Work Text:
It wasn’t often when Shadow Milk experienced pure, unfettered joy. It was always paired with an abnormal sound—a gasp of breath that wasn’t voluntary despite how many times he’s feigned laughter. It wasn’t just an emotion—it was a feeling, a full-body experience. His normally mocking tone gave way to hiccups and strained squawks, and despite the impulse to tense up—to brace—it never held up. The metronome of time slowed, each stroke dragging further behind when Shadow Milk’s body became a jumble of mixed signals.
Laughter—genuine laughter, at least—was complex. Ceaselessly complex. It filled his being with fuzz and made his thoughts slur. He became fixated—on himself, on the buzzing, and the odd repeating loop of joy that only got stronger with each wave.
His eyes fell—maybe his gaze was unaligned, he wasn’t sure. His hands felt funny, foreign almost, and he couldn’t tell which way they were put on. Everything was heavier, as if gravity multiplied under his mirth until his legs were no longer strong enough to support him. It didn’t hurt, no, it never did—it just took away his control.
Sometimes it frightened him for that reason. He never liked being vulnerable.
When his body slipped like a marionette with the strings cut, the floor caught him. Often not kindly. His face touched the ground and his arms splayed, and even still his chest quivered with laughter. It might not have looked comfortable or normal by any circumstance, but it still felt like joy. If anything, it made him laugh harder. It was as if everything about him was singing with rapture.
The first one to notice—or at least the first one to voice it—was Candy Apple. She was an energetic little thing, always ready for a good laugh. Perhaps that’s why she took to the change so quickly.
The sensation, the laughing, it wasn't always extremely outward or showy as to put him to the ground—no, that was reserved for only the most genuine of moments. When he was comfortable, or dare he say safe. He preferred it that way. At least it saved him the embarrassment of collapsing to the floor in the middle of a grand scheme (if he could help it). No, it was often much more manageable.
It was the slight tremble to his hands when he felt giddy or excited, the change in his vision blurring a little. It manifested as a simple drop of his cane or the staggering of his magic—the flow cut off and awkward for just a few seconds. Sometimes it did that multiple times, his neck getting weak and making his head tilt back and then forward again.
"...master?" Candy Apple once said in the middle of one of his monologues where he was perhaps too satisfied with his own ideas. "You're looking a little silly."
"Hm?" He shot a gaze of disapproval her way at the time, wondering where he went wrong in teaching her not to interrupt. His hands fizzed with an odd feeling, like they were stuffed with cotton, but it quickly abated.
Perhaps he was a fool because he didn't think much about it.
Oddities popped up around him—because he had built his spire for such things, he concluded. He would tire during the day, his thoughts tangling with whichever surrounded him until they became inseparable. Everything muddied together for moments or minutes at a time, sometimes longer. It was something he only realized when he woke up from it, either on the floor or halfway upright.
He would hear things that weren't there, and despite the way the messages distorted, they felt uncannily real. Wind roared against his ears, breathing heavily as a voice called through walls, "stop it! You're hurting me!"
Perhaps the most disorienting was when the voices sounded familiar. When he could've sworn Candy Apple was calling his name despite being sent out on a mission. When he could hear the faint static and chirping of the radio as Black Sapphire started his next broadcast session after a brief music break. All of it was a figment of his mind.
It annoyed him more than anything to be caught in such a state. Hung between a point of sleep and wake, unable to move as Black Sapphire picked up his body from the halls and propped him up, dutifully casting a spell to keep Shadow Milk hidden. The few times that Candy Apple tensed when he laughed, as if anticipating his fall. His minions never undermined him, yet it felt shameful all the same.
He was anxious about time—time spent sleeping, time wasted, time that he would never get back despite being an immortal entity. It was laughable how he cared so much for a resource that he had an infinite amount of. Maybe in another world he had the patience and peace of mind not to think about it.
Maybe in another world he didn't plead so deeply in the safety of his own head—begging that this time, when he woke up, he wouldn't feel so tired anymore, so exhausted. He never stopped despite how useless the effort was.
"Master!" Candy Apple called enthusiastically, bumbling Shadow Milk's way while he shook his bogged mind from its half-awake state. She pushed him upwards and shoved an easy meal in his hands. "I was tailing them! That Pure Vanilla and those parasites who follow him!"
She babbled on as Shadow Milk took hold of a spoon and ate some applesauce—yes, he enjoyed applesauce. When she was done filling him in on her secret mission and a helping more of things that didn't matter like the Faerie Kingdom's irrelevant street gossip, he gave her a pat on the head and rasped out her next orders.
She beamed at him, giddy with praise, and proclaimed, "You can trust me, Master Shadow Milk! I'll tell Black Sapphire to report in soon." The obvious implication hung in the air that Shadow Milk couldn't be trusted to stay awake for any more than a few hours at a time. That was alright. He preferred it to be left unspoken.
"That won't be necessary," he said, summoning his magic to pull his other minion into the room. A quick portal had Black Sapphire landing backwards on the ground while Candy Apple laughed at him.
He quickly stood at attention and bowed, more than efficient at giving his report on spreading rumors throughout Crispia. He was a very dutiful minion, just like Candy Apple, though more reserved. They worked well as a team.
"Good, now feed them some rumors about an affair—that should be fun. Pick one of those higher-ups from the Creme Republic. I'll leave you to the details." Shadow Milk waved at him, a growing grin on his face.
"Already done, sir," Black Sapphire bowed and left with haste.
Candy Apple remained, leaving a not-so-subtle question on if he needed anything else.
"Fetch me something more substantial. I'll be planning some more complex scripts today," Shadow Milk ordered, waving his hand and retrieving a quill with a quick burst of magic.
Shadow Milk was... and he hated to admit it—relieved to have two minions fully devoted to his cause. His work was not easy, and having someone at his side to readily remind him of what he was just doing, to be there when he awakened and act as if nothing were different was nice. Pleasant even. It was something he'd slowly learned to lean on after a lengthy period of distrust and hiding, making up every excuse in the book because he refused to believe any of it was real. He was always a liar to himself first and foremost, as much as he pretended he wasn't.
His minions didn't ask—they never did. Instead, they observed. They noticed. They watched from afar and adapted slowly, and Shadow Milk did the same. He kept sweets and tea around, little things to keep him going throughout the day. Little bells outfitted his dress, tinkling and chiming when he needed to stay mobile. His ruff kept his neck upright so he wouldn't wake with pains.
And they learned the signs that even Shadow Milk himself didn't notice.
At the slightest stutter in his voice, Black Sapphire would clear the area and make sure nobody interrupted. When he felt short of breath and his eyes went askew, Candy Apple would sit by him like some kind of loyal guard dog. Sometimes she, too, would succumb to it and go steady by his side, and Shadow Milk would wake up oddly warm.
"Leave it to me, Master!" She said, beaming ear to ear.
Dependable as always.