Oh, and this story is a present for my adopted Spider-Sib Emmy. :)

Eddie Brock leaned back on the couch. It was covered in scuffed, slightly shabby fabric in plain, sensible dark blue. It was the sort of couch you could put your feet up on without worrying about your shoes. They liked this shrink better than the last one already.

The chocolate drops she'd offered them helped too.

"So, Eddie¡¦ She leaned back in her chair. She had dark hair touched lightly with grey, hazel eyes, a round, friendly face, and could generally be summed up in the words 'nice and sensible'. "May I call you Eddie? Or would you prefer Venom?"

"Eddie's fine," they decided, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. It had little star stickers all over it. "Can we have another chocolate?"

"Help yourself." She pushed the dish closer, and eyed them with friendly curiosity. "I understand you're a journalist and an alleged serial killer. Interesting career choices. Before I get Freudian on your psyche, I have a few more practical questions, if that's all right with you."

They shrugged. "The state's paying you, not us. Talk all day if you want."

She steepled her fingers. "How does it feel to no longer be a singular entity?"

Eddie groaned. "Not the feelings question again¡¦

She had the grace to chuckle a little. "I mean in a more basic sense. Do you talk to each other, or is it more of a mental connection? And what about personality clashes? Do you both like the same food, for example?"

"Food?" They blinked. New tack. "Uh¡¦well, we both like pizza a lot¡¦

The doctor watched an eighth chocolate vanish into their mouth. "And chocolate, too, I see."

Eddie nodded. "We need chocolate to live."

She blinked. "Well, I know it often feels like it, but-"

"No, really. It's got phenethylamine in it." They shrugged. "It's a choice between eating chocolate and eating brains, and chocolate tastes better."

"Ah." The doctor nodded. "So that's why you eat brains?"

"It's certainly not for the taste. Do you know what raw human brains TASTE like?" They made a face. "Bleah."

"I can imagine." She frowned thoughtfully. "You know, Eddie, I've been looking over your casefiles. They're a very interesting read, once you get past page one's overview, which is always along the lines of 'Six kinds of insanely homicidal, lock him up forever'. From what I see, though, the actual symptoms don't really bear that out. As I understand it, since you've been joined together, you've had stress-"

"We haven't been having a good year, what with the arrest and everything."

"- wild mood swings-"

"YOU try being calm with all these spandex-wearing idiots after you,"

"-depression-"

"One half of us lost a career thanks to that wall-crawling red-and-blue jerk, and the other half was heartlessly rejected by him."

"-need for personal validation-"

"That's not true! We ARE a hero, we are!"

"-violent urges-"

"Butt-kicking is fun."

"-irrational behaviour-"

"We're not irrational, we're half alien. That's speciesist."

"-bouts of self-justification-"

"It's not! We really do only kill bad people who deserve it!"

"-and chemical dependencies involving chocolate."

"We can't HELP any of that!" they said, aggrieved. "It's not our fault!"

"Oh, goodness, dear, I know that." She smiled, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear absently. "Just last week I felt exactly the same way."

Eddie blinked. "Huh?"

"Poor thing." She actually leaned over and patted their shoulder. "I know just what you're going through."

"No you don't," they disagreed, on firmer ground now.

"Well, not exactly. I've never had it for more than a week at a time." She reached for her notepad, and scribbled something down. "But basically, Eddie¡¦You've got a perfectly textbook case of PMS. Now you know what it's like to be a woman. Congratulations."

"WE'VE GOT *WHAT*?!?!"

"PMS, dear. Hormonal imbalance." She tore off the sheet of paper, and held it out. "Here's a prescription."

Eddie took the piece of paper, and looked at it. "Chocolate with nuts, Meg Ryan movies, and a visit to a competent naturopath?"

"There are herbal compounds that often help." She looked a bit dubious. "I'm not sure if they'll work on a man, but it's worth a try."

Eddie blinked a few more times. "You're actually saying that I've got some sort of male PMS?"

"That's right. I'd want you to be checked out by a medical doctor to be sure, but my professional opinion is that there's nothing wrong with you mentally. Just hormonally."

"I'm not a psychopath, then?"

"Well, I wouldn't rip any more heads off, if I were you, since although I understand that in England PMS is considered an extenuating circumstance for murder, we're rather backward about it here."

"Oh." They looked down at the list again. "Why nuts in the chocolate?"

"Potassium. It's good for you."

"Oh." They thought about it for a minute. "Can we go now?"

"Of course. I'll see you next week."

The frowned. "But if there's nothing wrong with us, why do we need to come back?"

She smiled sweetly, her eyes twinkling. "Because next week we're going to talk about how being a man trapped forever in the lowest point of the menstrual cycle makes you *feel*."

The End