Eddie is exhausted, like there’s grit ground into his bones and his muscles have been soaking in pop overnight, a feeling he associates with sleepwalking. (That’s not quite it, of course. But there’s no need to make it sound like an accusation.) He wishes he could have slept in the rest of the day, too.
At some point in the past few days, he had the brilliant insight to start hoarding energy drinks and bottled coffees in his room. (He’s too old to be living like this, and he’s going to regret it when the Red Bull leeches all the minerals from his bones and he snaps both shins at the ripe old age of thirty-nine or whatever, but sometimes you just have to accept the hand you’re dealt. At any rate, he’s healthier now than he’s ever been in his life, so probably he can give himself some leeway here.) So he’s spent the better part of the late morning slamming one of the ominously named bottles of Chilled Mochre Flavaccino and trying to wash the sleep out of his eyes.
(He isn’t hungry, despite missing breakfast; another side effect of sleepwalking.)
The conversation this morning has gone something like this:
(I DON’T THINK IT’S ALL RAT, EDDIE.)
(How do you know? Pretty much everything they’re selling out here looks the same to me.)
(DOESN’T SMELL LIKE RAT.)
(You know food fraud is like, a big thing, right? People will take some garbage meat– like rat or horse or whatever– and cut it with real chicken juice or cow proteins, so when you test it it shows up as chicken or cow. Then nobody’s the wiser.)
(I AM NOT STUPID, EDDIE. UNLIKE THESE RATS.)
(I know you’re not, babe, I know. I’m just saying, even if they’re all dumb as rocks, they seem like they know how to pinch a profit margin. I don’t want to put anything past them.)
(IT IS A LITTLE HYPOCRITICAL TO BE MAD THAT THEY EAT OTHER RATS, EDDIE.)
(Hey! I’m not the one who–)
Venom stops short, and Eddie can feel the swivel of his attention almost palpably, the tension that shivers down his spinal cord. Someone is here.
The banging on the door comes a few seconds later. Somewhat anticlimactic: he was expecting someone to kick it down. Although he supposes they haven’t ruled that out just yet.
(HE KNOWS YOUR NAME, EDDIE.)
(Well, it’s on the door, so maybe he just knows how to read.) Venom isn’t quite wrong, though: the voice is familiar, although not so familiar he can place it. “Hang on,” Eddie calls across the room, as he pulls on a clean shirt. He hasn’t gotten around to shaving yet, if he was going to at all, but he is wearing deodorant and the fresh orchid smell of conditioner, so thank god for small miracles.
Venom is shifting around like a moth under a glass as he opens the door a few inches, bracing it with his foot and one palm in case this guy does get any forcible inclinations.
Aaaand– it’s someone wearing a pillowcase. Awesome.
“‘Can you’--?” he repeats in disbelief, struck by the nerve of Brock acting like he was all innocent and not actively sabotaging his powers, or hatching some plan to kill him, or whatever this was. “That’s funny, that’s real funny. Look, I…”
He abruptly realizes he’s still got the pillowcase over his face, partially muffling his words and, honestly, making it a little hard to see, so he pulls it off before he continues his tirade. It’s not like Venom didn’t already know who he was, and whatever neighbors ran into this in the hallway would just see a regular argument between two guys, so long as this didn’t escalate. And with the symbiote shorting out his powers like this, Peter was trying to keep the brawling to a minimum. You know, for now. He steps closer to the door (he’s not pushing on it, not yet) and wedges a foot in the crack between it and the doorframe. He’s willing to sacrifice a broken foot for a few extra seconds of reaction time if Brock tries anything.
Actually, now that he’s closer, something feels different. Something in Brock’s voice, maybe. It’s enough to give him pause, makes him give the few inches of face he can see through the doorway a second glance, but-- look, whatever plastic surgery Brock’s been up to lately doesn’t matter, does it? He’s probably just on the run from the cops (...were there cops in this part of outer space?) and fell into some convenient cash and made himself harder to trace. Doesn’t matter! He’ll ask him about it later, once he’s gotten him...okay, not webbed up, but he’ll figure something out. He’ll ask about it later. Focus on the problem at hand. The problem of him screwing with his powers and being the only guy he recognizes in this place. His inscrutable evil plan?
“Look, I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here, but you’d better cut it out before I make you. What is it this time, Brock? Anti-Venom’s back and badder than ever? You boosted the symbiote’s power so it’s got a bigger radius for cancelling out my powers?”
He frowns and glares up at Brock, points at him with the hand still mostly occupied by holding the pillowcase. It’s supposed to be intimidating, but the friendly-looking greenish color of the fabric lessens it, just a little. Peter can live with that, he supposes. He’ll have to find something more fitting to disguise himself with next time he has to go out “in costume”, though. No pastels. (Hey, focus.)
“Whatever your plan is, it’s not going to work, so you might as well stop now. Fair warning.”
