Rejection
“You have to eat...Please eat.”
It had been exactly 52 hours and 37 minutes (not that they were counting) since they brought their new child into the world and exhausting was a kind word for the experience so far. Sleeper had been spending the first hours of his life crying, sleeping in short spurts, eating, demanding to be held (usually while sleeping) and crying. So much crying. But the last time he ate was more than six hours ago, he needed to eat again but he just wouldn't.
“Come on love, for me?”
Sleeper responded by sneezing, coughing and gasping all at the same time nearly giving Eddie a heart attack, he'd forgotten in the last seven years how weird newborn babies were and the fact that they just forget how to breathe sometimes.
“Eddie you're freaking out, you have to stop freaking out.”
“I am not freaking out, I am the appropriate level of concerned.”
“Your norepinephrine is through the roof right now, you're very anxious.”
Damn them and their constant connection to his brain.
“He's just not hungry right now. He'll eat when he's hungry.”
Eddie was only half listening, he was rubbing the side of Sleeper's face trying to stimulate his rooting reflex and it worked but he immediately turned his head back away right after. Then he tried moving his son's face closer to his chest but he still turned away.
“Don't force him you're going to make him sick.”
“Since when are you the expert?” He actually didn't mean for that to come out so defensively.
“I've been reading up.”
“We're going on seven hours here, he has to eat something. I don't get it, Klyntar are always hungry.”
As much as he wanted Sleeper to eat he also had a slight personal motive, his chest was getting pretty sore from the full feeling which just added to the list of things making him sore along with coughing, stretching, sneezing, yawning, bending in any direction at any angle and laughing because apparently even though he was feeling better his body was still very much in postpartum recovery.
“I have an idea and you're not going to love it.” Venom finally said.
Venom was right, he didn't love it. He begrudgingly tested the temperature of the freshly made formula on his wrist and it was just warm enough. He brushed bottle's nipple over the baby's mouth and he eagerly took it and started sucking away.
“It's me?!” Eddie's soul shattered.
“Sorry. But look he's eating now!” Venom attempted to get him to focus on the positive.
Eddie dejectedly looked down at his child and tried really hard not to take it too personally. Sleeper finished and fell asleep for the fifteenth time that day.
“See? He can't fall asleep unless you're holding him, he loves you so much.”
Eddie just sighed, he supposed he'd take his wins where he could get them. Besides they could sneak the milk back into his diet when he's not expecting it.