(Warning(s]: Graphic body horror, explicit cannibalism, some disturbing imagery]
I AM NOT DONE
Eyes saw universes; unseeing , scathing, scorching the tenebrous darkness that coiled about him in its lonely discord. There is something beautiful in his vision, alluring, starlight. Tentacles coil in their autonomous sentience, the sepia night that wound about him and they. He was not fully in control. The Alizarine King stabbed moonbeams with his gaze, harsh and hellion-cruel, proving it about with dim and distance. Strength was robbed, ferocity abated, humanity almost there as once-hands reach and talons skitter into the cool metal of his containment. Not bipedal, but upright, he moves against its cage. Something within him is riveted by desperation. All he can see is starlight and her divine embodiment; the abysmal void of space he's become craves her. Bestial cruelty is shorn for lucidity, and he pretends that he is the Sorcerer Supreme, the former, swaddled in nocturnal nakedness does he advance and take in this new world. Hearing the moonlight, tasting the darkness, seeing the clangorous scrape of his talons upon his confinement. He aches with hunger, aches with wanting, stabbed and pained by so many and too many things.
Nostrils flare with animistic query, neck craning and upper torso following with a single hand bracing his form whilst the other was blankly suspended, eyes wide and body slithering and coiling about itself as he sampled the air. Footsteps. Flesh. The Alizarine King smothered Strange once more, noting the narrow passage, the corridor in which they would inevitably be housed. Suction strong and talons impaling through metal for purchase, he hauled himself aloft, tentacles suspended downwards as he ascended into the rafters and coiled into a waiting predation. Footfalls echoed cavernously, nervous breaths misting as a man trekked in, hapless, the remote beam of a flashlight scanning the walls. The man jumped in palpable shock, gasping at the avulsions ferociously dug into the walls, at the substances belonging to an inhuman being. The wan beam of the flashlight trailed with increasing trepidation at the remnants of whatever had scaled it, their breath becoming quieter and more restrained with every foot gingerly assessed.
That was until it met a writhing morass of tentacles and the spark-bright trio of eyes mounted to a human face and skull with enormous horns spanning it. The mouth widened to inhumane proportions, fangs aglitter in the titian bio-luminescence, throat like the opening of a volcanic inferno. The tongue, of palpus appendages that twisted with blinking eyes and corrosive liquid that seeped from it, stared unblinkingly at the horror struck mortal. The flashlight dropped, reducing the monster above to a spectral sight of luminescent eyes, lightning-ignited, the male unable to move without the horrible sight that plagued his vision now. A foot pedaled backwards once, then he stumbled loudly, Stephen's eyes honed upon each movement with keen alacrity, rapacity that no human could emulate nor escape. A snarl tore from his throat, the Alizarine King lunging like a sprung coil and descending, an enclosure of tentacles condemning the man to an absolute oblivion.
Only the shoes were left behind, a blooming profusion of tentacles and writhing morass of them as the legs of the man twitched whilst life was drained, blood sputtering and slopping messily to the floor below. Within, clothes had been dissolved into sickly tar, skin dissolving and popping to reveal the aching flesh beneath. Fangs scrapped and wholly swallowed, chunks at once, devouring noisily and sloppily, bones crunching gravelly, limbs becoming stripped of their mortal mortar and constitution. The man himself was long dead, bones falling from place and to the floor, acid clinging and burbling orifices through calcium and marrow, reducing them to soupy white. Stephen devoured mindlessly, the squelch of organs and meats passing his palette and being swallowed whole, having no conception of what he was eating. All he knew was that it was sustenance, sorely needed. Burbling bones dropped; skulls, fibulae, femurs, rib bones and vertebrae. Pooling in blood and yellowed marrow, dissolving into sickly meres rank with unnatural decay. The skull, shattering into a pulpy mass, until nothing was left but the remnants of a man. The monster swallowed the last morsel, satiated, satisfied–for now.
But now, drowsiness overcame him, and crude sleep beckoned him. Dreamless, wakeless, the many appendages cocooning him in an indistinguishable chrysalis of unbud horror.
However, it was broken by a feminine gasp of horror. Stephen stirred, trio of eyes ignited and awake once more, writhing morass parted and cool air greeting the coarse gristle of his flesh. From below, a head crowned in ethereal starlight stood, skin trembling, her pale face further blanched by horror. The Dark Dimension still clung to her scent, and even in his monstrous cognizance did he know who it was. Clea–once wife, disciple, friend. That monstrosity softened and his could not help himself from mirthlessly uttering, " Ｃｌｅａａａａａａａａａ…" in the ragged scrape and shear of beastly vociferation. He peered longingly, possessiveness and instinct wanting her; humanity remembered love, now she was need and want and desire. Clea started at the sound of her voice, distantly reminiscent of the man much of her must have loved.
"…Stephen?" she echoed, timidity and reserve traveling as her gaze found the source with frightened deliberation, trembling of her flesh the same, but it all but sagged at the sight of him. She had known it had been horrible, but to this extent–he had been grotesquely disfigured by whatever had changed him, brows furrowing upwards as she seemed so grievous upon the sight of him. Even powerful in her own right, this had been unprecedented, and even she quailed at what was thrumming so powerfully within him.
Gruesomely did he lower himself like a spider upon corded silk, her eyes daring to sight the tentacles that anchored him to the ceiling itself. They darted swiftly back to him, and blankly did he watch her, not filled with the humane recognition she had hoped for. Instead, a hand of his extended for hers, and with worrisome but gentle eyes did she touch fingertips to his, and all three eyes watched it with such concentration she felt as though nothing could break it. He shuddered upon the contact, though not before he gently, and with childish clumsiness, pulled her by her arm to inspect. So careful, so thorough. Something within made him remember this woman when all else were either enemies or prey.
" Ｃ ｌ ｅ ａ," he rasped tonelessly again, saying her name for its own sake, as though it were the only thing he knew how to, " ｗｈｙｙｙｙｙ ｄｉｄ ｙｏｕ ｃｏｍｅｅｅｅ, Ｃ ｌｅ ａ." Incapable of principled speech, he resumed the study of her arm, so utterly fascinated with it–but when he saw her face, the beast shuddered violently again, coiling and writhing into himself; she was too beautiful. Seraphic, celestial, pure where he was something far worse than tainted. He gasped and moaned before revealing himself again, almost tentative. But her hand was still there for her to touch. He nuzzled into it, a rumbling thrum she could only assume was a purr thrumming as she scratched what remained of frazzled hair.
"I wanted to see you, Stephen," she managed softly, other hand coming to caress his face, he breathing what sounded like a relaxed exhalation. His own hands subconsciously held hers there, she smiling brokenly. "What happened to you?" Her lower lip worried, tears struggling to remain at bay. He brought them closer together, looking into those eyes like starlight, closing the third eye as their foreheads touched. He gnarred a tremulous sound, gooseflesh prickling even upon skin such as this, remembering Them. He gasped, shaking his head, groaning incomprehensibly.
" Ｃ-Ｃａｎ'ｔ ｓｓｓｓｓｓｓｓａｙｙｙ; ｔｈｅｅｅｅｅｅｙ ｗａｔｃｈｅｓｓｓｓｓｓ, ｃａｎ'ｔ ｓｓｓｓｓｓａａａａａｙ." He shuddered and curled into her, forehead nudging against her chest that she held, feeling her own heart clench and beat irregularly with fear. He gasped raggedly, foul flesh bleeding from his breath, but it didn't hold enough revulsion for her. She swallowed thickly and held him close, mindful of his horns, throat closing and a broken, silent cry falling from her lips as her eyes quivered close. Tears beaded white-hot and fell in salty streams down her cheeks, sobbing into his hair, his own arms embracing her uncertainly.
" Ｐ-Ｐｌｅａｓｓｓｓｓｓｓｓｅ ｓｓｓｓｓｓｓｔａｙ Ｃ-Ｃｌｅａａａａａａａ…" he moaned into her chest, blinking uncertainly, she inhaling shakily. She nodded, too overcome to say anything else.
Breaking the embrasure, she watched as he rolled upon his back, arms open for her. Carefully, she let him hug her tightly, pressed against coarse and skin like an exoskeleton, reeking with foul rot and the remains of whatever he'd consumed. She was afraid, but this was the man she loved, even if not as before. She felt tentacles securely wind about her legs, comfortably there. Almost too fast did they ascend, but that didn't frighten Clea. His taloned hands stroking through the moonbeams of her hair, they became suspended upside down. An aperture could be seen, wreathed by those tentacles as it inexorably began to close and a stifling warmth enclosed them.
She breathed shakily, like a rabbit in the secure coil of the serpent, but this was Stephen. Platinum locks spilling upon the underside of his jaw, he breathed contentedly, restfully. And even though it took longer for her to relax, tensity taking forever to seep away, before long the uneasy rest of sleep finally came.
And all became enveloped in darkness.
Last Thoughts: Behind every great monster, there's sometimes the person who's unfortunate enough to love him. In this case, that person is none other than Clea Strange, fresh from their divorce but still very much in love with her former husband. For him? Stephen as he is now is nothing without her. The light he cannot resist even when sunlight is more of an enemy than ever before. Here, we see her reacting to what has become of the man she loved once...and maybe still does.
Even if Marvel sporked this pairing, doesn't mean we can't have them back together in the angstiest way possible, right? :'D Because what makes for a better pairing the battling a supernaturally powerful elephant in the room?
~Peace, G.