So sorry for being so late with linktober... I had the WORST day of my life I couldn't draw something pretty like what I wanted.
BUT HERE IT IS!!! I love Sidlink WITH MY LIFE OMFG I hope I can draw something better for them when I get better
A ROUTINE patrol goes wrong for our friendly neighborhood spider-woman! who can she rely on in this time of need? our favorite human-host and alien-symbiote duo, of course!
pairing: modern!venom!abby anderson x modern!spider-woman!ellie williams
tags: frenemies (?) to lovers, comedy, ellie williams is a bad spiderman, abby anderson is a worse venom, physical hurt/comfort, symbiote healing, blood, slight gore. mdni.
a/n: um. is this too niche? i used to write for spider-verse... and i am just a girl i fear. I'll probably post this on ao3 as well. have fun! ⸺ℰ
word count: 1.4k
Ellie’s desperate, she knows that.
Really, she does.
She's not entirely sure what comes over her. Not sure what possesses her to swing her way to Abby Anderson’s apartment in goddamn Hell’s Kitchen, not sure what has her colliding with the wall unceremoniously because of course she stumbles. Maybe it’s the piece of scrap metal stuck in her side. Honestly, she's not even sure if Abby is home.
So, she knocks.
This really isn’t her best idea. She has a lot of those, but this is definitely one of the worst ones. She thinks she knows what she wants – she wants Abby to force her to go to the hospital and see a doctor.
But she knows what she really wants is for Abby to fix her up herself. She wants Abby to joke around with her, try to make her laugh to distract her from the blood she's losing. That’s all a maybe, though– it’s if she lets herself really yearn.
She stands there in her shredded suit and a stretched-out t-shirt she snatched from a street vendor, waiting for Abby to answer the door. She thinks she looks weird. She knows she looks insane.
She doesn’t have to wait too long– never really does if Abby can help it– but she's not expecting what greets her. She thought Abby would answer the door with that usual Abby Anderson charm – or lack thereof – that lazy smirk on her face because she’s so smug and thinks she’s right all the time. The stormy blue eyes and a sarcastic greeting on her tongue that Ellie wants to kiss her for. She thought she’d be – content, to say the least.
Instead, Abby is standing unnervingly still. Her eyes are dark and her eyebrows are furrowed, her lips are turned down in a frown, and Ellie realizes she has a peep-hole way too late. She's still relieved to see her, just a little bit, anyway. Her lips just barely turn up.
“Abby,” she breathes, “I didn’t– Know where to go–”
She's lying. She knew where to go. But she also knew she wouldn’t be able to go out again if Maria and Tommy ever found out that she got beat this bad. Maria would make her life infinitely more difficult than it already is and Tommy would make sure she could never wear the suit again, and she would die, probably, if she spent that much time away from it all.
And fuck, actually, if she wasn’t a little afraid that she could be dying – Abby isn’t a surgeon, can’t possibly take this thing out of her side, but she doesn’t want to go to a hospital, can’t possibly go home on her own. She can’t do anything but feel all this pain, but Abby’s hands are soft where they hold her arms. Abby’s hands are soft and clean and have no blood on them – not yet, anyway, not until Ellie walks into her home. Then the whole place is coated in the stuff – drippy and dark and disgusting– and Ellie just keeps painting the walls with it.
She blinks as she's guided to Abby’s dining table– God, if I don’t die, I gotta remember to hit up IKEA–
“Ellie, what the fuck?” She hears Abby’s frantic voice, low and not at all happy– it makes Ellie nauseous, or maybe it's the blood loss, she's not entirely sure, but blood dribbles out of her mouth anyway.
She groans, letting out half-sobs as Abby gently lays her down. Tears well in her eyes– not because of the pain, no– the care. Abby handles her like she's made of glass, and she's not so sure that she isn’t. She honestly doesn’t know what she's made out of– maybe bits and pieces of everyone she's ever known– maybe nothing in particular.
“What the hell happened?” She's asking, and God, Ellie doesn’t fuckin’ know. Doesn’t know a damn thing except that she webbed up that asshole mugger to the side of the closest NYPD precinct, that the scrap metal in her side knocked the wind out of her, that she had to fumble with her webs and blink the spots out of her eyes to make sure she was swinging in the right direction. She barely thought of where to go, just knew that her dear frenemy Abigail Anderson lived on the corner of 10th Ave and W 49th.
The spots are back, her breath is getting shallow, and she’s a little scared. Her hands clench Abby’s wrists.
“Abs–”
“I’m here,” Abby says, soft and sure above her. Ellie watches her, but Abby’s focused on the wound in her side, on the way the skin keeps trying to heal but then it's ripped open again, a never ending loop of heal, break, heal, break.
“V, help her.”
Help her, not help me, because she doesn’t need it. Abby’s Symbiote to the rescue, and Ellie’s shivering as he coats her skin. Abby’s there, too, underneath it all – embedded into Venom the way he’s embedded into her. They can’t be apart, and the thought of Abby sticking to her skin makes her warm. She shudders.
“Didn’t puncture anything major,” Abby says, and her eyes glaze over white. Venom blinks down at her once, then again, before Abby’s blue-grey eyes come back to comfort her.
Venom doesn’t say much, makes no sound except for the occasional hum. The goo is sticky, cold and then warm, and she feels their heartbeat against her sternum. It’s soothing, but the pain is getting to her. She can feel Venom seep under her skin, can feel him-her-them rummaging and moving around her organs to isolate the area. The worst part is when Abby pulls the fucking metal out of her side. She cries out, breath wobbly from the blinding pain that tears through skin and muscle. Might as well go straight to the bone, too.
She can barely breathe, can’t really think, but Abby looks like she's crying. Ellie just can’t have that.
“Knew you never– fuck–” She coughs, spits blood right into her own shoulder, doesn't want to stain anything else red, “–never liked me.”
It makes Abby laugh, just barely, but it sounds more like she's trying not to choke on her breaths. Her hand rests on Ellie’s chest, where her heart beats, a little too quickly, but it’s fine. At least it’s beating.
They sit and breathe and cry— Abby’s hands are still soft on her chest, Ellie’s head is still pounding. When she looks down, both of their hands are covered in blood. It makes her warm for some reason.
“You gonna tell me what happened?” Abby asks after a few minutes, maybe an hour, maybe more. Ellie sighs, coughs again. The wound is tender, but there's no blood in her mouth. It’s the little things.
“Just wanted to finish,” she mutters, squeezing her eyes shut, “Didn't think about getting hurt.”
“Stupid of you,” Abby says quietly, “Almost Venom-stupid.”
“Almost,” she agrees, grins despite herself, would laugh if she could. It hurts too much, though, just like Abby’s eyes on her right now.
“HEY!” Venom barks, tendrils building until his head forms right by Abby’s right arm. He interrupts the moment, and for some reason, she’s a little thankful for it. “I SAVED YOUR LIFE. DID NOT EAT YOU. I COULD. I SHOULD. WE WANT TO.”
Abby shushes him, shoving at his head half-heartedly. Venom responds by digging his teeth into her arm, which does nothing. He chews angrily.
“You’re not eating her. You just had chocolate.”
“CHOCOLATE IS GOOD. I WANT MORE! HER SPLEEN IS RIGHT THERE, I COULD–”
Abby shoves him again as Ellie watches on. Nothing more to do now that she’s healed up, but the wound in her side is held together by her own skin and pieces of Venom. Pieces of Abby and Venom, because it's always two, and never just the one. Not anymore.
Ellie doesn’t say much when Abby preps the pull-out couch, but she does thank Venom when he slithers up out of nowhere to give her a pillow. It’s the softest thing she’s ever held (probably) and she takes note of the way Abby hides a blush that reaches the tips of her ears.
She doesn’t comment, and instead says goodnight when Abby turns the light off in the living room.
