Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Welcome to Therapy!” Pure Vanilla sounded cheerful, and happy. “Now, your name is Mystic Flour, correct?” The Beast just nodded. “Ah! Not very talkative? That's fine! We can sit here in silence if you want!”

—
Golden Cheese grumbled some unkind words, then coughed and held out her hand, “Join me.”

Burning Spice wasn't sure if he heard her right, “what.”

-

“Hello! Welcome to Group Therapy Burning Spice!” Pure Vanilla cheerfully waved at him, “This is Mystic Flour, and I'm Pure Vanilla!” He turned to Mystic Flour, “This is Burning Spice, the first member of our group therapy!”

Mystic Flour just sighed, “We're colleagues. We already know each other. Not that it matters in the end.”

Pure Vanilla lit up even more, “You showed emotion! I'm so proud of you!”

Mystic Flour sighed again, “your efforts are useless.”

—
“HAHAH-” Shadow Milk then realised he was no longer in his spire. “what.”

“Welcome to Therapy Shadow Milk! This is Mystic Flour and Burning Spice!” Pure Vanilla smiled at his other half warmly. “Would you mind sitting down?”

“Is this like- a prank? OoooOoo I love this!!! What do I have to do?” Shadow Milk sat down, believing this was a joke.

“This is therapy, you idiotic clown with no friends.” Mystic Flour snapped, rolling her eyes.

“what.”

“Now now, be nicer Mystic Flour!” Pure Vanilla chastised.

Burning Spice laughed, “She got a point, you know. He is idiotic. And he is friendless.”

Pure Vanilla lectured the other Beasts while Shadow Milk was slowly trying to understand what just happened.

—
“Oh shit.” Hollyberry swore looking up sheepishly at her other half. “Hi Eternal Sugar.” Damnit. She wanted to hit her other half upside the head before they met. How was she supposed to get Eternal Sugar to leave now????

“Hello~!” Eternal Sugar looked at Hollyberry lovingly, and suddenly, an idea appeared. “I've been expecting you~!”

“Oh really?” Hollyberry tried to look flustered, which wasn't that hard, her other half was close and really hot.

Eternal Sugar laughed, a sweet sound that made Hollyberry smile. “Aren't you cute, other half? Let me show you my garden!” Eternal Sugar got a little closer, and that's when Hollyberry struck her upside the head with a frying pan.

“Thank the witches.” She muttered, grabbing Eternal Sugar and bringing her to The Room™.
-
Eternal Sugar woke up to an argument, she recognized the voices as Burning Spice and Shadow Milk. She blinked up, “hello~!”

The argument then turned into two screams, “WHEN DID YOU WAKE UP?!”

“Hello Sugar.” Mystic Flour waved to her colleague.

“Welcome to Therapy Eternal Sugar!” Pure Vanilla said from a nearby chair. “This is Mystic Flour, Burning Spice, and Shadow Milk!!!”

“Oh? I know them? They're my colleagues…” Eternal Sugar looked at the Ancient slightly confused.

“I have never met you before in my life.” Shadow Milk responded instantly.

“What.”

Burning Spice groaned loudly, “...don't question it.”

—
“what.”

“Welcome to Therapy Silent Salt!” Pure Vanilla was sitting on the floor near the Beasts. “This is This is Mystic Flour, Burning Spice, Shadow Milk, and Eternal Sugar!”

“...i know.”

“Nice to meet you Salty~!” Shadow Milk smirked at him.

Silent Salt stared at him blankly, “...the fuck.”

Chapter Text

“Are you going to join the others in Jenga, or would you rather just talk to me?” Pure Vanilla asked, gesturing to the Beasts and then to a chair next to him.

Silent Salt sat in the chair, staring at the Beast with anger? It was hard to tell with the helmet on his head.

“Would you like to talk while the rest of them try to calmly play Jenga?” He suggested, watching the silent Beast. He didn’t answer, leaving the two to sit there in silence as the others not so quietly played Jenga. “I hope it’s being played calmly. I don’t want another hold in the wall.”

Silent Salt didn’t comment on that last part, “What is this even supposed to be?” Silent Salt eventually asked, watching Eternal Sugar attack Shadow Milk over the Jenga pile falling on his turn.

Pure Vanilla hummed, “Therapy, it’s where you talk about your feelings and/or problems, and then your therapist, me, helps you through it! However, sometimes, I bring a craft or something to help them visualise how they feel/felt, I also bring games, to try and help them communicate better. I know you 5 used to be close or something, yet now…” He sighed, “The games are really just me trying to get you all to stop hating each other. Compared to their first sessions, a lot of them are vastly different from who they were before coming here. Mystic Flour is apparently letting out pent-up rage in the form of sass, Burning Spice is much less destructive thank the Witches, Shadow Milk is still deceitful, but hmm. He’s just much less deceitful, at least around here. Eternal Sugar is a lot more active than normal.”

“hm. I do not believe that we could ever be like the Virtues we once were. We abandoned them and they caused harm to cookiekind. While this does seem sweet of you, I think it’s a waste. They’re evil, and we deserved our fate.”

He hummed again, “You harbour a lot of hatred for the others. They don’t share that hatred, and I’m not going to pry into that today. You just got here, and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable!”

-
Burning Spice carefully placed a block on the top, “Just- be careful with the blocks. Pure Vanilla might yell at us if we break something again.”

Mystic Flour just shrugged, “I’ll just blame you. It’s believable.”

Shadow Milk stole a glance at Silent Salt and Pure Vanilla, “Are we not going to talk about how Satly seems very~ hostile towards us?”

“I’m ignoring that.” Eternal Sugar tried to pull a block out of the middle, only for the whole thing to crumble. “Oh, im so sorry.”

Burning Spice stared at the tower, “I quit. Can we play Monopoly again? That was fun.”

Pure Vanilla’s neck snapped towards them, “NO.”

“Aw come on, Nilly~!” Shadow Milk teased, “Satly would lo~ve it! And we all had soooo much fun play~ing it!”

Pure Vanilla took a deep breath, “You broke my wall, Shadow Milk!”

“HEY! That was not me, it was Mystic Flour and you know it!” He huffed, pointing a finger at his friend, who rolled her eyes.

“Why would he believe the master of deceit.” Silent Salt was still staring at them, uneervingly.

Shadow Milk stuttered, “Be-because I didn’t break the wall!!! It was Mystic Flour!”

“You don’t have proof, ‘Master of Deceit’.” Mystic Flour pointed out, making Shadow Milk gasp in offendedness.

“We all saw you throw the board!” He shot back, and his friend just shrugged,

“I have no idea what you mean.”

-
“They are strange.” Silent Salt was now sitting on the floor(after MUCH convincing from PV), rebuilding the Jenga game with Pure Vanilla and the two Beasts not in the ‘Rage’ Room right now.

“You have no idea, my friend! I swear, ever since this…therapy thing…everyone else has been acting so weird!” Eternal Sugar sighed like she wasn’t one of the ones who had changed.

Pure Vanilla smiled, “That’s what therapy is about! Changing from your terrible habits and attitude into being…well, better!”

Eternal Sugar laughed half-heartily. “I guess, but I was pretty good before this…therapy.”

“You were a Slothful Beast who left your Virtue out of selfishness; you were not ‘pretty good’.” Silent Salt gently grabbed a block and set it on top.

Burning Spice laughed, “He’s not wrong!”

“Shut up, you liked destruction so much that you almost killed whole kingdoms because of it.” Eternal Sugar shot back, carefully grabbing a block from the tower.

“You created a garden and forced cookies to stay there for ‘happiness,’ but really, all it was was you being possessive. You denied people real happiness.” Burning Spice shot back, roughly putting a block on top.

“It was happiness! They wer- ARE happy!” Eternal Sugar snapped, and Burning Spice scoffed.

“Were they really? Or were you so focused on making them happy then you neglected that they needed something other than your version of happiness?!”

“What about you?! You got bored and decided killing cookies was the best option!”

“Okay!” Pure Vanilla clapped his hands, “Burning Spice, you are correct, Eternal Sugar used manipulation and terrible tactics because she didn't like seeing cookies hurt. Eternal Sugar, you are also…slightly correct. He destroyed kingdoms, and was obsessed with destruction. However, as we've gone over several times, you did it because you weren't okay. Burning Spice, you went insane because you're immortal and watching everything basically be the same made you go crazy. Eternal Sugar, you watched cookies get happy, then get hurt, then come to you, it was a cycle. Both of you are victims of a cycle, and it caused your downfall. You are different now. If either of you need, I can do single therapy, or duo therapy with just the two of you. This is surprisingly not the first fight you two have had, which is fine. You all are very emotionally repressed children in adult bodies.”

“...is that what happened.” Silent Salt just continued with Jenga with Pure Vanilla through the whole speech.

Eternal Sugar hesitantly joined the game, “somewhat.”

“it's about accurate.” Burning Spice huffed, playing the game.

“...i was not aware that was happening to you.”

Eternal Sugar hummed, “Well, I didn't tell you! Last time we spoke…I wanted to still pretend that everything was going to my plan. After that meeting, well, I stopped writing after a while!”

BANG

Chapter Text

Pure Vanilla sighed, looking at the five Beasts with disappointment. Shadow Milk had an ice pack on his eye, Mystic Flour was looking way to proud of herself, and Silent Salt was mouthing ‘deserved’ to Shadow Milk. Where did it all go wrong? Oh right, when his idiots got into a fight. “...do that again and I swear to the Witches, I will not let you fuckers leave this room.”

Shadow Milk looked offended, “I didn't even do anything!”

“Yeah neither did we.” Burning Spice pointed to himself and Eternal Sugar.

“I don't care.” Okay, that was a lie, he did care and that was really sweet of them, but he was listening to the little voice in his head for once so he didn't care.

“rude.” Eternal Sugar huffed.

“Anyways, let's get on with a few things. One, I have something to say, you are all Depressed Fucks.”

“WOW”

“Damn.”

“Accurate.”

“...were the ‘Fucks’ necessary?”

“harsh, but fair.”

“I'm not answering that.” Pure Vanilla sighed, “You five are walking emotional bombs. I've said this multiple times, but especially since I haven't actually done anything therapeutic besides letting you play games, because…you're emotional and somewhat mentally children and you refuse to talk about feelings unless you're in the mood. Now, I've talked about things with the group and with individuals, however now that we have all five of you, I can say a few things. One, it's not your fault that you got corrupted, I don't know who blames themselves, but, it's not your fault. Two, you're all self destructive and self sabotaging. Want examples? No? Too bad. Mystic Flour, you're so focused on Apathy that you don't even realise how much it's testing you apart, even now you sass bitch. Burning Spice, you seem to try and lock yourself in a cycle of pain to ground yourself, it's familiar, having a cycle. Shadow Milk, you desperately want friends and companionship, yet push cookies away when they try to connect. Like with your kids.” He ignored Shadow Milk’s confusion and confused noises, “Eternal Sugar, you desperately want to make everyone happy yet, in that, you neglect your own happiness, do not fight me on this, I know you better than you know yourself. Silent Salt I know jack shit about you.”

He sighed, the little voice in his head telling him to ask. Just. Ask. What could go wrong? Many things TR. Many things. Do you actually care about those things though? …yes Awe cute. Why do you suddenly sound like Shadow Milk? Ooooo you're gay~~ okay. -

Pure Vanilla was silent for about a minute, while 4 of them looked at each other and shrugged, Silent Salt stared confused. He did not understand what was going on.

Then he spoke up again, acting like he wasn’t just silent for a full minute, “so, why don't you share? This is sort of the point! To get to know each other's issues!” he was looking at Silent Salt expectingly.

Silent Salt glances over to his FORMER friend, who just motions for him to talk. “you want to share my self-destructive tendencies?"

Pure Vanilla nodded, “Yep!”

“Hm. According to my … old friend, I spread myself thin trying to help everyone, and refused to take any breaks for myself. Which is true. I do that.”

His very bad therapist blinked, “...damn you actually know what's wrong with you.”

“...my…old friend just worried about me…a lot. So he would take notice of my problems, make me talk to him about them, and then it just became commonplace for us to talk about what's bothering us together whenever we met up. The last time we saw each other…” He trailed off, not particularly wanting to think about the last time he was with his friend.

“OH MY WITCHES- IS THIS THE FRIEND YOU WERE IN LOVE WITH?!” Eternal Sugar blurted out, looking all too excited at this.

Silent Salt started dry coughing, “what-”
-

Elder Faerie did not want to hear about the Beast’s therapy session, however when Pure Vanilla returned looking like he wanted to kill one of the Beasts…he figured he should ask. It wouldn't be the first time he helped a friend, except the last time he helped a friend, he lost his light.

“Is it too late to stick the Beasts back in the fucking tree?” Pure Vanilla asked, grabbing a highly caffeinated drink.

“...I don't believe so. If you truly believe that your plan isn't working, we could find a way to seal them back up.” He didn't want to be a part of it, seeing his light disappear again would be something he's not sure he could recover from.

“Thank the Witches, or as they're saying now, Thank Mystic Flour. Like she's a god or something! I'm actually going crazy.” He complained, and he seemed annoyed, but slightly proud of them.

Elder Faerie frowned, a common expression on his face nowadays, “No progress then?”

“More like…” His friend waved his hand around, “progress in the wrong direction. Except for Silent Salt and Burning Spice. They're perfect, no notes.”

“They're…getting more evil?” He was fairly certain that that was not how that was supposed to go, but what does he know, he's not a therapist.

“I don't know!” Pure Vanilla took a long sip, “Mystic Flour hates everything and everyone, Shadow Milk is just annoying as fuck, and Eternal Sugar seems to only care about ignoring my advice! On the plus side, I think they're all friends. Except for Silent Salt, who hates them???? I don't understaaaaaand!!!!”

Of course he still does, he felt betrayed and hurt. I don't believe it matters what caused it, to him, they're traitors. He nodded along as Pure Vanilla continued complaining about the Beast's, although half of it wasn't complaining, it was praising how far they've come. Elder Faerie could tell that, despite the complaints, Pure Vanilla was proud of what he had somehow accomplished with the Beasts.

Maybe one day, he'll visit his light.