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Eddie, we’re hungry, Venom complains, and Eddie huffs out a harsh breath and glances around the sidewalk to make sure no one’s too close before he answers, pulling up the hood of his sweatshirt like it might be hiding a bluetooth headset. He doesn’t really care if people see him talking to himself, but it’s better to be less memorable than that.
“I noticed,” he says. It’s hard to miss when Venom’s hungry, seeing as he’s mentioned it about six times in the past half hour. They’re on their way to have lunch with Anne and Dan, which isn’t going to be much help but was unfortunately a previous engagement. Also, he can’t really explain “I need to go find a sociopath or a criminal to cannibalize and oh, by the way, I still have Venom, did I not mention that?” “We can’t just go around eating random people, okay?”
Because we only eat bad people, Venom grumbles, or maybe just agrees. Eddie’s feeling a little under the weather, honestly, so he’s not sure how well he’s reading him. Venom is probably nibbling on his liver right now. They haven’t eaten anyone in the better part of a week, so . . .
“Be patient, man,” he says. “We’ll find somebody.” Although admittedly he’s still a little unsettled by the idea of going out deliberately looking for somebody to eat. It’s not his favorite part of their arrangement.
We could do something else, Venom says.
“What?” Eddie frowns, stopping in his tracks and looking around. “There’s a something else we could do? Why haven’t we been doing it?”
You said Anne wasn’t ours, Venom says.
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Eddie asks with a scowl.
I don’t want to do it with STRANGERS, Venom says derisively, like the idea is something repulsive. And Anne is delicious.
“You—we’re not eating Anne!” Eddie hisses in outrage.
Not THAT kind of eating, Venom huffs.
“How many kinds of eating are there?!”
Two, as far as I know.
“I’m sorry, are you trying to tell me we could’ve just been having sex all this time?” Eddie demands in disbelief. “Instead of, I don’t know, literally consuming people?!”
Not that the idea of having sex with Venom in his head is the most appealing thing in the world, admittedly, but he’s gotten pretty used to the guy. He could do it.
It’s more like a supplemental thing, Venom says. It isn’t as good as eating PROPERLY, but the chemicals involved—
“I literally don’t even want to know,” Eddie says. “How creepy do we have to be when we’re doing it?”
Creepy?
“Like, how much do you have to come out.”
Oh. I don’t have to, the chemicals your body produces are enough. Assuming you don’t suck at it.
“Don’t—I do not suck at it!” Eddie sputters.
Then the chemicals your body produces would be enough; did you not hear me?
“Asshole,” Eddie hisses. This is not a great conversation to be having on the street, but at least no one else can hear Venom’s half of it. “So fine, this is good, I can hit up a bar and take somebody home. Hell, I could probably just jack off.”
That won’t work, Eddie, Venom says.
“You just said it would!”
Wrong chemicals, Venom says. We need the ones you get from Anne.
“What? What’s the difference?” Eddie demands. It’s all sex, he doesn’t see why it would matter.
It’s ANNE, Venom says. Besides. I don’t want to share with strangers anyway.
“You are making literally no sense right now!” Eddie says in exasperation. “You’re literally in my brain, man, your entire life is a shared experience!”
That’s DIFFERENT, Venom huffs. And so is Anne.
“In what possible way?!”
If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you, Venom says. Eddie throws his hands up.
“Venom,” he says feelingly. “You sound like my high school girlfriend. The bad one.”
Venom doesn’t answer him, but the impression of disdain is impossible to miss. Eddie sighs. Seriously, he’s had entire relationships that went smoother than five minutes with Venom. He’s had breakups go smoother than five minutes with Venom.
Venom makes an offended sound, and Eddie starts to open his mouth to say something, but gets interrupted by—
“Eddie!”
He looks up and sees Dan waving from across the street, Anne beside him. He tries to figure out how he feels about that but his feelings about Dan and Anne as a unit continue, as ever, to be inscrutable.
Hm, Venom says. Eddie looks both ways and crosses the street.
“Hey, sorry,” he says. “Am I late? I’m probably late.”
“We just got here,” Dan says.
“You are late, though,” Anne says, showing him her phone and the time on it. Five minutes. Well, that’s not too bad. Sometimes getting places with Venom in his head can be a bit time-consuming.
“Sorry,” he says again anyway, because they don’t know Venom’s in his head and anyway it’s not that great an excuse as it is. “My bad. We decided where to eat?”
“Nowhere with a lobster tank,” Anne says with a smile, and Eddie puts a hand on his chest.
“Annie, I am offended,” he says. “Obviously lobster is out of season.”
She laughs, Eddie feels some weird feelings he really shouldn’t be feeling, and Dan takes her hand with one of his and points down the street with the other.
“We were thinking that new Mexican place, actually,” he says. “I’ve heard really good things about their fajitas.” Eddie tries to picture Dan as the fajita type, but it’s really not happening. He loves fajitas, though, so he’s definitely on board with that plan.
“Sounds good to me,” he says, and gestures down the sidewalk. “Lead the way, man.”
Dan laughs, Eddie has some more weird feelings, and they head down the street, Venom muttering lowly in the back of his head. He’s not really paying attention and the other’s being very quiet, so he doesn’t catch much of it. Something about chemicals, he thinks, so presumably something about being hungry.
He is going to be eating a lot of fajitas, he already knows. He also already knows it’s not going to help, which is really unfortunate but unavoidable.
Anne laughs at something Dan said as he holds the door for her, and Eddie gets a weird, warm feeling in his gut. He’d assume it was jealousy, normally, but it really doesn’t feel like jealousy. Dan holds the door for him too, which is actually kind of awkward but doesn’t do anything to decrease that weird warm feeling. Eddie decides ignoring it is definitely the best option.
Delicious, Venom hums, with no explanation. Eddie decides to also ignore that. Venom’s probably fantasizing about chowing down on one of the patrons. Or is actually chowing down on his vital organs.
They end up at an out-of-the-way table in the back, fairly cut off from most of the place. Eddie’s not sure if he appreciates the privacy or is wary about the topics it might result in. They don’t really talk about Venom much, but sometimes they do, and he doesn’t like lying to them. He really shouldn’t have lied to them to begin with, but to be fair, he really had thought Venom was dead for a while in there. At this point, it’s technically just a lie of omission.
Still a lie, of course. Which he is still not thrilled about. Every time he tries to tell them, though, he trips up on the words.
. . . it’s weird that it’s “them” he’s trying to tell and not just Anne, isn’t it? Is it?
He’s really not sure.
They order. They make small talk. Anne talks about work and Dan talks about some charity thing the hospital’s doing and Eddie mostly just nods along, because while his life is a lot better than it previously was he still kind of feels like he’s got his shit the least together of any of them. Kind of definitely, honestly.
Your shit is together, you idiot, Venom says. Eddie wonders if he counts as, like, an emotional support parasite. EDDIE.
Okay, he’s sorry. Sort of.
“What about you, Eddie, how’s work?” Dan says, and Eddie gets that weird warm feeling in his gut again.
You are hopeless, Eddie.
Hopeless? About what?
I already said, if you don’t know I’m not telling you.
“It’s fine,” Eddie says, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at Venom. “Got some good interviews, sold some good articles. And, you know, not publically disgraced or blacklisted for my fuckups anymore so that’s nice.”
Dan laughs. Anne gives him a wry look.
“Yeah, good job on that,” she says. “It’s a definite improvement.”
Eddie thinks about telling her he’s sorry again, but he doesn’t want to accidentally get heavy over a casual lunch . . . thing. Whatever you call third-wheeling your ex’s standing lunch date with her boyfriend for the third time this month.
“Well, you know,” he says instead, Venom sighing theatrically in his head.
“How’s your appetite?” Dan says, and Eddie—blinks.
“Sorry?” he asks, thrown by the question.
“Your appetite,” Dan repeats. “Any lingering side effects? You look a little under the weather.”
“Uh—no, no, I’m good,” Eddie says carefully, sort of . . . twisting one of his bracelets, a little. Just a bit.
Anne frowns at him in that one telling way she always does when she’s suspicious about him trying to pull one over and he briefly panics, but then lunch mercifully shows up and takes over everyone’s attention. There are even more fajitas than Eddie actually intended to order, and he intended to order a lot of fajitas.
“Shit,” he says, eyebrows raising.
“Are you sure about the lingering side effects?” Dan asks, looking at Fajita Mountain.
“Maybe not,” Eddie says, trying to figure out how to take a fajita without taking down the whole pile. “Uh. Pass me that fork?”
“I’ve got it,” Dan says, and extracts several fajitas with surgical precision. Eddie’s impressed, frankly.
“Thanks, man,” he says, and the conversation hits a lull while they all dig in. The fajitas are amazing, but—
We’re HUNGRY, Eddie, Venom says, like he’s not doing his best here. Our BEST would involve Anne. You’re not involving Anne.
He is not going to involve Anne! Anne has a boyfriend, for one thing, and even if she didn’t they’re still not on sex-having terms anymore.
Eddie, if you do not have sex with Anne I am going to eat your LIVER.
For the love of fuck.
“Excuse me,” Eddie says, and heads to the bathroom to yell at his parasite. Symbiote. Whichever. Jesus Christ, what a day this is turning out to be.
He checks to make sure all the stalls are empty, then spins around and glares at the mirror just to make sure Venom gets the point.
“Don’t fucking threaten me, I’m doing my best here!” he hisses.
It is not a threat, it is a WARNING, Venom says. We are STARVING.
“So eat a goddamn fajita like the rest of us!”
EDDIE.
“Seriously, everyone else is fine with fajitas!”
Eddie, hold—
“You hold on, you asshole!” Eddie fumes, throwing his hands up in the air. “I’ve been busting my ass to keep you fed and you’re threatening my liver?! I like my liver! Sorry there aren’t enough evil fuckers wandering around the planet to be constantly biting the heads off of!”
“Am I interrupting something?” Dan asks. Eddie freezes, hands still in the air.
I TRIED to tell you, Venom says.
“Uh,” Eddie says, his eyes sliding towards the bathroom door, where Dan is standing with raised eyebrows. “I can explain?”
“I don’t think there’s that much to explain,” Dan says. “You should really pretend to be on your phone or something when you need to talk to Venom, though.”
“Yeah, that would be . . . that would be smart,” Eddie says weakly. “Uh.”
“Am I telling Anne or are you?” Dan asks like it’s a foregone conclusion that someone’s going to, which admittedly it kind of is. He can’t exactly ask Dan to keep his mouth shut on this one.
“I’ll tell her,” Eddie mutters with a grimace. “Look—I really did think he was dead for a while.”
“Okay,” Dan says. Eddie tries not to wince, but his guilty conscience is all catching up at once now. He could try to explain, he guesses, but what would he even say? He’s not even sure why he kept his mouth shut himself. Dan doesn’t look like he’s waiting for an explanation, though, so . . .
So, he guesses.
Dan steps aside to let him out of the bathroom, and Eddie goes back to the table with a low sense of dread. He’s already pushed Anne’s trust to the breaking point; one last betrayal isn’t going to go over well.
It doesn’t, it turns out. No surprise there.
“He what?!” Anne hisses, leaning across the table. Eddie winces. “Eddie, why didn’t you tell me?!”
“I really did think he was dead at first,” Eddie says. “Took a week before he started talking again.”
“That was weeks ago!” Anne says.
“Yeah.” He winces again. “I don’t know, Annie, I just . . . I don’t have a good reason. I just didn’t tell you.”
“You lied to me,” she says.
“I did,” Eddie says. “I’m sorry. It was stupid.”
“It was!” She glares at him. “What are you going to do if you can’t feed him? What are you going to do if someone finds out?”
“Um . . . this, mostly,” Eddie says. “At least in this case.”
“How’s it going?” Dan asks as he comes back and sits down again.
“Eddie is an idiot. And he’s starving Venom,” Anne says flatly. Dan pushes the platter of fajitas towards him. “Not like that, Dan!”
“Well, it can’t hurt,” Dan says reasonably.
“Venom eats people, Dan,” Anne says.
“There are other things he can eat!” Eddie says defensively. Never mind that that’s technically a really recent revelation on his part, okay, but he does have options. Technically. Arguably.
Okay, not really, but still.
“Like what?” Dan asks curiously. Eddie regrets everything.
“Never mind—” he starts, but Venom slides up over his jaw and says, “Oxytocin, mostly.”
“Oh,” Dan says, looking mildly surprised. “Well, that definitely sounds easier to get.”
“Not particularly,” Venom says as Eddie claws him off his mouth before the waiter can come back and notice anything too fucked up.
“Venom!” he hisses.
“Why not?” Dan frowns. “You can get that eating chocolate.”
“You can?” Eddie asks blankly. “Venom.”
“That would require a lot of chocolate,” Venom says from his shoulder, licking his teeth.
“I can eat a lot of chocolate!” Eddie says indignantly. Considering the alternatives—
“Sex still works better,” Venom says, and Eddie takes a moment to debate just dying, here and now. He could do that. Anne purses her lips, and Dan tilts his head.
“Sorry?” Anne says.
“Sex,” Venom repeats as Eddie attempts and fails to cover his mouth effectively. He never wants to hear Venom say that word again. “It is the most effective production method, as far as I can tell. Admittedly I am not an expert on any human but Eddie, but . . .”
“You’ve been having sex with Venom,” Anne says.
“I have not been having sex with Venom,” Eddie stresses, attempting to swat him down, again, before they accidentally traumatize the waiter. “Or around Venom, or near Venom, or anything like that!”
“So how does he know that?” Dan asks curiously.
“Extrapolated information,” Venom says, effortlessly dodging Eddie’s swatting attempts. “When Anne and Eddie—”
“THAT’S ENOUGH, THANKS,” Anne and Eddie say in unison, both shoving a hand over his mouth. Dan just tilts his head again.
“Is this about the kiss?” he asks.
“You told him about the kiss?!” Eddie hisses.
“Of course I told him, Eddie, he’s my boyfriend,” she hisses back.
“You said you weren’t going to tell him!”
“Well you said Venom was dead!”
“I mean, there were extenuating circumstances,” Dan says, and Venom laughs, slithering across Eddie’s shoulders. “It was a very high-stress situation. And you’d just eaten someone for the first time, and all that.”
“I like him, Eddie,” Venom says.
“Of course you do,” Eddie mutters.
“Thank you, Venom,” Dan says. “Do you want the rest of the fajitas?”
“Yessssss,” Venom purrs, then snaps forward and swallows the whole plate in one bite. Anne jumps; Dan’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Not the plate, man, we need to give that back!” Eddie says in exasperation. Venom spits it out licked completely clean, and Anne whips her hands up just in time to catch it before it can shatter on the table. Dan looks impressed.
“Wow, you really are hungry,” he says.
“Staaaarving,” Venom says, eyeing Dan’s plate. “Are you going to eat all those tacos?”
“Yes,” Dan says. “Do you want us to order you some?”
“Yessssssss.”
“You do not need tacos!” Eddie says.
“It’s no problem,” Dan says, and then waves the waiter over like that is a perfectly normal thing to do when your girlfriend’s ex’s alien symbiote is just sitting on his shoulder in public. Eddie yanks Venom down under the table and Venom more or less goes, probably just for the promise of tacos. Dan places the order, and Anne peers under the table to eye Venom. Eddie valiantly pretends everything is normal until the waiter leaves, at which point Venom slithers back up his arm and wraps around his throat.
“At least Dan has his priorities straight, Eddie,” Venom says snidely.
“I’ve been trying to feed you all morning and you’ve been threatening my liver!” Eddie sputters.
“We should’ve ordered the mole sauce,” Dan muses.
“Oh, that would’ve been a good idea,” Anne says.
“Right, of course, why not,” Eddie says, mentally giving up. Chocolate’s better than sex, at least. Well, simpler than sex. Sex is a whole big complicated—
“We should have sex with you before we go back to work,” Dan says, and Eddie chokes.
“What?!”
“If you can’t find anyone who deserves eaten in the next twenty minutes, obviously,” Dan amends, like that’s the issue.
“That’s not—it isn’t even—Venom said it doesn’t work as well as eating someone anyway!” Eddie manages, and Dan and Anne share an inscrutable look, then both shrug.
“Well, let’s give it a try,” Dan says.
“What,” Eddie sputters. “What.”
“Do you have a condom?” Dan asks.
“No!”
“Anne?” Dan glances over to her, and Anne opens her purse and pulls out a short strip of them. “Oh good.”
“Never let it be said I stood in the way of a quickie in defense of your liver, Eddie,” Anne deadpans.
“We are not having a threeway in a restaurant bathroom!” Eddie hisses.
“Why not, it can’t take that long,” Anne says reasonably.
“There’s always the car,” Dan suggests.
“That’s not better!”
“Do you want to get a motel?” Anne says. “There’s one down on Broad Street.”
“You could also just come over tonight, if a quickie isn’t enough,” Dan says.
“Let’s do both!” Venom says excitedly. Eddie covers his face with his hands, not believing this conversation.
“Let’s not,” he says.
“Eddie, don’t be squeamish,” Anne says disapprovingly. “You have to have sex again eventually, it might as well be now.”
“Squeamish,” Eddie says. “You think I’m being squeamish.”
“We don’t mind Venom being there, you shouldn’t either,” she says.
“You should mind me being there!” he says. “I’m your ex!”
“I really don’t mind,” Dan says. “I don’t think staying close to ex-lovers damages a relationship.”
“That’s pretty damn close, Dan!” Eddie says. Then the waiter brings the tacos and they all have to pretend to be normal people for a moment, but unfortunately the moment doesn’t even last until the poor guy’s out of earshot.
“So you don’t want to have sex with us, then?” Anne asks. The waiter might drop a couple plates. Eddie certainly feels like he’s dropped a couple plates.
“No, we definitely do,” Venom says, and Eddie smacks him down.
“I did not say that!” he says quickly. “That was all his idea!”
“It seems like Venom has that kind of idea a lot,” Anne says.
“Well, it makes sense if he’s hungry,” Dan says reasonably. “I’m sure a quick shot of oxytocin would take the edge off his appetite.”
“No bathroom threeways!” Eddie hisses again.
“So that’s a yes on the motel, or . . . ?”
“There was no yes-ing! No one said yes!” Eddie says.
“I did,” Venom says. “I could say it some more.”
“Would you be in or out for it, actually?” Dan asks curiously. “Just wondering.”
“Would you like me to be out for it?” Venom asks with a wide, wide grin that’s mostly leer. Dan pauses, and actually considers the question. Eddie dies. This is it. He’s dead. He’s gone. This is the fucking end of times, or at least the end of Eddie Brock. It was a good run while it lasted. Exposed some assholes, saved the world, didn’t get the girl but . . .
“Well, we could try it,” Dan says. “What do you think, honey?”
“I already kissed him once,” Anne says with a shrug. “Maybe you should try to be a little smaller if you can, though.”
Never mind, this is when Eddie dies.
“Nrgh,” he manages.
“Let’s get takeout, too,” Venom says.
“Sure,” Anne agrees. “If we’re planning to be at it for a while, I mean. We should start early, though, I’ve got a meeting in the morning.”
“That’s a good idea,” Dan says.
“We’re free whenever,” Venom says.
Anne takes a sip of her drink, Dan eats another taco, and Venom eats a lot of tacos. The world continues to be the world in which Eddie is being propositioned by his ex and her new and improved model of boyfriend and his alien symbiote is fucking facilitating.
“This is a terrible idea,” Eddie says accusingly.
“Why?” Dan asks. “It’ll work, won’t it?”
“We don’t know that!” Eddie says. “Venom just thinks it’ll work because Anne and I kissed with him out that one time!” Dan gets an odd look on his face and eats another taco.
“That must’ve been interesting,” he says.
“It was, but the dead guy made it kind of gross,” Anne says. “And there was too much tongue.”
Eddie stares at the ceiling. Is he disassociating? He might be disassociating. It’s hard to tell, under the circumstances. It’s going to be hard to tell for the rest of his life, under the circumstances.
“Honestly I really wasn’t paying any attention to the dead guy,” he says.
“The tongue was my fault,” Venom says. “There can be less tongue next time.”
“Depends on where you’re using it,” Anne says. Venom makes a delighted sound, and Eddie puts his face back in his hands as all the blood in his body rushes to . . . places.
“Annie,” he says.
“Eddie?” she says.
“This is the worst idea you have ever had, babe,” he says, the endearment slipping out accidentally. Anne doesn’t seem to notice; Dan doesn’t seem to mind.
“Technically it’s Venom’s idea,” she says. “So it’s the worst idea you’ve ever had, babe.”
Okay, so she noticed.
“I don’t remember agreeing to the idea!” Eddie says.
“He wants to agree to the idea,” Venom says. “He’s thinking about that time we came over and you two were—”
“VENOM.”
Traitor. Literally, he has a literal traitor in his head; how is he supposed to handle that?
“Which time, the first or the second?” Anne asks.
“Nrgh,” Eddie says.
“Oh, the third?” Dan guesses. “Sorry about that.”
”Nrgh,” Eddie says.
“You really don’t have to be,” Venom says with another leer. Eddie is never going to live this down, ever. Even taking the sex stuff out of the equation he is never going to live this down.
“You’re all nuts,” he says.
“Haven’t you ever had a foursome before?” Dan says, which—are they counting Venom? Apparently they’re counting Venom. Eddie doesn’t even know how to think about that, much less how he feels about it.
“I know how you feel about it,” Venom says. Eddie swats him down again.
“That’s enough out of you!” he hisses. “And no, I have not, Dan, okay? How many foursomes have you had?”
“Honestly, I’ve lost count,” Dan says. Eddie dies. He is dead. He is done. That’s it.
“Are you two swingers?” he says, really not sure how to take that. He and Anne were definitely monogamous. They were very monogamous. Eddie liked the monogamous, personally, he was a big fan of the monogamous.
Admittedly, the only way he could be in a monogamous relationship now would be to date Venom, so maybe that’s not gonna be a thing in his life anymore anyway.
“Hm,” Venom says.
“Oh my god, Eddie, who actually still uses the word swingers?” Anne asks.
“Sorry I’m not up on the terminology!” he says.
“I mean, it’s a perfectly fine word,” Dan says.
“It sounds so old-fashioned,” Anne says.
“Yes, because sleeping with other people is so old-fashioned,” Eddie says incredulously.
“Pretty sure it’s been happening since before we figured out the wheel, Eddie, it’s not like it’s new,” Anne says. “Are you really that against the idea?”
“Yes,” Eddie lies.
“He’s lying,” Venom says. Eddie smacks him.
“Enough from the peanut gallery!”
“Eddie, we just want to help,” Anne says.
“I do not need that kind of help!” he says.
“Clearly you do,” she shoots back.
“Would it help if we told you we’d talked about it before?” Dan asks. Eddie chokes again.
“You what?!”
“So it wouldn’t help, alright.”
“What do you mean, you talked about it before?” Eddie demands. “You talked about having sex with us?!”
“Technically just with you,” Dan said. “We did think Venom was dead.”
“Oh my god,” Eddie says, covering his face again. He’s not blushing, because basically his entire blood supply is busy elsewhere, but he keeps it covered all the same.
“You’re cute when you’re stupid,” Anne says. “Of course we did, Eddie, we’ve been dating you all this time.”
“I was not aware this was dating!” Eddie says.
“Eddie,” Anne says, just looking at him. “You’re an investigative reporter. It’s been weeks.”
“Well—I’ve been distracted!” he protests in embarrassment. Hunting down assholes who deserve eaten is a full-time job, it turns out. Also, what kind of person just assumes that a relationship is asking them out? In what world is that normal?
“I think he’s just stupid,” Venom says. “Good thing you think that is cute.”
“Good thing,” Anne agrees wryly, reaching over to lay a hand on Eddie’s shoulder—the one Venom’s sitting on, so she basically sticks her hand in the middle of him in the process. She squeezes, and Venom makes a noise that is embarrassingly close to a purr. Eddie wishes there were a dessert course coming to distract them.
The waiter does come back with the check, but that’s only so much a mercy, because the waiter coming back with the check means—
“Motel or car?” Dan asks as Anne signs the receipt.
“It’s the middle of the day, we’d get arrested doing it in your car,” Eddie says. “We might get arrested renting the motel room.”
“That’s really very unlikely,” Dan says as Anne puts away her wallet and loops her purse over her shoulder.
“Relax,” she says. “It’s not that big a deal. You need it, and we’ve got it.”
“It feels like a pretty big deal to me,” Eddie says.
“Then you’ll just have to think of a good way to pay us back,” Anne says easily, getting to her feet. Dan does too, and offers Eddie a hand before he can follow, which is . . . which is an experience, alright. Venom disappears into his collar and winds down his arm, but Eddie can’t blame him for the fact he actually takes the other’s hand.
Well. They take the other’s hand, he guesses.
“That’s an interesting texture,” Dan observes, and Venom chuckles in Eddie’s head.
Tell him how nice it feels when— he starts, and Eddie cuts him off.
“I am not telling him that,” he says.
“Telling him what?” Anne asks.
“Annie, you’re killing me,” Eddie says. “This is killing me. Don’t you two have better taste than this?”
“Not really,” Anne says, taking his other hand as they leave the restaurant and turning them into an awkward cluster that takes up most of the sidewalk. Eddie would point that out, but then she might let go. Eddie would point out a lot of things about this situation, but . . .
Well, he already has pointed out a lot of things about this situation, frankly, and no one else seems concerned about any of it. But still.
“You definitely should,” he says, and Dan laughs like he’s joking. Anne gives him a look, and squeezes his hand. Venom squeezes back before Eddie even gets the chance to, winding a few strands of himself around her wrist, and Anne hums, squeezing again.
“It is an interesting texture,” she says.
And you said they weren’t ours, Venom says smugly.
“Oh, it’s they now?” Eddie mutters, and Venom laughs.
Oh, yes, he purrs. Most definitely.
“You got lunch, so I’ll cover the motel,” Dan says, checking his watch. “Eddie, it’s our treat.”
“Sounds good,” Anne says.
“Okay,” Eddie says, because what, he’s gonna argue? He tried that, and it was clearly a dumbass idea. “Uh . . .”
“Yes?” Anne asks, looking over at him. Dan looks at him too. Venom waits expectantly. Eddie . . . has no idea what he was going to say, honestly.
“We’ll cover the takeout tonight, then,” he says, and they smile at him. It makes him feel that weird, warm feeling he can’t quite bring himself to define just yet.
He’s starting to get some ideas about it, though.