What Is Love?

Chapter Twenty-One

The Slender man

A knock on the door startled me and I sat up straighter in my chair, swiveling it's base so it would look as if I'd been working, not immersed in the fire storm of turmoil that was my state of mind currently. "Who is it?" I called, my voice not betraying me one bit. At least I could count on my self control in that aspect...

Without answering, the door was thrown open and a grinning man stepped in and leaned against the doorway. Floppy, dirty blonde hair hung in his eyes and he had a flowery Hawaiian button up open over a black t-shirt. In his left hand he was spinning a fedora on his middle finger. I groaned, "Hello Habit."

"Hey there Slendy, old man!" he exclaimed happily, strutting into the room and kicking the door shut behind him. "Long time no see, eh? You never come up and visit our little Hybrids anymore - well, not that there's many of them left at this point anyway."

I leveled my stare at the possessed man. Regardless of the fact I didn't have eyes, I knew it was still an intimidating gesture. It didn't seem to even phase the entity, however. "What do you want?" I asked bluntly. Habit wasn't technically one of my proxies, so I couldn't exercise the same power over him as I did the others. He only seemed to work for me when he wanted to, which made him unreliable. All in all, I didn't trust him.

"Ooh, Slendy, I'm hurt. What makes you think the only reason I'd come see you is because I wanted something?" he said insincerely.

"Because I know you too well, demon. Now I'll ask again, what do you want?" 

Habit reached in his back pocket and pulled out a long hunting knife. Coming forward and sitting on the edge on my desk, he proceeded to clean out from under his nails with the point, not looking at me now. "Observer's told me a bit of news, old man," he said slowly. "Says you've been hanging around this new girl you've found - playing human for her even. Now, the rest of your little minions are too young to remember the last time you tried to turn human for a girl, but O and I do..."

I'd gone very still while the man spoke. He knew better than to broach this subject with me, and what he was doing was very, very dangerous. "Watch what you say," I warned him with a low growl.

Habit looked up and gave me a lopsided grin. "Oh come on now, boss man. We're all in this business together - gotta look out for our own! Can't let you make the same mistake twice now can we?"

I was on my feet in an instant. "Hold your tongue, Habit," I hissed vehemently. 

Habit chuckled softly, shaking his head at the ground as he re-pocketed the knife. "Such a temper. You really need to learn to control that sometime, Slendy. You've only been alive, what? Three centuries? Surprised you haven't pick up some patience by now."

My tentacles wrapped around his throat and had him pinned against the back wall of my office in a millisecond. "So help me Habit, if I could actually kill you, I would in a heartbeat," I spat.

"See? This right here is what I'm talking about. Ever looked into taking some anger management classes?" he still managed to mocked me, gasping through my crushing grip around his windpipe. I slammed him back against the wall, harder this time, and he started laughing as a trickle of blood started to run from his nose. "Hey, hey, don't kill Evan now! We still need the dumb-fuck unfortunately!" he choked.

Growling, I dropped him and he slid down the wall to a crumpled pile at my feet. For a moment he lay there coughing and gasping before hauling himself back to his feet and dusting his floral shirt off. "Well, I can see the thanks I get for looking out for a friend," he frowned mockingly. The creature was always so damned smug. If we didn't still need the boy inside the body Habit now possessed, I would have killed him now just for the pure pleasure of it.