The clock ticks, and Eddie is not afraid.
He sits on the bed in his dingy apartment, pillow clutched in his still arms, and stares into the darkness. The steady hum of nearby appliances keeps him company. Moonlight spills through the slits of his blinds, subtly shifting as the minutes and hours tick by, morphing evening into the dead of night. At one point it shines upon Eddie's burnt hand.
It had been a week since the fight with Drake and Riot, with the intense struggle ending in a momentous burst of flames and metal. The single burn was once a mere fragment of the injuries Eddie had obtained: broken ribs, torn ligaments, a burned body, and a pausing heart. It felt like the end- but it wasn't. With a searing crack of bones and stretching of flesh, he became whole and healthy once more. As he wavered on the edge of consciousness, Eddie attempted to thank his healer- but his head was empty.
Since bonding to his human host, Venom's presence could be felt easily throughout Eddie's body even when he wasn't speaking. It was a vibration, kind of, an unearthly hum of awareness and companionship that had just as quickly become a comfort to the man as it had initially scared him shitless. He was always there, lurking heavily in the pit of Eddie's stomach, commentating mundane events and demanding heads.
The washing machine clacks, its load finished. Eddie doesn't move.
Though he's been burnt alive and beaten senseless, this new loneliness without Venom is an ache too disturbing to explain. It was a partnership, a symbiosis, a permanent deal between predator and prey who dared to let emotions muddle and overpower the natural function of parasitism. Eddie expects incredulity at the term, but nothing shifts. The worst pain isn't pain at all, but emptiness. He doesn't know how he'd been alone for all his life. But there was hope. Faintly fluttering at the back of his mind was the sensation he'd come to miss. It was weak and fleeting, but sensing it to Eddie was like a powerful punch to the gut.
Venom was here. Soon they'd be back to normal.
It was odd to think of normal as something developed mere weeks ago, but to Eddie, nothing else had felt so natural and easy in his life. No secrets, no judgement, no need for societal norms or complications. Just companionship in its purest, most primal form. But there was more, something even more intimate and relentless lurking fiercely between their bond- something Eddie had foolishly given up on after his falling out with Anne.
Love was a ferocious feeling where
simple adaquacy was not nearly enough to keep those inflicted satisfied. It was commanding; it overtook each nerve ending and cell of a man's being, and that was only love between humans. What they had was more, so much more than Eddie could begin to comprehend. It burned harsher than Drake's scorching rocket, cut sharper than Riot's talons, rushed faster than plummeting from a skyscraper and flowed brighter than the shining sun. It was terrifying.
It was everything Eddie could ask for.
Another stir at the back of his head had Eddie's breath hitching. He hadn't noticed his trembling hands, and he fails to still their tremors. Soon, soon, he thinks to himself.
And it was.
The stillness and quiet tore into glorious motion as thick black slime emerged from Eddie's shoulder. It glimmered and shifted in the rays of the rising sun peeking through the blinds, rising up and gathering its mass to form a head. Opalescent eyes opened from slits to stare relentlessly into Eddie's face. He could see the slight vulnerability in the sharp gaze. Rows upon rows of razor-like teeth came together like a fine orchestra, grinning ugly and wide. Venom was terrifying, but Eddie wasn't afraid.
The monster's smile grows, and Eddie smiles back. He can't stop the tears from trickling down his face.