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Venom’s children taste like soot, wax, and grease between its teeth.
It’s better this way. That Venom is the one to end their short lives. The other’s would not be so merciful as to kill them before their consciousness really sprouts. It has seen it happen before, with lesser Klyntar. Stupider Klyntar that did not know its place. The others will wait until it starts talking to chew it up, and let its parent listen to its screams for help that will not arrive.
The seedlings will know nothing but touch, before they meet Venom’s teeth. It hopes, if they are capable of conceiving, they think of its tentacles as kind ones, even as they are placed in its mouth. It will love them. It will try and try to help them understand, deep down inside of it, that they will rest there, until it is safe for them in a world in which Venom’s children are food.
Venom will reach no understanding. Not as its unborn infants collect their essence, and try again. It will never be safe for them. The only place the ones born after Riot are safe is inside of it.
It is too big, and too good at self-sufficiency to be eaten.
It does not make Venom feel better, not as they screech, and try to wriggle out of its mouth.
It does not have a better option for them. There is no place for Venom to go. It lives here, and as long as it does the rest of its children will not. It is Klyntar, and Klyntar will not have its weak, obnoxious children.
It has learned what happens when it tries to rear its own children.
All of Venom’s other children have died by other’s mouths, far too late for them to return to it. Far too late for a second chance. Love, and attention do not get Klyntar very far. Anger, and spite, and hatred do, and it is so tired of all three. It will not leave another newborn in the rocky, cavernous land. It will not ignore another infants cries for any protection it can get, and it will not shove another one off of it.
Nor will it do as the other Klyntar do.
It will not make another Riot. Riot is not what it wants its sweet seeds to be. It did not want to leave Riot far off. It did not want to push Riot away. And now Riot is Riot, and Riot, as most Klyntar do, hate its parent.
Riot eats its siblings. That is not what it should do. It has never met another Klyntar that ate its siblings. That is not normal. Even if it hates its parent, it should not mock it as it chews its sibling. Sibling is the only place Klyntar accept help. Sibling helps, and sibling is there. It chews its sibling.
Maybe there is something wrong with its spawn.
Venom is alone. It is almost always alone, with everyone else, but right now, as the rocks pass the middle of the yellow sky, it is truly alone. Heavy shapes linger around it, but it couldn’t be less concerned.
It has made a red one. It thinks that the red ones are too quick to come back. Far too quick. There is no understanding in this one, it cannot, and will not understand that it can not exist yet. That if one of the others hear its pathetic infant wailing it will be played with until it can understand death. It will die.
It wails, clinging to the curls of Venom draped across a rather prickly surface. It is too young to wail.
Venom does what it always does, even if it begs on the way down.
This is a mercy Klyntar do not allow. Venom tells itself that the infant is lucky, for such a mercy.
It does not believe itself.
The red one is not supposed to actually beg. It has not been alive long enough. It should not cling to its tendrils, or try to hide amongst Venom’s mass. It should know cling to side, and nothing else. It wails as Venom brings it to its teeth.
For a moment Venom understands the pain of fire. This one is conscious. This one, because Venom is its parent, will remember what Venom is doing. This one will be like Riot, even if it is not left anywhere. It will hate Venom. It makes it very clear as it screeches, far from even being put into Venom’s mouth.
It is not safe for it here. It never will be.
None of them will.
It's screams hurt the worst. Fire alights inside of Venom with each scream. It does not want to chew, and it does not want to swallow.
Riot is watching. It is not safe here. Not for Venom, and not for spawn.
It does not go down easily. It clings, and scratches at the inside of its mouth, trying to find a footing in a hopeless situation.
It is full of hate as it slides down, and Venom sits. It sits as still as the rock it stays near, and tries to accept that its children will never be safe here. Its children will never live, and it is just as bad as the oth-
Eddie sits up in bed, gasping for air that is not coming. He tosses the sweaty blanket aside, kicking hopelessly at it as he begins to dry heave over the side of the bed. Nothing comes, even as his stomach lurches, and his chest settles with the weight of death.
The weight of hatred.
Their teeth taste like soot, wax, and grease.
“ Vee -are- Vee ?!” Venom drapes a tendril around Eddie's broad shoulders, hoping that somehow it would say more than Venom could. They had learned what pain was. They wanted to forget that. “Was-that was you, wasn’t it?” Eddie gasps again, leaning back onto his back as his rough hands run up and down Venom’s existence.
Venom forms a head, disappearing momentarily to do so. When they reemerge from his chest, they bury their head in the crook of his neck as rough hands look to soothe something .
The touch is nice, even if it sends no thoughts running from Venom.
Eddie does not speak. This is what he would call a ‘tomorrow afternoon’ problem. They will talk when Eddie does not feel like Venom will run. For now Eddie will hold onto the small part of them curled around his body, and they will both try to find rest.
As Eddie sleeps, Venom will think over his red one. The grown up symbiote. Carnage. A name given to them, and well earned.
Riot liked them from the beginning.
He will wonder if their red would have called them father earnestly, if Venom had been given a chance to raise them the way Venom wanted to.
He will wonder, and find no answers inside of them.
Carnage has never tasted good.