#auctioning

They’ve given him a drug that makes him–and Venom–sleepy and compliant. Venom purrs softly in Eddie’s throat when their thighs are massaged with oil. It gives a deeply satisfied rumble when they are dressed in warm clothes.

This could be worse, Eddie, it projects to him when they are left alone in the cell for a moment. 

“I don’t think you have a good grasp of what’s going on here, Vee.”

The door to their cell opens and two large men step in. They take them by the elbows and lead them out into the hall.

Nothing is a threat to us so long as we’re together.

—

Eddie is blindfolded and they are led into a room large enough to echo. Voices, indistinct and multiple, bounce around them. Venom curls up in Eddie’s belly, sleepy and disinterested now that they can’t see. 

(It doesn’t occur to them that Venom doesn’t need Eddie’s eyes to see. Everything feels distant under the haze of drugs, blurred and unimportant.)

“Moving along,” a woman on a loudspeaker announces. “We are very excited to present our next item for sale.”

Multiple voices react in hushed whispers. Eddie sighs and shifts on his bare feet. They are standing on carpet. What kind of auction block is carpeted?

“Before you stands a very interesting alien specimen of the symbiote variety.”

You hear that, Eddie? We are very interesting. 

“Yeah, buddy,” Eddie sighs, uncaring that he’s likely talking to himself in front of a large crowd. “But that’s not news to me.”

Aw, Eddie…

“Looks like a normal man to me,” someone from the crowd shouts. 

Venom prickles under Eddie’s skin. He is not a normal man. He is Eddie. Venom’s Eddie.

“Soon to be someone else’s too,” Eddie grumbles.

That gets Venom’s attention. What is an auction anyway?

The auctioneer interrupts their private conversation. “It’s what’s bonded with the normal man that we’re bidding on today. Symbiotes need a human host to survive Earth’s atmosphere. Would you like to see a glimpse of the symbiote?”

The crowd murmurs their affirmations.

Eddie winces. That doesn’t sound good.

There’s a snick of flint flicking against metal and then all at once, they ablaze. Tea tree oil is flammable. That’s why they rubbed Eddie down with it. So that once he was on the auction block, they could set him on fire.

Venom rises off of Eddie’s skin in sticky strands, writhing and screeching under the flames that lick up Eddie’s body. Eddie tries to unglue his teeth so he can shout at the auctioneer, to let them know there won’t be anything left to sell if they burn Venom to death, but as quickly as they were ignited…they are extinguished.

Then Eddie just…stands there, singed on the auction block. The haze of drugs is wearing off. Searing pain takes their place. 

Shit, shit, shit, Venom chants to itself as it works to heal Eddie’s scorched skin. What the fuck?

A round of polite applause scatters through the room. As if they’ve just performed a particularly clever trick.

I told you this wasn’t good, Eddie thinks. His lips are too charred to move.

Yeah, but you worry too much. How was I supposed to know they were going to light us on fire?

The lock rattles in the door and, reluctantly, Peter crawls back down to his bed (a plush feather mattress that Peter hasn’t slept on once). They don’t like to find him crawling around the walls and ceiling. 

“Good morning, Peter.”

“Morning,” Peter mumbles. His spine stings as he says it. The nerves there remember the cane. Remember your manners, Peter.

“That’s much better.” The man stoops down to cup Peter’s jaw in his warm hand. 

Peter sags into it, eyes sliding closed. He hates this hand.

“You have a big day ahead of you. Are you ready?”

“Yessir,” Peter grits out in a mumble. The taste of ‘sir’ in his mouth isn’t so bitter if he can blend it into another word. 

There’s no way to sweeten kneeling on the floor. Peter crouches. He leaps and swings. He flies. He doesn’t kneel. 

---

Peter expected an auction block. He expected a bare wooden platform and a crowd of people pressed in close around him.

He gets none of that.

Dressed plainly, Peter is led into a brightly lit room. Three, immaculately dressed people on cell phones sit in a semi circle, bidding paddles on their laps. When Peter enters, they all shuffle to stand, trying to get a better look at him.

He turns his head to the side, wincing. Embarrassed. His eyes are swollen and wet, tears about to spill out. He doesn’t want to cry in front of these people. Not just because it’s not allowed, but because...

Because Peter still likes to think of himself as brave.

“Ms. A,” Peter’s handler says. “You may go first.”

Go first?

Ms. A is a blonde woman with manicured, crimson nails. She tucks those nails between Peter’s lips and examines his teeth. She lifts his shirt, palpates his thighs and calves. To her phone she says, “He seems normal to me.”

She requests to cut Peter. She is denied.

Mr. B is a tall man in cashmere who checks the whites of Peter’s eyes and presses his thumb against Peter’s tongue. 

He requests to remove Peter’s pants. He is denied.

Mr. C doesn’t touch Peter at all. He asks his age, where he’s from, where he’s worked...all the normal questions. But he asks strange questions: the languages he speaks, if he’s afraid of water, how often he dates. Peter answers these through a grit jaw and stares at Mr. C when he relays the information to his phone.

He requests to burn Peter. He is denied.

When they return to their seats, Peter’s handler takes him by the shoulder. Peter crumples under his hand, ducking his head and blushing. The bidders respond to this with a twitter over their phones.

“Mr. C,” his handler says, drawing a lighter. “Do you smoke?”

Mr. C nods and lights a cigarette. He takes a single puff on it before passing it to Peter’s handler. Ms. A and Mr. B lean forward in interest.

“Hold out your hand, Peter.”

Peter watches his hand extend towards his handler as if of its own volition. He watches the lit cigarette sink into the center of his palm. The flesh there hisses as it’s burnt, but Peter doesn’t make a sound.

Peter’s handler continues to talk as they wait for his hand to heal. “He’ll need special accommodations, of course, given his unusual abilities. I’ve found that managing him can be...enjoyable, even. He’s intelligent, so he needs constant stimulation and...”

The handler cuts off when Peter’s skin visibly stops swelling. Retracts. Fades from angry pink to white. When he’s fully healed, Peter curls his fingers over his palm.