Until the Bitter End

3: Permits for Paranoia

He regretted the letter almost as soon as it left his possession.

It seemed as thought the very moment—the sheer instant it left his hands, he sealed his fate. The courier had to drag the note from between his fingers, pulling against resistance. Tight nerves and a palpitating jelly heart became swift company, seizing the muscles of his fingers into place. And when the courier gazed at the envelope, flickering over the name of the recipient, the cookie raised a brow in surprise.

What makes you think you're so special that the king would read this?

She didn't say it. She didn't need to say it. Affogato knew just from her look exactly what she was thinking. The very notion that a cookie from nowhere would believe his words worthy of being touched by royal council, let alone glimpsed by the king himself? Baffling. Absolutely baffling.

She knew.

She had to know: She got around. Messengers tended to get around. Messengers tended to hear things. Messengers liked to gossip.

He returned to Peppermint Bark's home in an anxious daze, half-stumbling on aching knees. The only reason he didn't fall was because of the cherry bark cane he pressed himself against. Generally, he didn't need it at all times, but in cases where his head spun and his legs hurt when stepping forward at normal angles (to the point that the muscles felt weak and shaky), it was good to have.

He didn't think about this as he limped inside at an awkward angle. Peppermint Bark Cookie was somewhere in here, he knew, but he didn't care to actively look. The sharp smell of medicine clawed at his nose as he passed nettles ground to a thick and gooey pulp, strips of candycane antlers curing close by. He was mixing muscle ointment with these ingredients before he left, half-experimenting, but he didn't return to this now. Instead, he knelt down to unroll his bed.

"Affogato?"

"I'm going to sleep for a while," Affogato explained shortly. He heard a faint clunk. A distant part of him thought it sounded like a cup.

"What's wrong?"

Everything. Fortuna, where would he be expected to start?

For a brief, frail moment, Affogato considered telling him. Not everything, of course—never everything—but just enough to feel the burden eased and shared from off of his shoulders. He considered the bleak and cold history: The scarce and hungry fire that he held his hands so close to that they burned; the years he spent knelt on his knees, praying to spirits and ghosts that didn't exist for some miracle to happen to him. The children and the wolves. The flowers and the knife. His smile.

The children and his smile.

His smile when he never said goodbye.

All at once, then, it slowed. Into some creeping, slow dread. It weighed down upon his shoulders even more heavily than before. It was impossible to move under or through or between. There was no through and no between.

Grief settled quietly, welling in his throat. He turned to look up at Peppermint Bark, who was closer than he expected. Against his will, his voice first shook. Then it grew enough nerve to be calm.

"I'm just... not... feeling great right now." He swallowed thickly and smiled, wry. The mist in his eyes cleared but tightened inside his skull. "I think I'm having a small relapse, is all. I feel somewhat dizzy."

Peppermint Bark winced, fingering at the blanket draped over his arm. Slowly, Affogato's smile faded, contemplating what the doctor saw before him—an old, fancy cookie who appeared out of nowhere to burden his establishment and offer nothing and return. A cookie who was utterly out of his element, who was sharp-tongued and difficult, who simply didn't allow himself to be cared for properly. He was a weakling who couldn't even deliver a fucking letter without an issue, who was so bothered by it that he opted to crawl in bed like a coward and sleep instead of finish his simple work.