A little bit of meta for @venomfest's first prompt: Pride.
Before Venom, Eddie had thought a little bit about gender and sexuality. He kind of had to, considering the places he’d lived, the people he talked to, the stories he covered. He’d been satisfied with who and what and how he was perceived to be. Cis plus. He’d dabbled, of course he had, but mostly found himself happy. Happy as himself. Happy with women.
He figured it out and never circled back.
After Venom, Eddie thought a lot about many things. How they could hide, how they could stay fed, how they could live together. He also thought about human things. All the things he’d accepted and been satisfied by. Men and women, sexuality, gender, presentation.
Outwardly, not much changed. He still liked jeans, shirts, and motorcycles. He wore beads, plaits, strings, and bracelets around his wrist. He kept his hair short no matter how much Venom wanted to try growing it out, but he let his stubble get longer than Anne had ever liked as a compromise.
That’s how Eddie and Venom worked: compromise. And that’s a huge part of what changed Eddie inwardly. He isn’t just Eddie anymore, He’s also Venom. And Venom is also Eddie. They’re EddieandVenom. He’s still himself but also he’s a we, an us, a plural person. And thanks to Venom, he’s also sometimes an it.
Venom doesn’t have gender, or sexuality, and only technically had a presentation in how it draped itself over a host. It found that it was fascinated by how humans interpreted and displayed themselves. Enthralled by the mere ideas of queerness. Drawn in even more when it realized that humans had terminology for even a being like itself: agender, aromantic, asexual.
Together, Eddie and Venom explore. Eddie for a second time as his self molded around his other, and Venom for the same time as it built a life both inside and outside of its host. They become fluid together, a sliding scale of gender and sexuality. They know exactly what the other likes, how they want to be close, when something becomes too much. And once they know each other thoroughly, they face the world together.
