A.C.A.B.
Eddie woke up on his bed the next morning in his own bed, for a few seconds he thought the body next to him was Steven and he had only dreamt of the past day. Yet the memories came back as he began to register the hangover, Eddie wasn't sure on how many beers he had drunk last night, he remembered a blurry line between eating Zizzi's and drinking beer with Kayla, and then they had bought two bottles of rum from the corner shop later into the night. It was after they had both drunk all the beer in the flat and before they started to re-watch shitty Christmas films.
He pulled himself out of bed, not making it at far he thought he would when the flat started spinning. Sitting on the edge of his bed with his elbows resting on his knees whilst he waited for the spinning to pass over, Eddie tried to reach over to his phone on his bedside table, panic hurting him as he frantically tried looking for his phone that should be next to his bed. The dizzying didn't stop, only getting worse as he hauled himself out of bed to look around for his phone. It wasn't on his coffee table, not was it in the bathroom, Venom was in the back of his mind complaining about the headache and spinning, they were feeling just as ill as Eddie, too ill to try and heal them. In Kitchen, he found his phone charging on the side.
It was just sitting there, plugged into the wall. Eddie lunged for it wanting to check his notifications, only to be met with a stream of texts and miss calls from Anne, "Oh God," he mumbled into his hands, cringing as most of last night (post-first-bottle-of-rum) started coming back to him. It was about two o'clock in the morning, Kayla had past out then minutes prior. Venom had carried her to the bed to she wouldn't wake up sore in the morning, Eddie muttered to him that she was about ten years younger than him easily, but Venom had already moved her to the bed.
"You called Anne?!" Venom yelled, hurting the both of them, Eddie winced at the loud, un-ignorable noise.
"Vee, buddy, please watch the volume," Eddie whined, rubbing his temples achingly.
"Sorry," Venom uttered, shrinking away into the back of his skull, "don't like feeling like this," he voiced.
"Me either, buddy, me either," Eddie reassured Venom, with a promise to not drink again, but they both knew that it wasn't going to happen.
"Are all Americans lightweights, or just you?" Kayla's voice scared Eddie, she was stood against the kitchen counter, tying her knotty hair back up in a messy bun, her sleeves rolled all the way up revealing her number of tattoos.
"I'm not a lightweight," Eddie grumbled, maybe he was a little off his game since he started drinking less. Even with Venom getting rid of their hangover, they still complained when Eddie drank too much, making them both dizzy and leaving them feeling sick more often than not.
"I'm sorry, did I hurt your ego a little?" Kayla quipped, pulling two glasses out of the cupboard, running water from the tap and handing a glass to Eddie.
"What ego?" Eddie said into the glass, Kayla laughed lightly at the joke causing Eddie to stifle a laugh with and trying to stop the water he just drank coming out of his nose.
"You were talking to yourself, you alright?" Kayla asked.
Panicking, Eddie had thought that maybe she had missed his talk with Venom. He wasn’t going to sit down with Kayla and have a conversation about how he had come across a corrupt scientist, with an ego bigger than any world leaders, and came out with an alien living in his body because they need it in order to survive. That wasn’t really hungover conversation mitral, "Yeah, just, um, called my ex last night and scared the shit out of her," Eddie stuttered, holding up his lockscreen flashing the large number of notifications from Anne.
"But nothing from Steven?" Kayla already knew what the answer was going to be, yet she asked it already. Eddie shook his head, "Well, at least we don't have work," the penny dropped for the both of them at that moment, Kayla's body ran cold while Eddie's mind filled with panic, "Fuck, shit," Kayla started laughing hysterically, "We have fucking work. It's fucking Friday, innit?"
"Oh, God," Eddie wanted the world to eat him whole at this point, he hadn't called in sick at all yesterday nor had he mentioned anything about working from home the next day, "I don't wanna go to work today. Or ever again,"
"That's a mood," Kayla commented as she looked around for her phone, "Me us in about half an hour, I need to get changed and shower," she said, putting her phone in her back pocket.
"Same here," Eddie said, he still hadn't moved and wasn't looking to anytime soon, Kayla approached him, placing her hands on his shoulders, "What?" he muttered.
"Pick your head up, go to work and get some shit done, no wallowing today. That was what last night was for," Kayla's voice was softer than normal, putting Eddie off slightly, but what she was saying wasn't untrue, he needed to go to work and face his life. That was why he had come to the UK, he wanted to work on himself and not self-destruct when things go tough. As Kayla was walking out of his flat she yelled out just before shutting the door, "Don't forget to call Anne, she'll be worried,"
By the time it was finally Saturday, Eddie was running around left, right and centre, he wasn't allowing himself to stop for more than food, sleeping or going to the toilet. One thing he had noticed was getting left alone with his own thoughts for too long would lead to him doing something stupid, so the one little solution he had was keeping busy. Eddie knew that it wasn't going to be healthy in the long run, however, for the time being, it was the best he had. He'd let Venom go out at nights, he would clean his flat from top to bottom for the first time, making sure he had gotten enough food for him and the endless void who would never be full, called Venom.
It was weird, his flat was clean, his fridge was stocked with food and he was actually looking like he was making something of his life. Albeit, that was just his appearance, deep down, well, not really the deep, he was really struggling. He had missed his medication a couple times through the week, Venom took it upon themself to make sure that the chemicals in his mind were balanced, they understood how much of a line they were crossing but it was either cross the line, or watch Eddie fall apart again. They had to remind Eddie to take his testosterone shot, once having to physically do it themself because Eddie was focusing on something else. Working was the only thing Eddie was putting is full attention on, spending his days hunched over his laptop on the sofa or at his desk, sometimes pulling all nighters despite Venom's protests. It was an endless cycle of slow, very slow, self destruction.
Kayla was checking up on Eddie as if it was now her job, making him think about Anne and how she would constantly check up on him even though he was being an arsehole towards her. He must have had said something the night Kayla crashed at his, he has slipped up before whilst completed plastered, that's how he ended up asking Anne out in the first place, also that's how he told her he was trans, and that's how he told a lot of his deepest secrets. Cringing at the memories, Eddie wanted to text Kayla, but that would also have a follow up conversation of what he might have said if she didn't already know.
It took him until a week later, a week of self-destruction and feeling sorry for himself, for him to finally pull his head out of his arse and do what he was trained and hired for. There wasn't much of a trance of Steven, barely any connections to the UK expect for his job at the bookshop and back at the museum, Steven Grant didn't really exist full until about roughly a year ago.
Eddie sat back in his chair, running his hands down his face out of defeat, "Told you something was off about him," Venom voiced, "Maybe he is a super-secret spy," he wasn't sure if they were mocking their own theory, or if Venom actually believed that maybe Steven was some MI6 agent. They had left LA in a bit of a hurry, in a bit of a state and currently had an arrest warrant with their name on it if they stepped foot back in LA.
"How about a look a little deeper before we bust out the red wool, how does that sound, buddy?" Eddie chuckled, pressing the keys on his laptop, convincing himself he wasn't looking in the right place.
"You're no fun," Venom pouted.