Eddie Brock woke up screaming again. This was normal now.
The sheets were twisted around his legs, damp with sweat. His chest heaved like he’d been running for miles, but there was no movement in the apartment besides his own gasping breath. The air felt heavier now. Too still. Too quiet. The holes still gaped open on the ceiling, the apartment hadn't been cleaned since, frankly he didn't feel like it needed to be. He didn't eat anymore.
“Venom…” he whispered, voice cracking like old wood. “Venom, where are you?”
There was no answer. Not even a growl like a hum of acknowledgement , no hunger-fueled complaint, no guttural laugh from the back of his mind. Just the echo of silence, a silence that had been his constant companion for weeks now.
He pressed his hands to his face, palms trembling. Sleep had become his personal hell, a place where memories felt real enough to bleed. He would feel the weight of the symbiote around him, wrapping him in that thick embrace — strong, fierce, terrifying — and then he'd wake to nothing. Again and again.
Sometimes he cried in his sleep. Sometimes he woke with salt on his lips and the taste of metal in his mouth, reaching out to a presence that no longer existed.
The dreams weren’t just of venom though. Some of them are from an earlier time; times when Eddie was somehow more scared then he was with venom. When he was fearful of being alone.
It had become a comfort eventually. Of having someone, something, inside him that knew every flaw, every crack, and didn’t turn away.
Venom had known Eddie. Truly known him.
Eddie stumbled out of bed and wandered into the kitchen, eyes adjusting to the dim glow of the streetlights beyond the window. He didn’t bother turning on the light. It only reminded him of how empty the place felt now.
He opened the fridge. It was empty except for a half-finished bottle of ketchup and a carton of eggs that were definitely past their expiration date. Venom had always been the one with the appetite.
He laughed to himself, a bitter, broken sound.
“Used to hate sharing my body,” he muttered. “Now I can’t even fill the space you left behind.”
Some nights, he thought he felt Venom watching. Like maybe a piece had been left behind, a shadow that curled at the edges of his mind. But it was just wishful thinking. Just a man, sitting in the dark, talking to ghosts of his past.
He slid to the floor, back pressed against the cold fridge. His arms wrapped around his knees. Tears started before he could stop them ; quiet, aching sobs that shook through his chest.
“I miss you, you bastard,” he choked out. “I miss you so much.”
And then, as the tears ran dry, as the weight of the silence settled over him once more, he felt something else. Something softer, quieter.
Gratitude.
For as messed up, terrifying, and unnatural as it all was ,the blood, the hunger, the madness , it had been real. He had lived. He had felt something that most people could never even imagine.
It was horribly perfect.
Broken down, hungry and very much missing his other half, Eddie reflected on a dream he had of the last night he saw venom.
“Are you still with me?” Eddie asked, voice barely audible over the roar of the creatures behind them
“I’m here,” Venom answered softly, even for him.
They sat in silence a beat longer, the gravity of what they were about to do stretching between them.
Eddie swallowed hard, throat dry. He glanced out at the flames and destruction in the distance. For a moment, the night sky looked peaceful. Almost beautiful. And that made it hurt more.
“…Back in the van,” he said, “you told me I’d be a good father.”
He felt part of Venom stir inside him. “Yes.”
Eddie’s eyes dropped to his hands, the scars on his knuckles. “Did you mean it? Or were you just trying to coy?”
Another pause. But this one wasn’t uncertain.
“I’ve never meant anything more,” Venom said, low and certain, like an oath.
Eddie blinked hard. His jaw clenched. “Why?”
“Because you care, Eddie.” Venom answered. “Because I've hurt you, and yet you still care. You protect people even when no one protects you. You’d give everything for someone else to have a chance.”
Eddie laughed, short and wet. “Guess I’m about to prove that.”
“Yes,” Venom said. “But you already did.”
The wind howled louder now, the time in the crashed chopper nearing its end, their end. But Eddie didn’t feel afraid anymore.
He felt seen. He felt known. He didn't care this time.
And in this final moment, wrapped in the voice of the only being who had ever truly understood him, he felt something like peace.
“Thanks,” Eddie whispered. “For choosing me.”
Venom’s reply was soft, almost human.
“Always.”
When Eddie finally opened his eyes, he realized that it hadn't been a dream at all.