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
^^^^ Note the modified warnings. This extremely beautiful art by bbegrill is honestly better than the entirety of this fanfiction, please gaze upon its magnificence. And thank you to everyone who's commented, I am slooowly replying but please know I read and treasure all comments. ♥
Eddie realized on the way over to Milq that they hadn't ever really been this angry before.
Sure, he'd been pissed. With Venom, when they caught some murderous fuck using a corporation to kill kids, he was plenty mad then. But that kind of anger faded quickly and mostly left him feeling tired. Same with Riot, really. He'd been furious with Venom after it killed Maria, but -
Venom hadn't meant to. A thought that was both of theirs, just then, as Eddie rode along in the backseat of their body. Maybe he was brainwashed or Stockholmed or whatever, but he knew Venom hadn't meant to hurt Maria and he knew that they did intend to hurt Brad from Milq, a lot, for being a dickbag generally and for taking Suzy specifically.
She's ours, Eddie.
That's a little weird, buddy. But Eddie agreed, was the fucked-up thing. For fuck's sake, she was their neighbor.
Venom was pissed about something else, too. Eddie couldn't tell exactly what - and he wasn't sure he wanted to know - but it was there, lurking between then. Kind of like Eddie himself.
Don't worry about it. Venom's voice in their head sounded nervous, almost jumpy. If they didn't have so much other shit to do, Eddie'd be chasing down exactly why.
Instead, he gritted his non-existent teeth as they climbed the Milq tower, towards the light at the very top.
Won't their murder-the-aliens lab be underground?
Not based on what we smell.
Which was how Eddie realized the sickly reek he'd noticed wasn't just the typical symptoms of poverty and exploitation, but were actually - captive aliens? Fuck. Motherfucker.
He was going to enjoy riping this guy's head off, and he didn't care what that said about him.
All it says, Eddie, is that we know the difference between wrong and right.
No way did Eddie believe that, but it didn't matter. They climbed the building in a matter of seconds. Eddie expected that they'd burst through the window with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball, but instead they sent out a single tiny tendril and popped the window glass off, almost silently. Still, there are alarms.
Not for us. They smiled toothily at their reflection as the alarm above continued to ignore their presence.
God, being bonded with an alien was so fucking useful sometimes.
They crept down the hallway, towards the stench of fear. They were itching to kill someone, but the whole floor appeared to be deserted. They couldn't even smell the usual human urine that accompanied seeing them in their true form.
Ew. Gross. But it was true: everything was empty and eerily sterile.
And then they heard her.
It was the barest whisper of a sound, quieter than their now-shared memories of the transport pod that had taken them to earth. A thin, nearly perfectly muffled sound of pain.
It wasn't Suzy. But it sounded like it could have been, and they charged in the direction of the noise.
Through a reinforced wall. Down a set of stairs that weren't on the floor plan. Down a hallway rigged with metal plates delivering massive shocks. It didn't matter: they clung to the walls, claws ripping into cement and steel. Towards the sound, further and further, and one sound became many - coughing, crying, hissing in pain. They ripped through the last wall, five feet of concrete that crumbled like paper beneath their rage, and ate the first guard they saw.
Not a guard, Eddie said. The guy had a bun - which was stuck in their teeth now - and Warby Parker glasses, a top-of-the-line Macbook that they were throwing against the wall, screaming in rage as the other people scattered.
No, not guards. Programmers. Helpers, they snarled, and leaped to prevent their escape.
As they dispatched the jailers, they smashed the locks on the walls, too. The clear, brittle material shattered, freeing the prisoners within. But none of them were Suzy. All of them looked like normal people - would have to, to hide on Earth. But where was Suzy?
Eddie. Not a wall.
Eddie followed the pressure of Venom's attention, and together they discarded the leg they'd been gnawing on and walked down to the smooth white wall at the end of the hallway. They couldn't hear or smell anything.
Not a wall, Venom hissed.
They dug their claws into it and lifted it up. It was one part of a cage. Inside stood Suzy, eyes wide in terror - and then relief. She recognized them.
"Hey, kid," they said. "Long day, huh?"
"The longest, oh my God," she said, and ran to hug them.
They'd barely managed to return the hug when Brad the douche's henchman Tad said, "What the fuck is going on here?"
"Seems obvious," they said, turning to face him. "We're hugging our neighbor, who you nearly killed."
"Go back to your room, you obnoxious brat," Tad snapped at Suzy.
Venom opened their mouth to ensure Tad the douche couldn't be a douche anymore -
And Suzy ran past them, screaming loudly enough to shake the walls.
Holy fucking shit, Eddie said, watching her punch a hole straight through his heart.
Venom only sent back a vague feeling of satisfaction. Well, fair enough; he was getting what he deserved, for sure.
"Oh my God," Suzy said when Tad's body thunked onto the floor. "Are you going to eat my head now?"
"Of course not," they said. "You don't deserve it." But Tad, on the other hand, was still warm.
"Gross," Suzy said as they licked their lips. Startup henchman brain tasted like any other scumbag.
"Let's go home. The lawyers will be here soon."
"Cool. Um." Suzy looked at Tad's headless body, then around at all the other former prisoners. "Are you guys good to go?"
"I can fly," said one.
"I can teleport," said another.
"Great." Suzy swallowed, looking suddenly wan. Eddie wished they had more heads to eat. "Could I, um, catch a ride?"
Venom knelt down. "Piggy-back. Hop on."
Suzy clung to their back the whole way home. Eddie didn't say anything when she camped out on their couch, clutching a pillow tight enough to strain the seams. She didn't even flinch when Venom let Eddie back out.
"I'm so sorry," Eddie said. "I should've been there."
"What? They kidnapped me, dude. They had like paramilitary training." She shuddered. "I'm glad you ate them. They were dicks."
"Yeah, I'm not gonna say I'm sorry for that." He grabbed a beer. "But still, we should get you a panic button or something."
"Hopefully they're the only company messing around with alien stuff."
"In the Valley?" Eddie snorted. "Ah, the optimism of youth."
"Whatever." She wrinkled her nose. "Hey, can you still taste the, um, cannibalism? When you no longer look like -" She waved her hand above her head.
"Not really. Kind of? I'm a little shaky on the physics of it all."
Because it would break your tiny human mind.
"No one asked you," Eddie retorted.
Suzy giggled. It sounded half-hysterical, but hey: Eddie was still ready to treat it as a win. "You should get an earpiece so you look less crazy when you bicker."
"I don't bicker!"
"You totally do."
Tell her I said the same thing. About the earpiece. You make us look bad!
"Venom wants you to know it said the same thing, about the earpiece."
"See? We're totally right." Her watery smile was interrupted with a yawn.
Oh, right, she was a teenager and she'd die before she admitted the whole kidnapping/murder experience had tired her out. "Oooh, boy, look at time." Eddie finished his beer and stretched. "I'm gonna hit the hay. You staying here?"
"Is that okay? I can go back to my apartment but they broke my door and the landlord's a total scumbag and totally won't replace it fast enough and -"
"Yeah, it's fine. I got an extra blanket, here." He tossed it to her. "Yell if you need anything."
"I - yeah. Thanks, Eddie."
He waved a hand. "Ah, don't mention it."
When they were in the bathroom, behind the safety of a closed door, Venom said, Were you going to call Anne?
"Not tonight. I guess she's probably pretty busy, given everything. I already texted her to let her know Suzy was safe, so."
Someday he'd figure out how Venom managed to lurk so effectively, in the back of his mind, heavy with meaning yet totally opaque. "What's going on? Spill."
Nothing.
He wagged a finger at his - their - reflection. "Liar. C'mon, tell me."
I can't tell you if there's nothing to tell. An image Eddie recognized from the tech insider gossip boards he lurked on appeared in his mind.
Great, now his symbiote was sending him memes to communicate. "Yeah, only you're lying. Come on."
You told Anne, 'I love you'. So you should call her. I would want to talk with my beloved after eating so many brainstems.
It couldn't be what it sounded like - which was that Venom was being a jealous little so-and-so. Eddie cast around for an alternative explanation and came up with, "Are you sore I haven't done more to win her back?"
A grumble in his head. No!
"Then -"
Call her if you love her so much, Venom sniped at him, and drew into itself, so that Eddie could only catch the barest echo of anger.
"What the fuck," he said to the empty air.
Suzy ignored him as he went to bed. Normally his lack of walls didn't bother him, but right then he'd've paid to have an actual bedroom. They could afford it, too; maybe something to think about when stuff was a little less - fraught.
And he was ruminating on the relative benefits of loft living because he wanted to avoid the cranky symbiote stinking up his amygdala. God, he'd made some mistakes in life.
I'm not angry with you.
Eddie screwed up his face and focused on sending the words. Kinda seems like you're lying.
We will never be parted from one another. That is the truth.
That has nothing to do with whether or not you're pissed at me, come on.
I'm not!
And boy, Eddie was feeling some deja fuckin vu. He'd had fights with Annie that played out just like this, right down to Eddie pushing too hard while she closed down. He screwed his eyes shut, trying to find his center like the meditation tapes said. Only his center was deep inside him, wasn't it? His center was Venom.
Hey. Listen. I'm sorry for pushing. It's none of my business.
You could make it your business.
We don't have that kind of relationship.
We could.
Eddie wasn't sure why Venom sounded so desperate about it. Maybe it was a symbiote thing, an alien thing. Eddie knew it was crazy - boy, did he know - but he hated that separation, the bone-deep knowledge that no matter how close he was to Venom, there would still be parts of its experiences that he didn't - couldn't - understand.
Venom let out a mental noise kind of like a sigh, materializing around Eddie enough to wrap around his neck, viscous and warm. Eddie felt calm wash over him, as alien as Venom itself.
Go to sleep.
And now Venom sounded like a tired old man. Kind of funny, actually. Eddie reached up and wrapped a hand around it, feeling it pulse warm and alive as he fell asleep.
-
They should've killed Brad. That was Eddie's first thought when he woke up immobilized, staring at Brad's sneering face. His second thought was -
"Holy fucking shit, that thing's ugly."
"You say that about so many aliens," Brad said, stroking the lizard made of eyeballs that sat on his shoulder. "But not the one that gives you immortality. Hypocrite."
"What the fuck does it even do?"
"Iki here creates powerful poison," Brad said. "You're dying of it now."
EDDIE.
Eddie tried and failed not to flinch as the scream reverberated in his skull. Brad laughed. "Oh, yes, and your little parasite won't be able to come out to help you. I'm sorry, I forgot to mention that."
"We ate Tad." Eddie smiled, showing teeth. "Sorry, I forgot to mention that."
Brad shrugged. "It's easy enough to find another CTO. Chad will step in. He's been VP of development since the last funding round, and he was dying to take on a larger role. You saved us some paperwork, for which I'm very grateful. Though, not grateful enough to let you live, of course."
"Chad?" Eddie said. "Seriously?"
EDDIE. YOU ARE DYING. I CAN'T FIX IT. EDDIE, WE NEED HELP.
"You know, mocking people's names is a microaggression." Brad tsked at him. "You'd never make it in the Valley with those chauvinistic attitudes."
Hold on, sweetheart. Fat lot of good that would do. Venom's panic filled them both - and Eddie was panicking too, of course, as convinced as he'd ever been that he was about to die.
"Listen." Eddie did his best to sound reasonable, like a guy who could be - well, reasoned with. "How about you let me and my friend go, and me and Venom won't eat your head."
YES WE WILL!
Brad cocked his head, eyes shining an inhuman yellow. "Your friend?"
"Whoops," said a shadow in the corner Eddie'd carefully avoided looking at.
Nice. She'd found the cleaver. The last thing Eddie saw before Venom ripped itself out of him was Brad's surprised head, rolling on his floor.
Not now. Not today. Not you, Eddie.
It felt like the mask coming over him, but stronger. More. His heart shivered; maybe it stopped. Eddie wasn't sure.
I don't know if I can fix this. Venom's frustration filled him. I've never seen anything like this. Your blood isn't blood anymore.
"Don't worry about me, darling," Eddie said. "Get Suzy somewhere safe. We had a good run, huh?"
No! You heard him. Immortal. Eddie, we can live forever, there's so much we can do - I just have to - It broke off, diving into his veins. And oh, it felt nice, shivery and then hot as Venom burned the poison away.
I'm sorry, Eddie.
"Wait. Why? What are you doing?"
He went unnaturally still again, but this time it was Venom in his blood, racing up and down capillaries, squeezing his heart. Venom got hotter and hotter inside him, burning like the first moment they'd joined, and Eddie screamed as pain filled him him from fingertips to gut.
He was overwhelmed with Venom, surrounded by light and care and his own stupid, hopeless, betrayed love, until he passed out.
unspeakablehorror
Updated: 01 Sep 2023Confirm Delete
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