Until the Bitter End

5: Hippocratic Hypocrisy

Once he did, large hands clasped around his throat, the distant firelight casting heavy shadows over their face, masked and hooded in the shadow of their gat. He couldn't make out the eye color, but their eyes were hard and sharp, filled with the familiar intent and lack of hesitation to kill.

Affogato's fingers scrambled for purchase in the fabric of their clothes, nails attempting to dig in deep, but he couldn't pierce the fabric. The cookie leaned in, pressing their body weight firmly against Affogato's neck, and he couldn't breathe no matter how hard he tried to gasp for air. His throat felt so tight that it could be crushed, wheezing attempts at screams dying before they could even manifest.

This cookie's going to kill me, he thought desperately, his vision sparking and fracturing at the edges. I don't want to die! I'm not going to die like this!

Affogato's face twisted into a fierce scowl, abandoning his struggle on the cookie's arms and grasping for their face instead. They twisted their head one way, the other, leaning back just enough to subtly ease the pressure on his throat. Not that it did much of anything, but baby steps—baby steps.

The cookie snarled, twisting their head to bite the palm of Affogato's hand, sending desperate sparks of pain racing its way up his arm and through his body. Affogato couldn't scream even if he wanted to, but through the agony and pain, he reached up to grasp at the cookie's head with his other hand, acting quickly.

He angled his thumb and pressed it into the cookie's eye.

They understood in an instant what he was trying to do—the hands loosened around Affogato's neck and focused instead on holding him down instead of squeezing, drawing in strained, grateful breaths into his starving lungs. They did their best to lean back, but Affogato held on tightly, taking advantage of the surprise to press as hard as he could in his current state before they could escape fully.

He quickly felt a sickening pop beneath his thumb.

The cookie opened their mouth in a soundless scream, freeing Affogato's soiled hand, pulling their own up to their face. They crumbled to the ground at his side, curling into a ball and pressing the palm of their hand tightly against the socket of their seeping, jammy eye. Affogato gulped for breath, the cold air burning his lungs in very much the same way he imagined that air burned a fish's gills, scanning the area and distantly catching the faint glint of the spear in the snow.

He began crawling toward it, one hand cradling his abused throat, his body twitching and writhing in agony. His heart was pounding so hard that his head hurt, so suddenly full of jam after such a brief time of nothing that it made him dizzy.

Someone wrapped their around his neck, coming up from behind him, pulling his body into their chest and squeezing tightly. Affogato choked, digging his nails into the dough at their wrist, twisting and turning until he recognized something wet pressing against his lower back. Something independently in his brain connected the dots—his body acted before he could catch up with his thoughts, lifting his arm and angling it as he twisted his body and slammed his elbow back into their stomach.

The cookie let him go immediately, screaming.

"Fuck you!" they snapped, voice strained and wheezing with the immensity of their pain.

Affogato closed the sparse distance to the spear and grasped it, body screaming with pain that'd only hurt more later. He stumbled to his feet and turned, training his spear on the seeping cookie that glared at him with all of the hate and vitriol of the world, and then toward the half-blind cookie. Affogato trembled, panting, dizzy with exhaustion.

He didn't hear footsteps coming up behind him. He did feel the sharp crack of something hard and stiff slamming against the side of his head, leaving him spinning down to the ground. Sharp cracks of pain splintered through his skull, tingling numbly into his fingertips, scrambling to find purchase in the ground. For a moment, he forgot where he was and what he was doing.