[ Sometimes when a man wears his exhaustion like a second skin, when 'disheveled' becomes the expected standard, a man can hide his troubles in plain sight. It's a form of camouflage of its own, in the same way that all a chameleon really needs to do to hide in the thicket is to turn just a deeper shade of its original coloration. Venom's scars may cut a little deeper than usual today, but isn't that normal for him? No one that has a horn in his head and an eyepatch bisecting his face is ever going to look fresh-faced and spry, after all.
Still, he knows that there are things that he won't be able to keep from a keen eye. He doesn't need to be wringing human remains out of his hair or wiping refuse from his eye to be tired or in pain; Angela has always been able to reach right to the crux of the problem and cradle the cause in her hands, bare-skinned and willing to let the mess stain under her fingernails.
It's what Venom'd dreaded at first; incidentally, it's also what he likes most about her now.
Still. When Angela takes his hands and leans forward, Venom pulls the artificial wrist back from her grip to pull the back of his metal hand over his mouth. He can still taste the rancid stomach acid in the back of his teeth, an unsavory first impression to leave if Angela decides to come closer. ]
...Don't remember if I brushed my teeth this morning. [ He makes light of it, ignores the way his stomach turns again to quirk a brief half-smile at Angela that doesn't quite reach his eye. ] But, yeah. We can sit.
[ The furrow of her brows and her open concern are reason enough to keep Venom from contesting, so he sets one of her bags of shopping aside to assume a perch on the edge of the fountain, right where the water jumps the hardest. ]
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Still, he knows that there are things that he won't be able to keep from a keen eye. He doesn't need to be wringing human remains out of his hair or wiping refuse from his eye to be tired or in pain; Angela has always been able to reach right to the crux of the problem and cradle the cause in her hands, bare-skinned and willing to let the mess stain under her fingernails.
It's what Venom'd dreaded at first; incidentally, it's also what he likes most about her now.
Still. When Angela takes his hands and leans forward, Venom pulls the artificial wrist back from her grip to pull the back of his metal hand over his mouth. He can still taste the rancid stomach acid in the back of his teeth, an unsavory first impression to leave if Angela decides to come closer. ]
...Don't remember if I brushed my teeth this morning. [ He makes light of it, ignores the way his stomach turns again to quirk a brief half-smile at Angela that doesn't quite reach his eye. ] But, yeah. We can sit.
[ The furrow of her brows and her open concern are reason enough to keep Venom from contesting, so he sets one of her bags of shopping aside to assume a perch on the edge of the fountain, right where the water jumps the hardest. ]