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Eddie Brock always had nightmares, since the day his father started letting fists swing loose. For a while, there were terrors that made him scream in between tossing. He was just a kid then, alone, dreaming of falling and falling and falling. After the car accident, he knew to shut up. Maybe it was the punches to his temple, the kicks to his stomach. He would wake up in a cold sweat, heart racing and out of breath. The air felt thick those nights, unable to inflate his lungs enough. He would try to stay quiet as he cried himself back into sleep back then, a hand over his mouth, afraid of what his father would say this time.
He couldn’t take any more kicks by his senior year of high school. He wouldn’t sleep much without vodka. The liquor would hit his blood, and his eyes would fall in repose. Salted tears would slip from his lashes and he no longer knew the man in the mirror. Bruises were scattered over his knuckles, purple and swollen, and there were craters in the walls. With age, his dreams changed. He started going to church again, floating above consciousness and prayer. He was never sober those nights. He just needed the presence of Him after the thoughts that started crossing his mind. He didn't talk much then.
When he was with Anne, she paid careful attention to his nightmares. His sleep talk would shake her awake. He would mumble and whimper in his sleep as his fears took over his hippocampus. Wrapped in her arms, “Am I sick? Can you fix me? I’m scared! Please.” They never spoke about it, but she always wondered what he thought about. He never really remembered. The absent whines would always stop when she lazily pulled him closer and kissed his head. It never took much for Anne to calm Eddie. He always said she would make a great mother, being naturally caring and patient. He missed that when she left him.
Eddie sounded familiar the nights in the hospital after he achieved symbiosis, Anne thought. “I’m infected! I’m scared, and I need help.” She was so attentive, but she thought maybe it was a coincidence. She never knew what was going on in his head, but the symbiote made it hard to hide his subconscious, impossible even. Previously, he carefully closed off these fears, these horrors, these desires. The thoughts he had stayed locked away in Pandora’s box, who knew what could happen if Anne knew.
The dreams were always the same.
“Eddie Brock, you sick, foul bastard. What have you become? What do you think of yourself?”
“Sick? Can you fix me?”
“You are far too damaged to be fixed, boy.”
Eddie watched as the cold ground took him under, like water. He sunk into the wretched bliss of death, finding dread in his solitude. Only his subconscious kept him company in these minutes of rapid eye movement sleep. How could he ever escape this? How could he be fixed? Will he always inevitably die alone, trapped in silence with his own inner monologue of Carl Brock’s voice? I’m disgusting, I truly am, he thought.
And now, a year later, Eddie Brock finds himself speechless for the first time in years. His mouth felt dry, and his tongue felt thick with copper, like all those years ago when his father smacked the faggot from his lips. Never again did he think about kissing another after that. He watched as Venom pulled the iron over him, his knight’s shield, tears in his eyes. He could use his adrenaline to throw the weight off him and join his other being, but he knew this was the last step to be fixed. He lived his one love, and this was a cleansing ritual. This was a baptism by fire for a man who was told he should burn in hell, and yet Eddie is not the one hurting for his sins.
The acid rain of chartreuse spilled and spread, and screams filled his ringing ears. Venom was gone. That fact was obvious, and yet he couldn't help but search for his touch in his sleep. The one who took his nightmares away for a year, the one who saved his life in a heartbeat, was purified from Eddie Brock’s human skin. What was he to do now? Will the nightmares continue?
As the man in green told him he was free, he felt even more contaminated than before. An empty feeling filled his bloodstream, as though needles and scalpels had played with his organs for amusement on television. He wondered if the scars on his legs caught their attention, the ones before Venom could save him, stop him, fix him.
He was free, but he had to live with the memories he created as though they were only nightmares and dreams of yearning. His relationship with God had crawled back down his brainstem as Venom had found him, mainly because he believed his existence defied any word written in that book he read front to back as a young boy. He also knew that whatever they felt together was closer to heaven than what he imagined during mass. His father would call him the Damned, but this bliss was worthy of switching him to the Elect.
The grief hadn’t hit him yet. He still found himself pausing and waiting for that booming voice that infused his brain like whiskey. He knew he would never meet another that made him feel closer to his subconscious in the way that Venom could. The warm tone he would shift to when Eddie felt worthless, he needed that again.
No, this needed to be done. His faith would have depleted, and he would have turned to Lucifer without this. Eddie Brock knew Venom couldn’t be around forever, maybe that's what made him so special, that he wanted to. The claim of symbiosis was the richest form of alliance, or love, Eddie had ever experienced in his life. To say he loved his illness, what a pity he made of himself again. Carl Brock is probably looking down on him with a scowl, a shake of his head, a clenched fist. Eddie needed this. He needed to rid himself of whatever made him so sick, so disgusting. He needed to rid himself of the reason his family stopped calling.
When Eddie watches romance movies, he tries to avoid the thought of Venom comparing the couple to their symbiotic bond. He bites his hand and tries to avoid the image of those shark teeth he loves. He puts his head in his hands and tries to avoid the image of Venom coiling his spine and telling him things will be okay.
For the first time since college, Eddie Brock finds himself praying for forgiveness. He finds himself mumbling his Hail Marys in the way that would get his father to stomp his foot with a “Speak up!” He felt like a little kid, an infant wanting to be held. This feeling was decades in the making, and yet he won’t be overcoming this anytime soon.