2019-05-14 - Mistaken Identities

Summary:

Illyana picks up some treats and then mistakes Venom for a demon.

Log Info:

Storyteller: None
Date: Tue May 14 21:46:47 2019
Location: RP Room 2

Related Logs

None

Theme Song

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illyana-rasputinavenom

It's definitely late afternoon. You could also argue it's early evening. The sky has started to darken, helped along by the overcast sky as it drizzles down. It's been doing so long enough to give much of the city a sheen, though in some places that just makes the dirt more apparent.

Illyana is coming out of a small, hole-in-the-wall type Russian bakery. The blonde is wearing her usual black-on-black attire with silver spikes and chains and skulls that makes her look like she should be in a heavy metal band. She's got a package in one hand and a ponchik in the other and doesn't seem to notice that it's raining and thereby starting to soak her hair. Her clothes are mostly water repellent, being primarily leather.

The area, like the bakery, is rather run down and far from the gleaming towers of corporate industry. It's not particularly sketchy, there's some sense of community from those that have lived here all their lives, but it's seen better days.


Venom has scrambled down the walls of a nearby alley, the living darkness of the symbiote seeming to withdraw back under his skin, leaving Eddie Brock behind, his hair swept back and shaved on the sides, his jawline bearing a few days worth of stubble. He reaches into his pocket and draws out a pack of cigarettes, lighting one with a soft grumble, taking the nicotine he can get in spite of the spitting rain, trying to stay in the shelter of the alley a bit.

The girl catches his eye because she's obviously eye-catching, regardless of what neighborhood you're in. Of course, knowing the neighborhood, Eddie's eyes quickly flick to the nearby hiding places. A temptation that strong is like to bring out predators.


Illyana Rasputina nibbles at the pastry as she turns to amble down the street and head towards the alley that Eddie is lurking in. Unlike most women her age, her attention isn't glued to a phone as she walks. Instead she pauses at some of the businesses that have window displays that interest her along the way.

By the time she's gotten to Eddie's Alley, she has picked up a few sketchy tails. A pair of scruffily-dressed teens whose twitchy nature is probably the clearest sign that they're up to no good and not just admiring Illyana's long hair. It certainly doesn't look good for her situation when she turns *into* Eddie's Dead End Alley, the two boys picking up their pace as she turns the corner.

It might be the glow of Eddie's cigarette that catches her attention first, the shadows longer here, and the blonde woman draws to a stop looking mildly surprised. Obviously, she wasn't expecting anyone here. There's some scrambleshuffling behind her as one of the teens pulls a knife.


Eddie exhales thick plumes of smoke from his nostrils, like a steaming bull in for the fight, even as the water glistens in his hair and drips down the shoulders of his coat. He nods to the woman and steps forward, moving to stand beside her.

"Guys. Think twice about it. This could go very bad for you. You got no idea how bad yet." he says. If he's concerned about the men being armed, he doesn't show it, even as spits his cigarette out into a puddle to be snuffed in the wetness. Venom isn't particularly fond of fire.

And then he smiles, but instead of a regular set of teeth in his mouth, there are fangs, a razor-sharp litany of tangled, uneven blades clashing against one another as his lips spread a little too wide.


Illyana Rasputina's attention is on Eddie has he moves towards her, though he can see her head turn enough to catch the pair behind her in her perephial vision. She holds her ground, pale eyes sweeping down over Eddie to get a good look at him and then she turns as he draws even with her. That means she's got a front-row seat as he smiles, if such a thing can be called a smile.

The two teens at the mouth of the alley laughed when Eddie told them to think about it, but that soon turns to a scrambling, shoving match to flee faster. The knife clatters to the ground and their coats aren't the only thing damp under the evening's rain.

With the bulk of his attention on the boys, Eddie might not notice at first that there's no scream off from his side. No wide-eyed terror. He'll certainly notice when Illyana's free hand comes up, trying to grab his ear like she's some little old Grandmother and Eddie's gotten himself into trouble. "What are you doing out here?" She demands, her tone annoyed.


Eddie's ear is, indeed, tugged, and his head pulled to stare into Illyana's face. The teeth remain as they are, with the serpentine length of a sinister tongue flicking out and tracing over the fangs like keys on a piano, leaving them glistening and dripping.

"We were having a smoke, but then we thought we'd help you. Did you not want helping?" Venom says, the voice coming out of his throat strangely garbled, two voices at once in harmony, as streaks of ebon-black stream from the corners of his eyes and spread like veins of spider-web.


"'We'? Oh, Spit and Hades what kind of botched possession *is* this?" Illyana mutters, using her hold on Eddie's ear to move his head around so she can look into his eyes. She certainly takes the prehensile tongue in stride. "Get out of the human, and I *might* not skin you." Those pale blue eyes have an emptiness to them that tends to put a shiver down the spines of most and even if it doesn't shake the pair, it's not hard to recognize that the gaze doesn't go with the outwardly pretty package.

It's only after a moment that Illyana's brow furrows a bit, her head tilting to the side. "Did you say 'help'?" That seems to baffle her more than anything else.


The grin only widens. Her horrifying nature is a delight to Venom, who immediately grows curious about the woman. Eddie tries to urge caution but, well, Venom isn't particularly in the mood to listen to the human at the moment.

"We do not possess, we are…joined. What are you, then? Sword in a sheathe, a cold storm in a warm pocket," Venom chuckles, "Skinning us would not work very well, but it might be fun to let you try. We have several skins. It is nice to meet you. We are Venom."

"And yes, sometimes we protect humans for our own amusement. It's more fun to prey on predators."


Illyana Rasputina has spent most of her life around Limbo's demons, and there are certain words that aren't really in their vocabularly. 'Please.' 'Thank you.' 'Help.' Those sorts of things. Even back on Earth, Illyana herself has trouble with using them. She lets go of Eddie's ear only to reach up and trace her fingers over the streaks that creep out from the corners of his eyes.

The question gets a short bark of laughter from the blonde. "Well, you're *definitely* not one of mine." The demons of Limbo tend to love or hate her, but either way, they definitely know who and *what* she is. Illyana steps back, scratching at her head with one hand. The other still holds the package from the bakery. "That is one of the odder greetings I've heard, I'll admit. Hello, Venom. I'm Illyana." Her head cants to the side. "Where are you from?" While Venom doesn't *feel* like a demon, she figured that was because of the whole possession bit. It makes them harder to notice. But this is odd.


Venom smiles, "We're not sure what the word would be in human tongue. But a place out there, well beyond the near stars. We don't remember it very well. We're not sure it was much worth remembering. Not nearly so interesting as here, no, no, with the soft and warm human snacks all trundling about and putting up fights and entertaining us so very, very much."

"Or Philadelphia, if you're asking where Eddie is from. Eddie is boring that way."


Illyana Rasputina blinks once, and Venom can see surprise beneath the indifferent mask that she's used to holding up in front of it all. She blinks again and leans in, poking at one of those sharp teeth since he's got them on display again. "You're not a demon?" She seems very skeptical of this. Which is the opposite of most people. They tend to believe in aliens and not in the supernatural. "Are you sure? Because if you're hiding from Mephisto or Dormamu or something, I can understand that."


The fangs recede a bit and Eddie Brock's face emerges again properly, the darkness soaking into him like a sponge. The fangs, too, become ordinary teeth, although there's a flick of that impossible tongue as it gets that one fleck of Illyana's blood that poked the tip of a fang.

"Not in the sense you mean, no. We have been called unholy and treated as such, but we do not know those names. We are not magic. We are simply…what we are."


Illyana Rasputina doesn't flinch at the slight prick, though she arches a brow as the follow-up lick, faintly amused. She'll stop poking at the now-human face, though she doesn't move out of his personal space. All those lessons at Xaiver's drove home that you're Not Supposed To Do That to humans. "Well I'm glad that I threatened you instead of hauling you straight off to Limbo. I'm not sure what the place would do to… an alien." She still seems a bit skeptical on that front.

"Are you stuck in the human?" She wonders then, ducking her head a bit as though she might see human-Eddie through their eyes. Humans believe them to be windows to the soul, after all. "You said 'joined'. Does the human want free?" While venom uses 'we', Illyana figures that could just be an affectation. Its' comments on Eddie could be interpreted as a seperate entity.


Eddie shakes his head, "We have come to an…understanding," he says, his voice more normal. "Venom and I are helping each other. We have a symbiotic relationship. I scratch his back and he…devours alive things on mine," he says with a quirk of a smile.

"I'm not sure what Limbo is, but it doesn't sound like anyplace I'd want to be." If he's bothered by her closeness, he doesn't show it, just standing calmly. "We came to one another in a moment of mutual need."


"Huh." Illyana says, so very eloquently. She continues to look at him for a long moment. Most people barely make eye contact when they talk these days, and their attention is usually split. If not on something obvious, like their phones, then just with the press of other thoughts that rattle around in their head. Illyana's attention is… intense. As though she were a telepath and could peel back the layers of who a person is to see what's underneath.

"So the implied eating of people? Not just a creepy turn of phrase?" There's a lilt to her words, like she's amused and mocking all at once. "And Limbo is… think of it as a little piece of Hell." A pause. "Literal Hell. And not how some people seem to use 'literal' to mean 'totally not literal'."


Even a little bit of contact with Venom's mind is likely…uncomfortable, although perhaps not as much for Illyana as for some. There are two minds there, sharing thoughts, one of whom is thinking in a chitinous language like a thousand insects devouring flesh, pincers gnawing unspeakable syllables to one another in the recesses of its deranged mind. The psyche of both man and symbiote seem damaged, in some fashion, and they've filled in the cracks in one another's consciousness.

"Not entirely. Mostly just a bit here and there. A hand. A tongue. The occasional pancreas, if we're feeling peckish. Just a little goes a long way in letting humans know you mean business," he says. "Eddie is familiar with the concept of hell. He seems to think he belongs there."


Illyana Rasputina isn't actually a telepath, but she tends to See more than most. Maybe it's her mystical nature. Maybe it's Maybelline.

"Ahhh. So, you take bits here and there to keep from something… more?" The blonde has some experience with that, though not quite so literal in her pound of flesh. "The one I can overlook. The other I'd probably have to intervene." She doesn't make it sound threatening. If anything it's almost… apologetic. There's a small smirk as they mention Eddie's thoughts on Hell. "I'm not here to collect anyone's souls, so, he… you're safe on that front."


Venom laughs, "We don't have an agenda, Illyana. We are just hungry," he says, his eyes darkened a bit and flooding with the shadow of the symbiote, "But we too try only to devour those who…deserve it. And even then, only enough to put the fear of us into them. We do like the way they taste when they're afraid," he says.

"And we're pleased to hear it, even if we aren't sure if we both have souls. Eddie was a bit of an atheist, but he's come around a little bit to the wonders of the world."


Illyana Rasputina can't help but chuckle. "Well, that's a nice change from most of the folks I run into." She says, almost to herself. In fact… She looks over at him, that amusement still riding her. "You *sure* you're not a demon? You remind me of my critters."

The blonde extends her arm with the white bakery bag she's been holding all this time. The outside is a little wet, but whatever's inside should still be OK. "Here." There's no question, no offer. She just presses it upon him, like he doesn't have a choice but to take it.


Venom takes the bag and sniffs it, "We are as sure as we can be. Do all demons know they're demons? I bet some of them don't know," he says. He opens up the bag and casually reaches a hand inside, pulling out a baked good to scarf down. The symbiote does put a bit of a strain on the old metabolism after all, so he's in no position to turn down food.

"What kind of folks do you usually run into then?"


Inside the white bakery bag is an assortment of Russian treats, from rogaliki and ponchik to pryanik and tea cakes. Illyana just chuckles at the question. "Usually, yes. They're quite aware of what they are." Like Venom, they don't make any excuses or apologies for being what they are.

What kind of folks does Illyana run into? That cools her smile a bit, the pale blue of her eyes going wintry. "The sort that spin webs within webs, to gain power at any price. That use the best parts a human has against them." After a moment, she clarifies, "I don't mean literal parts, so don't go getting hungry."


Venom doesn't pay particular attention to what he's eating, but does manage not to take everything, handing the bag back and licking a bit of the flavor from the tips of his fingers. "We see our share of webs, but that comes from all the spider-heroes. Have you noticed there are a lot? They all seem to know each other, too."

"Eddie's a bit of a specialist in conspiracies. He likes tracking them down and figuring out what they're up to. And then we can make a fun amount of chaos."


"I haven't." Illyana admits. "But I've been busy." As in, not around much the past year. She also doesn't watch much TV. Or look at social media. Really, she's like some relic from an older time even if she's supposed to be 12.

That Eddie's partial to conspiracies has Illyana looking thoughtful. "Is he now." She smirks at Venom and presses the bag back at him. "You didn't get to eat pieces of my would-be muggers, so you can have those. But I'd better get going, before my brother thinks I'm not gonna show up." When you have as tenuous a relationship with Time as Illyana does, sometimes whole days slip away from you.

The blonde steps back and lifts a hand in a graceful gesture. A circle of light appears at her feet and slides upwards, taking her away from view and then winking out of sight, leaving Venom alone in the alley. With a few more tea cookies.


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