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Your escape isn’t announced by another explosive clash. He had already retreated with a slam of a door while you were left to lick your wounds in the painful aftermath. You’ve taken refuge in your room, under the blankets that hug you closer than your own shadow. You should have burnt out by now, but your heart is still drumming behind your eyes a beat too fast. You can’t calm the quiet terror flowing through you with the leftover adrenaline.
Your eyes won’t close. Despite your exhaustion, you can’t remember how to sleep. Your thoughts are colored with a melancholic blue and tinged with a blazing scarlet underneath. You would rather think about anything other than your father, but your aching arm won’t let you. Heat radiates from it in a constant rhythm and suddenly you’re shaking with what seems like anger.
There’s only so much that you can suffer through.
You’re already convinced that if you don’t leave right now, your father is going to kill you. The mere thought triggers tears again.
To your understanding, you don’t deserve this.
You know he’ll stay in that room until the sun rises at least. If you’re quiet, he won’t look outside and see the sunset illuminating your hair pink or the water shining on your cheeks. You curl into yourself and clutch your blanket tighter, before finally throwing it off. You wipe at your eyes, being careful not to agitate your bruises.
The dusk is glowing softly. The clouds in the sky reflect a muted lilac. You stay there, kneeling on your bed and gazing out your second story window at the last piece of tranquillity you’ll ever hold.
You’re afraid that if you stare too much, the oppressive grey walls will swallow you up and they won’t give you an opportunity to leave again. So, you gently pull on something from your closet and tell yourself that you’re simply going to school. Doubt slows every movement and drags every thought on as long as it can. Your face is flushed hot with anxiety, accentuating the rings around your eyes.
You almost make your bed until you remind yourself that you won’t be sleeping in it again. The permanence of your decision had hit long before you put it in plan—despite that, you still hesitate. You don’t know if you should feel guilty for your reluctance.
You slip downstairs, grab your shoes, listen for your dad, and gingerly shut the door behind you. (No lingering cops from two days earlier.) You are leaving quickly and quietly and without a trace. (Like a coward, perhaps, but at least you’re going to be safe from him for the next 12 hours.)
You are going to run. You are going to leave. This isn’t home, this was never home, and you can’t endure much more.
And then you’re out, aren’t you?
The final thought you make in uncertainty is wanting to glance back to the rotting wooden porch and broken front door, just once, since it would be your last time—you don’t, in fear of becoming a statue of salt. Terror claws at your chest, threatening to burst it open from the inside, but you’ve already made up your mind. You cradle your right arm to your chest, holding the sling close. The crinkle of paper bills in your pocket is a temporary reassurance. You cling to that sliver of relief and bask in it.
Inhale. Exhale. The cool air smells fresh and helps your nerves. You don’t worry about if your dad can see you anymore because he can’t stop you. You break out in a sprint with the last rays of the sun behind you. You’re free; you’ve decided so.
At first, you don’t know where you’re going. You’re only focused on putting distance between your father and you. Only when your breathing grows ragged and pain starts slinking up your forearm do you skip to a halt and let the concrete stop blurring beneath you.
Everything inside you insists that what you just did was wrong. You still have enough time to crawl back to bed, and he won’t even notice that you were gone. Dread creeps up your spine and you’re not sure if you regret what you’re doing—what you’ve done. You know that you’re not returning, and from a logical point, you shouldn’t want to.
(But you do. Not for your father, but for the familiarity and the uneasy comfort of having a roof over your head. You don’t suppose that you’ll have a bed you’ll want to sleep in that will ever feel the same.)
(…You really gave all that up?)
You brush your doubts away the best you can and pretend that your decision is irreversible by this point. Where do you go now? Somewhere familiar? Somewhere safe? Somewhere unbothered?
You start walking at a more comfortable pace, matching your footsteps to the suburban rhythm of distant cars and collared pets curling into their beds.
You barely notice your shoes tapping on the ground, instead indulging yourself with a taste of the ordinary nuclear family. You can see cars parked in front of houses you pass, bikes by the front doors, gardens in the rear. Your nails dig into your palm and try not to grit your teeth.
You don’t force yourself to look away this time, but you don’t play in your fantasy of living in one of those clean houses with clipped lawns either. Something stirs in you, but it’s not jealousy. Not anymore.
The sidewalk begins to crack and fall apart as the streetlamps flicker out. The moon and the stars are your only companions as the beaten path turns into dirt and grass, but you choose to pull your hood up and hide your face from them. You sidestep hidden roots and trample through underbrush until you’re silhouetted by harsh artificial light again.
Your school is the epitome of unnoticeably suburbamerican. It’s lazy and lacks money and it smells of pencil shavings. But, against the night sky, it looms over you. The lights give the illusion that somebody is still working. (You are aware that they turn off at midnight.)
It’s warm inside, you reason, but there are alarms on the doors. You know you can’t stay there—you’ve always known. Perhaps you visited to say goodbye. You never want to see it again.
You’ll miss your friends.
You’re allowed to be sentimental, you remind yourself. You close your eyes to ward off any more unwelcome tears.
It’s scarcely after midnight and you’re bone-weary when you find him huddled in one of the cracks and corners of San Francisco, hiding from the hubbub and commotion of the main road. You had never been here before but the map on the crinkled leaflet clutched in your good hand whispers that you should’ve never come.
The area is seamy, the buildings are neglected, and the streets are lined with cigarette butts, but how much better is the house you lived in? You’d rather sit on the curb by a club you’re too young to enter than return to your father.
You slide the paper into your pocket and send one last prayer to whoever may be listening.
The soft murmuring of straggling night crawlers die as you become another long shadow marking his face. You don’t know why there was no trace of Edward Brock on the internet other than archived articles he had published if there were plenty of photographs of Venom, but you couldn’t find yourself to care and instead tried to remember what he looked like when he broke the front door of your house.
He’s staring at something glistening in his hands as the dog whines. He ignores it.
You breathe in. Maybe that’s not actually him, you argue, merely someone with the same face and the same dog and the same bag. Maybe he left San Fran after your father swore at him. Maybe you’ll have to find someone who is much more skilled at handling runaway children to help you.
But… He is your brother.
“Hey. Hey, you.”
He turns his head reluctantly. His eyes finally focus, and you hate the way he looks at you now.
“You—you’re Eddie Brock, right?” You spit out the words you had memorised on the long trek here—when you had decided that he was your only choice.
You hate the shock shining in his haunted eyes as he processes what you are asking of him. You hate when he grimaces at your broken arm and bruised eye and almost asks from whom you received the injuries. You hate when he recalls how his your father treated him. You’re not here to be a pitiful reminder of his own childhood.
You hate that he’s hiding the blood on his beard. You hate the way he leans into himself as if the filthy brick wall behind him stung like nettles. You hate the glossy, oil-slick dog pawing at his feet as he slips a coin into his bag. You hate this dirty alley on this dirty street and his dirty clothes and your dirty face.
You hate the sputtering breaths he takes before he speaks to you. You hate when he realised that though you may have been his replacement, you’re not that different from who he once was. How can he read you so easily?
(He recognizes your anger.)
Your brother parts his cracked lips and almost whispers, “No.”
That’s the instant you realise that you hate him, the thought scorching you inside like lightning. The back of your throat tastes of smoke—acerbic and utterly revolting as something inside you flares white-hot.
No?
Your face is on fire again, and you don’t do anything to calm yourself. You suddenly couldn’t catch your breath.
“What?”
You remind yourself why you hate asking for help and you hate being forced to do so because unlike him nothing you do matters and you’re weak and you’re only a child, and, and—
“We can’t do that. We won’t let you, either.”
—And he just fucking sits there, pretending his suit is a dog as if he doesn’t know he has enough power to completely change your life, or even take it for himself if he were merciful enough. (He refuses to meet your eyes again, and you wonder if he’s somehow afraid.)
But he’s Venom, isn’t he? He’s supposed to feel bad for you and fix this; that’s his job. Why doesn’t he want to fix you?
How dare he refuse? How dare he?!
(He’s more worried about how you concluded that your dad needs to die more than the notion of the old man dying. Even though he said no, you know he hates him too. You hate them both, though you suppose you should be grateful your brother cares more about you than his own resentment.)
“Why?” you snarl because of course, it’s never this easy. You almost give up—as if on reflex, like all the other times you were too afraid to save yourself. You almost force yourself to find another easier solution, but you honestly don’t think any exist.
You want to yell at your brother. Doesn’t he see what he means to you? He could be your saviour, your—your fucking ticket out of this shithole. You could escape the cycle you’re sure you would otherwise end up in as your father did. He could be the hero you want him to be. Why doesn’t he understand?!
(Dad always bluffed about how being thrown “into the system” was in some way worse than life with him, how he didn’t care if you called the cops because they didn’t help. Then you did one day, but it didn’t fucking matter because nothing changed except you became too scared to try again and dad almost stopped hitting you on your face.)
“But—but you’re Venom!” you plead. Your eyebrows crease together in confusion.
“Not anymore,” he replies, his voice thick with his own tragedy.
No. He couldn’t just do that to you. You didn’t bring anything else with you—only some money, no food, no other clothes—and you swore to yourself that if you returned for your stuff it would be after dad was lying dead in a ditch.
Oh god—what would he do to you for running away again?
You couldn’t go back.
(Eddie must do something. He is not only Venom, but he is also your brother.)
You are growing hysterical.
“No, no, come on!” You dig your hand into your pockets and then show him your fistful of crumpled bills in a last, desperate gamble. “Do you want money? I’ll pay you! You can be like, like a mercenary, right?”
Your brother winces at the notion. The dog whines again.
“You have to help me. Just, just—please!” You hate the way your voice almost cracks with fear.
He seems pained as if he is holding himself back from saying something he shouldn’t. “…We can help you go somewhere safe.”
But you need more than that! What if your father finds you there?
Your brother stands up fluidly yet suddenly as if challenging you to react. The dog rises a moment later, staring at you with milky, blank eyes. (You’re not afraid of it, and you’re too exhausted to recognize its danger.)
“If, if you won’t help me, then I-I’ll do it myself.” You try your best to keep your voice from wavering.
He makes another face and you realise he’s calling your bluff. If you wanted to do it yourself, you would have done so years ago. (Is it selfish to want a life after your abusive father dies instead of jail or juvie or whatever will happen after you kill him? Is it selfish to pin the crime on your brother so you can have a shred of normalcy in your life?)
His eyes are now gentle with silent fury. You bristle at his reaction. A fat lot of good his sympathy will do for you.
“…Kid—”
“Don’t call me that!”
You desperately grab the front of his jacket with your one good hand because by god he is your only way out and you’re not going to let him just fucking leave you like this and suddenly his jacket doesn’t feel like leather anymore.
“Stop,” he says. You’re not sure if it’s to you or the abyss his jacket is made from.
The ink melts through your fingers, enveloping your hand in a soft, sleek cocoon. When you gasp and try to jerk your hand back it snaps you into it like a rubber band until the tension is cutting into your wrist like a skin-tight manacle. At first, the embrace pricks your fingertips like a glove filled with millions of needles prodding your skin. If it has half a mind, you would deem it curious.
But now’s not the time for that. You flinch and brace for whatever punishment your brother thinks you are deserving of, but it never comes.
The symbiote feels like the friction of silk sheets brushing through your fingers, as warm and viscous as honey. The caress never breaks your skin, it merely holds you in place.
“Holy shit,” you can’t help but mutter in amazement; Venom live in action wasn’t something you ever had the privilege of seeing before.
(It feels wonderful.)
You stop struggling to look back at your brother and in that instant the ebony mass retreats from your hand like quicksand. (You can’t believe that you find yourself missing its comfort when it’s gone. You never knew that you hated the polluted night air on your skin until you found an alternative.)
The dog is gone. All that’s left is your brother trying not to lean on that stinging nettle wall and you with that giddy feeling of emptiness.
Quiet hangs in the air, so heavy and oppressive that neither of you speak for what feels like an eternity. He makes eye contact again, and this time it’s you who shies away. (You aren’t afraid, are you?)
“Are you okay?”
Your brother breaks the silence first, and you’re almost grateful. He sounds… Nervous. He is afraid of your answer being anything but “yes”. (But he’s not stupid.)
“I… I hate you,” you choke out, but that moment doused the last embers that kept you burning hot for so long.
You’re not angry anymore. You simply want to cry.
“We won’t hurt you. We lost control. I’m sorry.”
You tremble and wrap your arm around yourself. The tears now sting your cheeks with a jarring heat that contrasts with the gentle solace you had just possessed.
You take a step towards him, and he understands. He wraps his arms around you, and you breathe in the warmth he radiates. You can’t hug him in return with your broken arm, and you hope he understands in return. This time, you don’t mind the look on his face as your tears soak into his shoulder.
He cares for you, but is it because you are his brother or because you are a child? Is it Eddie speaking or is it Venom? Does it matter?
“I can help you. Let me.”
Your voice is so faint you don’t expect him to catch when you whisper, “I don’t know what to do.” But you don’t have to admit that you’re scared; he has known all along.
“Look… Let’s go somewhere else. I don’t have money like you, but you need to be somewhere warm.”
Your first thought is one of defiance—that your brother wouldn’t let you freeze anywhere, even if it were cold enough to. But still, you take a step back, wipe at your eyes again, and tell him you agree.
As he walks by your side, slowing down to step in time with you, he speaks with words that are much softer than your father’s. (Albeit a touch awkward as well.) “We used to think we were alone, too. But once we stopped running, we—I realised that he—our, uh, father—was not our only family. We can do better than he ever did. We have to.”
Neither of you mention the blood on his beard or your swollen eye and that suits the both of you just fine.