Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Prologue: Setup

The first time they're separated it's by Dan, and it's relatively easy. Oh, it hurts. No doubt about that. But they'd only just bonded and that just barely on the surface level. Even with a perfect match it takes time and effort to make something that lasts, and while Venom had touched every cell in Eddie's body by that point it hadn't yet settled into his bones, let alone had Eddie reach back.

So when the noise comes and disrupts the symbiote's connection to its host -ripping its holdfast from the crevices of Eddie’s brain and displacing it into the burning air- the pain of the separation itself lasts only as long as the ejection to complete and neither receives any actual damage in the process.
The fight with Riot, removing Venom more bodily from its host, is similarly quick.

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Separation 1: Moving In

When you first move in with someone things can be simply divided. That’s his side, with his stuff, and that’s their side with theirs. It’s only the new stuff, the joint acquisitions meant to be accessed by the both of you together, where there’s a problem.

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Separation 1, Part 2: The Beach

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It wasn’t like forgetting a word, the shape of it on the tip of your tongue.

Nor was it like losing a memory, an absence that you might not even notice.

No, this was like a jagged, bleeding rent in your mind. Like driving to work only to have the whole city nuked before you arrive, burning you up from the inside out with an exquisite pain whose like you had had no idea was possible. Again and again your mind sent out ping after ping into the void, and again and again you received nothing but pain and confusion, and even that a ricochet from yourself and not a signal from the black. Eventually, after you had long passed any attempt at conscious thought, not even able to begin to conceive of such things as an end to this torture or even of the passing of time itself, the scattered army of neurons in your brain began finding surviving roads to travel.

You were Eddie Brock. You were confused and in pain. Most of which was in your head, but the rest of your body stung too, like all of your hairs being torn out but constant and everywhere.

You were lying on the cold ground, you couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of your head, and your mouth tasted of blood and – something. Something that was very distinct and you felt that you should know it easily but parsing it at all eluded you.

No one seems to be paying you any attention, so you move into a sitting position against the nearest wall you can find.

You’re outside; it’s dark, it’s loud, it smells strongly of salt, there are flashing lights. Everything is too much. You don’t remember where you are or why but you do have your phone and wallet.

The date on your phone doesn’t match what you think it should, and when you call your emergency contact (Dan? That’s Anne’s boyfriend, right?) he’s jovial until you mention you think you have a concussion, and then he’s asking frantic questions that don’t make any sense and promising that he’ll be there soon. He keeps mentioning someone called “Venom”, and that almost sounds like something that rings a bell. It brings up emotions, anyway, and while you wait you prod at that gap in your memories like a sore tooth.

By the time he and Anne arrive, having talked to you all the way, you’ve made some headway in that thinking about it doesn’t bring you back to your knees with pain. What they’re saying is completely insane, but fills in enough gaps that your brain is starting to bridge to some actual memories. You remember the Life Foundation, you remember what happened to Maria and you remember a confused jumble of things from what you’re told are the next few days. Everything else is patchwork at best, but your friends are there for you as you start searching for your missing half.

When you stop for a bite to eat, your apparent usual of two helpings of potatoes and four of the rarest meat on the menu ends in a violent bout of nausea and vomiting. Dan speculates that your stomach isn’t actually used to eating large quantities, that the symbiote does most or all of the digesting for you both.

You end up finishing his take-home box of salad instead, with the assumption that they’d be more likely to let your digestive system keep those.

You eventually find V in an octopus on the beach, having fled into the water to dampen the sound of the fireworks that some jerk with a yacht had decided would be an appropriate accompaniment to what had been a pleasant September evening visiting the docks. You all return home tired and abused and incredibly thankful that it had been an accident and not a purposeful attack.

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Separation 2: Setup

The next time they aren't so lucky.

They next time they're seperated, Eddie and V had been together for two years. That was plenty enough time to have physically, mentally, and emotionally integrated; baggage physiological and psychological alike all up in eachothers’ spaces and strewn somewhat haphazardly between the two of them and back and forth over the dimensional bridge that, when cut, left all those new joint connections severed.

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Separation 2, Part 1: Waking Up

You wake on something soft, the full-body aching bringing back a vague sense of familiarity but not much else.

You’re Eddie Brock, you remember that much, and when your head stops pounding maybe you’ll remember where you are, too.

It looks like a hospital room, maybe? But if so it’s stripped down even from that; no windows and only a few pieces of equipment. Too expensive to be military and too professional for a school nurse.

You try to raise your hand to shield your eyes from the harsh fluorescent lighting, but find that you can barely lift it from the sheet covering you. The rest of you feels rather disconnected and tingly, like if the pins-and-needles static from a sleeping limb was less sharp and painful and more of a background fuzz, making it difficult to tell what else you can feel. It’s interfering with your other senses too, and everything looks hazy and vague with noise.

A door swings open and a woman comes in, wearing a uniform you can’t identify. “Mr. Brock.” She says. And also some other stuff that you’re honestly having trouble understanding over your headache, made worse by the light and the noise of her talking. This isn’t all that out of the ordinary for you, if more severe than usual, but for some reason you feel like it had gotten better recently even if the specifics of that impression elude you. Anyway, you think she’s saying something about them saving you from… something. An abduction, maybe? You make listening noises and figure you’ll learn more later, since she’s implying that they’re going to keep you under observation for a bit. Probably because of whatever’s wrong with your head and body? You feel like you should be more worried about… everything than you are but right now nothing really feels... real, and you’re honestly having trouble keeping conscious.

At some point the woman  leaves   and             you       
                                                                                            drift.

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Separation 2, Part 2: Recovery

Recovery is a lot of hurry up and wait.

You get fed bland and unoffensive soups, of the sort found in hospitals and cafeterias everywhere, that nonetheless make your stomach roil. For entertainment you have sports reruns, crosswords, and someone’s mp3 player they had enough pity to let you borrow.

Twice a day the uniform takes you out to ask you questions, and twice a day a nurse comes in to look you over and run you through a battery of physical tests. At less regular intervals you are subject to a variety of medical exams as they sort through what was done to you.

They also give you a journal and a pen, which you use to record what little you remember and any new information you’re given, because while the pain faded within the first day, the brain fog and memory problems are more stubborn.

This is made abundantly clear each time you are questioned.

The officer – Campbell – gives you a growing list of probing questions, starting light with things like your name and what year it was, but getting broader and more insistent as you go on. You’d be clamming up and demanding a lawyer if what the questioning was revealing wasn’t so disturbing. Whatever your captor had done to you – and the woman isn’t letting anything slip about that despite your best attempts – it had done more damage than they thought. It’s not just your memories of the time you spent under their thrall that were effected, there’s gaps and fuzziness going back decades.

Some other stuff is shot, too. You keep trying to grab things – a cup, a door handle – only to realize that you haven’t even moved your arm. Your sense of smell seems to have gone a bit nuts; you keep getting whiffs of things that no one else notices, some of which you can’t even begin to describe, and you wonder how many wires must be crossed in your head.

Your heartrate quickens when they give you your personal effects, then falls when you catch sight of your phone. It’s dented, scratched. It has a rugged protective case the colour of a starry night sky and a sticker of a Hershey’s kiss on the back.

You don’t recognize it.

It’s password locked, and you wrack your brain for any hint of meaning. Your alma mater? Your birthdate? The stupid nickname you had when you were a kid? Something to do with chocolate? You make a list of the most likely, narrow it down with gut instinct, and give it a shot.

You stop when it tells you you’ve only got one guess left.

Put it carefully with your shoes and wallet.

Maybe someday you’ll remember.

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Separation 2, Part 3: Rescuers

You learn more about your rescuers. You gather they’re a paramilitary organization; independent contractors, who specialize in unique situations. They’re secretive enough that you don’t get much other than that, and they’re especially tight-lipped about your case, but since the personnel seem to be genuinely enthusiastic about rescuing you and helping people your hackles aren’t raised too much about that.

You learn the most from Alex “Big fan of your show” the physiotherapist.

You didn’t even know you had a show.

They show it to you and, yes, that’s your face. Saying things you don’t remember but sound like something you would say. You DO remember being a reporter, at least, so you’re glad that still matches.

You’ve been worried about how you were going to be able to afford the inevitable bills from this extended medical stay, and you’re hopeful that the show means you’ve got a good source of income to cover it until Alex informs you that it crashed and burned just like you did in New York. Just like you vaguely remember doing to … some relationship or other. A girlfriend, maybe? Not that they said so in so many words, but you’re an investigative reporter – holes or not – and you can read between the lines.

You wonder if it’s even worth trying to remember, if there’s anything in your life of value to recover.

You won’t find out unless you try.

Chapter Text

Separation 2, Part 4: Hope

It’s been a couple of months and your physical therapy is going well.

You can walk, run, and lift a weight at what the nurses say is probably near your normal levels. You’re still having some difficulties speaking clearly, but you think you remember that being a thing before, especially when you were stressed. And you can’t really say that this hospital stay is relaxing, boring as it might be.

More excitingly, you’re starting to remember more. Not much, but every now and then you know the answer to some of the questions that you’d failed before, and you’re elated because even occasional successes like that mean that you’re healing, that you’re going to recover. That at some point you can get out of here and get your life back.

It is with renewed vigor that you pore over the news, trying to reacquaint yourself with a life and world that you are still sadly out of date with. You follow with equal intensity local and global news, but you spend much longer consuming and re-consuming every tidbit that you can about yourself that you can find. Alex’s a great help there, as some of your content is paywalled and you don’t exactly have the credentials to bypass it right now. Turns out your highschool password’s out of date here too; who knew? You must have kept up with cybersecurity you guess, which you suppose is probably a good thing even if it’s kicking you right in the ass right now. Anyway, point is Alex is enough of a fan to have specifically sought out your videos and articles in the past, and still has valid logins that they’re willing to let you use.

Well, so long as they’re there to supervise. Wouldn’t want you stealing his identity or anything, and your reputation is a bit too strong to be able to convince them that you’re not going to do any snooping if left to your own devices.

And hey, if that means that they get to spend their lunchbreak reviewing your greatest hits and snarking with you about whatever comes to mind, well that’s just a bonus.

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Separation 2, Part 5: NDA

Now that getting back out into the world was back on the table, you have some new things to worry about. Namely, money. You don’t know what your finances will be like when you’re able to get to a bank and get an actual look at them, but seeing as you’ve never been particularly good with money you wouldn’t put odds on them being great. And unfortunately your absence from whatever gainful employment you might have is is definitely going to make things worse. Not to mention how lucky you’ll be if you find out where you were living and have it still be there with all your stuff when you returned. A lot of landlords would just toss that stuff out on the curb, after all.

And then there were the medical bills. Or, presumably there would be. You don’t know what kind of price range this pseudo-military operation is going to be running you for, but it can’t be cheap. You’re honestly running yourself a little ragged thinking about it.

Which is why it is such a mixed blessing when you are next called into Campbell’s office and instead of being met with the usual round of questioning you instead find a stack of forms to go through.

They are, you’re told, willing to waive any and all fees incurred by your stay on one condition – You have to sign an NDA. And not just any NDA; this particular non-disclosure agreement would prevent you from talking about any part of your abduction and captivity at all, in addition to your recovery and any details of the organization that you had gleaned while in their care.

Which leaves you in a predicament.

On the one hand, this is a godsend. You don’t need to roll the dice on your finances and future before you even get a chance to peek at your bottom line, and while you obviously weren’t earning any money for the duration of your stay, neither were you spending any like you otherwise would have had to if it were just a break in employment. Other than whatever housing situation is waiting for you and silently draining your dollars in the background, these past months won’t cost you a bit.

On the other hand, it also means that you can’t really get any insurance up in here. There’s no way they’d take “uh yeah, so I disappeared mysteriously and developed a brain injury under circumstances I cannot discuss and I can’t even give you a reference to someone who will back me up on that” as any reason for a payout, assuming that you even have any kind of health insurance in the first place; and forget about unemployment. Disappearing off the face of the earth is not what most people would call an unreasonable cause for termination in one’s absence.

And of course, there’s another angle too. Because no matter how grateful you are for everything they’ve done for you, this NDA? That’s setting your journalistic instincts to sniffing. Hard.

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Separation 2, Part 6: Signed

…

You sign it.

Of course you sign it.

It might go against your instincts, but with so many unknown factors up in the air you just can’t take that gamble.

You’re not stupid, though, and you’re nothing if not stubborn, so you gather all your remaining wits and guiles and manage to bargain yourself up a few extra terms in your favour. Continued medical checkups and care, for one, since they will have the best idea of what happened to you and how to fix it, especially with the NDA in place. And both a paper trail for that and a cover story for everything so you’re not left holding the ball when all is said and done. One that’s their responsibility to make up and fabricate corroboration for, but that you get the final approval on. And the pièce de résistance: if and when they are ready for the news of your kidnapping and related stories to drop, you get to revisit and more importantly renegotiate that NDA to get the gag order lifted enough to be able to talk about the experience, and even better you get first dibs on breaking the story yourself.

It’s a good deal if you do say so yourself.

Too good.

Much too good.

It made the only places they wouldn’t budge even more obvious: information about the organization and anything you see or hear within these walls. And what actually happened to you before your rescue.

It’s hugely suspicious. Especially since you have yet to see anything even remotely objectionable or secretive-looking. Not that you’ve seen much of your surroundings, being confined to the medical wing as you are, but still. It was a lot of secrecy for a rescue op. And that, too, was odd now that you’re thinking about it. You have been assuming that this is some kind of quasi-governmental special ops unit, or maybe some kind of mercenary group. But in hindsight, you haven’t seen much in the way of identifying or branding information like you’d expect from the latter, nor the stringent attitude characteristic of the former, aside from Officer Campbell herself.

And what was either doing rescuing someone from a kidnapping, anyway? Unless maybe the rescue was incidental? Or high-profile? Were you perhaps reporting abroad or otherwise poking your nose into something dangerous and high-stakes when you were grabbed, and they just happened upon you while pursuing the kidnappers themselves for completely different reasons? If you were actively reporting in a war zone or something and got captured and made into a POW, you’d expect it to be more high-profile and immediately publicized – the rescue at least if not the kidnapping – unless it was under less than savory circumstances or if the news getting out would compromise some important secret operation.

Well, regardless. The papers had been amended and signed by both parties, and you’re bound to secrecy for the time being.

Not that you’re above breaking your word should the circumstances call for it; whether the information was just too dangerous to keep secret, or you uncovered a great injustice along the line...

It would be an even bigger gamble than signing had been in the first place; you’d be sacrificing your newly-won medical benefits at the very least, and the penalties for breaking the NDA were doosies, but hopefully you’d go into it knowing a few more variables than you did this time.

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Separation 2, Part 7: Nightmares

It’s Alex who cracks and gives you your first break in the case, cluing you in to just how much you’re misunderstanding your situation. Not that they mean to, of course. But loose lips were always a useful ally in an investigation and this is no different for not being an intentional one. Until now that is, because as soon as the words pass their lips your attention is drawn to a laser focus.

“Say that again,” you say.

They do so with a puzzled frown, and then a growing apprehension as they realize what they’ve let slip.

They try to backtrack, but you know what you heard and even in your weakened state you’re nothing if not persuasive, and soon enough they cave.

“I said it’s too bad that you can’t report on this, because imagine you breaking the news that aliens exist.”

An alien. Not a mobster, not drugdealers with some new brain-melting cocktail, not terrorists or guerilla war fighters, you’d been kidnapped by an alien. And not just kidnapped, it sounds like; parasitized. Stolen and taken over and maybe starting to digest by some big gooey monstrosity from beyond the stars like some cheap B-movie script. Invasion of the body snatchers or some shit.

You couldn’t help but shudder. If these people hadn’t rescued you you’d be dead meat right about now. Emphasis on meat since apparently what had them tracking this thing down in the first place, aside from the monster sightings, was the subtle but persistent trail of missing persons in the area and a couple of large, glaring massacres full of headless corpses.

Put that together with your scrambled brain and it painted a pretty grim picture.

You promise Alex that this doesn’t change your position with respect to the NDA. You’re not going to tattle on the people who rescued you from a monster. What good would that even do the world, let alone why would anyone even believe you?

No, you’re not going to spread the news. But as you lie awake that night you just can’t let it go. You might not do an exposé on this thing, but it will haunt you for the rest of your life.

Over the next week you dream of nothing but the screaming horror of being eaten alive, of standing by helplessly as this thing, whatever it was, ate all of your loved ones – faceless as that idea might be at the moment. Of knowing that nothing you could do could keep you safe from it, an unseen terror that could be right under your skin before you even know it.

You wake to hoarse throats and crawling skin and joints aching from struggling in your sleep. This is only furthered as your tests results stop improving, as you strain again to clench a ball and swing your legs. Alex is is worried that if this goes on, if you can’t rest soundly, that you’ll start to deteriorate. They’ll sedate you if that goes on too long, but they express worries about how that will interact with… everything that happened to you, since alien posession is quite frankly out of their experience and they’ve all been playing it by ear, really.

You decide that this is untenable. Something has to change. And there’s one thing that you think will either shock you out of it or prove you to be a lost cause, but will at the very least will give your violation and your nightmares a face to rage against.

You have to see it.

They have to let you see it.

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Separation 2, Part 8: Permission

It takes some wheedling; and maybe a bit of playing up your weakness, you admit; but you get Alex to agree to take your request to their supervisors. After that, they say it’s out of their hands and you can’t get a peep out of them on the subject.

For three whole days.

For three days you wait with hope and trepidation.

On the one hand, you HAVE to see it. You have to know what it was that took you. That almost cost you your life. You have to see it, confront it, put a name and a face to your fear, even if it turns out to be as terrifying to look at as it is in your imagination. To make it a concrete fear of a living creature you can fight, can lock up just like the people here have done, rather than the nebulous monster that could defy all laws of physics for all you know, could be hiding anywhere at any time, and even if you spotted it you wouldn’t know what you were looking at.

On the other hand, what if this makes things worse? What if instead of allaying your fears it ramps them up, gives them something solid to fixate on.

But-

Well...

Well.

You won’t know until you try.

On the fourth day Alex brings you to the interrogation room, where you find Campbell waiting for you with yet more papers. She tells you that she wouldn’t have even considered it if it weren’t for Alex’s vote of confidence. That they’re a good judge of character, and she trusts their judgment enough to forward your request up the chain. The organization does important work here to keep the public safe, she says; but if Alex assures her that you won’t jeopardize that, then she will take them at their word. Emphasizes that their faith in you had better not be misplaced, and not just for your own sake.

The papers, she tells you, are to cover all the other bases. Blah blah liability insurance, blah blah extra security. Normally you’d pay more intention, but you are thoroughly overwhelmed by stress and it’s all just turning into noise and light and you can feel the migraine building behind your eyes. The papers are much the same, so you don’t even bother trying to read them and just sign on the dotted lines and force yourself to look her in the eyes as you mumble your agreements and assurances.

You’re grateful that they’re going to have to wait for a few days to get the extra security set up for you to see this thing, because you know that it would be impossible to take anything more in in the state you’re in; you don’t want to embarrass yourself with a meltdown after insisting that this will actually improve your recovery.

The wait gives you time to recharge. To prepare.

You make a list of the things you are going to say to this thing when you see it.

Doesn’t really matter whether it talks back or even understands, you just need to yell a bit about all of the life you’ve lost, of how much work you’re going to have to spend to try to get yourself back into working order, about the memories that have probably been burnt straight out of your brain.

You’re looking forward to the catharsis, even as you boil and sweat in your own frustration, penmanship clumsy enough to leave the paper full of smudges and holes, but legible enough to do.

You still can’t sleep at night, but at least it is from anticipation and a too-active brain this time. You can do without the nightmares.

Facing the real thing will be hard enough.

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Separation 2, Part 9: On Guard

The day comes both agonizingly slowly and far too soon. Long enough for you to exhaust your brain writing notes and then from there to work yourself into a nervous frenzy, but not nearly enough time for you to exhaust any of that panic or come to terms with what's going to be happening, with what you're about to face.

You are absolutely not ready.

Still, at last, the time does indeed come.

You've been walked through the procedure by now, so when you finish your morning exercises and Alex bundles you up and wheels you out of your room, you know what to expect. Not that it stops you from going straight from exhausted arm stretches to tight as a live wire with anticipatory nerves as you roll out to one last meeting with Campbell, who rattles out one last liability warning while introducing you to the two guards who will accompany you through the facility.

Supposedly they are for your protection, but you get the feeling that they're there as much to keep you from doing anything stupid as any concern for your health.

Well, stupider than what you've already cleared with her - the yelling and all that.

They're young, too.

You bet babysitting brain-damaged reporters isn't a duty that requires a lot of experience or training.

It seems that Campbell has more important things to do than accompany you, as she peels off from the group shortly after you finish your last briefing and start moving again, leaving you with Just Alex's humming, the squeaking of your left wheel, and the tromping of the recruits preceding you.

As you roll down the halls, you notice the guard on your left twitching a bit. Not that you can judge; you're a bundle of nervous tics yourself right now. But it makes you think that it's going to be his first time seeing this thing too. (The alternative, that he's this scared BECAUSE  he's seen it before and it's just that horrifying, is not a though that you're willing  to indulge right now)

You're not sure if you're more comforted by the solidarity or worried about his inexperience, but either way you don't have enough time to decide before you've arrived.

You've passed several people in labcoats headed the other way, and there are more on their way out, and maybe it's just break time or shift's end, but you're thinking that maybe they're clearing out just to give you a chance to look at this thing. So you have privacy? So you don't see anything proprietary? Because your presence would hinder their research? Hell if you know. You refuse to feel bad about it either way. You were kidnapped, possessed, almost eaten. You deserve whatever accommodations you can get. 

Besides, you've never heard of an egghead who didn't need a break from work. You get to face your fears, they get an extra snack break. It's win/win.

And, sure, you might be trying to distract yourself with thoughts of union-mandated breaks instead of focusing on what might be in the room you are currently being wheeled into and refusing to get a good look at, but that's in the privacy of your own head and while you might have lost a lot of your dignity over the past few months with hospital gowns and monitored bathroom breaks, your own thoughts at least are yours alone.

What's left of them.

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Separation 2, Part 10: The Tank

In any case, you don't have much time to ponder as you're rolled to a gentle stop and Alex starts introducing you to someone. A Doctor Rose, who is the lead researcher for this case.  You finally raise your head to look around as she walks you through the room you're in. Well, guides, as you're still seated for now. You're okay with some standing, and you've got a pair of crutches on hand if you need it, but it's much easier to use the wheelchair and you're planning to save your strength for the actual alien encounter.

The room is split into sections. To your left are tables, beakers, and lab equipment. Some of which is being packed up by the final stragglers of the scientist exodus. To your right is a bank of screens and monitoring equipment. 

And.

Ahead...

You're grateful to see that the lab already comes with its own guard complement to supplement your own. That at least is a balm to your worries about the inexperience of your own guards.

But it's only a momentary distraction from the tank. 

Dr Rose must sense your obvious trepidation. You're not sure if it's the sweating or if your eyes are just that wide, but she takes it slow and doesn't motion Alex to bring you forward as she tells you all about the setup and what data they're trying to get.

They've got an impressive array of sensors going it sounds like, or at least Dr Rose is very proud of it all. A team of people working around the clock to get and crunch as much data as they can. They have to work quickly, and thoroughly, since they don't know where this thing came from or what its actual needs are. They're working under the assumption that they only have one shot at this.

Eventually, you have to look. 

You're still not sure you're ready. But you're kind of in the same boat as the researchers are. This is your only shot. You can't waste it.

It takes a while, but with some encouragement from Alex and the knowledge that you're also keeping Dr Rose and waiting and delaying all of the very important science they're doing, you're able to pry your gaze off of your own trembling hands and to the waiting tank.

There.

In the middle.

Is...

A mouse.

This is more than a little anticlimactic, but the Doctor takes your silence as a hint to continue her explanation and you might as well let her as your brain catches up with what you're seeing.

Apparently they were trying to do their best to give it a naturalistic environment, for the mouse's sake as well as to observe the alien's natural behaviours if possible. The tank is roomy, with a bunch of plants and hidey holes and a maze of tubes and shit. One-way glass so you're not disturbing them with your staring. Everything a mouse could ask for. Mouse heaven, except for the lack of company. That, you're told, they're keeping in a separated area off to the side, though the two could be connected by a tube. And originally they were; they were planning to keep both the alien host and the normal mice together, to observe any changes to the mouse's social behaviours and how the creature interacted with them.

That idea didn't last very long. Had to be scrapped when it ate all the other mice available to it. They still have to keep the mice nearby and ready though. The hosts sicken and die quickly, though less so than they had before it had gone on its mouse binge. The speed of degradation was inconsistent, and they were trying to pinpoint the cause so that they could get the hosts to last longer. This latest mouse had lasted longer than half the other mice combined, and they were debating whether it would be worth it to reintroduce prey mice in the hopes of prolonging its life, or perhaps encourage it to switch to a different host and let the good one recuperate. From its vitals, it wouldn't last much longer at the current rate.

It just hilights how lucky you were that they had found you when they did. Who knows how long you had had before you were all used up.

In any case, they're doing their best to keep up with the regulations regarding the treatment of animals in science, and while they are determined to learn everything about this creature that they can, they aren't going to simply cut corners. Which means basic care for the alien too, to cover their bases.

And they can't get sloppy on the protection measures for themselves, either. Stopping it from getting out or hurting anyone is their number one priority. To that end, there are secondary sealable containers underneath all areas of the tank, accessible to the creature through a grating that the mouse will be unable to pass, and full of a heavy gas. Whenever the tank needs maintenance, or if there is ever a security problem or they need to access the mouse itself, they have a button they can push to emit a noise that is damaging to the creature and causes it to eject from the host (this is,they tell you, similar to the method they used to get it out of you). The alien finds normal air toxic, or at least unpleasant, so it then flees to the nearest container, where it can be sealed and removed from the system as needed.

And of course everything is made out of damage-resistant materials and the air is circulated on a 15-minute cycle to prevent blah blah blah-

You've heard enough.

"Do it."

"I'm sorry?"

"Do. It. Press the button."

If you're going to face this thing it's going to be mano-a-mano. You're not going to get any kind of catharsis yelling at a mouse.

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Separation 2, Part 11: Sonic Assault

Dr Rose doesn't seem impressed by your request, but Alex has your back. If they're going through all this trouble anyway, they're going to make sure it works. That you've seen what you need to see to lay this all to rest.

Ear protection gets passed around and honestly you're kind of grateful for that since you plan to make some noise of your own. Neither Dr Rose nor the guards, not even twitchy over there, need to be privy to whatever you're going to be shouting in the heat of the moment; though you suppose Alex gets a bit of a pass since they're your doctor and all.

Either way, you're pretty sure you' re not going to be sticking to your nice, tidy little script, the one still clutched tightly between your sweaty palms. Doesn't seem like your style; neither from what little you can recall from your life, nor from what you have more recently gleaned from the absolutely surreal experience of watching youself dive into an obviously unscripted and unexpected rant mid-interview on your show, when you didn't even remember you Had a show in the first place, let alone the particulars of the subjects and facts involved. You could see that you were passionate; righteous, even.

But none of the names or events mentioned brought more than an unrelated flicker to mind.

You slip the earcans on and the world goes blessedly muffled and quiet. Dr Rose makes her way to the bank of equipment to your left, and flicks a switch. A countdown appears in warning orange, hidden from the tank but giving anyone in the rest of the room time to brace for impact.

At 4 it starts flashing.

3.

2.

1-you are immediately blasted with a wave of sound so potent that you can feel it in your bones, and you have never been so glad for safety protocols and protective devices.

The mouse, or perhaps it's occupant, is not so lucky.

It scrabbles and convulses, writhing and clawing at its face in agony. You barely have time to feel bad for the poor host before it straight up bursts; thick, tarry globs of bubbling black gore splattering against the tube walls. You can feel your heart beating heavily in your chest. And from more than just disgust.

It's just a mouse but

That could have been you.

It's only when you notice that the substance is looking less like it's at a roiling boil like a heated acid or maybe twitching like the last desperate writhing of a mouse's everted organs and more like the chaotic but deliberate movement of an amoeba or slime mold making it's slow but sure way to the grate, while the lump of dead meat that you had assumed the mouse had become miraculously began rising and wobbling off in the other direction, that you realize that the oozing black muck isn't the mouse's own horribly rotted insides but the same awful creature that had infested you both.

That...

That.

Is The THING.

That DID THIS TO YOU!

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Seperation 2, Part 12: Cathartic Yelling

That putrid, oozing, noxious sack of shit ruined your life!

You don't remember getting up out of the chair, but you must have at some point because soon you're slamming your hand againt the glass with all the force of your anger unleashed and yelling obsenities at the top of your lungs.

All the work you've put into your pysiotherapy, and you're still wobbly on your feet but it's worth the pain and the potential setbacks for the sheer fucking relief of being able to unload all your hatred and worries and insecurities onto the hideous monster that invaded your mind and body and left you so horribly, desperately broken and weak. That hollowed you out and ate massive chunks of your life like taking a magnet to a computer, like shredding a manuscript, like your years on this Earth were worth nothing more than an appetizer before it left you just another breadcrumb in the trail of bodies that led to your unlikely rescue.

You don't know how long you stand there, screaming. Long enough for your voice to go hoarse and your mouth to go dry and your legs to be on the verge of collapse, barely holding yourself up by your clenched fist where it has smudged the glass between you and the living nightmare in front of you.

You only know in retrospect, that it couldn't have been more than 10 minutes.

The sound had blared only briefly, Dr Rose not wanting to cause more damage than necessary to such a unique specimen, and since it had stopped the thing had crept back up to where you assume the line between oxygen and the heavier gas was, risking only a few small tendrils with scouting up into the lighter atmosphere where you presume it was going to try to lay in wait, to snag the mouse again the next time it went past.

You say 'was' because all at once, as your voice and legs are flagging from your invective and your tirade is coming to an inevitable pause, if not an end, there is a marked change in the thing's behaviour.

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Seperation 2, Part 13: With a Bang

The undulating mass goes stiff for just a moment, only the oxygenated tendrils still writhing through the air... and then it Explodes into action and movement sprouting a proliferation of questing searching undulating limbs and then swarming up past the grate heedless of the toxic atmosphere as it searched rabidly through the tubes available to it.

When it hit and engulfed the mouse, you thought that was it.

The half cup of living sludge absorbs back into the terrified rodent, and for a moment you think that it's over. That you've witnessed what you needed to. Hosted again and safe from the air, or whatever drives the alien thing. Fine; you've seen enough of the little monster. It was horrible, but you could be satisfied with this. Knowing what was out there in the dark. You could move on. Get on with what's left of your life. Take what scraps you have left and rebuild yourself to continue into a future of your own making.

A new leaf, a new chapter, a new you.

But then it started to go even more horribly wrong.

The mouse bulged grotesquely, more of the parasitic mass emerging from its flesh than could possibly have fit inside; more by far than the pitiful handful of it that had been wriggling through the tank. It bubbled dug and and crawled out from the mouse and coated every surface until it was a bloated inverted parody of the original, dwarfing its cage and baring a jaw packed to bursting with teeth that ranged from icepick to butcher's knife.

And that tongue. Too long by far and as dextrous as a snake, lashing violently through the air.

You freeze. Deer in headlights. Instinctive. Prey.

You realize your mistake.You'd been lulled into a false complacency in this professional facility with its guards and it's medics and it's specialists who had taken this thing down and put it ever so humbled into a creature you could crush without a thought, into a glass cage to be studied like a tamed thing, defanged and helpless to your whims and your rage, tables turned in your favour and you had been angry, yes. Livid, and full of righteousness and superiority and the full and true and damning belief that you were safe.

You werent feeling superior now.

This was no tamed monstrosity. This was a threat. A real, immediate danger to you and everyone around you. This was a predator scenting the wind and crouching for the leap, deer in its sights. Its blind, shimmering gaze easily penetrated the reinforced glass that you suddenly had absolutely zero faith in, and its hypnotic stare was locked directly.

on.

you.

It leapt, claws outstretched, and your tense muscles prepared to launch you to the ground or turn you towards the exit or raise your arms in protection or cower in fear or you don't even know what but before the dice on those odds even have a chance to fall several things happen in such rapid succession that you will never be sure of their order.

The creature hurls itself at the glass, claws first

You hear a bang, loud enough to be heard even through the ear protection.

Something whizzes by your ear.

Your vision goes white

You're falling-

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Separation 2, Part 14: Memory

The next thing you know you're on the floor... looking at a room in chaos of an unexpected flavor.

Instead of a blood splattered lab filled with debris and gore that spoke of the escape of a deadly alien monstrosity, you're greeted with the sight of a swarm of people - mostly uniformed and armed and angry - filling the room with buzzing furvor; it's tense, electric, and you don't need to be a reporter to see the storm of energy is centered around one individual.

Twitchy. Your guard.

And from there the mystery unravels to your detective of a brain a hair trigger, a false alarm, the creature still contained with only a bit of scratched glass; no casualties.

Your racing heart slows. Bit by bit. Even as you become aware of a sensation that you know means that you will have to correct that last claim: a slow, wet, warm trickle that can only mean one thing in this situation, even when paired with a distinct lack of accompanying pain. You've been hit with the rebound, and if the painlessness means anything it is that it's bad. The worst wounds, you are well aware, take some time to make themselves known through the shock. You take a moment to just sit and breathe, eyes closed, before you look down to confirm what you already know, dreading the inevitability of having to draw Alex's attention and what this will mean for your recovery. Another setback, just when you thought you were finally going to be in the clear.

You look down, only to find not the expected scarlet horror of a gunshot wound not yet registered but instead the jet black horror of an alien tendril finding your skin from where it has breached containment through a crack so hair thin that you'd thought it was a trick of the light.

Bulletproof your ass.

You open your mouth to scream, to alert the room to the suddenly pressing danger, when you're brought to an abrupt halt by a cascade of unlocked memories.

Click.

Your mother's maiden name.

Click.

Your first date.

Click.

Graduation.

Click.

Annie.

Click.

The Brock Report

Click.

The Life Foundation.

Click.

Venom.

Oh, God, Venom! It feels so impossible that you could have ever forgotten your partner in life these last two years.

But you did, and now as each offshoot of its holdfast nestles into its customary placement in your brain it completes countless circuits along its branching length; forgotten neurons lighting up as swathes of synapses sparkle with life for the first time in months. Disconnected deadend pathways now properly connected through symbiotic flesh. Conjoined, together, complete. And through that flesh you remember your life. You remember Venom. You remember the partnership that you forged.

And you remember yourself.

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Separation 2, Part 15: Take a Breath

Of course, even as you're swamped with relief and gratitude and other, stranger emotions from both sides of your bond; you now have a problem. Namely, all those guards that have as of yet been far too distracted by the premature private over there to pay attention to you. You, being an apparent invalid laid out on your ass on the floor with both hands up in instinctive surrender - which you guess must have happened some time between registering the gunfire for what it was and spotting Venom's extended pseudopod - are neither visibly a casualty nor obviously a threat, though that could certainly change in a hurry.

Or perhaps more importantly, the few remaining scientists milling around in muted alarm far too near that oh so painful button for your comfort. Dr Rose is not yet looking your way, but again.

That's another thing that could change far too quickly.

Okay. You look back at where the hair thin crack in the glass is still being stoppered by one last bit of biomass, probably preventing some kind of alarm from going off if you were to bet your luck. They hadn't noticed the symbiote's otherwise conspicuous absence only due to the current hubbub, and there's no telling how long that will last.

Okay.

This is going to be tricky.

You remove your earphones and close your eyes against the noise of the guards shouting at eachother, and are glad to once again have your partner's buffer against the worst of your sensory issues. You lean into the feeling of appreciation for a moment and get a weak squeeze and reciprocal thrum of /homecoming/relief/affection/ in return, with a strong undercurrent of almost-unbearable /hunger/ that has your own stomach twinging painfully in response.

You're not surprised. But it is another thing to add on top of the shitheap you're both in.

On the one hand, you can think again. Better than you've been able to for literal months.

But that just makes your position clearer. Venom is half-starved and these people know your weaknesses. They have weapons set up and pointed at you at this very moment. Weapons that will thoroughly neutralize you both in an instant. Weapons that can, if used right, outright kill you in ways that few other things could manage.

Not the best setup. Not the best setup!

But you can do this.

You have to do this.

You just need everyone to be reeeeal chill for a bit.

Okay.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Okay.

You open your eyes.

You can do this.

"Hey, Alex?"

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Separation 2, Part 16: SNAFU

"Hey, Alex?"

They make a strangled noise and you turn your head to see them cowering on the floor behind your toppled wheelchair. "Fuck. I mean yes. I mean God, are you okay? Did you get hit?" They look like they're debating scrambling over to you to check you over versus staying put in their relatively sheltered hiding spot.

"No, yeah, I'm fine. Better than fine, actually! Way better. I just, um. Had my memory jogged? And if we could send someone to go and grab my phone before I, uh, Forget my password again, that would be great."

"Your phone. Your phone??" They're tugging at their hair now, "You-we, we just got SHOT at and you, you want your-"

You move to cut off their burgeoning hyperventilation, "Alex? Hey, Alex! Look at me." You make big sweeping  gestures, waving to your eyes in the hopes of keeping their - and everyone else's - attention off the empty tank and hope to God that you can cover for the fact that you are absolutely not moving even an inch from this spot. "I need you to focus, okay? I promise this is important. And relevant. So please. Go call Campbell, and get me my phone."

They stare at you, for really far too long to be comfortable, but they must see something there and you thank your lucky stars that it's not blowing your everything out into the open because they do, in fact, get up and stumble over to one of the guards - one who is not currently getting the dressing-down of a lifetime - and borrows a radio. When they come back, they slump down beside you on the floor to make the call.

It turns out Cambell was already on her way back, thanks to the current situation with the guards. But she agrees to a detour to pick up your phone.

In her words, "at least something good will come out of this SNAFU."

Unfortunately for you and Venom, you haven't noticed any overt signs of corruption and evildoing over the course of your convalescence that would let you sleep easily if you decide to take Occam's razer to a few throats to kill two birds with one stone and fill your aching void with some go-juice to bust your way out of here. Everything that you've seen points you to the conclusion that these people, the portion you've been exposed to, anyway, are at least moderately on the up and up genuinely trying to do good in the world and keep people safe from violent threats. 

You are, as a matter of fact, rather fond of Alex. Not enough that you wouldn't take teeth to them if you had to, whether it were to ensure that neither of you get recaptured or to prevent your other half from starving, but definitely well enough that you would regret it for a very, very long time. Alex seems like the kind of person you think you could manage to befriend long-term, so long as you don't fuck it up by, let's say, scarring them for life by tearing the heads off their coworkers right in front of them. 

So that kind of limits your options here. 

It really is too bad that you're the violent threat they're focused on defending the planet from.

Chapter Text

Seperation 2, Part 17: Motor Functions

It doesn't take too long for Campbell to get to you; presumably her long, marching stride can far outpace the time it took for you to leisurely wheel down here in the first place. She looks murderous, her griseled brow furrowed into a furious snarl, and you're just glad that that expression is so firmly oriented towards her own employees.

She slings the phone to you, and you actually have the coordination to catch it. Motor functions are a go! Finally! You send another thought of thanks and determination to where V is huddled in your hindbrain, exhausted and tense and nearly out of juice.

You slide your thumb over the case, recalling every scratch and bump - of which there are many. It's a cheap thing; you haven't invested in anything of any real quality for a few years, even before the chaos that Venom brought into your life. Since Anne, probably. She cared more about that kind of thing. 

But it's not the phone itself that was important, anyway.

Sonny&Cher5eva. 

You would never in a million years have guessed that password.

You'll never forget it now, at least not as long as you and your symbiote stay connected... And you're going to have to think long and hard about that clause. Neither of you can afford to have this happen again. It leaves you both far too vulnerable. 

But that’s for later. 

You're kind of in the middle of something right now.

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Seperation 2, Part 18: Unlocked

Your phone sparks to life with a long string of notifications that you hastily mute, and Alex grins at your triumphant fist-pump, sending a thumbs up Campbell's way and letting the tension fall from their shoulders as they turn back to you, chattering excitedly about what this breakthrough could mean for your recovery.

Campbell herself is a little less impressed, only treating you to a wry smile. If you're reading her right, she's of the opinion that you've had plenty enough excitement for one day. Neither patients nor nurses are supposed to be in the line of fire - and that probably means a lot of paperwork has just been tossed on her lap - but she looks more disappointed in herself and her own agents than she does to be holding it against you. 

She tilts her head to address the room and raises her voice to match, declaring that everyone should head over to a meeting room to do a debrief of this little incident. You're not entirely sure if you're included in that statement, as Dr Rose and the guards file out and Alex heaves themself up to get your chair back into position- but it turns out not to matter. 

Because Campbell is just about to leave your little huddle. To rejoin her martial personnel; or maybe to head back to whatever duties your call took her away from, but just when she starts to turn away something happens.

Maybe it’s the light, drawing her attention. Or maybe the angle she’s at is just right to make visible that which you most want to keep hidden. Either way, it’s clear on her face.

She’s spotted the crack in the glass.

Her face goes ashen. Eyes dart wildly. Trying to spot the tank's erstwhile occupant. 

"Everyone move away from the tank! It's cracked! Alex, Brock, get over here!"

Well damn.

Time’s up.

Chapter Text

You wince apologetically at Alex, shoving your phone into their hands and exchanging it for a deceptively gentle grip on their shoulder that nonetheless firmly prevents them from complying with Campbell's orders.  

"Yeah, uh, I think we'd all actually prefer I didn't? We've got a real nice standoff here, you with the upper hand even; and if we start moving, or you all start shooting again, things are going to get a whole lot more chaotic.” You keep your eyes on her, face open, voice soothing. “This way we can have a nice, calm chat and clear up some misconceptions.

""Misconceptions?? Misconceptions! There is a man-eating space alien in that tank that's been serial-killing its way across the world; whatever nonsense you're babbling about, what misconception could possibly be more important than getting out of its range!?"

You grit your teeth. "That space-alien and I saved the world. More than once."

That seems to set her on the back foot, eyes turning again to your proximity to the crack as she recalculates the situation. And, in retrospect, maybe you would have preferred the anger she had for the guards over the sheer blazing fury she's projecting now.

"We've already lost you, haven't we? All that work to get the civilian clear of the body snatching space monster, all healed up, real nice, and we just. TURNED AROUND AND GAVE HIM RIGHT BACK! Served up on a silver platter! What was even the point of any of this!?" She’s uncharacteristically emotive and mobile in her anger, snapping out a wide gesture to encompass the situation, and you worry that that fluidity will transfer far too easily into ordering action.

"Hey!” You snap your fingers to keep her attention on you, “I said 'and I' for a reason. That's my partner you're talking about, and they are an invited guest, not a body snatching parasite."

"Really? Partner?" If the scoff wasn't a clear enough indication that she wasn't exactly swayed, it would still be apparent in the sheer contempt with which she addresses you; miles away from the tough but professional demeanour she presented herself with when she was interrogating you, much less the dry but everpresent vein of humour that shone through her military politesse in the handful of encounters when she didn't have a job to do. "Even if I believe you that I'm talking to Brock right now and not the alien sludge, why on God's green Earth would you host it willingly!? It eats people, Brock."

Like that has somehow escaped your notice. You refrain from rolling your eyes though. She'll be less likely to hear you out if you get her too riled up. Always a tough line to tread, when riling people up is your specialty. "Yeah; bad people. Serial rapists and nazis; traffickers, dirty cops, child-killers and the mob. No-one the world isnt better off without. And you'd be a hippocrite to say that death is too far a line to cross; I'm damn sure you've crossed that line a hell of a lot more times that we have in your storied military career."

"And what gives you the right to decide who lives and dies? The military has a hierarchy for a reason; checks and balances to keep us on the straight and narrow, and rules of engagement that bind us on and off the field of war. If anything, it's more likely that the alien is just mind-controlling you to agree to anything it wants. You're just being manipulated into a complacent little puppet."

"Hey,” you go for a disarming shrug, ”a man-eating space alien's gotta eat. And trust me, if I wasn't here as the breaks and moral center of this operation you'd be dealing with a lot more bodies from a much more diverse group of people. Or lack of bodies, as the case may be. I am keeping our snacking as light, and as targeted, as we can get away with.

"Unlike the military, as it happens, which is as greedy as you can get. You can't tell me that having a hierarchy absolves you of guilt, and if you do you're far more brainwashed than I'll ever be. We absolutely solved that equation after WW2, and the sum of the matter was that a subordinate has a duty to go against an order that is unlawful or immoral. And even that aside: I don’t know if you know this, I'm a pretty good investigative reporter, if I do say so myself; and I wouldn't even have to be to be aware of  all the many, many instances of military misconduct up and down the ranks."

She doesn't rise to the bait again. "And your excuses, that lets you sleep at night?"

Okay, so the military parallels aren't getting you anywhere. Time for a different tack. A bit of emotional honesty, maybe. "No, not really. I am just barely scraping by with the 'bad guy' thing. But it's the best we can do without starving to death, and I'm not willing to let that happen. You've got to put your own airbag on before you can help other people. And we do. Help people, that is. You must have turned up some of our heroics while following us, though in all honestly we do most of our public good as Eddie. As Venom we're better at the covert stuff when it's not out-of-this-world flashy superheroics time."

"'As Eddie'; 'as Venom,'" she repeats with disbelief, "are you hearing yourself? That thing gave you brain damage."

"No, YOU gave me brain damage! That tends to happen when you pull half the wires in a guy's brain out. The only reason I could still talk was that we'd have to work really hard to make it an actual upgrade." Your voice is rising and your frustration is leaking into anger and you know that if the guards could make a sure shot that wouldn't hit Alex they would have done it already. But the recent trigger happy misfire seems to be keeping their confidence down too far to risk it. Lucky you. If only you had a better plan; de-escalation was never your strong suit and you have to work not to steer the conversation straight back into the red zone. "Humans are already much better at the whole language thing than they are, and me even more than average since it's my job and all. So we just use what I've already got instead of adding a bypass in. In fact the only reason I didn't lose the ability to talk on top of all that, is that their species sucks at language."  

The expected pinch at the dig doesn't come.

Chapter Text

That Venom doesn't react to a poke at their expense is ... not great. You tell yourself that V must be spending all their energy on being ready to jump into motion, and none of it on parsing the conversation past your own emotional read.

You really hope that's the truth. The thought that they might be in even worse shape than you think is terrifying. 

But you don't have time to spend on worrying about it. If you can't get out of this, it won't matter. "Or maybe humans just excel at it and I'm even better since talking is my job and all. So we’re both just using the existing architecture on my side instead of adding in a bypass and routing it through their side, like we did with the memories we'd been using. Hence why you absolute assholes forcing us apart rendered me amnesiac and them no better."

"None of that could possibly excuse the cannib-"

You just steamroll over her, "You think we haven't looked into our other options? It's the smarts that matter, not the mass, for this particular set of nutrients; and it takes a lot, a whole LOT, to make up the equivalent of even the dumbest human brain. Takes a lot to catch a crow these days, all the crows in the state know us by sight in any disguise and they’ve spread the word surprisingly far by now. Guide dogs are pretty nutritious, but even further against our morals than our preferred type of long pork. Dolphins, octopus, whales, they all take some searching and we're not interested in poaching from the endangered species list." The soldiers have edged back in as you talk, slowly and quietly like that means you're not going to notice over your nervous rambling. "We do a lot of pest control. Ants and bees count by the colony, not the individual, which is a pain; though it's kinda neat when we can get enough of them to hijack their defences and live up to our name for a while. And we've cleaned up most of the urban pigeon and racoon populations in the area. Rats are a bit trickier to survey, so I'm sure there are plenty of holdouts, but you catch my drift here. We supplement on low-quality snacks, but there's only so long we can go without exhausting our options and running our stores dangerously low, and then we have to go for the big meal ticket. And believe me, it's better to do so sooner; while we're still cognizant enough to be choosy about it."

Campbell is absolutely aware of the position of her backup, eyes flicking to the console and visibly estimating how long it would take her to hit that big red button. "As opposed to?"

"Well, I'm producing the stuff too, aren't I? We go long enough without food and I'm on the menu. And like I said before, we're Pacific Rimming it up in here and I've got the morals and the breaks on my side of the drift. Auto-cannibalism is a slippery slope to unleashing a much less domesticated Venom. And then you have a Real problem."

"What about cows?" Okay, you admit you hadn't noticed Dr Rose back at the door behind the line of guns. "Cows and pigs are surprisingly smart, can you get enough from them?"

Oh god yes, finally. A nibble.