Chapter Text
“... So If I said, ‘this isn’t what it looks like–’”
“Eddie, I can't even imagine what ‘this’ is , let alone what it looks like,” Mrs. Chen said with her arms crossed.
Eddie made a face. “Yeah, okay,” he said, “that’s fair.” His eyes darted left to right, fingers clenching and unclenching as he tried, once again, to desperately come up with a believable excuse. C’mon V! he thought, Could really use your help right now!
Venom swiveled, looking back and forth between Eddie and the small-yet-extremely-threatening old woman standing at the door. “Right. Okay,” he said to Eddie with a dip of his head before turning his eye whites back to Mrs. Chen. “You are human dreaming,” Venom said with a false bravado.
Eddie’s eye twitched. Mrs. Chen pursed her lips. “Human dreaming,” she said flatly.
Venom nodded knowingly. “Yes. You are hallucinating as you sleep. This dream is very strange, but so are most human dreams, so you can ignore us,” he said. Damn, he was good.
Eddie disagreed.
Smacking his face, Eddie dug his fingers into his cheeks as he dragged his hands down past his chin. “Goddamnit V,” he groaned.
“Somebody better tell me what’s going on before I call the Avengers,” Mrs. Chen growled.
“No!” Venom yelled just as Eddie screamed, “I have an alien tapeworm!” Both paused to look at each other, disgruntled. Mrs. Chen blinked slowly.
“Um,” Eddie started, “If it makes it any better… I consensually have an alien tapeworm?” Eddie was sweating a lot, but soldiered on. Mrs. Chen humored him skeptically, as usual.
“Like, he asked if he could stay here, on earth y’know? And he’d just– he’d helped me save the planet during that whole Carlton Drake mess; like, wow! He betrayed his whole species for us!” Eddie said in a rush. “It was insane and weird and awkward and difficult, but we won.” Eddie paused, growing visibly uncomfortable. “And… and we won, but we got separated too. And I didn’t help him when he needed it most.”
Venom shifted to press his forehead to the side of Eddie’s head. Eddie’s cheeks flushed. “So– so afterwards he needed a body again, right, ‘cus oxygen hurts him for some reason? And he can’t exist outside in our atmosphere on his own, y’know? Well, then I uh, I just said yeah, you can ride with me buddy— hop on in!”
“Hop on in,” Mrs. Chen said without inflection.
“Uh huh,” Eddie said, nodding. Venom nodded too.
Mrs. Chen folded her hands as if she was praying, and then pressed her interlocking fingers against the bridge of her nose. “So this,” she said, tilting her head towards Venom, “is the source of the alien rumors surrounding Drake’s death, and the destruction of the rocket?”
Eddie nodded meekly while his other curled protectively around his shoulders, eye whites narrowed and teeth half-barred.
Mrs. Chen massages her temple. “Okay,” she said, letting her hands fall to her sides. “Okay. Okay, gàn !” she hissed, turning to kick the door frame, hard. Eddie shrank back, stunned.
“Gàn, gàn, fuck !” she said, beginning to pace before turning to point back at Eddie. “You! Hútú dàn; you stupid, stupid boy! Do you have any idea what kind of monster you have let into my home?”
“We are not a monster!” Venom snarled before Eddie could interject.
“You were talking about eating my cat just before I walked in!”
“We decided not to eat the cat!”
“That’s still weird! That’s still too weird!”
“Eddie,” Mrs. Chen said with a pleading look. “Eddie, what the hell am I supposed to do here?”
Eddie wilted. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “I don’t know, but I am so, so sorry for all this.”
Mrs. Chen sighed. “Eddie, you know that is not enough.”
“I know.”
“You let an a carnivorous alien parasite live with you, in my home, for the past two months , and you did not even have the common decency to ‘give me a heads up’ that I had a unknown, secret second tenant in here this entire goddamn time!” she screamed, erupting. “Who does that? Jesus fuck !”
“We’re sorry,” Venom tried apologetically, but it came out bitter and unconvincing.
“And you!” Mrs. Chen continued yelling, “I do not want to hear a sing peep out of you until Eddie and I finish sorting this out,” she said, fuming.
Venom shrank back, eyeing the small woman warily. She was barely 4’11, but she was shaking in anger and had a certain kind of power behind her eyes, a certain kind of strength in her stature that spoke directly to Venom’s hindbrain, warning him to retreat. He drew behind Eddie, protective, agitated and hissing.
Mrs. Chen looked ready to hiss right back. Lan had never been the type to duck out of the room when shit hit the fan; it simply wasn’t her way. Yes, she was capable of compromise when backed into a corner— as the daughter of immigrants, as a lesbian, as a widowed elderly Chinese woman living alone in one of the worst neighborhoods in San Francisco? Yeah, she’d had to swallow her pride plenty to survive, but never her anger.
So sure, when a local gangster had first walked in to her store with a shitty protection racket and said, “your money or your life,” of course she’d given him the fucking money. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t mouth-off a time or two before he backhanded her into submission.
Please . Like she hadn’t been cracked in the face before. Kids these days didn’t know shit about what women like Chen Lan had grown up with.
She looked at the oily little thing fluffed up like an angry cat, lurking behind Eddie’s shoulders, up and down, and curled her lip.
Like she said: kids these days didn’t know shit. Sure, maybe this one had more teeth than most of the youth of today, but the bravado was the same, and Lan was so tired. She was so tired, and so goddamn angry.
This was supposed to be her home , somewhere safe for her and her’s: for her business, for her cat, for her plants. For the framed photo of her mother, and the family picture albums Lan had made for her own children. For Lan’s knitting, for her son’s christening gown, for the paintings her partner had made for her. For her husband’s lone wedding band. For a promise of a future with Marilag.
She had thought this was starting to become a home for Eddie too, but apparently she was wrong, because why else would he invite such danger into Lan’s first and last sanctuary? Had he not cared for her? How could he, if he was so willing to break her trust like this?
Perhaps Eddie Brock was not the type of man she thought he was. Perhaps he was a threat, and should be treated as much of one as the creature draped across his back, the one with a clawed hand curled around his shoulder.
Beastly.
Eddie said the thing was an alien. An alien that was clearly some sort of apex predator, and a killer. Lan knew she should stand down, take Eddie’s excuses, do whatever they say so she could be sure to make it out alive, but god –
God, I’m tired, she thought.
Fuck it. She was gonna say her piece no matter what happened next.
“Fuck you, Eddie Brock.”
“Don’t say that!” Venom snapped, quick.
“Venom—” Eddie started, before Lan interrupted with a scoff.
“No, please, let’s see what your interdimensional tapeworm has to say,” she said, mockingly.
“Extraterrestrial, not interdimensional! And we are not a tapeworm! Even If we were, we certainly wouldn’t be interdimensional —”
“Whatever! English is my third language, you stupid space eel!”
“And it’s my eighteenth, you senile old woman!”
“Venom!” Eddie said with a yelp. “You said you’d play nice!”
“But Eddie, she’s not playing nice!” Venom whined.
“She doesn’t have to V; we’re in the wrong,” Eddie explained. Privately Eddie felt that she didn’t have to escalate things so much, but he had brought and kept a cannibalistic alien into their shared apartment without telling her, so some anger was warranted. Still, he didn’t want V to snap and hurt her.
Venom turned towards Eddie, his eye whites creased. “We wouldn’t hurt her,” they said, feelings bruised. “We promised.”
Fuck . Eddie hadn’t meant for V to hear that thought. “Venom, look, I didn’t–”
“Well I don’t care what you promised!” Lan interrupted. Eddie, and by extension, Venom, froze. Lan leaned against the door frame, her anger slowly fading leaving her only to feel empty and drained. “This is… Eddie, this was my home.”
Eddie was quiet. Lan sighed, and turned her head. “I need you out for the night; I need space to think.”
“Okay,” he said softly. Venom stayed silent, and pulled himself closer to Eddie in an attempt at comfort. “We’ll pack a bag.” Lan nodded.
She could hear them rustling through the apartment as she stayed planted by the bathroom, could hear the alien’s low rumblings of hurt and confusion, Eddie’s exhausted replies. She stayed put, leaning heavily against the door frame until she heard the front latch shut. Then, she went to make some tea.
It was time to meditate. Perhaps she would call Marilag afterwards.
***
What are we doing here, Eddie? V asked in his mind. Eddie pulled his jacket closer, shivering in the cool evening chill, and continued walking through the half empty park.
Eddie? V prompted. Eddie, we want to know where we’re going. Don’t want to look through your head; want you to tell us, he said, frustrated.
Eddie sighed, and kicked a stray pebble. “I don’t know yet,” he said, defeated.
We’re obviously going somewhere, Venom said, sourly.
Eddie rolled his eyes. “Ever heard of mindless wandering, babe? Because that’s all there is for the plan so far, seeing as how everything else has been canceled since we definitely just got kicked out of our apartment. So feel free to add something new to the docket; it’s clearer than it ever has been before.”
Eddie could feel Venom’s distaste. No need to be short, he grumbled, immediately making Eddie’s misplaced frustration switch to regret.
“You’re right,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “I’m sorry; that wasn’t fair.”
Seems like all we do is apologize, Venom grumbled, And where does that get us?
“Somewhere better than we were before, I hope,” Eddie said, shifting the position of the bag tossed over his shoulder. Venom’s silence was pointed as Eddie surveyed the darkening park. Eddie grimenced.
“Yeah, okay, point taken. But still,” he said, trying to remain positive, “dont people always say it’s gonna get worse before it gets better?”
Eddie and Venom flinched at the distant crack! of thunder. Eddie took a deep breath in through his nose, struggling not to lose his cool. “Goddamnit, that’s– that’s just not fair. Fuckin’ hell.”
Venom deeper out of Eddie’s pores and rose above the layers of his clothes, and began to form a thick rain jacket. In a blink, he was finished with none the wiser but his host.
“Oh,” Eddie said, surprised. “Uh, thank you.” Eddie scrubbed at the faint blush on his cheeks as his symbiote hummed in acknowledgment of his thanks. Just get us out of the rain.
“Right, of course buddy.” Eddie quickly moved them to the nearest underpass to set up camp, wrapping his alien jacket closely around his shivering body. The jacket stretched until it was large enough to be used like a blanket, tucking itself snuggly against Eddie’s arms and legs until he began to warm. He pressed his lips to the side of his hood softly, like a chaste kiss. “Thank you,” he mumbled. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Venom stayed quiet, and Eddie soon drifted off into an uncomfortable sleep. He watched the occasional car drive by, and tried to bury the heavy feeling of guilt seeping through his membrane.
***
Mrs. Chen sipped quietly from her cup of oolong tea, thinking of her conversation with Marilag from earlier. After taking some time to decompress, Mrs. Chen has called her girlfriend. She had simply wanted to hear her voice, to hear her lover laugh as she described something funny she had seen on the bus, or an interesting quote from the new book she was reading. She wanted something sweet, and normal.
“It’s fantastic; bebe , you would love it! It won the Man Booker prize last year, and there were many tough contenders for it, as you know.”
“Of course, darling,” Lan hummed. “I always love your book recommendations.”
Marilag snorted. “Now I know that’s not true, otherwise you would be reading more poetry.”
Lan laughed. “Alright, so maybe I don’t read all of them, but I always try them, mahal .” Lan heard Marilag give a soft, pleased exhale.
“I love when you try and sprinkle in pet names from my language into our conversations,” she giggled. “You don’t always pronounce the words correctly, but I still think it’s sweet.”
“Of course, giliw .”
“Ugh, stop!” Marilag laughed. “You sound so old fashioned!”
Lan smiled. Marilag made her feel like a little girl again, gripping her friend’s hand just a little bit too tightly as they walked to school together. But with Marilag, Lan felt safe. It wasn’t like before, when her father sat her down one day and told her under no uncertain terms what was expected of her– all Marilag expected from Lan was for her to listen to her when she spoke, and to tell her how she felt.
And that was good. That was… that was better than good; it was something new and exciting. It was like the glimpse into the life Lan could have had if she had been able to be open with her sexuality from birth– she was getting a second chance to cash her check for a chance at a loving partner who truly loved and understood her.
However, with the two of them, there was no time to be bitter about what or who they could have been if only the world had been a little kinder to them when they were younger. Both Marilag and Lan were old women; they understood the necessity of letting go, and when to cling to what they loved tight.
It was this lesson that Lan was doing her best to ignore as she drank her tea. For the truth was, Lan did love Eddie– he was almost like a stupid, stupid son to her– but the boy was trouble. Or if he wasn’t, he certainly attracted it in all senses of the word.
Lan sighed, sinking further into her chair. She turned her head to look at the light pollution in the sky, and felt her chest ache.
As a child, her mother would lull her to sleep with tales from the homeland. Family stories and countryside myths wound together until they blended in Lan’s dreams where great-grandparents and little cousins would dance under the stars with dragons.
Lan had told her children those very same stories. She wondered if they remembered them, and if they would pass them onto her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren. She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that they would not, and she once again found herself wondering, is this how my mother felt?
Lan was surprised to feel something wet running down her cheek, and choked on an unexpected sob. “Oh,” she said, voice half-wrecked, and found that there really wasn’t anything more to be said than that. “Oh.”
Lan’s tears were interrupted by a tap-tap-tapping at the window. She sat still. What the hell?
She sat quietly, waiting for the sound to return. When it didn’t, Lan groaned and rubbed a hand over her face, briskly drying her tears. It was getting late.
“Hello?” said a voice, impossibly soft. Lan froze in her tracks.
“We’re not here to hurt you,” it said. “We just want to talk.”
Lan swallowed hard, her back to the window.
“It’s just us. Eddie is… he is sleeping.”
“What do you mean, ‘he’s sleeping,’” she croaked. Shaking, she turned around, her eyes bloodshot. “I swear to God, if you’ve hurt a single hair on that boy’s head–!”
“No!” The shadow in her window said, it’s eye-whites stretched wide. “No, we would never!”
She stared at it, quiet, before she began to laugh. It started soft, growing louder in volume and erratic as as she went.
“What are you doing?” The creature asked, almost nervous. “Why are you laughing?” It then looked frustrated. “We don’t understand!”
“Of course you don’t understand!” she said between breaths. “You’re a fucking alien! I’m talking to an alien! Fuck! ”
Lan could accept that there were aliens, that there were bloodthirsty monsters that roamed this earth and the stars, but to be faced with one? Alone, in her apartment? She felt as if she was being tested, but by what, she had no idea.
The universe was beautiful. The universe was cruel. Part of the universe included a nine foot tall goo-monster with massive fangs pushing itself through her window frame. She did not have time to question its existence earlier with Eddie, did her best to ignore it later, and now the time to wonder how and why it was alive had passed.
Lan was not one to spend time on missed opportunities, so she decided to take the creature– Venom, Eddie had called it?– in stride.
Lam shook her head, straightened her, and tipped her head up to make eye contact with the thing in her living room. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing here, and where’s Eddie?”
Venom tilted its– his?– head as if he was looking away, guilty. “He is here, with us. We are just borrowing his body to be in this form while he sleeps.”
“That’s weird.”
“We know,” he sighed, “But we wanted to talk to you by ourselves, and that’s very difficult to do as a symbiote.” He shifted, uncomfortable. “We don’t like being without Eddie awake too, but the internet said apologizes should be personal.”
Lan snorted. “You googled how to apologize?”
“Yes,” he said, a little defensive. “We are trying to do the right thing! We want to be good, like Eddie!”
“Eddie is not a good man,” Lan said. Venom opened his mouth to protest. “I’m not saying he’s a bad man either,” she continued, cutting him off, “But he still has work to do. We all do,” she said pointedly.
“We are trying,” he said softly, slumping to be the same height as Lan. “We want to be better than we are.”
“You should,” Lan said, nodding. “Everyone should.”
“How do we become better?” he asked sincerely.
Lan blinked. When she originally decided to just run with the situation of meeting an alien in her home (for the second time in a day!), counciling it was not what she had in mind.
But he looked so vulnerable, staring at her like that. Like she was something bright and wise that he had never seen before, that she was something that was worth listening to. It was humbling, almost, until she remembered what it was doing here and why.
“Well,” Lan said, “That’s something that you will have to decide for yourself. Eddie, myself, and others can try and tell you what we think is right, but at the end of the day, that’s up to you.”
Venom was quiet for a moment before speaking. “We are… not used to thinking on our own,” he said slowly. “We have always existed as part of a collective: thinking together, acting together, influencing each other. To be alone is– it is unbearable.”
Venom softened, looking into Lan’s eyes. “We are sorry that we made you feel alone in your own home. We were scared you would force us to leave, and make us alone too.”
“I did,” Lan said.
“Not to leave here ,” he said, gesturing around the room, “But Eddie.”
“Oh,” she said in realization. “You love him.”
“Of course we love him,” he snorted, as if it was a silly thing to question. Water was wet, the sky was blue, and Venom had loved Eddie as long as he had known of the concept. “How could we not?”
Lan remained quiet.
Venom cocked his head at her. “He listens to you, you know. He was so upset today after we left here.” Venom, now cross-legged as Wall, lightly scratched a claw along the floor. Lan did not flinch. “He hates disappointing you because he loves you.”
“I love him too,” she said, distant. “But I don’t know if I can trust him.”
“Let Eddie and I prove that you can,” Venom urged.
“Why are you doing this?” Lan asked. “You didn’t seem to care much earlier.”
Venom shrugged. “I was angry and hurt then. Both Eddie and I have a few anger issues, but we’re trying to change. Also,” he continued, “I did not realize how important you were to one another.
Venom paused. “I just want him to be happy. Without you, part of him will always be unhappy.”
“So what do you want me to do?” Lan asked. This was all so much.
“Whatever you think is best,” Venom said honestly. “Eddie would not want us to force you to do anything.”
He stood up as if to leave. “Like we said before, we just wanted to talk.”
“Then keep talking,” Lan said. “If you have any intention of becoming my second roommate, I’ll need to know you better before deciding whether or not to let you stay.”
Venom froze, shocked, before slowly nodding, and sitting back down.
“And for what it’s worth? I’m sorry too. You’re not a monster.”
***
“You know, you don’t actually have to sleep on the couch.”
Eddie pressed his face deeper into the scratchy fabric of the couch cushion, half asleep and unable to fully process what was being said to him. He ignored the following huff from the voice in favor of burrowing further into his nest of pillows and blankets.
“Eddie,” said Venom, “Time to wake up. Your friend is talking, and you are being very rude.” Eddie groaned in reply, squeezing his eyes shut tighter. His body ached, and it felt like he hadn’t got nearly enough sleep after everything that had happened yesterday. Possibly losing one of your only friends and being kicked out of your apartment had that kind of effect.
“Wait,” he said aloud, confused. He sat up quickly, the blood rush making him dizzy, and surveyed his environment. “What the fuck?”
“Eddie!” Venom snapped. “Stop trying to embarrass us in front of Mrs. Chen! It is not cool.”
Eddie blinked in confusion as Mrs. Chen continued. “Your tapeworm is right,” she said with a sniff. “It’s rude to swear in front of an old lady.”
“You’re not old,” Eddie said automatically.
Mrs. Chen rolled her eyes. “I’m seventy-eight,” she said. “That’s old, Eddie.”
“Surviving this late into the human life cycle is not easy, Eddie,” Venom said. “Don’t down play age, it’s an accomplishment,” Venom sniffed. Mrs. Chen coughed to hide a short laugh.
Eddie squinted at the two before looking back down at himself, his blanket nest on the couch, and the surrounding apartment that he had very much not fallen asleep in and had, as of last night, been very much banned from. He then look back up to the odd pair in front of him.
“I am… I’m very confused right now,” Eddie said slowly. “When did— how did I even get here?”
“We– I brought us here,” Venom said, “ To say sorry.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Chen replied. “And he did it quite nicely too.”
Eddie narrowed his eyes, unconvinced. “Well, maybe nice is not the best word,” Mrs. Chen amended, “but he was quite genuine with his apology, and that meant something to me.”
Eddie nodded haltingly, still trying to recover his bearings. “I’m glad– I’m glad to hear that, Chen.”
“Mm. As I was saying, you don’t actually have to sleep on the couch.”
Eddie cocked his head. “What?”
Mrs. Chen sighed, crossing her arms. She looked away, almost as if she was slightly embarrassed. “I actually have a guest room I’ve been using for storage this whole time. Clean it out with me, and it can be yours.”
“What?!” Eddie yelled, sitting straight up. “Lan, I’ve been living here for weeks!”
“Yes, paying very low rent to share a good apartment in San Francisco!”
“I’m thirty-six! Sleeping on the couch hurts!”
“No it doesn’t,” Venom said, confused. “We always healed you from any soreness.”
“Venom!”
“Yes, listen to the goo alien! Also, it was a futon, Eddie. Not my fault you were to lazy to unfold it half the time,” Mrs. Chen tsked
“Whatever,” he grumbled, slumping back against the couch with an arm thrown over his face dramatically. Venom, in his small, snake-like form, bumped his snout against Eddie’s forehead. Eddie couldn’t help but smile.
The three of them sat in the comfortable silence for a few moments before Eddie grew serious. Sitting back up, he faced Mrs. Chen.
“Lan,” he started, “I really am sorry–”
“Oh, be quiet you stupid boy. If I have to hear one more ‘I’m sorry’ out of anyone, my head’s going to explode.” Her face softened. “You really want to make it up to me? Help me clean out my storage room.” Venom nodded at Eddie to take the offer.
Confused, Eddie stood up and followed the older woman to a door he always assumed was a linen closet. Venom wrapped himself around Eddie like a scarf while the two of them watched Lan unlock the door with a key. She paused, and looked back at the two of them before stealing herself and pushing the door open.
Inside the room were two dusty twin beds. Between them stood a dresser with faded photographs and yellowing papers with faded notes written on them, with sealed boxes stacked in a few different piles throughout the room. Unlike the rest of the planters in the apartment, the flowerpots laid barren.
Boa trotted in, sneezing. He cast Eddie a wary look and then rubbed against his mistress’s legs. She paid him no mind as she scanned the room.
“This was my husband’s office once,” Lan said. “Then it was my children’s bedroom, and now it is this.”
She was quiet. Eddie respected this.
Lan turned back to him. “I want help sorting through my memories,” she said, “And I want the two of you to do it with me.”
“I would be honored,” Eddie said genuinely. Lan smiled, and Venom grinned in response.
“Good,” she said, regaining her composure, “Because it wasn’t a request.” Her face softened, and she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.
“I still haven’t fully forgiven you for lying to me, but I understand. I talked to your friend for a very long time last night,” Lan told Eddie, “And I would like both of you to stay for now. But we have to work together if this is going to work.”
“We can do that,” Venom said. Eddie nodded as well. Lan smiled.
“Alright, that’s what I thought. Also, Marilag agreed to come cook us lunch today if we could finish half of this before one, so we’re starting early.” Eddie laughed.
The cat purred loudly as the two began to work with Venom acting as an extra hand, occasionally rubbing his cheek against the other’s face when he thought Lan wasn’t looking. She wondered if he noticed the way his host’s cheeks pinked, but decided he must know. Somethings didn’t have to be said.
Bao hopped lightly up to a sunny spot near the window sill, and closed his eyes, letting the background noise of soft laughter and conversation soothe him to sleep.
It was comfortable here– or at least, it was starting to be. A lot can grow in empty rooms, hosts, or flowerpots, provided they are given the proper care they need.
At ten am on a Saturday morning, there was a lot of hope budding in the home.