In his defense, he was deep in on the HUD fraud case, and he'd just gotten a call back from Mrs. Gutierrez about the giant fuckin holes they'd put in her wall as "improvements", and so when he went up two flights of stairs instead of three, he didn't notice, and then he stuck his key in the lock and Venom made it turn -

I'm being helpful!

- and so he totally did do a little B&E that he did not intend to do.

"Oh, shit," he said to the girl standing in the middle of the kitchen, holding her refrigerator above her head with one hand. "Sorry, I don't know how I got in - wait, what the fuck?"

"Get out of here!" she shouted, and recoiled from them. "Oh my God, what is that - get out! Get out!"

"Sorry, sorry!" Eddie said, and booked it upstairs. When he was safely in his own apartment - directly below that super-strong weirdo, great, wonderful - he said, "Hey, why did you materialize? Were you trying to scare her?"

There was a weird silence in his head, then, like Venom wanted him to know it was thinking. Finally, it said, I didn't.

"Then how -"

Not all human.

"No shit, Sherlock. Humans can't lift fridges like that. Well, most of us can't." Definitely not a tiny girl who looked maybe sixteen, tops.

Speaking of - these apartments were all studios, one-bedrooms. Was she living there alone? Had she been abandoned? What the fuck was the deal with all that?

Who cares? She's a danger to our planet, Eddie. We should eat her.

"No. Absolutely not. She's just a kid."

An alien kid.

"Yeah, and I didn't kill you, either, so count your blessings." Eddie poured himself some of this morning's coffee and tossed it into the microwave. "Look, we can't - I told you already, okay? Only bad people. Not some kid who likes to overhead press 300-pound appliances."

She could be bad!

"She's not." Eddie chugged his coffee. "Come on, let's just let it go, all right? I'll go to the TJ's and get us some of the Swiss chocolate you like."

He felt a stirring of pleasure in the back of his head, just as weird as it'd been a couple months ago when this all started. When they bonded.

You'd buy it anyway.

He couldn't stop himself from smiling, even though he knew what a dick he must look like, staring into the distance and grinning at nothing. "But I would've waited a couple days. We got a deal?"

Yes. Fine. He felt the sinuous movement, curling around him. Not moving his limbs, exactly, but reminding him it was there, that his limbs were actually -

Ours.

"Yeah, yeah," Eddie muttered, and went to type up his notes on Mrs. Gutierrez's call.

A major downside to being an investigative reporter was that his brain just couldn't let shit go. Even as he met with the neighbors two buildings over, a low-rise that had sixteen complaints on the books in the last two months and exactly nil enforcement in response, he couldn't stop thinking about the kid he'd walked in on.

Is she like Anne?

Ugh, gross. No, Eddie thought in the general direction of his symbiote. It didn't get it, of course, because humans mostly looked the same to it -

Except you, Eddie. You're special. We're special.

"Okay, okay, I get it, but I'm gonna figure out what's going on there and you can't distract me with your jealous babble," Eddie hissed.

"Eddie? Everything okay over there?"

Not a good time to come off like this. Eddie forced himself to smile at the building super. "Nah, all good, Alan. Just, uh, I got a bluetooth mic - someone trying to call me. That's all."

Alan looked at Eddie's ear and shook his head. "They make 'em smaller and smaller these days."

"Sure do. You have a good day now. I think I've got what I need here." A single picture of black mold should've been enough, but Eddie had about 20 pictures and three times as many damning quotes, which might - might! - be enough to trigger an investigation. "Thanks, man."

"Any time, Eddie. You come on down to the bar soon, hear me?"

"Sure, sure." He'd been anti-social lately, what with the parasite and all.

Friends are good. We like friends.

He waited till he was safely back home to say, "We could make friends with the kid downstairs."

I don't like her.

Eddie rolled his eyes. "You didn't like me at first, either."

We were perfect from the beginning.

The nice thing about having Venom in his head was he couldn't fight with it like he used to with Anne, where they were both saying shit without understanding the other one. He knew Venom could feel his eye-rolling, and was aware that Eddie thought it was being ridiculous. "If we're perfect, then you can let up with the competitive bullshit, okay? Whatever else she is, alien or whatever, she's a kid living alone, and that's fucked-up, see what I'm saying? It's not how it should be. I'm gonna find out why."

He was halfway through his email to his editor when Venom spoke up again. Are we being good?

There was no way Eddie'd be able to explain the way that was a trick question, how basically no definition of 'good' probably included harboring an alien parasite that liked to eat people. "Sure, buddy. We're being great, actually."

Well, then. Why didn't you say?

Which, he did not need permission to investigate an anomaly in his own fucking apartment building. Absolutely, he did not. But it was good they were on the same page, anyway.

He waited a couple days, because he had to plan his approach. He couldn't just walk in again; for starters, he'd either get his ass kicked or they'd kill the girl. But then, hanging around waiting for a fifteen-year-old to come home was really, really weird, and not the kind of rep that'd be good for his career. Also, he might scare her, returning him to Problem One: getting his ass kicked.

He hadn't made much headway when luck intervened for him. Ugggghhhhhhh, Venom hissed in his head, even as he opened his front door. "Oh. Hey, uh, neighbor."

"How much did you see?" the girl said, brushing past him.

"Yeah, sure, come on in," he muttered. "Do I know you?"

"You live above me. Which it took me a few days to figure out." She crossed her arms and glared at him. "How. Much. Did. You. See?"

"Oh, you know, nothing, really." Only a display of dangerous strength.

"I'm laying low, okay? That's what I told - it doesn't matter. Part of laying low means when random dudes break into my apartment -"

"I didn't break in!"

"- I have to make sure they're not cops. Or reporters." She glared at the news clippings on the wall. "So you see my problem."

"Oh, these? They're, um, a friend's."

Can we eat her now?

Eddie clenched his jaw and didn't answer.

"No, they're totally not. You're Eddie Brock. Of the Brock Report, which, bee-tee-dubs, dumb name. But, seriously, pivoting to print? Dumber. Are you even getting paid anymore?"

"What would you know about it?"

She sniffed. "Before I got all weird, I was an influencer, thankyouverymuch."

He couldn't quite hold back a laugh.

"I was!"

"You're like fifteen. Can you even legally -"

"Okay, first of all, the age limit on YouTube is thirteen, so yes, I can, and I wouldn't even need a momager. Second of all, I'm seventeen! And like I said, I was laying low." She scowled, her voice getting small and pathetic. "I don't need a reporter blowing my cover."

We could eat her liver. Then she wouldn't need a cover.

"Shut up!"

"Excuse me?"

"Not you. It's, ah, it's complicated."

"Oh, right. The monster that's inside you."

"I'm not gonna write an article about- wait, what? How do you know about it?"

We are not a monster!

"I can see it on you." She looked at him a little more closely and frowned. "I guess you can't, huh."

"Nope."

"Right." She looked over his shoulder, suddenly a hell of a lot less confident. What was that all about? She didn't even know what she could do?

"So, what's your deal? On the run from something?" Shit. Real subtle, Brock.

"No. I told you, I'm an influencer. Or...I was." She shrugged. "Now I wash dishes at the Green Bean Cafe."

"They pay you good there?"

"Why, going to offer me a little something on the side?" She rolled her eyes while Eddie spluttered indignantly. "Look, I've got a lot going on, okay? There's lots of weird people in the city. Write about them instead."

"Or you'll what, bench press me?"

"No! I'll -" She squinted at him again. "You could totally try to kill me, actually."

It would be our pleasure.

"No," Eddie said, a little too loud. "No. I wouldn't. We wouldn't."

"Right." She looked like she thought he was a few pieces short of a full puzzle, which Eddie guessed he couldn't blame her for. "Whatever. Look, just leave me alone, okay? I have other stuff to do and I don't want to have to kick your ass."

She flounced out while Eddie tried to keep a hold on Venom. As soon as his front door closed, he felt it rip out of his skin. The rush that always came with its materialization was dampened by his own - righteous, thank you very much! - fury.

"I told you we should just eat her."

"She's not a threat."

"She could be."

Eddie stared at Venom's ever-shifting face and tried to figure out if it thought it was being funny. "Seriously? She's tiny. And like, super young. Really don't think she'll be a problem here."

"We could be sure by -"

"Do not say 'eating her' again. Do not." Eddie stabbed a finger in its face. "I told you, bad people! She's not a bad person, okay? Not yet, maybe not ever, so don't even bring it up."

He could feel its frustration. "Fine. But when she gets a very tall tower with henchmen and a laser to shoot down your moon, don't come crying to me."

"What kind of shit have you been pulling from my memory?"

"Justice League!"

"Great. Love it." Eddie shook his head. He didn't want to - make it weird, alright, that was a good way to put it. This whole thing was weird. Obviously. Still though, he had boundaries, right? Lines and shit.

But he kind of thought he knew what to do, here. "C'mere," he said, gesturing with a finger.

Radiating suspicion, Venom crept over to him. Eddie reached out the last few inches and touched it, trying to tamp down on his reaction when its viscous face rubbed against him. It wasn't bad, exactly, just strange. He could feel the touch, or Venom's reaction, in the back of his mind.

"I think it's good to have friends," Eddie said, rubbing behind Venom's - well. It wasn't an ear. "Y'know? It's good for humans to have friends."

"I am the only friend you need, Eddie."

"Yeah, sure, only not really, 'cause most humans have lots of friends. You ever seen Facebook in my memory?"

"Facebook is for racist uncles." It wrapped itself around Eddie's wrist, fluidly sliding up his arm. "I am the best friend."

It was actually really depressing how true that was. "Sure. Yeah, sure, you're my best friend."

"Fine." Up his bicep, now, and covering his shoulder. It didn't breathe, but it was weirdly wet, and right now that weird wetness brushed Eddie's neck and made him shiver. "Friends," it hissed into his ear, and sank back into his skin.

It was quiet the rest of the night, which was all good by Eddie. He woke up hard, and as alone as he ever was these days. Venom was still quiet. Sleeping, maybe, or doing the alien equivalent. That meant it was safe, he told himself, to slide a hand down his stomach, press his palm against his dick.

He'd been dreaming about something really fucked-up and violent. He put it out of his mind, now, in favor of thinking about the last time he'd fucked Anne, before he'd messed it all up - her strong hands pushing him down to the bed, the way she'd ridden him and used him but hadn't quite let him get off. Not until she'd slapped him, holding her tie tight around his neck -

Kind of like Venom had been wrapped around him yesterday, his traitor fucking brain thought.

This was private time. Eddie had tried to explain that to Venom and failed, but Venom understood that Eddie wanted it to be quiet, or gone, when he did this. So it would probably stay quiet, it wouldn't look at his thoughts, and if it poked fun at his feelings that would be later. Not now. It wouldn't know, couldn't know.

Eddie closed his eyes and bit his lip. Like Venom had appeared from his skin today, he let the thoughts into his conscious mind. Just a bit. He thought about it - helping him. Wrapped around him, wrapped around his hand, stroking him.

And, fuck, if he was hard before it was nothing compared to now. His heart raced as he fucked his fist. He pinched his nipples viciously, reached back and yanked his own hair, so fucking close he could almost taste it.

We could do a lot more together, Eddie.

"Holy fucking shit," Eddie said, and came all over himself.