[ Right here, with the scent of vanilla to ground him and the soft friction of the towel over his hair, Venom Snake is human. What Angela doesn't know— has no way of knowing, because the reality of 'Ahab' is preposterous to the point of parody— is that she vindicates herself with every attempt to connect with him.

She reaches for him, and that's the sum total of his parts. When she says his name, she says it as if she knows what that entails; and she does, and that holds true for her. He exists as something in her eyes. Someone.

He doesn't know how to articulate how gratifying that is to him, without framing it in his core reality that his sapience is entirely founded on the memories and accounts of Someone Else. It sounds trite to say that her words and her continued existence is all he needs from her, the way plants need to reach for the sun to photosynthesize— humans don't need to be taught to breathe, and Venom doesn't need to know who he is to know that Angela can make the space in his chest feel like a beating heart.

So he keeps on hugging her. Chest to chest, with his scars against her shirt, his skin bared because he hasn't bothered to put a shirt on despite having the decency to step into his borrowed pants. His pulse is steady, slow, and if she listens close enough, maybe the one-two hum is a message in Morse code: thank you. ]

Some of it. [ Not a lie. He can remember the moments preceding his accident, which isn't nothing. ] The others...

[ A mild hum, and he rubs his palm up the length of her spine, settling between her shoulders to give her a gentle pat. I'm alright. ]

...I've settled into them. [ An odd thing to say, maybe, but not enough to be alarming. He's admitted to having dissociation— it only makes sense that some of his 'returning' memories may feel difficult to relate to. ] Which is why something like this throws me off-balance.

[ When he thinks he's reconciled events that have happened to him, only to be told they weren't real at all.

Thanks, vanishing asteroid. ]