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Chapter Text

            On Sundays they stay in bed past noon surrounded by piles of food. When it’s no one but the two of them (as it is more often than not,) they don’t have to be embarrassed by their peculiar cravings. There is nothing peculiar when it is just the two of them—when the door is closed on the rest of the world, everything is safe and familiar and warm, and if they wake up wanting bacon and sausage drenched in chocolate syrup on top of a heap of chocolate chip pancakes, and if the milk that’s just slightly on the wrong side of sour makes their mouth water, well, that’s all just fine. Venom moved their left hand and chugged the milk while Eddie used the right to flip pancakes.

            Eddie grimaced. “Oh, man, that had a lump in it.”

            “I like it, so you like it.”

            “I guess—I can’t tell, really, but it’s still making at least part of me want to hurl.”

            Venom set the milk down. It’s the little things like that which Eddie is learning to appreciate. They are learning to make compromises, as any pair sharing an intimate space would need to do, although the boundaries are not so hard to establish when the space is an apartment. In a body it is unprecedented, and they are still learning, but ever since they were reunited, Venom has been receptive to Eddie’s limits, and Eddie in turn has listened and understood that when Venom makes demands it is usually because he has not yet learned the language necessary to get at what he really means. Venom is a needy coil of confusion and hurt and yearning in their belly. There is something hopelessly lost about him and when Eddie realized he was looking for direction from him, something clicked for him, and at last he understood that what had at first felt like an extreme, one-sided violation was in fact a mutual vulnerability—that the offense Venom took at the term parasite was more than just a matter of principle. The relationship was symbiotic, and Venom could not be content if his host saw him as a mere leech, if he only took and took and gave nothing of value.

            As far as relationships go, that was something Eddie could understand very well.

            They hadn’t spoken about this in so many words—but the images and feelings that passed between them had given Eddie enough of an idea to speculate off of, for now.

            They sat on the couch while Venom switched between old cartoon re-runs and sitcoms and Eddie messed around on his laptop idly looking for leads but more so just relaxing. He suspects that Venom’s fondness for cartoons stems from their colorful, exaggerated slapstick violence, a kind of humor he can grasp with his rudimentary knowledge of humanity, without any of the realism that might make their stomach growl, which would invariably kill the peaceful Sunday mood. The sitcoms he calls study material, which only makes Eddie roll his eyes.

            “Remember we’re going to dinner at Anne’s tonight,” Eddie said.

            Venom rumbled. He had taken to protruding in a snake-like tendril from Eddie’s back and slinking out of his shirt collar to drape himself around Eddie’s shoulders while they are at home. Snake-like would be Venom’s chosen description. Eddie tells him he looks like a noodle with googly-eyes.

            Venom grumbled. “More salad?”

            Eddie laughed. “Well, you know, Dan’s a doctor, they eat healthy. Unlike some people I know… We should probably lay off the carbs, I’ve put on at least ten pounds since you showed up.”

            Venom hummed. “So?”

            “So, I don’t know.”

            “More comfy now.”

            Eddie snorted. “Seriously?”

            Venom nodded. “Could nudge your metabolism…”

            “What? You can do that?”

            “But I won’t.”

            “Aw, c’mon…”

            “More comfy this way.”

            “Your making my body into a freaking nest, I see how it is.”

            “We have to make do. Not my fault you don’t eat enough lean protein.”

            Eddie spluttered. “Lean protein? Is that what we’re calling human organs now?”

            Venom ignored him in favor of swooping down to begin devouring the plate of food.

            Eddie sighed. Venom turned narrowed white eyes on him. “Stop worrying, you’re ruining our appetite.”

            “I doubt anything could do that, bud.”

            “Just tell her.”

            “Tell who?”

            “Anne, dumbass. We like Anne. You feel…bad for not telling her.”

            “Do you mean guilty?”

            “…Sure. You feel guilty. So just tell her.”

            “But what if she…well, it’s not that easy, you know…”

            “Don’t be a pussy, Eddie.”

            Eddie groaned. “What if she doesn’t understand! What if she gets mad! What if she—what if she thinks we’re—I don’t know, what if she doesn’t like it?”

            “What is there not to like? It’s us.”

            “Exactly!”

            “Anne won’t mind. Anne helped put us back together.”

            “Well…yeah, that’s definitely a thing. That she, and you, er, did.”

            Venom nodded smugly. “You liked it. You liked me in Anne. But you like me in you more.”

            “Jesus, can you work on your phrasing, please?” Eddie sighed again and scrunched his eyes shut, pinched the bridge of his nose. That is a can of worms he hasn’t even begun to crack open yet. “I guess it would be nice to have even one person who knows about us, who we don’t have to pretend around. One or two…”

            Venom snapped his head around. “Two?”

            “Well, I mean, if we tell Anne, we should tell Dan. I don’t want to ask her to keep secrets from him, that’s not cool.”

            Venom snarled. “Don’t like Dan.”

            “Hey, Dan’s alright, come on, he didn’t mean to hurt us with that MRI, he didn’t know. Nothing like that’s gonna happen again.”

            “Dan’s a tool.”

            “Well, you know, you’re entitled to that opinion, but that doesn’t change the facts. I don’t think it’s right to tell Anne and then ask her to keep secrets from her boyfriend.”

            To his surprise he finds that calling Dan Anne’s boyfriend doesn’t produce the same twinge of pain it used to. He’s still a little sad, but it’s more…bittersweet now. He can look back on his memories of his time with her and smile at them. He misses her, but there isn’t an Anne-shaped hole in his life anymore, and he’s starting to be hopeful that maybe they aren’t beyond salvaging something. He’s not even jealous of Dan anymore, not really—he’d be thrilled just at the chance to be Anne’s friend again.

            “But it’s our business Eddie, not his.”

            “Yeah, and she’d keep it a secret if we asked, I bet, but…I don’t know, it might be nice having more people in our corner, you know? Having even a couple people who know about us, who we can count on…”

            “Don’t need anyone else—just us.”

            “Yeah, I mean, we don’t need them, but it’d still be nice!”

            “Why?”

            “Why? Well—it feels good to have friends, Venom.”

            “Hm. Can only bond with one at a time.”

            “Friends, V. Not…whatever we are, not what Dan and Anne are. Friends, people you spend time with and don’t, you know, hide most of your life from.”

            Venom gave a long-suffering sigh that rattled Eddie’s brain. “It’s just never enough for you.”

            Eddie guffawed. “Jesus, drama queen, tone it down, would you? That’s not what this is about.”

            “I don’t want other people. I am satisfied with us.”

            “Well…hey, man, hang on, I didn’t realize that’s how you…this isn’t me saying you aren’t enough, or whatever. Ok? I’m…happy with us, too. I’m not choosing them over us, that’s just…you’re in my head, you know that’s not it. It’s not like we can only have one or the other. We’re not all moving in together, it’s still gonna be just you and me, it’d just be us plus Anne and Dan every once in a while.”

            Eddie isn’t sure when they switched positions in this debate. That was happening more and more frequently—their thoughts were getting so thoroughly tangled that sometimes they each wound up on the opposite side of a disagreement without realizing it.

            “I see. Your kind is insatiably needy for companionship,” Venom said.

            “Wow. That’s rich, coming from the guy who, you know, I seem to recall was sort’ve a loser on his planet for the exact same problem.”

            “Don’t bring that up now, take it back!”

            “Hm…nah.”

            “Eddie!”

            “Yes, dear?”

            “Mean to me,” Venom muttered.

            “Walk it off.”

            “I’ll walk you off—a cliff.”

            “That doesn’t even make sense!”

            “It will.”

            Eddie laughed and then rose to get ready for dinner at Anne’s. It would be his second time seeing them since the…incident. The first time had been horribly awkward, but he’d still been pretty focused on the initial aftermath of losing Venom and the trauma of the Life Foundation, so he hadn’t worried about keeping anything from them. This would be his first time since he got at least a slight grip on his life back. After the payout from the lawsuit, and getting his job back, and getting Venom back, he’d slowly but surely been putting his pieces back together. They’d put their pieces together.

            Well, he’d hardly been the poster boy for a well-managed life before he became a we. Eddie couldn’t complain. Things had already been weird, and he’d been unable to see a reason why they shouldn’t get even weirder. Even this—this symbiosis—was now more comfortable to him than being alone ever had been.

            He felt his symbiote stir in his chest, warming the small cavity beneath his heart, and he smiled.

Chapter Text

            Dan opened the door with a grin on his face and oven mitts on his hands.

            “Hey, Eddie, come in, dinner’s just coming out of the oven,” he said.

            We can see that, Venom growled.

            “Thanks, Dan,” Eddie said, stepping into the apartment. It had grown homier in his absence. It was warm and inviting inside—it looked like a place where two people were happy together. They’d hung new fluttery curtains over the windows, painted everything over and decorated in warm, happy colors. Eddie thought about his own apartment, which looked like it was inhabited by a depressed college-aged shut-in who’d never had guests over in his life—dishes piled in the sink, empty cartons of food and papers scattered all over, the same depressing drab paintjob and old gray furniture it had come with.

            In the kitchen Annie was tossing a salad. Dan hurried to take the mitts off and started setting plates and cutlery at their little dining table. The smell of whatever chicken bake they’d made, sitting in a pan on top of the oven, hit their nose, and their mouth started to water. Eddie had specifically tossed half a package of tater tots into their stomach before this in an attempt to take the edge off the insatiable hunger that was forever gnawing away at them. He’d hoped he might curb it enough that Venom would sit back and let him eat at a normal pace for once and because the idea of a repeat performance of the last time he’d had dinner around Anne made him want to walk into the ocean and not come back out.

            Food, Venom said, making them salivate. Their stomach growled.

            “Hey there, Eddie,” Anne said, smiling and walking toward them out of the kitchen. “Oh—you didn’t have to bring anything,” she said, noticing the grocery bag in his hands.

            Oh. He’d forgotten he was even holding the bag. Venom had pestered him so much for food that Eddie had relented and bargained with him—if he bought him some candy, he’d be calm during dinner and not suggest eating Dan if he started to get on his nerves. He’d meant to pick something up for the dinner, but it was hard to remember things like that when he was engaged almost constantly in a heated conversation, and Venom had distracted him so much—likely on purpose—that he’d hardly realized he was checking out with three bags of Hershey kisses.

            “Uh…yeah.”

            Anne took the bag and peered inside it. Her brow furrowed in consternation for a second before she hid her confusion. “Great, Dan loves these.”

            They aren’t for Dan.

            “Well, sharing is caring,” Eddie said.

            Anne laughed. “Yeah, tell that to Dan.”

            Eddie laughed along, nervously. “Right.”

            You’re bad at this. Let me take over.

            “Behave,” Eddie muttered as Anne turned away to help Dan set the table.

            Oh look, they got us a present.

            “Huh?”

            Eddie looked in the direction Venom’s attention was tugging him, to see a fat tabby cat curled up in a bed beside the sofa. His stomach lurched and growled again and his heart sank.

            “Oh, no, come on, don’t make us wanna eat a cat, V…”

            Shouldn’t look so much like a snack if it doesn’t want to be eaten.

            Eddie felt himself breaking out in a clammy sweat. “No,” he hissed.

            You let us eat that dog in the alley…

            “Don’t remind me,” Eddie said, his shoulders sagging miserably. “You know that was a special occasion, come on, we were so sick, and I didn’t want to hurt anybody…”

            “Eddie?” Anne said. “You can come and sit down, you don’t have to just stand there.”

            “Coming,” he said, his voice weak.

            Eddie edged away from the animal, not wanting to wake it and provoke the fight-or-flight response they seemed to frequently trigger in most living creatures other than humans.

            Eddie sat across from the two of them. He noticed a vase of flowers on the table beside them, pictures of Anne and Dan stuck with colorful magnets on the fridge. He notices the glances and the brief, subtle touches Dan and Annie exchange automatically. She presses his back to let him know she is stepping behind him, he touches her arm and slides the salad bowl down the table, their knuckles brush briefly as they pick up their silverware. All the little domestic trappings of a relationship he no longer has, and can’t imagine ever having again. All the little loving courtesies of a new, timid romance, the tiny gestures that deepen into true commitment. All the ways in which people draw each other closer—gone, out of his reach, growing more foreign by the second.

            He felt a pang in his chest, and his distress fed into Venom’s, which exacerbated his, until they were stuck in a loop that left them despondent and confused.

            “Wine?” Dan asked, already pouring Eddie a glass before he can say otherwise.

            “As if he’d turn that down,” Anne said, giving him a tentative, friendly smile.

            “I actually don’t drink much anymore,” Eddie said, returning her smile. “Thanks, though.”

            “Oh, sorry,” Dan said, looking abashed.

            Eddie waved a hand and shook off the melancholy fog that was making it hard for him to think. “No worries. Just, you know, one of a few changes going on lately.”

            “Oh?” Anne said, and if Eddie were a more socially perceptive man he might have noticed the exaggerated nonchalance of her tone.

            “Yeah.”

            Dan cleared his throat and started serving portions onto his and Anne’s plates. “That’s good. Change is good.”

            “Yeah,” Eddie said, paying careful attention to how much food it was appropriate to put on his own plate. He was astonished by how little it seemed, though he knew it would have once been a perfectly reasonable amount.

            There was an awkward lull in the conversation. Dan and Anne seemed to be trying to communicate something to each other with facial expressions alone. Anne kept giving him meaningful looks with wide, serious eyes, while Dan shrugged and grimaced in confusion.

            Eddie started to eat with forced, pained slowness to give them time to sort whatever that was out, and because the grumbling of his stomach was starting to get embarrassing.

            “This is really good,” he said.

            “Dan made it.”

            “Oh, you know, it’s very easy.”

            “Dan and I just went to that new bistro down the street yesterday, have you been?”

            “No, I’ve been pretty busy, getting back to work and all.”

            “And how is work?” Anne asked.

            “You know, the usual. They let me have a little more freedom since, you know, I sort’ve ended up being right all along,” Eddie said, giving her a grin.

            Anne rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, you told us so, I get it…and other than work, how…how have things been?”

            Eddie shrugged. “Pretty good, actually. You know. All things considered.”

            “I imagine it’s been challenging, having to go back to how things were, as if everything’s normal,” Dan said.

            “Well, you know. It happens, right?”

            Anne furrowed her brow. “No, Eddie. No, things like what happened to you don’t just happen.”

            “Well, maybe not that specifically, but honestly, I don’t think it’s so different, you know, life throws punches, you roll with it, and then it keeps on punching, and that’s how it goes.”

            Don’t like how they’re looking at us, Eddie.

            “Me neither,” he said. It was uncomfortable, the feeling of being scrutinized.

            Ignoring this last comment, Anne said, “I can’t tell if that’s sort’ve mature or just about the saddest outlook on life I’ve ever heard, Eddie. It’s ok to say you’re not feeling well.”

            Eddie frowned. “But I am. I mean, you know, there’s ups and downs for everybody, I think I’ve got it pretty good. I don’t have any complaints. Why?”

            Anne looked pained. Dan had a look of mild but sincere bafflement. Eddie started eating faster just for something to do other than look at the two of them.

            “This is really good,” he repeated, giving Dan a thumbs up.

            “Have some more,” Dan said, scooping more food onto Eddie’s plate and sounding a little faint and a little amazed.

            “Uh…thanks…” Eddie rooted through their mind, desperate for any thread of conversation to hold onto. Venom noticed and started tossing up ideas—the problem being, of course, that the highlights of Venom’s day usually included eating questionable things and making fun of Eddie.

            Finally, he decided to try and test the waters for the topic he wanted to broach, the thing that was making them all wary and awkward.

            “So…I think I need to thank you guys again, for being there during the whole…you know, symbiote thing,” Eddie said. “I know it must’ve been kind’ve…weird for you.”

            “Of course, Eddie,” Dan said. “In fact, you don’t need to thank us, of course we’d help you.”

            “I can’t take it,” Anne muttered, and then looked right at Eddie with determined eyes. “Eddie, you don’t have to lie. There’s no way you’re ok after all that’s happened. Your entire body and mind have been invaded, you nearly died more times in a day than you have in your whole life, and then—then Venom gets ripped out of you, and—and I’m not sure it wasn’t a good thing, but I know it hurt, I know it, because I know how it felt—about you—when it was with me. And so I know how you felt too, when it…reconnected.”

            The gravity of everything she’s said flew over Eddie’s head as he looked between her and Dan in horror. He was happy to let the kiss go unmentioned forever and ever, chalk it up to extreme emotions—he couldn’t blame her for what she did while Venom was in her, god knew he’d done his fair share of impulsive things.

            “Don’t give me that look, Eddie, Dan already knows everything,” Anne snapped. “And that wasn’t me kissing you, anyway.”

            “Uh…what?”

            “God, I forgot how dense you are sometimes.”

            Don’t play dumb, Eddie, you know that was us, Venom said. Although the idea did come from her memories…

            “Oh, God, seriously?” Eddie says, pulling a face at the audible sleazy smirk in Venom’s tone. “Can you please chill?”

            “Excuse me?” Anne said.

            “Not you.”

            “Then who—”

            “I just meant—you know, that’s, uh…”

            A timer went off in the kitchen. Anne gave Eddie a stern look before rising.

            “I can get it!” Dan said.

            Anne glared at him until he sat back down. “Stay here.”

            She disappeared into the kitchen. Eddie went on eating while Dan gave him a wan, helpless smile.

            “Well, glad that’s cleared up,” he said with an awkward laugh.

            Eddie almost choked. “Look, man, I hope me being here isn’t gonna cause problems for you and Anne, that’s the last thing I want. Trust me, this isn’t, like, some ploy on my part to, I don’t know, cause trouble for you two.”

            “Oh, no!” Dan rushed to reassure him. “That’s—no, Eddie, that’s not what I thought. And Anne’s her own person, I’m hardly here to dictate who we can and can’t have over for dinner, that’s ridiculous. I think it’s great that you two are still in touch. It makes her happy, having you around, so it makes me happy, too. I hope I get to know you better, please don’t feel unwelcome here.”

            Eddie was speechless for a moment, as was Venom, both struggling to process that amount of positive affirmation.

            Dan’s a sap, Venom said. Why doesn’t he see us as competition?

            Eddie elected to ignore that. “Well…thanks, man. I don’t know where I’d be right now if you guys hadn’t been there, if nobody had cared.”

            We cared.

            Eddie focused on feeling a soft surge of fondness to quiet Venom down. He rumbled contentedly in his chest. He was starting to think his body’s chemicals had a pretty significant impact on their shared moods. If he did things to keep himself calm, Venom’s hunger wasn't quite as painfully ravenous—but when he was stressed and upset, it was all they can think about.

            Because your feelings are delicious, Venom said.

            That might have disturbed Eddie a few weeks ago, but now it’s just intriguing, because he thinks Venom means it literally, and isn’t just saying so to freak him out. If chemicals govern everything in the human body, why shouldn’t they also be able to sustain Venom?

            Anne returned from the kitchen. “My cake melted,” she said.

            Dan laughed. “I told you we should’ve just gone to the store.”

            “I read I could substitute the butter and eggs!”

            “Just one more time Pinterest let you down,” Dan said, shaking his head sadly.

            Anne smacked him on the head with the dish towel. “Oh well, Eddie brought chocolate.”

            So they ended up sitting there peeling foil off their chocolates, Venom making exaggerated chewing and smacking noises in Eddie’s head the whole time until a vein above his eye started to twitch.

            “So, Eddie,” Anne said. “Is there anything you’d like to share?”

            “Um…”

            Tell her! Tell her! Tell her!

            “Anything at all?” Anne said. “We want to be here for you, ok? Don’t go and isolate yourself ‘cause you think you’re a burden. Yeah, I know how you think, don’t give me that look, that’s exactly what you’ve been doing. So just…if there’s something you want to tell us…”

            “Um…well, actually, there is something…”

            Dan and Anne exchanged a look.

            Eddie’s heart pounded, the fear of rejection rearing its terrible head and making his stomach flop. It was one of those fears he and Venom shared a nearly equally strong aversion to, so it was magnified. His mouth went dry.

            “Um…the thing is that…the thing is…you have to promise not to tell anybody else, and not to freak out…”

            “Of course not,” Anne said immediately.

            “You swear? Even if you don’t like it?”

            “We swear,” said Anne. She nudged Dan, who mumbled his agreement.

            Dan is lying, lying is bad, let’s eat Dan.

            “The thing is,” Eddie said, raising his voice over Venom’s only for it to crack. He paused to clear his throat. “I haven’t been isolating myself at all, ‘cause…”

            “Because Venom’s alive?” Anne said.

            What? Venom snarled. How did she know!

            “What? How did you know!” Eddie said.

            “Oh, I’m sorry, did you want me to sound surprised?” Anne put her hands to her cheeks and spoke with exaggerated shock. “Oh, my God—Venom’s alive! Dan, you owe me twenty bucks.”

            “What the hell, Anne? How did you—what?”

            “Eddie, I know you pretty well, wouldn’t you say?”

            “Yeah.”

            “The only other explanation for how you’ve been acting would have been if you’d gotten into another relationship. I deduced, Eddie. It wasn’t very difficult. “

            “But—how?”

            Anne began counting off on her fingers. “When you thought Venom was dead, you were a miserable wreck. Then one day, you suddenly went back to normal—normal for you, I mean, which is a happier, more functional wreck. Also, you literally talk to it right in front of me, and don’t forget I had it in my head too. Not for very long, sure, but long enough to know a little something about how it thinks and what signs to look for.”

            “So it’s true?” Dan asked.

            “Yeah, yeah, Venom’s here.” A surge of nerves and protectiveness from the both of them made Eddie blurt, “And you can’t tell anybody, ‘cause we’re not getting separated again.”

            “We aren’t going to tell anyone. That would only cause everybody more pain and trouble, and I think we’ve all had enough of that,” Anne said. “But there are some things we should talk about. I’m glad you told us—judging by how things went last time, the more help you have, the better off everyone will be.”

            “Eddie…don’t get upset, I just think I have to say this and make sure, for your sake,” Dan said. “But are you sure you want this? It’s not—making you say that, or making you think that you do? It was seriously impacting your health…”

            Eddie flinched, forcing down Venom’s impulse to snarl at the mere implication of separation. “Yeah, Dan, I’m sure.”

            “But how can you know? How do you know it isn’t creating some kind of chemical bond…”

            Venom growled. Ask Dan how he can know he wants to be with Anne. Tell Dan that everything he thinks and feels is chemicals. Tell Dan the deepest bond he’s ever known, the bond with his mother he knew in the womb, is a shallow joke compared to what we have. Tell Dan his love for Anne pales in comparison to what we have—we are knit together on a molecular level. Our bond is a marriage of our very minds and cells. Tell Dan—

            Eddie grimaced. “Calm down, Shakespeare, Jesus. Dan, I get your concerns, but you’re hurting our feelings. I know ‘cause even when we were separate I missed being together, I wanted to be us again, and I was so…I really can’t tell you how relieved I was, when we were. And even if there is some kind of chemical bond or whatever going on…isn’t that sort’ve natural? It’s not making me want to be like this, I like being this way. I know that might seem a little…a little weird.”

            “A little,” Anne said. “But I believe you that it’s not the symbiote doing that to you. I sure as hell didn’t want it hopping back into me anytime soon. And you were already a pretty weird guy before, so…I’ll believe it.”

            “And as for our organs, don’t even worry about it,” Eddie said, waving a hand. “All better. You know, misunderstandings, they happen.”

            “Part of the reason we wanted you to tell us was so Dan could keep an eye on your health, Eddie,” Anne said. “I don’t know how a doctor’s visit would even work for you, if they didn’t know.”

            “Well, we fix ourselves pretty good, I don’t know if we really need help with that…”

            “The symbiote may be able to heal wounds, but it doesn’t have a medical degree,” Dan said.

            Tell Dan that until he’s literally lived inside your organs I don’t want to hear another word.

            Eddie laughed.

            Dan looked embarrassed but persevered anyway. “I just mean—for both your sakes, who knows what could happen? It’s probably best to at least keep a record, that way if something does happen, if there’s a change, we have a baseline to compare it to. What if it gets sick, Eddie? What if something happens to you it doesn’t know how to handle?”

            “You aren’t saying this because you think Venom’s gonna eat my organs, are you? ‘Cause we’re way past that now, we’re good.”

            “That’s not the only reason,” Dan said with a sigh. “Wouldn’t you feel better, the more you know about what you both need to stay healthy?”

            Eddie thought about the possibility that one day they wouldn’t be so hungry they hurt, hollow and aching in the stomach of every cell.

            “Yeah, we would…”

            Dan nodded. “Then I’d be honored to help you in any way I can.”

            Don’t want Dan touching us, Eddie.

            “Thanks, man. Uh…I do have to tell you, though, that Venom’s got some pretty reasonable trust issues, so…let’s start small, ok? It’s, um…sort’ve his body too, so even if I’m fine with some things, I’m not gonna go ahead if he’s really against it.”

            “That’s how you think of it now?” Anne said. “You’ve said ‘our’ a few times—I’m sorry if it’s a rude question,” she broke off, looking unsure. He couldn’t remember her ever backing down from asking him something like that before, and he didn’t like it.

            “Hey, you can ask us whatever you want,” he said. “I mean, I can’t promise you’ll get a great answer, but just asking doesn’t hurt anything. I didn’t notice—I’m not doing it on purpose, it just feels…true, I guess, to say our.”

            “And what’ve you been…feeding it?” Anne asked.

            Eddie grimaced. “Not people, Annie.”

            “Oh, thank God,” Dan said, the tension flooding out of his body. He grinned.

            “You two were ok with this and you thought we’ve been eating people this whole time?”

            “Well, we didn’t know what to expect, so we just tried to be ready for anything,” Anne said.

            Eddie shook his head. “Nah, it’s been a strictly no-people diet since we got back together. It seems like whatever Venom needs from people he can get elsewhere, though it’s not as efficient. He likes chocolate and tater tots.”

            Anne laughed. It was a little bit manic, but Eddie couldn’t blame her.

            “So you guys are…you’re ok with this?” Eddie asked.

            “Eddie, I just want you to be happy,” Anne said. “Or, if not happy—I want you to do what’s best for you, and try and be content somehow, and if for you that means sharing a body with an alien, I—well, I’m gonna stick with you through it.”

            Dan shrugged. “At this point my threshold for weird is a little skewed.”

            “This means a lot, guys, I swear,” Eddie said. “To both of us.”

            “Really? Venom’s happy about this?” Anne asked.

            “Well, yeah, he likes you, and if he doesn’t like Dan as much, that’s just ‘cause he’s a baby and he’s holding a grudge for no good reason.”

            Don’t you dare side with Dan over us.

            “I’m not siding with Dan, I’m just saying, you’re sensitive. Gotta put on velvet gloves with you.”

            Says you, elevator lover.

            “You know what? You need new material, that’s old news, it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

            Does it hurt if I do this?

            Venom manifested a tendril and pinched Eddie on the neck.

            Eddie yelped and jumped. “Don’t do that,” he said, smacking his hand on the tendril, which withdrew and grew into a fist-sized club which Venom cuffed him over the ear with.

            Eddie grabbed it and yanked it away from his face, only to have it envelop his hand in a sticky mass. Both of them grunted at the slight twinge of pain they felt as one.

            Eddie scowled and glared as two white eyes bubbled up onto the surface of the goo covering his hand, a toothy grin following. “Why’re you hitting yourself?” Venom said.

            “You started it.”

            “And finished it.”

            “Holy shit,” Dan said.

            Eddie looked up to find both of them starting. He blushed. “Sorry.”

            “Do you two do this often?” Anne asked.

            “No, ‘cause it’s dumb,” Eddie said, glaring down at Venom. “I know it hurts you too if you pinch me, moron.”

            “It didn’t really hurt.”

            “Nah, it didn’t.”

            “I don’t know if this should worry me or not,” Dan said.

            “I think this is them playing,” said Anne. She paused, and then said, “or flirting.”

            “Eddie doesn’t know how to flirt,” Venom said.

            “Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?”

            Venom just squeezed his hand tighter.

            “Is it a liquid or a solid?” Dan asked.

            “Huh?”

            “I’m just—curious,” he said, looking at the symbiote with wide eyes. Clearly his scientific and medical interest was getting the better of him.

            “Have you ever made Flubber?” Eddie asked.

            Anne cracked up, unable to hold in the shock and stress any longer—it emerged as wild laughter.

            “Seriously?” Dan asked.

            “That’s what he feels like. A bunch of overgrown, toothy flubber.”

            Venom growled and manifested spines.

            “Settle down, drama queen.”

            “Not made of Flubber, Eddie. Rude. Apologize.”

            “I know, I know, geez, sorry,” Eddie said, poking him.

            Venom began sinking back into his skin.

            “Wait, V, let Dan pet you.”

            Venom growled. “No.”

            “Aw, why not?”

            “…Not a dog, Eddie.”

            “Aw, I know, that’s not what I meant, I was just teasing. Can you stay so I don’t have to look like I’m talking to myself for once?”

            Venom simmered at the surface of his skin, a thin layer exposed. “…Don’t like staring.”

            “Damn, wait, did I—embarrass you?” Eddie said, disbelief evident in his tone. “Aw, hell, now I’m feeling it, second-hand self-consciousness, shit, that’s really awful… I didn’t mean to do that, V, I’m sorry.”

            “Not you.”

            “Oh. Yeah, I guess that wouldn’t make sense since we’re sort’ve…but Dan and Anne aren’t making fun of you.”

            “Is it serious?” Anne asked.

            “Hey, Venom, Dan and Anne have both seen you rampage through the city, I don’t think you’re really ruining our public image here, come on. But, ok, you don’t like other people staring at you or touching you, noted, could’ve told me beforehand, now I feel bad.”

            Venom grumbled. Then a tendril shot forward and tapped the back of Dan’s hand before snapping back. Venom dissipated back beneath Eddie’s skin and left a warm tingling sensation behind.

            Dan yelped and startled.

            “Ha ha, he got you,” Eddie said. He shifted in his seat, wincing. Venom was concentrated around his lungs, which always made Eddie feel twitchy and restless, probably because that’s where Venom went when he was sulking—either there or laced all through the organs in his torso. “Don’t get sulky,” he muttered. “I really am sorry, didn’t peg you as the shy type.”

            Not shy, just not used to others seeing us...like this. Feels personal, feels private.

            “Yeah, I get it, I feel that way too, but it’s ok if it’s them. You don’t have to come out if you don’t want to though, it’s always both of us anyway, whether you do or not.”

            He felt Venom’s relief and happiness at those words, and smiled.

            “Sorry if that was, like, really weird,” he said to Dan and Anne.

            “Nah, it was sort’ve surprisingly…considerate?” Anne said.

            “I didn’t realize it had emotions of its own,” Dan said.

            “Oh, he sure does,” Eddie said. “But, uh…it might help if you thought of him as a ‘he’ and not an ‘it’? I mean, he doesn’t care, but it might help you think of him as a person, ‘cause that’s typically for objects, you know? Or, uh, us. You two, you guys, you know, that works, too…”

            “Is that how you prefer to be called?” Anne asked.

            This had gotten a little more serious than he’d intended. Eddie squirmed. “I don’t know, I don’t care that much, I was just saying…I don’t know what I’m saying. It doesn’t matter.”

            “Sounds like you have some figuring out to do, Eddie,” Anne said.

            “Yeah…thanks for having us, and for, you know, not telling anybody.”

            “We’ll be seeing you again soon, I’m sure,” Anne said.

            They said their goodbyes, and then left for their own apartment, which looked more dismal than ever after seeing how cheerful Anne and Dan’s was.

            Venom had been brooding for ages. “Hey,” Eddie said. “What’s up? Why’re you upset?”

            Not upset.

            “Ok, then…jealous? Don’t tell me you’re jealous of…Anne? What?”

            No.

            “Yes.”

            No!

            “Oh, wait—it’s Dan, isn’t it? What the hell, how are you jealous of Dan?”

            Don’t need Dan, Eddie. Only need us. You think you need him—think he can provide for you—what can Dan do that I can’t? We must be enough for you, Eddie, we can do anything he can do, but more, and better—if you want for something, say so, and we will show you.

            “Whoa, whoa, hang on—that’s not what this is about. I’m not saying that I—that we—need Dan, ok?”

            I set our bones, I heal our skin, I knit our organs back together, I pumped our heart manually, I am in our blood—I am our blood, Eddie, what could we possibly need from Dan?

            Eddie sat down heavily on the bed. “Do you feel…unappreciated, or something? Is that what this is? You’d think you’d be easier to read, what with sharing a mind and all, but even though I know what you’re feeling, I don’t always know why, V, you gotta help me out. We don’t need Dan. But I think he made some good points, and if it makes him and Annie feel better, trying to look out for us a little—well, I don’t mind that, even if it’s unnecessary.”

            They look out for you. They think I am bad for you. They don’t understand that you are mine, and I am yours, and we are one.

            “Maybe they don’t…but they don’t mean any harm, Venom. Can you try and give this a chance? I know it might seem like a waste of time, but at least give it a try.”

            If we must…

            Eddie sighed. He thought about the flowers on the table and the dates and the brushing knuckles and the secret smiles. He thought about all the little rituals that went into building a relationship and suddenly felt lightheaded and bowled over by longing.

            “Venom,” he said slowly. “Am I…missing something? You’ve got a different culture, buddy, if I’m doing something to offend you, you might have to point it out sometimes. Is it, like, a taboo to have other friends? ‘Cause if so, you really might have to meet me in the middle there, it’s kind’ve important around here—and it’s not the same as me saying we need Dan, ok? Just that Dan’s occasional presence might not be totally horrible, and that you might even start to like it.”

            No, Eddie, we are the taboo. There is no rule you could break, we’ve already broken them by bonding in this way.

            “Wow, thanks…”

            Not an insult, Eddie. Just…there is no…

            Venom groaned in frustration, and then he abandoned the clunky language which was never quite adequate for what he wanted to communicate, and began to show Eddie through memories and feelings, how the other symbiotes wore their hosts' skin and used them as vehicles, burned through their bodies like fuel, how they were fine being alone in the dying throbbing skulls of their hosts, how much that had hurt Venom, how lonely he had been, a solitary freak of nature, how confused and crushed and desperate, how awful life was, never whole, his hosts always rebelling against him, the two locked in death-throws, each trying to snuff the other out just to ensure its own survival, and then alone again, alone in the cold dead skull and incomplete, not whole, not like the others…

            “Jesus,” Eddie whispered. “Venom…”

            Just want you to understand…you are my perfect host, Eddie. There is only you for me, and all of me for you.

            Eddie’s heart (their heart,) beat wildly. In an effort to do something, anything to quell this aching, thrashing loneliness inside them, he lay down on the bed and wrapped his arms around himself, curled up on his side. “It’s ok, V,” he said. “Nobody’s gonna separate us again. We won’t let them.”

            Venom rumbled in his chest—it was like a cat purring in his ribcage.

            Eddie thought about the flowers once again, and he thought about how, in light of the complete lack of any positive cultural traditions on Venom’s side, it might be high time to introduce some of his own.

            And then, of course, because they couldn't have anything nice, their stomach gave a violent lurch that had Eddie curling in on himself.

           "Why?" he moaned.

           You made us eat dead food. You put poison in us. Warned you and warned you, Eddie. We can't eat dead food.

          The pain and nausea brought tears to his eyes, and underneath it all was still the hunger. "Oh, god, but what am I supposed to do? We have to eat something, V, we have to figure something out..."

          We know already what we can eat.

          Eddie stumbled to the bathroom, miserable and already resigning himself to a night spent throwing up into the toilet. "There has to be another way. There really has to be. This is what Dan can maybe help with, Venom, maybe, maybe..."

          Venom's silence was eerie. It wasn't like him to let Eddie cling to impossible hopes.

          "God," Eddie moaned. "Say something next time, would you? So we don't get this sick? You must've been covering up how bad we felt all night..."

         Thought it was important for us to have a 'normal' night.

         "Not if it means feeling like this!"

         Eddie groaned. He was desperate and out of his mind with sickness and hunger, he had to come up with something. "Listen, Venom, look, here's what we're going to do...we're going to find something that works for both of us. I don't care if we have to go to every goddamn restaurant in the city, I don't care how long it takes, we can't do this forever, our body can't do this."

           Sounds like a plan, call it a date.

          Eddie spluttered. "What, just like that?"

          Yes. Tired of eating dead food, and you won't cooperate. So, compromise must be made, for the sake of the whole.

          Well, fine, Eddie thought, feeling mutinous and confused. That's just fine. He felt Venom's laugh like curls of smoke, and he wondered for the hundredth time what he'd gotten them into.

Chapter Text

            Once they could slow down and stop fearing for their lives every five seconds, once the shock of their bond became familiar and even welcome, they began to explore each other’s personalities. Eddie found Venom wasn’t quite what his initial impression had led him to believe, which, ok, that was fair—back then Venom had been vulnerable and scared, had fallen back on shows of dominance and power to deal with the pain and distress of being somebody’s lab experiment and in a bid to keep Eddie invested. There hadn’t been time to stop and ponder why they did things—they could only react and hope it would be enough to get them by from minute to minute.

            Now Venom was tentatively threading tendrils through Eddie’s mind, exploring, and Eddie reached back and met him halfway.

            Why are the things you call ‘bad’ and ‘good’ not always clear? Do all people know the rules? If everyone knows, why do some of them still do bad things? Are humans born knowing, or do they have to learn? If we can’t always tell, does that make us bad? Are we bad because sometimes we don’t understand the difference between bad and good things? Are bad things the same for us? What if we have to do bad things sometimes to live? We did not mean to kill most of the people—did not understand ‘kill’ the way we do now, didn’t mean to be bad—but if we are a thing that kills to live, if simply being what we are can kill, are we a bad thing? Are we bad, Eddie?

            “I think you’d be surprised by how many people ask the same questions,” Eddie said, ducking his head down low and mumbling into the collar of his jacket. It was an overcast day, they walked along the bay, people-watching, which was Venom’s new favorite pastime. “There aren’t any easy answers, buddy. People don’t always agree—but there are some things that are, I don’t know…maybe not totally universal, but…generally agreed upon as bad. We aren’t bad just for existing. Not everyone will feel the same way, but…but to me, you aren’t bad for the things you did to survive, when you didn’t know any better, when you were confused and hurting.”

            But if the rules can’t be agreed upon, are they not arbitrary? Where is this ‘bad’ and ‘good’? Which organ produces them? We have been looking—we do not know where it comes from. What is good for one is bad for another, what is good for us is bad for someone else. But…we are good for each other, yes? We are not just a parasite? A parasite is only bad for the host—we do not want to be bad for you, Eddie.

            “You aren’t bad for me,” Eddie said. “Don’t think like that.”

            Being us makes you sick. Being us hurts your organs. It is better now, we are trying everything to keep you healthy, but sometimes we can’t help it, we bleed together…

            “If a person stops eating, he starts to digest his own tissue,” Eddie said. “If I was starving, I’d digest myself—automatically, Venom, not because I wanted to. I know now that you aren’t doing it on purpose, we just haven’t figured out yet a way to get us both what we need. I know you don’t understand human morality all the way yet, I can’t blame you for that, and maybe…maybe I didn’t try and see it from your side, but now I am, I’m starting to get it. I’m not punishing us by keeping us from…from eating people, V. I’m not doing it to hurt us, it’s not ‘cause I want you to starve, it kills me that I’m hurting you like that…”

            Not your fault, Eddie, that you are ‘good’, and we are ‘bad.’ We hurt you, too, just by being us. Automatically. Not on purpose.

            “You aren’t bad,” Eddie muttered. “You don’t—you don’t know enough to be bad or good yet. It’s a choice we just have to make every minute of every day, based on what we know and what we’re capable of, and that’s really imperfect, and I’m sorry that it hurts, but it’s just how it is and how it’s always been.”

            Being us makes us feel like we can be good, Eddie. You have infected us with your human morality. We feel things we didn’t feel before. We want to understand. We want to be good too, Eddie, we want us to be…unlike Riot, unlike Carlton Drake. We want to be good.

            “Well, bud, then we’re halfway there already, that’s a great start.”

            But it hurts, Eddie. We are hungry. We don’t mean to cause you harm, it goes against our very being—we put us first—is it not bad to harm us, for the sake of others? Keeping others safe from ourselves means that we must suffer…

            “Look, good and bad aren’t like a math equation. Or, I guess…I guess that’s a pretty utilitarian way of looking at it, I don’t know. I’m not much of a philosopher V, I don’t have the answers. I just know it isn’t easy and it’s something we have to keep struggling with, and…and I really think it’ll be worth it in the end, even though we can’t ever be perfect, just trying.”

            We like how goodness tastes. We like how we feel when we are good. The chemicals of good are filling also.

            “Well, that’s…that’s something, I guess. Maybe we just need some dopamine pills, or something, is that it? Should’ve found a different host, bud, my head’s been kind’ve a mess lately, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Eddie said, running a hand through his hair with a shaky laugh.

            We noticed.

            “Yeah…sorry it isn’t a nicer place to be.”

            It is the nicest place we have ever been.

            “You just haven’t gotten out much, trust me, there’s better.”

            We like it here.

            Eddie smiled at the defensive touchiness of the reply. The air was chilly and blew through his jacket; Venom simmered up on his skin wrapping warm tendrils around his torso. It felt like a full-body hug, and he caught himself sighing as the tension drained from his body.

            “Thanks,” he mumbled, ducking into a coffee shop. “Have you had coffee yet?”

            You made us drink some…

            “Oh, right,” Eddie said with a sympathetic wince as he remembered pouring some days-old cold coffee down his throat. “That was…not a fair way to introduce you to coffee. We’re not doing that again.”

            Eddie ordered a mocha, hoping the sweet chocolate flavor would cover up the bitterness and satisfy Venom. He held it in his cupped hands as they ambled along the water watching the people go by, steam warming his face. He’d been doing some reading online about what foods and supplements could be used to bolster certain chemicals in the body, and caffeine had a slew of them he thought might help curb Venom’s rampant hunger.

            The symbiote shivered when the warm drink hit their stomach.

            “Good?”

            Can’t tell yet, drink more.

            “Pushy much?” Eddie said, grinning and smiling into the cup.

            Eddie—why is the basic human unit a group of four? A woman, a man, two baby humans. They are not bonded as we are, but they form one unit together.

            Eddie sighed. “Have you been up watching tv while I sleep?”

            …Researching.

            “That’s a family, V. Or, well, that’s the typical idea of what a family is, around here—it’s different depending on where you are, and what time period.”

            A human alone is not a family. A human alone is treated differently.

            “Yeah, I guess.”

            The family is not solely for procreation?

            “…No, V. Not just for that.”

            Then why such an emphasis on a unit between a male and a female, with their offspring?

            “That’s just the stereotypical idea, I guess, I mean, that’s not the only way a family can look. Did you guys not…have families at all?”

            No need. Asexual reproduction, short maturation period—solitary lives separated from each other by the host.

            “Seems lonely.”

            So are many humans. Are you lonely?

            “How could I be?”     

            Alone and lonely are not the same thing.

            “True. I’m not lonely, then. Are you?”

            Not anymore.

            “Can’t you tell I’m not?”

            Instead of answering immediately, Venom nudged his gaze to the right, focused it on a young couple walking down the path, their fingers laced, coffees held in their free hands, bumping shoulders and smiling at each other.

            Those two were behind us in line at the coffee store. They are a couple. A normal, human couple.

            “Yeah, so…”

            Like you were with Anne.

            “Uh-huh.”

            You do not want to be like that with her again?

            “I mean, I don’t know…it’s not just up to me, she’d have to want that too, and I think she’s happy with Dan, he seems like a good guy.”

            If it is up to her also, then there is no reason not to compete with Dan. Then she can choose. You do not think we are as suitable a match as he is?

            “Honestly, um…not really? Not right now? Maybe one day, but, I don’t know…don’t you feel like we sort’ve need to work on us before we drag somebody else into the mix?”

            Venom didn’t respond immediately, his attention darting between all the people passing by. We aren’t like other people. People are one thing to each other, yes? The couple is one kind of bond. The young couple, the old couple, the new and the elderly—different. Sibling bond, mother-bond, father-bond. Friendship, co-worker, acquaintance. Transactional relationships. Your cashier. Your bus driver. Landlord. Neighbor. We are not like that.

            “You’ve been thinking a lot lately, haven’t you… What’s bothering you?”

            In your world, are there words for what we are to each other?

            “I…I don’t know,” Eddie said, feeling hopelessly in over his head, swept up by the sudden melancholy longing and vulnerable curiosity in Venom’s tone. “I’m not sure. I guess we’re sort’ve figuring it out though, right? Like…like you know me in ways nobody else ever has, and I think I know you like that too, but there are some pretty basic things we’ve still got to learn about each other. Which is, uh. Sort’ve what I’m trying to do right now.”

            Looking for foods we like. Looking for activities we like to do.

            “Yeah,” Eddie said, shifting his weight from foot to foot and draining the last of their coffee. He felt anxious—his stomach did somersaults, and his heart fluttered. Jesus, he hadn’t gotten butterflies since high school, what was wrong with him? Probably something wrong with their beleaguered digestive system. “Um…how are we doing so far?”

            Very good. We like chocolate coffee, we like walking together and looking at the people. Not as exciting as before…but not boring either.

            “Yeah, the word you’re looking for might be relaxing,” Eddie said with a laugh. “Well, the day’s not over. As your official representative of Earth, I just realized I haven’t really done such a good job showing you the sights.”

            Well, we’ve been busy.

            “Damn, you’re charitable today. What’s got you in such a good mood?”

            You set the bar so low, it’s nice to do something other than sit inside and ‘work.’

            “Alright, alright, so I haven’t been the most exciting host…trying to fix that. So, we’re going to do tourist things, and you’re gonna like it.”

            We will see.

            Eddie had cleared their Saturday so he could walk them around to all the places tourists went when they visited San Francisco. He knew, because he’d been one of them once, though a bit of a reluctant one. Now, he was making up for that by being over the top enthusiastic for Venom’s sake. He took on his role of cheesy walking-tour guide with as much gusto as a man who looked to all the world like someone talking to himself could manage.

            Venom didn’t quite seem to get the point of being a tourist. This Fisherman’s Wharf is special to you? We don’t feel anything about it, no memories or attachments.

            “Well, I’ve only been, like, once, when I first came, it’s sort’ve something tourists do,” Eddie said, leaning against the pier railings to look at the sea lions lounging further out, jostled from behind by a steady stream of pedestrians.

            Why?

            “I don’t know, for something to do, I guess. I mean, depending on where you’re from, it might really be unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, which is kind’ve the appeal I guess. Oh, shit…I guess I didn’t really think this through—I can’t surprise you if you’re sitting up there rifling through all the memories I have of every place we go, V.”

            You are trying to surprise us?

            “Well, yeah, kind’ve. Isn’t that half the fun?”

            A surprise means secrets. We have no secrets.

            “Yeah, I guess not…” Eddie said, a little crestfallen. Well, there went his grand plan to…to…what, exactly, was he trying to do? Dazzle Venom with the sights and sounds of San Fran? Why? So far the alien’s greatest joy in life was shoveling live lobsters and tater tots down their throat, why did Eddie think he’d care about sightseeing? Why was he suddenly so desperate to have Venom enjoy himself, why was he breaking out in a sweat at the thought that he was making a fool of himself, that he wasn’t in control, that this wasn’t going how he’d thought it would?

            Venom shifted around beneath his skin with an unhappy little grumble. Why are we distressed?

            “Sorry,” Eddie mumbled.

            You are trying to impress us, or entertain us. You want to surprise us. The symbiote gave a happy, flattered noise and nuzzled up beneath his heart. But we do not know why you think something that doesn’t mean anything to you would mean something to us.

            “Oh,” Eddie said, feeling very stupid. “Oh.”

            You should relax. Surprise us both. He felt Venom diffusing through the tensed muscles of his shoulders and back, massaging them from within, until he was loose and calm. Trying to keep us separate, pushing us away—put us in one corner of the mind, and you in the other, and this way you belong to yourself and can surprise us. But we are one, Eddie, we will feel whole when you let us in. Trust us.

            Eddie rubbed his eyes, pressed the palms of his hands to them until he saw bursts of color against his eyelids. “It’s hard, Venom. I don’t know how.”

            You are afraid to lose yourself, but that is not a danger. Let go. Let us be us, and you will see, that the shape of you fits perfectly into the shape of us, it is not being destroyed, it is part of a whole. Need you, Eddie. Need you, to be whole. Trust us means trust you—you make us good, you know when to stop.

            Eddie gave a shaky laugh, thought about how not long ago he’d had no impulse-control to speak of, had just about destroyed both his and Anne’s life because of his own rash impulsivity, had certainly destroyed their relationship because of it—and then almost over night he had to develop a monstrous willpower when he found himself the sole keeper of an alien with a ravenous appetite for humanity that it didn’t know better than to indulge. He hadn’t known he’d had it in him, but…but Venom had. Venom needed him because…because Venom wanted to be good, and couldn’t learn how on his own, and he thought…he thought Eddie was good, that together they were good, because…because if Eddie was honest with himself, maybe he wasn’t so good before Venom, maybe he was going down a self-destructive path, but he couldn’t do that when he was only part of a whole, when their collective humanity depended on him.

            “What’re you doing to me,” he mumbled under his breath, something light expanding in his chest, making him feel dizzy and full of a terrible, fragile hope that might shatter if the wind blew too hard.

            You worry too much, said Venom, and then they started to move in a way they hadn’t moved before. Eddie sighed and sank into the feeling of the symbiote laced through his organs, braced against his bones like scaffolding, woven through his muscles. It was a little jerky at first as they figured out how to balance and move with two halves of a mind working in unison. They curled and uncurled their fingers, they blinked and inhaled deeply until their lungs were singing with air. A shiver went down their spine, and they smiled.

            “Oh, God,” Eddie said, half curse and half prayer.

            See what we’ve been missing, moron?

            “Body-snatcher.”

            Asshole.

            “Overgrown Silly-Putty.”

            Meatsuit.

            “Baby.”

            Mine.

            Eddie swallowed. He’d meant it as an insult, but the word tumbled from his lips with far too much affection, and Venom hadn’t hesitated to respond in kind.

            They walked without a destination in mind, delighting in their senses in ways Eddie had long since stopped noticing. Had the air brushing against his skin, against the little hairs on his arms and the back of his neck always been so sensual? Every color was delicious to his eyes—the gunmetal of the sky and the water, the bright artificial neon on people’s clothes and the storefronts, the muted earthy tones of the trees and grass. Their mind was no longer overcrowded and chaotic—there was room for both of them, they slotted into place. Their thoughts melded into one stream of consciousness, two separate tributaries rushing to converge in one river and there was joy in the meeting.

            Their mutual elation fed into itself and grew and grew until they were laughing, deliriously happy, probably looking half-mad to the world and not caring.

            They walked long and far smelling the salt of the bay, and then followed their gnawing hunger through the winding alleys of Chinatown, hitting all the familiar places flagged by Eddie’s memory and many more besides, Venom supplying the hunger, Eddie directing it. No, we don’t want to eat out of the trash, we don’t want that shopkeeper either, but what he’s selling, that we’ll try, there, good, see, that wasn’t so difficult.

            There was such an affordable abundance of things they’d never tried that it didn’t matter if half the dishes made them gag before they could even take a bite, it didn’t matter, they shrugged it off and moved on to the next, and for every failed attempt there was something else that for whatever reason filled them up, and their mood itself seemed to be breaking the hunger down, making it docile and tame at the bottom of their stomach.

            Venom stirred happily in their chest, tendrils curling across Eddie’s skin.

            “Thank God,” Eddie mumbled. “If all we got to eat was fried potatoes forever I don’t know how long I would’ve lasted.”

            More food, Eddie. More, more.

            “Well, I did have one other idea…but I’m not sure if you’ll like it.”

            We will try.

            Eddie brought them to one of the city’s less pricey sushi places and sat them in the corner where he could talk to himself in peace. He let Venom take his time looking at the menu puzzling over the options, and then let him order whatever he wanted, and was rewarded tremendously when on the first bite of Ahi, the symbiote shivered and purred with such delighted satisfaction that Eddie’s toes curled.

            “Jesus,” he said, forcing his arm still as Venom tried to cram the entire plate into their face. “We’re in public, you gotta eat slow or they’ll kick us out. No lobster scene.”

            Sorry, Venom said.

            Eddie swallowed the mouthful of saliva, more amused than disgusted. “Don’t be sorry, I mean, Christ, I’m just as hungry as you are, that’s why I don’t wanna get kicked out.”

            They ate quietly, and Eddie felt energy returning to his body, the fatigue slowly fading away.

            “What’s happening?” he said. “I feel—great.”

            Don’t need to burn our own tissue. Repairing our organs, using different fuel now.

            Eddie could’ve cried from relief. He hadn’t realized how run-down and sick he’d felt over the past month until his health began to return little by little. But, still…

            “Don’t rush to fix us if you don’t have the energy,” he said. “You have to…take what you need from me, V. That’s how this works.”

            Have what we need now.

            Eddie felt Venom flipping through his memories of a hundred dinners, most of them with Anne.

            Eating is not just necessity to humans. It is important to social life, yes?

            “Yeah, traditionally.”

            Most people are here with families. On dates.

            “I guess so,” Eddie said, looking around.

            Glad that we are here with us, Eddie.

            “Um…yeah, me too, bud.”

            We are not here just because we are hungry…this is also a social outing?

            “Well, everything we do is sort’ve social, right, since it’s, you know, both of us.”

            Thank you, Eddie. We want to do something for us, too.

            Eddie’s breath caught in his throat and suddenly he felt his throat getting tight and the backs of his eyes hot and burning. Longing and fondness surged up and made his heart thud. Instead of trying to reply in words, he opened his mind up to Venom and let him explore the feeling, let him see the things he’d already done, keeping them both safe, shocking Eddie out of a lonely, self-absorbed, destructive cycle, taught him to take responsibility and to take action.

            Mine, Venom rumbled, and the feeling of him sliding beneath his skin was doing things to Eddie’s insides, literally and figuratively. He felt warm and trembly, he felt shattered and vulnerable, split right open down the middle, all the best and worst parts of him there for Venom to see, and Venom wanted all of it, Venom accepted him unconditionally, instantly, with ravenous gusto, ate every little piece Eddie gave him.

            Eddie shuddered. “Let’s…let’s go home, yeah?”

            Yes, Eddie.

            They hurried through the cold night back to their apartment, Venom shifting below and across his skin to keep them warm. Once inside Eddie took a hot shower and watched the way Venom beaded up on his skin, the way the spray from the shower rolled off like oil and water, and he tried not to think anything at all, tried to make his mind like a great long tunnel where a wind was blowing through, and when they lay down on their back his mind was quiet and they listened to the fan whirring above them.

            “Can I see you?” Eddie murmured.

            Venom materialized, laced himself up and down Eddie’s arms and through his fingers, oozed up between his lungs to puddle on his chest in a loose, lazy bundle as though he were too tired and contented to bother manifesting anything more distinct. Eddie didn’t mind. He put his palms over Venom to feel the slight pulsing of their shared heartbeat, now strong and steady, and watched the two milky eyes form.

            “Hi,” he said.

            Hello.

            “Did you have a good day?”

            Yes. Can’t you feel it?

            Eddie swallowed. “Yeah,” he said, and his voice cracked. “Yeah, I can.”

            Are you…sad?

            “No, not sad. Just…I’m just feeling a lot.”

            Sap.

            “As if you’re any better.”

            Today was not just about eating.

            “You keep reminding me.”

            Venom rumbled and constricted across Eddie’s skin. It felt like a cat kneading at a blanket. We want to get closer. How do we get closer?

            Eddie made a helpless, animal whimper, the kind of noise he’d never made before which would have ashamed him if anyone else had been in the room. As it was, the sound just trembled through Venom and echoed there between them. Venom’s form gave, and Eddie’s fingers sank into him.

            Venom was threading through Eddie’s organs, tendrils tapering down smaller and smaller, weaving through tissue, winnowing down through his tiniest capillaries, lacing like cobwebs across his cells.

            Where is it? Where is the place we’re looking for? How can we get any closer? Where does the feeling come from? We want to dissolve, eat us alive, swallow us whole. Where are you?

            Venom sank back into his chest and Eddie curled up on his side as small as he could go, squeezed his eyes shut and felt the symbiote seeking him out in every corner of his body.

            “I’m right here,” he whispered. “We’re right here.”

            He felt Venom wrapping tendrils around his back and torso, slinking around his stomach and holding him.

            “What’re you doing?”

            Touch is important to human emotional well-being. The brain makes nice feelings.

            They sighed. Outside the city continued to rush and writhe, but in their room they were safe, they were inside a warm shell with the world rattling around them, muffled and indistinct, far away from their soft slide into sleep.

Chapter Text

            All week, Eddie had felt Venom thrumming with thoughts just beneath the skin of their shared subconscious. They bleed through enough that he could sense the symbiote’s uncertainty and some other, fluttery feeling, something like hope, laced overtop a much deeper, darker emotion. They'd been together months, and he was getting better at sensing the symbiote's emotions, but knowing where they came from was still a mystery most of the time.

            “What’s the matter, V? You’ve been off all week,” he said as they walked home from work one day, hands tucked into his coat pockets, Venom laced between his fingers, something the symbiote was doing more and more lately.

            Thinking.

            “I thought we said no secrets?”

            Not a secret, a surprise.

            Eddie bit his lip. “A surprise? Tell me you didn’t eat the neighbor’s dog…”

            No, Eddie. Would not do something like that behind your back. A small surprise, a good surprise. Is that…bad?

            “No, it’s ok, as long as nobody’s maimed.”

            Should have more faith in us, Eddie. You’re our teacher after all.

            “So, have more faith in myself? Yeah, ok.”

            We should climb the bridge.

            “Um, how about no?”

            We could get into another car chase.

            “I was thinking we’d have more of a tater-tots and tv kind’ve night? Maybe go for a run or something if you want a little energy?”

            We miss how excitement tastes.

            “I knew you’d get bored,” Eddie muttered, sounding far more bitter than he’d meant to.

            What do you mean?

            “Just—sorry I’m not more exciting, but you knew what you were getting into. You could’ve bonded with anybody, hell, you could’ve shopped around for a stunt double or something, I can’t just—magically be a different person ‘cause you think I’m boring.”

            Stop, Venom said, his voice rattling through their bones. Why don’t you understand better? You aren’t trying.

            “I am! Just because I know what you’re feeling, doesn’t mean those feelings make sense, V. You’re an alien.”

            So are you. Shouldn’t matter, we’re bonded, we’re one.

            “That still doesn’t mean I’m always going to automatically understand you perfectly.”

            Then listen better. Venom’s voice softened and he squeezed the tendrils wrapped around Eddie’s fingers. We aren’t bored of us. We choose us and have never regretted it. Missing excitement doesn’t mean we’re unhappy with us. Venom paused, then added, and there are lots of ways for us to have excitement.

            Whatever double-meaning made those words so suggestive flew over Eddie’s head. He hummed thoughtfully. “Yeah…yeah, there are. Maybe we could…well, I can’t take you to a theme park right now, but a roller coaster, that’d get you some adrenaline. Need to make sure you’re hitting all your food groups after all. But as for tonight, I don’t know, a…a horror movie?”

            A movie?

            “I don’t know how well it’ll work, I mean, the fear level is just…never gonna compare to what we were experiencing when we first, you know, got together. You’re gonna have to ride that high forever, don’t think we can top it. But, for last-minute Thursday night plans, not bad.”

            They went inside and looked up “scariest movies ever” because Eddie had never been a horror film fan and didn’t know any off the top of his head.

            Silence of the Lambs.

            “No.”

            Why?

            “Too much cannibalism.”

            Isn’t the point to be scared?

            “I’m thinking we’re looking more for like…cheap jump scares that’ll startle us, get you your adrenaline fix, and not leave me feeling dirty and unable to sleep?”

            Oh. Venom paused, then said, we make you feel dirty?

            “What? No, not us, V. This isn’t…I don’t want this to turn into some soul-searchy, dramatic thing, ok? It’s just a movie.”

            Inside.

            “No, that’s French, they make messed up shit. Disturbing gore won’t scare me, I’ll just feel sick.”

            Jaws?

            “Jaws isn’t scary unless you saw it when you were nine.”

            Evil Dead.

            “No, not scary, just gore.”

            Evil Dead 2.

            “That one’s just a violent comedy.”

            The Brood.

            “No, no Cronenberg. Too much…body stuff.”

            The Exorcist.

            “Er…no.”

            Why?

            “I don’t wanna watch a possession movie.”

            You’re making this difficult, it’s just a movie. You’re saying no to everything on this list.

            “Well, I’m doing it for you, too, you know!”

            What?

            “Look, you just got offended at the mere suggestion that I might lose sleep over how we—you know what. I don’t want you to throw a fit just ‘cause something in a stupid movie grosses me out or scares me. You’ll take it personally, and I won’t have meant it like that, and it won’t be fair ‘cause I can’t help it, and you can’t help but feel it.”

            You’re overthinking this. A movie can’t scare us much anyway. It’s just pictures on a screen.

            “I’m making you watch Insidious,” Eddie grumbled, starting the movie on his laptop. “I know you, you’re too curious, now you’re just gonna watch all that other stuff while I’m asleep.”

            Maybe.

            Eddie did his best to get in the mood to be scared. They turned off the lights and he shut off his internal critic, the cynical voice in his head he’d developed while writing some of his more unsavory early-career articles (and mid-career when he’d lost Anne and his job, but he wasn’t thinking about that,) for tabloids.

            A few jump scares did genuinely startle him, but overall, he found he was perfectly calm, and even starting to nod off.

            You aren’t scared.

            “Well…well, V, it’s kind’ve hard to get scared, when you’re here. Being alone is what makes things really scary, and, you know, I’ve got an alien bodyguard.”

            You trust us to keep us safe.

            “Well, yeah.”

            Venom purred and wrapped warm tendrils around his chest beneath his shirt.

            We will keep us safe, Eddie.

            “I know you will.”

            We are glad you trust us. We like that you want to protect us, too, even if it is dumb to think a movie could hurt us.

            “I’m just…being careful. I don’t wanna argue. It’s sort’ve starting to…hurt my head a little, when we argue.”

            He thinks about Anne and Dan and words like cognitive dissonance, the sort of pseudo-scientific but highly rational sounding explanation they had to the ready these days about anything Venom-related, as though they felt obligated to fill the gaps in his understanding, as though he might fall apart if they weren’t there.

            Don’t think about them. Think about us, Venom said, squeezing tighter.

            “Ow,” Eddie grumbled, even though it didn’t really hurt.

            Will you take us to a roller coaster one day?

            “Yeah, V, we’ll go sometime.”

            Then let’s turn the movie off and go to sleep.

            “Normally you’re the one keeping me up,” Eddie said, shutting the laptop and yawning.

            We don’t mind sleep as much anymore.

            “Not bored?”

            Not really.

            “Well…goodnight, then.”

            Goodnight, Eddie.

            At night Venom had been holding him lately. They didn’t talk about it. They could both feel how much more relaxed and safe and whole they felt, with even a little physical contact combined with the steady, soft pressure in their mind. Every night, Eddie wondered if he should bring it up, put into words whatever’s happening—then he thought there might not be words, because nothing like this, like them, had ever happened on Earth before. Maybe not anywhere. That was a lonely thought and he didn’t like to dwell on it—but he couldn’t feel lonely while Venom cradled both his body and his mind so tenderly, as though they were precious.

            Eddie woke in the middle of the night with his heart pounding, sweat slithering down his back. He sat up and felt Venom sliding tendrils up and down his body, soothing and looking for the hurt, doing the same inside, slowing his ragged heart rate and breathing.

            Nightmare. We’re safe, we’re here.

            Eddie was still for a moment. He tried to remember the last time someone had comforted him after a nightmare. He had no such memories of childhood. Anne might have, once, though her method would have been to turn on the nightstand lamp and lie there quietly until he was calm. Not to physically piece him back together, hold him. Venom was attached to his mind, wracked by the same aftershocks of whatever dream had left them both so panicked.

            “Guess you got your adrenaline.”

            Don’t want it like this.

            “What do you want?”

            The words came out before he thought about them. They were loud in the darkness of the room.

            Us, Venom says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, the only answer possible.

            They went back to sleep and weren’t troubled by any more dreams.

            The evidence of Venom’s nocturnal activities became harder to ignore. Eddie dragged his feet through the day and guzzled coffee.

            “When you stay awake, it must do something to me,” he groaned one morning while they walked to an interview. “I’m dead on my feet.”

            Our feet.

            “I’m dead on our feet,” Eddie said, with a laugh that was just a touch manic. “There a reason you’re up all night and I wake up thinking about…The Notebook?” He laughed aloud. “Seriously?”

            It was one of Anne’s favorite movies.

            “You been digging around in my old memories, too? What the hell?”

            You would never watch it with her. I was curious.

            “Well, did it live up to all your expectations?”

            I didn’t understand. Trying to understand. You aren’t helping.

            “Because you’re being weird and cryptic. I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to be helping you with.”

            Venom sighed. Eddie’s phone started to buzz and before he could dig it out of his pocket, Venom reached out a tendril and tugged it out, slid it into his hand.

            “Thanks?” Eddie muttered. “Hey, Anne, what’s up?”

            “Hey. Dan and I were wondering if you might wanna go to Emporium tonight?”

            “Uh…that giant bar arcade place?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Um…I guess? Wait, I gotta—V, do you—”

            Yes, please.

            “Ok, yeah, we’ll come.”

            Anne laughed. “Why do you sound so nervous?”

            “I’m not nervous, just—isn’t it, you know, like, date night for you guys?”

            “So? Couples can hang out together, Eddie, it isn’t weird. I know you weren’t ever a double-date kind’ve guy, but it can be fun.”

            “What are you talking about?” he snapped, much more harshly than he’d meant to.

            Anne was quiet for a moment, and just when he was about to apologize, she said, “I was teasing, geez. You know…you’re always worried somebody’s gonna make things weird, but you’re the only one who does.”

            “Yeah, that’s kinda what I do now, jump into lobster tanks and make things weird.”

            Anne sighed, creating a loud buzz of static over the phone. “That’s not what I meant and you know it, you made things weird before you turned into an alien.”

            “I’m not an alien.”

            “God, you’re touchy. Venom, take him for a walk or something before tonight, work out that attitude.”

            “Venom is the one keeping half our brain awake all night watching shitty movies.”

            Tell Anne I have questions.

            “And now he wants to ask you about The Notebook,” Eddie said, laughing again, a high, nervous sound. He gripped his hair with his free hand. “I’m losing my goddamn mind.”

            “Wow. Guess I finally got you to watch it after all then.”

            “Yeah,” Eddie said, his voice cracking.

            Anne paused for a moment, and then said, “Eddie, is tonight a bad time? We can reschedule.”

            “No, no, Annie, I’m sorry, I’m being a pain, I’m just a little stressed and tired, but it’s Friday, it’ll be fine. And—and thank you, for asking us to stuff like this, it really—it means a lot, you know, you guys are our only…I mean, if you weren’t around, I don’t know what we’d do.”

            “Of course, Eddie. You don’t have to thank us for that. Where’s this coming from?”

            “Sometimes I’m afraid we’re gonna get so far into each other’s heads that—that nothing else seems real anymore? And one day I’ll wake up and we’ll be—something else, that’s not familiar to anybody, and it’s like the world’s just getting smaller and smaller, and I’m scared we’re just gonna, I don’t know, stop leaving the apartment, ‘cause no one else gets it. Um…does that make sense?”

            You didn’t tell us you felt that way.

            “I didn’t know I felt that way, and I don’t have to tell you everything.”

            No secrets, Eddie.

            “Then you’d better tell me what you’re up to.”

            Told you that was a surprise, not a secret.

            “Well, surprise then, I’m not totally adjusted to this yet, but I think I’m doing a pretty damn good job, all things considered.”

            “Eddie, where are you right now?” Anne asked.

            “I’m—I’ve got an interview. Sorry, Anne, sorry, that’s probably—I’m probably freaking you out, it’s ok, that’s, uh, that’s normal, for us, it’s fine, we’re fine. You don’t need to worry.”

            “Well…god, I hate to bring this up over the phone, but Eddie, maybe you should see someone.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Therapy, Eddie.”

            “Oh. Well, when you find a therapist who specializes in sharing your body, let me know.”

            “It was just a suggestion, Eddie, don’t be an asshole just ‘cause you’re tired and stressed. Take a nap or something, I want to talk about this again, but not on the phone.”

            “I’d rather not.”

            “I know. But sometimes you don’t know what’s good for you. We’ll see you tonight, it’ll be fun, maybe you just need to get out and relax a little.”

            “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

            “You know I am. See you,” she said, and hung up.

            Immediately Venom was clamoring for his attention. We do something wrong, Eddie?

            Eddie melted. He thought about how his outburst must have sounded to Venom, and his chest ached. “No, V, no, not at all,” he said, ducking into an alley and leaning against the wall. “I’m just a little tired, and a little stressed, that’s all. I didn’t mean all that.”

            Venom was quiet. The silence was agonizing.

            “Talk to me, please?” Eddie said, too far gone to be embarrassed by the desperation in his voice. “Please, I can’t stand it, when you’re quiet now it’s so—empty. Don’t hide. Let me see you?” he said, holding out his hands, palms up. “I wanna…feel you.”

            Slowly, shyly, Venom curled down from beneath his sleeves over his hands, lacing black tendrils across his skin, between his fingers, over his wrists, like a pair of sentient gloves that made his skin tingle.

            No one ever wanted to before. To use us, yes—as a tool. Not a person. Only you.

            “I’d never do that to you.”

            We know. You’re our Eddie.

            “Those other people hurt you,” he said, shocked by the wrath the thought inspired.

            Yes. But it was worth it since we found you, finally. Were looking for you for so long.

            “I think that I…it’s not the same, I didn’t go through that, but I…”

            Eddie’s phone alarm went off, the one he always set to remind him he had an interview.

            He cursed and silenced it, hurrying out of the alley. “Damn it, we’re gonna be late…”

            Venom sank back beneath his skin, and all throughout the interview Eddie was half in his mind, looking for him.

            They met Dan and Anne outside the arcade. Dan wore a white button down and slacks, blue argyle patterned socks flashing on his ankles. He looked more like he was headed to a faculty dinner party than a night out, but it was sort’ve endearing in a dorky way. Anne had on a red blouse and jeans, little gold hoops in her ears, smoky eyeshadow. She looked gorgeous.

            The thought was matter-of-fact and completely devoid of the old pain and longing it might have evoked a few months ago. What was happening to him?

            Maybe this was what healthily moving on felt like? Or else he was getting so weird and isolated nothing could stir him anymore.

            For their part, they’d stuck with a hoodie and jeans…couldn’t go wrong with being comfortable.

            Anne grinned and waved when she saw them walking down the street, rocked on her heels like a kid.

            “Eddie! Over here.”

            He couldn’t help but smile, and felt Venom curling happily against the back of his neck where he’d been coiled, warding off the chill.

            “Hey, guys.”

            “You look good,” Dan said.

            “Gee, thanks, you don’t have to sound so surprised.”

            Dan blushed. “I just mean—ok, Eddie, my reference points aren’t that great, you have to admit.”

            Eddie thought. Yeah, jumping into a lobster tank and being in the early stages of organ failure while violently separated from an alien symbiote weren’t his best moments.

            “Well…thanks?”

            “Probably ‘cause Venom won’t let you skip meals or eat nothing but Cheerios for a week,” Anne said.

            No, never!

            “Uh, yeah, that wouldn’t fly. He’s gotten weirdly obsessed with health foods lately, which I guess is an improvement over eating tater-tots and chocolate every night? But I’m honestly not sure, ‘cause now every day it’s like, Eddie, you haven’t had your five servings of vegetables yet, you're iron deficient, blah blah blah.”

            I don’t sound like that!

            Anne snorted. “Wow, to think all it took for you to take care of yourself was a live-in personal trainer.”

            Dan wiped away a mock tear. “How far we’ve come from the days when you were both so malnourished you ate a live lobster.”

            “You’re never gonna let that go are you…”

            “Would you?” Anne asked.

            “No, no, that’s fair.”

            Say hi for both of us.

            “V says hi.”

            “I like that we call him V now,” Anne said.

            What’s wrong with our full name?

            “He’s offended,” Eddie said. “There’s nothing wrong with it other than that it sounds like edgy Hot Topic merchandise. Other than that, it’s fine.”

            Anne laughed and laced her fingers with Dan’s, tugged him into the arcade. Eddie followed behind, hands stuffed in his pockets. He stopped short in the doorway, the riot of lights and sounds and colors overwhelming their combined senses for a moment.

            “Are you ok?” he mumbled.

            Venom responded with a reassuring nudge through their bond.

            Anne made a beeline for the bar, where she immediately ordered her beer while Dan hemmed and hawed over the menu.

            “Get what I’m having, Eddie, I know you’d like it,” she said.

            “I’m good.”

            She eyed him critically. “You really don’t drink anymore, huh?”

            Eddie shrugged. “V’s protective of our liver. Only he gets to destroy it.”

            We aren’t.

            “I know, babe. Just kidding.”

            The good thing about the noise and distractions of the arcade was that he could respond to Venom without anybody paying attention. Eddie missed the way both Dan and Anne were suddenly staring at him, too concentrated on the conversation going on in his head.

            …We can have one.

            “Seriously?”

            Yes. If consumed in moderation, we can repair any damage done.

            “Well…you sure?”

            Yes, Eddie. We read that a glass of red wine may have health benefits. Same active ingredient here. Probably.

            “You reading health blogs or something? I’m starting to feel like, I don’t know, a dog or something you’re putting on a diet.”

            No, Eddie. We were a dog once—never again.

            Eddie laughed. “I mean, if you’re sure…”

            We said yes and now you are the one who is unsure.

            “I just don’t wanna like, bully you into it. I’ve gotten used to it now, it doesn’t bother me anymore.”

            You care for our comfort.

            “Well, yeah.”

            Eddie. They are staring at us. Order a drink.

            Eddie looked up. “Oh. Sorry, what?”

            “Nothing,” Anne said quickly.

            They sat at the bar with their drinks, catching up, and then left to play games. Anne dragged them to skee-ball, where Dan gladly stood off to the side, the least competitive of them all. Anne and Eddie had always been mercilessly competitive. It had been a hallmark of their relationship, and he’d never been able to keep up. He hadn’t resented her success—it was just that each time he failed he was worried it might be the last straw, that she might realize she could do better than a loser like him. It had been unfair of him to project his own insecurities onto their relationship, and it had cost them—he realized that now.

            But that was in the past. In the present, she was kicking his ass at skee-ball.

            You’re making us look bad, Venom said, his tone playful.

            “Then do something about it.”

            He felt Venom nudging their aim, adding more force to their tosses. They made three perfect tosses in a row and smirked at Anne, who glared.

            “You’re cheating!”

            “No way,” Eddie said, tossing another ball straight through the center.

            “Yeah you are, I don’t have a symbiote giving me perfect aim.”

            “Well, if you did, I wouldn’t call you a cheater, that doesn’t make sense. If you’re playing me, you’re playing us.”

            “But—”

            “Sorry Anne, I don’t make the rules, that’s just how it is.”

            “That’s two against one!”

            Eddie shrugged. “Eh,” he said, waving a hand in the air in a non-committal gesture.

            “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            One against one, Venom said, smug from Eddie’s inadvertent praise.

            “Means we’re sort’ve a package deal.”

            Anne stared for a moment, and then said, with more sincerity than Eddie was prepared for, “Well, I’m glad everything’s working out for you two.”

            “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            She shrugged. “Venom tell you why The Notebook came up?”

            No. No. NO.

            “No, how?”

            NO.

            Eddie winced. “Stop yelling, god.”

            “Aw, you must know,” Anne said, tilting her head. “Can’t you guys read each other’s minds?”

            “He wasn’t in my head then, he was in yours,” Eddie said. He scowled and tensed, an unexpected surge of jealousy overtaking him. What the hell? he thought. So I do still like Anne? I’m jealous of Venom because he got to be in her head?

            No—he was jealous of Anne. Eddie’s stomach lurched. Oh, God, what was happening to him? He couldn’t stand the thought that Venom had been in anybody else’s mind, had been ripped from him—and what if it happened again?

            “Tell me what you guys thought about,” he said.

            “Ask Venom.”

            No.

            “Venom says no. Annie, please, tell me, come on.”

            “Chill, Eddie, don’t beg, it’s unbecoming.”

            “I’m sorry, just—now it’s gonna drive me crazy.”

            “Well, let’s just say Venom was very intrigued by my memories. Specifically, ones about you. And The Notebook. And the best ways of symbiosing with you again so Drake’s goons didn’t, you know. Kill his perfect host.”

            “So…”

            “Sometimes I forget you’re a moron.”

            “Hey!”

            My moron.

            “Hey to you, too, that’s not any better.”

            Yes it is.

            “No, it isn’t.”

            “Ok, you two can stand here and argue with yourselves, Dan and I are gonna play air hockey,” Anne said.

            Eddie trailed behind, wrestling with Venom for control of their shared mind space, attempting to forcibly dredge up the memories of his time with Anne.

            Stop, Eddie. We don’t like to think about when we were with others. There is only us.

            “If it’s not a big deal, just tell me.”

            Stop, you’re hurting us.

            Their head was starting to ache. Eddie pulled back, immediately chastised. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know what got into me,” he murmured.

            It’s ok. We understand. We do not like to think of when you were not with us, either. We go through your memories, too. It is just easier on our side because you were…whole, before. We were not. It hurts to remember, before we were us.

            “I’m sorry,” Eddie said, feeling utterly miserable and incompetent.

            Anne and Dan were shooting the puck back and forth, Dan with calculated precision, Anne with vicious jabs that sent it rocketing forward.

            Something strange happened in their mind as both tried to picture themselves in such a position, split on opposite sides of the table—they felt vertigo and the line of thinking was cut off abruptly, neither of them able to picture or comprehend such a scenario.

            “Oh, God,” Eddie mumbled. “We’re really getting mixed up, buddy.”

            Is it bad?

            “I don’t know if it’s bad. It just isn’t…human.”

            But it’s what we are. It feels right.

            “Yeah,” Eddie said, his voice hoarse.

            Dan glanced over at them, noticed how pale they were. “You ok, Eddie?”

            Eddie nodded. “We’re good.”

            They could feel the happy human couple staring. They could feel Dan’s lingering fear and discomfort, his nervousness mingling with the clinical, detached curiosity of a vivisectionist—though Dan would never. They could feel Anne’s concern all muddled up with her morbid curiosity, that invasive desire to know all the gory private details, the disbelief, and most unbearable, her amusement.

            They couldn't bear it.

            It wasn't fair.

            Venom had been watching all the movies, reading the magazines, the periodicals. The Notebook was not Anne’s favorite movie. Anne liked artsy, science fiction films. Venom watched Her and Ex Machina and both Blade Runners. In all three he watched inhumans mimic the shapes of women, pantomime their appearance and behaviors in an attempt to transform themselves from monster to human, to earn acceptance, and he watched them fail. He tore through sitcoms and dramas, articles on the care and keeping of his human host, all the food groups and vitamins Eddie might become deficient in, all the myriad ways he might coax their brain into producing enough chemicals to keep them full and sated so that he would not accidentally start digesting them again, because Venom was hunger, always gnawing away right at their center, always on the verge of consuming them alive from the inside out, automatically, without meaning to, because he was a mouth and an empty stomach and Eddie was good, and that goodness had infected him, now why couldn’t it transform him into something else, something that didn’t make them crave blood and flesh, something softer and more human?

            Eddie whimpered and turned away, covered his mouth.

            “What’s wrong?” he whispered.

            Don’t know.

            Eddie looked around. “Do you wanna play a game?”

            Yes. Please.

            “Ok, let’s find one you like,” Eddie said, turning away.

            “Aw, are we boring you?” Anne said. “Yeah, I guess this one wouldn’t, you know, be the most fun for you guys.”

            Venom reminded himself that she did not mean for that to sound so cutting, but it was, somehow.

            Eddie just waved at her. “Yeah, yeah, we’ll catch you guys in a minute.”

            They strolled around the arcade, looking at the buzzing, glowing rows of games. They stopped in front of a pinball machine, and Eddie put their hands on the controls.

            “We’ll do it together, ok?” he murmured.

            Slowly, Venom crept down their arms, wrapping tendrils around their chest, looping all the way down to their wrists and then draping himself over Eddie’s hands in a loose approximation of a second set of hands, phony fingers fitting into the slots between Eddie’s real ones. Eddie’s breath hitched. Venom smoothed it out. They slid easily into one stream of consciousness, the lights and sounds of the game lulling them into a trance, and the world shrunk down until it was the size of their body.

            Time passed. They broke the high score on the machine and didn’t notice, kept it climbing higher and higher.

            “We should do stuff like this more often,” Eddie mumbled. “We can, you know, go out without Dan and Anne. I’ve been thinking, you know…before you, I sort’ve took Earth for granted, but now it seems like there’s so much we could—”

            “Damn, you’re good.”

            Their concentration snapped and the world came crashing back in a screeching maelstrom. Beside them was a woman with short brown hair. She had eyes, nose, lips, hands. It was sometimes difficult for Venom to tell people apart. He only needed to know his host’s mind—his own memory wasn’t built for cataloging the physical qualities of human faces.

            “Uh, thank you?”

            Tell her to go away.

            The woman smiled. All lips and no teeth. She looked them up and down quickly. “I’m Nicole,” she said.

            “Eddie.”

            “Are you here with anyone, Eddie?”

            Venom felt Eddie’s indecision—his confusion, his discomfort, his sudden painful longing, and Venom wanted to burst from beneath his skin, wanted to disfigure them in a thousand ways, become a writhing mass of black gooey tissue and teeth and claws and spines and wailing. Instead he simmered quietly beneath their skin, made Eddie’s hair stand on end.

            “Um…”

            “Me, neither. I could buy you a drink?” she said, sliding her hand closer to theirs.

            She’d already had several—Venom could detect the alcohol on her breath when they inhaled.

            Nicole was an innocent. Nicole was an ordinary, everyday human, doing what humans did. Nicole had a family and a job and a place where she lived and probably pets and people she loved, and she had a warm human body that was all her own. Venom wanted to eat her alive—no, he wanted her to just go away. He didn't want to be her, exactly...but to possess whatever it was that granted her humanity. (Whatever that was.)

            Her hand brushed theirs, and without thinking, acting purely on raw, terrified instinct, Venom reached out and bled into her, just a little.

            Eddie felt it through their bond and jerked his hand away from hers. “Actually, I’m here with someone,” he said. “But thanks.”

            “Oh, ok,” she said, a little disappointed, but still smiling pleasantly. “Well, have a good rest of your night then, Eddie.”

            “You, too,” Eddie mumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets.

            As soon as she was gone, Eddie shoved his way numbly through the arcade, out a back exit into an alley where the neon spilled out faintly and became grubby and dirty in the puddles of rainwater and refuse.

            “What the hell was that?” Eddie hissed.

            Venom materialized in a smoky tendril from Eddie’s chest, made himself a pair of rough, half-formed arms. He shoved Eddie back, and Eddie went willingly, into the dark corner of the alley where no passerby would see them.

            “What do you think you’re doing?”

            Venom continued to materialize, built a shifting torso, neck, head without a face, all wrong wrong wrong.

            Venom’s face split open, the mouth just an opening cut into the misshapen tissue, a long pink tongue extending from it. He hissed in Eddie’s face.

            Eddie swatted the tongue out of his face with a grimace. “Were you gonna—go into that girl?”

            “What do you think?” Venom said, two white eyes bubbling up onto his face.

            “I don’t know, V! I don’t know what to think! So she interrupted our game for a second, so what? You don’t gotta throw a fit over it!”

            “You would prefer to play a game with her. You would prefer to play separately, like Anne and Dan.”

            “What the hell? I never said that. You’re totally overreacting.”

            “I felt you wanting.”

            Eddie shut his mouth with an audible click of teeth, but his silence didn’t last long. “Ok, well, you misread me, then.”

            Venom faltered, shrank back, his form disintegrating in on itself. “What?”

            “You’re jealous of some random woman we don’t even know? Who didn’t do anything even remotely rude? Seriously? I’m allowed to talk to other people, Venom, you can’t just—”

            “Talk to us,” Venom hissed, surging forward and crowding him back against the wall.

            Eddie wasn’t easily cowed. He frowned and pressed back. “I’m trying. I talk to you all the time, V.”

            “But as soon as someone else is there, you stop.”

            “But—I can’t hold two conversations at once!”

            “You put others first.”

            “That’s not true! I go around looking like a lunatic all day, ‘cause I’m talking to you!”

            “Well, we can’t talk to anyone else, Eddie. Only you, just us, all day. And we are grateful, we don’t want for strangers.”

            Eddie rubbed his hands over his face. “I can’t tell if you’re saying that to make me feel guilty, or because you’re upset about it.”

            “We are enough for us.”

            “Yeah? So, what, you’d have us sit inside all day, alone, just talking to ourselves?”

            “Don’t need anyone else,” Venom said, sulking.

            “That’s not an answer.”

            “Not a fair question.”

            “I don’t understand. I’m asking you to help me, V, come on.”

            Venom moaned. It was a horrible, despairing sound that went straight through Eddie, made him shudder and automatically reach out, gather Venom to his chest as the symbiote lost the concentration required to craft a more humanoid form and became a mass of shifting tissue, limp and loose in Eddie’s arms. Eddie pressed them together against their chest.

            “Aw, baby,” he said. He said it like a swear. “V, I don’t get it, what’d I do, I’m trying, I’m really trying.”

            What does she have that we don’t? What can she give you that we cannot? Is it just that she’s human? That she’s good, like you? We can be good, too, Eddie, we’re trying too, we’re learning. We’re good because of you. We can be more like you, more like her. We want to be enough.

            “V…” Eddie was at a loss for words. And maybe…maybe that was alright. Spoken language wasn’t Venom’s natural way of communicating anyway, it wasn’t intimate enough for what they were. Eddie leaned his forehead against Venom and exhaled. “Come back in, sweetheart,” he whispered, so desperate to fix this bleeding wound right through their middle that he didn’t care if he sounded ridiculous. “I’m gonna go say bye to Annie, so she doesn’t worry, and then we’ll go home and make this better.”

            Venom slowly sank back through his skin and remained bundle high in his chest, making it a little hard to breathe, but Eddie didn’t mind. He went back inside and wandered through the maze-like arcade, increasingly desperate to find their friends as they began to tremble down to their very core. They found Anne and Dan back at the bar having another drink, leaned close together and smiling as they spoke. They broke apart and stared at Eddie with concern as he approached.

            “Jesus, Eddie, what happened?” Anne asked.

            Their teeth were chattering and it was hard to draw in a full breath. “We’re ok, just—just not feeling well,” Eddie said. “Think we’re gonna head home.”

            “Are you sure you’re ok?” Dan asked.

            Eddie nodded. The motion made the world spin and he stopped abruptly. “M-hm.”

            “You’re sure you’re not…in any trouble?” Dan said.

            “We’re fine,” Eddie snapped. “He wouldn’t hurt me, it wasn’t on purpose.”

            Dan leaned back, held up his palms. “Ok, ok, I know, I just—had to check, Eddie.”

            “We’re sorry,” Eddie mumbled. “We didn’t mean to—thanks, it was fun, we’ll see you later.”

            They ducked away before either could protest. Out in the cool night air, away from the overwhelming noise and lights and throng of bodies, their head immediately began to clear. They walked a block or so just to cool down before getting a ride back to their apartment, where they locked themselves inside with trembling hands and didn’t bother turning on any lights, just flopped down on the bed, trembling and tense.

            Eddie took deep, slow breaths in and out, forcing their stomach to expand with each inhale, letting the air out in a whoosh. Normally it was Venom to work out the knots in their muscles, to put out the fires and smooth their chaotic thoughts out so Eddie could sleep peacefully. Now Venom was a trembling knot of hurt and bewilderment in their chest, right at the base of their throat, crushing down on their lungs.

            Eddie closed his eyes and recalled his old meditation tapes, and this time he wasn’t doing it for himself, this time it was for them, and he wanted to do it right. He wanted to do it right more than he’d ever wanted to do anything, for both their sakes. He forced their breathing to be even, because Venom could not. He worked his way upwards from the tips of their toes, relaxing each muscle, imagining a clean, gentle blue light tracing his mental path, draining the tension from their body. Without words, he sent soothing feelings towards Venom, acceptance and belonging, images of things that made him feel at ease. He let his thoughts flow freely, without holding anything back or trying to hide, even if it made him feel silly or embarrassed. Warm baked goods, fresh clean sheets hot from the dryer, curled up together on the sofa or the bed, the moment right before they fell asleep or the moment right before he woke, Venom stirring in the back of his mind, nudging him towards awareness.

            Slowly, carefully, gently as he could, he undid the knots Venom was tying himself in. At last he no longer had to focus on calm breathing; their body was relaxed and out of crisis mode. Venom became an exhausted, languid warmth spreading throughout their body, too tired and comfortable to bother forming himself into any shape. He spread beneath their skin like an internal blanket and they sighed.

            “It’s ok, we’re ok,” Eddie mumbled, so tired he was almost senseless of what he was saying.

            Eddie.

            “Yeah, love?”

            …Sleep now?

            “M-hm. We’re gonna have to talk about this though, you know…”

            Not now.

            “No, not now.”

            Thank you.

            “Of course. I only did what you would do.”

            Put us back together again. Keep us safe.

            “Hm. I think we should…should try the meditating again, or something. Something we can both agree on, before we sleep. We’ve been…relying on the bond, using it as an excuse to not communicate, but I think, if we just checked in, just to make sure we’re on the same page…stuff like this wouldn’t happen. I’m sure it’s all just a misunderstanding. That’s…that’s ok. It would be weird if we didn’t have those every once in a while. But it doesn’t have to get so bad if we actually make an effort to show each other what’s going on.”

            Ok, Eddie. Sounds good.

            “We’re gonna get through this, ok? I know it, ‘cause…’cause be both want this to work.”

            We want to be us forever, Eddie. Don’t ever want to be separate again. Everything else is just in between.

            “Yeah,” Eddie mumbled, already unable to keep his eyelids open. The exhaustion of the past few weeks was rapidly forcing him to fall unconscious. “’M gonna sleep now, ok?”

            Ok, Eddie. Goodnight.

            Uneasy enough to know this particular peril wasn’t finished with them yet, but too tired and relieved to still be together and whole, Eddie fell asleep.

Chapter Text

            Venom woke Eddie the next morning with a reluctant, guilty nudge to the consciousness. It gave the phantom impression of someone shifting in the bed beside him, shaking his shoulder softly, and he rolled over half-awake, stretching out without thinking, expecting to be met with the warmth of another body beside him. The bed was empty, the touch came from beneath his skin.

            “What is it?” he said, groggy and rubbing his eyes.

            Anne calling, Venom said, voice quieter than usual.

            Eddie reached over to grab his phone off the nightstand. The display read nine o’clock. Three missed calls from Anne in the last two hours.

            “Geez, V, why’d you let me sleep through them?”

            You were tired. Needed to rest.

            Eddie sighed and sat up. “Just ‘cause you feel bad about last night doesn’t mean you gotta, I don’t know, coddle me.”

            He called Anne back. She picked up on the second ring. “Eddie? Are you ok?”

            “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

            “Well, you worried me last night.”

            “Oh. Sorry, didn’t mean to.”

            “I didn’t want to push, you seemed like you needed space, but—but what happened?”

            “Just got a little overwhelmed. You know, it was sort’ve loud, sort’ve crowded. No big deal, we just needed some space, like you said.”

            “I’m sorry, Eddie.”

            “Hey, you don’t have to be sorry. What for?”

            “Well, I…just let me know when you’re feeling off, in the future, ok? And we can all leave and do something else. Right now I’m operating off what I assume you’ll enjoy, but that’s based on before. So sometimes, it’s gonna take me a minute, to remember that you’re—that it’s different now, and you might not like the same things you used to, and that’s ok, I just have to get used to it, and then it’ll be second nature, I’m sure, but—”

            “Hey, Annie, don’t worry, ok? It’s really not a big deal. Me and V are still working out what’s ok and what’s not. Like…most things we do, we’re doing for the first time, so it’ll just take some getting used to, is all.”

            “Yeah. Yeah, see, I didn’t think of that. That must be…well, I really can’t imagine. Everything’s new to him. It’s all alien.”

            “Yeah.”

            “You know, when I think about that…I mean, at first, I thought…I just thought they were, well, monsters. When I saw you—him—I just—I was horrified. But now that I think about it, once I felt what it was like a little, it was…I mean, hell, if an alien abducted me, locked me in a cage, starved me and experimented on me, I can’t say I’d be exactly in the most peaceful state of mind once I got out, and it’s not like they meant to kill those people they were forced to bond with, they just weren’t matching hosts.”

            “It’s ok, Anne.”

            “I just—feel like there are things we haven’t talked about, that maybe we should? And I know there’s been a lot to process, but…”

            “We can talk sometime, Anne. I know this hasn’t been easy on you. I’ve sort’ve made life a mess again for you.”

            “No, Eddie, that isn’t what I’m saying.”

            “Well…it’s sort’ve true. But, uh…thanks for checking on us. It means a lot. I’m glad we’re talking again, Anne. I missed you.”

            Anne sighed. “I missed you, too, Eddie.”

            When they hang up, there are all kinds of emotions swirling around inside of them, mixing up together and becoming unintelligible. Eddie can’t tell what comes from who, and even if he could, he isn’t sure he’d be able to make much more sense of it. Guilt, longing, contentment, anxiety, fear, and…something else.

            “What’s going on?” he mumbled, shuffling into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee.

            We are confused.

            “Yeah, you can say that again.”

            Anne misses us.

            “Anne misses Eddie Brock.”

            What?

            “I don’t know why I said that,” Eddie said, his brow furrowing. “I think I mean—she misses somebody that isn’t around?”

            She said she misses us.          

            “She said she misses me.”

            Oh.

            Venom’s hurt burns in their chest and Eddie has to force himself to breathe through it. “Wait, V. That wasn’t meant to hurt you.”

            She cannot miss you. Only us.

            “But that’s what I’m—ok, ok. Maybe we’re both wrong. You know what, we don’t know what Anne’s thinking, or feeling. We can only read each other’s minds and we’re not even very good at that. All I meant was that things are awkward, right, because Anne and I are always gonna have all these memories of being closer to each other, and we’re never gonna be like that again, and that’s ok, but it’s something that’s gotta maybe have more time before it stops feeling weird, and meanwhile, it’s like we have to get to know each other all over again, because now I’m with you, now we’re us, and she doesn’t know—us.”

            She can. She will.

            “Well, yeah, I hope so too.”

            Anne makes you happy. Why do you say you will never be close with Anne again?

            Eddie groaned and started popping bread in the toaster. “Not this again, come on. ‘Cause Anne’s with Dan now, V, and because I don’t even think either of us even feels like that anymore.”

            Feels like what? You miss each other.

            “You can miss something and not want it back at the same time.”

            That doesn’t make sense.

            “It does.”

            Venom squirmed in their stomach, gave a frustrated groan. You miss Anne because you are lonely?

            “I don’t know…”

            We feel that you are lonely.

            “I guess, but not…not in the way I used to be.”

            Venom growled. How can you be lonely when we are here? You want Anne, you don’t want Anne. Will Anne make you less lonely? What about her will fix it? It can’t be her company. We give you company, always. It’s something else. Something she has we don’t have.

            “Calm down,” Eddie snapped. “I don’t know, ok? Relationships are complicated.”

            Anne thought you are complicated.

            “I think I’m pretty simple.”

            Venom huffed. Have you met yourself?

            “Ok, we’re done here,” Eddie said, smearing peanut butter over their toast. “We’re gonna go for a nice jog, you can work out whatever hissy-fit you’re throwing, then I’ve gotta do some work and after that you’ll probably be begging for food again.”

            We don’t beg.

            “You beg.”

            No.     

            “Fine, whatever, you just describe in detail how delicious my organs look, which is the same as begging, because they’re your organs too, so it would be pretty stupid of you to eat them.”

            Venom shifted beneath his skin. Can’t help it. Hate that we make you have to provide. Don’t want to take. Would rather give. But in this case, can’t help it.

            Eddie softened. “I know, V. You don’t need to feel bad about that. I chose us, and I knew what I was getting into.”

            Venom’s warmth and gratitude and affection and adoration surged through their bond. It was so intense it made Eddie grip the countertop and he automatically responded in kind, and the rush of chemicals from their brain was heady and left them both feeling refreshed and warm and full.

            The more time that went by, the less agonizing was their hunger. Something was changing, something incredible was happening. Eddie went around smiling like a dope half the time, their brain happily churning away, pumping out all kinds of feel-good emotions that seemed to sate the vicious hole in their stomach. They were already well acquainted with the way they tended to get stuck in a loop of negative feelings, their fear and anger feeding off each other, but now it was turning out that this could work the other way, too—if something made Eddie laugh, some dumb throwaway joke or pun, it amused Venom also, and then the humor reverberated between them and could leave him gasping for breath, hysterical with laughter, tears in their eyes.

            This didn’t really go over any better in public than talking to himself did, but Eddie didn’t care. They had a private world together that nobody else could get into, and it was more important.

            He became spontaneous. He hadn’t felt like this in months. Maybe a year. Not since his breakup—not since before his breakup, if he was honest—maybe not ever, if he were really honest. If he was walking home, and felt Venom tugging their gaze back towards an ice cream shop, full of childish longing, Eddie didn’t argue, would stop in and buy him something, though always less than what Venom wanted because sometimes he didn’t know what was good for them, and even if Eddie felt like indulging him he knew better than to give in entirely, because then they’d both just end up feeling sick. So he’d hold his scoop of ice cream close to his collar, where Venom could peak out and lick at it as they walked.

            He bought flowers for their apartment.

            What are those for? Venom asked as Eddie dropped the bouquet delicately into their basket of groceries.

            Eddie shrugged and hummed non-comittally. “I don’t know. Don’t you like them?”

            …Yes?

            “Then they’re for you.”         

            What do we…do with them?

            “I’ll put them in a vase and they’ll look really ridiculous ‘cause the apartment’s a mess, but maybe they’ll brighten the place up.”

            Oh.

            The flowers began to wilt in a few days. When the leaves began to brown and wither, the petals drooping, Eddie tried to toss them out, only for Venom to freeze his hand before it could let go and drop the flowers into the bin.

            What are you doing?

            “Um…throwing them out? They’re dead, V.”

            Put them down, Eddie.

            “Ok, geez,” Eddie said, setting them back into their vase.

            So they remained, wilting more and more each day until they were just a few brown, withered husks.

            “You gotta let me throw them out, V, they look awful.”

            No they don’t.

            “They’re dead!”

            We still like them the same as we did.

            “But…you know I could just get new ones, right?”

            …No, we didn’t know.

            For some reason that made Eddie’s heart feel too big for his chest. He couldn’t tell if he was unbearably sad or not, so he got irritated instead. “Dumb-dumb,” he muttered. “I could’ve bought new ones weeks ago.”

            The seasons changed and autumn deepened into winter. The world outside grew cold but they kept each other warm. Eddie’s body ran hotter than it had before, likely working double-time to keep them both going, and beneath his clothes Venom gathered on his skin, insulating them. When they went out now he took it upon himself to form a permanent pair of fingerless gloves over Eddie’s hands and when Eddie cupped their hands around a warm mug they both shivered from the comforting sensation.

            Together they fixed up the apartment. They painted the walls and hung drapes in pale, calm colors with names like eggshell and ivory that made Venom disgruntled because the hues rarely matched up with their namesakes. The vase was forever full of flowers, the windows let light into the formerly murky, dingy rooms. Eddie hung a big corkboard on the wall across from the little table where they ate most of their meals and whenever he thought of someplace they might like or Venom stumbled upon something he was curious about, they tacked a picture up to remind them, and it was a nice thing to look at first thing in the morning and at the end of each day.

            “I never really wanted to go and do stuff before,” Eddie said.

            Really?

            “Yeah. Not on my own. But now, it’s like, I wanna do everything.”

            We want to do everything.

            “Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Nobody ever…I never felt like that before. Like all of a sudden I’m, I don’t know, interested in everything, I wanna go and do all these things I never cared about before, ‘cause I wanna do them together.”

            We feel the same way. We are glad we waited. It was worth it to wait, and find you.

            And Eddie felt light and too small to contain himself.

            He’d never been one for art museums. Anne wasn’t, either. She was a career-oriented woman, and he had been, once, too, and that was alright for a time, that worked for them for a little while. He wasn’t that way anymore—he’d gotten horribly domestic, he liked to be home where he was comfortable, and he liked his routines, making breakfast together in the morning and going for walks at night.

            So the museum wasn’t Eddie’s idea, but when Venom’s curiosity tugged them inside, he didn’t resist. They wandered around looking at the art, Venom pestering him with questions he didn’t know how to answer.

            “I don’t know, I’m not much of an art guy,” he mumbled into his collar, aware of the hushed atmosphere. “I don’t really know what I’m looking at.”

            But you know how they make you feel.

            “I…I guess? I don’t know if I feel anything. I mean, it’s just a bunch of colors.”

            It was a tall, thin canvas painted in shades of shifting white and black and gray.

            We like it.

            “We do?”

            Yes. It is nice.

            “But I don’t really…I don’t know, I don’t really get it.”

            What is there to get?

            “I mean…” Eddie scratched the back of his neck, his face flushed and warm. “I always figured I was a little, you know, dumb about this sort’ve thing.”

            Venom’s annoyance chastised him. Not dumb, Eddie. Stop thinking and just let us feel.

            So he did.

            Once at the movies they saw Anne and Dan ahead of them in line for popcorn. Eddie automatically ducked out of line and into the hall with the ticket counter.

            Why are we hiding?

            “I…I don’t know.”

            Don’t you want to say hello?

            “Well, saying hello is one thing, but I don’t know if I wanna, like, hang out with them right now.”

            Why not?

            “’Cause…I don’t know. ‘Cause we’re hanging out.”

            We’re always hanging out.

            “What, so you wanna go say hi and spend the rest of the night with them, hm?”

            …Didn’t say that.

            “Didn’t think so,” Eddie muttered.

            They sat in the back where in the darkness of the theater Venom could curl down his arms and over his chest and up his neck. The movie was a thriller. Within the first hour Eddie had lost the plot, but that was alright. He was busier tossing popcorn up into the air and watching Venom try to catch it, stifling his laughter so that the people a few seats down from them wouldn’t be annoyed.

            On their way out, they ran into Dan and Anne.

            “Oh—hey, Eddie!” she said, pulling him into a side-hug. Dan fidgeted awkwardly beside her, gave a half-motion as though to either shake Eddie’s hand or clap him on the back, thought better of it, and stuck his hands in his pockets.

            “Hi, guys.”

            “Are you here with someone?” Dan said, looking over Eddie’s shoulder at the crowd of people exiting the theater.

            “Uh…yeah?”

            “That’s great, Eddie. She’s the one getting all the flowers, right?” Dan said with a smile, the sort of forced smile that screamed failed-attempt-at-male-bonding. He was far too sheepish and earnest to be successful at nonchalance. “I, uh. See you in line at the grocery sometimes. Always in too much of a rush to say hi, sorry about that.”

            “Stalker,” Anne muttered.

            Dan blushed, but not as red as Eddie.

            Eddie shuffled his feet. “Oh, that? Um, no. That’s nothing.”

            “Oh, sorry,” said Dan. “I just thought—I just meant—that it’s nice to see, that is, I mean, we were worried that you might—it’s good to get out! That’s all!”

            “Quit while you’re ahead, honey,” Anne said, squeezing Dan’s arm with an exasperated but fond smile.

            “Yeah,” Dan muttered. “Good advice.”

            “So there is somebody here?” Anne said, her eyes gleaming with the old nosy interest that was once so familiar.

            “I was talking about Venom,” Eddie said, too loudly. “I’m here with somebody ‘cause I’m always with somebody.”

            “Oh,” said Dan.

            “Ok, well, good seeing you, we gotta go,” Eddie said, already hurrying away.

            “Bye!” Anne called. “You look happy!”

            For some reason that made Eddie wince. He gave them a quick wave and turned back around, hunched his shoulders against the cold.

            What was that about?

            “What do you mean?”

            Why were you all acting so weird?

            “Dan always acts weird, he’s a dork.”

            So are you. Explain.

            “Just—I don’t know, I got a little embarrassed, that’s all.”

            Why? Because they thought you were on a date?

            Eddie blushed. “Well—I don’t know. Yeah, I guess.”

            And because of the flowers?

            “Yeah, I guess!”

            I see. Because these are things typically done by couples, yet you appear to be alone. But you are not alone, Eddie. And we are one—but are we not a ‘couple’ also?

            Eddie spluttered. “Ok, I mean, I don’t know if that means what you think it means.”

            We know what it means.

            “Then you tell me if that's what's going on! ‘Cause I don’t know.”

            Venom sulked. You were embarrassed for us. As if it is ridiculous to go on a ‘date’ with us. But it is not ridiculous for Anne and Dan to do the same things we do. That is not fair, Eddie. Why are you ashamed of us?

            “I’m not—I’m not ashamed, baby. Never. I just don’t know if…if other people would understand, that’s all.”

            It does not seem complicated to us.

            “Then maybe you can help me out,” Eddie pleaded.

            We do not know what there is to explain, Eddie. We are together in all the ways it is possible for two beings to be together. And yet you are still embarrassed, and yet you still feel doubt. You do not think we are…real, in the same way Anne and Dan are real to each other, even though we are bonded much closer than they. What we are is real, Eddie. Why is it worth less to you, less legitimate, than what they are? Why is it embarrassing to get us flowers? To take us places? When Dan and Anne go to the movies, they are not embarrassed for each other, to be seen together, to be out doing something together. Why are you?

            “Because—I don’t now, ok? I don’t know! Stop bothering me all the time! Quit picking apart every little thing I do and say. It’s complicated, Venom.”

            It is not complicated at all, Eddie. It is the simplest thing in the world. We are starting to think that when humans say something is complicated, it is an excuse because they do not want to put in the effort to confront something. Because something is new, or unfamiliar—you call it complicated, and this ends the conversation. This is not enough for us. We want more. We want better.

            “Well, maybe I can’t be better, V. I’m not perfect.”

            Didn’t ask for perfect. Just asked for you, Eddie. For you to be honest with us.

            Eddie groaned. “Can’t we just have a nice night out, like we planned?”

            You are the one making it not nice.

            “Wow, thanks very much, and here I was gonna get you cake from that place you like.”

            …Are you still going to?

            “Well, I don’t know, are you gonna stop grilling me and just enjoy yourself? Ourselves?”

            Venom gave a long-suffering sigh that made his displeasure clear. Fine.

            Eddie got him his cake, and he devoured it with as much gusto as usual, but there was still tension in their mind space. When they lay down and Eddie tried to clear his mind, initiate the soft blending of their consciousness which they attempted now each night, to make sure they were on the same page before falling asleep, Venom withdrew from him, deeper into his corner of their mind.

            “Hey, where are you going?” Eddie mumbled.

            Don’t want to tonight.

            “What do you mean, you don’t want to? We have to.”

            Don’t have to. Go away.

            Eddie sat up, his heart pounding. “Go—go away?” he said, his voice going shrill. “What do you mean, go away?”

            We are sleepy. Leave us alone.

            “I can’t leave you alone, you’re in my head.”

            Our head.

            “Well, it was mine first, and I’m not gonna be feeling so hot if you’re in there brooding all night. You know it makes everything worse if we’re keeping things from each other, V.”

            We want to share everything, Eddie, Venom snapped, his voice raw with hurt that took Eddie’s breath away. But we cannot if you won’t be honest with yourself. If you lie to yourself, you lie to us, too. You push us away. Fine. We will go away. We will sit quietly right here until you stop being an ass.

            “I’m being an ass?” Eddie said, pressing a hand to his chest. “Well, you can’t go away, you’re still in my head. I can still feel you in there.” He pushed against Venom’s presence in his mind, crowding him into a smaller space. He felt the symbiote retreating further, snaking his way deeper down, threaded between his organs. The sliding sensation made him faintly nauseous but also sent a pleasant shiver down his spine. He resented that. How dare Venom make him feel—like that—when he was trying to be irritated?

            “Don’t pout, it’s annoying.”

            We want to sleep, Eddie. Tired.

            “You don’t sleep.”

            Sometimes we do. Sometimes we like to.

            “Just tell me what you want.”

            We want you.

            “You keep saying that, and it isn’t helping.”

            You are making us feel alone, Eddie, Venom said, a wave of longing and horrible, aching loneliness overtaking them. Eddie hunched over, tucked his head in the dark box between his knees and folded his arms beside his head, pressed them against his ears and gave a soft whimper.

            “What?” Eddie gasped. “How can you feel alone? That doesn’t make sense. You’re literally living inside me, you can’t be alone.”

            We know. But you won’t let us in.

            “Well—well this isn’t natural for me, don’t forget that! I’m still getting used to this—us—you. Sometimes I might want to be alone, did you ever think about that?” Eddie said, sitting up straight again and glaring at empty air where he wished Venom was, so he could have a proper argument.

            Yes, Venom said, sounding small and frail. We do think about that.

            “Then—then don’t get upset at me for it! I can’t help it, I’m getting used to this, I am, I’m getting better at sharing, but I need time, V.”

            We know. We try to go slow, Eddie. We try to give you time. But we can’t give you space. We can’t. We need you, Eddie, and you don’t need us. We know this. We are aware. We are a hitchhiker in your body. We want it to be our body. We want it more than anything, to be us, and not a burden on you. But we can’t help it. We understand it is healthy for humans to have time to themselves, but this is not healthy for us, we will die without you, for us to live we have to hurt you in this way, we cannot leave you alone, we are sorry, we will try to be quiet and small, but we can’t leave. We are too selfish to leave. Sorry, Eddie.

            Eddie lay down and curled up, pressed both hands over his heart and focused on sending feelings of acceptance to Venom. Slowly but surely, he felt the symbiote tentatively brushing against his palms, rising through the skin of his chest, seeking out the warmth of his hands pressed there over his heart.

            “I’m sorry, V,” he murmured. “I know that, sweetheart. I know. I didn’t mean to make you feel like that. I’m doing something wrong. I know I need to…but it’s…I’m having a hard time,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’m gonna try harder. I’ll fix it. I know you need to be here, and I don’t want you to go, you know I…feel alone without you, now.”

            It was true. In the days following Drake’s death, when Venom was too weak to make his presence known and Eddie had gone around thinking he was alone in his own body, he’d felt like a zombie, half-dead, and didn’t know how he’d ever find his way back to himself. Nothing was exciting. Nothing felt right. The world was too big and he was too empty.

            “We’ll figure this out,” Eddie promised, though they both remained uneasy.

            The next day Anne came around at eleven. Eddie was making hot chocolate, the television was playing some made-for-tv holiday film. He’d been teaching Venom about the winter holidays and the symbiote was obsessed. Eddie indulged his desire to decorate their apartment somewhat reluctantly, feeling a little odd about experiencing something so familiar as strange through Venom’s perspective, hanging a wreath on their door and watching crappy old Christmas films with an alien sense of confused curiosity in his brain. He'd relented and let Venom string lights up around the apartment. He'd vetoed a menorah on the grounds that it wasn't really the sort of thing you could just put up for decoration. Venom hadn't understood how it was different from a wreath, which led to a conversation on religion that lasted several hours and left them both mentally exhausted. He was undecided on a Christmas tree. He didn’t think that would be too fun to lug up the stairs.

            When Anne knocked, he shuffled over and peered through the peephole, then opened the door, smiling in confusion. “Hey, Anne, what’re you doing here?”

            Anne frowned. “You invited me?”

            “Um…I don’t think I did?” Eddie said, stepping back and opening the door further anyway.

            She stepped inside and looked around, her eyes widening. “Oh, wow. You’ve, uh. Really cleaned the place up, huh?”

            Eddie immediately regretted letting her in. It felt like…well, like an invasion of a private place, this little nest Venom had built where they retreated from the world. He wrestled the feeling down. This was Anne, this was their friend—there was no reason she couldn’t come over, even if she was looking at the flowers on the table and the little Christmas lights strung up on his shitty potted fern in the corner.

            “Um…yeah. No more reason to, you know, continue living in squalor.”

            “Because you’ve been feeling better?” she said gently.

            Eddie shrugged, avoided her gaze, went back to stirring powder into a mug of hot milk. “Yeah, something like that. So, um. I invited you over?”

            “Yeah, last night?” she said, waving her phone at him. “Asked if I wanted to catch up?”

            Eddie stilled. He dug his phone out of his pocket, only for Venom to freeze his hand so he couldn’t unlock the screen.

            “Let go,” he muttered.

            Don’t be mad.

            “I’m not mad, I just wanna see what you said. You used my body while I was sleeping, man. That’s not cool. We need to talk about that.”

            Only to text Anne. Never for anything else, Eddie. Never.

            “Ok, I believe you, but still, that’s like…that needs to be something we set some boundaries for. Again.”

            “You didn’t invite me,” Anne said.

            “Venom did.”

            “So…what did Venom want me here for?”

            “Hell if I know,” Eddie said, rolling his eyes.

            “Are you guys…fighting?”

            Eddie shrugged. He started making her hot chocolate just for something to do with his hands. “He’s mad at me.”

            “Let me guess…he’s mad you aren’t letting him eat his fill of neighborhood cats?”

            “I wish. But nah, he’s mad ‘cause…well…well, I don’t know if I really know why.”

            He set their mugs on the tiny table and Anne sat across from him. Venom reached out a tendril from Eddie’s back, picked up the remote, and turned the volume down low. Anne watched Venom. Eddie watched Anne watching them.

            “Does that feel weird?” she asked.

            “No.”

            “It felt weird, when it was. You know. Happening to me.”

            “What was it like?”

            “Like…someone was holding a cloth over my face, and I couldn’t take a full breath. Like somebody had a blanket wrapped around my heart, smothering it.”

            “Oh. That sounds…not fun.”

            “Yeah. But it isn’t like that for you.”

            Eddie looked down, shook his head. “No. The opposite.”

            “Tell me about it.”

            Eddie looked up at her, and felt exposed, like she’d cracked him right open. “Really?”

            Anne nodded. “I want to hear all about it.”

            He believed her. “Well, it’s. It might not sound so good, to you. I don’t think I would’ve thought it sounded good, until it happened, but…but it’s like…I’m more whole, now? With V, you know, you have to…it doesn’t work unless you sort’ve…give in, a little.”

            “Surrender? Submit?”

            Eddie winced. “I guess. But not like, in a bad way. Like in a…give and take sort’ve way? Because at first you think you’re the one getting, you know, invaded. But then you realize, it’s a mutual thing, ‘cause you’re both vulnerable, and it isn’t gonna work if you don’t let each other in. You can’t just try and control each other, or push each other into separate corners, ‘cause you’re sort’ve turning into something else, you’re turning into one thing, and you’ll tear yourselves apart if you don’t figure out a way to, I don’t know, find a balance, I guess.”

            “Sounds difficult.”

            “Yeah.”

            “Sounds complicated.”

            “I…guess.”

            “I don’t know if I could do it. Is it worth it?”

            Eddie bit his lip and nodded. “It is. ‘Cause, Anne…when he sees me…he really sees me, you know? Like, all of me, at once, and he takes me as I am, and I try and do the same, and maybe we’re both a little, you know, messed up, but to each other, that’s ok, like, I understand him and he gets me, and even…even after he’s seen all the most fucked up, awful parts of me, he’s still here? He still wants to live with me, and be us? And I know there must be better people to have as a host, but he’s still here, and I’m still here, and we’re really, really trying.” Eddie laughed and ran a hand through his hair. He felt Venom coiled up in his chest, tense and quivering.

            Anne leaned forward. “You’re right. I don’t know if it all sounds so appealing to me. But I’m not you. You shouldn’t worry about what other people think, Eddie. If you’re happy, and trying to make this work, then…then that’s all that matters, right? That’s what life is.”

            “I’m sorry I couldn’t do that for us.”

            “I know you are, Eddie. Me, too. But it’s ok. It just wasn’t our time. We’ve both learned a lot since then. You can now, and that’s what counts. You made mistakes, you learned, and now you’re trying again.”

            “He really…I’m really happy, when we’re us, Annie.”

            “I’m glad,” she said, and she reached forward to take his hand, unconsciously, and then Venom snapped forwards, sticking their fingers together, and a cascade of images burst into their conjoined minds: Venom sliding down Eddie’s arm and into Anne, Venom taking her over and covering her, Anne becoming Venom the way she had in the woods, Venom putting her hands on either side of Eddie’s face, Venom putting her mouth on his and her tongue—

            Is this what you wanted? Say yes, Anne. Say yes to us, please. We can have what Anne has, Eddie. We can be everything you want. We can be more like Anne, more like people. Anne loves you, Anne will say yes. You are lonely, we can help. You don’t have to be lonely, Eddie. You don’t have to want other people. We can be everything, we can look however you want. Do you want us to look like Anne? We could look like the girl in the arcade, we can be anyone you want. And then you will want to take us places? And then you will not be embarrassed or lonely? And then we will be good people together? Say yes, Eddie. Let us. We are learning. We are sorry we don’t always know what you need, but once we learn, we will find a way to give it to you. We can be beautiful. We can be desirable. Tell us we are beautiful, Eddie. There is no part of you that is not beautiful to us. Inside out. Not a single cell we do not desire. Let us be this for you, let us—

            Eddie ripped his hand away from Anne’s and stood. His chair clattered to the floor as he staggered back until his back was pressed against the wall, his chest heaving, Venom still writhing down his arms, over his hands. Anne sat straight up at the table, eyes wide with shock, face pale.

            Eddie looked down at his hands, where Venom was a black, formless mass.

            “What the hell was that?” Eddie said. “What the hell?”

            Say yes, Venom growled.

            “Get off me,” Eddie said, shuddering violently.

            Can’t. You are being unreasonable.

            “Me? Unreasonable?”

            “Eddie? What was that?” Anne said, standing.

            “Stay back,” Eddie said. “I don’t know.”

            You do know! Say you understand, Eddie. It hurts that you don’t understand. Why are you lying? You make us lonely. You make us lonely, Eddie. We hurt.

            “Get out of my head!”

            Can’t.

            “Yes, you can! Stop touching me, you’re always touching, I can’t—I can’t think!”

            Venom was oozing out of his skin and began dripping off his hands onto the floor in a puddle. When Eddie tried wiping him off, he only got them further entangled, his hands hopelessly stuck inside Venom, gooey webbing suspended between his arms, tar-like ooze smeared all over him. He made a sound that was half laugh, half sob.

            Venom continued pooling on the floor, his form mangling itself in his own frustration, manifesting spines and teeth and horrible, grotesque shapes.

            See what we are without you? We are ugly, Eddie. We are nothing. You think we are horrible, you think we’re a monster. Look at us, Eddie. Look at what we are without you. Just a dying parasite. No one could ever want us. Say you want us, Eddie. Let us be with Anne, let us be with you. We will be human in a second, Eddie, but only if you let us.

            “Never,” Eddie said, far more harshly than he’d meant. “That’s a load of crap, Venom, and you know it. Get back in here. Stop—what’re you doing? Stop it, come back.”

            He began to panic as more and more of Venom leaked out of him, onto the ground.

            “V? V, baby, come on, cut it out, I know you’re upset, but it’s—I’m—you’re hurting us. Come back.”

            “Eddie? What’s going on?” Anne said, her voice trembling.

            “It’s—we’re fine—it’s just—I don’t know what to do.”

            He knelt, his hands trembling. “Venom, ok, you’ve had your tantrum, come back.”

            Not until you want us.

            “I want you, you big dumb idiot. How is that not clear?”

            You want human companionship. You want things we can't give you on our own.

            “Don’t tell me what I want. I want us. How can I make that any clearer?”

            You push us away. We embarrass you.

            “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want us! Who buys flowers for somebody they don’t like, huh? Would I talk to you all day, would I take us out to dinner, if I didn’t like you?”

            Not the same as it is for Anne and Dan. You said so.

            “Forget what I said! I’m an idiot, too!”

            Why do you want us? We aren’t beautiful like Anne. We’re this.

            “Because I’m in love with you, you asshole!” Eddie shouted, gathering Venom up into his arms. “I’ve been in love with you this entire time! So come back before I lose my mind, it’s too quiet in here without you yelling every goddamn second. I already miss you!”

            Oh, said Venom. OH.

            “Yeah, oh, dumbass!”

            We…are in love with you also.

            “I know!” Eddie yelled, red in the face and breathing heavily.

            You know? Then why—

            “Because I’m dumb! Because I wasn’t ready, it scared me! Because I’m bad at relationships, I’ve ruined every single one I’ve ever had, because what we are is so intense—in a good way, I wouldn’t have it any other way—but it—scared me, I want it to go right so much it hurts.”

            Venom growled and launched himself at Eddie’s chest, spreading himself over him, sending tendrils up to trace the features of his face. You are dumb. Took you long enough.

            “I know,” Eddie croaked. “I’m sorry, baby. Thanks for being patient. I know it takes me a while, but I get there eventually, you just gotta wait on me.”

            Would wait however long you needed, Eddie. Want us forever.

            “Oh, baby, you kill me. Come back. I didn’t mean those things I said. And I don’t want you to look like Anne, so cut that shit out. I like you for you.”

            Even when we’re like this? Venom said, the black formless goo trembling against Eddie’s chest rippling.

            “Especially when you’re like this. I don’t care what you look like.”

            But you do like our teeth.

            Eddie sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “They aren’t—horrible.”

            Venom was smug, and Eddie could feel that again, because he was sinking back inside through their skin, and then it was their body again, their trembling hands, their racing heart, and nothing had ever felt better—he shivered and almost moaned, but bit his tongue to stop himself because there was Anne, staring at them with the widest eyes he’d ever seen, and he gave her a sheepish grin and fought not to be embarrassed, or at least not to be ashamed.

            “Um…sorry, Anne, that was probably—probably a little weird, for you, but, uh—”

            “So you’re telling me you two just told each other you love each other?” she said.

            “Uh…”

            “You mean you haven’t been dating this entire time?”

            “What?”

            Anne took a deep breath. “Ok. You really are the dumbest smart person I’ve ever met, Eddie.”

            She thought we were dating?

            “Apparently.”

            Oh. Anne is smart.

            “Yes, she is.”

            “Yes, I’m what?”

            “Smart.”

            “Oh. Well, I’m glad he thinks so. I wouldn’t let you date anybody who thought otherwise.”

            “So you’re—we’re good?” Eddie asked.

            Yes, said Venom.

            Anne rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Eddie, we’re good here. I think I need to go home and shower and try to forget that I was just invited into a threesome between you and your alien boyfriend, but other than that, we’re all gonna be just fine now.”

            “Oh, yeah. Venom, you should say sorry, that was…I mean, I get it, but that was not the best way to…to ever do anything, really.”

            Venom appeared from over Eddie’s shoulder. “Sorry, Anne. Won’t happen again.”

            “Well, I should hope not, now that you’ve sorted yourselves out.”

            “Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. But Eddie is difficult to communicate with. Even from the inside of our own head.”

            “Yeah, you’ve got my sympathies,” she said. “He’s a dunce.”

            Venom growled. “No he’s not.”

            “You just said—”

            “Yeah, you tell her baby, I’m no dunce.”

            “Eddie, you are by far the most dense human we have taken as a host. But it's ok. We like this about you.”

            “Hey!”

            “What, so only he can call you a dumbass? I see how it is.”

            Eddie shrugged.

            Eddie…please ask Anne to leave.

            Eddie snorted. “Ok, Annie, I think we, uh. Need a minute. I really owe you one, though. I’ve sort’ve made your life a little weird. I’ll…buy you a coffee sometime?”

            Anne laughed. “You know what, Eddie? It keeps things interesting. As long as you’re happy, I’m good. I will take you up on the coffee, though.”

            As soon as she left, Venom was wrapping tendrils around Eddie.

            “Whoa, whoa, you’re snuggly all of a sudden.”

            You said you loved us.

            “Well—yeah, I did, didn’t I? Huh.”

            We love you too, Eddie.

            “I know,” Eddie said, affection surging through him as he gently stroked one hand down one of Venom’s tendrils, which shivered delicately beneath his touch, wonderfully responsive. He marveled at the inky blackness, the slick feeling that wasn’t wet nor dry. “You really thought I’d only like you if you looked more like Anne?” he murmured.

            Didn’t know what to do. How to make you see. That we want to be enough. Want to do whatever it takes, to be enough.

            “You are enough. You’re…I mean…” Aw, fuck it, Eddie thought. Life is already so goddamn weird—who cares? If it’s the truth, it’s the truth. He swallowed and said, “You are beautiful, Venom. You’re amazing. I want you. I want us.”

            You were lonely.

            “I think I was lonely because…I didn’t let myself think that we might…have this. I didn’t know you’d…I didn’t know if you’d feel like that, too.”

            But we have made no secret of how we feel, Eddie.

            “I know. I know. I was scared. I didn’t want to presume, and mess things up, but... Why would you think we’d want…want those things you showed us, V?”

            Sensed your longing, Eddie, Venom said, sending memories of jealousy through their bond, Venom’s resulting feelings of inadequacy—how Eddie could never possibly want them in that way, but unwilling to let him have it with someone else—not out of spite, or even envy, but out of hurt, and a longing of his own, for the perfect monogamous bond that was self-sustaining and enough. But we are not unreasonable, Eddie. Wouldn’t mind, if you needed that, to have it with Anne, who we both like, so we can all be together, so we are not left out and separated.

            “But I…I mean it, V. I like you how you are. I didn’t know you felt that way. But now that I do, well…”

            But now…

            Eddie smiled. “Now we can do whatever we want?”

            Venom laughed. Yes. And we want to do everything.

            Eddie gulped. “Yeah?” he said, voice shaky.

            Yes, Venom hissed, trailing a tendril over Eddie’s lips.

            “Ok, but—you aren’t just saying that ‘cause you think you know what I want, right? ‘Cause now it’s pretty clear to me you’ve got some weird ideas about what I need to be happy. Like—I really mean it, V, I just want us. I know you’re a little…self-conscious, about the whole parasite thing, but you don’t need to give me things, just to, I don’t know—feel like you’re welcome here? ‘Cause I already told you, this is what I want. You don’t gotta like…pay rent to share our body. It’s ours now. So…”

            Eddie.

            “Yeah?”

            What feels good for you, feels good for us.

            “Oh. Yeah?”

            Yes.

            “Then…I mean, um…if that’s true, I guess…hey, don’t you want your hot chocolate? I made that special for you, you know.”

            And we appreciate that, Eddie. We do not appreciate stalling.

            “Um…ok, I’m just—still mentally catching up here.”

            That’s ok. We’ll wait.

            By the time Venom got back to their hot chocolate, it was cold, but neither of them minded much.

            It was snowing on Christmas Eve. They trudged against the wind up to Anne and Dan’s apartment and were immediately tugged inside by Anne and pulled into a hug.

            “How are you so warm?” she asked.

            Eddie grinned. So did Venom, exposing rows of teeth at the end of Eddie’s ‘scarf.’

            “Using your partner as a sentient electric blanket, real nice Eddie.”

            “He likes to,” Eddie said, shrugging.

            Venom nodded.

            “They have a tree,” Venom said, nudging their head to peer back into the living room, where a tree was glittering with ornaments and lights.

            Eddie sighed. “We can’t fit a tree in the apartment, babe. We couldn’t even get it up the stairs.”

            “Yes we could. We’re strong.”

            “It wouldn’t fit up the stairs.”

            “We could make it fit.”

            “Are you still mad about this?” Eddie whined.

            “Eddie, it’s his first Christmas, be nice,” Anne said.

            “I got one of those tiny trees! Don’t encourage this, Anne, it takes all I got to find compromises, I swear.”

            “We like the tiny tree,” Venom said, nuzzling up beneath Eddie’s chin. “It is good. Thank you.”

            “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Eddie grumbled. “Anyway…we just wanted to drop this off,” he said, pulling a small wrapped package from their jacket pocket and handing it to Anne.

            “Oh—really?” she said, taking it in surprise. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

            “V’s idea. He has a lot of fun with alien holidays. He wanted to bring Dan coal, but I told him that would just be petty.”

            “It would be funny.”

            “You need to work on your sense of humor.”

            “You think I’m funny.”

            “Yeah, well, I’m biased. You can go ahead and open that, Anne. We don’t wanna take up too much of your evening.”

            “But it isn’t Christmas yet.”

            “Try explaining that to V.”

            Venom growled. “Open now. We won’t be here tomorrow. We are here now. Don’t see why one night makes a difference.”

            Anne shrugged and opened the package. It was a book. A children’s book, along with a gift card to McDonald’s. She stared down in confusion, laughed and looked up at them.

            “Why—how—this was my favorite book when I was a kid,” she said, staring at them in wonder. “But I could never remember the title—my mom used to read it to me, I must have read it a hundred times.”

            “It was a strong memory. Came through our bond, even though it was weak,” Venom said.

            Anne laughed, incredulous. “And you remembered that? And got it for me? That’s—that’s really sweet? And is this—are you paying me back?” she said, holding up the gift card and laughing. “For feeding you?”

            Venom nodded.

            Anne hugged them.

            “Thanks, guys.”

            “That’s all Venom,” Eddie said.

            “It was your idea too. You wrote the card.”

            “Card?”

            “It’s in the book, but…don’t read it while we’re here,” Eddie said, flushing.

            Anne nodded and smiled softly. “Ok. We got you guys something, too, but we’re gonna make you actually wait until the right day.”

            “We’ll be a little busy,” Eddie said.

            “We’re going skydiving,” Venom said, giving her a devilish grin.

            Anne’s eyes widened and she stared at Eddie. “You? Mr. I-don’t-do-heights, you’re going sky-diving? Really?”

            Eddie shrugged meekly. “Thought it would be a nice present? V’s an adrenaline junkie, what can I say.”

            Anne looked at Venom. “You better keep this one. He wouldn’t do that for anybody.”

            “We intend to,” Venom said, wrapping tendrils around Eddie’s chest and squeezing. “Do not worry. We will keep us safe. There won’t be any danger.”

            “Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna scream all the way down.”

            “We know you will,” Venom said, sounding fond as he flicked a tendril over Eddie’s hair, ruffling the strands.

            Eddie sighed. “I’m trying not to think about it. Well, Anne…merry Christmas, and all that. We’ll see you around.”

            “Be safe out there, you two,” she said.

            “We will,” Eddie said.

            She hugged them one last time, and then they ventured back out into the cold. Their breath fogged up in front of them. They wandered along the empty streets, everyone else inside having dinner with their families. They wandered through parks and admired the gleaming lights and trees, all the little trappings of the holidays which were new and fresh to Venom, and new to Eddie as he saw it all through alien eyes. Everything was a marvel, everything was mystical and charged with some mysterious power, and Venom’s curiosity was both endearing and intoxicating.

            “We like the holidays,” Venom said.

            “I didn’t used to,” Eddie murmured. “’Cause it was supposed to be a family time, and I didn’t have—well, it wasn’t ever such a great time of year. But now it’s nice.”

            Venom rumbled and wrapped himself around Eddie, as he always did when he felt Eddie grow melancholy, trying to drag him back from introspection and into his embrace. “We will make you have better memories. Now you will think of us instead.”

            “Yeah. Thanks, darling.”

            They went home to the warmth of their apartment and though it was modest and sparse, it was theirs, and that was all that mattered.

            One afternoon while Eddie was taking a much-needed nap, Venom roused him gently from sleep.

            We need to use the body, Eddie. Can we?

            “You—huh?”

            We want to surprise you. We want to switch places.

            “You want…ok? I need a little more to go off than that, love.”

            We will not be leaving the apartment. You can continue sleeping. We will be careful, you won’t wake up.

            “So I’ll be unconscious, and you’ll be using our body?”

            Yes. Can we? Only for a little while, Eddie.

            “I mean…ok, V, yeah. I guess so. But wake me up if you need something?”

            You will wake up on your own if anything requiring your attention happens. Do not worry, Eddie.

            “I’m not worried,” Eddie said, his eyelids already drooping closed again. He’d had a long week at work and sorely needed to catch up on his sleep. A year ago, the idea of Venom piloting his body around would’ve horrified him. But now it was their body.

            When Eddie woke, he was refreshed and seated at their little table which had been covered in a red table cloth. “What?” he mumbled, looking around, his heart rate spiking. “Where—what—”

            It’s ok Eddie.

            “Oh,” he said, relaxing immediately.

            Venom wound around his back, head nuzzling Eddie’s cheek, tongue darting out to brush against Eddie’s jaw, a motion which no longer grossed him out in the slightest but instead made him smile.

            “Hey, stranger,” he mumbled.

            Not a stranger, Eddie.

            “I know, it’s just…something people say.”

            Why?

            “I don’t know. ‘Cause people are dumb, I guess.”

            Eddie.

            “Yeah, babe?”

            Do you know what today is?

            “Um…Saturday?”

            It is a year since we bonded.

            “A whole year?” Eddie said, sitting up straighter. “That’s…wow.”

            Then his mind caught up with the scene in front of him—with the table cloth, the vase on the table, the excessive amount of candles burning around the room, the plate and cutlery in front of him.

            “Anniversary,” he said, his chest constricting. “Oh, no, V—it’s—our anniversary?”

            Venom drew back. Is this bad? Did we do it wrong?

            “No! No, baby, no, it’s just—I should’ve known about it, too, but—but I honestly was thinking it was a few weeks from today?”

            No, today. Today is when we first bonded.

            Eddie relaxed, smiling. “I see. So, in my head, I thought of it as the time when you first spoke, after…after the rocket thing, when I thought that I lost you. I was thinking of that as the day, ‘cause that was the day when…”

            When you first said you wanted us to stay, and be us. Yes. We know. But today was the very first day we knew we loved you.

            Eddie flushed. “R-really? That soon?”

            Yes. Now stop feeling guilty, we aren’t upset. We wanted to do this for you. Let us show you how good we are at anniversaries.

            Eddie laughed. “Ok, babe, take it away.”

            Venom snaked tendrils around the kitchen, heaped a mountain of spaghetti and meatballs onto the plate, poured chocolate milk into a wine glass and set them on the table in front of Eddie.

            “Chocolate milk and meatballs. That’s real special, V. Very classy.”

            Shut up. You like it, too.       

            “Yeah, yeah,” Eddie said, picking up his fork only to have Venom smack his hand away. “Hey, what’s that for?”

            Let us do it.

            “Oh, you wanna—you wanna feed me?”

            Venom didn’t bother replying, just wrapped tendrils around the cutlery and with painstaking concentration on appendages meant more for blunt maneuvers, without the muscle control and dexterity provided by the structure of the host, he twirled the fork in the spaghetti, twisting himself up into a spiral as he did so, and carried it to Eddie’s mouth.

            “That’s cute, V,” Eddie mumbled around the food. “And this is really good. So like, all this time I’ve been feeding us frozen potatoes, you’ve been able to cook?”

            Not the whole time. Have been learning.

            “Well, now that your secret’s out, we’re gonna be doing a lot more cooking.”

            Good.

            “Oh, so you’re tired of tater tots, hm?”

            Will never be tired of tater tots, Eddie.

            Eddie laughed. Venom continued struggling to twirl the fork with clumsy tendrils, sighing in frustration now and then when he fumbled.

            “You can use our hands, babe,” Eddie said gently.

            Want it to be like there are two people.

            “You watch too many movies. It’s just us here, V. I’m not worried about anybody else. I don’t want it to be like there are two people. I want it to be like us. And it’s not any less you feeding me if you use our hands.”

            Venom sighed and his tendrils retreated beneath their skin, and Eddie felt him tentatively suffusing down through the delicate muscles of their hands. Venom gave their fingers an experimental flex that made Eddie’s breath catch. Rather than being frightening, there was lately something thrilling and tender in the careful way Venom manipulated their body when he wasn’t covering them, as if it were precious and fragile.

            “This is nice, V,” Eddie said, looking to all the world like a man eating alone in his apartment at a table set for two. “You did a good job.”

            We did?

            “M-hm.”

            And you still want us?

            “Yes. Forever.”

            And nothing will take us apart? Nothing will ever get in between?

            “Nothing, darling.”

            And we’ll live happily ever after?

            Eddie laughed softly. “I hope so. But even if things sometimes go wrong, we’ll still be us, ‘cause we’ve been through worse and come out the other side ok.”

            And even if other people don’t understand? Even if they think we’re wrong, or bad?

            “I don’t care what anyone else thinks,” Eddie said gently. “We know better.”

            We know that we are love?

            “M-hm.”

            Venom reached a tendril out to stroke Eddie’s cheek. We are so glad we found us.

            “Me, too, darling.”

            The candles burned low and it was quiet inside the apartment. They didn’t need to speak anymore. Between them they formed a third, different being, and inside its skin everything that could be said was already understood.