cptxrogers:

Eddie quickly realizes that Venom prefers not to communicate through words. Instead, he converses through mental representations: bursts of colors, sounds, textures. They’ll be walking down the street together and Eddie’s mind will suddenly be filled with the smell of rain on metal, or an undulating wave of delicate purple.

He tries to parse the meanings but the impressions are there and gone too quickly. He barely registers one before it disappears.

He asks Venom why and Venom makes a humming pulse that is his equivalent of a laugh. OUR SPECIES COMMUNICATES THIS WAY. WE USE WORDS ONLY FOR THE BENEFIT OF YOUR PRIMITIVE MONKEY BRAIN, EDDIE.

The more time they spend together, the better Eddie learns Venom’s language of sensations. There’s the bright red color and high pitched whining sound that means danger incoming. There’s a low, rolling vibration that means hunger. There’s the pale cyan with the texture of velvet sliding over their psychological bond that means curiosity, a desire to investigate. They have that one in common.

But there’s one feeling that Eddie can’t place. He notices it more and more: When they’re slouched on the sofa or bickering as they make their morning Tater Tots, Eddie catches this scent like toffee that’s just about to burn and he sees a field of deep muddy green.

He asks about it, one day. He feels Venom twist inside him when he does, brief flashes of images whipping through his mind as happens when Vee isn’t sure how to explain a concept in words.

IT MEANS- A pause. A faint feeling of embarrassment carries over their bond. IT MEANS HOME.

Oh, thinks Eddie, sure, that makes sense. Venom has travelled a long way from his home planet, he must miss it. Must be a kind of homesickness-

NO. Venom interrupts. THAT WAS JUST A PLACE. FULL OF JERKS, TOO. IT MEANS HOME LIKE-

Eddie gets a glimpse of himself as Venom sees him. On a confusing, noisy planet filled with seven and a half billion
chattering

amorphous blobs, Eddie glows. Streams of light pour out of him, like a beacon in the night, calling to Venom, illuminating his way.

He sees their shitty apartment with the peeling paint and the draughty windows, and to Venom it looks like a port in a storm, an oasis of calm and warmth and security.

He sees the two of them, intertwined and tangled together, individualities blended into one whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

–MEANS HOME LIKE US. HERE. TOGETHER.

Eddie sits heavily, emotion and sentiment bubbling through him, no longer sure where his feelings end and Venom’s begin. He thinks of his life before they met, how lonely he was, how devoid of purpose. How different things are now, how much fuller his interior life is now that he has someone to share it with.

He does his best to summon up the burnt toffee smell and the particular shade of muddy green in his mind and sends them over their bond. He feels Venom wrap tighter around his chest, affection radiating off him.

Home, Eddie agrees. Us. Here. Together.