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Anne had to blink three times before what she was looking at on her front step made sense.
“Eddie?”
Her ex smiled, tilting his head up to look at her despite the rain pouring down his face and the strangely-textured hoodie he was wearing. His hands were tucked in his pockets and he had a backpack on. His motorcycle, which he for some reason apparently rode through the rain, was parked on the curb.
“Hey, you’re looking awesome.”
She snorted, rolling her eyes as she stepped back and motioned. With her unkempt hair, lack of makeup, and day-old pajamas she felt his sarcasm was a little overstated.
“Yeah, thanks. You too, ice-bucket challenge. Get inside before--” she cut off as Eddie stepped in and the hoodie rippled.
Before her eyes it turned more glossy and slunk back into Eddie’s body through his shirt and the exposed skin of his arms and neck, leaving him in a perfectly dry t-shirt and only slightly damp jeans.
She blinked. “Well. Venom, you’ve gotten better at blending in I see.”
The symbiote manifested a head by spreading out and resting a good portion of his ooze across Eddie’s left shoulder, tendrils winding lazily up the side of Eddie’s neck and down his arm. We have been practicing! We can mimic polyester, cotton, and almost silk.
Anne snorted and then burst out laughing imagining why Eddie would ever need the symbiote to look like silk, but she shook her head and just hugged them both instead of commenting.
“It’s good to see you guys,” she admitted, relaxing for a moment and letting herself sigh as Eddie returned the embrace warmly. “It’s been a rough few days.”
“Yeah, we know,” Eddie said, pulling back and twisting his shoulder to slip his arm out of the backpack strap. “That’s why we’re here.”
Dan texted us. He said you were lonely and he doesn’t want you to mope while he’s gone.
Anne crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “Did he actually say mope?”
“No, that’s more Venom’s take on it but he’s not entirely wrong,” Eddie said, his face scrunching as he dropped the backpack on the floor and started digging into it. Anne rolled her eyes again.
“I am not moping.”
“No, I know,” Eddie said patronizingly, pulling out a bottle of wine and standing again. He held it out to her. “Do you want to not mope with a bottle of Chardonnay?”
She eyed the bottle for a moment and relented, accepting it and heading into the apartment.
“Fine, come on,” she said, faking almost all of her reluctance. She really was missing Dan and the house had been empty without him. Her most recent case had hit her hard on a lot of levels, so hard that her firm was forcing her to take a few days off. For a person who processed better by not stewing in her emotions, getting forced off of work really wasn’t helping her mood. If Dan had been there, he’d have been able to help her work through it or at least distract her, but he was away in another country for a medical conference and wasn’t allowed back for a few days yet.
“I told him I’d be fine, I wish he wouldn’t send my ex and his body-roommate over to babysit me,” she said, fishing around her kitchen for the corkscrew. Eddie raised an eyebrow and glanced up, reaching above his head to the wine rack and unhooking the tool. He handed it over with only a small smirk.
“He didn’t send your ex, he sent your friends. And it was more him confiding that he was worried. Venom and I decided we needed to come over and pull you out of your stress pit because I know how you can get, Anne.”
We thought you should go to a spa, but Eddie said the last time you went you got an infection and you don’t trust them.
“So, we brought the spa to you,” he finished, plopping his backpack on the table before turning it upside down.
A clatter of items fell out including: her favorite chocolate, a receipt from a sushi service that promised an evening delivery, four bath bombs, a face mask, and the first movie she and Eddie had seen on a date. To anyone else that would have been in poor taste, but as Anne picked up the special edition copy of The Lion King, all she could think about was how their first ‘date’ had been Eddie taking care of her through some awful food poisoning. The movie had become her comfort film ever since, and Eddie clearly hadn’t forgotten that.
“We promised Dan we’d get you to relax, so don’t make us a liar,” Eddie said, picking up the mask and the bath bombs and holding them out to her. “So go upstairs, get settled in the bath, and when the sushi gets here we’ll bring up the wine and everything.”
Anne felt her expression crumple a little and she sniffed, suddenly bending to pick up her cat to help hide the fact that she was tearing up. “Dan really sent you guys?”
“He did,” Eddie said, handing the mask to Venom to hold so he could get his phone out of his back pocket. He held it up so she could see the text. “He’s worried about you, Anne,” he said more gently. “Let us help.”
She blinked and gave a small smile, feeling a tear escape down her cheek anyway. She hugged the cat a little closer and nodded once, feeling a little overwhelmed. How many guys would do something as selfless and trusting as ask their girlfriend’s ex fiance over to cheer her up? And more to that, how many of the exes would show without any ulterior motives?
She sighed and accepted the bath bomb, letting the cat down before leaning in to kiss Eddie’s cheek and go upstairs.
As promised, Anne had been soaking in the hot water for only a few minutes when Eddie knocked.
“You can come in, these bombs turn the water really, really cloudy. It’s like someone melted an opal.”
Eddie slipped in and sat on the edge of the tub, holding out a glass of wine which she accepted. Venom was carrying the sushi, and she accepted her portion of it from him with only the tiniest thought of how strange that still was. Mostly she was used to Eddie’s symbiote--but it still felt weird to see him move across and through and outside Eddie’s person without any reaction from Eddie himself. Venom had completely become his normal.
“So this article I was researching last week made me think of you--”
And so they fell into the comfort of Eddie talking about his job because Anne couldn’t think about hers. She didn’t know or really care if Dan had elaborated on why the case was difficult, she was just glad Eddie had the grace not to press it. He talked animatedly about the song and dance he’d had to do to get information, all his wild gestures and expressions taking her back to some of the first things that made her love him. It was purely innocent, and nice to see that man back again. Venom added to the pantomime of course, forming shapes and even props as Eddie mimed out various encounters.
He’d always been a good storyteller, but Venom made it better.
By the time the water was getting cold, Anne had finished her sushi and her wine and was feeling much more relaxed.
Eddie held his hand out over the water like he was feeling for the temperature and snapped his fingers, getting up and pulling a towel down from the back of the door. “Alright, phase two, that water is too cold to be properly relaxing so,” he said, setting the towel on the edge of the tub with a pat. “You get dressed and we will be downstairs by the TV when you’re ready.”
“Thank you,” she said, pausing him right at the door. “Both of you.” He glanced back, and it really wasn’t as unnerving as it should have been when both voices answered at once.
“You’re welcome.”
The movie was already set to play and the lights dimmed when she came downstairs. Eddie had created a nest out of the couch cushions, every blanket she thought she owned (plus two she didn’t) and an unreal amount of throw pillows. Eddie turned when she came around the couch wrapped in her favorite fluffy robe and held out his hand so she could take it and use him for balance as she stepped into the mess.
“Dan is going to think I’m such a child,” she muttered to herself, half amused and only a little embarrassed.
“Nah. Dan’s going to want to know the formula for the perfect blanket fort slash nest after this,” he said, helping her sit before sitting down next to her.
He fished around for a moment before finding the chocolates buried under part of a throw pillow and a blanket, and he set them in her lap before leaning over far enough for Venom to reach out a tendril and grab the remote.
“So I know we already have at least half the world’s supply of blankets here but I know how you carry tension in your shoulders so we thought Venom might be able to help with that. He’d keep a few roots connected to me so he wouldn’t actually be using you as a host--he’d just be sitting on top like a really nice heat pad,” Eddie explained, gesturing across his own shoulders to demonstrate. “You want to try it?”
She hadn’t forgotten how strange it had been playing host once, and though it hadn’t been unpleasant per-se, it was still giving her pause at the thought of letting Venom close again. It was more instinct than anything, and she decided that her shoulders did hurt and heat packs usually helped. A sentient one that could maybe act like a gentle massage on top didn’t sound like such a bad thing.
She shook her head and then shrugged. “Sure, why not?”
Venom took the permission and bled from Eddie’s shoulder in a oily wave over to Anne’s, creeping across until he was settled under her hair and across both shoulders down to her shoulder blades. She gasped a little in surprise as he warmed up noticeably, and then closed her eyes and relaxed back into the pillows as he placed careful pressure on her sore muscles.
“That actually, feels really nice,” she murmured, cracking open an eye to give the symbiote a sheepish smile. “Thank you.”
You’re welcome.
“Alright so before we get going, I promised Dan I’d send proof so, smile,” Eddie said, holding his phone up before Anne could stop him. She put out a hand to try anyway but the flash went and Eddie grinned, showing her the picture before yanking his hand back so she couldn’t take the phone.
“It’s sent, it’s too late it’s gone. Dan now has a picture of the hardass lawer wrapped in her fuzzy robe and an alien. And I saved it to my encrypted cloud drive so now I have one too,” he said, laughing as she smacked at him.
“Eddie,” smack “Brock” smack “You asshole,” she laughed, fighting him for the remote as he leaned out of her reach and clicked the movie on.
“I’m sorry I can’t hear you over the majestic sunrise,” he said loudly, turning the volume up as she tussled with him for the controls.
By the end of the movie Anne was feeling warm and happy and pleasantly tired, her head resting on Eddie’s shoulder and Venom still draped across her back. The symbiote had gone mostly still and the credits had run out all the way to black, where Eddie paused it to keep the menu from coming up and repeating the same twelve second clip to death.
Quietly, Anne slipped her phone out of her robe pocket and sent Dan a text that didn’t feel like near enough for the gratitude and love she was feeling towards him. She’d call him in the morning.
She sighed, put the phone away, and closed her eyes, letting herself rest against Eddie’s side. He shifted and sweetly put an arm around her, letting her rest more against his chest where he made a better pillow.
“Thank you for doing this, Eddie. And you, Venom. I didn’t realize how badly I needed someone else here.”
“We know,” Eddie said gently, his voice a pleasant vibration in his chest. “We’re just glad we could help. And that Dan asked us to. He’s pretty cool, Anne.”
She smiled and patt Eddie’s side. “Yeah, he is.”
She was almost asleep, (and judging by his heartbeat so was Eddie), when a strange detail filtered into her awareness.
“Venom?” she asked sleepily, her brow furrowed as she opened her eyes just part way. She was unwilling to come fully awake if she could help it. “Are you...pulsing?”
“Ah, yeah...sorry that’s me…” Eddie said sheepishly. “He’s getting tired too and tends to start falling in with the automatic parts of my body when he’s falling asleep.”
She blinked. “Oh, so that’s your heartbeat.”
“Yeah. He can come back to me now, sorry if it’s weird.”
She could feel Venom tense to move at her request but she shook her head. “No...don’t. It’s...it’s nice.” She rest her head properly again and closed her eyes, letting herself also settle a palm on Eddie’s chest. His warmth was quickly making communication seem like too much work.
“Not weird?” Eddie asked, his tone having that strained, forced-lightness sound.
“It’s a little weird,” she murmured, smiling as she rubbed a thumb against his breastbone to assure him that she really wasn’t disturbed by him. By either of them. “But it’s nice.”
One of her last thoughts before she finally fell into a blissful sleep was that Eddie’s heartbeat had grown slower and stronger since the last time she’d fallen asleep to it. Silently, she thanked Venom for taking care of it in her absence.