Venom is up first thing in the morning. Not that he had slept in the first place, but the concept is there. At least, it is to him. Humans sleep and then they eat. It seems only fair that pretending to sleep gets him food.
Eddie.
Eddie doesn't answer, dosing along as peacefully as ever, although his nasal passages are a little fuller than usual. Venom uses a little of his control to shake Eddie. Eddie groans and Venom gets excited for food, but is sorely disappointed when Eddie rolls over with a groan, still not rousing.
Eddie!
Usually, the urgency in Venom's tone would wake him, but apparently today is not one of those days. He's been sleeping for twelve hours straight and Venom is boooored. He's also hungry.
Eddie! Wake up!
Venom doesn't want to resort to dragging him, but he will if he has to. Eddie doesn't like it when Venom takes over to walk him around the house.
Hungry! Venom growls.
Eddie sighs. "Good for you, buddy. Go back to sleep." He rolls again and Venom growls, ready to dump the bed over.
Venom has had enough. He forms in a puddle on top of Eddie's chest, white eyes staring at Eddie's face. He's learned that Eddie is strangely aware of when he's being watched. Venom is too impatient to really play this game, instead opting for lashing out with a gooey tentacle to slap Eddie in the face. He doesn't hit him too hard. It's not worth hurting Eddie over.
Venom pauses. He doesn't quite remember when he started thinking that being hungry at all hours wasn't worrisome enough to hurt his host. It was probably when 'he' became 'we'.
He slaps him again with another tentacle, still hungry despite his revelation. Eddie doesn't react the way Venom wants him to and he narrows pearlescent eyes on his host.
Whatever I do next is your fault, Eddie.
Eddie puts a pillow over his head. "Don' care." he mutters. His voice is gravelly with sleep, and Venom decides to ignore the slight rattle in Eddie's lungs. "Don' care, ya' parasite."
Venom grins, toothy as all get-out. Is that so?
He shoots out a couple of appendages towards the doorframe, dragging Eddie from the bed as slowly as he can. Eddie's about to go over the edge when Venom splats another length of goo onto the ceiling to lower him down. Now that his host is safely on the floor, it won't be too hard to get to the kitchen.
He pulls as hard as he dares, not wanting to find a splinter somewhere. They're almost as bad as a paper cut. Venom hates paper cuts with a burning passion. It's just a tiny little split in Eddie's skin, but it hurts and Venom has no idea why.
Thankfully, Eddie still doesn't wake up when his head collides with the door, only making a dazed questioning noise. Venom doesn't like it and immediately recedes to check on him. He crawls over ever inch of Eddie's brain, reading his thoughts and lightly touching on the images in his mind. It slows him just a little as he becomes more curious, but his hunger brings him back to the mission at hand.
Eddie?
He doesn't receive an answer, and he seems happy enough. Venom continues to drag Eddie gently from the room, pulling to a stop in front of the fridge. He wraps a tentacle around the door handle to the freezer and tugs it open, stretching his head up to reach the tater-tots from a nice vantage point on Eddie's shoulder.
He tears open the plastic and is scarfing them down when the phone rings. Eddie groans, starting to rouse and Venom strikes the phone. It stops ringing.
The device clatters to the floor and Venom carefully monitors Eddie's heartbeat to ensure that he's still asleep. Venom growls at the offending device for making its noise while his host is resting. Only Venom gets to disturb his host while he's resting. Wryly, Venom grins. It's mostly out of spite.
Eddie's cell phone starts the ring instead and Venom hurries back to the bedroom as fast as he can, sliding Eddie up into the bed so that he can shift to pick it up. The only reason he allows this phone to live is because Eddie would be mad if he broke it and it has the possibility of being Anne. Venom likes Anne.
Eddie growls at the device, reaching an arm out blindly towards the noise. He's too far away and Venom reaches out a little to pull it towards him. Eddie blinks groggily, answering it and flinching away from the bright screen.
"Ugh. 'Lo?"
"Eddie? It's Anne? You awake?"
Eddie nods, although she can't see it over the phone. "Mmmm. Sorta." he sighs, leaning back against his pillow. "Why?"
"It's almost noon, Eddie."
Eddie pulls the phone back, squinting at the time in the top corner. "So it is. Need somethin'?"
"Didn't you have a thing or something this morning?"
"Umm-" he swipes a hand over his face. "No. We got it... we, uh.... we cancelled it, I think. They who will remain unnamed had somewhere to be."
Yes, Eddie. We cancelled the meeting.
"We?"
"You know... ugh... general 'we', as in myself and said someone decided to cancel?" Eddie shakes his head, knowing that his excuses make as much sense as willingly letting an alien live in his body.
Your excuses suck. Stop acting so suspicious.
"Are you okay, Eddie? You sound a little sick."
Sick?! What is sick? We can't be sick! We'll fix it!
"No." Eddie groans again. "M' still only 'bout half awake." He's not for sure, though.
"How many days have you been up?"
"Only the one."
Liar.
"Eddie." Anne says, her tone warning.
"..........Three."
"Three? I'm a little sorry I woke you up now."
"S'okay. Did you need somethin'?"
"Actually, Dan was wondering if you'd come in for a check-up. He's still worried about the fallout from Venom, and how your body is handling it."
"I feel fine, Annie. Don't worry, and tell Dan not to worry either."
"He still thinks you should come in for a visit."
"Fine." Eddie sucks in a breath through his nose. "Fine. Schedule it for...." he glances over at his clock. "Um.... maybe four? Unless he's busy then."
If Dan is so worried, he'll make the time.
Shut up, V. We're trying to keep you a secret.
Maybe it would be easier if you weren't so shifty.
I wouldn't be so shifty if it weren't for y... Eddie trails off, feeling guilty even though he hadn't even finished the sentence. Sorry. I'm just stressed, buddy.
Venom is silent and he refuses to answer Eddie even when he asks. Anne is calling his name anyway. He listens as they finish their conversation, noting that Eddie opens his mouth to say something as Anne hangs up. The action is instinctive, and the thought is unbidden in his mind. I love you.
Venom pries around a little in Eddie's mind, coming up with as many images of Eddie smiling with Anne as he can find. He presents them to Eddie, hoping they'll make him feel a little better about almost saying something that he can't say. They don't.
"V, I know how you feel about me and Anne, but I can't just force myself into her life."
It is possible. If we eat Dan.
Eddie sighs, sitting up in bed to rub his forehead. "How many times do I have to tell you, Venom? We can't eat Dan."
Says you.
"He's a good guy, and he makes Anne happy. I want her to be happy."
She would be better off with us. We could protect her.
"Good guy, Venom. We don't eat the good guys."
Venom communicates a very clear message to Eddie by slapping him with a gooey extremity. He's not amused. Eddie gets up, getting dressed a little slower than usual. Usually he's a struggling, writhing mass as he tries to put on clothes, brush his teeth, and cook breakfast all at the same time. Eddie isn't exactly logical when he's in a hurry. He rubs his eyes and Venom wraps around his shoulders, forming a face to look at Eddie.
"What's up, V? Wait, no. Let me guess. You're hungry, right?"
If Venom could eat Eddie without dying right at this moment, he would. Well, maybe not. As loath as Venom would ever be to admit it, he's gotten rather attached to the stupid human who turned out to be his host.
"Right. I need to put something in my stomach anyway. Don't want to get sick."
"We'd fix it."
"I don't know about that."
Venom contemplates the idea of something that he couldn't heal, some part of human biology that he maybe hadn't considered yet. "We just need a good head. We can fix anything."
Eddie tries not to throw up at the mention of a head so soon after waking up. His stomach is already a little upset, but Eddie hasn't ingested anything recently that he knows of. Eddie sniffs, feeling a little crappy overall.
"I think I'm already sick, buddy. There's not much you'll be able to do. I think it's just a cold though, from falling into the bay."
Eddie resigns himself to Venom's immediate perusal of his vital organs and general health as he walks out to the main room. His jaw drops a little when he sees the freezer door hanging wide open and the phone in pieces on the floor. What's left of the beg of tater-tots is strewn across the room.
"Venom?"
He's barely guilty. "I was hungry."
"Venom, you telling me that you were hungry is like telling me that the grass is green. How did you even get out here to get them?"
Silence.
It dawns on him and he scowls internally at the parasite living in his body. "You walked me out here, didn't you?"
"Not a parasite. Not walked."
"Parasite. And if you didn't walk, then how?"
"......Dragged."
"You dragged me? Come on! Why didn't you just wake me up?"
"I tried, but you wouldn't wake up. You were doing that thing where you lie around for hours doing absolutely nothing for no reason. You usually wake up."
Eddie sets to work cleaning up what he can. It's not too big of a mess, but he'll need a new phone for the apartment. "I'm just really tired, V."
Venom sinks back into Eddie's skin, settling himself around Eddie's heart and lungs. Eddie shivers, the sensation of Venom moving and the chill of the room sending prickles down his back. The base of his spine is really stiff and sore for some reason and he grimaces, reaching up into the cupboard to grab a glass. He rinses his mouth out, spitting into the sink and washing it down the drain.
He opens the fridge to start on breakfast, tugging the milk from the main shelf. He grabs a box of random cereal and tries not to think about Venom's head suggestion. He sits down at the island, rubbing tired eyes as he pours himself a bowl of sugary cereal. Venom's creepy pair of eyes watch from his shoulder, just over the thin t-shirt that he's wearing. This is not Eddie's usual routine. Eddie stares into the bowl, his back aching and his head starting to hurt a little. He drizzles milk on top, trying not to get it too full. Venom intervenes once Eddie lets the milk overflow, his mind wandering away form breakfast. He corrals the milk in a circle of murky black goop, keeping it from drizzling off the table.
Eddie?
"What?"
Breakfast? You spilled the milk.
Eddie closes his eyes. "Yep. Guess so."
Venom directs the milk into the trashcan and pushes the bowl off to the side as Eddie's head comes to rest on the tabletop.
Eddie? What's going on?
Eddie gets a few shades paler, breaking into a cold sweat. He's been working himself to death ever since the explosion, so it's not exactly a shock that his body would decide to get sick the moment he stops for a few seconds. He's going to be sick.
Venom encounters what humans call 'deja vu' as Eddie makes a break for the bathroom. Suffice it to say, he's panicking a little bit as Eddie only gets worse, his host's entire body shaking with weakness that Venom has no idea how to stop. He stays near to Eddie's lungs, definitely hearing that same rattle as he did earlier. He covers them, trying to help Eddie just a little, but his breathing pattern is so erratic that he has to let go. Eddie's stomach cramps and shifts upwards, sending whatever is left in it up.
Eddie?! Explain!
He wheezes and Venom squishes up around Eddie's heart to avoid being jostled by the implosions in Eddie's lungs.
WHAT WAS THAT?!
"S' a cough."
Eddie moans, shifting the lie on the floor in the fetal position. The cold linoleum seems to help a little and Venom encourages Eddie's lungs to work normally. They aren't cooperating with him. Venom takes a little comfort from the strong beating of Eddie's heart, spreading over the tissues of his lungs as gently as he can. He's tempted to call Anne back and give up the whole charade.
"Don't you dare."
Venom emerges from Eddie's chest, pooling onto the floor in front of him. "How do we fix it?"
"Can't, V. It's a human thing. Sorry."
"Are we dying?"
"What? No-" he breaks off, groaning as his head starts to throb. "No, we aren't dyin'." he murmurs. "But I think this is..." he lets a sharp breath drop from his mouth. "...worse than a cold, buddy."
Venom retreats back into Eddie's body, splashing around to figure out what's going on. Eddie curls tighter on the floor, a guttural noise coming from his throat. Venom is confused, and he doesn't like that there's nothing for him to fix. Focusing on where Eddie is in the most pain, Venom lends support to Eddie's back, the area causing him a good amount of discomfort. He relaxes, eventually falling into a fitful sleep. At least this time, Venom understands the point of resting. In Eddie's state, he wouldn't get very far.
Venom pushes Eddie's phone from his pocket after a few hours, debating over waking him for the appointment. It's a five-minute trip as Venom travels and Eddie definitely needs the rest. Unfortunately, Eddie's liver is starting to look like a gourmet meal the longer Venom goes without eating, and it may take him a little while to prepare. He decides waking him up is a good idea. He swishes around in Eddie's brain, a sure attention-getter. He rouses without much effort, a better sign than his earlier performance.
It's time to get ready for your doctor's visit. Still think we should eat Dan for fuel.
Eddie has enough energy to chuckle anyway, not getting after him for wanting to eat Dan. Eddie cleans himself up, still completely disheveled. He changes clothes, fighting for balance that he doesn't have, leaning against the bed as much as possible. Venom supports his movements as much as he can once he's changed. Eddie manages to get a little food to stay down, which Venom sees as good, eventually convincing him to choke down a little chocolate as well, since it helps to sate his hunger. Eddie doesn't complain. He washes his face, sighing.
"I think you should probably do the steering to get to the hospital, ya' parasite. Just... try not to eat anyone, or... their pets, I guess. I don't think I have the energy to stop you today, buddy."
Venom doesn't respond to the parasite comment, just pleased that he feels okay enough to joke about it. He's too busy trilling over the chocolate to be too upset.
Upon arrival at the hospital, both Dan and Annie are waiting for them. Well, waiting for Eddie anyways. Eddie sits up on the table, looking just about as great as he feels.
"So, you look a bit sick, Eddie. Just the regular kind, or are you having any kind of heart troubles?"
"Breathing sucks n' my back hurts. Just the general sort of crappy, I think."
"Well, it's not too shocking considering the water you fell into isn't exactly meant for swimming. We'll have you ready to go in no time, though. No worries."
"Heh, thanks. I had to crash at some point. Apparently today is as good a time as any."
Dan smiles, the look genuine enough by itself. Eddie hates to admit that he actually likes the guy. "Anne was worried about you. Said you usually check in after meeting a source."
"Uh, yeah, with my boss."
"He called Anne after you didn't come in. I'm still a bit surprised you took the old job."
Eddie grimaces. "Ehh. I need the money for rent and food, and they raised my pay. I'll find something else soon."
Our boss is a dick. He gave us a crap story on purpose to prove a point.
Shut up.
"Eddie?"
"Huh?"
"I asked you a question. Have you been listening at all?"
Eddie shakes his head, sighing. "I've been a bit spacey all afternoon. Sorry, Dan."
"It's all right. I was asking you about your head."
"Pounding, but I'll live."
"Hmm." He puts the stethoscope on and Venom stills in his chest at its chill. "Deep breath for me?"
Eddie inhales, devolving into a coughing fit on the exhale. Dan moves to scope and asks him to try again. Venom sloshes nervously and Eddie warns him to stop.
"You lungs are a little rattly, but you should be just fine in a few days. Although, there's something I keep hearing that I don't understand."
He puts the buds in Eddie's ears, asking him to listen closely. "What am I listenin' for?"
"There's gotta be a liquid in you somewhere, but it keeps moving around. I'm not sure what to make of it."
Sure enough, he hears Venom moving around in his chest, right near his lungs. He's just making sure that they keep working, Eddie is certain. "Yeah..... about that. I have a good idea of what it is."
"What?"
We're telling Dan? Why? We'll have to eat him!
"We're not eating Dan."
Dan's eyes widen and his shifts. "Venom survived, didn't he?"
"Barely. He's pretty small right now, but he dragged me across the apartment to eat tater-tots this morning, so I guess he's fine."
"Well.... this changes things. What can he do about you being sick?"
"Nothing. He has no idea what to do, and frankly, I don't think he can do much."
We can fix anything.
"Buddy, you'd be lucky to heal a bloody nose at this point." he looks at Dan, chuckling awkwardly. "So.... are you going to tell Anne?"
Dan rubs his forehead. "Well, lets check out your friend, and then we'll figure out what to do."
"Right."
Venom pools in Eddie's palm, blinking those creepy eyes up at Dan as he forms a little head. "Hello, Dan."
"Venom." he says, looking a little weirded out. "Is there anything that I can even check on for you?"
"No."
"Venom." Eddie huffs. "The dumb parasite should be at about room temperature. That's about all I know."
Venom glares at him and Dan shakes his head. "I don't know, Eddie. Just... get better as quickly as you can. If he gets too hungry, he might start trying to eat you again."
"Will not!"
Dan grins. "You know, I actually believe that." he looks to Eddie. "You've got yourself some weird friends, Edward."
"Ugh. Please don't call me that. Makes me want to look for my mother, and she's been dead for years."
"Sorry."
"So, Anne?"
"As long as she doesn't ask me directly about Venom, I won't tell her. Sound good?"
"Yeah. Thank you, Dan."
He pats Eddie's shoulder, watching Venom retreat into his skin. "It's not a problem. Just take good care of yourself, man."
"I will."
"Both of you. I don't want to have another lobster tank incident report to fill out."
Eddie rubs his neck. "Yeah. I don't want that either."
He tugs his shirt down, sliding his leather jacket over his shoulders. Venom straightens his collar when he doesn't do it himself, shockingly OCD for something that's not human and makes a mess everywhere else he goes.
Dan hands Eddie a bottle of pills which Venom immediately declares that he won't take. "Take one of these in the mornings until you feel healthy again. They won't bother you at the counter if I give them to you personally."
Eddie shakes his hand, Venom coiling around his wrist to mimic the action. "Thanks again."
"Hope you feel better, Eddie."
With one last nod, Eddie makes his way out of the building, accidentally running into a tiny nurse. Venom laughs at his clumsiness as he apologizes and continues on his way. On the upside, they make it home with zero casualties.
"Well buddy, I guess I'll have to call in to work."
Venom resigns himself to being bored for the next few days. His highlight will be when they make it down to Mrs. Chen's for food, but until such time, he'll be pestering Eddie endlessly.
"Don't worry, V. We can always watch TV for awhile. You like that, uh, wildlife documentary thing, right?"
Venom confirms it before rejecting that one for a different show. Eddie opts for cartoons, and since Venom has never heard of them, he doesn't complain. Eddie has a feeling that he'll be out eating a serial killer before the week is out even while he's sick, so he'll take what he can get. He's gotta get bored of cartoons sometime.
They settle on the couch, Eddie lying down to get comfortable. "Night, buddy. Try not to eat me out of house and home before I wake up."
Venom emits a smugness that Eddie doesn't like, but he's got to get some rest. Venom recognizes his nervousness and moves to be in the space between Eddie's heart and lungs. It's comfortable there, and he can ensure that Eddie continues to breathe throughout the night. Or late afternoon, he supposes.
We'll protect us.
Eddie relaxes with a heavy sigh. "Thanks, V."
You are welcome, Eddie.