Day 51: Lunch

[sanguinario]

Edward was glad to wake up to a period of respite. While he had been conscious during breakfast, he'd requested to remain in his room for extra "sleep", which had consisted waiting until the room was vacated to ingest the vial of Venom's blood. The vampire had lost his chance last night, but that might have been for the better; this way he wasn't

Comments

[anemptydecapo]

[I see what you did there.]The situation with Edward's fiance grew terse and uncomfortable, but in the least it was short-lived. As nice a girl as she seemed, he couldn't afford to grow close to either one of them if he wished for anything to function properly and though he had taken the time to scold her, it was for the betterment of everyone that she understand where they stood. Still, by the time the intercom had begun, Venom had already moved away from the girl and to the board, intent on finding word of their test's results

[sanguinario]

He looked up from his journal to examine whose shadow was now covering his journal, not exactly surprised to find his business associate creeping over his shoulder. He knew when Venom said he would find him later, he would. "I'm drawing. It involves using a pen to create something that looks like a picture." Despite knowing what Venom meant - you just had to love the way his cold anger was creeping out of his head like it was riding a tsunami - the question was enough to earn a sarcastic answer

[anemptydecapo]

Edward chose to be sarcastic about this. Of all the answers, of anything he could have said, he chose to do something very, very stupid

[sanguinario]

Usually, Edward appreciated his telepathy. It simply made life easier for him; he always knew who to trust, and could easily win a fight without even a chip in his skin. Right now, he was wishing there was some way to shut it off. He'd heard a lot of human sadness in his life, and most of it slid off of him... but sometimes it cut too close. Anger was easy to ignore, and Venom's was no different. That wasn't what bothered him so much

[anemptydecapo]

Blue eyes rose from the table, following the sound of crumpled paper hitting plastic. The eternal frown on his face grew deeper and coldness filled the void inside him, fingers curling into his palm. He wanted to take that paper. He didn't want it to exist, but now that it did he didn't want to let it go. He didn't want to forget. It was just childish indecisiveness, he knew. He shouldn't care about it

[sanguinario]

"I see," he said, nodding to the suggestion. He would have brought up that they had already found one - technically. But... in the state Venom was in - and the way he was thinking about a drawing, perhaps it was for the best if he didn't bring up the not-Zato.

"Well, it's fine with me." He left off the part where he was curious about whether Venom was up to it or not, but... also a question better left unsaid. He didn't want to insult the assassin and be near-beaten with a lunch tray again. And, if he was being realistic, hurt or not, the man would be an asset during a hunt. As long as Edward didn't get distracted, he could make bringing big prey down much easier.

No, he wouldn't get distracted. He was better than that. He wasn't - he wasn't starving anymore. He'd accepted that human blood was necessary, and he was... dealing with it.

"Though I am curious to know... why you're attempting to eat a salad with a spoon."

[anemptydecapo]

As much as the idea of spending the night watching a vampire drink the blood of other beings, antagonists or no, sickened him, he had to eat something. His stomach rebelled at the thought, twisting in on itself at the very idea of being even partially filled, but it had no say in the matter. If he were going to do anything tonight, he needed the energy. He wasn't going to let himself fail to his body's limitations. With that in the mind, the assassin began the attempt of--

...A spoon?

Venom stopped mid-motion, pulling his hand away from his mouth to glance silently at the utensil currently between his fingers. "...I thought I grabbed a fork."

So those pain pills were having an effect

[sanguinario]

The vampire laughed under his breath, his shoulders shaking once with the effort of keeping it under wraps. It wasn't terribly amusing within the context of them planning to hunt monsters just as eager to kill them as they were to scientifically analyze their blood (or digest it), but Edward took what he could get from the normally morose assassin. Even if it was especially worrying that the man could not think particularly straight -

- because of pain pills? Hmm.

And any worry he had for the other immediately vanished when he saw Bella; not her, but Venom's perception of her (totally incomprehensible of the subtle nuances of her appearance, of course, but it was her.) There was no way he should have known what she looked like; Venom knew the name, yes, but he hadn't gone into her house, so he wouldn't have seen any photos of her... and Edward certainly hadn't introduced them. In fact, he had been trying very hard to keep these two parts of the institute away from each other.

So how...?

...

Dammit, Bella.It took him a long

[anemptydecapo]

As tempting as it was to stifle that laughter, be it through force if necessary, Venom instead focused on the ensuing silence and waited patiently for a response

[sanguinario]

Edward stilled silently at Venom's new thought process, especially because it was about Bella and Venom didn't even know her, no matter what he thought, even if he had met her or not and -

- his fingers dug into the table so the annoyance he was clearly feeling wasn't channeled into the urge to punch Venom in the face. He felt it was a reasonable response, after all. Edward already knew it was a bad idea to left someone know so much about the two of them, but with the very strict situation, he was basically left with no choice.

He certainly didn't like to hear the pessimistic thoughts he often had for himself out of someone else's own head.

Before he answered the suggestion, he simply asked, "Do you think you are even up for doing this tonight? You aren't exactly beaming with a healthy flourish." The rational part of his brain realized this was the best course of action - the irrational part was screaming and beating the sides of his head. It wasn't a good idea. It was a terrible idea. He would sooner have Venom go out and die on

[anemptydecapo]

A strange mix between an exhale of breath and an embarrassed scoff left the assassin's mouth after Edward's observation, and his eyes quickly diverted back to the tray in front of him. Did he really look that horrible? He could untie his hair. Nothing was stopping him, not really. Nurse would gripe, but nothing would come of it. He was gripped with the need to cover his face, to hide the injury and exhaustion he knew was written all over it. But doing so would only leave it more visible, wouldn't it? It would show he was desperate to seem normal

[sanguinario]

It wasn't the topic at hand, no, but it was certainly one to bring up. Knowing Venom as little as he did, he still wasn't surprised that the other man quickly brushed past Edward's concern (which Venom was certainly right about - it was more about Bella than it was about him) and ignored the fact that there was a chance he wasn't up for this.

Regarding that same train of thought, Edward was having a similar uncomfortable moment. He didn't like that Venom had picked up on where his true concern lied so easily. He didn't like at all anyone recognizing how wrapped around her he was - ignoring the fact that he had dragged the assassin on a night-long trip to find her and his obsessive need to protect her and -

- he wasn't as opaque as he'd like to be.

"Of course she does," he breathed out the words in an undertone, covering his face with his hands as he rubbed his temples. This was getting to be too much for him. Too much stress, too much worry, too much out of his control. Control was what he was used to, it was what was familiarBut

[anemptydecapo]

If Edward was making any attempt to hide the battle over his own indecisiveness and worry, he was failing miserably. Venom only watched without comment, eyebrows raised behind his bangs as he waited for the response

[sanguinario]

Edward should have been insulted by Venom's assumption he would change his mind if given the chance (even if he basically been backed into a corner about the decision, not that he was blaming the situation on anyone but Martin Landel himself), but the assumption was... absolutely true. Already he was regretting the decision, but it was now officially out of his hands and there was no better option at this time. Venom's promise only relieved the vampire by a modicum, but it was better than nothing

[anemptydecapo]

Yes.

It was a simple answer and that was all he needed to say. 'Yes, I do. Please hand it over.' That was all. He didn't have to explain his jumbled reasoning, that he didn't want to forget, that even this memory, one that had caused as much pain as it had, one that wasn't even real, still needed to be kept, needed to be remembered. He didn't need to explain himself to Edward or tell just what sort of importance that image held to the assassin. He wanted that drawing, he wanted it away from Edward and anyone else that had no business seeing it. He needed to keep it and remember.

He shook his head. "That isn't necessary." He couldn't take it. It had already been destroyed. Clutching onto shattered memories would only form another weakness to be exploited and he couldn't afford that to happen. It had to be thrown away.

In the end, he went back to staring silently at the salad he'd no intention of consuming. They've said all that they had to.

[sanguinario]

Ugh. Sometimes listening to the assassin's thoughts was aggravating only because he had a horrible habit of not being straightforward when he needed to be. Of course, he was also straightforward when Edward would rather he wasn't, so he could complain on all fronts if he wanted to do so.

Sighing, Edward grabbed the sadly crumpled ball of paper, unwrapping it as if it were as fragile as glass, smoothing the entire sheet out on the cafeteria table, unwrinkling its corners and edges and running his hand over it several times before it was flat. If he was going to have such inner turmoil over the picture, he could decide what to do with it. Sufficiently as repaired as it would be, he slid it across the table beside Venom's lunch tray.

"You decide what to do with it." It wasn't really Edward's choice to make, anyway. He had promised not to speak of the incident - and he wasn't planning to still - but even sketching it had stretched that promise too thin. It was terribly easy to understand Venom if Edward thought of Bella the same way; if