Chapter Text
Part of Eddie wished he would have just gone home after the first crime. He had a long day of dealing with rude people everywhere and wanted nothing more than to go home and eat their weight in tater tots.
Hungry
Of course, it wasn’t just Eddie’s hunger they had to sate. Eddie has been out for hours, searching for some truly horrendous criminal to eat. The last criminal they had stopped was just some stupid teenager trying to rob a poor woman walking home from a late shift at whatever full-time job she had. Eddie would feel bad about doing more than just scaring him off.
The second was only an hour later. A group of young adult women, maybe in their early 20’s, coming out of a nearby club, piss drunk. A burly man followed them out, brandishing a large pocket knife. Eddie wasn’t sure if something was going to happen, but he wasn’t going to risk it.
The ladies were so drunk they hadn’t heard his muffled scream as Venom threw the man into an alleyway. The man, surprisingly unafraid of Venom, charged them almost immediately. The hand that had the knife was bitten off before it got even remotely close to their chest.
Tasty, but not even biting his screaming head off helped their hunger. They stuck around for a while longer, to both of their dismays.
Eddie heard a far away yelp of pain. Another late-night alleyway robbery, if he had to guess. He was looking for a meal, but stopping criminals got old. He sighed tiredly, but got in position to run.
He leapt across a few rooftops, sticking close to where he heard the noise, while keeping a close eye out for any trouble. He jumped to the highest one he could find nearby and stood on the ledge, pausing to focus on hearing the same sound again.
He waited for quite a long time before he heard a similar grunt of pain from an alleyway just a few buildings to his right. He ran across a few roofs, and landed on the shortest one thus far, where he last heard noise.
He took a glance over the ledge and saw a young, brown-haired boy, back against the wall, clutching a small gray backpack tightly in his arms. Directly in front of him were three men in similar looking leather jackets, two of them brandishing blades. The third was closest to the boy, not holding anything, but still had the kid reeling back from the punch.
The kid looked a bit roughed up: dirt embedded in his knees, footprints on his shirt, and some small bruises beginning to form on his face. Seems like this had been going on for a while, going by how purple the bruises were.
He had a hunch the men, although they were the people who started this, weren’t really looking for a fight to begin with. Robbers never usually were. They wanted nothing more than to take the goods unopposed and run before they could get caught.
Seemed like this one just didn’t go as planned.
If the kid was smart, he’d let them take the bag and whatever he had in it. They would take it and run off to wherever they were gonna go and Eddie would follow them. He’d return it and whatever they took from it, no harm done. To the kid anyway.
“C’mon, just hand the bag over and we might let you go.” the front most man said, threateningly leaning in a bit closer to the boy.
“No way!” he yelled, earning him another punch to the gut. When he got the wind knocked out of him he hunched over slightly, but the bag still in his arms took most of the blow. He took in a deep, shaky breath to combat the pain.
“I wasn’t asking.” the man sneered, slowly pulling back his clenched fist down to his side. “And I won’t say it again. Hand it over before I get serious.”
The man reached his hand into his jacket pocket and brought out a switchblade bigger than his friends’, flicking it open with a sharp snap. The kid flinched, but didn’t yield. “No.” he said firmly, clinging to the bag even tighter.
He’s going to get hurt
It was then Eddie decided they needed to help. They jumped up and forward, landing themselves directly behind the two men. They quickly took them out, throwing them against the wall and knocking them out instantly.
They turned to face the man, who had dropped his knife and had his back to the kid. Eddie could see the sweat forming on his forehead. Venom stuck their tongue out to taste the air. They smelled the scent of cigarette ashes and whiskey on his jacket. More importantly, though, they tasted the fear radiating off of him.
Delicious.
They let out a guttural growl and opened their maw to reveal the long, pointed tongue in their mouth. Acidic spit dripped from their shark-like teeth. The man choked out a whimper, knees threatening to buckle underneath him.
“You should run. While you still have legs.”
The man blinked back tears, quickly ran past them, and sprinted down the long alley as fast as his shaking legs could take him. He let out a garbled mess of screams for help as he ran.
“Close your eyes.” Venom said, looking the kid in his eyes. He was shaking a bit, but did so. He turned his head down at the ground for good measure.
Once they were sure he wouldn’t see it, they extended a tendril towards the man, straight through his heart. It split off on the end and latched onto the other side of his chest, pulling him back.
When his body was close enough, they bite down hard on his neck, crunching on his skull once it was inside their mouth. The bone part was disgusting and uncomfortable to eat, but the soft brain was the most delicious part.
Eat all of him Eddie inputted when Venom was about to drop the body.
They grabbed the man by the waist, lifting his torso up and towards their mouth. The blood from what was left of his neck dripping onto their tongue, giving off a metallic taste, with a thick scent to match, encouraged them.
They dislodged their jaw to fit the whole of the body in one swift bite. They could feel the crunch of his bones on their teeth while trying to shoving it all quickly down their throat. Once down, the rest of him was swiftly shattered, squished, and dissolved in their thick stomach acid.
Delicious
“You can look.” When they glanced back at the kid, clothes splashed slightly with red blood from when they had bit down, they saw he had his eyes screwed shut tightly. Slowly, very slowly, they saw him open his eyes.
He locked eyes with Venom, eyes dilating as wide as saucers. It reminded Eddie of the tiny calico Anne used to have when they were dating. The kid would be cute, if it weren’t for the implication that he was afraid of them.
“Go home.” they told him when he was stuck frozen in place by his own uncooperative muscles.
Whatever trance or panic the kid was in was overridden as he ran past Venom. He held onto his bag by the top strap, unzipping the side and checking that whatever he was almost killed for was still there. He sighed when he saw everything safe and sound.
Venom stuck their tongue out to taste the air. He smelled like sweets and hot metal. Not chocolate, but the overly sweet candy from a corner store. Like lemon gumdrops and watermelon taffy.
The hot metal was a strange smell, but it was very distinct. Like a soldering iron against steel. Eddie remembers the smell from workshop classes in high school.
So the kid liked candy and had a side hobby. A sweet tooth and metalworking was nothing special.
Nothing to think too hard about in their mind. The man they ate reeked of cheap whiskey and sex. Tasted like it too, which Eddie would like to ignore to the best of his ability for the rest of the night.
They dug their claws into the nearby brick wall, scaling up the building like a spider. They swung their legs up and over the ledge, landing on the empty rooftop.
Hungry?
No.
Eddie felt only relief. He really didn’t want to stay out any longer tonight. He was in the stage of tiredness where every outward breath feels like a sigh.
They ran home as fast as they could, de-venoming on the fire escape once they spotted the familiar apartment building. They had to use a bit of Venom strength to force the window open, but they did get it open.
Eddie couldn’t remember how he got where he is or when he got a chocolate bar from their stash, but it had all happened. It was like a memory blank to him. Never harmful, which he was thankful for, but it was weird to be standing one second and in pj’s on the couch the next, like he had just experienced.
Eddie yawned as he flipped through channel after channel, looking for the food network. Once he heard the tell-tale voice of Gordon Ramsey yelling at another incompetent chef, he stopped.
Lazily he watched the disastrous cooking of new chefs who thought they were the best. His mind wandered back to the things he had done that night. He could have said something different. He should have acted faster. And the looming feeling that something was wrong with the kid he saved.
‘Kid’ was not technically accurate, since he looked around 16, but it felt right. Either way, something felt off about him. Nothing he could place, just a gut feeling. Like he was someone important. Or saving him was something that would come back to haunt the both of them.
Go to sleep, Eddie.
He was brought out of his thoughts. “Yeah yeah, you’re just saying that so you can steal some chocolate when I can’t stop you.”
We need rest
“I’m working on it.” Eddie argued with a playful tone. “Don’t rush me.”
Eddie leans back into the couch cushion, resting his head on the pillowly surface. Very soft for being from a rummage sale when he was down on his luck.
He watched as Vee pooled a small part of himself on Eddie’s lap. Yet again Eddie was reminded of Anne’s cat. The cat liked him sometimes. Sometimes being when Eddie gave her treats. She warmed up to him eventually. Enough to rest in his lap sometimes.
Eddie wished he’d gotten a picture of her when she took an afternoon nap on him while he watched T.V. She was the cutest thing, that tiny calico cat with a firey temper.
Stop rambling and sleep.
This time Eddie obliged, closing his eyes and beginning to doze off. He rested a hand on the semi-solid form of V resting in his lap. The shouting from the T.V got quieter, but he hardly noticed.
He fell asleep before he could realize that the gut feeling about the kid would come back to haunt him.