#manatee writes

[heymanateewrites]

Plot Thoughts - Veddie/ Symbrock

Venom hyping Eddie up for "being so brave for me", but it's just Eddie making it thru a long ass regular day where everything fucking sucks.

[inquisitormanatee]

I wrote a thing between Viago and Revas. Viago is really important to Revas and I've been sitting on that for a couple of days cause I wanna expand on it. So this is after Revas is back from the fade and the first time he goes to see Viago, which he had been putting off for some time. He carries a lot of shame and guilt for the failed contract and the fact that Viago had to go and rescue him and I don't think Viago would realize it until this moment.

[heymanateewrites]

Venom: Eddie! Did you hear those small humans? They said they are eager to eat a rabbit! You said humans do not eat rabbits - they keep them as pets!

Eddie: Well, I mean, I guess some people do, but they meant a chocolate rabbit.

Venom: ...

Venom: There are *chocolate* rabbits?!

[heymanateewrites]

Plot Thoughts - Sym'bros/ Venn Diagram

Something something thinking about the WIP where post-patch up job Peter is unconscious on Eddie's kitchen island counter; Eddie is struggling with feeling both guilty that he froze up/ didn't know how to help and in awe of how Curt took command of the moment/ was unaffected by the sight of Peter in such bad shape.

Curt is locked down and in complete control, but when he goes to clean himself up, he breaks down in private...

Eddie stood with his back braced against his fridge, staring helplessly at the battered figure spread out across his kitchenette’s counter top, and silently willed the chest to keep moving. As long as he didn’t look away, it would keep rising and falling in a reliable rhythm. He had to believe that.

“He’ll sleep for the rest of the night.”

Curt’s quiet words were punctuated by the plastic click of the first aid kit’s latches closing.

“Think so?”

“I hope so.” The confession came with a bone-weary sigh. “He needs the rest. That, more than anything else, will do him the most good now…”

“How do you do it?” Eddie asked without taking his eyes off the prone, still breathing body.

“Hm?”

“I was useless. I saw him bleeding and hurting, and I panicked. But you… you were so calm, so… detached. Professional. Like it wasn’t Peter you were digging bloodied pieces of plastic out of, it was… nothing. A body. Nobody in particular, just a… a thing. A job to do.”

Silence filled the space between them. Had he insulted him? He wasn’t surprised: no one liked being called cold like that. But the level of professionalism Curt could wield was unprecedented. Eddie had never seen anyone like him. It almost scared him.

“You weren’t useless,” Curt finally said. “You and Venom helped to bring me the things I needed, so I could provide what Peter needed. It was all for the same goal: helping him.”

Eddie heard him slip away and let him go without a word.

What Peter needed…

[And what about Curt?] Venom gently prompted in his mind. [What does Curt need now?]

Pushing off of the front of the fridge, Eddie followed him down the short hall, knowing he’d find Curt in the small bathroom, putting the first aid kit away. What he didn’t expect was to see him with his hand over his mouth, sobbing silently over a running sink.

Not cold. Professional. Right up until it was no longer needed: then he could let all of that control go and be human again.

Without a word, Eddie slipped up behind him and cautiously wrapped his arms around the other man, ready to pull away if he felt Curt tense up. 

“Hey. You did great. You did a really, really good job…” he murmured awkwardly, speaking the words into the hollow between Curt's shoulder blades. “Pete’s gonna be fine… you made sure of that…”

“I wish he would leave these sorts of things to the police.”

“We’ll go with him next time,” Eddie heard himself promise. “Venom and me… I’ll make sure he texts us or whatever, that he doesn’t go on patrols like this alone. Ok?”

[heymanateewrites]

Someone stop me: I'm thinking about how to add Eddie and Venom into the 3Peters!AU

Somewhere on my main blog-- and the search "feature" is not helping me this morning --I had a post written down about this dream I had once, where Curt was in a bad relationship that May sort of pushed him into (to kinda push him out of the house, it's a whole thing), that ended with him being stabbed/ nearly gutted.

What if that's how Curt and Eddie meet in the 3Peters!AU... Eddie is (still) a reporter and wants to interview Curt about the attack.

The thing is, this is (mostly) a no powers!AU, so what about Venom?

Val is a human nurse, so is Venom also human? Is he Eddie's friend/ roommate/ maybe more?

Or is Venom a hallucination, Eddie's "Shadow Man" situation, that only he can hear/ see/ perceive?

[heymanateewrites]

Title: Fluff/Whumptober'25 - Day 1

Flufftober'25: Anniversary Whumptober'25: Ceremony, Beg for Forgiveness

Rating: General Fandom: The Amazing Spider-Man (Webb), Venom (movies) Series: Venn Diagram!AU Characters: Peter Parker, Eddie Brock/Venom, Eddie Brock, Pairing: Peter Parker/ Eddie Brock/ Venom Summary: Some days hits harder than others, but Peter has friends who are there for him.

Word Count: 1,531 Posted to AO3: -not yet-

== === ==

September was a rough month.

The weather never could seem to make up its mind on what it wanted to be all throughout September. Not as rainy as the summer, but still damp and windy, neither of which were good for fighting crime in basically a body suit. And every so often, when no one was watching, a chill might try to creep in, testing the way for a frosty November.

September was the sort of month for sitting in a graveyard.

The place was quiet. The few people that he saw didn't seem to want to linger: whether it was the brisk winds that scattered the changing leaves, or the misty drizzle that made every step uncertain and every bench unpleasant, or maybe just the fact that it was, y'know, a graveyard. People didn't exactly come to graveyards to hang out and have a good time.

Peter definitely wasn't having a good time.

He couldn't help but scowl at the stone markers. Stupid headstones… they should have never been planted here, bearing the names of people only missing, never found, and certainly never put to rest. Not with the way they constantly made repeat appearances in his thoughts.

Tears blurred the names etched in stone and Peter quickly swiped at his eyes, brushing the tears away before they could break free.

It wasn't fair. He missed them. He hated them. He hated himself for hating them. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he at least had answers— at least had one very important answer to the question that tore him apart in quiet moments like this —but those were just as impossible to find as his parents.

They were gone, but not the way Uncle Ben was gone. He knew what happened to his Uncle, he cared what happened to him—

Ben was dead; his parents were just gone.

Peter kicked his way through a pile of leaves as he made his way over to a stone bench, plopping down without caring how cold it felt beneath him.

A part of him felt like this was all performative somehow. Everyone expected him to be sad, so he was. What did he have to be sad about? He couldn't even remember details about his mother any more and barely remembered impressions of his father: his "father" was a voice, large warm hands, the smell of aftershave, a series of pictures in different frames, a legacy left uncompleted.

Why should he even miss him? He had a loving fatherly replacement in his Uncle Ben, a deeply invested mentor in Dr. Connors, and an understanding pair of friends in his roommate Eddie Brock and Eddie's space-alien partner (and Peter's partner in heroics) Venom.

A very understanding pair of friends.

"Hey man…"

As if summoned by his thoughts, the older man suddenly stepped off the path behind him. He took up the other half of the stone bench with little more than a passing greeting, but Peter was ok with that. He didn't want someone asking him if he was all right: if Eddie found him here, then he already knew what was up, and he didn't have the energy to pretend right now.

"Did Curt tell you?" he asked, breaking the silence after a couple of minutes, stifling his sniffles with the sleeve of his hoodie.

"He might have said something, yeah," Eddie allowed, reaching over to hand him a paper bag that had been tucked away beneath his dark jacket. The way the edges of his jacket rippled as it moved told Peter it was actually Venom in disguise. "But you've been a little off all week, and—"

"And you're a reporter." Peter finished the sentence as he took the offered bag and peeked inside. It was their favorite inside joke: any time they could, they blamed things on Eddie's profession, even if it didn't make any sense. Especially if it didn't make any sense. "You know, most people, when they visit a graveyard? They bring flowers."

"Yeah, well, flowers are expensive and Jameson pays crap. Besides, I knew you'd be hungry," Eddie teased back as Peter pulled out a small hamburger. It was cheap, wrapped in a thin yellow wrapper, and was already starting to go cold in the seasonal dampness.

He never appreciated anything more.

Peter unwrapped the burger, took a huge bite out of it, and sniffled again.

"So… your parents, huh?" Eddie offered as a conversation starter, tilting his head down towards the field of headstones and grave markers. Peter just kept chewing, but after a moment, nodded.

"They're not really there. They're… I dunno. No one knows. But they weren't here and they aren't down there." The words came before he even knew he had opened his mouth. He winced at the bitterness, almost apologized for it, but let the apology die when Eddie nodded along.

"Then why are you here?"

"My… um, my Uncle Ben? He wanted us to have a place where we could remember them," Peter explained. Not that he ever needed to have somewhere specific to go, not when he had grown up surrounded by so many things all around him that constantly reminded him of his missing father.

But maybe this hadn't really been for him… maybe this had been for Ben. Maybe it was part of how he managed to deal with not knowing what had happened to his brother, part of how he had grieved that disappearance.

"I never knew my mom," Eddie said into the silence, startling Peter out of his thoughts. He looked over at the older man, surprised to hear his voice catch a little, sounding like it was starting to go rough around the edges. "She, uh… she died, when I was born."

"Oh," Peter reflexively breathed the word, not wanting to interrupt but feeling the urge to say something. He knew what he was hearing in Eddie's voice now… blame. Self-blame, blame from others, blame that reinforced the doubts and self-loathing, blame that asked the worst question in the world: what if?

He knew that feeling very well.

"Yeah, well, you know how it goes. These things happen sometimes." Eddie shook his head, clearing his throat as he looked away. "Can't exactly miss who you never met. And my father, he's a real bastard. No idea if he's alive or not these days, but I always thought he was too mean to die, so who knows."

The casual tone didn't fool him one bit.

"Sorry."

Eddie shrugged, then reached over to steal a couple of cold fries from the bottom of the bag.

"It is what it is. But what I'm trying to say is that I don't really know what the protocol is for this sort of thing." Eddie gestured to the empty graveyard around them with the last fry before popping it into his mouth. "If you… I dunno, celebrate somehow, I guess? In some way? Do some sort of remembrance ceremony thing for them?"

Peter let out a laugh at the unexpected suggestion.

"Uh, no… no, not really," he admitted. "Mostly just sit here. Sometimes I think about them and wonder, y'know? What happened to them, where did they go, why did they disappear the way they did… why they left me behind… if…"

"If it was something you did," Eddie picked up the unspoken words and gave a very understanding-sounding sigh. He hated that sigh. Everyone used that sigh when this topic came up. He could practically guess the next words before Eddie said them: "Pete, you were six. You didn't do anything to cause this. You don't have to sit here and beg for their forgiveness."

"I know. I'm not," was the automatic reply. He could feel Eddie's gaze on him, sympathetic and knowing, but all Eddie said was:

"Ok."

They sat together in silence for a while. Maybe not comfortable silence, but a comforting one, at least for him. Usually, when he was in a funk and weighed down by the unknowings of his parents disappearance, he preferred to be alone, but for some reason, Eddie's presence helped him feel a little better today.

"I'm sure you've got stuff to do…" Peter ventured awkwardly, trying to feel things out. The older man was a good friend, almost like the brother Peter had always wanted when he was growing up, maybe even better, but he undoubtedly had his limits. He had been concerned, he had done his duty checking in, and now he'd move on, getting back to his own things now that he knew everything was going to be ok.

Eddie shrugged without looking away from the van he was watching. It drove past the outer gates and down the tree-lined road.

"Yeah, but it's nothing that can't wait," Eddie replied casually.

Just as casual was the way he draped his arm over the top of the bench's back, not quite touching Peter's back.

A moment later, a shivery feeling crept across his shoulders, flowing down under the collar of his hoodie, and wrapped itself gently around his chest: Venom, offering a secret, supportive little hug of his own.

"Thanks," Peter murmured softly, trading a smile with Eddie.

[heymanateewrites]

Title: Sick/Alphabet 2025 - Day 11

Sicktember'25: No known cure Alphabet of Whump'25: G is for Gut

Rating: General Series: Symbiote Gang!AU Characters: Otto Octavius, Arsenic the Symbiote (OC) Pairing: Otto Octavius/ Rosie Octavius, Otto Octavius & Arsenic the Symbiote Summary: There was no known cure for what Otto suffered from.

Word Count: 240 Posted to AO3: -not yet-

A/N: the idea bit me and wouldn't let go, so maybe don't take this one too seriously

=== === ===

Love sick.

That was what he was and, as everyone knows, there's no cure for that. No, you only had two options: face it head on and address it or perish.

Waste your days languishing in anguish as an unknown, unrecognized, pinning over unrequited love.

Knowing that you might some day move past it, but that you would never be ok again, like a gut wound that perpetually leaked an unseen miasma, trailing along behind you, staining everything, tainting every interaction, because the cure was just as painful as the injury.

[Is there really a need to be so dramatic about it?]

Otto scowled to himself at the sound of a voice only he could hear. How dare this interloper take over his life and yet be so unmoved by his plight? Was there need— of course there was! He might as well be dead, wandering through the foggy night like a lonely ghost, for as long as he played host to this strange alien creature, he would never be able to go back to his Rosie!

[You caught yourself a cold from moping about in the rain. From experience, allow me to inform you that a cold feels slightly different from being stabbed in the guts. You will live]

"Will I?" Otto snarked, sounding stuffed up and sarcastic.

[With an attitude like that, I have no doubt you could do anything you put your brilliant mind to] Arsenic promised.

[heymanateewrites]

Plot Thoughts - "Go Fuck Yourself"

(aka: "I'd like to see that")

Curt and Eddie are hanging out at Eddie's apartment, having a few casual drinks, just chatting, and Eddie's in the middle of telling Curt a story:

"---and then the guy says: Go fuck yourself," Eddie said, gesturing towards the past antagonist with his empty cup. "So I said: Buddy, you don't know what I'm capable of. Get lost."

Curt didn't laugh loudly like the guys at the Bugle had when he told the same story; Curt's warm chuckle was soft and classy, rich with the appropriate amount of approval that such a clever snap back deserved. Eddie let himself bask in amusement for a moment as Curt took a sip from his own glass, watching him thoughtfully from over the rim.

But then the other man threw him for a loop:

"I'd like to see that."

"What, me tell some random blowhard off?"

"No."

The single word hung in the air between them. A challenge. An opportunity.

"I'm not that impressive," Eddie waved him off with an uncomfortable laugh. When Curt's watchful stare didn't waver, he added: "Or that flexible."

"But you have Venom."

Right. Right, he had Venom. And that was what made the retort so good: the other guy *didn't* know what he-- what they --could do. Right?

He must have looked lost, because Curt finally blinked and progressed the conversation smoothly with a question so casual, they could both easily pretend that exchange hadn't happened.

"So then what did he do?"

"Oh, well---"

But Eddie couldn't let it go. The watchful stare that had pinned him to that moment, the implication that there had been something there, an invitation to something that he had somehow missed. It lingered in the back of his mind for the rest of the night, long after Curt had left and he had put himself to bed.

"...do you think he really meant it?" he finally asked out loud to the darkness.

[That he would like to watch you fuck yourself?] Venom asked back.

"I mean..." No. Absolutely not. Of Course not. "...maybe? Yeah?"

[Yes]

"But I can't," Eddie helplessly pointed out the obvious.

[But you have me] Venom countered in such a matter-of-fact tone that Eddie was now certain he was definitely missing something. That was exactly what Curt had said.

But unlike Curt, Venom lets him in on what he had missed...