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Sometimes, you just get an alien symbiote up your ass.
And you might not ask for it. It just— floop— goes right up your ass. Not a ‘can I come in?’ or a ‘please’ or ‘thank you.’ Nope. Just goes right in. Just makes you feel like a shit driven over by a truck that then got eaten by Satan and died. Makes you eat raw chicken from your trash. Raw lobsters from a tank. Raw heads from some guys sent by a psychopathic maniac evil scientist. Yep. Just makes you. He just does.
Just as he just decides he likes your planet. Just decides to help Eddie save it. Just decides to actually do it. And, at the very last moment, just decides to leave Eddie too.
Shit just happens. And never in his life has Eddie felt like he’s had any say in it.
So, a month later, when Eddie’s in his shithole of an apartment, trying to pretend all of that never happened (and failing miserably). It just makes sense for a very familiar, very deep and dark voice in his head to say:
Do we have tater tots?
And it just makes sense, because Eddie can’t control anything, that Eddie's knees give out beneath him, making him fall promptly to the floor.
Making him drop the entire, cooked chicken he was carrying to the table.
The chicken he was planning to eat by himself.
A whole chicken.
And suddenly that makes sense too.
“We don’t… have any tater tots,” Eddie says, after kneeling on the floor for what feels like an eternity. Next to the wasted chicken. Because fuck him sideways, the fucker never left.
“You fucking dumbass.”
It’s breathless, unbelieving. Almost mad, but not quite there. He feels Venom stir within him. Eddie feels him.
You’re a dumbass. Loser.
And yep. That’s… that’s Venom.
How in the fuck—
“Asshole”
A pause.
Puny human
“Dumb parasite”
Venom stays silent. That was really mean Eddie
And he sounds… honestly hurt.
Eddie can’t help it, he laughs.
~~~
Venom starts materializing out of Eddie’s body around four weeks after he first let Eddie know he was still there. Before that there wasn’t much talking, and Eddie assumed it was because Venom wasn’t strong enough for it. Sure enough, after their first taste of human brains, he was as good as new.
And that meant, well, inevitable conflict. Cultural, and otherwise.
Mostly, there’s a lot of talking.
Look Eddie. Every time you write, I get a pile of heads.
Eddie stops where he’s typing on his laptop, eyebrows furrowed. “What? Why would I do that?”
Because when you write I get bored
“So I should get you a pile of heads to compensate,” Eddie deadpans.
Eddie practically feels Venom pout. How that’s even possible, when Venom is inside of him, he doesn’t want to know.
Relationships are about compromise, Eddie, he says. All serious.
Eddie considers it.
“You get to watch Dr. Phil for an hour. Take it or leave it.”
Venom is silent. You cannot placate me with Doctor Phil The Bald Headed Man every time.
Eddie shrugs. “Sure I can”
More silence.
Two hours
“That’s my boy”
~~~
It’s weird, how easily they fall into a routine.
How quickly the unthinkable becomes normalcy for Eddie.
There’s the writing articles, Eddie’s show, Taco Tuesday, Mrs. Cheng, game night on Fridays, vigilanting at least three times a week, eating the heads of The Unworthy, the symbiote up his ass, Dr. Phil weekends, visiting Anne and Dan here and there, and, of course, the eating so many sweets it’s a wonder he hasn’t died of diabetes yet. Well, it’s not a wonder, it’s the Symbiote Up His Ass.
And it’s all so— normal.
So normal it’s irritating.
Eddie hasn’t jerked off in six months.
Hasn’t watched porn. Hasn’t gone on one date.
He hasn’t drank himself to sleep. He hasn’t felt like utter trash.
Now Eddie takes showers while a black head that’s connected to his body brushes his long, sharp teeth by the sink.
Now Eddie has a limping cat named Mister Guillermo, because the tiny feline shouldn’t stay in the rain. I promise not to eat him. And he deserves a worthy name. Like the tiny man from the Jimmy of the Kamel.
Now Eddie doesn’t smoke. Now he watches sitcoms.
Now he doesn’t think of Anne. He thinks of Venom.
And it’s irritating.
How normal it is that that is all there is.
~~~
It was stupid, he thinks now. How it all happened.
They were at Mrs. Cheng’s. And Venom was whining, because he always whines. And Eddie can’t remember why, or what about, but he couldn’t take it. He was fed up. He was irritated. And everything culminated with him screaming:
“Why can’t you just fucking leave!”
Mrs. Cheng’s customer looked at him in surprised, before scrabbling for her things and dipping out of the store. Mrs. Cheng just stared at him from the counter, eyes wide.
Venom was silent.
“Eddie,” Mrs. Cheng said. Like he had said something that personally offended her ancestors or some shit.
Eddie glared.
He took his groceries and put a hundred on the counter before storming out.
Venom was silent all the way home.
When Eddie woke up the next morning, Venom wasn’t there anymore.
~~~
Eddie hadn’t much felt Venom’s absence, back when he had thought him dead after Riot.
And he realizes now, that it was because Venom had never left.
He was always there, a solid presence within Eddie, even when Eddie hadn’t realized he was.
Eddie hadn’t felt his absence.
Now he did.
He thought about it, about getting up. Going through his day. About being normal again. He could masturbate without having to think about a thing inside him watching him. He could go for a smoke without having to hear a parasite complain about having to fix the damage Eddie was doing to his weak human body. He could write his article without dreading the two hours of Dr. Phil he would have to watch after. He could eat noodles like a normal person and not human heads.
Eddie could go on and live
a life without Venom.
Mister Guillermo jumps to his lap, limp and all, and snuggles close to Eddie. Purring. Eddie thinks about what the point is, of keeping something he didn’t choose to have in the first place.
And how could he, define himself around something he didn’t always have.
Something he might not always be.
His phone buzzes on the nightstand next to him. And Eddie’s
running.
~~~
“Eddie, I didn’t know what to do I—”
“Where is he?” The words come out all together, all rushed. Eddie’s panting, heaving. And he’s trying to look past Anne, past the doorway—
He sees a flurry of movement and he’s rushing inside, sidestepping Anne and going straight to the kitchen.
And Venom’s there. Devouring the contents of the refrigerator. As an entity separate from Eddie.
Eddie stops dead in his tracks.
“Eddie—” Anne’s by his side in an instant all worry and confusion. But he can’t really hear her. Because he’s looking at Venom, who’s noticed his presence and turned, looking at him right back.
“What are you doing here,” Eddie asks, voice low. He’s still panting.
“You told me to leave”
“And you left. Because you had to listen to me then. You don’t listen when I tell you not to feed the cat human meat. But you decided to listen about this,” Eddie says angrily. Venom stares at him, the picture of immaculate calmness. And Venom’s anything but calm. And the fact that he is now makes Eddie’s anger rise even more.
“You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to leave,” Eddie knows it’s stupid. Because he was the one who told him to. But he can’t stop. The words are just coming out. Like they’ve waited to be said for too long.
He takes a step closer. Pointing his index finger at Venom. “You come, and make my life more shit than it already is. And you fucking die and save the world for me without me even asking you to.”
Eddie takes a step forward.
“And you come back. With the cannibalism and the long ass dry spell and the ugly fucking cat and I- I’m drowning because. I don’t get a fucking say.”
Another.
“On anything. I don’t get a say on you. I don’t get a say on the fact that I’m- I’m not me anymore!”
Another step.
“I’m not me anymore if there’s no you!”
Another.
“And that’s bullshit. Because I existed before there was you, and I’ll keep existing without you. I’ll exist. But it’s bullshit!”
Another.
“ B-because, it wouldn’t be me. It wouldn’t be me, because I am Us. Even if I don’t want to be”
He stops right before Venom. He’s not looking at him in the eye.
“But I do. A-and I love Us. Even if I can’t control it. Control you. Control anything.”
He looks up.
“Even if I am nothing without you.”
And there. He said it all.
There’s silence. And Eddie has the vague recollection that Anne is somewhere behind him. And isn’t this awkward. Him professing his undying love for a gooey alien symbiote when the woman who was his fiancé months ago stands at close proximity.
Eddie couldn’t care less.
Maybe the embarrassment will kick in later. After all of this is sorted.
Venom looks down at him with big white eyes. Pointed, long teeth. And it’s weird, looking at him like this. With a body of his own. Not as a reflection or a bodiless head that stems from Eddie.
And there’s a tinge of something, jealousy, his dumbass brain supplies him unnecessarily. At seeing Venom in a body that’s not his.
“I won’t leave you Eddie,” Venom says, and he sounds soft. Softer than Eddie’s ever heard him sound. Eddie laughs, nerves down now that the said all of what he wanted to say.
“Well, you did.”
“Because you told me to, you idiot”
“Ha-ha, real funny. I won’t do it again, happy? Now hurry up and come back,” Eddie stands out a hand. Attempting to touch him.
Venom takes a step back.
Eddie stares at him.
“Venom,” he says. Trying to hide the nervousness in his voice.
But Venom ignores him.
“In my home planet, there’s no literature,” Venom says, looking at Eddie intensely.
“What?”
Eddie takes a step forward, brows furrowed, trying to reach him. Venom takes a step back again.
“We create no art, no music, no culture. Not as other civilizations would understand it.”
Venom just keeps staring at him, with those same intent, sharp eyes as he speaks. “All we have are our hosts, to forge through the unforgiving cosmos with. The bond between a Klyntar and its host is sacred. They give our lives context and our existence meaning. They give us History.”
Venom takes a step forward towards Eddie. And all Eddie can do is stand there, eyes wide. His heart is beating so fast he can hear it in his ears.
Venom places a cold, clawed hand on Eddie’s cheek. And some blackness is seeping into Eddie’s skin. But it's not enough. Not nearly.
“You’re my History Eddie. Because I want you to be. Because I chose you to be.”
He goes forward, pressing their foreheads together. And it’s cold, but Eddie closes his eyes anyway, breathing in deeply.
“I love you too. So I won’t leave you. If you don’t want me to.”
Eddie breathes out a laugh.
“That was way better than my speech”
“I am better than you”
“Parasite”
“Loser”
Then Eddie is hauling the monster down by the neck, without thinking, crashing their mouths together. And there is a lot less teeth than he thought there would be. And a lot more tongue than necessary. But it’s fine. It’s good. It’s perfect. And he tastes like Venom. And Eddie wants more and more. Until he feels like he’s falling. Like he’s drowning. Until there’s a familiar warmth inside of him and a limb weight falls on the floor with a dull thud.
We should do that more often, Venom says in his head. A satisfied hum on his skin.
Eddie just nods, because he’s breathing far too hard to talk.
“There’s a dead body in my kitchen,” Anne says, arms crossed on her chest.
Eddie looks down at his feet. And sure enough, a dead man lays there.
“Venom,” Eddie sighs. Because fuck, how could he forget about that. Of course Venom would kill the body he was inhabiting if he wasn’t compatible to it.
He was a bad man Eddie
“How bad?”
Didn’t leave a tip at the restaurant
Sometimes, you just get an alien symbiote up your ass.
And for the first time, Eddie has a say in his.
“Who the fuck are you, Hannibal Lecter?”
~ Fin ~
~ Epilogue~
That night, after everything's over with and Anne is in the comfort of her bed she says,
"We seriously need to step up our game"
Dan, who had been calmly reading a book next to her, unaware of his girlfriends musings, looks up and innocently asks. "What?"
Because some men don't know they've made the step of no return until it is, indeed, far too late.
Anne makes up her mind, turning to him. A determined look in her eye. "Is there a you without me Dan?"
Dan, the ever foolish fool says, "What?"
"I'm asking if you've ever felt like you are Us."
"Anne, what are you talking about?"
Anne's starting to look exasperated, like she's expecting something and Dan's eloquent answers aren't sufficient. And Dan, being a doctor, not smart, completely overlooks the way her demeanor switches from determined to completely intense.
"I'm saying," she begins slowly, like she's spelling it out for him. "if I'm the History that you chose, Dan."
Now, Dan might be slow on the uptake, but humans have survived this long because of something called instincts. And right now, they're telling Dan that he's threading on dangerous territory here.
He swallows.
"No, you're the precious present that I was destined to have."
Anne looks at him, nonplused.
"I think?"
That night, Dan sleeps on the couch.