Adult-FanFiction.org : Comics

Black Sustenance	By : FamiraDamaris Category: zMisplaced Stories [ADMIN use only] > Spiderman Views: 15551 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Spiderman, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
Black Substenance

by Famira Damaris

Disclaimer: Naturally I don't own Spider-man.

Author Notes: Here's what's happened: I usually don't check AFF much, but apparently I forgot to add a chapter (I've added it now, it's called Elmination Game. It takes place between Imprinting and Hunters and Feeding Habits

Italics for thoughts/emphasis/symbiote

Archive: Sure, just ask.
---------------------

Black Sustenance

--------------------

(Hunters and Feeding
Habits)


    “I
trust Brock about as far as I can throw him.”
     Peter Parker sat frozen to the
spot.
   Eddie Brock.

Venom.

Oh…Oh
shit.
Not the most coherent thing
to think, but that was all he could manage, staring forward without
quite
seeing, feeling the blood drain from his cheeks as what Jonah Jameson
just said
sunk in its entirety. Icy cold fear closed in around the teenager. His
spider-sense was useless against Brock; Brock could be anywhere,
absolutely anywhere and Peter wouldn’t know until
it was probably too late. Brock could even be in the building right now and there was no way to know
until he came in kicking the doors down and gunning for blood. Peter
had to
force himself to remain in his chair and not bolt out of the door right
there
and then.
Jameson
was still on the phone during
this, stopped facing out toward one of the expansive glass windows, a
hand on
his hip and completely oblivious to the danger.

“We’re going to need damage control
on this,” he was saying. “Check our records, make sure everything’s
clean like
it should be in the first place…yes, I know
the Globe’s going to have a field day with this. Look – no, no
– just get on it. Now!”

Jameson hung up and slammed the phone into
its cradle with a resounding crack;
it was only by sheer luck that the thing didn’t break into pieces. He
stood for
a long minute glaring daggers at it, chewing vigorously on the end of
the lit
cigar and puffing clouds of smoke as he tried to collect himself.
“Can’t
believe he went and actually did it,” the head of the Daily Bugle
muttered. “Fucking
asshole.”
He suddenly remembered
Peter. “Well?” he snapped, rounding on the
sixteen year-old. “Don’t stand there with your mouth open. Don’t tell
me those
are Robbie’s reports you’re stepping on.”
The
publisher stomped over, took a closer
look at the brunette and huffed. “You sick or something, Parker?”
Jameson
grunted. The fierce expression softened the slightest bit, only to
harden once
more. “Get out of my office before you start throwing up all over my
floor. Go
home.”
The boy, looking like
all the
blood had drained from his face, didn’t move.

“Go on, get!”
Peter scuttled out. As the door banged
open, Jameson bent down with a tired grumble of annoyance, balancing
himself
with one hand on a knee, and slowly picked up the sheaf of papers
scattered
around the chair. When he finally came up with the mess in the barest
semblance
of order, he found Robbie leaning against the doorframe of his office,
arms
folded across his chest.
“What was that about, Jonah?” Robbie
asked, raising an eyebrow. “That was either the fastest chew-out I’ve
ever seen
you give Peter…or something’s on your mind.”
Jameson
began to reshuffle the papers,
putting them back into order. “I know you heard me.”
The
other man sighed. “You were getting pretty loud this
time,” he
admitted, “but I didn’t get the whole story.”

“It’s Brock,” Jameson growled. He didn’t even glance at the
papers he’d
picked up, instead tossing them onto his desk and slouching down behind
it, his
chair squeaking as he settled down. Robbie quietly closed the door
behind him
and took a seat on the edge of the desk. “He went and got himself hired
by the
Globe. The fucking Globe.”
     “Ouch.”

“Ouch doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

Robbie sighed. “So what now?”

“So far nothing from the Globe – I had Betty run out and get me
a copy
soon as I heard the rumor, but I didn’t see anything about us. Yet,”
Jameson
scowled. “I thought Brock would’ve acted faster on this; he could’ve
easily
gotten in something before the news ever reached me…I just don’t get
it. Or
him.”
   “What about Peter?” Robbie asked.

    “What
about him?”
“Well,”
Robbie started delicately, “there is
a chance Brock might have a grudge against him too, since he did have a part in getting him let go.”

“Fired,” Jameson corrected him. “He got
fired. ‘Let go’ is just dancing
around the fact he got fired. End of story.”
“Alright,
fired. Either way, the fact is, we don’t know what he’s thinking
right now,” Robbie said. “He was pretty upset that time, remember?
Especially
at Peter.”

The editor of the Daily Bugle sat up a
little straighter. “You think he’d come after Parker?”
“I’m just saying we don’t know for certain
what he wants. For all we know, he
could threaten to spill everything unless we let Peter go,” Robbie
frowned.
“Brock had a lot going wrong for him when he was fired. He…might not be
in the
most stable of mindsets. The thing is we don’t
know what he’s planning. I think we should take that into account.”
Jameson
went silent, mulling this over,
his chin jutted out stubbornly.

“What do you think we should do, Robbie?”
“Play
it safe. Keep an eye on Peter; I know you planned to have him
start getting sent out on assignments with Ulrich, but I think it’d
probably be
best if none of those were near anything the Globe would cover at the
same
time.”

Jameson scowled at this. He glared out the
window. “I can’t believe we actually have to worry about this
bullshit,” he
said angrily. “Maybe it’d be easier to just let Parker go for now…”

“You want to fire Peter?” Robbie stiffened in
surprise.
“Firing’s
permanent. Parker does a good job…sometimes,” said Jameson
gruffly. “I’d rather he come back and work with us again, but you
didn’t hear
it from me. In fact, I better not hear any
of this leaking out to the kid, am I clear? I’m not going to let him go
unless
I’ve got a damn good, solid reason to believe he’s endangered.”

Robbie almost smiled. “My lips are sealed.”

“They damn well better be.”
-----------------------
Peter
Parker didn’t like this one
bit. Ever since he’d heard about Brock being back in town, he’d gotten
paranoid
– okay, so he was already paranoid, so more paranoid than usual – and
he kept
looking over his shoulder even as he left the Daily Bugle. Should he
even risk
web-slinging his way home? What if Brock was waiting for him to go
swinging by?
Maybe the subway would be safer…but then again, it’d make for something
even
worse if Brock caught him there – he’d be stuck underground and even
more
civilians might get hurt.
If
Peter didn’t get gray hairs from this whole mess, he was going to be very surprised.
He
just didn’t get it, he reflected as he
quickly changed into his Spider-man outfit. Just didn’t get it at all.
What did
Brock want? Peter found it hard to believe that he just wanted to work
an
honest living again as a journalist – somehow getting fired from the
Daily
Bugle had been the last straw and something flipped a switch inside the
older man. Like some kind of Crazy Switch or something. He still felt
bad about
pretty much getting Brock fired, but feeling guilty didn’t mean he
could let
Brock get away with hurting innocents.
Swinging past the Daily
Bugle and headed
back to Queens, Spider-man had to wonder just
how much
of Eddie Brock was still left. He remembered all too well how it felt
to have
his own sense of self seem to melt away, being eaten and absorbed by
the
symbiote, and he’d actually been trying to fight off the alien at the
time. Maybe
the Brock he knew was gone by now, replaced only with that…that thing calling itself “Venom”.
Guilty.
That’s what he felt. That and a
certain amount of pity.
It
was his fault. He created Venom. And now the people he
cared about were all in
danger because Venom knew everything
about Peter Parker. And he…he knew absolutely nothing about Venom. No
idea how
Brock and the symbiote thought together, how they felt together, or
even much
of either’s history. Nothing aside from the fact that they were pretty
pissed off at
both Peter Parker and Spider-man, and how utterly convenient it was
that both
were one and the same.
The
priority was to get home. Make
sure his family and friends were alright, make sure they were safe, and
make
sure Brock hadn’t paid a visit. Then he could try figuring out how to
deal with
this…
Spider-man was so preoccupied with the
news of Brock that he swung right past the glint of binoculars without
even
noticing them. The woman behind the binoculars tracked the blue and red
outfit
of the superhero, red lips set in a thin line of concentration, until
he
vanished around a corner, before lifting up her gloved hand and
speaking into
the headset.
“Spider-man
sighted,” she said calmly into
the mouth piece. “Going north, northwest, I’m estimating he’s traveling
somewhere
between thirty, forty miles per hour. Looks like he’s in a hurry. Do
you want
me to pursue and engage subject?”
The
headset buzzed on the other end. “No. Spider-man’s not the
primary target;
that black mutant from before is. Pursue,
but do not engage. Repeat. Do not engage.”

The woman sighed.
“You’re
not being paid to engage the subject. Marko is.”

“He’s just a thug,” the woman muttered
in distaste, flipping back a sheet of silver hair over her shoulder as
she
tucked the binoculars back into her belt. Today she dressed
conservatively,
wearing a form-fitting outfit that wouldn’t restrict movement, but
would also keep
her arms, legs, and body well protected. She had been a mercenary for
as long
as she could remember; playing dress up and running around in skimpy
little
outfits was good if you wanted to look uselessly pretty and show off,
but Silver
Sablinovia was here for a job and that meant playing it safe, not
playing it
pretty.
   “Silver
Sable, this is still his idea and his
operation, even if the Kingpin is backing
it and your Wild Pack,” replied the voice into her ear. “Marko
will engage Spider-man. That is all.
Move out.”
   This wasn’t one of her better jobs, Silver
Sable thought as she made her way down from the rooftop and toward the
waiting
van parked in the alley. One of her operatives held open the door for
her and
she slid in as they went in pursuit along the streets of Manhattan,
dodging traffic and overzealous taxis as she began running over the
arsenal
they had at their disposal. This whole job just didn’t smell right. She
had
heard a select little about this black mutant of Marko’s, but she
wasn’t
entirely sure that attacking Spider-man would bring him out in the
open. She
liked it even less that they didn’t know anything about this beast.
Worse was the fact
they were working on practically little intel….

Her briefing had been short. Too short.
It basically consisted of:
    1). Locate Spider-man.

         2).
Relay location to contact.

         3). Pursue.

         4). Subdue real target
– UniRegM
(Unidentified Unregistered Mutant - URM).

         5).
Turn sedated target over to Flint Marko (nothing about what to do with Spider-man, who she was sure wouldn’t
take all of this sitting down).

In other words, they were winging it. Silver Sable disapproved
of this utter
lack of any real planning. Marko might work like that, but she liked to
do a
job and do it right, and she didn’t
take chances with what she was taking to this confrontation. Her small
selected
team from Wild Pack had enough sedatives, prototype tranquilizers and
firepower
to take down Spider-man several times over, although Marko had assured
her that
this black mutant of his was far stronger. They were to take this beast
alive.

Silver Sable made sure to bring enough to blow it sky high
anyway.
Just
in case.
    Well, it could always be worse. She
heard
Kingpin’s first choice was that lunatic mercenary calling himself
“Deadpool”,
but unfortunately it seemed he was…busy; which was probably for the
better
because from what’d she heard about Deadpool, the man was just
downright insane. Certifiably crazy. No
sense of professionalism from what
she’d read up on his previous missions. No
sense of teamwork and she wouldn’t be at all surprised if they put his
picture
next to the definitions for unreliable
and unpredictable in a dictionary
someday. With Deadpool, you’d be ensured your target would end up dead.
That, and
any and all bystanders, whether intentionally or just for kicks. Silver
Sable had
to admit she was relieved to know that Kingpin came to her next. At
least she was competent and didn’t treat jobs
like sport.
Still.
Deadpool was a potential, extremely
dangerous competitor. Even if he hadn’t replied to the offer, for all
she knew
he could be making his way down here right this very minute. Wild Pack
couldn’t
afford to make any mistakes and offer an opening for him; despite this
ridiculous
job, they’d follow it to the letter and get this black mutant Kingpin
so very
much wanted without letting that lunatic mercenary get a chance.
But...she
refused to lose her whole team on account of useless intel. If these
were
the kind of jobs Kingpin offered, sacrificing mercenaries carelessly as
if they
were his typical pawns, then she’d even be willing to step aside for
this
Deadpool character…if it came to that. She hoped it wouldn’t.
“You
have a lock on Spider-man?” Silver
Sable asked the driver of their van.

He nodded.
“Alright,”
Silver Sable turned
around in her seat, facing the faceless men and women of Wild Pack.
They all
wore the same armor and body suits, their faces fully covered, gleaming
HUD
visors feeding in any useful data. Identifying them would be next to
impossible. “I’ll only go over this once. We’re not
after Spider-man; I don’t want to see anyone getting
trigger-happy just because he’ll be there. We’re running this Flint
Marko’s
way,” she paused, made a little disdainful sniff, and then continued
sternly.
“He believes from his last encounter that attacking Spider-man might
lure out
this URM.”
She
counted heads again. Ten in this van,
another ten in the next van, and thirteen more split up between smaller
cars
stationed around the area, not counting the drivers. More than enough.
Not one
of them moved, their covered faces tilted toward her attentively, HUDs
glowing
a gentle blue.
“We close in once this
URM enters the immediate battle zone and engages
Marko; the objective is to subdue it for capture and delivery to our
employer,”
Silver Sable continued. “You all know the drill. I want to keep
civilian casualties
to a minimum; but most importantly we want to keep our own casualties
to a
minimum….” she trailed off. Now came the hard part. “In the unlikely
scenario…if it looks like our teams are suffering over a seventy-five
percent
casualty rate, we break contract.”

The driver next to her started a little in
surprise at this but kept on steering them after Spider-man. They never
broke
contract before. They hadn’t failed before either.

Silver Sable met the eyes of her fellow mercenaries: this little
talk
was being broadcast through her headset’s mouthpiece to the other Wild
Pack
members in the other vehicles. “You heard me. We break contract. We
shoot to
kill. We can’t collect if we’re all dead and we can’t take future jobs
if we’re
six feet under. Be prepared to take positions once I get the call from
Marko.”

She turned back in her seat, collecting
herself. Her team was more than capable, but there were just too many
unknown
factors here. Even thinking about failure left her a bad taste in her
mouth. Silver
Sable hated failure with a passion. She hated not knowing the odds.

But she loathed needless wasting of lives
and resources even more.

If this Kingpin and his lapdog Flint Marko
thought they could use Wild Pack as mere canon fodder, they were sorely
mistaken.
-------------------------------------

The phone call with Jonah Jameson was
all over the Daily Globe’s offices by now, despite the fact no one knew
who
contacted him. It didn’t matter: Eddie Brock just couldn’t stop
grinning like
an idiot. Today was good. No, today was better than good, it was fantastic and he decided that he for
once deserved to bask in it while it lasted.
When
Eddie arrived at the Globe’s offices, intending to immediately
start digging around some more through the Archives about Sandman, he’d
been met
by what had to be at least half the staff wanting to clap him on the
back or
shake his hand, all the while exchanging knowing smirks or winks, with
even a
few enthusiastic thumbs up thrown in. He hadn’t known exactly what the
occasion
was until his new boss beckoned him into his personal office, plunked
him down
in an overstuffed chair and they both listened to a recording of the
phone
call, with Jameson’s tinny, enraged voice bouncing across the walls of
the
spacious office. They listened to it a second time and had just as good
laugh as
the first time around.
“I
haven’t ever seen Jonah this riled up,”
the head of the Daily Globe snickered, wiping tears of laughter from
his eyes.
“Oh man…I should be angry we’ve got a mole, but honestly? This was the
funniest
thing I’ve heard all week. Comedy gold-mine!”
Eddie
only wished he could’ve seen the look
on his former boss’s face. Parker would have found out eventually, but
hearing
the good news at the Bugle made it
that much more precious. He didn’t have time to be sitting here
gloating, but
it felt good. Really good.

“I only wish I could’ve been there,” the
other man was saying wistfully, echoing Eddie’s thoughts. He shook his
head,
still grinning into his salt and pepper beard, tried to return to
business, and
failed completely at wiping the smirk away. “He’ll definitely be on his
toes
now that we’ve got you.”
“He
really should’ve treated his employees better,” Eddie replied glibly
and nearly pitched face first into the desk when his new boss suddenly
pounded
him violently on the back, reeking of over-enthusiasm.

“Goddamn straight he should!” the Globe’s
publisher chortled heartily. “Really now, we’ve been trying to contact
you for months trying to offer you a better
position, Brock - I’ll never know why you let yourself get reamed by
Jonah as
long as you did.”

The blonde suffered through the
back-pounding, keeping the increasingly forced grin plastered on his
face. He
didn’t really care for his new employer, but they needed access, they
needed to
be on this insignificant man’s good side and therefore needed to keep
grinning
and bearing it until they got the information they wanted. Eddie put on
an
unconcerned air as he leaned a little away from the other man, hoping
to avoid
another of those annoying back pounds:
   “Well, you heard old Jonah. He’s biased. Tends
to influence his staff. I…wasn’t aware of how bad my position was at
the Bugle
until I got fired for no reason,” Eddie said through his gritted teeth.
“Saw
what a chance you guys were giving me and decided to take it.”

“I heard some new kid got you canned?”
Eddie
scowled, his sunny mood dashed. “Basically.”
    “Don’t go doing anything,” the bearded
publisher warned, suddenly serious. “I think it’s bullshit too you got
fired,
but I won’t be liable for something happening to that kid. What was he
called?
Parker?”
“I
don’t care about the kid,” Eddie
lied. The Other twitched in the back of his skull at the turn this
conversation
was taking - all this talk about their Spider made Eddie need
servicing. Again. It was getting pathetic now. Last
week the mere mention of Parker wouldn’t make them suddenly lose all
control. He
steeled himself; he’d at least like to make it to a restroom before
they
started their newest enactment of Alien Masturbation Time right in
front of his
boss, “I’m just here for that second chance you guys offered.”
That
seemed to reassure the other man. He
leaned forward. “I understand that and I’m glad you finally came to
your
senses. Still, you’ve only been feeding us bits and pieces of all the
juicy
stuff about our friends at the Bugle. You’re being a tease.”

Eddie pretended to blush. “It’s not fun if
it’s all in one big chunk,” he said, getting up. They couldn’t hold out
much
longer. “You’ll get the whole story sometime.”

He left, managed to dodge past his new
supporters – half of who seemed to think Eddie was the newest celebrity
to be
mobbed – and just barely made it into the handicapped bathroom, locking
the
doors behind him after a few seconds of desperate fumbling. It was nine
by ten
feet, plenty of room for their now twice daily servicing; he didn’t
have time
to note much else, as he found himself already forcefully propped up
against
the sink by the symbiote, who seemed to be even more hungry for this
kind of
contact than he was, if that was possible. The black dress shirt and
slacks
Eddie had been wearing were already gone, vanishing back into his Other
and
leaving him straining in the cool, recycled air of the bathroom.
   My
species tends to adopt sexual appetites similar to ours hosts the
closer we
become to mating. We need to service much, much more in order to try to
delay
the actual mating, the symbiote purred, its annoyance stained by
hunger. Open up.
Completely
nude, Eddie obediently
spread his legs wide open as he was hoisted up onto a half sitting
position on
the icy-cold surface of the sink. It managed to hold their combined
weight,
miraculously, although the stupid faucet was digging painfully into his
back. He
tried shifting to the side, only to get the damn thing jammed into his
ribs now,
and then promptly forgot about the faucet entirely as the Other
immediately
began its servicing of its host with more energy than he was accustomed
to. Eddie
tilted his head back as one oozing tentacle of it, gleaming sleek and
black in
the restroom’s harsh lights, crept across the planes of his taut
stomach,
inching quickly down toward his already erect member as another curled
up to
his neck, caressing his cheek.

It’d be easier if he could come up with a
good Spider scenario, but as that faucet was still trying very hard to
stab him
between the ribs, his mind went blank, leaving just him and his Other
and no
fantasy of a writhing Parker to sweeten the deal.

His legs were prodded up none too gently by
the impatient symbiote, spread to the point where Eddie couldn’t help a
whimper
of pain that he bit down on at the last moment, the whimper turning
into a
throaty moan as the other began to curl around his shaft, another
coming up
under his thighs and working their way toward his entrance. The
tentacles under
his legs solidified, thickening as the blonde craned his head, trying
not to
bang it into the mirror like an idiot even as the symbiote rippled
itself
enthusiastically along his cock.

That was new, Eddie had time to think,
startled, before he felt the newly formed tentacles pressing
insistently
between his legs, trying to force their way past his rim.
“H-hey!”
he tried to push it away,
feeling increasingly nervous. His other never went this solid during
the
servicing sessions, more liquid than anything else, and he was pretty
sure it’d
be pretty painful to get something that big getting poked up his ass.
   Doesn’t matter. We need it.
We hunger for it.
     Hold
on. Hold a second! His Other couldn’t
just go sticking stuff like that up
there without –
   Yes we can, we must, our hungers, need to fulfill this one. You
can heal.

In the symbiote’s excitement, Eddie
suddenly caught a glimpse of pure understanding as it let a few of its
personal
shields go down. Just a scattered series of images and sound, a scene
of a
different kind of feeding with puddles of blood and opened skulls, but
he
paled, forgetting about the mirror, forgetting about the facet in his
ribs, forgetting
how uncomfortable this position was, and forgetting entirely about what
had to
be a laughably huge alien dildo trying to penetrate him without any
lube
whatsoever.
Eddie
felt the blood drain out of his face as
he reeled in shock, and really did
hit that mirror with the back of his head this time as he scooted
backward, as
if he could get away from the horrible realization dawning on him. The
blonde
didn’t even notice the stars bursting in front of his eyes or the pain
blossoming.
All
he knew was he felt sick. And
horrified. Very, very horrified.

“Why
didn’t you tell me?” he hissed in cold fury, shaken, trying to sit
up and
getting stabbed right in the side again by the faucet. “I thought we
only had
this one hunger!”

The symbiote kept trying to continue with
the invasive servicing, evasively not replying, but Eddie managed to
fend it
off with almost inhuman strength born out of desperation. He couldn’t
do it
forever, but he wanted answers. He wanted them now,
especially after that brutal, inadvertent flash of memory his
Other accidentally let slip…
They
were Venom.
They were Venom, but their
host consciousness was asleep. He was just so, so very busy with trying
to find
everything they could about this Man of Sand that when he came to make
a nest
to sleep in, his brain activity always dropped like a rock the moment
he would
lie down. He was so exhausted that the
symbiote had no difficulty at all controlling their joint body,
hijacking it
like a puppet on strings and merging completely into Venom for…what
would Eddie
Brock call it? Oh yes, a “night on the town” - even if this “New York” was
pitifully small compared to the other
civilization dwellings they had seen in the past. “Night on the town”.
Endearingly quaint.
They were hungry. Starving,
actually. And not in the bodily sense. The symbiote had taken care of that a few hours earlier, even if their host
pretty much fell asleep right in the middle, amazingly enough.
   No, this was a different
kind of hunger.
    An ancient hunger.
They were Venom.
They were Venom and they
hungered for fresh blood tonight.
From what Venom gleaned from
both host and Spider, the pits of downtown would be best for their
hunting,
with that area called “Queens” and “Forest Hills”
out of the question. Their Spider most certainly didn’t know about this
particular feeding habit and if things went correctly, Eddie Brock
would be
none the wiser either. Venom remained inverted on the wall of the
abandoned
building, splayed claws punching holes in the brick, fanged snout
pointed down
in his permanent leer, slimy tongue lolling this way and that as he
scoped out
the area quickly, eager to get his stomach stated and back to the
human-nest
before his host consciousness woke up.
   Several potential targets.
Some didn’t look too appetizing; toxins swam about them, probably from
those
chemicals these humans sometimes insisted on injecting, drinking or
inhaling
all the time in order to otherwise abuse their frail systems.
They needed a healthy one.
Tainted ones were only if they were desperate – they gave Venom stomach
cramps.
Look around.
There had
to be a healthy
one around here.
There.
   Sitting by the dock, hidden
behind a grate of netted fish from the rest of the homeless humans
wandering.
Venom crouched and released,
pushing off the side of the building and sailing silently through the
night, landing
neatly on the roof of the dock’s old administration building and
creeping along
stealthily on all fours, soulless eyes concentrated forward. The hunger
was
unbearable now, like a burning itch everywhere: in his face, eyes,
arms, heart,
both conscious and unconscious minds, like insects crawling up under
their
skin. They had only a day before even the host would start feeling this
new
hunger, so tonight had to be the night they made a kill and fed.
The prey
tonight was a
scrawny little human infant, dressed in rags with holes. Adolescent by
Eddie
Brock’s terms, probably around fourteen, but to the symbiote, to the
main
awareness of Venom tonight, this one was a mere blip, a spot of
insignificance
that would never grow up to ever see what lay beyond. It wouldn’t even
make it
out of this tiny planet’s atmosphere, much less encounter even one of the vast number of civilizations stretched
across the endless expanse of space.
The thought was strangely
saddening.
For a
brief, split second, Venom felt actual pity toward this creature
sitting on the dock kicking its legs, oblivious to the predator
watching only
several yards away.
   He would make this fast.
As…as an apology of sorts. Just what for, Venom wasn’t sure, seeing as
there
was no real logical reason he should be feeling sorry in the first
place. This
was really only a matter of food, with no real hatred aimed at this
human.
Perhaps Eddie Brock and Peter Parker had influenced the symbiote in
unexpected
ways with their contact, seeing as they, as humans, were subject to
this silly
Earth system of “ethics” and “morals”.
The actual
kill took less
than two seconds. Simply a matter of pounce. Open jaws. Close around
the neck.
Twist. Wrench free. Shove the corpse into black waters of the Hudson. Retreat with
their prize back up onto a
rooftop, where Venom could feed without being disturbed. Once situated
in a
good spot, Venom opened his jaws, still on all fours.
A bloodied head tumbled
out, bounced a little and came to a rest facing up.
Picking up
the severed head,
Venom cradled it almost reverently in one claw as he began to set to
work with
his hand unlocking the prize inside the skull. It took a few minutes,
but soon
Venom was chewing happily on something coiled, pink and covered with
blood.
They were
Venom and they were sated tonight.
   Eddie couldn’t
get that image out of his head,
no matter how hard he tried, and gagged, sure he was going to be sick.
He slid
off the sink and found himself on the floor, gagging, nausea flooding
through
him. Jesus. Jesus Christ. It kept
repeating his head like a mantra, the only thing keeping him from
trying to
claw his way out of the locked restroom and throwing himself in front
of a bus
or something.

The symbiote was silent for a moment,
lying now in a deceptively meek black puddle under its naked host.
I didn’t tell you
because you didn’t need to know.
   Oh, he damn
well did!
We
functioned fine
before without you knowing. This is why you never knew, because you
would blow
our natural feeding out of proportion – like all the other humans
would.
“How else was I supposed to take it?” Brock
demanded, feeling his insides flopping around in little somersaults of
hysterical
nausea. “You can’t just go up to people and go ‘I want to eat your
brains’!
What the fuck! Honestly, the fuck is
wrong with you?!”
We require
a chemical found in human brains.
It may not be…ethical to you as a human, but we need
it to survive.
“And
if I refuse?” Eddie snarled. For the first time since meeting his
Other, he almost understood how Parker felt toward the alien symbiote.
    We suffer hunger
withdrawals. Both of us. In other
words, we lose our sense of self and reason, and go insane. I wouldn’t
advise trying
to resist this particular hunger – I have seen others of my kind try to
resist
their own individual hungers and it was quite terrible, the
symbiote
replied matter-of-factly.
It projected a quick
series of
jumbled memories, each one worse than the last.
Eddie
shut up.
You
are free to try to resist feeding, the symbiote continued, the
black ooze
bubbling innocently between its host’s bare thighs sitting on the tile
of the
floor. But I will continue to fight it,
and you, if you choose this foolishness.
“How…how
many? How many have you killed?”
Eddie whispered. He felt dead. Defeated. “Just how long have you been
doing
this with our body?”
The
symbiote hesitated.
Since we bonded. The very
night we met, I was dying – our Spider wounded me a great deal. We needed to feed, otherwise we wouldn’t make it to
the next morning alive, and you were in no state to care what I did. I
made my
first kill with you as my host an hour and five minutes after our first
meeting, and you were actually conscious
for that one.
We have fed
on twenty-six healthy humans and one tainted one to this
day.
Making a strangled sort of moan, Eddie
buried his face in his hands, feeling like he could cry but unable to
get any
tears out.
   Maybe Parker was right. They were
a monster after all.
Because
we feed to exist? the symbiote asked dryly. I think
not.

An inky tendril of the
symbiote curled up in the air, brushing Eddie’s face lovingly.
A monster is subjective,
Host Mine. Humans are monsters to those they prey on. We feed just like
any
human; we simply have a change in diet, nothing more or less. We are
who we
are…provided we continue to feed. A brain is just flesh, blood and
electrical impulses,
essentially. It’s hardly different from the meat you humans already
feed on,
except…fresher.

It all seemed to make sense, but…

You will have to come to terms
with it eventually, the Other murmured. All
hosts do. It seemed to think of something, sounding almost gentle as it added: If it would make the
transition easier, we can feed when your brain sleeps,
just as before.
“…Okay,” Eddie felt
like he’d been picked
up, shaken violently and then set down like a limp rag doll. “I better
not wake
up in the middle of-of any of that.”
As
you wish. May we please finish up what we started here?

Eddie didn’t care. He watched and felt
all of what transpired next like it happened to a stranger, as if it
was a
movie and he was sitting as a mere audience member, locked in the
theater with
no way out, with no choice but to sit it out and watch. The black
tentacles of
the symbiote oozed around him and began to service him as he sat there
stunned
on the tiled floor – one speared right up from the ebony puddle under
him and
penetrated his entrance, wiggling in deeper – pain stabbed at him from
inside
and the blonde felt a detached sound of distress escape past his mouth
even as
he wiggled his hips to slide down deeper on the gleaming shaft.
Had
he really been conscious for that
first kill? How come he didn’t remember it?

The symbiote brought up thinner tendrils
running up his chest, toying with his bared, hardened nipples, a
thicker one
coiled around his neck like a snake and began trying to press against
his lips.
Numbly he felt himself giving way, the coil thick and hot in his mouth
as it
burrowed deeper down his throat. Rocking back and forth, still on his
knees,
Brock felt himself slowly being lowered so that he lay face down,
pillowed with
one outstretched arm. He scrunched his eyes shut as the pumping inside
both his
entrances increased in tempo and strength, feeling invaded from front
and back.

It seemed to go on forever and despite
the detachment – shock? – it hurt. A
lot. It almost never hurt before.
When
Eddie came to again, he realized that
not only was his whole body achingly sore and tingly, his arm was killing him. Something tasted funny,
metallic and when he looked down, he realized why. During the last bit
of the
session, in order to keep from crying out-loud and alerting the others
to their
activities, he’d bitten right into his forearm to muffle his voice,
ripping
open a long, jagged gash running from wrist to elbow that normal human
teeth
simply couldn’t manage. Reaching up shakily to his mouth, he felt the
dagger-sharp edges of a row of fangs starting to retreat, slick with
his own
blood.
All
servicing will be like this, the Other said. Until we
mate. Then it will go back to normal. It won’t hurt then. The
mating itself will be both enjoyable and painful – for all parties
involved.
Sadly, I cannot say the same about the actual birthing.
“I
bit myself,” Eddie mumbled in dull
surprise. “S’hurts.”
We didn’t
want to make noise
and draw attention. It was a smart move. That injury is relatively
minor for a
servicing session this close to mating.
Finding
that hard to believe and not
at all reassuring, the blonde journalist stood up, swayed drunkenly,
and
righted himself on the sink with his good arm. There were a few cracks
from
where he’d hit the mirror and his haggard reflection gazed back at him.
Moist
blood still coated his chin and nose. He alternated between wiping and
licking
it off until his face was clean again, trying to fix his mussed dirty
blonde
hair and giving up. Eddie wasn’t sure if he imagined it, but it almost
felt like
his Other was sympathetic as he bent down and wiped up the little lake
of his
own blood on the floor with a paper towel. He had to grab some toilet
paper in order to try to stem the blood from his arm.

They had been
inside for only five
minutes.

Why
don’t we go outside for a bit? the symbiote suggested helpfully. Exercise tends to help.
       Eddie nodded mutely.

What he needed right now was to get out
of the Globe and just web-sling for a bit. Get his mind out of this
bathroom, try
to take all this in. And recover, he supposed.

Yes, going outside might be just the
thing.
-------------------------------
   Why hadn’t
he taken the subway?

Spider-man hated his luck. Really, really,
really hated it. It just wasn’t fair; he’d been so terrified of Eddie
Brock
coming after him in the subway, yet there was absolutely no sign of the
man or
his psycho black sweatshirt. Maybe if he’d just gone as Peter Parker
and taken
the subway, he wouldn’t be in this mess. Come to think of it, he didn’t
even
know what he was doing here, madly trying to dodge Sand Dude for the
second
time in a month and not even sure why he was getting attacked in the
first
place.
The
New York Public Library was in view
when his spider-sense suddenly erupted in his head like a deafening
klaxon
right in his ear. Spider-man had been so startled that he let go of his
web-line prematurely and dropped a story, just as a massive pillar of
sand
rocketed over his head, missed him, and smashed into the side of a
building.
“What
the - ?” Spider-man craned his
head, quickly regaining his bearings and veering away from the Queensboro
Bridge. His heart dropped as
he
caught sight of a familiar striped shirt. “Oh jeez,” the teenager
muttered.
“Not now, now’s not a good time for a
round of Kick Spidey.”
He
narrowly dodged another jet of sand,
leaping up and landing neatly on a flag pole protruding horizontally
from a nearby
apartment building. Sandman retracted his arm from the street below as
cars
skid to a halt around him, others simply piling into one another,
civilians
fleeing in all directions. Spider-man scowled, wishing they’d hurry and
get out
of the way, then cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted down to
the
street.
“Hey! Seriously, what’s your
problem now?”

“Get
down here!” Sandman yelled back. It was hard to make out what he
was
saying. “We’re finishin’ this!”
“Finishing
what?” Spider-man kept an eye on his opponent as he walked backward
from
the flagpole parallel to the street and up the wall. If he could get up
onto
the roof tops, he’d feel a lot safer. “I
thought we were the bestest of best friends, Sand Dude! Is this a date?
The
least you could do was call, it’s only polite!”

Something that sounded suspiciously like
“mouthy jackass” floated up.

“I
heard that!” Spider-man had about a split
second’s of
warning to dive straight down off the building as a double-headed
hammer of
sand suddenly came barreling up toward him.

   He tucked
in and kept his
body straight as he dived one story. Two stories. Three and he let
loose a line
of web at the last second, missing the ground by a few feet and
streaking right
at a surprised Sandman. Spider-man got in a good double-kick just as
the older
man was starting to dissolve defensively into sand, knocking him onto
his back,
and sailed up into the air again, somersaulting as he shook off some
sand and
then made a bee line away toward the New York Public Library. Clouds of
smoke
were rising from several of the crashed cars.
Down
on the ground, Flint Marko collected
himself, reforming and sitting up as a series of unmarked vans and cars
came up
on the scene. He brushed himself off as Silver Sable joined him. The
female
mercenary crossed her arms, unimpressed.
“Well?”
Flint
shrugged. “Jumpy
little bugger. He won’t get far.”
         “Can you
even hit him?” Silver Sable
was watching Spider-man in the distance, her sharp eyes analyzing his
movements,
looking for any openings or weakness. She cocked her tranquilizer rifle
with a
click, checking the chamber. “I could slow him down for you.” The
rounds she
had were enough to bring a team of horses down.
“Whatever.
Do it.” Flint Marko grunted out
the side of his craggy mouth and melted into a river of sand that
bounded in
great leaps down the abandoned section of Fifth
Avenue
after Spider-man. Taking her time and remaining where she stood, Silver
Sable
shook back her luminous hair over one shoulder, lifted the rifle up and
carefully began to take aim…
“Oh man oh man oh man,” Spider-man said
over and over as he booked it to the Public Library.
He seriously couldn’t go back to Aunt May’s now. It
just tore him apart
to be stuck running around this guy
when all he really wanted to do was make sure his family and friends
were safe
from Brock. Running away forever from Sandman wouldn’t work – he had to
think
of something to immobilize him for good. He was good with thinking on
the fly.
That’s how he made it this far. Sandman was fast, but Spider-man had a
feeling
he might be faster if he only put his mind to it. After all, he’d
scored an
actual hit only a few seconds ago.

Run in. Sucker punch him before he had time to de-solidify or
harden.
Run out. Rinse and repeat.

Sounded like a great plan…until he could buy
enough time to think of something
better, because looking over his shoulder, that Sand Dude was getting
awfully
close for comfort. His time was running out
Spider-man
passed over the stone lions
guarding the stairs leading up to the library and vaulted up until he
was
perched on the corners of the roof. Sandman took aim and missed – but
just
barely. He began swinging at Spider-man with both arms and it was all
he could
do to keep from getting flattened into the Library. One of the misses
caved in
a section of the stairs, sending chunks of it flying. Another bowled
off the
head of one of the lion statues, sending it flying into a parked
semi-truck’s
trailer and right out the other side.

“Hey, I don’t suppose we can talk about
this?” Spider-man called down and back-flipped away from the latest
miss,
sprawling on the wall behind him. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’ll
work out
between us! What with you getting beat by an ugly stick and YOW - !”
Sandman
clearly didn’t appreciate his wit
– he was scowling and looking seriously pissed off, which was the one
thing
he’d been hoping for. It was running a risk (it’d hurt a lot more to
get hit),
but his aim probably wouldn’t be the best. Spider-man was about to
start diving
in for what would have to be the most stupid charge in his life when he
heard a
strange little high pitched sound.
Pft!
“Pft?”
Spider-man echoed, bewildered.

He looked down and was rather puzzled to see a little shiny
cylinder
sticking out of his shoulder. It didn’t hurt, not exactly, but he was
starting
to feel weird and funny where it hit. He pulled it out, looked at it
for half a
second…realized just what it was. Oh.
Okay, awkward. He hadn’t really
counted on getting shot up like this. It took the barest of
milliseconds to
come to the conclusion he probably shouldn’t be standing there,
presenting such
a nice big target, but by then there was another pft
of compressed air. Spider-man’s head tilted back slightly even
as his hand came up to remove the second dart imbedded in the side of
his neck.
Without thinking, he
started to vault up
to roof to the library, thinking only of blind escape and feeling panic
welling, when he heard that dreaded puff of air again. Spider-man never
made
it. He came down on the balls of his feet and rocked slightly, feeling
the third
tranquilizer dart rooted to his chest right above his heart. He
staggered as
the potent chemicals from all the darts began to invade his body.
Wow.

So this was what it felt like to
get all hopped up?
Who
knew it’d be so…so…so weird? So fast?
Weird and fast?
He
didn’t know what this stuff was, but it
sure acted fast, didn’t it? What’d they shoot him with anyway? Elephant
tranquilizers? Feet were pretty much disconnected (gone!) and he felt
all
light-headed and floppy, what with the world zoning in and out, as if
he was
traveling through a tunnel on rewind and fast forward - at the same
time. Oop,
and there went his arms now, with a bizarre sense of weightless inertia
carrying them away, leaving his arms dangling limply and his head to
droop down
toward his chest, barely able to stand upright. Pft! Just like that.
Like
whoever was shooting him. Pft!

Spider-man looked down slowly and found a fourth tranquilizer
dart in
his thigh.

“ ’kay, now thas’ jus’ unnec’ssary,” he
slurred and teetered unevenly.
The
teenager managed to raise his head – it
felt like someone injected concrete into his skull - looked up, saw the
giant fist
of sand coming right at him and found at he couldn’t even move his legs.

Spider-man caught the full force of the blow,
body snapping back, and went sailing with a crash of glass through one
of the
windows and into the Public Library itself. He crashed heavily through
one of
the long wooden tables in one of the Research Halls, torn papers
fluttering
around the point of impact as glass shards rained down around him.
Outside,
Silver Sable lowered her rifle and discreetly switched positions in
order to get
a better aim on the windows, her hand going up to her ear-piece. All
the other
members of Wild Pack were scattered around the area by now.
“Just
how many did you shoot him with?” Flint’s
voice demanded.

Silver Sable reloaded. “Four. Shouldn’t
kill him. Seven is the calculated lethal dose.”

“He was just standing there, he
didn’t even try to dodge me.” Flint
sounded deflated. “You overdid it.”
“You
wanted him to stop moving around,”
Silver Sable replied coolly. “He’s stopped. We’re not here to play
games,
Marko.”
Flint
shook his head. Women. Crazy, the whole lot of them. Damn good reason
not to
bother if it could be helped. Still, they had been fighting Spider-man
for
what? Half an hour, tops? That black mutant had come charging in almost
the
second he’d started kicking Spider-man around and now there was still
no sign
of him. Maybe he’d heard wrong? What if this mutant wasn’t interested
in this
kid playing superhero?

Doubt began to set in. This could be an
incredibly costly mistake if he was wrong.

With this in mind, he mounted the steps of the Library and let
himself
in, the doors blasting off their hinges and thumping hard to the floor
below. The
place wasn’t quite abandoned; he could hear terrified whispers and
someone
crying in the distance, but he wasn’t overly worried. He took his time
picking
his way through the ruins until he saw the wreckage from Spider-man’s
impact,
rounding the splintered table cautiously. A set of leanly muscled arms
were protruding
over part of the table, hanging limply over what remained of it. Flint
kept his
distance for a moment.

Whatever the hell Silver Sable shot
Spider-man up with, it was some damn powerful stuff, Flint
realized, gazing down at Spider-man. The kid – he had to be a kid, what
with
the high school insults – was practically comatose from the
tranquilizers, his
masked face lolling aimlessly from one side to the other, legs sliding
feebly
across the wood splinters and glass shards littering the floor as if he
was
trying to stand up and couldn’t quite find the ground. Flint
almost felt sorry for the kid. He was a wreck, not even a shadow of
that
annoying punk flipping around like he was on crack and
a massive sugar-high. This wasn’t even a challenge.

Those were some amazing shots, but in the
end, they were cheap ones. Shooting from afar was a pussy tactic in Flint’s
book, but he had to give grudging props to Silver Sable: she was efficient in what she did, although
he’d have to take her word that all those tranqs wouldn’t kill
Spider-man. Approaching
the defeated superhero, Flint
easily picked him up, holding him in the air by one useless arm.
Several of the
darts were still lodged in the other’s body despite the fall, amazingly
enough.
“Havin’
fun?” Flint
asked conversationally. “Wish I could say I was, but this fight was so
short it
doesn’t even count.”

Spider-man gave a thick groan. His head
slumped down to rest heavily on his shoulder.

“I agree, she did overdo it,” Flint
replied. “Between us, I think one tranq woulda been plenty, but no, she
had t’shoot
you up with four. Women’re crazy,
huh?”
Another
dazed moan. Spider-man’s
left arm twitched like he wanted to move it.
“I
know you can hear me, Spider-man.
Where’s your big friend?”

“…dunno…w…wha’ talkin’…talkinbout,”
Spider-man slurred into his shoulder.

“Sure y’don’t.”
         “
h-home….e…Eddie…”

Flint
contemplated the defeated superhero. It would be so easy to reach out
and pull
off that red mask, but it seemed like a bit of a cop-out to do it this
fast in
the game. Unfair especially since Silver Sable was responsible for
putting
Spider-man out of commission, not him,
so…yeah. Maybe next encounter, when the odds weren’t so stacked against
his
opponent. Four fucking tranqs. No wonder
Spider-man couldn’t even string a sentence together. Christ. That
silver bitch
was crazy.

Winding sand around Spider-man’s leg and forming them into thick
ropes,
he dropped the smaller man none too gently on the floor and began
dragging him
out the way Flint came in
minutes
before. His captive didn’t put up much of a resistance, even as they
exited the
ruins of the Library doors, and into meager sunlight struggling to peak
through
the thick rain clouds hovering over Manhattan.
There was no sign of Silver Sable.
His headpiece crackled.
“Told you he’s still alive.”
    Flint
dragged Spider-man down the stairs after him like a sack of luggage.
“You
practically put him in a coma,” he returned, irritated. “Good going.”
    “Is
he still moving?”

“Barely. He’s out of it.”

“Still
alive. There you go.”
By
now he could hear the sound of
sirens. Great.

His headpiece suddenly screeched as one
of the other Wild Pack members shouted something. It sounded like
“target”,
except the last part cut off into something that sounded like a scared
yell,
gunfire and then ended with a sickening snap.

“We’ve
got company!” Silver Sable’s tinny voice said crisply. “Teams,
flash bangs on my mark. Marko, primary
target approaching fast from Sixth. We’ve got him clocked at 50 mph and
counting; he’s coming in hot.”

Flint
tossed Spider-man aside at this news, cracking his knuckles.
      “– Wild Pack 7 and 13
have
visual confirmation of primary target –”
      “- Wild Pack 21
confirming
visuals. Target is entering the designated outer perimeter– ”
      “- Target has made
contact
with Wild Pack 1… Wild Pack 1 KIA; Wild Pack 8 MIA, probably KIA as
well -”

Flint
rolled his neck back and forth until it popped, getting nice and
loosened up.

It was go time.

To be continued...

---------------------------------
- 4
- 5
- 6
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Black Sustenance