Cannibal Craving (Venom x Eddie Mpreg)

~Chapter 17~

Eddie's PoV

"You fucking WHAT!?" Ashley wails at me in hysterics. I put my hands up in a pleading gesture, as if begging her to calm down, and yet her pure, unbridled anger still consumes her. 

"I know, I know, I'm sorry, b-but please just listen to me-"

"No! I think I've listened quite enough! You gave in to her!? How could you do this to me, Eddie!? We were supposed to be a team!" I don't know why, but that sentence makes me falter for a moment, the betrayal in her voice completely closing my throat up upon hearing it. The guilt was overflowing, and in that moment I have the brief thought that maybe I was just a really shitty teammate. 

"I-I know, and- and I'm so sorry, Ashley. Please, you have to understand, it was a moment of weakness," I plead. Her eyes widen, her jaw hanging open in disbelief.

"A moment of weakness? YOU ATE A HUMAN BRAIN!" she screams. I turn away in shame, running my hands through my hair and letting out a breath, realizing now how that might've sounded worse than I intended it to. 

"Look, that's not what I meant, okay? I-I mean I had no other choice, Ash! There was a fucking wall of knives behind her, it was either the brain or it was her, what else was I supposed to do!?"

She slams her hands down on the kitchen table, the loud noise enough to make me jump slightly, and when she looks up at me I can hear her heavy, rage-fueled breathing from across the room. "There were other options and you know it, Eddie. You could've ran, you could've knocked her out, you could've not even gone down into the basement in the first place, but you chose to stay and eat." I gulp, her dark eyes staring into the depths of my very soul as she says it. There was a weight to the words. Almost a disgust. And I could hardly even bear to hear them. She removes her hands from the table, allowing them to fall weakly to her sides. "All that talk about me being too weak to go on with the investigation, because you were worried I'd fall for her tricks... but only one of us was at the magic show. Was it fun, Eddie? Was it worth what the tickets cost?" 

We stare at each other from across the room, and I take the few seconds I have to gather my words before I try to fight for my case. I could tell I was losing, and that it wasn't going to be easy, but I had to try. 

"Listen, I know what it looks like, I do, but you have to understand where I'm coming from. I didn't want to do it Ash, you have to believe me, it's just the-... the cravings are just too much sometimes. When it was just Vee it was already so hard, and now with the kid it's almost impossible. We're trying our best but when she walked in and set it in front of me... I-I didn't-... I just-... I couldn't stop myself. She had everything I needed to keep them alive right there on a silver platter, and there wasn't a moment where I had to look my meal in the eyes, or hear it's last squeal before death. Down there, it was just the answer, and the relief. But it wasn't worth what it cost... and I'm so sorry."  The flames of her anger finally seem to die down, my argument seeming to cause her a bout of reflection, and I take the opportunity to get through to her while I can. "I was weak... I broke the rules we had set, and fell right into her trap.. I'm a total idiot but it was never my intention to hurt you. You have to believe me... I never wanted to hurt you."

The girl simmers down, her gaze falling to the floor as she decided what she was possibly going to do next. Tears caused by her own internal conflict well up in her eyes, and she wipes them, clearly frustrated. 

"I know that, it's just... Ugh! What was any of this even for then!? We were supposed to be saving all those innocent lives that she was taking away, but we've already indulged so much into her activities that we're just as guilty as she is! How are we any better than her? What are we even fighting her for anymore?" 

I step towards her, taking her shoulders in my hands and gripping them firmly. Ashley's big, brown eyes stare up at me with so much emotion that it makes my heart feel like it's cracking inside my chest. I can see it so clearly. She didn't want to be the villain. I wouldn't let her be one. 

"Listen to me. We aren't like her, Ashley. You aren't like her. You did all of this because you loved her, and even if she did horrible things, you didn't want to see her die. You just want everyone to live, and to be happy, and healthy but all of those things are so difficult to co-exist at once. We have had to make such hard decisions, and despite my actions I promise my heart is still in the right place. I had a horrible lapse in judgement that I regret so much, but this isn't what we stand for. We believe that innocence, and justice, and love are worth protecting. That it's worth fighting for. The difference between us and Hannah is that one of us needs it to survive, and to the other it only serves as a luxury. We've chosen to eat the bad, but she eats for the sake of eating." 

She's frozen in her spot, letting each word sink in deeper and deeper until it reaches the darkest depths of her mind and weighs at her morality scale. In those few moments, I can feel Venoms pride in me beaming from within. They don't have to say a word for me to know that no matter what happened next, they thought I did a good job. 

My heart feels ready to leap out of my chest, before she sucks in a deep breath and lets out a sigh, her gaze falling to the floor. 

"I-... I want to believe you, Eddie, but you've already lied to me about so much. About your identity, about the investigation, about Hannah. I want to believe that we're still the good guys, but I can never tell what the truth is anymore. I don't know if I can trust you..."

The second she says those words, I felt like I could've thrown up. My eyes immediately begin to water, and she gently brushes my hands off of her shoulders and walks passed me to go grab her red sweater. Panic starts to settle in as I began watching my one and only friend preparing to walk out of my life, possibly for good, and I'm on the verge of hyperventilating as I search for something to say. 

"W-Wait! Ashley, please don't go! I swear I'm telling the truth!" I beg.

She doesn't pay any mind to my last desperate attempts to make her stay, simply sliding open the back door and silently stepping outside. I make my way out to the porch, and all my thoughts are screaming for me to stop her but I have no idea how. I could feel myself breaking under the idea of me having to be alone again, every part of my brain crumbling like a fallen empire, and I do all I can think to do and call out for Venom. 

"Vee, do something!" 

And that was all it took. 

Venom obeys my command so quickly, and so swiftly that I hardly even have a second to process what was happening. I watch in absolute horror as I see a giant puddle of black ooze jump from me and land directly on Ashley, fusing with her almost instantaneously. Immediately upon impact, the woman falls to her knees, and I'm frozen with terror as I watch her body work to achieve symbiosis the way Venom and I have. I can hear her choking and gasping for air through the pain of merging with them for the very first time, her body convulsing through each surge of agony. It's only when I hear the broken syllables of my name just barely come through her gasping breaths that I'm finally snapped out of my trance. 

Without a second thought I leap over the railing and come to her aid, kneeling right beside her, and the second that I'm there she clutches onto my arm like she's on the verge of dying. 

"I've got you, you're alright," I try to reassure her, although the panic is clear in my voice. She finally draws in a breath of air, her fast heaving breaths telling me that she was starting phase two. The hunger. Beads of sweat were already starting to form at the top of her head, and she was shaking like a leaf. 

"E-Eddie, it- It hurts," she just barely manages to choke out. Her stomach growls painfully with hunger, and she doubles over at the waist, her arms wrapping around her middle as if it would somehow cease the starvation. Now I could see what Venoms plan was. To make her feel it for herself. 

"I know it does, Ash, just hang in there. Vee, she's had enough, come back to me now!" I order them to return, but nothing seems to happen. In fact, it would appear that they would even disagree with me, as only a moment later, her breathing starts to pick up, soon turning into cries and whimpers of pain once more.

Dirt smears across the girls face and clothes as she squirms for any kind of relief or comfort, but she finds none. She lays on her back in the grass, sweat soaking her collar, and all I can do is grasp onto her hand to offer as some kind of support. She takes it without argument, and suddenly her body tenses, trembling through an ocean of hurt that I knew all too well. It's like watching a horror movie when I see foam start to bubble up at the corners of her mouth and her face turn red. Her back arches, her eyes rolling to the back of her head, and then when she has access to her windpipe again, she lets out the most guttural, ear-piercing scream I've ever had the displeasure to know. It's so loud it could shatter windows, and so deep I could hear it shredding her vocal chords just as it was coming out. I feel like my ears are about to start bleeding, but I don't let go of her hand for even a second. Once she takes a moment to suck in another breath, I couldn't stand to watch this any longer, and I call Venom once more. 

"Venom I said that's enough!" I bellow. Just as quick as it started, it ends, and Vee retreats back to me, leaving her a gasping mess on the ground. She hardly even takes a moment to catch her breath before she starts to scramble away from me. I reach out for her, but she retracts in fear. "Wait! Wait, don't go!" I plead for her to stay but it's too late. She reaches the car and get's inside, peeling out of the driveway before I even find the strength to get up. I stand there, dumbfounded, hardly able to believe what had just happened. I don't even know what to think at first, and then it all comes flooding in. 

My best friend is gone. Traumatized beyond belief, and probably never to return. At least if I were her, I don't think I could. But where was she going to go? What if she ended up sleeping in her car again? What if she told the police? What if she went to Hannah? So many worries and so many questions, but at the end of the day, the game was over. We blew it, and there was nothing we could do about it now except go inside and wait for the consequences to arrive. 

I drag myself up the porch and into the house, closing the back door behind me. I slide my trench coat off and look at the time. The clock reads 4:42 A.M., making me aware of just how much time we had spent trying to work through all of this. Well, I suppose it didn't much matter now. 

I'm looking around my house, and I can feel my blood pressure rising as the pure silence starts to drive me crazy. I begin pacing, trying to calm my nerves and failing to do so. The ticking of the clock was poking at my brain, and I was ready to explode at any second. I stop, clenching my fists to my sides, my jaw tightening. 

"...We did everything we could, Eddie," the symbiote tells me. I feel a lump appear in my throat at their words, and it's enough to make me lose my fucking mind. 

"But we still failed!" I shove a chair to the floor and drag my arms across the surface of the countertop, sending dirty plates and silverware clattering to the floor, breaking on impact. The remaining few bowls and such that stayed intact I pick up and toss against the wall, watching them explode into a hundred little pieces. Still unsatisfied I grab a baseball bat from the storage closet in the living room and approach the lamp next to the sofa, swinging without even so much as a second to spare. It shatters beautifully, porcelain shards scattering across the carpet. 

"We try so hard to be the good guys, ya know!? But life always has a big fat fuck you to toss our way, doesn't it!?" I use the end of the bat to put a hole through every painting  and picture we had hung up on the living room walls. "It doesn't matter what we do anymore, does it!? No matter what we do, we're always going to fail!" I drop the bat, shaking through my fit of rage as I make my way down the hall and to the bathroom. I get a glimpse of my refection in the mirror, and I'm confronted with the hatred I felt for myself in it's full glory. My eyes are bloodshot with exhaustion and emotion, and my dark, soulless gaze made me look exactly like the monster I felt like I was. I hated it. I hated myself. 

Before I even know what I'm doing, my hand has already been drawn back into a fist. I punch the mirror, my knuckles going right through and hitting the cupboard behind it. Shards of glass fall at my feet, and I pull my hand out of the hole, the sting of freshly spilled blood pulling me out of my spiraling. I stare at the injury first, and then look back at my broken and distorted reflection in what little was left of the mirror. How fitting. I come back to my senses, and quietly look down as I turn on the faucet to rinse out my wound. As I watch red wash down the drain, I finally start to calm, having gotten everything out of my system now. When I retract my hand from below the water, I find that Vee had already gone and healed my cuts, not even so much as a scrape left in their wake. I run my thumb over my knuckles, staring down at the broken pieces of mirror on my bathroom floor.

"It's going to be okay, my love..." Venom says gently. Their soft words of comfort makes me start to tear up, and then not too long after, I feel them come pouring in. The alien wraps me in a hug as best as they can, and I give in to their embrace, not knowing if I had the strength to go on without them. They were all I had left. They get the idea of just how badly I needed them and manifest beside me to curl into the crook of my neck. I sniffle and hiccup against their skin, my head spinning with a migraine that was starting to set in, and they hush me soothingly. "It's alright, Eddie... You gave her everything you could, and you did such a wonderful job. I know how badly you wanted to see it through, but it was so hard to win with what we were given, and that isn't your fault. You're still a good person, and I know Ashley still treasures your friendship." 

I cry freely into their hug, the events of the night replaying in my head nonstop as a constant reminder of how terrible everything went. "Wh-Why do we always lose at everything?" I ask, completely defeated. 

"Sometimes we lose, Eddie. It is inevitable... But we will not lose forever. There is still so much left yet to gain. Each loss is just a drop in the ocean of your life, and though it may never wash away, it will become a small part that makes up the beautiful grand scheme of your existence. One day we will look back at all of this and it will make for a crazy story, but we have to make it to the end. There is still time to win. There is always time to win." Their words wash over me in a blanket of warmth, and it gives me some modicum of sanity that I so desperately needed right now. I close my eyes and lean against them, exhausted, and in dire need of a nap. 

"I'm just so tired, Vee..." I mutter out quietly. They rub my back tenderly in return.

"I know you are... Let's go lay down, Eddie. We can clean all of this tomorrow." 

Following their instructions, I pull myself up and out of the bathroom, stepping over all the broken glass on my way out and telling myself to worry about it later. Upon sitting down on our bed, the tiredness hits me with full force and I lazily kick off my shoes, not even bothering to change into my pajamas before getting under the blankets. I cozy myself in, feeling a tendril wrap around my torso protectively, right above where our growing baby was. I place my hand over Vee's touch, letting my eyes flutter shut and a sigh of relief pass by my lips. Even if I didn't have Ashley, I would always have them. Both of them. The thought grants me enough peace to finally drift away into a much needed rest, and I sleep deep, and soundly for what felt like days. 

I wake up the next day well into the afternoon, the smell of chocolate filling the air so dense I could taste it. At first I think that I may be dreaming it, but as I rouse myself out of my sleep, I realize the smell isn't going away. I can feel the baby kicking up a storm just at the mere aroma, my mouth watering right along with them. 

"Alright, calm down kid, I'm going," I say sitting up, patting my stomach. Moving the blankets away, I rub my eyes and look out the window at the bright afternoon sunshine. "Vee?"

"Yes, honey?" they reply without missing a beat. 

"Did you get into the chocolate stash overnight again?"

"No, but it's just as tempting every single night." 

My brows furrow in confusion, and I take a deep inhale of air again, the scent so fragrant it was like a fudge fountain was directly in front of my face. "My god... Do you smell that?" I question, making them chuckle. 

"It's hard to miss." Just as I'm ready to question what it could be, there's the clatter of dishes coming from the kitchen, and I nearly jump from my skin, freezing in my spot, my eyes glued to the bedroom door. 

"...Did you hear that?" I ask in a faint whisper. 

"Why don't you go see who it is?" the alien whispers back. I get the feeling I know who's out there, but I can hardly believe it. I needed to see for myself.

I hop out of bed and swing the door open, quickly making my way down the hall and not failing to notice that all of the mess was gone. I make my way around the living room corner and see Ashley baking in the kitchen, and I could hardly believe my own eyes. My brain falls into a frenzy, but I'm so dumbfounded by my own shock that all I can do is stare. She turns towards me to at least acknowledge my presence in the room, wiping a small bit of frosting from her cheek before going right back to it. 

"You came back..." I say in bewilderment. The girl nods and grabs a piping bag to put the last finishing touches on what she was making, never taking her attention off of her creation. 

"I did. I'm almost done," she say's simply. Ashley waves for me to sit down, and I take a seat at the kitchen table without question, watching curiously as she places her piping bag down and picks up the dessert, bringing it to the table. She sets a cake down that's at least three layers tall, frosted to perfection with little flowers and oranges piped elegantly onto the sides. It looks so fresh and beautiful that it almost makes me wince when she cuts into it to put a piece onto a plate. 

"It's a chocolate and orange cake, covered in a dark chocolate buttercream frosting. I normally only do big cakes like this for birthdays and special occasions, but I wanted to make something special that was going to last you a few days at least." She moves the slice onto my plate and slowly cuts another one for herself. "You seem like a simple guy at heart, so I figured just a simple cake might be the best way to go. I knew I wanted it to be chocolate in order for Venom and the kid to enjoy it as much as they could too, but I thought you must be so tired of pure chocolate, so I did the next best thing and flavored it." She gently sets the plate in front of me with a fork, and it's only then I realize that I don't recognize the dish she presented it on. 

"Is... this a new plate?" I ask, somewhat guilty. 

"It is. Couldn't help but notice earlier that we were low on dishes, and I wasn't going to give you a slice on a napkin." She takes a seat across from me, and when I look over at her, I get the overwhelming feeling that something about her was different. I don't say anything about it for the time being, simply staring down at the slice in front of me. 

"Oh... Thanks." 

A heavy, and extremely awkward silence coats the room, the soft clinking of Ashley's fork against her plate the only thing disturbing it. While she's focused on the cake, I take the opportunity to examine her further, trying to figure out what was so off about her. It wasn't so much her appearance that seemed odd, but more of the way she carried herself, and the way she behaved. She had bags under her half-lidded eyes, and she hasn't smiled even once since I saw her. It seemed as though there was so much weighing her down. So much she wanted to scream and yet no words came out. 

When she looks at me, I am not deterred by the sharp and empty void of her gaze. Instead I stare back into the abyss, and dare it to speak first, even if I know it won't.

"What made you come back?" I question in a soft voice. She silently cuts a piece out of her slice and takes a bite before setting her fork down. All she does is chew, and it's only after she gulps the bite down and takes a drink from her glass of milk that she finally says something. 

"I felt what it was like to be you..." she replied just as quietly. Finally her eyes meet mine once more, and she crosses her arms leaning back in her chair. "And it fucking sucked," she finishes, sounding completely appalled. 

I'm stunned by her answer, unsure of whether or not I should be offended by her admission, until eventually I blink and tilt my head a little. 

"Okay. Ouch."

She leans forward and holds her head in her hands, letting out a frustrated growl.