His consciousness felt as if it had been forcibly plunged into ice water and then suddenly pulled back to the surface; Victor snapped awake after a brief moment of blankness.
Severe tinnitus and a dull headache made him dizzy, but his first thought wasn't of himself. Instead, he abruptly looked down at the silent figure he had been shielding firmly beneath him.
"Wed—" He tried to call out, his heart nearly bursting through his ribs, but he froze the moment he opened his mouth—he couldn't hear his own voice.
His fingertips instinctively reached for his buzzing ears, touching something wet, sticky, and warm.
He pulled his hand away to see a jarring streak of bright red on his fingertips.
"Eardrums are ruptured..." He frowned, though he wasn't too worried. "Small problem. As long as Venom is here, it'll be fine."
He propped himself up and quickly checked on Wednesday. Her eyes were tightly shut and her face was pale, but her chest rose and fell steadily.
Victor let out a long sigh of relief and carefully settled her beside a fallen tree trunk.
Then, his anxious gaze began scanning the wreckage around them, searching for that familiar black symbiote.
Soon, he spotted Venom hanging limply among the branches of a broken tree nearby, looking like a puddle of lifeless black asphalt. It had shrunk significantly in size, struggling even to maintain its basic form.
"Found you..." Victor muttered to himself. He rushed over and gently "plucked" the limp, seemingly lifeless black mass from the branch.
Venom gave an extremely faint wriggle in his palm before slowly, and with apparent great effort, merging back into his body.
[Victor!!! You absolute hoes-before-bros bastard!!!]
Venom's angry roar exploded directly in his mind, making his already buzzing head ache even more. Yet, it also gave him a strange sense of relief—if it could still curse, the situation wasn't too bad.
"I'm a 'hoes before bros' kind of guy? Where is this coming from?" Victor was bewildered and instinctively responded in his mind.
[Where is it coming from?! That damn explosion just now! You lunged over only caring about shielding your little Goth girl tightly! You didn't even look at me! I was like a discarded ragdoll! Blown away! Do you know how bad it feels to be torn apart by sound waves and sent flying like a popped balloon?! Huh?!]
Venom's voice was full of grievance and accusation.
"Was... was I?" Victor felt a bit guilty. At that moment, his entire focus had indeed been on Wednesday; he hadn't had time to think about anything else.
[I was fucking sent flying and you didn't even care!]
[And! What about that lightsaber?! That super cool Plasma Sword we almost got sliced into sashimi just to touch?! Is it still there?!] Venom suddenly remembered the important part and asked urgently.
Victor shook his head dejectedly and pointed to the charred crater left by the blast. "I took a quick look just now. Not even a scrap left. That T-800 self-destructed so thoroughly that not even a hair remained."
Venom fell silent.
After a few seconds, an extremely resentful emotion—as if betrayed by the entire world—slowly permeated Victor's consciousness.
[So you're saying... after the explosion...] Venom's voice became abnormally calm, but it carried the pressure of a looming storm.
[You, Victor Black, first nervously checked if your Wednesday Addams was okay...]
[Then, you even remembered to check if that cold, but super cool weapon that might have survived was still there...]
[And finally! Finally! You remembered to look for your poor, dazed, loyal partner who couldn't even maintain his form—ME!!!]
[You're not just 'hoes before bros'... you're a mercenary who abandons friends for profit!!! I'm hurt! On a spiritual level! Very seriously!]
[I'm going to sleep! To perform deep self-repair! Don't disturb me for a while! Not unless you have an extra-large chocolate cake as an apology!]
After finishing its rant, Venom's voice and presence rapidly faded as if it had truly fallen into a deep sleep, leaving Victor's mind in silence.
"Hey! Wait! Don't sleep yet!" Victor called out inwardly, caught between laughter and tears. "Do me a small favor first, fix my ruptured eardrums! It's a hassle not being able to hear!"
However, there was no further response. Only the constant buzzing reminded him that he had been temporarily abandoned by his "other half."
Victor sighed helplessly, rubbed his still-aching forehead, and turned to look at the still-unconscious Wednesday, resigned to figuring out what to do next.
Twilight was like coagulated plasma, slowly staining the sky.
Wednesday regained consciousness amidst the jolting. The first Thing she perceived was body heat—not her usual coldness, but an uncomfortable warmth coming from another person.
She found herself confined in Victor's arms in a very old-fashioned "bridal carry," while he was trudging along a secluded path.
Her pale fingertips instinctively curled, touching the edge of a cardboard box. A rich, cloyingly sweet chocolate aroma wafted from it, completely at odds with the scent of death and dust surrounding her.
Her first reaction was to break free from this shameful embrace, but a wave of intense dizziness and physical weakness made her abandon the attempt.
"Don't move around." Victor's voice came from above, steady but unusually loud, as if he were shouting in an empty cathedral.
"You took that sonic shock head-on. Your nervous system needs at least a night of rest to recover basic functions." He clearly couldn't hear his own volume.
Wednesday knit her brows, her sharp tongue instinctively awakening. "So, 'carrying the wounded through a difficult trek' is the only medical evacuation plan in your database?"
She habitually waited for his exasperated or playful retort.
But there was no response.
Only the rhythmic thumping of Victor's heart through his chest and the sound of his footsteps crushing dry branches reached her.
She snapped her head up, her gaze focusing on his profile—dried, dark-red blood remained clearly on his ear and the side of his neck, a shocking sight.
The last scene before she lost consciousness hit her: blood pouring from his ears while he still stubbornly covered hers.
"Are you... alright?" The moment she asked, she pursed her lips, realizing her stupidity—he couldn't hear.
Victor seemed to sense her gaze. He looked down, flashed an overly bright smile, and continued in that unnatural volume:
"Don't worry! For now, there's no difference between this and being deaf! Once my sleepy old partner wakes up, he can fix it in a minute. By the way, I can't read lips. How about letting the 'Universal Translator' take over?"
Before he finished speaking, Thing had already nimbly crawled out of Wednesday's small black bag. It scurried down her arm and onto the lid of the cake box she was holding, tapping the surface proudly with its nails as if declaring its importance.
Wednesday took a deep breath, suppressing the complex emotions swirling in her heart, and returned to her cold tone. "That Plague Doctor. Is his death confirmed?"
Thing immediately got busy on the cake box. First, it spread its five fingers to make an "explosion" gesture, then hesitated, making its index and middle fingers "stand up" like a little person and sneak away.
Victor glanced at Thing's performance and explained, "Blown to smithereens. But he might not be completely dead. He said'see you next time.' That mechanical body might just have been a remote-controlled puppet. As for the real body... God knows which dark sewer or server cluster it's hidden in."
"And that monster, Hyde?" Wednesday continued to ask.
Thing immediately played the role of Hyde, bending four fingers to simulate running, then exaggeratedly pinching its 'nose' with thumb and index finger while the other hand waved frantically, gesturing "Stinks to high heaven, gotta run."
Victor sighed, his expression pained. "Ran off in the chaos. What a loss, a total loss! The BOSS wasn't cleared, the legendary 'Plasma Lightsaber' wasn't looted, and even the dessert that was practically in my mouth flew away! My heart is bleeding!"
His complaints sounded exceptionally tragic because of his uncontrolled volume.
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