A/N: Happy (possibly late) valentine's day!!! Sorry in advance :3
Alchemist isn't easy to get along with. Or maybe that's just what someone would expect by how she often carried herself. Licorice cookie was honestly surprised to see Alchemist the first time he was at the Mansion. He'd seen her once or twice before in his squabbles with Gingerbrave and his crew. In those few interactions she was just as confrontational as she is now. However, now he couldn't simply leave and return to the COD's lair to get out of the interaction. Licorice knew it would be easiest to leave, forget this all happened and retreat like the coward he was. Bake some half-assed excuse to Pomegranate on why he left for so long and go back to serving Dark Enchantress. But he knew the pain that would follow him if he did. He tried to express this to Alchemist, whilst avoiding all details, but this only worked in elongating their debate. Their back and forth went no where, and it gradually died out, until Licorice could no longer hold so much to himself. How could they properly come to an understanding if Alchemist didn't know the full truth? So he told her the full truth. His ugly beginnings in the Darkness, and his abandoning Vampire, to their chance reunion, and the impulsive decision to leave the darkness.
Alchemist stayed quiet and eerily unemotional throughout his retelling. She continued organizing her viles and scribbling down research, yet still clearly listening to Licorice. By the end of his long monologue, Licorice cookie simply paused and fidgeted with his hands for a second. Then, with his head low to his shoulders, he asked Alchemist, "So... What do you think?"
Alchemist turned her head to face him. She looked annoyed as usual, but something told him that that wasn't how she truly felt.
"So?" She repeated. Then she sighed and faced her full body to him. "Licorice, if you can't do anything about the target on your back, no amount of sad backstory can keep you here."
Licorice let out a long breath and lays his head on the table, defeated. Footsteps draw closer to where he lies, and he feels a pair of arms press down on the table space before him.
"Licorice I know how much it'll hurt Vampire to see you go. I wouldn't do this if I didn't feel it would protect him from greater harm, not directly from you but by associating with you. You've known this wouldn't work out in the long run but you put an effort in regardless and that's commendable, but it needs to end... and I'm willing to give you time for that, but only until the end of the week. Then you need to leave."
Licorice feels his muscles tense and his vision blurs for a moment. He holds his head low but slowly pulls himself up. He winces and shakes at the pain in his chest but nods his head ever so slightly. She was right, and Licorice had no other choice but to oblige... but... he would only have four days left.
Quickly he replies, "Okay." As to hide his quivering voice. He lifts himself out from the stool he'd sat in and walked out of Alchemist's lab.
Alchemists watches Licorice cookie leave her room. She wants to feel bad for him- No. Scratch that, she does feel bad for him, but what could she do? She had her priorities, herself and her brother.
Licorice drags himself up to Vampire Cookies' bedroom, the space they momentarily shared. The day before, when he was organizing the cookie's room, he came across blank sheets of paper. It was clear they'd been randomly dropped in the room and gradually forgotten about, but for Licorice he had kept a mental note to collect them later, for an occasion like this one. Normally, he would vent frustration out in his diary, but for a while now his current journal had been full. He'd meant to get a new one soon, but he's been... busy. So the scrap paper will do fine for now.
As he enters the room, he runs straight to the drawer of miscellaneous items he'd well organized. In it he grabs a fist full of slightly crumpled paper and he flattens them onto the floor. Then standing up and scythe in hand, he summons his diary, in a similar fashion that he would summon his bone servants. The book falls to his hands and he lays back down and presses the pages against the hard cover. He quickly scribbles down his thoughts, it's messy and he catches himself tearing small holes with the tip of his pen by mistake. Half way through the second loose page he sees a single drop of water fall between his hand and words. He snaps out of his writing and realizes his blurry vision, distorted by tears lining his lashes. He decides he would be better sleeping these emotions off. However before he shuts the newest entry of his diary, he scribbles one last sentence.
This time, it's for good.