#like it's almost like a corrupting disease and uh if you wonder why I draw eso with one fang thats coz he's baby

[east-germany]

One like equals one sticky ass rune stone placed in your hand. Where does he get them? When will he shut the fuck up about runes?

[luxlightly]

It’s Soup! -- Symbruary Day 8 “Food” Fill

Just in case anyone thought I was capable of making anything normal. Here is likely the only prompt fill I will be doing for @symbruary​. Written in about 2 hours (would have been shorter but my dog kept screaming at me to take him on a walk) with little to no proof reading so forgive any mistakes, especially since I nearly never work in first person and have never written in present tense. 

Requires a basic understanding of the plot of Venom: The Hunger to properly understand.

---

I am hungry.

Not the kind of hungry where it hurts your stomach; the kind of hungry that hurts all over. The kind of hungry that looking at food makes you feel sick. That eating doesn’t help. That makes all food look and taste foul. Because it’s a specific hunger. A craving for something.

Yes, that’s it. A craving. One I can feel in my bones, my teeth.

Our teeth.

But for something I can’t define. I can’t find. I’ll have to keep looking.

I am angry.

But that’s nothing new. Every day I feel like I’m angrier, but everyday it feels more justified, so I don’t mind. Every day I see more filth, more corruption, more sin. Everyday it seems like there’s fewer innocents to protect. Like there’s less and less untouched by the grime and putrescence of this city, this whole society.

What is the world coming to? It disgusts me.

Everything disgusts me now. Food, people,places. The popcorn I’d purchased with something approaching optimism is already all but discarded. Like trying to force mud and gravel down my throat. Repulsive. Like everything else. Everything sets a bad taste in my mouth, like sewage.

Well, except for one thing, of course.

The Other winds itself through my fingers, forming a hand to interlace with mine.

My Other.

It’s the only thing that soothes the anger, the shaking, buzzing, craving, wanting, needing. It’s a cool balm. When I feel its presence in my mind, winding its way through the twists and turns of my body, making its serpentine journey through the labyrinth of my form, for a moment I can feel at peace. We can feel at peace.  

There is a movie playing, here in the dark theater. Noise and light that my brain finds too hard to bother parsing. I didn’t come here to watch it, anyway. What story could any human mind fabricate that could match the magnificence of the creature that weaves its way through my cells?

None. Of course not. But the theater is blessedly dark and any within would not be looking at us. So we are afforded this small luxury of clasped hands.

In these brief moments such as this, when our minds touch and my heart swells with adoration for my beloved being from beyond the stars, it feels for a moment like there is more to existence than the wretchedness the world seems so filled with. That there is something else to be felt but disdain, disgust.

Then the shouting begins.

“Aw, they shoulda got Stallone!”

Teenagers.

I always had a soft spot for kids, but nowadays it seems there’s little to be soft for. Even children are tainted by corruption and filth. There’s no respect, no courtesy. These punks are nearly too far gone, already adults, raised in putrid bile and fit to do no more than regurgitate it.

But maybe not too old and far gone, yet, to be taught a decent lesson.

–

I am hungry.

I am angry.

Strung up from the ceiling, upside-down, the little cretin’s whines and whimpers are giving us a headache.

“Punks like you make me mad,” I hiss, wrapped up in my Other, in my true form, our true form.

Being together, as Venom, feels right. It always does. Like taking off an uncomfortable costume and letting the world see you as you are. Like finally fitting right in your own skin. But the buzzing and churning in my mind only seems to get worse together.

The only thing that feels right, but also wrong. Helping and hurting. Bane and balm.

Our headache is getting worse.

“Mad enough to bite your heads off!” I threaten.

It’s an old bit, but it’s our standard. Something about a brain-eating alien always seemed fitting. It’s the kind of thing people expect from us. The kind of monster they want us to be.

“CrrrrUNCH! ” For a moment I can almost picture it. I can almost feel that satisfying crunch of bone between my fangs, cracking and crumbling the the shell of an egg, revealing the precious contents within.

“Slurp down your brains like big fistfuls of Jello…”

I can picture that, too. Soft, slippery texture, zapping with the last sparks of life. Tingling against our tongue like a popping candy. Sliding down our throat like a rich pudding. Being so hungry for so long, it almost seems…kind of nice.

I stretch my jaws around his head, just to spook him, of course. His increased whimpering tells me it’s working. My tongue curls around his chin, as if I’m really tasting, preparing.

“Yeaaaahhhh…” I breathe, more reverent than threatening,now. More focused on the image in my mind, on solidifying it, indulging it that fantasy, than really teaching these kids a lesson. And why not? Not like they’d learn anyway.  I can feel my Other almost basking in the imagined scenario as well. “Barely touched that crummy popcorn, I could really sink my teeth into–”

I stop, abruptly.

I realize my teeth are almost itching with the desire to truly sink into the punk’s flesh. My jaw tightened and primed to bite down with a crushing force. My tongue is drawing in and savoring the taste of fear, of adrenaline, in the teenager’s sweat.

I could really…

I pull back quickly, returning our jaws to a more normal size and shape. The kid was spooked enough. No need to keep the bit going.

“Uh. Nah,” I say, suddenly at a loss for a witty parting line.

We release the kids and depart quickly. Suddenly, and unplaceably, the situation feels wrong, almost dangerous. Not that we’re fleeing from it. Not that anything would have happened.

I just get a little carried away sometimes.

It’s the job stress.

—

I am hungry.

I am angry.

More angry than hungry now, I feel. Like the hunger has settled into my bones, like it’s a part of me. A dull ache for something I can’t place. We’re out looking for it now. Searching, stalking. Scenting the air, sifting through sensations, discarding everything that’s not right but nothing is right.

No one understands it. No one understands us. No one ever has and yet strangers think that they have the right to presume what we need. The interaction with the man at the kiosk is still boiling in my blood.

How can he, someone who could not possibly know us, could not possibly understand us, think he can claim to know what’s good for our health? What we should eat? What we should do? We don’t need his advice! Nor his pity.

I feel suddenly scrutinized. Like every face on the street is watching us, judging us, trying to find the filth and disease in us, too. Trying to see how their poison has sunk into us, too.

I’m looking for something now. I feel something like a panic, a desperation. There has to be something that’s right. There must be something that tastes right, feels right. I’m looking for it, now. I feel like I’m wandering a maze. A mouse trying to follow the scent of cheese through walls that are shifting around it. Searching endlessly for a prize that always eludes it.

I need to blow off some steam.

—

I have to hand it to this biker scum.

He packs a punch. More than I’d expected looking at him, anyway.  

He’s also brutal. Slamming his fists and feet against my skull, my ribs, my spine. He keeps screaming about killing me for trashing his bike and I’m fairly certain that if I were a ‘factory original’ human, he’d be well on his way to succeeding. Even with my Other reinforcing them, I think I can feel my bones cracking.

The pain is grounding, though. It feels sharp and real when everything else has been cloudy, drowned out by the frantic buzzing of my body and mind. The rush of adrenaline feels good and I find I need more of it.

As I’m thrown through a window, I can already feel my Other cording itself through my bones, sealing any crack, repairing any fracture. It seeps up through my skin and releases its cloth disguise to wrap around and through me. Our fangs push up through our gums and back into their rightful place. Our jaw stretches and lengthens to accommodate and I find myself wishing I could feel the strain of it more acutely.

I let our long tongue roll out of our mouth and splash into a mug of beer on the table closest to the window through which we were so recently defenestrated. I do so enjoy a dramatic entrance. Or, reenterence, as the case may be. The taste,however, is even more abhorrent than everything else I’d been fruitlessly trying to consume lately. Pure poison.

I retch, pulling our tongue back and away from the putrid substance.

“You call this beer?” I snarl. “Tastes more like runny buffalo spit. Not that scum like you deserve any better.”

Our form feels strange somehow. Fitting to the state of our mind more closely than to the curvature of my body. Bigger, but less defined. More animalistic. More tendrils than we’re used to, as well. Somehow it feels like it matches the disjointed and detached state of my thoughts. Poetic.

I hear the bikers say something about superheroes, causal slurs and offensive epithets peppered in as is the wont of such ruffians. But we don’t feel like a hero tonight. This doesn’t feel like defending the innocent. I wonder if there’s even any left out there to defend? We don’t even feel like a judge, doling out retribution to the guilty. We’re out picking fights. Finding people who ‘deserve it’, whatever ‘it’ may be. Less like a punisher, more like a predator.

With teeth to match.

We’re slashing through biker creeps like we were made for it. Because we were made for it. But I barely hear it. Barely notice my own comebacks. I’m spouting the truth, the truth about their bile and filth, and the energy behind it feels good, feels like something , but it’s hollow. It’s not enough. I can’t find it in me to care. I’m angry that I don’t care.

I’m angry.

And I’m hungry.

God help me, I’m so hungry.

‘Frankie’,as it seems the leader of this loathsome bunch is named, takes another swipe at me with a knife. As if it could do anything. Ranting about cutting me open, as if he isn’t hopelessly, pitifully outmatched.

I swat him away like the disgusting insect he is.

“Oh, bite me.”

I’m not sure if I mean to kill him, but the loud ‘crack’ of his head against the brick pillar suggests that such a feat has no doubt been accomplished.

Suddenly I have no space in my mind for considering it. No space for thought about the other bikers starting to peel themselves off the floor.

A scent wafts into our nose, permeates into our flesh, into the scent detecting cells that litter the Other’s body, when we wish them to.

And suddenly, we desperately wish them to.

I sniff again, then once more, as the Other floods our form with more and more structures dedicated to scent, lining our skin with them so that the intoxicating aroma caresses us like a warm breeze.

What is that?

“Something…smells… GOOD,” I murmur, like a man possessed.

I feel like a man possessed. Possessed by that smell, the need for more of it, the need to discern its source. Our mouth is watering (more so than normal, anyway) and suddenly the hollow ache of craving turns sharp and demanding in our gut. I feel myself willing more teeth into our mouth and I feel my Other enthusiastically fulfilling that wish.

My Other is practically writhing on my skin. Our form feels like it’s shivering down to the core.

What is it? What is it?

I stalk to the pillar, stained with thick, red liquid, and breathe in that scent as deep as my lungs will allow.

“Warm ’n mushy…” I find myself repeating the words from earlier. When I had so desperately been trying to define what our body was screaming for. To put words to its silent but insistent demands. “ Wet…and…tingly…”

I lean down right above the cracked and bloodied cranium of the late Frankie, sniffing again and confirming beyond a doubt the source of the mouthwatering scent. And confirming beyond a doubt that it’s what we’ve been craving. What we need. What we want.

“Mmmmmmmm…” the moan from our lips is nearly sinful. It’s so close. What we’ve needed so painfully. What we’ve been aching for.

I feel feverish and desperate. The Other is writhing around and inside me. Our combined want and need feels like it will shake our body apart.

The Other provides me a lie before I even realize I have been begging it for one. Something innocuous. Something, anything appropriate. Excusable. It pushes me forward, encouraging. It feels as frenzied as I do.

“It’s… soup!” I exclaim.

And with that it’s justified. It’s acceptable. It’s accepted.

It’s inevitable.

We open our jaws wide, tongue lolling out.

“Yeahhhhhhh…” we breathe.

Our jaws snap down, crunching through the skull soup. The moment it hits our tongue is like salvation. After months of wanting, craving, aching, the thing we’ve so desperately needed is here, dancing on our taste buds, sliding down our throat. Like water in a desert, like life returning to our body.

How could we stop?

Our teeth gnash and tear, dragging more and more of the precious substance into our mouth. It’s so much and yet not enough. How can it be both? How can it be everything and yet nearly nothing?

We can’t understand it. Can’t understand anything. Can feel nothing, think of nothing, but the need for more. More. Like a thousand pounds would not be enough.

Faintly, as if beyond the veil of a dream, we can hear it, a cry of pure horror and disgust.

“I don’t believe it!” a voice cries. “He’s eatin’ Frankie’s brains!”

The statement drags me out of my frenzied state as if dragging me out of thick molasses.

“…what?” I mumble, still feeling only half lucid.

No…no we never….we would never. It wasn’t…it was only…

I look down at my hands, stained with blood and chunks of grey matter.

“No…” I breathe, then scream. "NO!"

It couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be real. This wasn’t me. This wasn’t us. Wasn’t Venom!

Suddenly Venom becomes a divided entity, split jaggedly between the horror and disgust at the viscera coating our claws and the frantic desire to lick each one clean of it. The revulsion at what we’ve done and the desperation to continue.

I stumble backwards.

“Threatened plenty of times – never meant to – just to scare ‘em…a joke !” I stammer.

When had it stopped being an empty threat? When had it stopped being a bit? A Joke?

Dear God, had it ever really been?

My stomach churns. Suddenly I feel panicked. Exposed like a rat in a trap, overcome with the need to escape.

“Something’s wrong with – Oh God have to– Get away!”

I flee as fast as our legs will carry me, away from the cooling, clotting remains of what is decidedly not soup.

And the worst thing.

The worst thing.

Is that I’m still hungry . ---

Also crossposted to ao3 : [Here]

[imagine-darksiders]

giVE US MORE CHANCELLOR AND READER THE ASSHOLE NEEDS SOME LOVE TOO

Part 1:

Soft, melodic music flows though the modestly sized cottage, from the bedroom to the ensuite where you stand before the large, fogged-up mirror, wrapping your hair up in a towel and securing another larger one around your body. There’s a delectable scent of lavender and waterlily wafting out of the door, filling your bedroom with a pleasant aroma. 

Carefully, you pat down the edges of your bright green face mask and nod once you’re certain it’s properly fitted, taking a moment to grin at the fact that you once again have the luxury of wearing a face mask. 

Humming along to the music, you pad back into your room, glancing at the clock on the wall before taking a seat on the white, faux-fur stool at your vanity. You lean forwards and pick up a small bottle of dab-on perfume, tugging off the top to dab a few drops behind your ears before placing it down and lightly touching your fingertips to the underside of your jaw, head turning this way and that to inspect yourself in the mirror. When you peer into the leftmost section of the vanity, you blink- 

- and promptly let out a shriek so piercing, you almost burst your own eardrums. 

In your haste to spin around and leap to your feet, the poor stool is kicked backwards and bumps into the table behind you, knocking over various tall bottles of toner and other products. 

All of this goes ignored, however, as you’re much too bust trying to squash down the rush of panic blazing through your veins to properly recall the combat manoeuvres that Thane - a fearsome maker warrior - had taught you. 

“I’d ask if this was a bad time.. But, truth be told, I don’t really care if it is.”

That voice…

You pause. 

You know that sneering, self-important tone. In fact, now that you take a proper look, you even recognise the man it belongs to!

“Chancellor?!” you blurt, hand flying to your chest and tugging the towel up a fraction. 

There, in your bedroom, stands the very last person you ever expected - or wanted - to see. The most sour-faced, cruel-tongued creep you’d ever had the displeasure of running across during your quest to help Death clear his brother’s name. 

The Chancellor belongs to a race of undead beings who inhabit a realm appropriately named ‘The Dead Lands,’ and he serves as second in command and royal advisor to the ruler of that realm; The Lord of Bones. And this particular undead has a penchant for tearing you apart verbally and making you feel about an inch tall every time you speak to him. He’s notoriously not a fan of just about everyone, humans least of all, apparently. So the mere fact that he’s here - in your bedroom - is a good enough reason to be utterly flabbergasted. In fact, you’d have been less surprised if Samael turned up. 

The undead is giving you as flat and unimpressed a look as he can muster, his hands folded neatly over his stomach whilst a pair of grey, lifeless eyes bore into you mercilessly from their hollow sockets. They sweep from your face down to your bare feet and back up again to your towel-bundled hair. A shudder lances up your spine and you suddenly feel very exposed. 

“Immodest,” he sneers, appraising the lewd length of your towel, “unseemly, clumsy…and loud.” Rolling his eyes, the Chancellor tuts condescendingly, “Mm, I suppose it was too much to hope that you’d matured some in these past few years.” 

For several long moments, you can only gape up at him with a slowly furrowing brow, waiting for your brain to catch up with the situation. “Uh, ha. Sorry.” You shake your head rapidly and huff, “But…What the Hell are you doing in my room? And - more to the point - How the Hell do you know where I live?!” 

Now that the initial shock of having the Chancellor catch you with your trousers down his starting to ebb, there’s room for you to feel highly affronted. 

The undead lifts the hem of his long, emerald robe and steps over a pile of your discarded clothes, curling his lip in distaste. Once he’s standing in front of you, he peers down his hollow nose ridge, though there wasn’t much need to - he already towers over your head like some imposing, green obelisk that perpetually scowls. 

“Vulgrim,” he spits, as though just saying the name aloud is an insult to his dignity, “will-” Suddenly, The Chancellor pauses and casts a quizzical glance over your face. “-…By the way, what in Oblivion is wrong with your skin, human?” he asks, throwing you slightly. 

Quickly, you touch a hand to your cheek. “My-” The face mask.  “Oh, just - Forget about that!” you growl, “What about Vulgrim?” 

“Ah, yes. The demon will give olut almost any information, if the price is right.” 

Your hand drops to your side. “Why, that sneaky little-” Aghast and frankly quite disturbed, you step back and flick your eyes to the open door, wondering if you’ll need to make a mad dash for it. “So you traded with Vulgrim for my address? That’s-” You let out a shaky laugh. “- You know how creepy that is, right?” 

He purses his lips and scoffs. “Oh, please. Don’t flatter yourself. I did not come here willingly, human. I’d’ve been perfectly happy going about my life and never seeing hide nor hair of you again.” 

“Yeah? Well, that makes two of us,” you mutter. Then, “Why are you here?”  

Glowering under his hood and pressing his thin lips into a tight line, The Chancellor gives off the very air of someone who absolutely does not want to say what he’s about to. “I am here,” he starts, “because My Lord has requested your presence, and he sent me to collect you.”  

At your blank expression, he sighs, aggravated. “My Lord has generously extended an invitation to you, to attend a most prestigious gathering of more-” He clears his throat, raising a brow down at you, “-dignified parties. Tonight, at the Eternal Throne.” 

“He wants me as a guest?” you query, “at a…a party?”

The Chancellor draws himself up indignantly. “Ha! ‘Party’,” he spits, “This is a distinguished event for his Lordship to build connections, to make reputable allies and strike accords with persons who offer particular influential gain.”

Pursing your lips, you blink at him, smirking. “So. Like a really boring party then?” 

The undead growls lowly but then squeezes his eyes shut and lifts a hand to his face, pressing his sharp fingernails to the flaking skin between his eye-sockets. “Ugh. Fine, fine! Yes, it’s a party. A party that you are expected to attend.” 

“Why on Earth does the Lord of Bones want me as a guest?” 

“You know, I asked much the same question.” The Chancellor’s teeth gleam out from between his sallow lips as he opens his mouth in a grimace. “Apparently, you are a curiosity. ‘The human who saved creation,’ is a subject on many lips, as of late.” 

You frown slightly, shifting on your feet. “Death was the one who saved creation, if anything. I just…came along for the ride.” 

“On that, we can agree,” the Chancellor sniffs derisively, “But Death is well-hated. You, on the other hand, are an unknown. Something of a prodigy because without your…ugh…help, Corruption would have continued to spread its disease across the realms..” He waves his hand about, finally tearing his scrutinising glare off of you and turning to regard your room. “Bah, I don’t want to stroke your vulgar little ego by calling you a minor celebrity, but essentially….” 

Your lips crack open slightly. “No way. I’m famous in other realms?” 

By the Chancellor’s begrudging and pointed silence, you think it’s safe to assume that you’re correct. He stalks over to your nightstand and gingerly plucks your sleek phone up between two fingers, twisting it around in front of his scrunched up face and scrutinising it suspiciously. “Infamous might be more accurate. But regardless, my Lord seems to think that your attendance would put him in good stead with several highborns.” The screen of your phone lights up abruptly and a tinny ding chimes out, causing the undead to gasp and fling it down onto your bed. 

Stifling a giggle, you take his distraction as an opportunity to bend down and start clearing up the mess of bottles. “Well. I’m flattered that he wants me there…”

“Hmph. Naturally,” The Chancellor grumbles. 

“But I’m afraid I have to decline.” 

There’s a sudden, awful sputtering accompanied by an incredulous squawk from behind you. “I - You - I beg your pardon!?” Glancing over your shoulder, you notice the undead has gone rigid, his hand pressed tightly to his chest and his jaw dropped open so widely that his chin almost connects with the exposed collar bone. 

“Sorry,” you shrug, gathering several different moisturisers into your arms, “But I already have very pressing engagements tonight.” A lie, of course. You planned to don your silk pyjamas and lounge on your sofa all night listening to music and texting friends. 

“You have received an invitation from a king!” the undead screeches, throwing his arms out to the side and nearly knocking a picture from your chest of drawers, “You don’t get much more pressing than that!”

“Well, just tell him ‘thank you’ but I can’t attend. I’m sure he won’t mind.” 

“But! But you must attend!” 

“Why must I?” you argue, rolling your eyes.

“Well, because…Because!…” 

Unbeknownst to you, the Chancellor looks about ready to internally combust. ‘How dare you refuse a command from me! No, from the Lord of Bones!’ The undead glares hard at your back as you stand up and set your strange potions back on that little table, then reach out to right the stool made from the fur of some wretched, white animal. After another minute though, he deflates. ‘There’s little use trying to catch this fly with vinegar,’ he muses, ‘better try honey.’ Racking his brain, The Chancellor struggles to think of something to say that might sway you. 

Suddenly, his eyes widen when he lands upon an idea. A connection. A link that would surely draw you back to the Dead Lands of your own accord. The sly smile that creeps across his face would have unnerved you had you been looking. 

“Because,” he reiterates, his voice much calmer now, “Draven was SO looking forward to seeing you again.” 

The tiny perfume bottle drops from your fingers and thuds softly onto the carpet at your feet. “Oh…dammit.” 

—-

AHA! This is actually great fun to write! Do you hate the Chancellor yet?? 

Up Next!: You get ready and the Chancellor gets to learn a bit more about what’s been going on on Earth since the resurrection. He also gets nosy and then perplexed when you start treating him like a guest rather than a nuisance.