Chapter Text
Eddie ran his hands through his hair, pressing his palms against his eyes as frustration seeped in through every pore in his body, battling for space within him against the alien already dwelling below his skin. The rattling he felt in his bones must've been other chopping its head off. His mind wandered off for a single moment, though it did not alleviate the stress building up in his head; this specific train of thought, of frustration seeped in, reminded him of his brief merging with Carlton Drake and Riot. A chill ran through him, and he couldn't tell if the you're mine he heard in his head was a memory of when he first talked to his symbiote or Venom repeating their words upon their host thinking about something else possessing him.
They could see everything in their head, feel everything they felt, so they noticed the tension in their host's body.
Eddie grunted, looking through his notes again, playing with the pen in his spare hand. He tapped with it at the table incessantly, almost neurotically, and he was aware nothing he was doing would make the words flow in his head any better. If anything, the wall between his inspiration, the concept in his head and his ability to string words together was just growing thicker, leaving him in a cycle he repeated consciously, driving him to screaming out of frustration until the tapping stopped abruptly, his right hand freezing on the spot.
Eddie.
Black alien goo appeared from his forearm; it took the form of a hand with long clawed fingers, not as muscular as it was when the symbiote morphed with him, enhancing his body. It took the pen out of his hand and placed it in the pencil holder next to his laptop. The hand, oozing alien goo into the air, returned to him, slithering back into his skin.
“I know, I know.” He spoke into the empty room. Dejected, tired, Eddie sighed heavily, shoulders dropping, leaving back into the chair. He heard the fridge open and close behind him, the jar of water then hovering above him, held by another symbiote arm, towards his glass to refill it. A third hand appeared with the ice cube tray.
Ice? Though, it was already being placed back in the fridge by the time Eddie shook his head. He took the glass. “Thank you, love.”
Let’s go out, Eddie. We can relax outside. Let's clear our mind with fresh air.
Eddie downed the water, leaving the empty glass in the sink. He agreed with the other, of course. They knew what he was already thinking of. The walls were suffocating him, might as well try changing the space around him and see if that would make it any easier to type words down.
We should go to Mrs. Chen’s. Get some food.
“Is that how you guys say ‘I hope she's getting robbed again so I get to eat brains’ in Klyntar?”
Maybe. Tasting another human's thoughts can help with your writer's block, Eddie.
Eddie hummed as if to considerate how plausible that was. He frowned slightly, barely holding back the smile on his lips. “Yeah, I'm no expert, but I can tell you that's not how it works.”
Fine. He could almost hear them huffing. Venom wasn't happy with it, as obvious as it was, Eddie could feel it.
“I'm not saying we can't get something to eat, love. Just less bloody. I might end up writing about the taste of brains and then we won't get money for steaks.”
People looked at them, at him as he walked down the street talking to himself, some crossed to the opposite street, others tried to avoid eye contact while their hurried steps n tense movements made it clear it was about him, and some simply stared, but Eddie kept walking and talking as if nothing happened. They reached an ice cream shop and got themselves a cone, Venom already salivating at the chocolate goodness. It must've been Venom’s own hunger the fact how, by the time he reached the park, he was already halfway done with the ice cream. Eddie kept himself from shoving what was left of the cone into his mouth, ignoring how encouraging Venom was of that idea. It was their idea to begin with.
“If you make me just stuff this into my mouth, that's all you get to eat for the rest of the walk. Don't you wanna try to make it last?” There was silence for a second from the other.
Good point.
“Good. Cooperation. See, it's not that hard.”
From then on, Venom did limit themselves to their talk about brains, as that went against the idea of relaxation Eddie had in mind when agreeing to go out to the park together.
A couple walked past them, holding hands and smiling and laughing and making eyes at each other the whole time, not even noticing he looked at them. He didn't think much of it, his thoughts elsewhere, but he certainly grew hyper aware of it as he felt tendrils slithering around his arm and seizing his hand as they took the shape of a hand again, intertwining their fingers together.
“What… are you doing?”
Don't play dumb, Eddie.
“I'm not--” He frowned. “I'm not playing dumb.”
I saw it in your TV, Eddie. While you slept. We are out, eating together. So, we are in a date. Like those two sacks of meat that walked by.
“It's really insensitive of you to call women like that.”
You're blushing.
He was, but he also wasn't letting go of Venom’s hand.
“Shut up and eat your chocolate.” Eddie shoved what was rest into his mouth, chewing away at the cookie and the chocolate syrup inside the end of it. Some kid stared at his messy way of eating, and probably also the black hand-shaped goo wrapped around his hand as he walked past. Eddie shoved his and Venom’s hand into the pocket of his hoodie. He squeezed it. “And what do you mean you watch TV while I sleep? Since when?”
For a while. I like the doctor shows. They open up a lot of brains.
“You need to stop that, you're not the one paying the bills.”
That's why we're on this park, Eddie. So you can pay them.
“Right. I wish I was an alien taking residence in someone's body, getting everything paid for me.”
He might be avoiding the topic, verbally at least, but with his symbiote having access to his thoughts and feelings, they really didn't need verbal confirmation to know that Eddie liked this hand holding thing, just like Eddie would also be aware that Venom, too, liked it. They also didn't need to hear why did he like it, or why did he find it soothing; those months he had spent alone in his apartment had been torture . So, after moving past the whole issue with killing their host and planning to also wipe out all of humanity with a horde of symbiotes (you know, the usual bumps of a relationship that's just starting), they grew on each other quite fast and quite well. Neither of them had to be alone anymore. Eddie liked that, Venom liked that.
And while Eddie reminisced on that, Venom saw and felt it all, almost like watching a movie; how he was overall enjoying himself more than he ever thought he could after having 5 years of his life walk away on him and spending 6 miserable months locked up in his apartment. It had been too lonely, too depressing and although he had managed to move on, a part of him still missed something about his previous life, albeit not Anne specifically. Not anymore. After all, time and a near death experience were pretty good for putting things in perspective. That and also his nonstop growing fondness for the other creature living in his body. Venom noticed the discomfort their host was feeling, the lonely sting in his chest.
Eddie buried his face in his spare hand as he felt Venom squeezing the one they held, his heart skipping a beat.
Whether his own thoughts changed into something completely different on his own accord or with Venom’s help, he didn't know.
That night, while Eddie slept, Venom turned the TV on again and zapped through the channels in search for another one of those doctor shows. They'd make Eddie fall into a deep slumber, deep enough there was no way he'd wake up to scold them for ignoring this talk about bills . It should be fine, since he did write a lot when they got back home. Their search to one of the shows they liked was put to a halt, though, when he heard the words ‘my love’ coming from the box. They left that channel on and leaned in further towards the screen. That's how Eddie calls us, they thought.
The couple on screen was a man and a woman, and they were quite cheesy , in Eddie’s words. Venom didn't change the channel, though, and instead ended up tranced by the content on screen, paying incredible attention to those two humans loving each other. It ended in their marriage, in a church that bonded them together forever.
They went back to Eddie’s bed, one slim tentacle reaching out to open the drawing next to him. They took the wedding ring, big white creamy eyes staring intently at how it shone with the lights from the TV screen. Anne had returned this to him. From what they saw in Eddie’s head and on the box, this would signify an eternal bond in Eddie’s culture.
Venom thought about that.
They turned off the TV and returned to Eddie’s body as the sun rose up.
Chapter Text
They saved someone today. A group of people from a bank robbery. There was a lot more of screaming once they arrived, but they did their job of getting the bad guys to stop terrorizing innocent people. Venom had seen red when seeing some children cowering on their ground with their mothers.
We did it, Eddie. Venom said, slithering around his organs. We were heroes.
Though, that wasn't the word they spotted when Eddie picked up a newspaper. He turned away too quickly, throwing the paper away. But they knew; at night, during the news and repeated broadcasts, they knew that heroes was the last word anyone was using for them.
Monsters. Evil. Scary. Bad .
By daytime, Venom had a lot to think.
“So.” Eddie spoke up as he eat his cereal bowl, breaking the unusually deafening silence that heaved on the kitchen air. “You gonna tell me what's wrong? I can feel that you're not feeling so hot today.” The same silence followed that, and Eddie almost felt hurt of being so blatantly ignored by his own tapeworm since he woke up with no good mornings. No anything. He shrugged. “Suit yourself--”
Why are humans so complicated?
“Be more specific, love.”
We save them, we help them, they still don't like us.
“They don't need to like us.”
They think we're against them. That's untrue. They want to get rid of us.
“They just like talking shit, y’know. New stuff they don't understand… It scares ‘em. You used to scare the shit out of me.” Eddie kept eating his cereal, now finding it funny to be scared of them, “they'll be too afraid to act on anything they say, anyway.”
Venom’s tendrils surged from behind him, taking the shape of their face.
We didn't stay to cultivate fear on the good ones. Why make an effort in telling apart the good from the bad if both will see us the same way?
“... Are you growin’ bitter? You care a lot what they think.”
We don't .
“You sure about that?”
It's long term planning, Eddie. Though, a diet made up of criminal heads in prison doesn't sound too bad. They reached for the cereal box Eddie had left in the kitchen counter, pouring more into his plate as Eddie got the milk.
“We don't do it to be the next Captain America or whatever, y’know? It's alright.” Eddie opened his palm to them, and their tendrils wrapped around it, sliding between his fingers and holding onto it. “C’mere. All those teeth an’ you're thinkin’ about how people call us.”
Venom leaned in, pressing themselves against Eddie’s lips.
They went to Mrs. Chen’s this time, and Venom was swirling inside him, happy not only at the prospect of getting their fill in chocolate but also that maybe they'd get a little reward in the shape of a criminal’s head terrorizing innocent people.
Mrs. Chen used to tense up on his arrival, rightfully so (according to Eddie) since she a little too much to process after seeing a big alien monster encase Eddie in a suit of pure muscle. Also the fact that she saw them eating an entire body without so much as shedding a drop of blood on her floor. In human’s customs that wasn't usual to see, and such was kept for movies where it was fabricated and sold to the public as fiction, lies. Venom found it ridiculous, if they were already used to the concept of different life forms and that'd prey on them, why would it be more far fetched to think they'd be accepting of such?
Maybe rather than complicated, humans were just plain stupid.
However, she seemed to have accepted it, at least enough to not look at Eddie weirder than usual when he walked in.
“Some of us, yeah.” Eddie replied. “A lot of the times it looks like most of us.”
“What?” Though, seeing him talk to himself from her end didn't make it better.
“Nothing, Mrs. C.”
“Are you actually going to buy something this time? Because you scared a bunch of my clients. I will charge you double for those tater tots.”
“I'm sure the people with the guns were doing that long before us.” Eddie replied to her from the back of the store.
“You always kept coming. That…” She paused as Eddie’s head popped up from the small aisle, pressing his lips into a line as he shook his head quickly. “... thing you have didn't make you any smarter.” She danced around the term to label Venom as, aware of what it didn't like to be called as she witnessed Eddie arguing with himself one time.
“Way I see it you're not getting your cash swept up anymore.”
She fell silent. He placed the food for Venom in the counter.
“Thank you.”
He nodded.
“Do I…. Tell.... Venom…” She stammered over her words, then gesturing vaguely with her finger, pointing at Eddie. “....What is it?”
“Their species is called a symbiote, but alien is good enough. Probably.”
“Well… Tell them thank you.”
“It's fine, thanking me is like thanking them. They say you're welcome, though. They'd do it personally but, you know.” The store’s door opened with new clients.
“Yes. It's okay. Don't.”
Eddie paid for the food and headed back to their flat for an uninterrupted, messy consumption of chocolate bars as if they were the only food he had had in months. Though, he couldn't really keep his hands off the bag when Venom was already emptying his stomach. He ate away at one of the bars as he walked down the hall to his apartment.
“Hear that, dear? Not everyone will call you a monster.”
And although something about it was satisfying, the symbiote still found themselves feeling the same. They weren't satisfied even if they knew Eddie was right. Later that night, as they once again hovered above the bed with their attention locked on the TV screen. they wondered how deeper could their feelings go. By themselves, they did understand simple things, everything would be sort of black and white, but after possessing Maria and then Eddie (who was going through enough things to make his emotions more complex than they would've expected) they assimilated the depth in which emotions could go. As a quick learner, they realized it wasn't just that they were mad at humans for calling them names.
Their host wasn't a secret. The view on them would reflect on their host and consequently said host’s livelihood. It would make it harder to find jobs. Eddie’s shoulder would grow more tense. He'd rub at his temples more. Before they could pinpoint the current emotion as one the first one they had learnt from Eddie, a voice from behind them put a halt to their thoughts.
“That don't look like Grey’s Anatomy re-runs to me.”
Venom snapped the head at the end of the stretched out tendrils, and it almost looked like they had flinched. Eddie stifled a laugh at the thought of surprising the symbiote, of catching such a scary, powerful creature off-guard and Venom, aware of these thoughts, squinted. “Don't look at me like that. You woke me up!” He'd throw a pillow at Venom if he didn't worry the other would just destroy it with their needles for teeth.
“ Me? ”
Eddie hummed and nodded, rubbing his eye with his knuckles. “I think you were making my heart beat faster.”
They stared at each other until Venom slithered back towards the pillows, hovering next to Eddie’s face.
“ You have to get up early tomorrow. I can make you fall asleep. ”
“When the movie ends.”
Venom would've continued to watch the movie alone with no problem once they would've put Eddie back into snoring and dreaming, but they didn't push further, instead wrapping tendrils around Eddie’s hands while the rest of them retreated inside his host. It was almost an habit now, to just hold hands like this.
Eddie rubbed his thumb against Venom’s hand, watching the movie with a squared interest as his thoughts got mixed up with Venom’s; it was definitely not him the one being hyper aware of the pet names he'd hear from the movie.
As his eyes began to grow heavy, a tendrils sneaked out of the bedsheets to turn off the TV.
In the end, Eddie did finish that gig and almost immediately managed to find another job interview. It didn't go well, though, but as they made their way back home, Venom wrapped themselves around Eddie’s shoulders as a pitch black scarf to disguise the loose tendrils that'd be working at getting rid of the tension in his host's shoulders. A different option to let loose and blow off steam stumbled across their path, screams at ear-shot becoming the cue for Venom to take control and blend in with the shadows of the night.
Eddie didn't say anything as the symbiote’s jaw dropped wide and they bit off the criminals’ heads clean off their shoulders one by one, chasing them to the last one until there were no more gunshots echoing in the close space they had broken in to hide from them.
There was a new word Venom would then add to the list he had heard in the news broadcast; demon.
Blood pooled at their feet as the limp headless body fell to the ground.
“Do you like being us, Eddie?”
The tentacles and tendrils wrapped his body slowly disappeared, slithering back into his skin as Venom returned him the control behind the wheel. Eddie stood among the headless corpses and looked around the church. Maybe it would've been better to let Venom eat outside, anywhere where it wouldn't have given him a headache to consider leaving the mess they made for someone else to clean the next day. If the other was already concerned about how they called them, this wouldn't make it better.
He felt Venom rattle through him, slim tendrils appearing from underneath his sleeve to wrap around Eddie’s finger in an identical shape to that ring Anne once wore.
“I do.”
Notes:
the whole marriage thing was inspired by @FlipityFlip in twitter check out their art