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It’s dark when Eddie finally lets himself think about it. He doesn’t know the exact time—his watch had gotten smashed at some point in the last few days, now forever claiming it to be 2:12 PM. All he knows is that it’s dark—so dark he wouldn’t be able to see a damn thing without Venom’s help—and it’s cold.
They’d discussed building a fire to stave off the darkness once the sun had set, and to reduce the amount of energy Venom would have to expend on keeping them both warm. But Eddie had mentioned the smoke being a dead giveaway of their location, and Venom had admitted that they weren’t completely comfortable being so close to a naked flame, so they had made their peace with simply being cold.
So, with little else left to do in the desolate wasteland, Eddie thinks. He thinks about being ambushed by the Army, and having to fight them off without Venom. He thinks about killing that soldier. It was them or him—he doesn't regret it, would never regret anything that keeps him here, with Venom. He thinks about what he'd said to Venom, after the adrenaline had bled out of his system. He regrets that.
“I’m sorry,” Eddie says, even though he and Venom have been comfortably silent for an hour or so now. The darkness makes it easier to say, almost, even though he’s never needed to see Venom’s face to know what they’re thinking. “About… what I said earlier—you stealing my life. It’s not true, I didn’t mean it. I was just… I was just overwhelmed, and scared, and I–I took it out on you. I’m sorry.”
He and Venom don’t normally apologise for things. One of them will say something mean and uncalled for, and the other will snap right back, and they’ll spiral like that until one of them gets sick of the arguing and simply stops responding. There will be a few minutes (or hours, or days) of silence, and then one of them will offer an olive branch, and they’ll go back to how they were before.
They never argue about anything serious, not really. Their worst was after Venom had attacked Kasady, which had resulted in them separating for a few days. Eddie never wants to feel alone in his body again, no matter how pissed he is at Venom. Especially not now, not when it feels like the entire universe is out to get them and they’ve only got each other. He’s never been one for apologising, but he finds he’ll do anything to keep Venom.
“You didn’t steal my life. Fuck, V, I can’t believe I considered what I had before you a life. That was just existing. What we have—what we have had for the past year—that’s living. I couldn’t go back to being without you, not now that I know what life can really be like. You haven’t trapped me, okay? I would choose you over everything.”
Venom doesn’t verbally respond, just sends Eddie the emotional equivalent of an accepting nod and a smile. Eddie feels tension drain out of his body that he wasn’t aware he was holding—he isn’t even sure it’s his own.
A few more minutes pass in silence, during which Eddie tries and fails spectacularly to fall asleep. He can’t stop thinking about the future, about what he and Venom are going to do, because they are going to be together. Fuck Knull, fuck the xenophage, fuck the United States Army, he and Venom are going to be together.
Eddie, Venom rumbles. They draw out his name like they always do, like simply saying it brings them pleasure, like Eddie’s name is a term of endearment in itself. You are thinking very loudly.
Eddie huffs a laugh. “Sorry, bud. ‘M just… worried.”
Venom hums, the feeling suffusing throughout Eddie’s body. No need to be worried, Eddie, they say, as confident as ever. We have beaten everything that has opposed us before. We will beat this, too. They tilt Eddie’s head downwards, towards his stomach. Look.
Eddie watches as Venom’s mass bubbles over his shirt, his stomach becoming a flat plane of Venom-goop. From the goop rises a lump that quickly becomes vaguely xenophage-shaped. Honestly, Eddie can only recognise it because of the number of legs it has, and because Venom spends extra time ensuring its teeth are as terrifying as they are in real life.
Another lump rises from Venom’s mass, standing next to the xenophage. This one takes the form of a human, which Eddie is pretty sure is meant to be himself, and then becomes thicker, taller, more muscular, and Eddie knows that’s meant to be Venom.
He points at the miniature symbiote. “That’s us?” he asks, smiling.
Mini Venom turns away from the mini xenophage to look at Eddie. It poses, flexing its biceps like a bodybuilder. Eddie laughs at the display, and the symbiote grins back—its teeth are tiny versions of Venom’s normal teeth.
Behind it, the little xenophage rears up, aiming her front legs at Venom and opening her jaw wide. Venom spins around and sprints towards the xenophage, jumping on to one of her legs and climbing it like a pole. It straddles the xenophage’s spine, not unlike how Eddie had been sat on horse-Venom earlier, with both hands reaching around its neck. Venom elongates its arms, stretching around the xenophage’s throat until they connect, and then it squeezes. They squeeze so hard that her head swells like a balloon, then explodes into a bunch of strings of Venom-mass, not unlike a confetti cannon.
Eddie chuckles at the little demonstration. “Gross, dude,” he says, poking at the lifeless body of the xenophage where it collapsed atop his stomach.
Mini Venom steps on to the corpse like it’s a podium, holding its arms out like it’s raking in cheers and applause.
Eddie laughs again, because that’s just like them, and he pets the little symbiote on its head. “That easy?” he asks.
That easy, Eddie, Venom assures. Then we will be off to New York City to visit Lady Liberty. It sounds like a promise, like a vow.
The diorama dissolves and absorbs back into Eddie’s skin. Left behind is a distinct surety that they will get through this, that they will survive whatever is thrown at them in the coming days. And that they will do so together, as they have for the last year.
“You know…” Eddie starts, feeling much more hopeful about the future than he was ten minutes ago. Venom tends to have that effect on him, he realises, of feeling like they can conquer anything, because they are together. “We didn’t do anything for our anniversary.”
Anniversary? Venom enquires, curious.
Eddie smiles at the flicker of delight that comes across from Venom with the connotations of that word. “Yeah, of us being together,” he says. “It was a few weeks ago, but we should celebrate when we get to New York. Any ideas?”
Venom hums. Brains? they suggest, mostly because it will make Eddie laugh.
As predicted, Eddie laughs. “Brains it is, love.”