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Eddie has grown used to having Venom alongside him. He's tried to ignore how much he likes having him with him, really— but it's hard, and he knows Venom can see his thoughts. But he never says anything, never asks, never teases about nothing deeper than him being a pussy.
But he doesn't know why Venom doesn't ask about this, of all things. They shared a body— he would've thought he knew the typically-taught human biology.
"Venom?" he starts one morning, eating steak and some McDonald's French fries.
"Yeah?"
Eddie knows there's no way Venom, an alien probably unfamiliar with the human binary, will be a dick about this. But he's still anxious. "Are you not going to ask about my lack of a dick?"
A pause. Venom separates and swallows one of the French fries. "I thought that was a normal difference? Some males have penises, some males don't? Right?"
Eddie laughs a little and chews on a bit of his steak. "I wish most humans viewed it like that." He sighs. "All humans are designated a gender based on their genitals. A penis means male, a vagina means female. Some humans have a mix of both, they're usually mutilated to fit one of the usual sexes better."
"That's fucked."
He snorts. "Yeah, I know. A few of us don't like what we were assigned, though. I was assigned female at birth, and I... it wasn't very good. I hated being seen as a woman, but I didn't figure out why until I was in college."
"How did you...?" Venom takes another fry into his mouth. "Some type of hormone— wait, that's what you inject yourself with every week?"
Eddie laughs. "Yeah, testosterone. Some people with penises are women, and some people don't identify in the binary. Some people shift between genders, or don't have a gender—"
Venom interrupts, "There are humans with no gender? Like symbiotes?"
Eddie is shocked, and almost drops his fork. He regains his composure. "You're— you're genderless?"
"No concept of gender," he explains. "Seems stupid. Just some sex organs and that's about it. You just see me as male because you're gay."
"I'm not gay," Eddie quips, face flushing pink. "I just thought that at least you were like, fluid on gender or something. You know, because you had boobs when you posessed Anne."
Venom doubts for a second, and eats more fries. There's silence that seems to drag on forever. "I thought you'd be more open to kissing me if I was vaguely female-looking."
Eddie looks away, draws in a breath. "Yeah, that's no issue. I'm bisexual."
"Flustered." Eddie wishes he could elbow him. "That's cute."
"Oh fuck off."
"Pussy."
Eddie doesn't even blink. "Parasite."
Venom bristles.
"Shh. Didn't mean it, you dumb alien."
Venom groans. "Hey!"
"Now you're the flustered one."
Venom gulps down the rest of the fries and melts right back into Eddie. "You're terrible."
Eddie hums in agreement and gets up. "I heard a convicted child molester got out and moved into the apartment complex."
He can feel Venom bristling inside of him. He tries to ignore how his heart skips a beat, at how easily Venom adapted to human morality— he understands it. He explained in a whisper about his neighbor, and he could feel Venom trying to heal his brain like he can heal the rest of his body.
"It doesn't work like that," he'd told him softly. "It's not physical damage."
But goddamn it if Venom didn't try anyway, if he didn't ask him how he felt, if he didn't attempt to find a way to fix his emotional scars.
Venom cares more than anyone had before. Eddie really didn't expect to find such a relationship with an alien sharing his body— he isn't complaining, at any rate.
Venom is something different, different from everything he's had in his life. Even without the whole alien parasite thing— he's different. And his heart beats fast around him, and he'd had his lips on him.
He stays still for a second, and Venom walks him to the door. His gooey hand wraps around the doorknob.
"Let's go?" Venom says, a question mark on the end of the sentence.
Eddie draws in a breath. "Yeah, let's go." He opens the door and walls down the hallway. The rest of it is a blur, but by when they're done he's back into their human form, a bit of blood dribbling down his chin.
"Disgusting humans taste disgusting," Venom tells him.
Eddie laughs softly and turns to leave— no one will question the man disappearing. He was a pedophile, after all, and he deserves no sympathy.
He wipes the blood off his chin with his sleeve and heads back to his apartment, not without Venom calling him a pussy for not wanting to go hunt more terrible people in between.
Yeah, Eddie wouldn't change his life with his symbiote, at any rate.