in the flesh, eddie brock

𝐈. 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄

 

CHAPTER ONE:
FALLING CRESCENT MOON

━━★━━

2008. Inglewood, California

Damon could never forget the night the Moon fell.

It's been following him for quite some time now, leaving clues here and there of its presence. Once, a piece of it trickled down onto his chest, touching the pentagram on his abdomen (the first time he felt snow). Another, it carved a message into the heart of his first foster parent by giving the wretched woman a good old stroke.

            The Moon's never been cruel to him, at least not to his memory. Whenever he needed a friend in his lonesome, it was there, watching over him with a keen eye. It's always fluttering in the harsh wind like a butterfly without its wings, resting on his shoulder for a second before vanishing without a trace.

Last night, carrying an emotion greater than anything he'd ever felt, it traveled to his windowpane with an outstretched hand and a ticket to San Francisco. It even packed his bags, wrote a couple letters to his choice friends, and made him a sandwich for the long ride.

The Moon has a name, but he can't quite put his finger on it.

It's too bad it can't help him when he's on the bus to San Francisco, a suitcase in his lap and a map imprinted in his mind. When he was looking for somewhere to live, the city of San Francisco practically whispered into his ear and invited him over for dinner. To appease her, he set out a well-laid plan to escape from his shack of a home, preferably to one with less concealed hatred.

            First, he'll use the bus ticket gifted to him by his anonymous friend to take a trip up north. Then, he'll take a cab with whatever amount of cash he has left in his pockets to Strellhom Apartments. After that, he'll—

"Kid," a man about sixty years his senior addresses him, and he doesn't notice he's talking to him until he puts a frail hand on his shoulder. With eyes now on him as a sign of respect, the peculiar man with dark glasses and hair white as snow says, "Your bag's open."

He furrows his brows for a second, strictly due to his confusion, until he looks down and sees that his belongings have spilled out onto the floor. After scrambling to pick up a couple T-shirts and a hairbrush, he raises his head to thank the man. Much to his surprise, he's vanished, as if he was never there in the first place, and Damon begins to think he imagined it all.

That is, until a rather alluring woman plops onto the seat next to him.

"He come up to you too?" she asks, referring to the old man. Without giving him a chance to reply, she answers her own question, "Y'know, it's kinda strange. I've seen him around a couple places and he only really talks to people from different galaxies, or people with godly powers. What's your superpower, stranger?"

"Uh, I'm pretty sure aliens don't exist," Damon comments with a raw chuckle. "And me, a hero? Definitely not."

She smiles a dazzling smile. "Wasn't my question."

Ignoring the premise of her visit once again, he chooses to introduce himself: "I'm Damon."

"Jane," she responds with yet another smile, and he uses the silence between her next words to examine her. She has raven-black hair, eyes like thorns, and there's an air to her that makes him think she's probably killed a couple men with nothing more than a look. "Why're you going to San Francisco?"

He clears his throat. "To escape."

"Sad boy," she muses.

And the silence comes back, but this time it's more comfortable and less there's-a-girl-sitting-next-to-you-and-she-hasn't-run-away-yet, key word being 'yet.' Somehow, Damon doesn't find himself wondering why, out of the tens of empty seats on the midnight bus, she's chosen to sit beside him.

            Instead, he ponders a much simpler question: Why hasn't he felt the absence of the Moon yet?

"I'm a bit of an extrovert, so you're gonna hear a lot about me in the next couple hours," she informs, and he doesn't say anything. "I'm coming back from Vegas, a pretty lonely place if you think about it. How about you?"

"Inglewood."

She lets out a low whistle. "You really don't talk much, do you?"

"Introvert by choice," he responds, just as prompt as before.

He looks at her again and feels a sort of familiarity, as if they were destined or fated to meet here, as if they've met in another life. It fades away within a second to leave him with more silence, but the uneasiness remains. She's got a look in her eye that leads him to believe she knows something he doesn't; there's danger in her demeanor.

"Well, my sad boy," she gives him a nickname he's not given the chance to oppose to, "I don't mind this silent act. I'll get a couple more sentences out of you soon. You wanna answer a quick question for me first?"

"Another one?" he deadpans, his expression one of which she's probably seen many times before.

"Why's there snow on your shoes? Last I checked, it doesn't snow in Inglewood."

There it is: the light in her eyes that signals to him that she knows why; she knows it all. No answer he will give her can convince her he's telling her the truth because she knows. He feels powerless, something not exactly foreign to him. She makes him feel like even more of a kid than he is, makes him want to sink into his seat without another word.

His gaze falls onto her boots, tiny crystals of ice shining before the flickering lights of the dingy bus. The shoe's practically dripping with snow, as if she carries her own personal weather machine with her. A single flake slides down her ankle every other second and onto the floor, melting into a puddle. When his eyes are back on her, he's met with a familiar smile.

"Why don't you tell me?"

She grins, and this is the first time he's felt the Moon on his fingertips.