Irritant
It was completely quiet.
It had to be.
Sleeper was perfectly passed out on Eddie’s right shoulder.
Not all that unusual necessarily; except no one in the house has slept at all in the last four days thanks to their precious youngest child. See, dear little Sleeper’s second row of teeth were coming in behind the first and just like the first time he wasn’t shy at all about letting them all know how miserable he was. But now, after more than 76 long hours he was finally, finally asleep. A daytime nap wasn’t a complete victory yet though. No. Sleeper had to successfully get through both his daytime naps and the whole night before they could call this a full win. Their baby sleeping for a few hours during the day while everyone else was awake was unfair and obviously didn’t count.
But it was a start and it had to last.
If Sleeper didn’t sleep now, he could be too tired to sleep tonight because babies are paradoxes.
If Sleeper didn’t sleep now he could sleep later but not late enough and then wake up in the middle of the night because babies are fickle.
If Sleeper didn’t sleep now he could stay up for three more days because babies, especially alien hybrid babies are unpredictable.
It had to be now.
So Eddie was stuck exactly where he was: in the nursery, in the rocking chair and he couldn’t so much as move an inch or make a peep for risk of waking Sleeper and Venom was stuck with him. But Venom was having much more fun with this than he was. Eddie is on the verge of sneezing which would undoubtedly wake their son up.
And Venom was absolutely no help.
“Venom you could so easily fix this.” Eddie pointed out inside the shared space of his head.
“I could but what fun would that be?”
“Why would you want to risk waking Sleeps up? Four days without any sleep at all just not do it for ya, V?”
“I can stay awake for four days easily. I don't really have a horse in this race.”
“A sneeze will not even wake him.”
“Yeah right, a pin drop could wake this kid. He’s like you.”
“He is not like me he is just unlike you. Not everyone can snooze through a nuclear blast, Eddie.”
“Please, V. Please don’t let me sneeze. He’ll wake up and he won’t go back.”
“No. This is happening. You are going to sneeze. Haven’t you ever noticed the intense relief and satisfaction you feel after sneezing? Those chemicals are like heroine.”
“That’s why? You’d jeopardize the rest of everyone in this house so you can get one quick shot of pleasure?” Eddie’s tone in his head was one of disgust.
“In my defense we have not had sex in a very long time.”
“It hasn’t even been that- aaaaah!”
His nose stung and his eyes watered.
“No!” He protested and physically willed the sneeze back.
“That was impressive.”
Eddie could feel it. Could feel Venom tickling around in his sinuses. Trying to coax out another one.
“Come ooooooon, Eddie. Just do it. It will feel so good.”
“Shut up. You’re a terrible father.”
“I am a what?”
And before Eddie could catch on to what Venom was doing he opened his mouth to answer with his voice.
“A terrible- Aaah-choo!”
Eddie could feel Venom tingling all throughout his body with delight and satisfaction but all Eddie could feel was fear. Every one of his muscles locked in an attempt to remain as still as humanly possible. Sleeper’s eyes squinted open and he looked up at Eddie. Their eyes locked for a long and agonizing moment as Eddie anticipated the tears. But Sleeper just gave him a slow blink, let out a big, wide yawn and fell back asleep.
Venom’s triumphant and uproarious laughter could only be heard inside Eddie’s head but it didn’t stop for several minutes.