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Eddie woke up to silence.
No, that wasn't right. He could hear the distant traffic, muffled behind the glass of a window. The ticking of a clock, on his left. Somewhere, the sound of running water being interrupted, then something, a door maybe, closing.
The silence, the lack, was all located into his mind.
He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling. He was lying on a bed, one with clean sheets and a decent mattress. Not his own, then. His hands moved over the sheets, trying to get a sense of his conditions. Where...?
“Oh , damn it!” The voice, coming from his far left, startled him. He looked in that direction, to see an agitated Flash entering the room, quickly pushing his wheelchair towards the bed. “Sorry, I just... I leave you for like two fucking minutes, and of course you wake up right then. Of course.” He shook his head. “I should have tried that sooner actually...”
Eddie recognized the room, now. He was in Flash Thompson's house, in Philadelphia.
“Flash... what... where...” He mumbled, trying to push himself up on his elbows.
“Hey, take it easy...” Flash supported him, helping him to sit up on the bed. “How do you feel?”
“I'm...” He looked at his hands, the hands he had burnt to the bone against the furnace's horrible heat. They looked fine, not even a blister on the skin. He touched his face.
He was healed. He had been healed.
“I'm ok.” He coughed. “Thirsty.”
“Here...” Flash reached to the bedside table, where a bottle of water was placed next to two mugs, both stained with dried coffee. He uncorked the bottle's plastic tap and handed it to Eddie. “Just drink slowly...”
Eddie downed half the bottle in tow big gulps. “...or not.” Flash finished with a sigh.
“Better.” Eddie handed back the bottle and took a long breath. The absence of his other was distressing, but he was sure that if it had been in danger then Flash wouldn't have been wasting time with him. So... that was a small reassurance. But he needed to know where it was. “Why am I here? What has happened to us?”
“What's the last thing you remember?”
“The dragon. Fighting against the damn dragon. We killed it, burned it in the furnace. After that...” Pain. So much pain. His other's voice, anguished, telling him that it was too much, that it...
Darkness.
“After that there's nothing.”
“Someone came to clean the scene. No idea who that was... Me and Andi were still trying to reach New York, at the time. From what I gathered, they presented themselves as an anti-symbiote task force and had the proper gear. They found you but you... Venom resisted. Fought them, and then you escaped. Disappeared completely for days... until Mania found you on this building's roof, yesterday's night. You have been unconscious from that moment until now.”
“We were trying to reach you,” Eddie said. Venom had been trying to, clearly. But why had his other left him...? Maybe its wounds had been so bad it had needed to separate from him to recover... but that didn't make sense. He looked at Flash. “How is the Symbiote? Is it with you?”
Flash stared back, looking suddenly very uneasy, and Eddie felt anxiety rise. “...Flash?”
“...Venom is with you. Can't you feel it?”
“What? No, I--” He looked down, at what he had thought were just clothes. But no, the way they adhered to his skin, the sensation of them... That was his Symbiote. His other. How could he have not noticed, even for a moment?! He pressed a hand on his chest, feeling its texture, feeling... nothing. No response, no spark into his tired brain. No connection.
Love? He thought. Love, why can't I hear you...?
“Why can't I hear you?!” he repeated aloud, feeling the panic flare and doing nothing to control it.
“Eddie...”
“What has happened?!” Eddie grabbed Flash's arm. “It has never felt like this, never!”
“Maybe it's better if you get some more rest...”
“Flash, I need to know what happened. Please!” Desperation resonated into his voice, and after a few seconds Flash nodded.
“Alright, but please, hear me out until the end, ok? This might look bad, but I'm sure we will get through it.”
“Just tell me.”
“Andi told me that when she and Mania found you on the roof, at first it seemed like Venom didn't recognize her. She tried to approach you, and eventually grabbed your hand... and as soon as Mania touched Venom, it started to panic, and tried to pull itself and Andi away. What they felt...” Flash bit his lip. “Mania said that Venom felt like a blank slate. No memory, no voice, no thoughts it could pick on... Andi was shaken, too. I asked them if it might have been sleeping, or in a coma, but they said it was something different. Mania... was scared.” He added, after some hesitation.
“It feels...” dead. Eddie squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could erase the thought that way.
No. That wasn't it. He had thought he had felt the Symbiote die, in the past, he had felt their connection sever, he had felt its absence. He had felt what it was like to be bonded to a symbiote while it was kept sedated. This... was another thing completely from all those. And he knew , from how it felt, from the negative space it had carved into his mind, that it was worse.
“But listen to me,” Flash went on, with urgency. “After we decided it was better to hide you here I contacted Steve, and he asked me to send him a sample of your blood, so he could run some tests. As soon as I came near you with a syringe the Symbiote reacted and grabbed it. And then... it touched my skin, and as soon as it did so it retracted, and allowed me to take your blood. This means two things: whatever has happened to it, it is still protecting you. And it was able to recognize me and determine that I represented no threat to you. Damn, it even brought you here, either on its own or because it felt some kind of hint from you, but whatever the case it means Venom's still there, somewhere. We just need to reach through. Eddie? Eddie, look at me.”
Eddie had been staring in front of himself, without seeing anything. He turned to look at Flash, when he called his name. He blinked, and tears rolled down his cheeks. He didn't bother wiping them off. He just felt so tired.
“My other had told me that it was too much. We shouldn't have... I shouldn't have let...” He closed his eyes. His hands were abandoned into his lap, he didn't even found in himself the strength to clench his fists. “This time I don't know if--”
“Hey!” Flash grabbed Eddie's shoulders and looked into his eyes. “Listen to me. You are not alone in this. We are going to fix this. No matter what it takes. I will steal a spaceship and take you both up to Klyntar in my own arms if that's what it takes. Didn't Venom tell you about my famous stubbornness?”
Eddie could see how forced Flash's grin was, he could see the insecurity behind the determined front he was putting on for Eddie's own sake. For him and for Venom.
Eddie felt touched, and his eyes filled with tears again.
“Didn't Venom tell you about our famous stubbornness? We are going to help,” a voice interjected. The two men turned and saw Andrea, standing at the door, the small shape of Mania poking up behind her back. “Sorry coach, the living room window was open. I hope I wasn't interrupting anything.” She lifted a paper bag she was holding. “Brought you lunch.”
“I did give you a spare key for the emergencies, didn't I?” Flash let go of Eddie's shoulders and wheeled back a little, sighing.
“Yeah, but the window is quicker.” She smirked, then her expression turned serious again as she looked at Eddie. “And I meant that. I don't want to get all sappy or anything, but you and Venom are family now. There's no way we won't fight this fight together.” She glanced at Flash. “How was the speech, coach?”
“Great,” Flash's grin was sincere now.
“She had a good teacher,” Eddie said. He took a long breath, closing his eyes, and when he opened them again, he saw Flash, Andrea, and Mania, all looking at him with determination he knew was reflected into his eyes too, now. He pressed a hand over his heart, over the apparently unresponsive body of his beloved.
We are going to save you, my love . He thought. We will make things right.
I promise!