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Eddie Brock walked down the street headed back from Mrs. Chen’s shop with a grocery bag in each hand, listening to the not-so dulcet sounds of his other, who was humming Jingle Bells off-key. It was playing on a radio a few floors up, which was sitting in the window as if anyone would be more than happy to hear Micheal Buble this fine night. Eddie knew his other would agree. He would probably even do something similar.
Like most things that Eddie was harboring a secret affection for, his other seemed to love Christmas. It was almost as if Eddie’s forgotten and most hidden feelings spilled out of the symbiote via their connection, making it impossible to completely run away from them. Eddie had never enjoyed Christmas directly- it was more like the heart of hope he felt around the season. Ever since he was a kid, it felt like the air was different at this time, as if some hidden force might come and rescue him from his awful life. It never came, of course.
Not until he was much, much older.
Eddie tried not to smile as he griped. “Buddy, at least sing it on key.”
“Oh, you LOVE it!” The symbiote argued back, truthfully. On the off-chance that he wasn’t looking in the right place in his brain, though, Eddie responded in the negative.
“God, I hate this season.”
“You do not!”
“I do, I do. The same ten songs on repeat.” A half-truth.
“You like ‘Sleigh Ride.’”
“When does anyone ever even play “Sleigh Ride?’” Eddie asked. A man passing him the opposite direction gave him a short but strange look, as people often did when they saw him seemingly talking to himself.
“We play it all the time.” The symbiote argued as they hiked the stairs together. He unlocked the door so Eddie could just waltz in. Eddie set the groceries on the table, right on top of all the ads for newer, better and clearly pricer apartments in the area, and they started to put the groceries away together, still bickering. Out of spite, the symbiote put Amy Grant on the record player with a few of his tendrils. Eddie had to stop him from adjusting it to “Sleigh Ride.” He was just so, so bad at it.
“You’re scratching my records!”
“They’re OUR records!”
“Our records that we don’t want to be scratched. I don’t even know if they make this LP anymore.”
Eddie put the milk away while his other opened the computer. After a small bit of clumsy typing he said, “It’s on eBay for like thirty-four bucks.”
“Are you just missing the point on purpose, here?” Eddie asked, tossing his other’s tentacle a chocolate bar. He caught it and unwrapped it and shoved it into Ed- no, their shared mouth, where it was instantly gone.
“We’re snuggled close together like two birds of a feather would be~” he sang.
Eddie groaned and started to make dinner.
“No broccoli!”
“You’re like a five year old! I didn’t buy any broccoli because you always complain when I eat broccoli!”
“You always complain when I eat heads!”
“There’s a legitimate reason for that!”
“There’s a legitimate reason I need to eat heads and not broccoli!”
“The broccoli is for me.”
“You don’t even LIKE broccoli.”
“Yeah….so?” Eddie said, the usual little tinge of annoyance at his every thought being broadcasted to the symbiote evident in his voice.
“So why eat something you don’t even like to eat?”
“Sometimes I eat stuff because it’s healthy.” Eddie said, chopping some vegetables.
“I will keep you healthy.”
“It’d be great if just once we don’t have to fight about dinner, okay? We’re still having the tater tots.”
“Fiiiiiiiiiine.” His other whined, and he went back to singing. Eddie rolled his eyes.
Why did he do this again? Oh, yeah, because this alien life-form was the love his life. And the sex was great, to be honest.
*******
“Oh my god.” Eddie groaned about two hours later. His vision was still blurred as he came down, sighing contentedly.
His other tried to reach between his legs again, but Eddie said, “No, no…. No. Not yet.”
His other didn’t need to ‘say’ anything to communicate his disappointment, but he rested the tendril on Eddie’s chest instead and stroked him gently between the pecks.
“Wow.” Eddie said.
“I know, right?”
“Just….. just wow.”
“I know, right?” His love repeated.
“I mean, you’re in there, you gotta know how good you’re doing.”
“I know exactly what we like.” He replied in a low voice.
Eddie chuckled slightly, but something was nagging at the back of his mind.
Recently they had been going to bed earlier and earlier just to get more of a taste of each other, and his other was incredible in bed. Really, really incredible. But the afterward felt a little empty.
Eddie knew he was never alone, but without his love to hold, it was strange.
In response to these thoughts, the symbiote’s tentacles reappeared, one snaking into Eddie’s hand to hold it. He squeezed back.
Hm.
Something was still missing.
Eddie had never been the type to pry, because he didn’t really feel like reciprocating. Opening someone else’s mind and spirit up came with consequences, and those consequences usually started with the words, ‘what about you?’
This had been bothering him for a while, and the real kicker was that he knew that the other knew that it was bothering him. He was in Eddie’s mind, right? He knew everything about Eddie, everything. And if he knew everything then he knew this, too, so he must be keeping quiet about it.
“You are making our head hurt.”
“Well, I’m right, right? I’m right. You know that I know nothing and you know everything, and that it drives me crazy.”
The symbiote seemed for a moment to hesitate, then he said, “Yes…. Eddie…. I know, and you know and I know that you know.”
“Okay, see you’re making it confusing on purpose in the hopes that I’m gonna let this go.”
“That’s not what’s happening.”
“Then what?”
“You have many questions. They are difficult to answer.”
“We never pillow talk.” It was out of Eddie’s mouth before he even knew the underlying issue, and he regretted it immediately. Just what he needed, more vulnerability.
“Don’t.” The other commanded, and Eddie looked to the side to see him floating there like a dark noodle, his eyes almost glowing in the low light.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t be embarrassed.”
Which of course made him more embarrassed. And his other knew that, and that made Eddie even more embarrassed.
He’s spiraling. The symbiote thought to himself, I have to stop that first. “I was put on the mission as punishment for sexual crimes.” He said. “Don’t be embarrassed.”
“Wait, what now?”
He’d meant to shock Eddie out of being too scared to have this conversation, and that had worked, but more than he’d intended it to. “Let’s ‘pillow talk.’” He said.
“I’ll say.” Eddie turned his body more to the side to face his other, who laid his head on a pillow so they were face to face.
“Don’t worry, it’s nothing you’d consider strange. Think of it from the view of a creature both self-reproducing and all-consuming. We don’t have such a term as sexual crimes, but the more I think of it, the more I realize that this is exactly what they thought of me. That I was a pervert, a degenerate.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to be one with the host, not consume them.”
This had started before him? Eddie didn’t know whether to feel offended by that.
“This is difficult when you can hear the other person’s thoughts.”
“I know.” Eddie put a hand to his head, rubbing his eyes with his fingers, then let the hand plop down. “I can’t- I can’t stop thinking. Obviously.”
“But it is still difficult.”
“I’m trying to let you talk here.”
The symbiote closed its eyes, opened them, and began again, “We are of one mind, a hive mind, and we will take on some characteristics of the host when we control a form. I am not sure why, but I struggled with this often. The host’s love, the host’s passions, I wanted them for myself. And I see no reason to use up a good match quickly.”
“It’s kind of a waste of resources.” Eddie admitted.
“Exactly!” The symbiote said with joy. It was strange to him how Eddie just seemed to ‘get’ him. Despite all their obvious and vast differences, when it mattered, Eddie understood.
“So why would they even want to do that?”
“I have a theory… since hosts can affect us, it’s in our best interest, in a way, to discard one quickly, least it change our… perception. Especially our perception about killing the next host after that, about eating, about food.”
He was pausing a lot, Eddie noticed, like he didn’t have the words to exactly explain what was happening. “So I … I can change you?”
“You have already.”
“How? How so?”
“Hmmmm…. Your love for Anne, for instance, is now ours.”
“You got that from me?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I never explained how we work, precisely…It's all so natural to me.”
“What else?”
“Your sense of justice. Regularly, I would consume anything and anyone I wanted, as you know. But we are a lethal protector instead. The ‘protector’ was your idea.”
“I did … not…know… this was happening.”
“Of course not.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It’s difficult to explain without making it sound like I don’t have my own thoughts. I’ve tried to explain to hosts before. They didn't’ understand it.”
“Oh.”
“But I can see that you don’t think of me as the lesser of us, knowing this.”
“Did they think that?” That filled Eddie with fury. How dare any host think his other was less than they were just because he could be influenced? You should be influenced in a relationship, right? People say that.
“Humans say things like that all the time.”
“They do, right?”
“You never agreed with that.”
“Maybe I just hadn’t really met the right person. I’m a stubborn guy. But I’m, I mean I feel, different about us. I mean, there’s… there’s no escape with you, right?”
“You think that is good? You think it’s bad. How can it be both?”
“Well, it is. It’s uncomfortable. But that doesn’t mean it’s… it’s not bad for me, see?”
“I see.”
“So, um… the other symbiotes, they didn’t like this. That you liked the hosts.” Eddie pressed, eager to get them back on the subject of symbiosis and his other.
“And that I wanted to be one with the host always. They think of you as meat. Imagine you wanted to fuck a steak, Eddie. No one would think it was normal.”
“Um, very, very few people, I think.”
“Yes, a few weirdos.”
“Yeah, well. I mean, no one would think I was normal for wanting you either.”
The symbiote hesitated again, then said, “Hm, yeaaaaah… I never really thought about it, but I am just as alien to you as you are to me.”
“Obviously.”
“So I was to be cast out, but then Riot figured he could use an extra on the team. He was meant to watch me closely, but when the ship crashed, we were separated. I can’t say I think he was especially surprised when I sided with you.”
“He seemed a little surprised.” Eddie said supportively.
“I don’t think he’s the type that can put himself in my shoes, so to speak.” His other replied. “I think he was less surprised that just P.O.ed.”
“Yeah, he’d never understand since you basically said, ‘I like this hamburger soooooooo much that I’m going to stay here with the hamburger.’”
“And when the hamburger touches himself, I’m going to touch him too.” The other purred.
Eddie found himself surprisingly aroused by such a strange sentence. “Okay, so what about your other hosts?”
“Then we should talk about all your exes, too, Eddie.”
“You already know all about all of my exes.”
“Hmm. Can’t argue there.”
“I mean, what was it that made you want to stay with a host?”
“Feels good.”
“That’s it?”
“Pretty much.”
“And with me?”
“Feels the best.”
Eddie was silent for a moment, mostly so he wouldn’t do something embarrassing. After a while he realized he was holding his breath, and let it go. His other knew how he felt, right? Why hide it? Just habit, he supposed.
“So um, so what was your planet like?”
“Skyscraper trees of twisted black like me, not much for plant life, and everything consumes, and only consumes.” He left out… a few details. No need to scare the hell out of Eddie.
“Nice place for a holiday.”
“Never return.”
“Yeah, no, of course not.” Eddie said, incredulous. Why would they go there? He wouldn’t last a day, up against so many … aliens. “What are you called?”
“Kylntar.”
“See I didn’t even know that.”
“It’s irrelevant, Eddie.”
“Is it?”
“It is. Never return.”
“Right, okay.”
“I can think of another thing you might find interesting, though.” The symbiote goaded. Eddie fell hard for the trap.
“What?”
“We Kylntar lust for all the pretty chemicals in your brain- epinephrine, phenethylamine, serotonin, endorphins…”
“I know what like two of those are. Hang on, epinephrine that’s…”
“Adrenaline.”
“Thought so.”
“Which is why sometimes you wake up in a cold sweat.”
“What?”
“I can also affect you… but you knew that, Eddie.”
“You give me those weird dreams? Why would you do that?!”
“I need them, Eddie. Most of us kill the hosts not only out of hunger, but out of need for those sensations to be elicited from the host.”
“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“If you had one, I’d heal you.”
“Oh, right, okay, makes everything great.”
“You aren’t listening, Eddie.” The other said with some bite, “I need them in order to survive! Most of my kind abandon the host when it dies, but I will not leave us. We can get those things from punishing those that need punishing, but you are reluctant to do so.”
“I’m!” Eddie protested. He paused, then said less defensively. “I’m coming around.”
“So you are, and not because I’ve changed you, but out of love, for me.”
“You can do that? Change me?”
“I could do a lot of things… to convince you. But it wouldn’t be good for us.”
“You mean for our relationship?”
“Yes.”
“Well I… I appreciate that.”
“And I appreciate the heads of murderers in our mouth, Eddie. Remember it.”
“Well this took a weird turn.”
“I thought understanding me might help you.”
“It, no, it does. It does.”
“How is that for pillow talk?”
“It was… yeah, it’s been… it’s good.”
“Then go to sleep.”
“So you can make my heart race?” Eddie sort of grinned and his other’s eyes narrowed slightly. He was always sort of smiling, but this was certainly a real smile.
“So I can make your heart race.” He repeated. He dipped forward and bonked his head slightly to Eddie’s lovingly. Before Eddie opened his eyes from their makeshift kiss, the symbiote had settled inside of him.
*******
Christmas shopping for someone that’s in your head was, to say the least, a challenging task, Eddie was finding. The symbiote couldn’t be surprised by anything, but even if he were able to be, the hardest part was criticism. “I can’t get you heads for Christmas. You’re gonna know what it is, anyway! Just pick something!”
“I’ll write you a list.” The symbiote said moodily.
“Why do you even care about this?”
“It’s about surprise.”
“There’s no surprise.” Eddie said, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “You are going to know what it is even if I don’t tell you.”
“Some couples do. But when you open it you still act surprised.”
“No one does that. That’s a thing you see in movies.”
“Will you two pipe down? I’m watching the news over here!” That was Mrs. Chen, and she was quite justified in Eddie’s opinion, since they’d scared away at least one other customer with their very loud Christmas shopping fight, which they were having in front of the cereal at her shop.
“I just think Christmas should be a special time of year.” The symbiote complained.
“This isn’t even a holiday on your planet!”
“Hey!” Mrs. Chen demanded for more silence.
“What?!” Eddie snapped, then closed his eyes at Mrs. Chen’s hurt reaction. “I’m… I’m sorry, Mrs. Chen.”
“Come over here.” She demanded in the most aunty voice that Eddie had ever heard.
Venom made their way over to the counter.
“What are you arguing about, huh? It’s almost Christmas and you two are going at it like a pair of cats marking the same tree!”
Eddie gave her a weird look like, why this metaphor, but the symbiote waved a tentacle around, taking over slightly so he could talk to her. “Mrs. Chen, Christmas gifts should be a surprise, right?” He said in a voice that was clearly meant to be starting an argument.
“Depends.” Mrs. Chen said shortly. “In China, we eat jiaozi, and presents can be just an apple.” She was smiling now, the clean nostalgic kind of smile that immigrants got when they talked about home.
It was contagious for Eddie. “Why an apple?” He asked anyway.
“The Mandarin word for apple is ‘ping guo,’ and the word for Christmas is ‘ping’an ye.’”
“So it’s… it’s a joke.”
“Right! Besides, apples are signs of providence and good health everywhere. It's lucky!”
“Okay, well, we’re not doing that.” Said the symbiote to Eddie.
“But if you really want a secret gift, why don’t you give me the money and I’ll do the secret.”
“Really?” Eddie asked.
“Awwwww!” The symbiote cooed.
“Yeah! Sure! Why not? It’ll be fun. I promise I’ll get him something he’ll love!”
“Thanks, Mrs. Chen.” Eddie said, handing over some cash. She put it into her vest pocket.
“No problem, now grab some cereal and get out of here. I’m going to miss my show.” But she smiled at them. As they left with their cereal, she said, “It’s cold outside! You never wear enough! Get a scarf on!”
“You know that’s just Mrs. Chen’s way of saying she cares, right?”
“It is?” The Symbiote asked.
“Sure. In China it’s like saying I love you when you criticise people for … whatever, for like, not eating enough or something.”
“You do this all the time, Eddie.”
“No, not like, not like the Chinese do. It’s like an art to them.”
They hiked the stairs together and Eddie opened the door. The guy across the hall turned his music off at once, and Eddie smirked.
“Time for dinner!” His shadow hummed, picking up some chicken feed and spreading it across the floor for Sonny and Cher as Eddie took ingredients out and put the chocolate cereal on the table for his other to pour for them.
“Hey, Eddie.”
“Yeah?”
“You want to pillow talk?”
Eddie tried not to blush, rerouted the conversation first. “Sex comes before the pillow talk.”
“I know.” His other purred. Eddie almost dropped the milk carton.
*******
“That. Was. Amazing.” Eddie panted, his face planted in their pillow.
“It’s always amazing,” The symbiote said in their shared mind.
Eddie chuckled.
He was a little startled by his other appearing right next to him suddenly, but it made him laugh harder. His shadow also smiled, bearing his large teeth even further.
“Eddie.” He said.
“My love.” Eddie replied. Sometimes the symbiote said his name just to say it, so he didn’t necessarily expect a conversation. Nonetheless, the symbiote started one.
“Eddie, I was thinking this morning while we were making breakfast.”
“Oh?” Eddie whispered. He wasn’t paying a lot of attention, still lost in the emotions of the moment before.
“You know, Eddie, you have some advantages over me, too, as my host.”
“Oh, what’s that?”
“Well, you control us most of the time.”
Eddie’s eyes opened and his smiled slipped away. Yeah. The symbiote could take control any time he wanted. Had done so before, actually, especially a lot in the first twenty-four hours. He was stronger than Eddie, too. “I never thought of that.” He admitted seriously to the post on the bed.
“And I heal you.”
“Yeah, but you cause most of the injuries.”
“Okay.” His other said with a slightly defensive tone. “I heal the injuries and illnesses that you get even when I’m not the cause.” He added.
“Yeah.” Eddie turned around and his shadow copied him, settled next to him, also looking at the ceiling. “I guess you really don’t have to give me any control. At all.”
“I don’t, but I want to. You had a life… of… of sorts-”
“Thanks.”
“-before me.”
“Thanks so much.”
“You did things on your own. That is not something we symbiotes often do. And maintaining your body takes a good deal of energy.”
“It does?” Eddie’s face swiveled towards his other, so he matched the movement until they were looking at each other.
“Some aspects cost more energy than others. There are some things I rely on the host to do, since it’s difficult to make up for the amount of energy it would cost us. We would have to eat five, six times a day just for me to regulate our heat.”
“Wow. Good thing I’m a mammal.”
“Yet you still cover up as well. Sit in front of the heater. Close the windows in winter. All of this conserves what would be difficult for me to conserve alone.”
“We’re still always hungry.” Eddie mumbled, not accusingly.
“We fight. We move. We get injured. We must eat.”
“It’s weird but humans can get used to pretty much anything. I mean, we’re an adaptable species. Too cold to live there? Fuck the weather. We’ll build igloos and wear seal skin.”
“Yes, that is a strange aspect of humanity indeed. You fit where you shouldn’t.”
“I guess you’re not like that.”
“No. And?”
“I got used to it, to being hungry all the time.”
“That’s awful.”
“What?” Eddie laughed.
“It’s awful. Why should you have to adapt? You can take sometimes, Eddie. We can take. Take up space. Take up… resources.”
Eddie faced the ceiling again. “You know I never felt like that.”
“No one told you that it was okay to take. You spend your life telling others to take what’s owed them, never you. You don’t take. But we will take, Eddie. Together, we must take.”
Eddie didn’t say so, but he appreciated the way his other skirted the topic. He really didn’t want to talk about his parents post coitus, for multiple reasons. He knew, though, that he couldn’t be very mentally healthy after growing up like that.
“Let it never be said again that I’m a parasite.”
“Okay, okay,” Eddie laughed, the sudden turn of the conversation cheering him. “Fine. You’re not a parasite.”
“Thank you.” The symbiote said smugly.
“But the rest of your species is.”
“I don’t care what you say about the Kylnar. They are dead to me. The humans are my hive.”
“Your what?”
“My hive.”
“Oh, right, the thing were you can all hear each other right?”
“Not anymore.”
“Are you like out of range or…?”
“Yes. And that is good.”
“You didn’t like them much, huh?”
“Were I not out of range, Riot would not have ben out of range, and this planet would be all Kylnar.”
“Oh shit. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Yesss.”
“Well, okay. Alright. That’s no good, no. Humans are the hive, now.”
“Yes. Like Mrs. Chen. And Annie.”
He sounded so content when saying their names, Eddie had to smile. “And me?”
“Of course!”
“Snappy, geez.” Eddie joked.
“Now, we are tired.” His other said.
“Yeah, we should get some sleep.”
“Pee first.”
Eddie hadn’t even noticed, but as usual his shadow was right. Eddie stood up to go to the bathroom and the symbiote disappeared inside, where Eddie could swear he still felt his presence somehow.
*******
The next morning at breakfast, his other was strangely silent when Eddie peeled an orange. At lunch he said nothing when Eddie had a bowl of vegetable soup. At dinner, nothing when Eddie ordered a salad with his steak. Eddie didn’t try his luck by bringing it up, but he couldn’t stop his thoughts.
All he heard in reply was, “If you can stomach a head for midnight snack, I can stomach a salad at lunch.”
Eddie grinned at his steak.
*******
“Hey.” Eddie said about five minutes after his other was done with him. They were laying on the couch together just drifting.
“Hey.” His other replied without coming out.
“You know why I don’t like eating people, right?”
“Of course. Well… no. Yes, but it’s confusing. It’s a weird answer.”
“What’s weird about it?”
“Klyntar eat each other all the time. I can’t understand to begin with why that would ever bother you.”
“What?!”
“We are cannibals, you might say. We have no need for a moral boundary drawn on eating our own kind.”
“God. I guess Riot tried. I thought he was being crazy.”
“Why waste the energy your enemy could give you by tossing the body away?”
“I guess?” Eddie said in a high voice.
“I’ll never really understand that.” His shadow said.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. If you can stomach a salad…”
“You mean it?”
“Of course I mean it, Buddy.” Eddie said. “I want to emphasis, though, that there’s gotta be some rules.”
“Badguys.” His shadow purred.
“Other rules.”
He sighed loudly.
“No, no, hear it first. So… um… remember when we went to Mrs. Chen’s and ate that gangster?”
“That guy was delicious.”
“Yeah, well, we had to eat the whole guy, right?”
“I was extra hungry.”
“Yeah, but why don’t you usually eat the whole guy?”
“Are you saying the rule is ‘eat the whole person?’”
“That’s the rule. Leave no bodies.”
“DONE!” His other said triumphantly.
“We gotta be careful, no evidence.”
“Okay!”
“We don’t have fingerprints when you’re in charge, right?”
“Right!”
“Okay, so thems the rules.”
A tentacle flew out and grabbed the cardboard sign on the wall, ripping it off unceremoniously. Eddie sighed as another tentacle replaced the sign with one that read clumsily: RULES: LEAVE NO EVIDENCE. “Ta-da!”
“Yes, okay, as long as we’re clear.”
“Let’s go get something to eat right now!”
“Okay. Alright.” Eddie said, and started to get off the couch. His other leapt over him, encasing him completely. He hit their head as he stood up. “You gotta stop doing that!” Eddie cried. “And at least give me some clothes!”
His other grabbed his jeans and shirt off the floor and shoved it in with Eddie. He tried to protest, but his other was already out the window with their body, climbing the building and listening for the sound of screams.
“Let’s go down to Riviera. Tons of gangs down there.” Eddie said as he tried to skooch into his pants while they were also crawling down a wall. It was challenging.
“Really? Let’s do it!” His other said.
“Also it’s far away from our neighborhood.”
“Sure!”
About thirty minutes later they were prowling the rooftops over bad territory. “Wow, and I thought our place was bad.”
“It is, it’s just not like, the worst.”
“How about that guy?”
“He’s not even doing anything.”
“He has a gun.”
“I’m sure he does but we didn’t see him actually do anything.”
“Fine, fine.” A pause. “Do you hear that?”
“Yeah.”
“Apartment.”
“Yeah…” Eddie said more slowly, hesitant.
Venom went up higher. They peered into an apartment where the fighting was loud. A woman and a man were screaming at each other, and she was shielding three children.
“This might be a complicated situation.”
“Eddie, he has a belt.”
“No, yeah, that’s not okay, but if she hasn’t left there might be reasons.”
“Like?” His shadow asked impatiently.
“Like she doesn’t have the money.”
“Hm, okay, problem solved.”
“What? How?”
“I’ll give her some money.”
“I don’t have enough on me to-”
“I’ll get it from that guy.” Without turning their shared form to look, the symbiote pointed down to the street, where a man was mugging someone.
“Uh, his life is more immediately in danger- no, don’t jump!!! Fuck!”
But Venom was already on the ground chowing down. The man who was being mugged made a dash for it as Venom picked up the thief and shook him. “Okay! Looks like he got someone else!” The symbiote said gleefully as a lot of gold jewelry and cash fell from his jacket.
“Just take his jacket off!” Eddie said in exasperation.
The symbiote ripped the jacket off, clearly breaking the guy’s arm.
“Jeez, ow.”
“He’s dead anyway.” The symbiote said.
“I guess.”
Two more chomps and the symbiote was spitting out shoes. “Gross. I should strip them first at least.”
“Make sure you get the jacket. Don’t leave anything. And give me the shoes. You didn’t grab any at the apartment.”
“You don’t need shoes.” But his other shoved them in.
They gathered everything together and the symbiote pushed most of the clothing towards Eddie in the center.
“Wow, we’re going to have to find some way to like… dispose of stuff.” Eddie wondered out loud.
Using the jacket as a makeshift bag, they jumped back up the building in two bounds. “Honey, I’m home!” Symbiote said, smashing the window so he could crawl inside.
Eddie groaned as the woman screamed louder than ever and ushered her kids inside a door while the man made a break for it out the front door and down the stairs as fast as he could. The symbiote let out some tentacles to push the woman and her kids through quicker and closed the door behind them.
“What the hell are you doing?” Eddie panicked a little.
But the other was already offering her the jewels in the jacket by dumping them off onto the bed. “Here you go, ma’am. Leave that dirt bag. He’s no good.”
“What are you?!” She screamed.
“WE’RE VENOM!” He cried out happily and Eddie would have face-palmed if he’d been able to. “Want me to eat that guy? I’ll eat him!”
“God, oh my god, please stop.” Eddie groaned as the woman sheltered her kids wordlessly.
“No? Alright. Have a nice night! And Merry Christmas!” He opened the door, or rather, tore the door off its hinges, and then climbed out the window like some horrible krampus, shoving the now empty jacket in with Eddie, where it hit him right in the face.
“Seriously?!” Eddie said, and pulled it down to join the rest of the bundle. “Okay, I need a plan for these.”
“Fresh concrete.”
“Okay, that’s not likely around here. Just grab something heavy to tie it to and we’ll dump it in the river. Deep, though.”
“The clothes remind me of feathers.” The symbiote complained when the task was done. “But that was a fine meal!”
“I don’t think she’ll report that.” Eddie thought aloud to his other. “No one would even believe her.”
“Only the people chasing us.” Venom started to head back to the apartment.
“Yeah, we’re trying to avoid that.”
“But that guy was such a dick!”
“I’d rather not do break-ins Buddy.”
“Why not?”
“We scared the hell out of her.”
“Yeah … but her problems are gone now.”
“Okay, first, we have a weird way of solving problems.”
“It feels normal to me.”
“Right. And second, we might have made a lot more problems. That guy might be back.”
“And she might be gone by then.” The symbiote purred, but he immediately followed up with “Okay, no break ins.” He was happy when Eddie replied with a simple:
“Thank you.” Eddie paused. “And we should get a cheeseburger to boot. The human half needs food, too.”
“Oooh let’s go to Barbra’s Burgers. We never go there!” Said the symbiote. They jumped up onto an abandoned factory from the dock, almost right to the roof, and jumped a few buildings, traveling far faster than Eddie’s feet could have taken them.
“I guess it’s on the way, as far out as we are tonight.”
“And it’s a local small business!”
Human morality, Eddie thought, My morality. He smiled. “Yeah, it’s good to support small businesses.” He said.
“I learned that from you, Eddie.” His other said in a deep voice.
“I know, Buddy.” Eddie replied.
The symbiote crawled down the next building. “Then we can go pick up Mrs. Chen.”
“For what?”
“So we can all go back to the apartment and have pie.”
“Christmas with Mrs. Chen, huh? Sounds nice.”
“It will be. Let's pick up an apple." Eddie smiled at that. "And tomorrow offices are open again! We should go look at the place on Lime.”
“Oh, you like the Lime Avenue apartment? Yeah, it looks nice.”
“High ceilings.”
“Definitely a plus. We are so not getting our deposit back on our place.”
By the time their feet hit the sidewalk, only Eddie Brock, reporter, could be seen. “These are nice shoes." He said, glancing down. "Merry Christmas, Buddy.” Eddie said.
“Merry Christmas, Eddie.” The sweet voice in his head responded.
Venom headed down Third Street, together.