Away (Part Two)
“Hi Mom.” Eddie started awkwardly.
It felt weird to be in his hometown again. It felt weird to be here at this cemetery. It felt weird to be calling this inanimate slab of granite with a name engraved on it his mother. His mother who he’s never met.
But he supposed that a lot of things about his life were weird.
“Sorry I haven’t visited in...a while.”
He placed an immaculate bouquet of flowers on the grave. Venom picked them out, he didn’t really realize how beautiful flowers could be to someone who wasn’t from Earth. He always took their beauty for granted.
He very pointedly did not look at the twin headstone next to his mother’s, he didn’t attend his father’s funeral and he wouldn’t being acknowledging the man now.
“Life is a lot better now than the last time I was here, though. I know you can’t really meet Venom but I wanted to introduce you at least.”
Venom seeped through his forearm and tightly held his hand.
“Venom is my husband. It’s unusual but a lot of things about my life are. I like it that way though. From what Mary tells me about you, you probably would have liked Venom a lot.”
“Everyone likes me, Eddie.” And Eddie snorted a laugh.
“I love them more than anything and they love me back just as much.” He paused for a while.
“They’re good to me and take good care of me too. That’s what Moms want to hear, right?” He asked no one in particular.
“May I speak to her, Eddie?” Their voice rumbled.
“Go ahead.” Eddie was surprised by the request.
“Hello Mrs. Brock, I am Venom. I am unsure how to address you as my kind has no concrete concept of an afterlife. But before Eddie I had no true concept of life either. It has been some time since Eddie and I found each other and it could not have happened without you. Your son has given me meaning and love and a family- all things that no one else of my kind has ever received. So thank you.”
“Aw V, I wanted to be the one to tell her that she has grandkids.” Eddie fake whined, his stomach filled with warmth from his other’s words.
“I am sorry my beloved.” He could feel their smile. “Tell her about them.”
He focused his attention back to the grave.
“Like Venom said- we have kids of our own now. Six of them actually. Carnage is the oldest, they’re seven years old. Agony and Scream are our little girls, they’re both six. Lasher and Phage are our boys, they’re both six too. And Sleeper is our new baby, he’s six months old.”
“They’re so great, I wish you could meet them. They’re all so smart and good and kind and they’re so curious about everything.”
“Sleeper is even talking already! Little words right now, mostly names. His first word was Mama- that’s what he calls me. V is Papa.”
Telling his tombstone/mother about the kids was making him miss them all over again. He realized he was feeling homesick. He’d never been homesick before in his life. He told her a few stories about their children’s more recent antics and decided it was time to go before it became too hard to. He tucked a photo of the eight of them at the base of the stone, he knew she couldn’t really see it but he still wanted her to have it somehow. He never could have found Venom and had his kids if she never had him. The photo was proof that what she did mattered, proof that she mattered.
They decided to meet Mary, Scott and the kids at a restaurant so they all could eat and he and V naturally arrived there first because getting those kids anywhere on time was a statistical impossibility. They were sitting at a table picking at some mostly cold french fries when Venom snapped his attention to the front of the restaurant where the others were just walking in. Scott and Mary both looked like death warmed over, they were barely on their feet before they practically collapsed into the booth.
“I missed you!!” Scream told them loudly as she scrambled onto their lap.
“We missed you too, darling. More than you know.”
“Move over!” Agony demanded as she too climbed onto their lap.
Neither of the girls seemed to mind sharing.
“Can I get cookies?” Phage asked at a volume as loud as his sister’s
“They do not have cookies at this establishment.”
Lasher scooted into the booth next to them and gripped tightly at Eddie’s sleeve, evidently he missed them too. Even Carnage was sitting just a little closer to them than usual on their other side.
“How?” Mary gasped.
“What?” Eddie creased his brows.
“How do you do this everyday? I’m exhausted! I wanted to watch them to convince Scott to have a baby but now I have no idea what I want.” She sounded utterly exasperated.
“Well people usually just start with one or two not six.” Eddie smiled and rested his chin in his hand making him look especially boyish which further exasperated his older sister.
“Mama!” Sleeper was practically crawling across the tabletop to them, his tongue poked out in concentration as he tried to hoist himself up from Mary’s lap.
“I love them, Eddie. I adore them. They are precious and darling and wonderful. But all day it was ‘Dad lets us do this, Dad lets us do that’.” Mary seemed to be squeezing Sleeper just a little bit as she spoke.
“Lies. All lies.”
“Yes, we grasped that after our third trip to McDonald’s.” She nodded.
Sleeper glowered and growled and grunted as he scraped his sharp little claws on the smooth tabletop that stood between him and his parents, unable to traverse it.
“It’s okay Sleeps. We’re right here.” Eddie reached his hand out and Sleeper grabbed his fingers in earnest.
“Okay. They might be little monsters sometimes but they’re our little monsters.” Eddie conceded.