It always starts with showering. That's always the first thing to be neglected--or, at least, that's the first thing he notices. His place being a mess, that's just him being a disaster, but he knows what's coming when he starts skipping basic hygiene. With showering goes brushing his teeth, and it doesn't matter how gross his mouth feels or tastes. At least when he'd been with Anne, her very presence shamed him into at least cleaning himself, but even that wasn't foolproof, and, eventually, shame wasn't enough.
So, it starts by robbing him of any motivation to shower, brush his teeth, or change into clothes that haven't got a layer of grime on them that makes them worryingly stiff, and then it takes food. At the beginning, it's just an overall apathy to the idea of eating--nothing sounds good, he's not hungry enough to cook, ordering is too much effort, and, anyway, what if he has to actually talk to a delivery person? No thank you. Apathy gives way to disgust, and soon the very notion of putting anything in his mouth makes him want to gag. It shouldn't even be an issue with Venom, but he begins to notice himself waving off offers of snacks, meals, even water, and he's powerless to stop himself.
Then comes the bone-deep exhaustion, and every action seems to take herculean effort because every limb is so, so heavy--and he's not even sure how that's possible when he feels so hollow inside, when it feels like someone has scooped out all his organs, bones, and muscles only to replace them with stale air. It's all he can do to breathe into the vacuum where his lungs should be, so moving off the couch is out of the question until he's motivated by the need to pee or the vague idea that maybe his bed will be more comfortable. The bed is never more comfortable, and his aching body, in spite of being exhausted to the point of feeling like it may actively start falling apart like a zombie in some shitty B horror flick, won't even let him sleep. He can't even find that morsel of relief and instead ends up staring at the wall or the TV as day fades into night and night brightens into day in a sort of depression-induced trance where his eyes itch and burn, and he worries vaguely whether or not he'll develop bedsores as he grunts and shifts onto his other side.
The only times he leaves his apartment is when Venom takes over to feed himself, and even that holds no interest for him--he doesn't have the strength or desire to argue him out of eating people, but he's tempted to request that the next bad guy on the lineup be himself because surely decapitation and death would be kinder than this. Because he's so tired of doing this, not just from lack of sleep but also from the slow trudge from hour to week to day to month to year, knowing that this will just keep happening again and again. It doesn't matter that this is temporary, that they're always temporary--at times like this, he can only imagine his future as a never-ending cycle of being almost happy before something happens. Before he happens, inevitably, because being honest he knows he's his own biggest problem, and maybe if he were better--maybe if he were stronger, maybe if he could learn anything from all his screw-ups--things wouldn't be this way.
This latest depressive episode hit him like a train as soon as things quieted down for them as if it had been lying in wait for months to pounce on him the moment he had a second to breathe, and now instead of just the voices of his father and Anne in his head telling him what a worthless, destructive shit he is, he can hear Kasady and Mulligan, too, taunting him as ghosts he knows he's made up but is powerless to quiet. But it's his own voice, too--of course, he knows that they're all his voice, all mirrors he holds up to himself wearing the disguises of all those people he's failed or hurt or disjointed . He knows that they're not real and that it's just him spiraling, but he can't control it.
He's been staring through the TV for countless hours when he hears Venom's voice in his head, curling and rumbling, Eddie. We smell like shit.
Face mashed into the cushion, he can only grunt a vague acknowledgment. He does smell like shit, even if he's become immune to it, but he just can't care.
You need to bathe, he says firmly. And eat. You'll feel better.
He scoffs weakly. What would Venom know about that?
Alright, let's go, he growls, and Eddie squawks as he feels himself being grabbed under his armpits and lifted off the couch.
"I'm not a toddler," he snaps as his feet touch the floor. He gestures at the TV and moans, "C'mon, you love Judge Judy."
This is a rerun, he says dismissively, and Eddie feels him take over his legs, feels himself shambling to the bathroom, every bit the zombie he imagines himself to be. He grabs weakly at the door frame, resisting the indignity of being pushed and pulled and forced, but his grasp is easily broken, and he is brought to the sink. He frowns at his reflection, but his gaze is redirected to the black tendril reaching from his shoulder towards the cup holding his toothbrush and plucking it up.
"Fuck off," he says without any heat as it sways in front of his face
Venom's head pops up over his other shoulder, and he responds, "If you won't, I will."
"'If you won't, I will,'" he mocks under his breath as Venom switches on the water, and, watching him wet and dab toothpaste on the bristles, he sighs, "Are you serious right now?"
Venom gives him what he thinks is supposed to be a serious look in the mirror before answering, "Your mouth tastes like the putrefying asshole of a worm whose sole evolutionary purpose is digesting garbage. Brush your teeth."
"Kinda rude," he mumbles, and he's going to argue when the head of the toothbrush is thrust straight into the back of his throat. Gagging, he snatches it out and demands, "Do you have to be such a pain in my ass?"
"I find that irritation is an excellent motivator," he smiles. "Stop stalling and brush your teeth." Grudgingly and with an embarrassing amount of effort, Eddie does, and he's nettled to find that he's not allowed to stop until he's told it's been two minutes. "Mouthwash too," Venom kindly reminds him, nudging the bottle toward him.
After he's spat out the mouthwash, he asks, "Are you finished? Can I go back to--"
"Take off your clothes," he orders, and Eddie hears the shower being turned on.
"Venom, I'm too tired," he whines.
"You can either do this or I can," he says. "But I thought you weren't a toddler." As if to make his point, Venom shoves his robe off.
The more dignified option, Eddie decides, is to strip himself down without further complaint, but it’s a slow, painful process, and even the warm air in the bathroom seems to make his skin hurt. He shivers in spite of himself and lets himself be prodded and tugged into the shower--amazingly, even in his current state of Everything is Terrible and I Hate Myself™, there’s some relief to be found under the hot spray. It seems to soothe away some of the ache in his muscles, and he gradually becomes sleepy rather than the dead-tired exhaustion of an insomniac. He hears a satisfied little noise behind him, and he pulls a face and mumbles to himself while Venom noisily rummages through the graveyard of empty shampoo, conditioner, and body wash bottles on the edge of the tub, presumably searching for one that is actually usable--then, without warning, a cold dollop of soap drops onto the top of his head and begins to trickle down to his neck.
Cursing, he ducks, but a thick black band wraps around his chest before his head meets the water. A spark of gratitude breaks through the mire of misery and is fanned into a small, warm flame as claws massage his scalp, and he sighs as Venom hums a tune that's vaguely familiar, but he doesn't have the mental fortitude to figure out what it is. He's told to rinse, and he lets his head fall forward. Water streams over his face, and he breathes in steam through his mouth.
"See?" Venom asks pleasantly as Eddie steps out of the spray under his own power. "Better already."
He can already tell he's gonna be smug about this for days. A cloth is massaged over his sore back and shoulders, and Eddie lets himself be manipulated so the cloth can reach every part of him--it's weird, but it's not more weird than nice that he doesn't have to do this himself, and he's given up on complaining. Soapy tendrils rub his face, neck, and behind his ears, and all he has to do is keep his eyes shut. There's a strange intimacy to it--being taken care of. Suddenly, though, as something holds the back of his head to ease him back under the water, his eyes burn, his breath hitches, and his throat aches, and he tries to pretend not to hear the quiet, niggling voice in the back of his mind telling him what a worthless piece of trash he is, Can't even clean yourself, what a loser, needs a fucking alien to do even the most basic shit, you gonna make him wipe your ass next too?
Venom quiets and pauses his ministrations, and Eddie feels his face grow hot with shame when he says, "I would not wipe your ass for you."
"Noted," he snorts, but his heart isn't in it.
"You have an illness, Eddie," he says with surprising gentleness.
That makes the burning, itching feeling in his eyes turn into tears, and he can't even hide it, even here, because how could he lie to someone who lives in his body? "Stop it," he chokes, trying to stifle a sob. "Call me a pussy or something."
"I think you've insulted yourself enough for the both of us," Venom responds as he turns off the shower.
He gets angry because anger is easier than this sad, helpless feeling, and he demands, "Can't you just fix it?"
His face looms before him, a mask of sympathy that doesn't seem like it should fit there. "Not depression," he says calmly, and Eddie wants to scream --he wants to yell and beg and plead for it to be over, but instead he accepts the towel that floats into the stall and does a piss-poor job drying himself off.
The anger burns away quickly, and he is left there, as hollow and numb as before. Either because he senses his exhaustion or to avoid the argument, Venom moves for him again, and he's brought into the kitchen.
"I'm not hungry," he mumbles.
He doesn't seem to find that worthy of a response. Crossing his arms in front of his chest and shivering as the water on his skin cools, he watches cabinet doors open and close as a can of chicken noodle soup, a pot, and a bowl are set on the counter. The can is opened, and its contents are slopped into the pot and set onto the stove. Again, Venom hums--it's the same song, and the knowledge that Eddie knows it but can't place it starts to frustrate him, but he's too tired to ask. Still, he finds himself swaying where he stands to the slow rhythm, and it doesn't not help his mood. The soup begins to boil, and it's poured into the waiting bowl which is brought to Eddie's hands. He stares dumbly at it, and he hears a drawer open and silverware clinking, and then a spoon is dropped into it.
"I'm still not hungry," he sighs.
"The correct response is, 'Thank you, Venom,'" he grins in response.
"Thank you, Venom, but I'm still not--"
"Would it be easier if you pretended the spoon was an airplane?" he interrupts.
Affronted, Eddie turns and stomps back to the couch, muttering, "I thought I'd done enough insulting me for the both of us."
"You were having a genuine emotional moment then," he explains, pushing the bowl back towards Eddie when he tries to set it down. "Now, you're being a baby."
For several long minutes, Eddie just holds the soup, stares at the TV, and staunchly refuses to eat both because he's not hungry but also because he's contrary. If there's some small part of him that feels deeply, painfully unworthy of this, well, that's his business. The thing is, something happens as he sits there inhaling the smell of warm, cooked food-- canned food, sure, but food nonetheless.
His stomach growls.
"Mother fucker," he groans in dismay.
"I love being right all the time," Venom laughs triumphantly.
Begrudgingly, he starts to eat. He mostly just drinks the broth--the noodles are weird and unappetizing, but, after days of eating less and less, the broth might as well have been made in-house by Gordon fucking Ramsay. He only manages to get down half of it before he feels full, overly warm, and sleepy enough to doze off where he sits. Half the bowl must satisfy Venom because he's allowed to set it aside and curl himself onto his side. He finds as he lays down that, though he still feels heavy in every sense of the word, he doesn't hurt quite as much, and even the couch is a little more comfortable. His eyelids grow heavy, and the prospect of actually sleeping eases some of his overall hopelessness. Before he can fall asleep, he feels a weight settle over him, and he opens his eyes to see Venom wrapped around him like a blanket.
"Um?"
Trust the process, Eddie, he whispers in his mind. Go to sleep.
Yawning, he decides that he's too tired to argue. He shifts and stretches until his back pops, curls back into position, and closes his eyes. Some trashy daytime TV show provides strangely soothing background noise, and sooner than he could have expected, he falls asleep.
He doesn't dream.
When he wakes back up, it's dark enough to disorient him, but he's pleasantly surprised to realize that he doesn't feel like there's a void in his chest where his lungs belong and that standing doesn't take quite as much effort as he expects. He's still sore and tired, but he's also starving and parched, and shuffling to the kitchen to gulp down a glass of water isn't the trial it has been for so many days. Without any assistance, he even manages to make a sandwich and eat it without feeling sick. This done, he uses the bathroom and collapses into bed without dressing, and he doesn't wake back up until morning--it isn't magically all better, but he feels lighter, more able, and one hell of a lot less disgusting, and the hateful little voices in his head can be soothed into dull whispers. He recognizes the upswing for what it is, and he'll take what he can get. He tries to ignore Venom's thrum of self-satisfaction.
"How did you know what to do?" he asks after getting dressed as he makes his bed.
Wallowing was not helpful, he responds simply. Besides, you already knew what would make you feel better.
Humming doubtfully, Eddie finishes making his bed and goes to tackle the empty bottles in the bathroom. When that's done, he finds he can smile, just a little.
"Thanks, Venom," he says finally.