Queen's Notes: Chapter re-edited!

"Normal spoken dialog,"
"Vemon's spoken dialog,"
::radio dialog,::
~Eddie's bonded dialog,~
~Vemon's bonded dialog,~

Stay Moving

Eddie had done this a few times over the years, meeting the parents of whoever he was going out with. For some reason parents with daughters seemed a bit more overprotective then those who had sons. Most of the time, his own mother had been protective. Even Brock's other had been a little protective over its spawn.

At least, up until Carnage's host tried to take Venom's kill (that annoying bug Spiderman) as well as sap the life out of his love interest at the time and eat her.

About that time Venom more or less disowned his spawn as long as that host was there, and tried to kill him... too bad the infuriating (and deadly) pup had slinked off into the sewer ways of New York. Venom had no problem with the underground tunnels as he had used them quiet often, the symbiote well able to block off its host's sense of smell from the out side world, but honestly, it was the sewers for god's sake.

Even with an alien symbiote bonded to him, Eddie still had his pride. That was the one of the very few things he had in common with that spider, both of them didn't favor the sewers.

However, that was beside the point.

Cassidy and Cayce decided that they would take Eddie to meet their mother and father. Needless to say Brock was a bit nervous because he remembered Cassidy saying once she was taking care of (raising) her younger sister do to the fact then their parents had died.

Talk about your awkward situations.

Eddie couldn't figure out how to ask nicely what the hell she meant by him meeting her parents. So he just went along with it. That at least seemed to be the safe thing to do.

The buss ride out of town was nice, though because Cayce had long since decided that she liked Eddie, the girl sat on his lap most of the time. The man suspected it was really because the girl wanted to look out the window. Eddie liked the kid too, so did his other; it seemed to be fascinated by her almost bondless energy and complete innocence. But both liked the older of the two sisters far more, and for different reasons...

Damn those House Rules. Really, they did get in the way, but Eddie had respect enough to not push. No matter how much his other drooled mentally, or physically on their nightly runs.

"AH! This is our stop!" Cassidy yelped coming out of the almost trance like state she had been in for a minute as she reinforced her mental shields.

Eddie reached up and pulled the cored that let the diver know they wanted off. "Um... where are we?" he asked a few minutes later as they walked into what looked like a park at first before Brock zeroed in on the tombstones.

"The cemetery!" Cassidy chirped to cover the natural human instincts of unease of being in a place of the dead, but more for her the becoming lack of surrounding emotions. As annoying at times it was to constantly shield herself, she still craved being with others.

Eddie rolled his eyes as he shifted the younger girl in his arms, able to support her for a little while with only one. "Well, yeah, but why?"

"Mommy and daddy are here." Cayce butted into the conversion, holding a bundle of four lilies in her small arms while twisting around to take a good look around them.

"We come here once a month. Ish." Cassidy smiled up at Eddie, projecting an easy going air around her that was nice, he's other liked it and said so. "Come on, it's okay." The mutant added taking Brock's free hand and pulled him to a nice looking hill.

If it wasn't for the gravestones all over, this place would make a lovely park, even had a good view of city of Los Angeles. Cassidy smiled, sensing his slight nervousness and did her best to smooth it out without intruding or crossing any lines. It seemed to work.

"Here," The empath gave the man's hand a small squeeze as they stopped in font of two grave markers, the man kneeling down. "Eddie, meet our mom and da, Ericka and Tony."

"I brought lils!" Cayce said as she proudly held the flowers up.

"Lilies." Cassidy corrected as she knelt by her sister, "And Mom says she loves them Sissy. Even Da likes them!" She hugged her sister, as she did so she slipped one blossom out of the bunch. Cayce beamed and put half of the bunch on their mother's gave and the other half on their fathers.

"I love ya mommy, I love ya da!" the girl said.

Cassidy smiled, and handed her the extra lily, "Here go put this on Mr. Thomson's marker." She gave her sister a push and the girl ran over to another grave not far away, being very careful not to step on the graves themselves as she was taught by her sister. Then the empath turned partly to grin at Eddie, "Well, just don't stand there, say hi!"

"Err...hi?" he tried, rising an eyebrow at the lankywoman.

"Not at me." Cassidy came over to stand beside the man and addressed the two graves, "Mom, Da, this is Eddie." The woman gave him a playful look.

"Hello," Eddie tried again, playing along for her sake. Looking back to Cayce, then the graves as detective reporter instincts worked. This quirk, Brock realized, wasn't a quirk but a coping mechanism that Cassidy must have used to help her little sister, and possibly herself, with the deaths of their parents. He knew how much this woman loved her little four year old, baby sister. Enough that she became Cayce's legal guardian, becoming a mother as well as sister, not to mention what Eddie's other sensed. Of Cassidy shielding and teaching the little blooming empath.

"Dad says you worried about something." Cassidy said after a pause looking up at the blond man.

"I guess Mr. McConnell is right." Eddie said, it was true, he was worried about more than just one something. Namely how on Earth he could reveal his other without scaring off his new found love interest.

"Da never liked being called that," Cassidy giggled at the repetitive memory of her father constantly grousing, "He used to say it made him sound old."

"Oh," Brock smiled and faced the grave, "I'm sorry Tony, didn't know."

"He says its okay."

"Good."

"Da wants to know if you're worried about a girl." Cassidy smiled up at him. He shrugged, thinking of what to say. The woman glanced at her mother's grave, "Mom wants to know if you're worried about a guy."

Eddie choked at that as Cassidy laughed, "No, no. I'm not."

"She has a funky sense of humor." The empathy grinned as Eddie faced her. She blinked up at him, "Come on Eddie, something has been bugging you for awhile now." She reached for his hand, "I've been picking up on it for a month or so. Come on baby, what's wrong?"

Brock sighed shifting and grasped Cassidy's hands, "Its... gah, I don't know." He shook his head, "There's this part of me... I just..." he paused running a hand through his short hair as an excuse for another moment to think before looking back down, he stared into the green eyes he had fallen in love with, "I don't want to scare you away, because of what I am Cassy."

"Eddie," Cassidy gave a faint smile, "I'm a mutant who's raising her kid sister on her own, with occasional help of her best friends. One of them who is openly gay. That and I've lived in or around LA all my life." She reached up to cup the side Brock's face, rubbing her thumb over the man's cheekbone like he had taken the habit of doing to her over the last month. "Ya ain't getting rid of me easily." Cassidy tilted her head and smiled again as she couldn't help but to add, "Besides, I like having a personal body guard."

Eddie gave a snort of amusement as he wrapped his arms around the woman, pulling her close and smiling when she propped her arms on his shoulders. "I know." We know.

~We like protecting our love.~ The symbiot added in the back of its host's mind.

"Mommy says the House Rules are now the Hill Rules." Cayce said after coming back and looking at her mother's grave marker. Startled, Cassidy and Eddie looked down at the girl, at each other then down at the two graves, blinking. Cassidy gave an odd sound and thumped her head on Brock's chest.

"Oh god, I really wonder sometimes..." she muttered, really hoping her sister wasn't anything beyond an empath.

"That's just creepy." Eddie blinked again, he understood the reason for the House Rules, but he knew that Cayce didn't, she was far too young. It was...creepy.

Enough so that his other had stopped mentally drooling to turn its baffled attention to the young girl.

"Let's go get some ice cream before going home huh?" Cassidy offered, of course Cayce promptly agreed. Eddie nodded as well, but kept one arm around the empath on the way back.

When the younger girl started to trot in order to keep up with the other two, who had longer strides, Brock stooped and effortlessly lifted Cayce up to his shoulders. "Come on kiddo, free ride." He smiled.

The largest room of the upstairs of the warehouse apartment was dark. Only a dim light from an out side streetlamp and two digital clocks lit a few patches of floor. The main window in the kitchen, dinning and living room was slightly ajar letting a trickle of air flow through.

A black claw slid into the gap and as quietly as possible Venom worked the window open again for the second time that night. The first having been when he snuck out for a short patrol around a closer section of the sprawling city.

Even before he stepped inside, before slipping down between to two building to crawl to the window, the symbiote's physical form had decreased in mass and height before it pulled away from the head and face of its host. Eddie blinked rapidly and ran his talons though his damp hair, mindful not to make any noise still so not to wake up the sleepers he left. Blue eyes flicked to the main bed room, but no moment came from the half open door that would give away that one of the two sisters were awake.

~They seem to be sleeping still.~ The voice of Eddie's other said in the back of his mind, after a caucus reaching of its in-human senses, and Eddie reserved an impression of deep sleep for now.

"Good." The man muttered, rubbing the back of his neck to work out a small kink there. Eddie was also careful not to hurt himself with the claws he still had, the symbiote was in it's form-fitting 'mode,' covering all but his head yet Eddie still look like a man. Just one in a black suit with a white spider on the chest and back, now dimmed to a dull gray shade.

Eddie was mildly proud that he hadn't nicked himself on his talons in some time. But every now and again... you just don't pay attention until you're pricked.

Reaching out the man closed the window again before stepping back and sighing. He smiled as an image that was given to him by his other.

"...Eddie?" A sleepy voice asked a moment before a yawn.

Turning on his heel the man blinked at Cassidy. In the back of his mind the Symbiote looked through his eyes and stared, if it was fully out it would have started to drool... once again (and really, this was getting annoying). The woman was only in a tank-top and underwear, showing off her long legs. Her green eyes were half closed and she yawned again.

"What are ya doin' up?" Cassidy asked from behind her hand, slurring her words in the failed attempt to stop the yawn.

"Nothing," Eddie said, ordering his symbiote to become all back and tried to withdraw the claws without notice. "We... I couldn't sleep, don't worry Cassy. I was just pacing around, you go back to bed baby."

"'Can't," the empathy muttered as she turned and headed to the bathroom, "Gotta go."

"Okay." Chuckling Eddie was glad that his girlfriend wasn't even half awake. The symbiote rippled over him in small waves of living blackness before pulling back into the man as well as reshaping part of it's self so Eddie was in boxers and a black t-shirt instead of a skin tight siut.

The toilet flushed and a few moments later Cassidy wandered back out into the kitchen/living room with another yawn. She spotted Eddie again and smiled as he came over to wrap an arm around her middle.

"Come on, lets go back to bed," Eddie said and gave a mock-yawn himself, though it turned into something real, as yawns were so contagious. A happy murmur was all Cassidy was able to do, head on the man's arm even before the back to the bed. Once there again, she flopped over Eddie gracelessly, her mind wanting to sleep again after the tiff she had the day before on the trip back from the graveyard. Having shielded her sister from a telepath's sweeping touch that she sensed coming, and taking the brunt of the miscommunication garble. She also gave the telepath an empathic slap when he was rude enough to linger.

Brock stared in the dark at Cassidy, one arm wrapped firmly around her, smoothing fingers over skin in a simple pleasure. After a moment the man reached out to make sure Cayce was still in her spot between him and the wall the bed had been pushed to. She was, and had somehow managed to get all the pillows since Eddie, Venom, had left.

That was okay.

It was the perfect excuse to roll over and deepen the embrace and cuddle with the older woman. He still kept the House Rules in effect as he kissed the woman's brown hair only. As Eddie drifted off himself for his own shorten need of sleep time, he didn't notice a few black tendrils that formed and sneak in their own cuddle.