Fic: Eat, Prey, Love (Venom, Eddie & Venom, M)
Title: Eat, Prey, Love by
cupidsbow
Fandom: Venom
Rating: M
Relationship: Eddie & Venom
Warnings: Cannibalism and discussion of body parts
For: Chaosmanor, it was a pleasure to write "weird alien stuff" for you. Thanks so much for pinch-hitting. You're best.
Summary: Venom starts taking souvenirs.
Usually Venom ate prey in just a few bites. The head first, because that was the best part, and then the body in as few bites as possible because Eddie insisted they eat everything. Venom savoured the moment a little more for Randy “The Ear” Broccoli, murderer of at least four street-people. Broccoli had been a worthy adversary, continually disappearing into packed nightclubs to lose them, living out of at least three different sublets, and seeding fake stories about his whereabouts with his associates so they couldn’t pick up his trail again. They had finally bought a camera-jammer and lurked in his parking garage, taking him down just as he was getting into his shiny orange McClaren. His skin tasted like fruity perfume and cannabis smoke, sweet and tender between their teeth, and Venom had felt a deep pang of need to take something as a memento of this hunt. Dozens of tiny tendrils were directed to the task of separating flesh from bone, and after a moment, Venom pulled Broccoli’s spine back out of their mouth and admired it.
Don’t even think about it! Eddie complained from where he was snugged up inside them. What the hell are we gonna do with a spine?
Running an admiring tendril along the vertebrae, Venom said, “Hang it above the TV.”
Eddie shuddered. Pro-tip: decor should never include body parts.
“I can suck the marrow out, get it clean,” Venom offered, curling their tongue around the bony knobs and slurping.
We’ve talked about this. Getting caught by being dumb isn’t the plan. No DNA in the apartment.
Venom reluctantly stopped licking and looked sadly down at the delicate arc of bone and cartilage. It was so pretty. It would look so good on the wall of a burrow.
Ugh, Eddie said. Eat it, already!
Venom sullenly threw the spine into their maw, all the sweetness of their victory gone. They dragged their feet as they headed towards the window that would take them back up to the roof.
Look at it this way, Eddie said, a spine would only hold us back. Get it? Hold us back?
“Vertebrate humour,” Venom sneered and jumped off the side of the building. Eddie’s scream made them feel a lot better.
*
Kitty Helianthus tasted strongly of glass, waxy lipgloss and garlic, and every-so-slightly of Sarin gas, probably from the half-dozen canisters she’d been digging up in a quiet field on a derelict farm. Eddie had tracked her car using an app. Even though they were quiet as they stalked her across the field, she had turned and whacked them with her shovel before they could bite her head off. The slice had healed instantly, and her head popped in their mouth like a grape. Venom felt hardness between their teeth, and rolled the oddly-shaped piece of glass around their tongue after eating the rest of her head, and then spat it out into their hand to take a look.
Oh, wow. A glass eye.
Venom agreed; it was an excellent prize. In the moonlight, it looked like something from the shore of the bay, curved like a shell and gleaming whitely.
“It would be perfect--”
No!
“--next to our bed.” Venom loved Eddie’s bed. It was warm and soft and layered with Eddie’s scent. It was the best part of their burrow.
First, gross! I don’t want a manky eye staring at me every time I go to sleep. Second, prosthetics can be tracked even easier than DNA. Hard no.
“I could make a pocket and keep it inside me.”
Just eat it. We need to call in a tip to the police about the Sarin gas.
Venom glumly curled a tendril around the curve of the glass, feeling the smoothness of it one final time, and then threw it back into their mouth, letting it drop through to their digestive sac.
Venom waited expectantly as they trudged back to their motorbike, but Eddie didn’t make a pathetic pun about eyes, too busy fretting about how to dump their burner phone after they’d called in the tip.
Eddie said, I guess we could throw it into the Bay as we go over the Bridge.
“Or I could just eat it.” They already knew Eddie would say no, but liked to hear it.
I vote no to you being set on fire on the inside.
Venom loped back to their bike feeling better, but even with Eddie’s concerns about their insides, the meal didn’t feel as satisfying as usual as they digested it.
*
“Okay, seriously, what the fuck.”
Venom glanced away from watching the toaster oven to see what Eddie was talking about. One look at the contents of Eddie’s hand, and Venom quickly turned back to the Tator Tots. They were just starting to turn black around the edges. Another minute and they would be perfect.
“Hey! I’m talking to you, Space Jam!”
“Don’t call me that.”
Three human teeth were tossed onto the kitchen bench right in front of Venom. Each of them were etched with a different face -- Bruce Lee, The Predator, and a big-eared creature that Venom hadn’t figured out yet. Dr Harry Chen had had eclectic tastes, in more ways than one. Venom had enjoyed eating him.
“I found these under the bed. Care to explain?”
Venom considered. “No.”
Eddie crossed his arms and glared at the side of Venom’s head.
Venom continued to watch the Tator Tots char.
“Fine.” Eddie reached out to scoop the teeth back up. “I’ll just chuck them in the trash, then.”
Like a flash, Venom snaked tendril beneath Eddie’s hand and absorbed the teeth, keeping them suspended inside without digesting them. “Mine.”
Eddie sighed and then reached over to turn off the toaster oven. He slid out the tray and placed it down in front of Venom.
Venom watched him suspiciously for a moment, and when all Eddie did was rest his hand gently on Venom’s head and give a gentle rub, they quickly licked up seven Tots at once and crunched them.
“So,” Eddie said slowly, his hand still a pleasant tickle as Venom sucked up another half-dozen Tots, “I’m clearly missing something here.”
Venom cast him a judging look, and pointedly chewed the Tots with their mouth open.
Eddie ignored the bait of the half-chewed food, and instead moved so he was looking them in the eyes and said, “How about this… You explain what the deal is with the trophies, and then I’ll buy you any chocolate you like at Ghirardelli’s.”
Pausing mid-chew, Venom squinted at Eddie, weighing him up. So far, Eddie had dismissed all their treasures as gross, but now he was wearing a worried groove in his forehead, and he usually only tried to bribe them with Ghirardelli when he really wanted something. They gulped down their mouthful, already imagining the taste of chocolate.
“Enemies should know what will happen to them if they come here. We will eat them and cover the walls with their remains.”
Eddie stared at them for a moment, and Venom expected him to say Gross! Instead, he tugged at his hair the way he did when a story suddenly came together, and then he turned and jabbed a hand at the door. “Pile of bodies, pile of heads! Warning colours!”
Venom grinned at him. “Keep our burrow safe.” They let the Doctor’s engraved teeth emerge from the pocket inside their tendril and rolled them onto the counter. “Mount them on the wall above our bed.”
Eddie's nose wrinkled in distaste. “No way in hell!”
“But!” They protested. They thought Eddie understood now!
“I draw the line at body parts in our living spaces.” Eddie pulled them into a hug. “But I get it now, and I promise we’ll find something you can collect that we can both live with.”
“Like what?” What could be better than the remains of the vanquished?
“Dunno yet. We could get a poisonous plant or two, or knife collection, or a dog. Or maybe we can get some paintings of body parts.”
Venom considered. "Painted with blood?"
"Eh, maybe. We'll research it and see." Eddie smacked a kiss on their head. “We’ll figure it out.”
Venom’s surface tension jellied a bit in response to the kiss. Eddie’s lips were squishier than they looked, and somehow sucked away the sting of his refusal to keep the teeth.
They tentatively licked Eddie’s mouth in return. He tasted like warmth and Tater Tots and chocolate. Mmmm. “You taste good.”
“Gross, but I’ll take it.”
“Not gross!”
“Super gross,” Eddie said, but he was smiling at them. “But I’ll take it. Come on, you deserve chocolate.”
Venom grumbled, but swallowed the teeth into their digestive sac while Eddie was grabbing his keys and wallet, and then glooped back into his chest as they headed out the door.
*
This entry was originally posted at https://cupidsbow.dreamwidth.org/454215.html.