He got himself a cheap notebook later that day, with secure access to the net. Eddie grinned to himself, feeling almost back to normal as he started taking notes on everything that had happened, what he knew, about Tri, and he searched through obscure websites he had memorized a long time ago. He got his feelers out for anything else related to a group by that name, hung around forums and read blogs.
It felt good to work. It felt even better to have the peanut gallery harking him about food, choice of entertainment, or whatever came to Venom's mind.
XnXnXn
They did go on a hunt because Venom was getting extremely restless, the hunger gnawing at his insides. No chocolate was alleviating the hunger pains. He was pacing under Eddie's skin, sometimes showing himself like a surfacing whale, black tendrils arching off and some of them waving around.
"Will you stop it!" Eddie snapped, slightly unnerved and extremely irritated by the end of the first day it had started.
I'm hungry!
He groaned. "You're not hungry, you're just bored!"
We haven't been out for too long! We haven't fed!
"Because you were an unresponsive piece of organic mass inside me! You were in a coma!"
Venom hissed, oozing out of Eddie's body and staring at his host, emotions sharp with displeasure and the remembered agony of his tortured and subsequent catatonic existence. The nightmarish face snarled, all darkness and danger.
Eddie would have been scared shitless a mere two years ago, but right now he was just annoyed and at the end of his rope because Venom was bugging him.
The symbiote felt his thoughts, rearing back, shark-like jaws opening in a threatening gesture.
"Cut it out!" Eddie ordered.
The next surge just fed into his irritation. For a moment he wanted to just yell, scream out his frustration. Eddie closed his eyes instead, exhaling sharply, refusing to fall into that vicious circle.
"We were hurt," he whispered sharply. "We're still hurt. We're not going into situations that might make things worse, Venom. I don't want…" He stopped.
The images of the video feed were back on his mind, pushing forward, reminding him that Tri had nearly torn his symbiote apart, had tortured him, had tortured Eddie.
Venom shook himself, rippling under his host's skin.
I know you don't want to hear it, buddy, but you're not yet up to your old strength and neither am I. We're one. We need to take care of each other, but running head first into danger isn't taking care of each other!
The milky eyes regarded him, the anger still there. Venom was too restless, too caged, too everything. He was getting stronger, he was ready, he wasn't weak… he was Venom!
They looked at one another.
I could make you, Venom threatened. There was no real threat in it. Actually, he sounded almost petulant. The sinister growl was absent.
"But you won't," Eddie replied calmly, confidently. Because he felt it.
He knew it.
The symbiote huffed, teeth clicking, then the tongue darted out briefly.
Eddie reached out, cupping the jaws, Venom stilling in his grasp. There were no words between them, only the back and forth along their minds, and he smiled a little.
"I know," Eddie said softly. "I really know and we will go out, but nothing big, okay?"
Another huff, but Venom felt more at peace.
"Parasite," Eddie said fondly.
A tendril of black whipped around a wrist, like a warning.
He smiled more. Yeah, I like you, too, he thought. You little jerk-face asshole.
Venom faltered, the waving darkness stilling for a second, then he melted back into his host with a contented rumble.
XnXnXn
They left the apartment in the middle of the night.
Venom should be feeling pleased and triumphant, but there was something else. Something warm, wanting, longing, needing, and Eddie smiled as he walked through the dark streets, hands pushed into his jacket.
"Let's go."
They scouted around the dark alleyways and back yards, watching for criminal activity on a larger scale. There had been some name-calling, some jay-walking, one speedster, and one old lady crossing at a red light.
Nothing serious.
They got lucky a little later, as did a girl walking home on her own.
Eddie stepped back into the 'we' of Venom, let his symbiote take over, though he never gave up complete control. His body changed, grew larger, gained in mass, and while it was still him, it was also suddenly a lot more them. Venom surrounded him, was everywhere, inside and out, was him and Eddie was Venom.
They were Venom.
They growled in anticipation, jaws open, tongue tasting the air.
Her would-be rapist screamed as his worst nightmare dropped in on him, the girl half-stunned by the blow he had given her to subdue the barely legal teenager.
And then he ran.
Venom chuckled darkly, his wide smile chilling. Yeeees. We love a good chase. It makes the prey so much more tasty. So much more fulfilling.
"Don't play with your food," Eddie muttered.
The symbiote grinned even more. But it's so much fun!
In the end there was only one outcome.
No trace of the man would ever be found.
Nor of the drug trafficker who happened to come their way as he was peddling to teens hanging around a 24/7 supermarket.
"Isn't it a little late for you?" Venom asked, the sinister twist to his voice making them scream and almost wet themselves. They couldn't be older than maybe thirteen or fourteen.
Eddie was sure they would never set out foot in the dark ever again. And they might need therapy.
Finally no longer hungry, Venom sank back into his host. Thin, black tendrils remained looped around Eddie's lower arms, encircling his wrists, and he raised a pointed eyebrow at them.
That was new.
His symbiote didn't comment.
Huh.
XnXnXn
He got himself large frozen mocha from a fast food joint, drinking it as he sat in a back corner, enjoying the treat. While he never had the remaining taste of Venom's meals in his mouth, the drink helped soothe him.
Eddie watched the night clientele as he nursed his mocha, then left before caught the attention of the cashiers. Police had already driven by outside, probably patrolling, and while they had done nothing wrong, he didn't want any focus on him.
XnXnXn
They roamed the streets until dawn, scaring a few more criminal elements. Portland now had one more urban legend and for the foreseeable future, the bad element might just be a little more cautious. Venom was highly amused by it, actually proposed to go out every night to put the fear of him in them, but Eddie vetoed it.
They had to lay low, be as invisible as they mostly operated, especially since he now knew the Avengers were watching.
We can take them, Venom muttered mulishly.
"No. My final word."
It got him an annoyed grumble.
Eddie looked at the very blatantly visible dark tendrils curled around his wrists, felt the one around his lower neck melt back into his body, and he only raised an eyebrow.
Venom refused to be baited.
For all the changes since their first meeting, for all the adaptations, the compromises, the abduction and near-death experience had changed something profoundly in his symbiote.
And him.
Them.
They watched the sunrise, then walked back to his apartment, tired enough to sleep.
XnXnXnXnXnXnXnXnXnXnXnXnXnXnXn
The nightmares were something Eddie had expected. For all his symbiotic relationship with an alien puddle of black tar, he was still very much human. And the human mind was very complicated, something even Venom had remarked on a few times. It worked through trauma in its own way.
For Eddie, it meant not nightmares but night terrors.
Faceless memories that he couldn't remember in detail, but the distressing emotional reaction was clear as day.
He woke to feelings of fear, stress, and anxiety, disoriented, reaching inside to check on his symbiote's presence, and only relaxed when he sensed the other's presence.
You dream vividly, Venom remarked gruffly as he welled up from his skin, covering every inch of his host's bare arms and chest, tendrils of himself sliding over Eddie's neck.
The workings of the human mind was too complex for Venom to truly understand, though it hadn't stopped him from making snide and derogatory remarks concerning Eddie's intelligence, or that of the human race. His host had mostly ignored it, aware that it was Venom's form of banter.
Dreams were part of the brain's default network, dealing with events of the day. They were recent autobiographical episodes that became woven with past memories to create a new memory to be referenced later.
At least the scientists said that.
Night terrors, though…
There was no content to the feeling of terror or simply scary image.
It wasn't a dream. It was a surge of something and it was worse than dreaming of falling down the side of a building. Getting torn to pieces by Riot. Burning.
Eddie exhaled sharply, closing his eyes, chasing after what he could still remember. It were only fragments, but the memories didn't have to include images. Emotions, the loss, the pain, it was memory enough.
Especially the loss.
There was a hum. Almost like a vibrating purr, barely there, but Eddie knew it wasn't a figment of his imagination.
I'm here.
"Yeah, you are," he whispered roughly, voice cracking just a little, but enough to make him wince internally.
The darkness still crawled over his skin, restless. It should be another night terror, but it wasn't. It was actually soothing him very much. Eddie lay back, felt Venom sink deep, caress his jittering nerves, calming his racing heart.
Venom was there.
He hadn't perished. He hadn't turned into a forever unresponsive lump inside his terrified host. He was healing, regrowing, getting stronger, and there would be no scars.
Familiar and still yet unfamiliar emotions raced through, tore at his very soul. He hadn't lost his partner, hadn't lost part of himself.
We are resilient. We cannot be brought down.
Eddie smiled thinly. "Pep talk? So not like you."
Humans are emotional creatures. You needed to hear it.
Riiight, went through his tired mind. Keep telling yourself that.
Venom refused to comment on what he clearly had heard, but he was keeping Eddie cocooned in himself, warm and safe, a physical reminder that they were still an 'us', that Eddie wasn't alone, that Venom was healing perfectly fine.
It was a sudden silence they had both been through so many, many times in the past. Neither wanted to openly say what had happened, though with Venom now calling Eddie his bond-host, the cat was out of the bag. And it was rather lively and loud.
XnXnXn
It didn't change the fact that the terrors stayed with him for a while, though he was getting better at handling them.
He never woke screaming. The disorientation remained for a while and finally lessened. The overwhelming sensation of loss was harder to handle and it took the longest to pass.
Having dark tendrils curl around his arms, fanning over his fingers and forming a protective glove, the sensation of a reassuring squeeze of his hands, helped.
Venom helped. Knowing he was there, even if he didn't talk, was reassuring.
Anyone who had ever seen the symbiote or the two working as one, looking like right out of a cheap horror flick, would argue that Venom couldn't help. Wouldn't help. That he was just using Eddie's body as a ride.
Eddie knew so much better.
And he knew his symbiote was suffering from his own memory flashes, though they rarely ever washed into the human's mind.
What Eddie got were the for Venom unfamiliar feelings of fright, of getting torn to pieces, of maybe dying piece by piece.
Neither really talked, but being together helped. It was instinctual on both sides, host and symbiote, and while Eddie had never had an alien symbiote, he seemed to be doing right by him. What he did was exactly what was needed.
Because he was the bond-host?
Yes, whispered through him.
XnXnXn
So they powered through it.
Doggedly. Stubbornly. Tenaciously.
XnXnXnXnXnXnXnXnXnXnXnXnXnXnXn
They left on the last day of their paid stay and Eddie never felt more balanced. It had nothing to do with meditation exercises – which he hadn't even tried.
It was sheer willpower on both their ends, seeing this through in their own way, with only each other as a crutch and help. Having Venom wrapped around him at night, feeling him close, helped. It helped both of them. Venom was quieting down, the emotional surges lessened, the demand for food that didn't sate hunger, was just something to take the symbiote's mind off things.
He called Anne when he had packed his few belongings, thanked her, promised her an update on what had happened the moment they were back in San Francisco.
No one followed them as they took the rental car Eddie had procured out of the city and onto the highway.
He wanted to take the long way home. Flying appealed to neither of them and Eddie hadn't been on a road trip in a while. If Coulson wanted to track him, so be it
tbc...
