#sciapod

Venom pulls part of its body out of Eddie and floats its head directly in front of his face. The first few times it did this, Eddie felt terrified and found Venom repulsive. Now, he feels a begrudging fondness for it. He thinks it probably has to do with the kiss they shared in the woods, but in general he tries not to think too hard about that.

You do not know the things I do for you, Eddie, Venom says, slowly.

Eddie blinks. “OK. Uh, I don’t really—don’t give me more information than that, please.”

Venom just smiles with all its teeth in response, then it turns toward the fridge and coaxes Eddie into making a heinous breakfast. 

Eddie tries to get some writing done before his lunch with Anne, but Venom is more active than usual as it continues its ministrations of his tattoos, so Eddie impulsively calls the artist he always goes to, Marie, and asks her if she can fit him in by the end of the week. She tells him he can come in later that afternoon if he wants, since she had a last-minute cancellation. Eddie has been going to her for years, so she has several of his designs ready and waiting. 

Eddie meets Anne at an Indian restaurant across town, one of their favorite date-night joints when they were still together, and the only difference now is that they don’t sit on the same side of the booth anymore. 

Anne greets Eddie with a hug and comments on how warm he feels.

“You say that every time,” Eddie replies with a small laugh as they break apart. He removes his leather jacket before taking a seat. 

“Well, you’re just always feverishly warm. I don’t know how it doesn’t bother you,” she says as she sits across from him.

“I mean, it does bother me sometimes. I only take cold showers now. And I sleep mostly naked.”

Anne raises her eyebrows at him. “Mr. I-have-to-shower-and-change-into-PJs-immediately-after-sex sleeps naked now?”

He smiles at her. “Yeah, alright, I deserved that.”

A server comes by to take their drink order. Anne makes a face when Eddie orders water.

“You never drink water.”

Now he’s the one making a face. “That’s not true. I used to drink water, uh, sometimes.”

“So what else is he making you do besides drink water?”

Eddie shifts in the booth. “Nothing. He’s just, um, mostly just irritating.”

Venom rumbles and slithers uncomfortably inside Eddie, clearly angry with his assessment.

“He’s been asking me about my tattoos today. He definitely doesn’t understand what they are.”

Anne laughs. “Does that happen a lot, him not understanding something basic?”

The server returns with their drinks and asks if they are ready to order, and just as Eddie is about to say no, Anne orders for both of them. 

Eddie pouts at her.

“What?” she asks after the server walks away. “We’ve been here a million times, I know what you like.”

She doesn’t know what we like.

“Yeah, uh, you know Vee’s appetite is a little different.” Eddie clears his throat. “Which means, um, my appetite’s a little different, too. It’s OK, I’ll just have to order more food. We eat a lot.”

“Are you sure you’re OK, Eddie?” She drops her voice to a whisper and leans across the table. “He’s not torturing you or anything, is he?”

Eddie imitates her, leaning across the table and narrowing his eyes as he says, “He’s inside me, Annie, so getting closer to me and whispering doesn’t mean he can’t hear you.”

Anne bats playfully at Eddie’s shoulder before leaning back again. “I’m just trying to make sure you’re safe, that’s all.”

Venom moves and twists its tendrils through Eddie’s body, coming closer to the surface of his skin before burrowing back down into Eddie’s muscles. It was an annoying sensation the first few times Venom did it, but now Eddie thinks of it like a cat repositioning on his lap—which, to be fair, was also annoying when Mr. Belvedere deemed Eddie worthy enough to sit on, but even so, thinking of Venom like a pet makes the alien seem like less of a nuisance. 

“Yeah, Annie, I’m safe,” Eddie responds softly. “We’re still, uh, just trying to figure out living together. It’s annoying, sometimes, but we’re working on it.”

“Is ‘living together’ the right term for it, though? You’re just...together. It’s kind of a big commitment, if you think about it.”

Eddie laughs and scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, which is why I don’t really think about it. But, you know, I don’t really have that much of a choice. If he leaves, I die.”

Venom moves in a way that feels like it is tightening inside Eddie, like all of its strands are taut, which Eddie’s body responds to antagonistically: he relaxes. 

“OK, so if you knew you wouldn’t die if he left, would you want him to leave?”

Venom simmers, angry.

“No,” Eddie answers honestly. “I mean, there are definitely things I would change, but…”

“You like the power.”

Eddie looks around, irrationally embarrassed that someone might overhear them. He nods shyly then takes a drink of water. 

“Oh, Eddie, you’re so predictable.”

“What?”

“You don’t like having your own power, you just like taking it from other people. Or, in this case, an alien.”

He leans back in his chair and defensively crosses his arms over his chest, tucking his hands under his armpits. “What are you talking about?”

“Your career. And now this.” She shrugs. “I just hope you sort it all out with Venom, is all. You’re irritable, like you were the first couple weeks after you moved in with me. Remember that?”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Yes, I remember because you won’t let me forget. This is different though. I’m not—um, I’m not in a relationship with Venom.”

“Aren’t you though?”

Yes.

Eddie swallows. “Not—it’s not—I can’t think of it that way, it’s too weird.”

“Yeah, probably. But it’s something you're gonna have to deal with eventually.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Eddie changes the subject after that, asking Anne about her work and about Dan. When their food arrives, Eddie immediately orders another entree and an appetizer and tries not to feel embarrassed about it. He could actually eat way more than that, but he won’t in front of Anne. Venom complains in his head, insists their bodies are still hungry, swirls its strands frantically around Eddie’s midsection to make its point, but Eddie just sets his jaw and ignores it. 

When Eddie tells Anne at the end of lunch that he has an appointment to get a tattoo, Anne just laughs and says, “Still the same old Eddie.” She pays for the meal, Eddie leaves a cash tip, and they walk out to his bike together. 

Feeling relaxed and brave, Eddie gives Anne a kiss on the temple as they hug goodbye. She doesn’t acknowledge it. 

On the drive over to the tattoo shop, Venom asks, How long will it take to win her back?

Eddie hates when Venom talks to him when he’s driving because although Venom can hear his voice no matter what volume he speaks, he can’t hear himself over the sound of the engine and the wind. “I told you, it’s not happening.”

But we like her.

“I know we like her, but she’s with Dan and you and I are, uh, kind of fucked up.”

I don’t understand. 

Eddie sighs. “Anne’s right. Like it or not, you and I are together—a package deal, so the chances of me having any kind of human relationship with anyone is just out of the question.” Realizing how depressing that is, Eddie tacks on, "Right now."

But Anne likes us. I think she would like being with both of us.

Eddie doesn’t respond. Surprisingly, Venom doesn’t push the issue.

At the tattoo shop, Eddie is greeted by one of the artists, Solomon, with little more than a curt nod and a waiver slapped down on the counter, which Eddie signs without reading. He then takes a seat out front to wait for Marie.

Your pulse has quickened. You’re beginning to sweat.

“Yeah, well, that’s because the guy that just helped us is my ex, and it did not end well,” Eddie whispers through gritted teeth.

Oh, like Anne?

“Stop playing dumb, you know what an ex is.”

Eddie watches as Sol greets another client. Despite having dated nearly a decade ago when Eddie was only in San Francisco for a six-month temporary gig, Sol still acts like it was just yesterday that Eddie chickened out on their relationship and told him he had to get back to his “real life” in New York. Not his best choice of words. 

Sol looks bigger every time Eddie comes to the shop. He is older than Eddie, has to be in his 50s by now, but he clearly still lifts as evidenced by the broad muscles of his back and the thickness of his tattooed biceps. His muscled chest tapers into a soft torso, his belly significantly more pronounced than when they dated. His beard looks thicker, too, a few fuzzy gray hairs mixed in with the black, and he is bald—has always been bald—and richly dark-skinned and six inches taller than Eddie.

You are still attracted to him.

Eddie clenches his fist against his thigh. “He’s still attractive.”

You are attracted to Anne, too. But Solomon looks very different from Anne.

“I don’t know if now is the best time for me to explain race and gender and sexuality to you.”

Anne is small, so I assumed you preferred someone smaller than you. But Solomon is—

Eddie ignores the rest of Venom’s sentence as Marie comes out of the back office and waves Eddie over to her workstation. Marie is rail thin and only ever wears baggy tank tops and baggy ripped jeans, and nearly every inch of visible skin is covered in colorful tattoos. 

“Did you pierce more of your face since the last time I was here?” Eddie teases as he takes a seat.

She swivels toward him on her stool. She has piercings everywhere: eyebrows, nose, lip, tongue, all over her ears, and a barbell through her sternum. “I’m sure I have, since you haven’t been here in forever, buddy. I was wondering what the hell happened to you.”

“Yeah, uh, I’ve been going through some stuff, you know how it is.”

She pulls her long black hair up into a bun on top of her head then grabs a stack of drawings off a table as she says, “My aunt told me you ate a dude in her store.”

Venom vibrates through Eddie’s entire body.

“You know no matter how many times you tell me, I’m never gonna remember you’re Mrs. Chen’s niece.”

Marie holds out three drawings for Eddie to pick. 

“Ah fuck, they’re gorgeous, Marie,” he says as he leans forward to get a better look. He points to the one in the middle, a partial skeleton of a rib cage and pelvis held together by nuts and bolts. “Let’s put that one on my left side.”

“You got it, bud.”

As Marie prepares everything, she says casually, “So you gonna tell me about the dude you ate, or?”

“Oh right, um, I have a parasite.”

Venom constricts inside Eddie, making the muscles in his arms and legs jump.

“It’s, like, an alien,” Eddie continues lamely.

Marie’s face doesn’t change. “Take your shirt off. So, can I see it? The alien? My aunt said it’s gnarly.”

Eddie pulls at the hem of his shirt and asks, “Do I have to take it all the way off?”

“Aww, poor little Eddie doesn’t wanna expose his cute body when his ex is right over there.”

I like her. I’m going to say hi to her.

“No, Vee, wait—”

It always feels like Eddie’s face is being sucked into a vacuum when Venom takes it over. 

Hi, Marie. Eddie and I are Venom.

Marie blinks. “OK, so. I think I understand why you ate a guy.”

Venom sticks its tongue out then relinquishes control back to Eddie.

“Goddamn it, I hate when he does that shit,” Eddie says with a nervous laugh, looking around the shop to make sure nobody noticed anything.

“You, like, straight up have an alien inside you, bud,” Marie says. “But for real, take your shirt off.”

Eddie complies, then turns over to his side so Marie can get started. She presses her gloved fingers against his skin and asks exactly where he wants it, how big he wants it, then she cleans the area. 

Venom stirs inside him, concentrating much of its mass in Eddie’s rib cage, where Marie is touching. What is she going to do to us?

“You’ll see, buddy, just be patient,” Eddie replies.

“Who you talking to, Eddie? Your alien?”

“Yeah, he talks to me. Constantly.”

Marie stands. “Ooh, sounds like that’s annoying. I’ll be right back.”

You think I am annoying.

“Yeah, we’ve established that already.” Eddie flips over to his back and crosses his arms over his bare chest. He has no qualms about his body, usually, but he does not like feeling exposed around an ex. 

I don’t think you are annoying. I still think you’re a loser, but I like you.

“Can you just—can we put a lid on this until we get home, please?”

Venom’s tendrils bury deeper inside Eddie before going still, which Eddie interprets as Venom doing its best to leave him alone.

Marie returns a moment later with a stencil, and Eddie turns back to his side without having to be asked. With the stencil in place, Marie leads Eddie over to the full-length mirror.

As Eddie looks at himself to make sure he likes the placement, he spots Sol in the mirror, managing equipment at his own workstation across the room and stealing a glance at Eddie. Eddie flushes, but not with embarrassment. More like pride. 

We can eat him if you’d like.

“No, Vee, we really can’t.”

He is looking at us. Do you think he still wants to be with you, Eddie?

“Why are you so nosy? Seriously?” To Marie, he says, “Looks perfect. Sorry I’m talking to myself.”

“What’s he talking to you about?” Marie asks as they walk back to her workstation. 

“Sol.”

“Oh, that’s awkward.” Marie sits on her stool and puts on new gloves. “If he’s in there with you all the time, how the hell are you supposed to have any privacy?”

“I don’t.”

Eddie, what is that? Why does she have needles?

“Calm down, buddy,” Eddie placates even as he feels Venom’s tendrils pull as taut as strings of a guitar inside his body. “This is what getting a tattoo is like, and we trust her.”

Marie laughs.

She is going to hurt you. 

“It’s OK.” Eddie’s entire body is rigid. “Can you please—loosen up a bit, Vee.”

It takes a moment for Eddie’s muscles to relax.

At the sound of the tattoo machine, Venom stirs but does not constrict again. 

“You ready?” Marie asks sweetly, machine poised over Eddie’s rib cage.

“Yep.”

At the press of the needle, Venom turns to liquid inside Eddie, concentrating into a single point and numbing his side completely. 

“Hey, hey, hey, no,” Eddie says.

Marie immediately stops. “What, what’s wrong?”

“Sorry, not you. Hold on a second.” Eddie flips to his back and looks down at himself. “The pain is OK. Don’t try to heal me.”

But it hurts you. She’s hurting you.

“I know that, but sometimes pain is...good. Just—hang out until she’s done.”

Marie doesn’t say anything, just waits for Eddie to give her the go ahead. She looks a little apprehensive as she presses the needle back to his skin.

After a few minutes, probably less than five, Venom swirls watery soft around Eddie’s ribs again, soothing the burned skin.

“Goddamn it, you’re doing it again.”

Marie stops. “Thank god I know about the alien, or else this would be a very strange experience for me.”

I don’t like feeling your body get hurt. I like your body.

Eddie sits up, groans, scrubs a hand down his face. “Venom. I am fine. Look at my body. This is how I got all the rest of the tattoos you love so much, by going through this pain. It’s not permanent, and it’s not even that bad. Please stop trying to fix it.”

Venom is quiet for a moment before saying, But why would you want to be in pain when I can fix it for you?

“I like this pain. I want to feel it. I’ll tell you what, if it gets to be too much, I’ll let you fix it. Deal?”

Fine. 

Eddie lies back down on his side.

“My god, Eddie, what the shit?” Marie asks.

“He should be OK now, you can go ahead,” Eddie replies.

Marie clears her throat and tentatively presses the needle against Eddie’s skin. The pain is a single small point, constantly moving, burning, tickling, unlike any other type of pain imaginable. Eddie relaxes into it.

“So, the alien likes your tattoos, huh?” Marie asks after a few minutes of silence.

“Yeah. He likes pretty much everything about me.”

“Well, that sounds totally healthy and normal.”

Venom moves the bulk of itself into Eddie’s shoulders and neck and settles there. I can feel that you enjoy this pain. I think I understand. 

“Anne said he and I are in a relationship,” Eddie says quietly.

“Gross, dude. He’s an alien living inside you, you can’t be in a relationship.”

“I mean, I get what you’re saying, but it’s not like I can be in a relationship with anybody else either. Kind of hard to be intimate with another human being when an alien is always talking inside my head and moving around inside my body.”

You don’t want to be in a relationship with anybody but Anne, though, and Anne understands us. 

“Huh,” Marie says. “That kind of sucks, buddy.”

I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to tell you this today.

“Hmm?” 

We should talk to Anne.

“He’s talking to you now, isn’t he? You’re not listening to anything I’m saying.” Marie stops the machine and wipes the wound. “What about sex? Like, if you tried to have sex with someone, would he pop out your face and get in on the action?”

That might be fun. We could try that.

Eddie’s heart drops to his stomach. “Um, let’s not—can we not talk about that right now.”

“Oh my god, are you talking to me or to him? What did he say?” Marie asks.

“Nothing.” Eddie laughs nervously. “And I’m not discussing sex with you, Marie, you’re, like, 20 years younger than me.”

“You dork, it’s not like you’re my dad.”

Does sex make you uncomfortable, Eddie?

Eddie buries his face in the crook of his elbow. His body wants to squirm, to escape this situation, but he has to remain perfectly still on his side. 

Venom doesn’t say anything else to him, but it spreads itself evenly across Eddie’s body and holds him in place, immediately turning Eddie’s embarrassment into a quiet calm. 

The tattoo takes another two hours for Marie to finish. It’s not very big, just about the same size as the Buddha up and to the right of it, but it is intricate and beautiful in a way that makes Eddie stare at it in the mirror for a solid minute and a half before Marie asks if he likes it or not.

“It’s gorgeous, Marie, thank you,” he says softly. 

Marie pulls out her phone and presses a hand to Eddie’s side to make him turn toward her so she can snap a picture. Venom moves swiftly against the touch, pressing through Eddie’s muscle tissue and pushing out through the surface of his skin exactly where Marie’s hand is.

“Oh geez, what’s that?” Marie asks as she snatches her hand back.

“I don’t know, he’s never done that before. Vee, what’s the deal?” Eddie touches the spot where Venom still lingers.

Just testing something out.

“OK,” Eddie says, annoyed. “You’ve got to communicate with me, buddy, you can’t just randomly touch people.”

Venom rumbles through Eddie’s entire body in a long-suffering sigh.

“Why does he want to touch me anyway?” Marie asks.

She’s been touching us for hours, I was curious. 

“He was, uh, curious,” Eddie repeats. 

“About what?”

Venom rumbles again.

“I don’t know! I don’t know, Marie, he’s an alien.” Eddie glances around the shop and catches Sol’s eye before Sol quickly looks away. “Can we just—how much do I owe you?”

Marie doesn’t ask any other questions about Venom even though Eddie can tell she wants to, and she doesn’t say anything when he leaves her a much bigger tip than usual, but she does roll her eyes as she takes the cash. Eddie heads quickly out of the shop and is standing by his bike about to strap his helmet on when a familiar voice calls his name.

“Oh, hey, Sol,” Eddie says sheepishly, moving his helmet to his right hip and avoiding eye contact as Solomon walks up to him.

Stand up straight, Eddie. You look weak.

“Seems like Marie was giving you a hard time,” Sol replies, his voice deep and smooth. “You doing OK, Ed?”

Eddie scratches the back of his head. Stop fidgeting. “Yeah, I’m alright. You?”

“Your phone number the same?”

Stop moving. 

“What?”

Sol tilts his chin down, making himself slightly more eye-level with Eddie. “I still have your number, if it’s the same. I’d like to use it.”

Eddie involuntarily laughs like an idiot. “OK, um, yeah, it’s the same. But, uh—”

“Good. See you later, Ed,” Sol says as he walks back into the shop.

Why did you let him talk over you? Why didn’t you stand up taller? 

Eddie feels heat creeping up his neck, into his ears, as he recalls his and Sol’s relationship: there was rope sometimes, and Sol teasing Eddie about being a brat, and Sol always being the one in control even when they were out in public together, and Eddie enjoyed every bit of it. 

Although Eddie is pretty sure Venom can see his memories when they flare so vividly, he still says out loud, “I didn’t wanna stand up taller. Not with him.”

You are a loser.

“Nah, this is different,” Eddie replies as he gets on his bike. “Sometimes it’s a choice to let someone else have, uh, control. Willingly giving up your own control, you know, that kind of thing.”

Like willingly feeling pain when getting a tattoo.

“Yeah, actually, kind of,” Eddie shouts over the roar of his bike as he pulls out of the parking lot and onto a main road.

Or willingly letting me take over your body.

Eddie grips the handlebars tighter and doesn’t respond. 

He stops by Mrs. Chen’s before going home, letting Venom pick out whatever it wants (two bags of frozen tater tots, a gallon of chocolate milk, three different kinds of chocolate candy and a family-sized bag of salt and vinegar chips) and enjoying Mrs. Chen’s reaction when Eddie shows her his new tattoo.

“My niece is very talented, but I still think most of your tattoos are silly.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Chen.”

Back at their apartment, Eddie sits on the couch and reads the news on his phone while Venom eats all the food with its head and two arms protruding out of Eddie’s right side. Venom shares the chips and one of the candy bars with Eddie. 

Eddie.

“Yeah, buddy.”

Your side hurts.

“Well, yeah, it’s gonna hurt for a while. Tattoos are like burns.”

Venom recedes back into Eddie’s body and slithers to his left side, swirling several small tendrils around the new tattoo. Is it still the good pain?

Eddie thinks about it for a moment before answering, “No, actually, it sucks.”

Venom soothes the pain immediately. Eddie closes his eyes and drops his head back against the couch; he didn’t realize just how much his side had been hurting. He reaches his hand down to cup his rib cage, and Venom responds by pulling tendrils out of his skin and lacing them with Eddie’s fingers, directly over the new tattoo.

“What are you doing, buddy?” Eddie asks even as he squeezes Venom’s inhuman fingers. 

Marie called you ‘buddy,’ and now you’re calling me ‘buddy.’ It’s annoying.

“Oh good, something annoys you. Now I’m not the only one in this relationship that’s annoyed.”

Relationship.

Eddie clears his throat but still keeps his fingers tightly wound with Venom’s. “You know what I mean.”

Internally, Venom pulses near Eddie’s rib cage like a deep pressure concentrated against his bones. I think I can recreate the pain of getting a tattoo.

“What?” 

You like the pain of the needle marking your skin. I can imitate it.

Eddie feels tense, his body rigid. “But—but why?”

Why not?

Eddie blinks. He can’t come up with a reason why not. He lets his fingers slip out of Venom’s grasp as Venom narrows one of its tendrils into an impossibly small point and presses Eddie’s side, gently at first and then speeding up as Eddie relaxes against the couch cushions. 

“What the fuck, Vee, that’s so weird,” Eddie says on an exhale. 

You enjoy it.

“Yeah. It’s weird as shit, but yeah, I do.”

Maybe we would be less annoyed with each other if we did more things that we enjoyed.

“Hey, I basically let you do whatever you want.”

Venom stops poking him. I’d like to eat more people.

“Oh yeah? Well, I’d like to have some privacy every now and then.”

Privacy? What do you need privacy for?

“I don’t know, like maybe if I had someone over and wanted them to spend the night.”

Venom moves up Eddie’s chest and wraps the bulk of itself around Eddie’s shoulders. You want to have sex.

Eddie runs a hand down his face then settles both his hands on his knees. “Yeah, well, a man has needs, and my needs aren’t exactly being met right now, so.”

Venom creeps up Eddie’s neck. I can help meet your needs, Eddie.

“I don’t know if—I’m not sure that’s a good—you know, I just—”

You want this. We can do whatever we want, Eddie. What’s stopping you?

“Well, um, for starters, you’re an alien. I don’t even know how we would…”

Venom materializes in front of Eddie, massive and solid, deeply black and muscled with a nearly fully-formed body connected to Eddie directly at his hips. It places one hand on Eddie’s side, near the tattoo, and its other on his shoulder. This body is close to what you humans look and feel like.

“No, um, not really, Vee.” Eddie puts his hands on the couch, not daring to touch Venom even though it is taking up so much space in Eddie’s lap that it feels against instinct not to put his hands near where its hips would be if it had them. “Do you even know or, like, understand what sex is? Is it something that you want?”

Venom grins and then sticks its tongue out, moving it slowly from one side of its mouth to the other. Yes. And yes.

“What? For real?”

Definitely for real.

Eddie sucks his bottom lip between his teeth and looks up and down Venom’s body, considering. “When you kissed me in the woods—”

Yes, I wanted to. Venom moves its head forward, its sharp teeth an inch from Eddie’s face. I want to now.

Heart hammering in his chest, Eddie relents and puts his hands on Venom’s sides. They almost feel like hips, but Venom’s body is more like liquid and string than muscle and bone. Eddie digs his fingers in. He tilts his chin up tentatively, presses his nose against Venom’s face before pulling back, looking at the alien curiously, then he turns his head to the side and slots his mouth against Venom’s. 

Eddie tries to move his lips like a normal kiss, but Venom’s tongue fills his entire mouth, and it somehow suctions Eddie’s mouth against its own, and it’s too much, not enough, and Eddie’s arousal stirs in him so quickly that he would laugh if he could. The most he can do is make strained noises in the back of his throat.

After a minute or so, Eddie loses all sense of control and begins bucking his hips up, but there is nothing for him to buck against since their bodies are too intertwined in his lap. So he scrambles for one of Venom’s hands while simultaneously undoing his fly, and Venom gets the gist and wraps its weird malleable fingers around Eddie’s cock without breaking their kiss. 

Venom’s hand morphs around Eddie’s cock, stretching and folding and weaving threads together until it feels like Eddie is actually fucking into a hole—not quite human, so not possible to define as any type of genitalia—and while Eddie thrusts his hips up, Venom constricts and relaxes around his cock in a steady rhythm all while continuing to fuck its tongue down Eddie’s throat. Then, impossibly, tendrils are everywhere, snaking around Eddie’s balls, caressing his skin, kissing his nipples, pushing into his ass—Eddie comes early.

Venom unwinds itself from around Eddie’s cock and releases his mouth. Eddie takes a deep breath, choking a bit as he realizes just how far down his throat Venom’s tongue was. Venom rumbles a laugh, licks Eddie’s face, then noses at his jaw as it fuses its mass against Eddie’s skin like a moving blanket. There is a feminine quality to Venom’s movements, which Eddie struggles to rationalize with his skewed view of the alien as a hulking beast that rips and bites people’s heads off. He decides it’s time to stop assigning gender-specific qualities to his alien.

I liked that.

Eddie tangles his hand in the tendrils of Venom’s neck. “Yeah, me too. Fuck.”

Is this the part where you freak out?

“Uh yeah, I guess I should. Fuck. That just, um, it felt really fucking good. Really good.” Eddie tries to bring Venom’s face toward him for another kiss, but Venom resists.

So if you’re not going to freak out, then we should talk.

“What? Why?”

That’s what we are supposed to do. Our relationship has been nebulous and undefined, and it has made you irritable and difficult to live with.

“Hey, you never said I was difficult to live with,” Eddie replies, feeling irrationally hurt.

I’m saying it now. 

“OK. Fine.” Eddie tries to remember when he had to have this exact same conversation with Anne two weeks after he moved in with her. He thinks she may have approached him in a similar way, after sex, curled up close to him and soothing him with her touch. “It’s difficult for me to adjust to having you inside me, not because I don’t—it’s not that I don’t like you, it’s just that it’s, uh, different. You’re a fucking alien. There’s no human experience that could’ve prepared me for…” He points between their connected bodies. “This.”

I was not prepared either, Eddie.

“What do you mean?”

Venom kisses him. I did not expect to like you this much.

Eddie automatically smiles, then tries to downplay it by rolling his eyes. “OK. So. A relationship then? Do you even know what that entails?”

I hope it entails a lot more sex.

Eddie laughs. “Yeah. But it’s also, I don’t know, taking care of each other and—”

We already take care of each other.

“—And communicating our feelings, and spending time together.”

We spend all of our time together.

“Yeah. Um. I’m not sure you’re really understanding what I’m saying, and I’m pretty bad at this, too, so it’s probably gonna be different than, like, my relationship with Anne.”

Venom grins wide, showing every one of its teeth. Good. She can help us.