Brennan ended up pondering on Kiel’s words until the sun completely disappeared from the distant skies —both the condemning bad, and not-quite-reassuring good. He had nowhere to go, he had no money, he was surrounded by strange and clearly dangerous individuals, and he lacked even a phone or any other means to pass his lengthy hours of confinement.
And yet, he found himself clinging to the possibility that not everything was as hopeless as it once seemed. He was alive, wasn’t he? And from what little Kiel had told him, there were others who had learned to thrive despite being haunted by entities similar to Needle.
Therein lay the crux —setting aside the thug’s ostentatious insanity, a couple of his remarks were left simmering in Brennan’s head, just like that disgusting plate he left behind. He needed to find a way to somehow bend Needle to his will, a task far more easy to propose than to achieve.
An anxious itch he couldn’t quite place thrummed beneath his skin as his thirst continued to intensify with every passing minute, aggravating his anxiousness. He felt reluctant to venture from the cold confines of the garage-room, fearful of what fresh horrors might be waiting on its exteriors after finally achieving a frail sense of safety and peace inside the soulless concrete walls.
At least this place afforded him a small, questionably sanitary bathroom to slake his dehydration and finally scrub away some of the grime adhered to his skin.
Yet he remained oblivious to the way his fingers twitched with unconscious restlessness —a subtle harbinger of the sinister undercurrents at play beneath his flesh, hungrily seeking for more bliss to be scraped off his veins.
Right on cue, as Brennan emerged from the decayed bathroom in the same tattered jeans and a small dirty towel slung haphazardly over his damp curls, Needle had already materialized again. The cricket Punisher was idly prodding the vulgar display of Kiel’s avant-garde culinary eccentricity, seemingly entertained by its absurdity.
“That Kiel fellow is a curious one, don’t you think?” Needle began, its unsettling presence being one that Brennan still felt reluctant to accept as a constant in his life. “I trust you’re aware his overtures are little more than thinly veiled attempts to deceive and exploit you.”
>> “You’d do well by discarding his poor excuses for advice as the meaningless rubbish they are.” It spoke as if imparting a great wisdom that would be foolish of Brennan to disregard, at least until its eyes swiveled back towards the food. “By the way, are you planning on partaking in this concoction he so lovingly crafted for your sake?”
There was an undercurrent of smug condescension laced through Needle's words, a sense that it believed itself to be operating on a higher intellectual plane. Still, the Punisher wasn't wrong, he was unsure of how much of Kiel’s words to actually take seriously —but not like Brennan wasn’t acutely aware of the cricket’s own agenda and its penchant for manipulation.
“If you’re so certain of his bad intentions, then why didn’t you bother showing yourself to contradict him?” Brennan countered him bitterly, although he also didn’t even want to start considering eating Kiel’s parody of cooking. “I have some dignity left, thanks. Knock yourself out.”
“We’ve been over this before. I don’t like repeating myself unnecessarily.” Needle bluntly cut him off, clasping his mandibles in anticipation. “And don’t mind if I do.”
In sharp motions, the spectral creature pierced the disembodied member with one of its barbed appendages and hurled over its fanged maw, catching and devouring it with a series of wet, guttural sounds that filled Brennan’s with disgust —gorging upon the flesh in a gluttonous manner.
“Hm… He made it sound as if this Freudian Slip held some semblance of notable qualities.” A scoff issued from the back of Needle’s throat as it casually flicked the flower petals and golden batter aside with a disdainful swipe. “Alas, reality is that gastronomy is yet another area in which our tragically deluded friend falls irredeemably short.”
>> “The exterior was hopelessly over-salted and the core shamefully overcooked. A culinary disgrace, really.”
While Brennan had limited himself only to stare, caught momentarily in sickened disbelief; Needle’s sardonic critique did give him the fuel to press the Punisher further.
“Yeah? You’re a coward, I already figured as much. You fill your disgusting mouth with insults now.” He crossed his arms with disapproval, realizing just now how hard it was for him to prevent his nails from sinking in his skin with no conscious provocation. “But you couldn’t be bothered to show your grotesque face until Kiel was gone. Were you that afraid?”
>> “The truth is that I can’t trust a single word you say, isn’t that right?”
“Don’t be so overly dramatic.” Needle laughed at him, grooming the legs recently employed to handle the… fine cuisine. “Are you that threatened by the prospect of me hurting your new boyfriend’s feelings?”
“Are you serious right now?” Brennan couldn’t mask an exasperated scoff to burst forth. “Making childish comments like that? I expect immaturity from those deranged freaks… But you as well?”
“Oh, you might try to deceive yourself, Brennan-boy.” The Punisher smoothly interjected, like if the entirety of its speech were nothing but baits to lure him with. “But that desperate ploy doesn’t work on me.”
>> “The reason you're defensive about your dear Kiel is that you’ve found in him yet another poor soul to pathetically cower behind.” It fixed his gaze on him with its piercing bloated stare, drinking in the discomfort that left Brennan shivering. “One more feeble attempt to avoid confronting all of your glaring shortcomings, all off your failures as a human being."
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He opened his mouth, but it was pointless. He didn’t know how to answer, and Needle knew it —pressing on with his casually cruel cadence.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To have someone else call all the shots while you simply play along. Comfortably hidden from judgment, from accountability. From all the consequences and suffering your selfish actions bring forth.”
The words hung heavy in the stagnated air, they were all accusations he couldn’t deny, worming their way beneath Brennan’s skin which continued to itch uncomfortably. Yet he clenched his jaw, determined to not be swept under Needle’s sinister logic —he had to be strong, at least this once.
“Then what’s the alternative?” He bit out at last, hating how strained his voice sounded under all his quivering. “Relying on you instead? When you’re just as full of lies and manipulation as all of them?”
“Lies?” Needle’s infuriating chuckle reverberated across the closed space. “I’ve never lied to you, my dear boy.”
>> “Did I not say as much in the past? You and I, we share the same tainted essence. There is no other entity that cares about you more than I do.”
And there it was again, staring him right in the face. That same ugly contradiction Brennan faintly grasped at earlier, before Kiel’s interruption whisked it away from his mind. It now blazed before him, one decisive bullet to fire against the Punisher.
“You… You said something before…” Brennan tried to recall the exact words Needle used, but his brain was acting alarmingly shaky. A cold sweat was beginning to run down his back, and he wasn’t sure if it was due to fright or not. “Something along the lines that… I was like all the others.”
>> “If you and I are the same… Then what does that mean?”
Needle's mandibles clacked in a display of barely-contained annoyance. It was the first time that it sounded entirely genuine, as he finally escaped the confines of its carefully woven narrative.
“Hah… You’re not nearly as bright as you give yourself credit for.” It chided with unfiltered resentment, carrying within its voice the promise of a yet unspoken threat —something he didn’t doubt the insect-like Punisher would soon rectify. “Yes, you are correct. You’re not my first host, Brennan.”
>> “And with the way you insist in carrying on, I very much doubt you’ll be the last.” It was a tense standoff, one that he was certain was a pivotal point in their dynamics moving forward. “Is that what you want then? You want me to discard you too?”
>> “Leave you to wallow in the squalid depths of your rudderless existence?”
The thought left Brennan both frozen in spot and unsteady on his feet at the same time. To have Needle simply vanish from his life… To never again be subjected to its torment and venomous words… It should have been a hopeful prospect —a tentative first step back towards the normalcy he believed irrevocably lost.
But as he tried to voice this desire, his tongue felt like dead weight under the gravity of what it meant to part ways with Needle's toxin. It was more than just losing the pain; it was also relinquishing the fleeting moments of liberation, that intense high that momentarily silenced his doubts and made him feel truly alive.
“I… No.” The admission was practically torn from his throat, as his fist clenched impotently at his sides. “I don’t want you to leave, damn it!”
>> “But you need to come down from your high horse! Just once, submit to me, you twisted piece of shit!”
The thunderous peal of Needle's laughter erupted inside the walls like a physical force, a joy that only unnerved him further.
“Didn’t take you for such a skilled comedian, Brennan-boy.” Needle sneered as a response. “As if such imbecilic notion could ever come to pass.”
>> “You’re too weak Brennan. Too cripplingly frail of will and conviction. You will never be able to control me.”
Its ceaseless baying crashed over Brennan in dizzying waves, each mocking syllable sapping what little fortitude remained as his head pounded with mounting intensity. Second by second, more and more worrying physical sensations began to take insidious root, creeping through his veins in cold ruthlessness.
He felt a gnawing ache in his chest, and his mouth felt dry with a thirst that no amount of water could ever satisfy. It was if his very soul was begging in its knees for more of Needle’s toxin, despite knowing full well its potentially destructive effects.
“You’ve noticed it already, haven’t you?” Needle’s laughter finally subsided, but the cruel tone remained —its eyes resembling those of a spider savoring the helpless terror of its ensnared prey. “It doesn’t matter how fervently you try to ignore it.”
>> “Your basest strata has already been rewritten to suit my whims, to conform obediently to all of my desires.”
A sentence cast on the air like a tangible miasma, saturating Brennan’s senses until they blotted out all else. Yes, he could feel it —the ravenous craving emerging through his marrow, his muscles, and every agonizing cell crying out for the venomous relief that only Needle could provide.
“You cannot live without me, Brennan.”
>> “And you will surrender everything, mind and body, to do exactly as I command without a single fail.”
His body was already anguished well past the endurable limits, his resolve hanging by a frayed thread. To resist any further invited a torment he could scarcely fathom… So what choice did he have left?
“For the time being, this circus of degenerates you’ve found yourself surrounded by is… convenient enough for my designs.” Not even considering the minimal possibility of defiance, Needle continued on with casual indifference. “But you better start working on that pitiful attitude of yours while I give you the chance.”
As it began dissipating again, it teased him with the rusty malevolence of its barbed proboscis glinting like a holy relic, away from his grasp as his fingers failed to reach its translucent form.
“Because I won’t be alleviating your anguish this time, no matter how desperately you grovel on the floor for it.”
>> “Not until I'm confident you learnt your lesson.”
Just like that, all of his attempts failed, as they always did. The delusion of autonomy, stripped away. He had no choice but to follow Needle through this labyrinth of broken glass, trapped in a neighborhood that no longer had an escape. Fate was sealed, convulsions of withdrawal starting to overpower him.
