fandomtownies | Dite's Decadent Delights, Monday Afternoon

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Dite's Decadent Delights, Monday Afternoon

It was the last week before Christmas (and just a few days before her birthday) and it felt like every part of her job was on fire. She needed to back up all of her Tumblrs with dirty stories on them before they got the axe, plus assure all her writers and artists on the Dite's site that, no, they weren't going to lose this place, too and eventually just invited them to port their old stuff over to her Dite's server and she'd figure it out from there.

Plus there were orders to ship and costumes to unpack and weird holiday-themed novelties to unpack, and several places wanted to know her top sellers of 2018 so there was all that data to compile...

Ronin managed to be a big, comforting presence by her side, his calm a nice contrast to her own running about. He was happy with a rawhide bone and one of the giant meat sticks from yesterday, but she had to bring him into the employee break room every hour or so to let him drink from the tap because cocoa was not good for dogs.

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That... was not what Eddie wanted. Because you couldn't really buy something like that for your ex and her new boyfriend without it being weird. Also mixed messages.

But he was humoring Venom's general curiosity about what this place was, walking in with a large cup of hot cocoa. He was so sick of chocolate, you didn't even know. "Oh, okay. So not a candy store."

There are some candies here. They are shaped like dicks.

Venom was the least helpful alien ever.

Kathy looked up from her computer to offer the new guy a smile. "Not a candy store," she agreed. "That's Wonka's. My delights are of a far more earthly nature. Welcome to Dite's."

"Been there plenty," Eddie replied, sincerely hoping he wouldn't get a large number of awkward questions from his freeloader because of this place. "You Dite then?"

"Nope," Kathy said. "I'm the lucky girl who randomly got the keys tossed at her after the last manager quit."

Which was just how this island worked, it was so weird.

"I'm Kathy, hi," she said, extending her hand. "And you are...?"

Sorta familiar, though she hadn't really been around the island enough to meet the new people.

At least Eddie was pretty new still?

"Uh, Eddie," he said, wincing a few things fell into place. "Wow. Uh, I'm real sorry about... traumatizing you as a kid."

"Traumatizing me as a--oh." At least this time she didn't fling herself backwards and try to climb a tree? Really, really poorly. You're Teeth! Or, umm...not Teeth. Eddie. Like you just said."

Smooth, Kathy. Real smooth.

"Apology accepted. If it helps any, I was a really skittish kid. I might have had the same reaction if you'd yelled at me, too."

Yeah, Venom had been in the doghouse over that one for some time.

"Eddie," he agreed faintly in the middle of all that. "Just Eddie."

Mostly.

"But that's good. You're way more confident now, looks like."

"I had a lot of growing up to do," Kathy admitted. "And, honestly, in this place, if you let yourself get thrown by everybody with an alternate form that involves more teeth than seem reasonable, you're never gonna get anything done. I did spend a lot of my first year here startling like a baby foal at every shadow."

Probably why the island had turned her into a klipspringer that one time.

Eddie so didn't even want to know what animal he'd get turned into.

"So, that's just... normal?"

"Sorta?" Kathy gave him a rueful smile. "Okay, so I don't think I've ever seen anybody quite like, uhh, that?" She still wasn't sure how to describe the other...entity?...without being rude. "But I think my junior year saw me getting murdered by my best friend at the time because he was possessed by an evil carnival? And after you can say a sentence like that, you just sorta learn how to roll with the punches."

Call him a parasite. Do it.

"That is quite the sentence, yeah," Eddie replied, eyes wide as he nodded along like this was possibly weirder than gaining an alien goo ~~boyfriend~~ buddy who lived in your body. Which was totally a red letter day for him! "I thought my life was gettin' weird, but hey."

No evil carnival possessions. YET.

Well, that just sounded rude.

"Has nobody given you the 'Welcome to Fandom, everything's fuckin' weird' speech yet?" Kathy asked.

Wasn't that, like, standard conversation for new people?

See, Venom agreed with that!

"My office is run by deer," he admitted. "Which was an adjustment. But they cover dental..."

He was the true Millenial superhero.

"I'm still on my dad's plan," Kathy said.

Her adopted dad, because her real dad had turned into a zombie and eaten her family the same day she'd died. But it didn't quite seem like 'sharing our tragic backstories' time yet.

"If I get more people to work in the shop, I'll probably have to look into getting insurance here? But it's just me right now and who needs that kind of hassle?"

And...okay, she knew she shouldn't ask, but... "So, does that plan cover, like, all your teeth?"

BECAUSE VENOM HAD A LOT OF TEETH.

That would take at least two life or death situations to happen. Minimum.

"I haven't checked?" he said, voice going up in pitch. "And he's, uh, got that stuff covered."

What with the whole regenerating thing. Just needed a constant supply of that sweet, sweet chocolate. Or Eddie's love. Whichever happened first.

"Yeah that's fair," Kathy said hastily. "Sorry! Sorry. I was just thinking that it probably took a fair amount of...wow, I should just stop talking, huh?"

She gave him a sheepish grin. "Sometimes my curiosity outpaces my manners."

"It's fine. Kind of a weird situation all around," he said slowly, ignoring the smug amusement pooling up in his chest. Which shouldn't even be a thing that made sense, but this was his life. "My ex's new boyfriend? He's a doctor and boy was he interested in it all."

OUT OF CONCERN FOR YOUR LIFE, EDDIE.

"Interested as in 'sat down and asked you all sorts of deep questions,' I hope?" Kathy asked, with a pained smile. "And not, like, 'creepy government lab against your will'?"

You could hope for one and assume it would be the other, right?

"Oh yeah. He's, like, this super nice guy." He was firmly in the camp of Good People in Eddie's mind. "I mean, I honestly just thought it was a nervous break down. But nope. Alien parasite."

TAKE IT BACK.

"Symbiote, sorry."

Sometimes he just had to wind Venom up to return the favor.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," Kathy said, snapping her fingers. "That's what--okay!" Alien symbiote. "And it sounded like you talked to...him?...when you were younger?"

Did aliens have gender or preferred pronouns? TUMBLR HAD NEVER PREPARED HER FOR THIS MOMENT!

VENOM WAS THE WORST BEING TO TAKE THE LEAD ON THIS.

"Yeah, he's chatty sometimes. Not out loud without the, you know, teeth and stuff."

"Sorry for talking about you, Mr. Venom, rather than to you," Kathy said, still looking at Eddie because she had no idea where even to begin addressing an alien symbiote. She half-wanted to look at his stomach, but that was only because of their long conversation about eating people they'd had as kids.

"If he ever, uhh, wants to come out to talk, too, I can probably refrain from running for the hills this time," she added with a wry grin.

"No," he immediately said, holding up a finger. It was a little more clear that he wasn't addressing her with that. "No, we've talked about this."

Mr. Venom, he said, sounding much, much too amused. Tell her we aren't in need of separation.

"He's kinda big on the 'we' thing?"

"Okay, cool," Kathy said, mentally slotting Venom closer to Nanika in how he operated. "I figure it's always better to go with the politest option and work from there."

Especially when there were that many teeth involved.

"I think my feelings would be hurt to find out I'm considered an asshole on an intergalactic level," she joked.

"Nah, he's the asshole here," he said, bordering on affectionate.

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