Eddie already had enough problems, what with being a busy reporter with an alien parasite, when he caught one of his neighbors holding a fridge above her head. Now he has twice as many problems, including a kid who won't stop treating him like the big brother she never had and a moody alien parasite. Or: you can totally secretly pine while sharing a brain with someone else, as Venom and Eddie are both determined to prove.
Notes
Suzy here is loosely, VERY loosely, based on Tsu-Zana.
"You're a fuckup," he muttered as he cleaned up after. It had taken ten minutes for his hands to just stop shaking. How gross could one guy be? Really fucking gross, apparently. "You're a dumbass and a fuckup."
I help you urinate. How is this any different?
"It just is! Also, you do not help me piss. I can more than handle that on my own, thanks."
Everything is better with us. The thing had the nerve to sound smug, like it'd - what, known this would happen? What a crock. Even this. Especially this.
"Whatever. I gotta go to work."
We!
"We! Yes, okay, fine! Christ. Motherfucking - fuck." He grabbed his keys and ran out to his bike. Any more of this and he'd have to take a sick day.
Venom mostly left him alone that day. He did his work, submitted his next article, then went home to do his laundry, because he was a responsible person and Venom kept telling him about all the microbes on his shirts when he wore them too many times in a row. He was halfway through loading the dryers when someone in the doorway made a half-choked squeaking noise.
He turned to see the girl from downstairs clinging to the door jam. "Relax, kid. I'm not gonna call the cops."
For starters, Venom hated the cops. Pigs, Venom agreed. But, also - "They'd probably take you home, huh?"
She looked away from him. "Why are you so obsessed with that? Are you, like, some kind of perv procurer?"
"It's 'cause I worry about runaways. Which, fyi, if you know what a procurer is? I got a reason to worry."
She shrugged. "It was just once. I can punch my way out of basically any problem, and I can forge my parents' signature well enough to get this apartment, so."
Jesus Christ.
Eddie. Let's feed her snacks.
He didn't bother asking what had changed its mind. "Hey, I got more lo mein than I can eat upstairs. You want some?"
"Creepy."
"You could beat the crap out of me. Even with my, you know." He waved a hand in front of his face. "But my guess is you didn't really line up a lot of work before leaving, and you only got so many people willing to pay you under the table for shit you can stand to do, right?"
The way her eyes slid away from him confirmed his suspicions, and fuck, why'd it have to break his heart like that, anyway? "Hey. Lo mein. Not creeper lo mein, just literally some food, okay? Turn me down again, I'll forget I ever saw you, I'll leave you alone. But it kind of seems like you could use a friend."
"Millennials are so thirsty," she said, which made no sense to Eddie. He was born in '82, for fuck's sake. "Whatever. Fine."
So they went up to his apartment, and he pointed her to the kitchen while he went to hang up his clothes. By the time he got back out, she'd demolished his lo mein and was starting on his leftovers, or Venom's lo mein, really. He almost objected, but - Let her eat it.
"Okie doke, this is weird as fuck," Eddie muttered. Venom didn't respond. Maybe it was finally growing a soul, or something.
"My name's Suzy, by the way," she said as the second box of lo mein dwindled. "Suzanna, actually, but I go by Suzy."
"Cool. You still hungry?"
For a second she looked like she was going to deny it - lie her ass off - but then she grimaced and nodded. Eddie pulled out his phone and hit the Chinese place's speed dial.
"Oh my God, just use Seamless," she said, staring at him like he was about to bite someone's head off.
He waved a dismissive hand at her as the place picked up. "Hey, Alice, what's up?"
"Eddie! But we just delivered to you yesterday. I thought you said you had a new girlfriend."
The new girlfriend was Venom and there was no fuckin way he was having that conversation or anything remotely adjacent to it. "Ah, well, you know, sometimes you gotta eat. I was hoping to order some orange chicken and beef with broccoli?"
"Sure, of course. It'll be ready in 15 minutes."
"Great, thanks, Alice. How's Teddy doing?"
"He's finishing up his degree, and he's got interviews at three top architecture firms! I told him about your final exam trick with the note copying, he loves it."
"Old reporter stuff, gotta come in handy. Thanks, Alice."
"Of course."
When he hung up the phone, the girl - Suzy - was staring at him with a bizarre look on her face. "Yeah? What?"
"Seriously. Seamless."
Eddie shrugged. He didn't know how to explain - didn't think he could explain - that he'd never been good at making close friends, and the ones he'd had, he'd mostly lost when he moved. For Anne. Who had dumped him, which he couldn't really blame her for. "I like talking to people," he said finally. "You know, finding out shit about the neighborhood and all that. It's kind of my job, being a reporter and all."
"You're a weird time traveler and it wouldn't surprise me if you were a serial killer," she told him. But she finished her food, and she ate the orange chicken, too, after Eddie ran and grabbed it.
"Hey, you said you're friends with a lot of people," she said, picking at her beef.
"Tons." He bit his tongue before he could add something stupid like 'tell me what you need'.
Her mouth turned down. "You know anyone who's hiring semi-legally?"
"I only know people who hire with identification." Eddie shrugged. "But get a note from your parents and they'll give you 40 hours."
She was out-and-out staring, now. For a kid with superpowers, a kid who might be an alien, she sure as fuck was easy to read. "Wait, seriously?"
"Janitors at work are looking for someone. Decent pay. How are you with cleaning toilets?"
"I could get good at it, I swear."
"Great. Well, don't fall all over yourself thanking me. Either they have something or they don't, I'll ask Rick tomorrow."
"I - " She scowled down at the beef. "Thank you."
Was she trying not to cry? Maybe, Eddie thought with a reporter's detached judgment. "Yeah, sure, no problem."
She skedaddled pretty quick after that. Eddie did his normal nighttime routine, whistling to himself, feeling pretty good about doing the right thing. It wasn't till he was lying in bed that Venom decided to toss in his two cents.
Eddie.
"Yeah?"
Being nice. It feels okay.
He held back a laugh, barely. "Sure. It's my limbic system or whatever, you know, rewarding me for being a good member of the community."
Let's keep being nice.
He stroked a hand over his hip, enjoying the light tickle. "Can do."
Something was going on. He felt it at the point they were joined. It wasn't like being on the phone with someone, or even like how his own thoughts felt. It was kind of like shaking hands with someone he couldn't see, or the way you know what everyone on the train's thinking when some jackass starts yelling.
Only, a lot more intimate than that, because that knowing was embedded under his skin. Fucked up.
But hey: Venom wanted to eat heads and be nice now. Progress! Eddie couldn't wait to tell Anne.
-
There was in fact an opening on the janitor staff. Eddie passed on Suzy's contact info and went back to his usual tricks, chasing down the makers of some bullshit Uber for milk crap who were ignoring that their milk was full of dangerous heavy metals. He had a story to write and he also kept having to talk Venom down from just eating the Uber-for-milk CEO, some douche named Brad who Eddie was mostly just sure would taste really bad. So, between one thing and another, he didn't check in with Suzy before he went home.
It worked out okay, though, in that she was standing outside his door when he got upstairs. "Oh. Hi."
"Eddie! Omigod, thank you so much, I seriously don't know how to thank you, I was running out of money like whoa. You're a lifesaver!"
She could bring us someone to eat. Maybe the person who made her leave home.
Eddie was super not gonna get into that. "Hey, no problem. I got a frozen pizza, wanna split it?"
No! That's our food!
"Or, um, actually what if I made some...spaghetti," he said, his voice not-quite-cracking from the way Venom was almost-materializing, almost-clawing him. Why was this a problem when the lo mein hadn't been? Jesus, it needed to learn when to let up.
I will let up when you stop feeding other humans our food! We can only be good if we've eaten first!
"Spaghetti would be great." Suzy gave him one of those looks kids gave adults sometimes, the ones that said they weren't sure if this was a really weird thing or just an adult-weird thing. Eddie couldn't blame her.
"Yeah, so, I'm just a little, ah. I'm tired from work, 'sall. Here, lemme open the door." He half-shoved past her, aware that he was acting like a lunatic, even as Venom grumbled in the back of his mind and receded into - wherever it went when it was being quiet, Eddie wasn't a neurologist.
"Is this because of that weird monster you have?"
"Yeah, kinda. I mean, I was a weird guy before that, but, uh." He jiggled his doorknob, and the lock finally slid free. "Yeah, basically. Hey, make yourself comfortable, I gotta chop some onions."
He kept an eye on her as he grabbed his supplies. Not like he thought she was going to start helping herself to the family silver, or whatever, but it was hard not to watch someone when they were in his house and also a literal kid.
She looks like a human to me.
She was a kid. Her wrists were all bony and her eyes were too big for her face; she looked nervous and like she thought she was too cool to be nervous, and she kept glancing at Eddie like she thought he might ground her. Clearly a kid.
It's good to protect her. But why is it good to protect a young human who isn't even ours?
Eddie wasn't a reporter so he could make distinctions like that. The whole of humanity was kind of the same. Eddie's parents had passed awhile back. He just had him. But -
Us. You have us, Eddie.
All right, so he had Venom now, too. But anyone in this building, this city, was fair game as family. Especially a runaway with a fucked-up amount of power she clearly wasn't ready to deal with.
We should eat her parents!
Eddie distracted himself by dumping the onions into the pan, because if he thought about it pretty much at all, that idea suddenly got really, really appealing. "Meatballs, yes or no?"
"Sure. You can talk to him, you know."
Eddie almost dropped the knife. "I don't - what? What are you talking about? I'm not talking to anyone, you're off your rocker, what do you even mean? Who? No one else is here."
"Overprotest much? The thing that's in you, or on you or whatever."
In us.
Christ, it was chatty tonight. "Well, thanks for the permission, but I'm actually fine."
"Whatever." She went back to flipping through his records. Kid probably didn't even know what they were.
"You know, you could really stand to get a better turntable. This thing is entry level."
"Excuse me?"
She shrugged. "Pitchfork has a guide about it, you know."
"Jesus." He ripped the ground beef open and plopped it in the pan, watching it sizzle. He thought about the cow it had come from, figuring Venom would like the contrast between that and the meat.
It would be better if we killed it.
"Next time, buddy," he muttered.
Of course, he immediately glanced at Suzy to see if she had a problem with him talking to himself. But true to her word, she didn't say shit. Didn't even flinch.
What the fuck had already happened to her if she thought this was normal? Christ, it wasn't Eddie's problem, but he doubled down on the food, making it as good as he could, because she clearly needed it.
"This is good," she said when he served her.
"Thanks, I can tell you had a lot of faith in me."
"I totally didn't. Millennials can't cook."
"Whoa, wait, hang on. Why do you keep calling me that? You're a Millennial, I'm...whatever the generation before that was."
"Generation X. The grunge generation."
"Ha, yeah, that's me."
"No, it's not. You were in like fifth grade when Kurt Cobain died."
"You weren't even born yet!"
"So?" She stabbed her forkful of spaghetti at him. "You're a poser."
"You're a pain in my ass. See if I invite you up for dinner again."
"I'll be too busy ordering it, via my phone like a person not from the Dark Ages, because of my job." She grinned at him, smug as all get-out.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever."
They ate in mostly-silence after that. She helped him clean up - a kid with manners, would wonders never cease - and then they were alone again.
"Thanks for rolling with the punches back there," he said as he settled in for his nightly ritual of Netflix and beer.
Well. That wasn't quite right. It was Netflix, beer, and chocolate, now.
We're being good.
"Sure. Helping someone who needs it, all that." He flipped over to one of the cooking shows. Who knew making cakes was this hard? "You okay with her knowing about you, though?"
It was a stupid fucking question, and he deserved what came next: Venom creeping over his skin, materializing just a little to close around his wrist. Eddie, everyone should know about us. Together, we are perfect.
Don't be weird, Eddie told himself. Don't be weird, don't ask questions, don't be weird. "Good," he croaked out.
It didn't do any good, though. Venom knew, could feel, what it did to him. It lurked on the edge of his consciousness till he went to bed, tipsier than he'd intended to get, because apparently nervousness about his parasite-slash-other-half could be treated with booze. And apparently Venom had known he wanted this, and hadn't prevented him from feeling the effects of the booze, which was a whole other bundle of problems he'd have to deal with at some point.
Venom didn't lurk in his dreams. Eddie wasn't sure if it couldn't or if it didn't want him to know it could, but his dreams belonged just to him. Of course, that meant that when Eddie dreamed about Venom, he knew it was just his own fucked-up subconscious and its desires.
Desires, specifically. Because Eddie was dreaming and he knew it, but in the dream he was in bed, and Venom had materialized over him.
"You're weak on your own, Eddie," not-Venom said. "But remember what I told you? Together...we can be perfect." Its tongue snaked around Eddie's dick, impossibly thick and wet, curling around him and sucking as one of its tentacles tugged on his balls. "I'll make us feel so good," it cooed to him.
And Eddie, fully aware of what a massive fucking dipshit he was, rocked up into not-Venom's mouth, cursing as it sucked him harder, its tongue the perfect amount of rough, the suction it gave him absolutely unreal. "Fuck, fuck, babe, that's so good. Harder, come on, baby please, just break me apart, make me feel -"
It whipped him, a gooey black tentacle marking up his pec, and Eddie felt need roar through him. He arched his back, so close to coming he could taste it -
And he woke up, opening his eyes on a gasp to see Venom hovering over him, waiting.
His Venom. The real one.
"Hi, Eddie," it said. Its grin looked more ghoulish than usual, which - Eddie really should've anticipated this. But he hadn't. He was horny as fuck and the deeply fucked up cause of his horniness was looking him in the face, apparently super fucking happy with its host having a massive boner.
Maybe it didn't realize what he'd been dreaming about. Hell, it thought jacking off and pissing were the same thing. Maybe it had no idea Eddie was on the verge of coming all over himself. Maybe -
"I'm going to fuck you."
- nope. It knew.
"That's not something we're gonna do." He struggled to sit up, but his arms wouldn't hold him. "Stop fucking around."
"Why not?"
"Because you're in my head. I don't...separation. There has to be some separation." Fuck, he wasn't awake enough for this. "I'm gonna go back to sleep," he said, and fortunately, his years of travel for his stories meant he was able to do it as easy as think about it.
Venom stayed pretty quiet the whole next day. Eddie decided not to look a gift parasite in the mouth.
o
Updated: 02 Sep 2023Confirm Delete
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