at an angle in the air; leaning against his own staff as a makeshift rest for some of his body weight.
Shadow Milk watches the Recluse in the deep hues of the night with soft and glowing eyes, an unusual indifference not often found on his countenance. His hair falls long and lawless in deep black colour, a great contrast against blue skin and his powdered white face.

“Hello, Shadow Milk.”
“What’s wrong with it?”

The Recluse stands dumbfounded at the devil’s bluntness. He feels insecure suddenly, looking between the blossom in his embrace and the beast watching him to try and find a reasoning for its death.

“It’s died..from-from dehydration I presume.”

“So you need water?”

“Correct..but from a natural source.”
The Recluse gives the devil a knowing look, at which he cracks a lopsided smile.
“Not from magic.”

Shadow Milk chuckles low, curling around his staff as his sleepy; but of course, he is not.
“And where will you find that? Gollie, you’re never grateful!”

“From the river.”

The beast seems to sit up abruptly in the air.
“The yogurt river?”

“…yes.”

Shadow Milks face cracks and he explodes into laughter; sarcastically or not, the Recluse is faintly embarrassed. The devil sits upright on his staff as his hands claw at his face, wide smile glistening through the slits of his fingers.

“Ha! Keep dreaming, sweetheart. You’ve already been given another pitiful chance by the river, well, by me!”
He swings his hair and hat back in flamboyance at his remark. In doing so, he floats down to the level of the Recluse; closing the distance between them swiftly.

“You can’t keep asking for more and more. Gosh, where will your greed take you?”

“The river gives, but it must also take.”

The devils teeth peak out against his shiny lips as his eyes glitter in some kind of lustrous triumph.
The Recluse simply stares, the shadows darkening against his face as he turns back to the sleeping orchid; pinching his long nails into its stem and twisting it, wrenching the yellow blossom from its root with a quick, painless snap. He could heal, but he could not resurrect.

He strokes the petals gently as if it still breathed, before turning back towards the beast; his demeanour still strangely calm despite Shadow Milk’s words.
“Well..” He begins, lifting Shadow Milk’s palm and placing the orchid blossom into it, pushing his knuckles to close around it; the beast crushing it in his claws instinctively.

“Someday, it’ll take me back then.”

The devil sneers, “You can’t die in the river, silly.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Shadow Milks face twitches in fury, a crack slithering through his facade at the Recluse’s response before closing back up again.
He re-opens his closed palm, revealing that the crushed yellow orchid blossom has now been transformed into a blue, glistening powder.
He leans it up to his lips and blows it slowly, as a child would do to make a wish with dandelion seeds. It filters and disperses around the greenhouse as it flies, some of it catching in the recluse’s lengthened hair and disappearing into soft twinkles.
His brow furrows.

“I control this spire - it is me and I am it. Same..with the river.” Shadow Milks face cracks a petty smile, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly as if his previous reaction never happened.

“Don’t get too clever on me now, Vanilla.”
He says, lifting his pointed, clawed finger to poke and pinch the Recluse’s cheek diminutively, the Recluse cringing and squinting from the light pain of his claws.

The Recluse knows that the beast is trying to wind him up with the name, and the belittling, and the touching. To an outsider, the beasts reactions seem malicious, and manipulative. Dominant and scary for being so wise to weaknesses; Recluse rather likens him to that of a teenage girl.
He knows that the beast is lying, too. The more and more he understands the cheap thrill of doubt, he feels it - he feels it in his soul when his other half spits out a lie from his snake-tongue.
It amuses Recluse somewhat, to know that he’s able to get under the beasts skin so much so that he still feels the need to lie - even to someone who was born to understand his every thought.
It gives him a sense of power, even in his silence.

He swats Shadow Milks hand away from his cheek, and lowers his head in a gesture of false submission as he holds the decapitated orchid plant plot, and caressing it with both hands again as if seeking comfort.

He peers at the beast through white lashes, with a grimace,
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Shadow Milk’s smile becomes thinner as his pupils slit sharp, licking his tongue over his teeth inside of his mouth as if amused.
He tilts his head down to peer at the Recluse through his own eyelashes and thin hair, bells on his hat jingling with a playful tune.

“Don’t be so glum,” His voice, soft and low. “If you were gone, who would take care of all these pretty plants? Certainly not me!”

“The blossoms will all be healthy, given time. Be patient.”

The Recluse scoffs soft at the back of his throat.
“I doubt it.”

The devil’s voice raises an infantilising octave slightly. “You do?”
His hand strokes against his ruff gently as if grooming himself like a feline, with a grin plastered against his powdered skin.
“I like that.”

The Recluse merely blinks in response to Shadow Milk’s all the most common risqué humour.
The beast’s countenance had become a prominent aspect that had arose within their newfound relationship, of which the Recluse often tried to bury deep down within his subconscious. All the deep moonlit nights where Shadow Milk would clamber into his bed and cocoon him in were forcibly forgotten, although always surfaced once again into his mind in times like this.
It makes him think of this very night, in which he’d tried to escape a Shadow Milk filled bed only to be followed and found by the beast; as was inevitable.

The devil hums deeply as he stares at the Recluse, now smiling in a pleasant gaze.

“Why don’t you come back to bed? Hah, you can play in here all you want tomorrow.”

The Recluse scoffs. He found he often did in response to the beasts words. “Why don’t you sleep in your own bed?”

Shadow Milks rolls his eyes with an exaggerated shrug, a full smile rounding his cheeks. He looks to the Recluse with so much excitement, one could mistake it for true love.
“Oh, silly - I don’t have one!”

The Recluse sighs in annoyance as he places the plant pot back onto the station to recollect his staff. He’s not sure why he would even ask the devil such a thing; he already knew he only crawled to his bed for the warmth he exuded, and to use him as a scratching post to claw against.

He wasn’t in the mood to fight anymore. Contrastingly, he wants to sleep.

He gives one last look to the orchid blossoms; innocent and soft, swaying in the nights breeze as if to dance.

The Recluse looks to Shadow Milk, who in himself holds a face of innocence; waiting. He sighs.

“…Let’s go back to bed.”