Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the end, they should have known it couldn’t last. Should have should have.

No one cared about the thugs on the street going missing, the people traffickers, and drug gangs, the racketeers. All the symptoms of the problems Eddie had spent his life trying to drag out into the light. The corrupt police chiefs, the grasping, idiot politicians, the demagogues and poisoned priests walking the corridors of power.

Just talking about those problems had left him jobless, penniless and probably soon to be homeless. He was a fool to think they could get away with treating the problems directly. Fool, fool such a fucking fool.

It was the perfect chance. So perfect they should have seen it coming. Should have should have oh god. The meeting of a new President with the CEOs of some huge oil conglomerate and the CEOs of another huge oil conglomerate, to discuss a merger and how to grab as much profit before the world rotted out from under them.

Oh, they phrased it differently; they had their code words and stock phrases, the veils of a dozen languages to hide the uncomfortable facts of Amazon clear cutting, runoff river pollution and that little inconvenient word, genocide. They tried to hide the last one under ‘relocation’ and ‘forcible removal’ but those didn’t feel too comfortable either so in the end they stopped talking about it completely.

Listening to them, tucked away up outside the window, they waited. It was difficult to imagine that these dozen or so old men and women were going to hurt so many people. So many it Eddie couldn’t visualize it, could only rely on Venom’s memories of his people; the hundreds of thousands of his kind it would take to devour the damage so casually being discussed around the dinner table, so many to spill out over the landscape and eat it bare, to drink up the water and rip up the trees and leave nothing but raw, rutted earth. Hundreds of thousands of symbiotes. Probably more.

Inside, the clink of cutlery, the sparkle of crystal glasses. “Showtime.” He grins, they grin. All long teeth and oil slicked skin as they move over to the window. Gather themselves, and spring.

The leaded glass shatters under them, bouncing off their skin and flying into the stunned room. Glass splaying across the rich dining table like fragments of a chandelier, the scream as it cuts down those closest to the window. More screams, as they see them.

Venom is electric with excitement. Eager for their feast tonight. Their teeth snapping around the President's throat, claws goring him open as his screams burbles up in blood. They toss him aside and tear in for more. Thirteen, Eddie thinks, amused as they hurl themselves into the fray of screaming, panicked murderers.  Karma come hunting. Justice with teeth. A last supper of the damned. Even Venom couldn’t eat so many in one sitting, they’ll have to be creative in disposing of the bodies-

Then. The howling.

It’s worse than the first time. Ten times, Twenty times, a thousand times worse than the MRI. They fall to the ground, pinning a yowling women under them. Venom is screaming and Eddie is trying to cover their ears but it doesn’t work, it’s through their skin in the into their bones and it hurt it hurts it hurts-

And it’s worse, it’s so much worse because Eddie knows what’s about to happen and no- no-

The splitting, tearing feeling inside them. It had been agony the first time, after only a day together. They’ve been one for more than a year.

It doesn’t even register as pain. A pinning, overwhelming wave of blind, senseless screaming, like slowly being crushed, like each limb being torn off, one by one. Like dying, over and over and never ending.

Eddie’s vaguely aware of their screams, muddied and half drowned in each other. But being dragged apart, little by little, two desperate cries no and stop.

NO- His own voice, raw and bleeding. His fingers, clawing at their body- at his body- through the helpless rivers of Venom’s body; bleeding, melting out of him. No- you can't stay stay you have to stay-

Stop! Venom’s choked roar. Stop we have to- if you die we die-

Then we die! Eddie begged, soundless in their mind as they trashed senseless on the floor. We go together don’t leave- DON’T LEAVE ME-

We can’t- weak, broken. Eddie-

The sound is deafening, but the pain reverberating through them, pouring through their bond. A huge, gaping hollow yawning inside Eddie, as though a cannonball had blasted through him, leaving a hole for the wind to blow cold all the way through. He coughs, struggles upright. Venom is writhing on the floor, blind and screaming and when Eddie tries to touch him his hands go straight through him like water, like cold steam.

Eddie turns, staggering to his feet, hands grasping to find a weapon. Venom is beyond words now, not even screaming, just a long, ringing wail inside his head like an endless bell.

Alone.

God, if it’s just him, he’ll still fight, he’ll go down fighting, defending them-

There’s a crash from another window. Eddie turns, grabbing a chair leg and tearing it free. The CEOs have fled the room now, but there’s someone else- a silhouette slender and dark against the window.

Eddie screams, and charges.

The figure just watches him rush up for a moment. They’re small, scrawny- is this someone’s kid? Then a hand snaps out, and Eddie’s legs are lassooed from under him. He crashes to the floor. Eddie struggles up, tries to get to his feet-

The man- boy- steps into the light. Dressed in scarlet and blue, webbed with spiders. Eddie snarls wordlessly, in his head Venom is screaming- dying-

Then the boy kicks him the in the head, and the world goes black.

Awareness comes in flickers. Light. Darkness. Light. The pressure of a needle against his thigh. Darkness. The world reverberating around him. Light.

Light.

Eddie blinks. Blinks again. The world is white and glass and for a moment, he wonders if he’s back in Life Industries.

Then he screams.

He- they- Venom oh god he’s gone he’s gone HE’S GONE- is burning. It’s beyond pain, the taste of his own seared alien flesh, losing consistency and melting like candle wax. Venom’s gone but somehow Eddie can still feel him and can only scream and scream and scream, giving voice to their shared agony, beating his head against the glass wall.

-what the fuck’s wrong with him-

-shut up you fucking animal-

-we’re going to need a sedative, stat-

A shadow fall over him and Eddie lunges. He doesn’t see them, barely cares. His finger knot into clothes and he brings his head down blindly to where he hopes there’s a neck. His teeth digs in- blunt, useless- he tastes blood.

-holy shit-

-get him off her-

Hand grab at him, try to pull him off but he’s hanging on like a bulldog, teeth digging in further and further but too slowly. Venom is dying, dying in his head, and he’s torn open and alone and empty empty EMPTY.

Something is rammed into his upper thigh, and the world swims in front of his eyes. He struggles to hang on, to kill that fucker in front of him-

But his hands can’t hold, his teeth can’t bite. He’s weak and alone and empty, Venom only a terrified cry in his head. Hands drag him off, and he falls to the ground. His head cracks against the floor- black dots swim in front of his eyes- no no no please no-

He can’t hold on. He sinks back down into nothingness, Venom’s hurricane pain following him into the dark.

The pain's died to a low, instant pressure inside his head, pressing up against his eyes. Venom? Eddie calls. Buddy? Babe? Where are you?

Nothing, a great hollowing emptiness inside him, like screaming inside a cathedral and watching the shadows swallow even the echoes. He tries to grope his way towards the pain, feels only the shuddering aftershocks of the earlier agony. C'mon, don't do this, he's pleading, begging. Even with his eyes closed, he can feel the tears slip free, tastes salt. Say something darling. Tell me you're here-

Nothing. Nothing but nothing and nothing more. Mirrors angled towards each other, falling into eternal reflections of darkness. Drowning in shadows, the echoes dragging him down.

A banging jerks him back to the world outside. It feels flat and shapeless after the endless terrifying space inside him now. The light burns his eyes, he shields his face. Everything is white around him.

He'd thought he was back in the LIFE lab, and it looks pretty much the same as those cells. But the man outside is definitely not Carton Drake.

Eddie bares his teeth, he can still feel scraps of flesh  between them. The man stares back at him, impassive, and fuck, but Eddie knows him. That fucking general who never'd met a war he didn't like, or a superhuman he didn't hate. They'd been planning to eat him too, at some point, but he'd never felt like an immediate threat.

Ha, joke's on them.

"Hey asshole." Eddie grits out.

The man doesn't say anything, just gives a nod to someone and-

PAIN

Burning, all the way through him, white hot filaments slowly boring through him, flaying him layer by layer. Eddie is vaguely aware of his body, arched up and supine in agony on the white floor. He's far more aware of clamps locking him in place, the slow stripping of tissue with white hot, needle thin scalpels, pain unending, utter and inescapable until all he wants is to curl up in the burning, stripping air and die.

Then it retreats, Eddie is on the floor curled in a  ball. "No-" the last gasps of breath from his wrung out lungs. "No- please-"

"It seems like you're right, doctor." The general says impassively. "There is a pain connection."

"No fucking shit." His eyes are burning with more tears than he can shed, his nose running with blood and snot.

The general ignores him, it's only now Eddie's fading eyes pick out the bluetooth headset he's wearing. "No, carry on. Just don't do anything to terminate it yet, he needs to live until his court date."

The world drowns in burning shadows, molten mirrors pulling him down, clinical eyes reflected endlessly, the gleaming white hot tip of blades.

At least one of Dad's fucking predictions had come true, in the end. Eddie is indeed in hell.

He makes his first attempt the first time they come to feed him. There's a hatch at the bottom of the door, it's slotted open, and a metal cup and plastic plate pushed through. They've finished with Venom for now, Eddie can feel him, huddled at the very limit of the frail, tenuous remains of their bond, trying at once to shield Eddie from the shuddering reverberations of his pain, and the desperate need to crawl back through their bond and press up against Eddie, soak into him and be held and holding and safe and oh please Eddie Eddie please-

Eddie can't reach him, he can't stop the monsters hurting him, but he can do this. He tries to reach through the bond, push I'm sorry I can't let them do this it's the only way out-

He's not sure how much Venom feels from him, but there's a vague sense of relief, the symbiote too exhausted to feel anything but gratitude that it's all going to be over soon.

Eddie scoots over to the food, waits until the guard is out of sight, and picks up the plate. He ignores the food, and his own distantly growling stomach, and slams the edge of the plate down on the rim of the cup.

The plastic is thick and sturdy, it takes three more blows until it shears in half. The porridge splatters everywhere, but Eddie's left with a six inch long blade of plastic.

He's not stupid enough to think he can take anyone out with this. These people have guns and fuck knows how much security, but he can make this stop. One last way out.

He takes a deep breath, two, three. Lifts the blade and presses the tip against the jut of his throat. He's pretty clear on how humans are built, after he and Venom have taken so many of them apart. Right stab through the windpipe, catching the artery on the other side. He'd be dead in moments, and Venom with him, forever out of reach of whatever they are doing to him. Eddie doesn't have enough faith to believe there's anything after this life, but anything's better than this.

A draws his hand back, and brings it back in as hard as he can. Maybe it's all the killing. Maybe because he’d wondered about this before, in the dark times before Venom, but he doesn't slow, or flinch at the last minute. There's an awful wet shlick, like claws through rotted cloth, a starburst of pain and Eddie could cry because it's his this time. He's hurting too. They're both hurting, united once more if only in pain.

He fumbles with the shard of plate, trying to pull it out and get it over faster. His breath is a ragged choke, burbling blood. His hand slips, scrabbling for purchase as his blood wells up in slick waves over the blade, over and over splattering red across the white floor, pouring out but not fast enough.

The sirens go off, the lights flash- shit- Eddie pulls and pulls, cutting his fingers almost to the bone trying to get the blade free, but it's caught on something- gristle or cartilage and fuck Brock, can't you even manage to fucking kill yourself properly-

The door slams open, Eddie hooks his fingers through his own flesh and rips the blade free. The pain is a cold flood through his veins, eyesight starting to fog as blurry figures rush in. Desperate to save him. Torture him, burn him alive over and over, but how dare he try and die without permission.

Eddie tries to laugh, but only blood comes out. Hands reach for him, but he's already falling, far and fast and out of their reach now. Both of them, safe and out of their reach forever-

Hands. Hands on him. Grasping and clutching and pulling him, out of the darkness, back into the light, back into the burning. Eddie tries to cry out, and his voice is a rasp bought in blood. Someone is shouting in the distance, but his head is swimming, sound waving in and out like a badly tuned radio.

He opens his eyes. He's back in the cell, lying on his side on the once-again pristine white floor. The general is outside, shouting to someone on his phone. The floor is wavering under Eddie, rocking like the sea. His eyes are crusted and his mouth tastes of vomit and blood. The general stops shouting and glowers into the cell, at Eddie. "Yes. He's awake. Give your staff get a bonus and make sure that guard never gets work anywhere again."

Eddie narrows his eyes, meets the general's gaze. He says nothing, but there's pure loathing in that look. It's only when he turns to leave that Eddie dares to touch his throat. They've put some sort of collar there, clear plastic with no noticeable seam. It's flexible enough that Eddie can feel the skin doubled up under it, stapled and sutured into place, but he can't get a good enough grip to tear it open again.

Eddie closes his eyes, despair clawing in his guts. Not good enough. Never good enough. A fuck up as a reporter, as a vigilante, and now as a suicide. "Can't do anything right." It comes out raw and thick, he shudders and coughs out a clot of blood. I'm sorry, he whispers instead, in the empty void inside his head. I'm so, so sorry.

There are no words from Venom, just a desperate attempt to get closer, as though Venom was trying to climb through their bond and find Eddie again. Curl up in his home between Eddie's ribs, under his heart. Reaching out blindly, between the stars, to find touch again.

Tears burn Eddie's eyes. Venom is growing more frantic, clawing desperately in tiny, wordless cries. They're coming for him again. It's going to start again and there's nothing they can do to stop it.

Time doesn't have any meaning here. There's The Pain, and that lasts forever so there's no point in trying to measure it. Then there's nothing, just the endless white light of the cells, the occasional plate of slop- styrofoam now- shoved under the door. Eddie lies on his side, only bothering to get up once a day to throw the food down the waste disposal drain, then going back to lie in his corner. He wonders if he's getting bed sores. He doesn't fucking care. They put him under at some point, and he wakes up with the collar and sutures gone and a only ragged scar across his throat to remind him of his failure.

Venom barely sends anything anymore. Just the Pain, and when Eddie tries to reach for him, in those brief intervals between sessions, he's responding less and less. Like those rats, endlessly given electric shocks until they can only give up and dumbly accept them, shut down and die inside.

He's crying. It's just a fact these days, not even any noticeable emotion he can pick out. I'm sorry. He screams, over and over in the universe of nothing in his head. There's no answer. It's empty, and growing emptier every day. Just another fact, like the dull knot of senseless hunger in his stomach, the spindly remains of his arms and legs, his brittle bones. In a way, it's almost a victory. Every day they let him starve is another day closer to getting out of this nightmare. It's the only escape they've got left, and it's slow, cruelly slow, but it's a promise. That they will leave. That he won't be left here until he's a mad old man with nothing in his mind at all. Alone. So utterly alone.

The guard's rounds are different today. There are more footsteps that he's used to. Eddie opens his eyes and looks out. It is the general again? He hopes not. The guards barely look at him and under the rotted mess of his clothes, they probably haven't noticed he's dying. The general would. Eddie's not sure what he would do if they started force feeding him. Probably lose whatever last grasp he has on sanity and run blindly into the relief of madness. He's only staying for Venom now, for whatever company he can give them in the last days of their lives.

It's not the general, it's the guard. But he's not alone. It takes Eddie a moment to recognise the first man passing his cell. He's never seen him before, but he knows him from TV. Tony Stark. For a moment, a sweet, blissful moment, he can step back into memories. Him and Venom, them. Sitting by the TV watching Stark give a speech about some kind of superhero regulations. Shall we kill him too, Eddie? Venom's warm, sweet purr in his ear, trembling through his chest. Nah, he changed the channel, He's a superhero, and he's pretty big on clean energy, he can live.

Fucking irony. Eddie's teeth itch, but they're weak, and loose in their gums from starvation. He follows the man with his eyes. Stark, the inventor. Stark, the weapons manufacturer. Presumably retired, but when his millionaire buddies came crying for a weapon to protect their genocidal asses, he fucking delivered, didn't he?

Stark doesn't look at him, doesn't stop. But the next man does.

No, not a man.

A boy.

The bolt of sheer, blind rage isn’t his, isn't Venom's but theirs, together. White hot and biting cold and so furious Eddie is on his feet and slammed up against the glass before the boy has time to flinch away. He's not wearing the mask, but fuck Eddie would know him anywhere. He screams, wild and high and mindless, pounding on the glass with bony fists.

The boy recoils, backs himself flat against the far wall. "Mr Stark!" He shrieks.

Stark turns, and sees Eddie. His face pales, his mouth moves- what the fuck-

Eddie doesn't care, doesn't hear. "Finish it!" he howls. "Fucking finish it you piece of fucking shit! You dogfucking animal! You fucking monster!"

The boy's backing away, white as snow. "Brock?" He chokes. Stark grabs him and pulls him away, looking as though he might be sick.

"Finish it" Eddie can't stay upright, his legs buckle and he slides to the floor. "Come, back here and kill us you fucking cowards, you filthy, crawling, weak-"

It's too late. They've vanished around the corridor. Eddie screams, and screams again as the Pain returns. Sinking to his knees and howling in the hollow of his body.

Chapter Text

He can't muster up the strength to move, lying with his back to the corridor. There's nothing but the Pain to mark time by, and that is forever. There might have been two respites between each session, there might have been one and he just fell unconscious. Eddie doesn't even scream any more. Possibly he couldn't even if he tried, there can't be much left of his vocal cords at this point.

Something hits the plastic wall he's resting against. The impact ripples dully through the Pain, and fades just as quickly. Eddie opens his eyes, stares blankly at the vast expanse of white floor, Venom isn't screaming any more either. The Pain thrumming through them as dull as senseless as a plucked guitar string, the only thing still shared in their private worlds of agony.

"Hey Hannibal Lecter." Another kick. Eddie doesn't move. "General says you're to eat this time. They need to keep you pretty for the fans."

The plate of food is slopped through the hatch. Eddie looks at it, then the world lights up in searing, incandescent agony that's barely even feeling any more. Too much, it feels like he's outside himself, watching it happen to them.

Another kick. "I'm not going to stop until you eat it."

Eddie rolls over so his back's no longer against the wall. His elbow, ribcage and hip are bloody from however many weeks it's been, lying on this floor. His clothes are matted to the wounds and pull instantly against them in a pain that's all his, and almost completely lost as a new wave hits.

The guard swears, his boot crashes into the wall again. "Eat the fucking food! Christ, do you only eat people-"

Eddie doesn't move. The next wave brings a weak cry from Venom and he tries, dully and helplessly, to reach back, to catch hold of some- strand of him, draw them both together, if only for a moment-

"Fucking freak! Are you going to eat or do I have to make you-"

Oh. Eddie looks up at the guard, for a moment right back in his body. The moron's dug out the keycard to his cell, and a taser. He feels his face draw up into a half smile. Yeah, okay. He sends a wave of reassurance back through the bond. There's no way he's going to survive being shot with that. It's okay. Nearly over.

He gets an exhausted ripple of emotion back, half hope, half you tried that one before. Eddie chokes because- God, that's more than he's gotten back in so long. "Yeah, but I'm pretty sure about this one." His voice is a death rattle, so dry his lips crack and bleed.

"You want this?" The guard is furious, fumbling with the keycard to open the door. "You want a piece of this-" he breaks off.

The Pain flickers for a moment. Eddie blinks.

The guard has gone rigid, the keycard held up to swipe Eddie's cell open. He starts shaking, the keycard drops from his fingers, a tiny, slight click on the plastic floor. Just in front of the still open hatch in Eddie's door.

The trembling shock of hope is so alien Eddie doesn't move at once. Doesn't know what to do. Then the guard staggers back from his door and- Jesus fuck he's having a heart attack or something, clutching at his chest and crying out-

Eddie tries to sit up, but his body's a mass of rusted hinges and rotting, corroded iron. He can't even straighten his elbows.

The guard's head starts beating against the far wall, a sharp, rapid tat-tat-tat. The taser falls from his hand to the floor.

Move.

Somehow Eddie half crawls, half swims through his shrouding clothes to the door. He knocks the plate out of the way and shoves his claw of a hand through the gap as the guard starts spasming uncontrollably. He's barely closed his fingers around the plastic card when the guard falls still and crumbles to dust.

Eddie stares, for a moment the Pain, his decay of their body, the keycard all forgotten. Is he finally going insane?

A desperate shove against his mind. Eddie- EddieEddieEddie- wild and desperate and barely words at all. Eddie claws his way up the door and gets the keycard into the emergency release. The door whispers open and he lurches into the hallway, stumbling through the ash that's all that's left of the guard-

No, not quite all.

Eddie has to brace himself against the wall to bend down far enough to snatch the taser. His whole body is knuckled over, as though every joint is riddled with arthritis. He walks anyway, shoulder slamming against the wall with every step to keep his -their their please their soon please- body upright.

The lights flicker, come back red and an alarm starts to blare. Eddie tightens his grip on the taser- although who he's going to use it on is up for debate- but there are no sudden SWAT teams, no one on the intercom shouting orders. Just screams, and, in the distance someone crying.

And the desperate, dragging hook inside him, pulling him in like a harpoon shot through his ribcage. "Venom." He tries to move faster, his teeth rattle in his jaw with every jarring step, his knees stiff and unbending. "Coming babe."

The flare of red lights, the bovine roar of sirens like jabbing punches to the back of his head. Eddie can see someone moving ahead and tightens his grip on the taser. A darkened room full of medical equipment, a figure flailing inside as though drowning.

And a wide glass cylinder, with something dark moving inside.

Eddie's mind cuts out, something more than his own will moving his body. The hands reaching for him, desperate and weeping under the glass and he can't breathe the world blotching out in panic, clawing at the senseless walls until he finds the door-

The floor is ankle deep in human dust, shrouded in labcoats. The lone survivor looks at him in desperate hope, her mouth opening-

She recoils, eyes wide, horror suffusing her face. Just behind her, Eddie can see his reflection in the shadowglass wall. A corpse with burning eyes.

She screams. Eddie fires the taser and she collapses to the floor, convulsing. He drops it and slumps over the cylinder, fingers digging into the unyielding surface. Black ichor splays just under his hands, less than an inch of glass. Just a bit of sand with an attitude problem.

Eddie grins helplessly, rests his cheek against the cool surface, feels it warm as Venom plasters himself against his face, digging helplessly at the glass. He doesn't have claws like this, or teeth.

"I got you." Eddie breathes, his voice catches on the you, his eyes burn but he can't cry. He can't remember the last time he drank something. He fumbles with the cage, and finds a pair of imbedded gloves, sealed in around the cylinder. Inside the cage, there's a bunsen burner, a case of scalpels.

Eddie's stomach lurches, he doubles over and bile burns his throat. He forces himself up and digs through the discarded lab coats until he finds a steel-nipped fountain pen. The woman- torturer- is huddled against the wall, groaning and semi-conscious. Eddie rams the pen into the rubber lining of the glove.

The hole is barely a millimeter wide, but it's enough. Venom surges from the tank like a tide, boring his way through, splitting the glove open and- and-

And Eddie is on the floor, gasping and sobbing and Venom is everywhere, engulfing and devouring him and Eddie can taste him, running down his throat, through his skin, behind his eyes, burrowed against his spine and under his brain and wrapped tight around his heart and-

It's both their names, blended together until senseless; it's a scream of all the pain of these terrible months. It's joy and agony and terror and triumph and it hurts and it's the best thing they've ever known.

They open their eyes. The Pain is still there; the trembling flayed agony of being pared apart and healed over and over, strung out for raptors to pick at and never being allowed to die, and the slow, creeping death of hunger, the rotting decay of muscle and bone. But that's a footnote now, because the greatest pain's gone, the terrible loss and emptiness of being alone. They stand, and Venom flows over Eddie's ruined body, strength and power through their shrunken limbs.

The scientist whimpers, tries to crawl towards the door. They grin. They bare their teeth, "Bad Guy."

Her skull cracks open between their jaws, a spray of blood and brain matter. They eat her down to the pelvis, teeth and bones and organs and licking up the blood, the meat and liquid pouring life back into their body like sunlight after eons of darkness. They find a tap and drink ravenously, and only pause long enough to smash the cylinder until not even the scalpels are left whole, and walk out.

The corridors are still and empty. They crouch against the wall, but apart from the endlessly groaning alarm, the only noise is coming from somewhere far above them. They listen, and trace the sound over to the emergency stairs. The air tastes of salt and panic, their claws sink into the soft iron of the steps as they climb.

Outside, no one is paying attention to anything, and everyone is shouting. They see the General screaming something lost to the sounds of the waves and- oh, they're on a boat. This could be awkward. The sea stretches out as far as they can see, and even together, they are weak enough to know they cannot swim it. Even if they didn't drown, the cold would kill them. Night is falling fast and they shiver in the spray.

Someone runs right past them, so close they can see the whites of their eyes, rolling in panic like a maddened horse. They are heading for one of the parked helicopters.

"Our ride." They grin.

We don't know how to fly one, the Eddie-part of them murmurs, then falls silent, embarrassed.

"He does." They lope after the pilot. "We will too." The scientist was necessary, but she tasted too much of their pain to make for a good meal. And they are hungry.

The rotors are picking up speed as they approach, but they wait until the skids are just lifting off the deck before they pounce. The leap should have carried them easily into the cockpit, but barely gets them high enough to dig their claws into the floor, legs kicking to find purchase on the skids. Below, there is a renewed chorus of screams as people catch sight of them.

The pilot has seen them too. He screams and tries to kick them, which works about as well as can be expected. They bite off his leg at the ankle.

The helicopter lurches, starts to list. They pull themselves up and grab the pilot. He's bleeding out in great gouts, the helicopter is losing altitude fast, but they can do this. They open their jaws and clamp down over the man's head as he whimpers and chokes. Not enough to crush the delicate skull, but enough for them to swarm over him, soak into his brain and find what they need.

The head crunches satisfyingly, the body goes limp between their teeth, bumping against them as they adjust the controls to level out the helicopter and engage autopilot, it's still twitching satisfyingly as they settle down and start to eat.

Far below, there's the faint scream of 4000 hertz. They shiver, but it's too faint to hurt. And there's been enough pain. More than enough.

They shove the thought away, it doesn't quite go, but between the two of them, they can blot it out for now. Long enough. Long enough to get them away.

The flight takes them the rest of the night, occasionally adjusting the autopilot, but mostly sitting, watching the waves below. The exhaustion is starting to hit, they push it off stubbornly, but sooner or later they will be unable to maintain this- oneness, this symbiosis, and…

And they don’t really want to think about what that will be like. Nothing that should happen in a helicopter, definitely.

The sun is just rising when they sight land, the jutting edges of skyscrapers breaking the monotony of the sea like teeth. There’s a huge statue in the bay and a blink of recognition from their Eddie-part. New York.

That’s good. They know New York, they can find somewhere to hide and feed and tuck themselves away far from everyone who wants to hurt them. The Avengers are here, but they would expect them to go back to San Francisco, not move in right under their noses-

Then the light glints off the wreckage in the bay, the smoke rising from the rooftops, and- “I don’t think they’re going to bother with us.” They murmur, staring down in fascinated horror.

There are three airplanes in the bay, the bodies floating like tiny, multicoloured beads. Several more have blasted through the buildings and for a moment their minds are full of their Eddie-part’s memories, the last time planes crashed into New York. But that was only two.

This is like that, writ huge. The smell of burning and death reaches them and they choke, dropping lower to avoid the ash cloud smothering the city. Buildings are burning, red-yellow flames garish against the grey. Screaming. Sirens. The crunch as cars smash into each other at street level, spin away to gore out shop fronts.

There isn’t anywhere to even try to land, and they don’t bother, aiming the helicopter into the disaster in the bay, and jumping towards the nearest building. Their claws tear great rents in the concrete, slow their fall to ground level. Their feet dig into the endless, grey dust and oh fuck it’s here too, what happened? How far did this spread-

Shh- Their symbiote part wraps around their Eddie-part before he can panic enough to split them. He trembles and quiets inside them, but they cannot keep this up. They need somewhere to hide, somewhere to heal and recover-

We need to help them. It’s so weak and exhausted that they smile wearily. Yes. Help them. Soon. When they can help themselves.

It’s a mark of just how awful things are that no one notices them. Two cars swerve and crash together further up the road, the drivers struggling out and starting to run. A huddle of people are trying to take shelter in the jack-knifed remains of a truck, and more are raiding a grocery store.

They look around, they know this place. Or rather, they know how this place connects to others through the subway. They need to find shelter, a place to rest. They hug the walls, loping through the narrow streets. Above, another helicopter is hovering, weaving drunkenly between the skyscraper spires before vanishing just above them with a sickening crunch and a rain of glass.

They duck, the glass is light, but they’re spread so thin it cuts through them and draws blood. It’s a conscious effort to focus and heal the wounds, and even that minor exertion makes them giddy.

Need food. Need sleep. Need to hide somewhere. Need somewhere no one can find. Need- Need- Need-

The scream of tires. The flash of something bright against the suffocating grey, they jump back and the car spins in where they were standing. The front rams into a dumpster with a sound like the world’s largest tin can being crushed. A scream, high and liquid, trailing to a sobbing warble.

The driver is dead, a pulped mass of red smeared across the windscreen. Her passenger is little better, choking weakly and staring at her severed leg. They hesitate for a moment, Eddie-part whispering Leave her alone, she’s gonna die anyway and Venom-part muttering Might as well put her out of her misery. The tension between the two is too much, their black skin shimmers, threatening to fade and they clutch their head please not here, please hold on-

The woman resolves their dilemma by passing out, breath rattling in her chest. They end it quickly with a bite to her neck and feed as fast as they can, drinking up the sour tang of desperation and terror, the musty reek of bewilderment. The driver is a little better, the final mad rush of adrenaline feels fresh and powerful as they lick it out of her skull, devour organs swollen with cortisol and can finally breathe as their stomach fills, the warm rush of feeding sweeping through them.

God, they’re tired. The world blurs with exhaustion, and they have to blink and blink again to clear their eyes. Finally, just across the road, they see it- a building with the lights off, and no sign of fire. Church. the Eddie-part groans. They crawl wearily up the wall, find a corridor deserted by all but the dust, and kick in the window.

Perhaps it’s the normality of the place, something so close and old to Eddie, riddled through with safe- but the exhaustion hits like a train. They sink to their knees and their skin wavers again, a glimpse of human skin.

“No. Not yet.” The wooden walls shreds under their claws as they pull themselves upright. Inside, their component parts are weeping for rest, but they have to be certain, they have to be sure-

In the middle is a box room, windowless, nothing inside but old boxes and a few rotting clothes. The boxes are tossed out, and they find a bed in one of the other rooms. Blankets, pillows, all the clothes they can find from the vestry. The find a fridge and raid it for bottled water, fruit and chocolate. Then back to the room, throwing down the mattress and piling up the boxes against the door. They make the bed carefully, tear up one of the blankets for cleaning rags, and sit down, letting the focus drift out of oneness, and back to-

“Fuck!“ Eddie’s voice tears from his throat. He slumps over, collapsing on the bed and grabbing at himself desperately, “Vee-“

His skin wells up and oh oh it’s him, they’re here, they’re back. Eddie closes his eyes and digs his fingers into the slick rivers running over and over and through him, knotted up all around in desperation. Venom’s face is barely half out of his shoulder, small and trembling.

The Pain is still clinging to him, a huge hollow absence inside him. As though some part of the symbiote had been torn out, leaving an unbearable gulf of nothing.

“’m here.” Eddie slurs, the words heavy and uncomfortable in his bloody mouth, his rattling teeth. He curls up into a ball, wrapping himself as closely around Venom as Venom is around him. "Not leaving. Just- lemme. I can do it.”

He pushes inside Venom, digging out the terrible hollowness and soaking through love and safe and here. Venom shivers, and presses back inside Eddie, knitted through and through and through each other like endless Russian dolls.

It still hurts. The empty spaces inside Venom ache like Eddie’s lost teeth, their weakly brittle bones. Eddie’s shrunken stomach is sore and distended against his thighs, and even half hidden inside him, Eddie can see the knotted, discolored scars across Venom’s slick body. They are tired and weak and the Pain is still reverberating between them, threatening to sink its teeth back into them-

“But it’s worth it.” Eddie murmurs. “We’re here, love. We’re here.”

Venom winds between this finger, squirms inside him and nuzzles his hindbrain. Eddie. His voice is weak and wavering, but there. Oh fuck, Eddie can’t bear it, it’s been so long. Hurts, Eddie.

“I know babe.” He’s smiling. He’s crying. They don’t care. “I’m sorry.”

You- he breaks off, trembling. You were starving.

And- oh fuck, of course. To Venom, so eternally hungry, starvation seemed the worst of deaths. “It was the only way out, darling.” He whispers, stroking the long back coils. “I had to-“ he chokes. “Had to make it stop.” Tears burn his eyes.

Not like that, a broken wail. Eddie- please no.

“Didn’t have a choice.” Fuck, Eddie wants to drive his hands into his own body and hold him, wishes there was a way of pulling Venom deeper inside him, somewhere they could never be separated, never be hurt again. “We can’t- let them get us.” His voice cracks. “Not again, I-“

No nononono- Eddie can feel Venom tremble inside him, his bones ache from the fear. No. NO.

Eddie blinks, the tears running hot down his shrunken cheeks. “Just- make it stop next time.” He whispers. “I can try, but it’ll – hurt less, if you do it.”

There’s no verbal answer, just another shudder that jars his spine. Eddie hugs themselves; closes his eyes as Venom slowly calms, quiet but for the occasional whimper. “Okay, babe?”

No.

Eddie smiles weakly. He manages to sit up, and tries to pick up the jug of water. It’s like trying to move a wall, his withered muscles bunching uselessly. He manages to tip it far enough to drink, slopping water over his face and chest, the remains of his prison uniform sticking to his ribcage.

Get rid of it. He’d trying to be disdainful, it comes out pleading. We don’t want to look at it.

“Yeah. Claws please.”

He manages to shred the uniform enough to get it off. The bloody mess of his bedsores ooze and bleed as he peels them free. Looking down at himself; the mess of blood and pus, dug down through his skin so deep he can see the sick yellow meat inside, that skin stretched so tight over his bones he barely seems alive- it’s too much. Eddie closes his eyes, tries to burn the image out of his head.

Here. Venom sounds exhausted, there’s a jolt of pain, and then it fades in almost unbearable relief. When he opens his eyes again, the bedsores are nothing but raw red skin.

“Thanks love.” He soaks a rag in water, and starts sponging the mess off his wrecked body. He wishes he could reach into Venom and make it better for him too. Tear out the terror lurking within his lover and destroy it forever-

We can do that. Venom murmurs, coiling tight inside him.

“Yeah?” Eddie sits up, it doesn’t hurt so much now, but it’s still shatteringly exhausting. “Go for it.”

You may not want it.

“I don’t want to ever go through-“ his voice shakes, “That again.”

I do not want to hurt you.

“I’m pretty okay with dying, you know.” Eddie strokes him. “I’d rather not do it now, though.”

No, but it would provide- insurance. In case we’re ever separated again.

“Then fuck, please. Do it.”

There’s- not exactly pain. Like pain that had been numbed. Venom coils up around his heart, tight enough to crush, heavy enough to flatten his lungs. Eddie struggles to drag in a breath, coughs as the tension builds against his ribcage, as though his heart is swelling large enough to burst-

There’s a terrible crack, a flash of searing pain that vanishes almost at once and Eddie sees a glimpse of bare white bone and blood- then the hole is gone just as quickly, swallowed in Venom’s black liquid body. Eddie can breathe again, the air raw and ragged, the inside of his chest strange and shivering after being so briefly being exposed to air.

“Okay. What the fuck did you do?” Venom’s head emerges from the black well, opalescent eyes blinking at him. Eddie relaxes because- whatever that was, Venom is feeling a lot better. The calm soaks through him and into Eddie, making him smile.

Venom smiles back, and opens his mouth.

There’s a thick, fist-sized knot of muscle and tubes in there, raw red and still pulsing. The blood running in rivulets over Venom’s teeth.

Eddie hesitates, and touches the lump with one uncertain finger. It’s body-hot, still trembling as the muscles finally relax. “That’s my heart.”

Venom drops it on his chest. It’s wet and spongy and surprisingly heavy. “Yes.” He grins.

Eddie picks it up; he has no idea what to do with it. “How am I still alive?”

“We are your heart now, Eddie.” And- that should probably not feel as fucking good as it does. Eddie blinks away tears, those of relief and joy taste different than pain and fear. “We will keep you alive.” He nuzzles Eddie’s cheek, leaves streaks of blood as he licks up his tears. “Don’t cry.”

“It’s good." Eddie tries to wipe his face, and only manages to get blood everywhere. “D’you want to eat this?” He offers his heart to Venom. “I bet you’ve always wanted to.”

“Yes,” he purrs, closes his eyes and presses his teeth to Eddie’s lips in a raw, bloody kiss. “We can share it.”

After so many months hunting with Venom, the taste of human blood and meat is almost comfortingly familiar. His gums hurt, trying to bite through the tough muscle, and he’s afraid he’s going to lose more teeth before Venom squirms inside him and their teeth turn long and narrow and iron strong, shredding the flesh easily.

His insides lurch, too full with the meat of five people inside him. He can feel Venom looped around his stomach, helping him to digest the meal which would otherwise have killed him. The twisted tangle of him deep in his chest, tied to his veins and arteries, pumping the blood through his- now most definitely their- body.

It works though, the sheer relief of it. The absolute, bone-deep knowledge that they cannot be separated now, that even Stark would find it hard to keep them alive with no heart and a huge hole through their chest. It feels safe, safe for the first time in months, safe as he couldn’t have imaged feeling ever again.

“Thank you.” He whispers. He reaches for the cloth, but Venom washes over him, swallowing the cast-off blood and leaving him clean.”Just- thank you.”

"Yes.” Venom murmured, settling around his neck. “We’ll sleep now, and find more food tomorrow. We’ll look after you, Eddie.” He swept through Eddie, a full-body hug. “You won’t be hungry again. We won’t let you. Never like that. Never, Eddie.”

“Shh,” he strokes the broad head, presses a kiss to his nose. “I got you, babe.”

Got you, tickling the back of his brain. Got you got you never letting go Eddie. He presses deeper inside, as though all he wants is to dig through Eddie until he finds his soul, and eat that too.

“I’d serve it up to you on a silver platter,” Eddie agrees, closing his eyes and feeling the exhaustion wash over him like the sea. “It’s yours anyway.”

There’s a wash of adoration and endless love. His. All his. Eddie’s mouth twitches into a smile as sleep rising up to claim him. God, for this, anything.