"When You Love Someone, You Accept The Whole Person" by NobodyAtAll

Note: read “Reunited, And It Feels So Good” first.


“Tom?!? How-- why-- what?!? How did you get here?”

“Tom… um… had hewp fwom a fwend.”

Michelle Howard, attorney at law, is having a very strange day.

Upon coming back to her office with her umpteenth coffee of the day, she discovered her fluffy, Tom, a red and blue earthie stallion with grey eyes, waiting for her on her desk.

Michelle abandoned Tom, and an abandoned fluffy seeking out their former owner isn’t rare.

The fluffy finding their former owner, on the other hand, is rare. At least, without any assistance.

But this isn’t why Michelle is so shocked.

Michelle is shocked because she abandoned Tom in Manhattan.

And moved to San Francisco.

Of course, Tom didn’t make the trip alone. As he said, he was helped by a friend.

But Michelle doesn’t know the identity of Tom’s friend.

Or that said friend is in the room.


“Tom, I thought I told you to wait at Carmine Street until I came back from San Francisco.”

Michelle was never planning to come back. She made her way to JFK immediately after abandoning Tom outside a pizza restaurant. She already had all her stuff moved to her new apartment in San Francisco.

Minus everything in Tom’s old saferoom, which was unceremoniously tossed in a dumpster.

“Tom gut woh-weed an fowt mummah wuz in twubb-uh. Su Tom staw-ted wookin fow mummah, but den Tom gut hungwy. An den udda fings gut in da way, but den Tom met nyu fwend at da big squawe pawk, an nyu fwend hewped Tom git tu San Fwan-sis-koh.”

Tom is leaving some of the details out.

“Who is this friend? I’d like to have a word with them.”

“…Tom nu fink mummah wan tu meet Tom fwend. But, um, nao dat Tom haf fown mummah…”

“Oh boy, here it comes. Sorry, Tom, but I don’t have room in my life for a fluffy anymore. I’m very busy, and-- are you standing on my papers?!? Damn it, Tom, those are for a very important case!”

Tom is crestfallen by his mummah’s sudden harsh tone.

“Mummah… mummah nu wub Tom aneemowe?”

Michelle sneers at Tom.

“I thought that was obvious when I didn’t come back, shitrat. Now get out of my office before my bosses see you–”

Tom shifts form.

Eep.

And Venom the symbiotic fluffy glares at Michelle.

“Are you fucking KIDDING me?!?”


Michelle is so shocked she backs up against a wall.

“Wh-wh-whuh-wha–”

“Allow me to introduce myself. I am that friend Tom mentioned. I’m a Klyntar. Hold on.”

thwip

thwip

Venom yanks the door and curtains closed with two black webs.

“Where was I? Oh yeah. See, when me and Tom are working together like this, we call ourselves… Venom. But I’ve taken the wheel for the moment. Poor Tom is DEVASTATED, you know. We’ve been through all kinds of shit to get here. To find you. And then we find out that you don’t even WANT HIM?!?”

Michelle finally recognises Venom.

“I fucking saw you! You swang past my office a couple of times! And there’s footage of you fighting that red shitrat on the news! I’ve half a mind to tell the news who you really are–”

Venom grins, and the sight of those sharp teeth shocks Michelle into silence.

“And I’VE half a mind to eat you on the spot. That’s what we DO to humans like you. But Tom doesn’t want that. You’ve hurt him, bitch. But he doesn’t want me to hurt YOU. So you’ve got HIM to thank for my mercy. Personally, I don’t think you DESERVE mercy, I think you look particularly DELICIOUS.”

As Michelle sinks to the floor, Venom hops off the desk, waddling up to her, and licks her cheek with a long, slithery tongue, to make a point.

Michelle backs away, scrabbling backwards around the room, and Venom follows her.

“But Tom is my friend, and I’ll respect his wishes. And you’re not telling anyone a THING about us. Or Tom will happily tell people that you abandoned him. We’ve heard that kind of thing isn’t allowed around here, or back in… New York, that city was called? We’ve heard that they punish humans who do it. If we’re going down, we’re taking you with us. Oh, by the way: does the name Calvin Korkea ring a bell?”

“…What does he have to do with–”

“We’ve met him. We had a nice chat. And he promised to help us with ANYTHING we need. He’s been trying to help us find you, but poor Tom isn’t the best at describing faces. However, now that I’ve seen yours, I’m sure we can give Calvin Korkea an adequate description. I understand that Calvin Korkea doesn’t like people mistreating fluffies. To be frank, neither do I. What can I say? They’ve grown on me.”

Michelle realizes that she’s screwed.

If Tom is in contact with Calvin Korkea, there’s nothing she can do to Tom without drawing the attention of the ChaotiX.

Few lawyers are eager to antagonize the strongest man alive. They realize that he obeys the law because he’s nice, and patient, not because he fears reprisal from the law.

If Calvin ever went bad, all the cease and desist letters in the world couldn’t stop him.

His counterpart of Timeline-9891 can verify this. When he was laying waste to his timeline, CQK-9891 took his time with the lawyers.

And he got exceptionally brutal with the IRS.

“So what are you going to do? You’re just going to leave me alone?”

“Why do YOU care? You didn’t care what happened to Tom after you abandoned him. As far as I’m concerned, what we do is none of your business. If you don’t want him, we’ll get out of your hair. You don’t fuck with us, we don’t fuck with you. You don’t say a fucking WORD about this little chat. GOT IT?!?”

Michelle nods frantically.

“Good. Glad we made that clear. You keep your trap shut. Remember, your life depends on Tom not wanting you to die. Don’t do ANYTHING to change his mind, or we’ll do lunch.”

thwip

“Goodbye, Michelle Howard.”

thwip

And Venom swings out through the open window.

“How the fuck did he–”

As Michelle gets back up, she notices that her skirt is wet.

“I didn’t piss myself, did I? Wait…”

Then she notices the brown puddle on the floor, and the empty paper cup.

“Aw, goddamnit! I spilled my coffee!”


“Dat did nu gu weww.”

Several blocks away, Tom waddles through the alleyways, in ordinary fluffy form.

The Klyntar replies in his mind.

“Sorry about hijacking the wheel. I was just so mad, I wanted to give that bitch a piece of my mind.”

“Wuz dat weawwy a gud ai-dee-yuh?”

“Probably not. I may have compromised our secret identity. But, um, what are we going to do now? We found your owner, but she didn’t want to take you back.”

“Can Tom awsk yu sumfin?”

“Fire away.”

“If mummah did wan Tom back, wud yu come wif Tom to mummah housie? Ow wud yu gu fine anudda host?”

“Well, I don’t know if that bitch would put up with me.”

“Tom wud put in a gud wowd fow yu. Yu am Tom bestest fwend. If Tom went to housie wif-owt yu, Tom wud be saddies. Tom wud miss yu.”

“Honestly, I would miss you too. Of all the hosts I’ve had, you’ve been one of the best. Our symbiosis has been a very successful one.”

“Fanks. But Tom nu knu wut we am gunna du nao.”

“Well, there’s always that offer Calvin Korkea gave us.”

“How abowt we git sum nummies an fink abowt it? We nu haf to dee-side nao, mistah Caw sed.”

As Tom turns a corner, they see a foal, obviously lost.

Chirp! Babbeh nu can fine boxie nestie…”

“Look at that, an innocent in need of assistance.”

Tom approaches the foal to offer him a lift home.


Elsewhere in San Francisco, in the fluffy graveyard, Victor examines an unmarked grave.

The staff just called the ChaotiX, reporting an unusual disturbance.

An open grave, and it looks like the occupant clawed their way out.

So Victor portaled back from Dunna to take a look.

Victor kneels down, seeing a few traces of red slime.

He’s seen slime like this in several places, including in Golden Gate Park, and he’s seen the footage of Venom and Carnage’s battle, a few weeks prior. Venom told Calvin how the battle ended.

This graveyard was built by FauCorp, and Susan Stoley, CEO of FauCorp, is informed about every fluffy brought in to be buried here.

This is the case for every fluffy graveyard built by FauCorp, including the one in the city so many of the ChaotiX call home.

Susan informed the rest of the Fluffy Cabal about the mysterious headless stallion brought in from Old Saint Mary’s Cathedral’s bell tower, the morning after Venom’s first public sighting. That open grave is the stallion’s grave, according to the staff.

So Victor has all the pieces of the puzzle.

“Damn it. I thought that red one was gone. Biting the bastard’s head off wasn’t enough?

Victor sighs as he stands up straight.

“We don’t need this now. Not right before the Drakonia mission. Jake?”

A yellow-orange earthworm pops out of the ground.

Every bird that has tried to eat Jake in worm form regretted it when he turned into a snake.

Not any kind of venomous snake. Jake didn’t want to kill the birds, he just wanted to scare them off.

One of Jake’s avian assailants, a particularly fat pigeon, refuses to eat insects anymore, instead subsisting on breadcrumbs, and the occasional stolen french fry.

And when that pigeon snagged a fry from a certain someone, the fry started talking, shouting “HELP! I’M BEING SPUD-NAPPED!” in a cheerful, flamboyant voice.

Now that pigeon doesn’t trust french fries anymore either.

Victor looks down at the earthworm, lowering his voice.

“Keep an eye out for the red one. If you see it while we’re in Drakonia, call Des. He’ll send Drake and Diablo in, and alert Little V. The K hate fire. Sonics, too, but we don’t have anyone with powers like that. Val can probably provide a substitute. Or maybe that thing Danny and Ghost can do would work. And call Des if bodies start dropping again.”

The earthworm nods, and burrows back into the ground.

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Based as fuck

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