You'll Never Be Alone [mpreg|sequel]

xxiii

Numb.

It's only after several long seconds that drag on forever that Eddy realizes it.  Realizes that maybe they were too late.

That horrible feeling is solidified the moment Dan agrees to stand up after his prompting, without a word, without a fight.  The pregnant man is slow, sluggish.  He moves as if on autopilot, quiet with lips pursed into a thin line.  Eddy hovers.  He's not quite sure what to do.

Dan is covered in blood, drying and fresh the red is splattered on his skin and clothes.  He looks haggard.  He looks exhausted, dead on his feet.

Riot... Riot is nowhere to be found.

Eddy wants to ask.

Just a second ago he heard the most blood curdling scream of anguish, pain, horror.

He would prefer the weeping, at least he could console his friend.  But this silence is deafening and all consuming.  He doesn't know what to do.  It's suffocating.

It reminds him of when he lost Venom.

Eddy's hand is outstretched and then he sees it.

Tears create trails of salt over the blood covered cheeks of Dan's face.  Dan, he holds his belly as if treasuring the only thing he has left of Riot.

Venom is uneasy underneath Eddy's skin.

They doesn't like this.

"Dan?"

Dan looks up at him, his bottom lip trembling as his right hand draws up and rests on his chest.

"He's struggling to live and I don't know what to do."

Eddy stares into his friend's blood shot eyes, red-rimmed with tears.

What does he say?  What does he do?

Venom appears from his chest, the symbiote stares at Dan intently.

"Wait."

Dan sniffles and looks at the duo, "wait?"

"That is all left to do.  Wait."

Eddy opens his arms then and Dan gratefully slumps into his friend's embrace, his sobs ricocheting off the walls like a loose bullet as tears begin to wet the fabric of Eddy's shirt.  Eddy doesn't complain, he only holds on tighter.  

Such a shit situation they're in.

A hesitant clearing of a throat makes Eddy turn around and he looks surprised at who he finds.

"Dora." Lasher.

The doctor is sheepish as she holds her weight against the doorframe.  She is quite literally skin and bone but there's a glow to her, a fierce will to live in her dark eyes.

Dan pulls away from Eddy, no longer burrowing his flushed face in the other's neck.  He turns to Dora and with a crack of his voice thanks her.

She offers a sympathetic smile that doesn't reach her eyes, too exhausted to feel anything other than relief for her own survival.

"Lets get out of here," Eddy says, his hand outstretched to the woman who had been filed missing years ago, "Let's go home."