CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CRASH!
"Fuck!"
"Is everything okay?"
"The hell it is!"
"Calm down little one."
"Maybe I could if the whole atmosphere of the apartment wasn't so damn tense cause YOU'RE freaking out too!"
"This was your idea in the first place," the Slender man reminded me coolly.
I ignored the jib. "My hands are shaking so bad I drop everything damn thing I pick up!" I yelled.
"Hence the sound of breaking glass?"
"No shit Sherlock."
"Make sure you don't pick up the baby while you're inflicted with this habit of dropping things please."
Words failed me as my temper caused my ability to form coherent thoughts to be lost and I babbled in some language other than English; my furry and stress levels skyrocketed. His smug, sly smile infuriated the hell out of me, even though rationally I knew he was only teasing, and he was only teasing in his best effort to diffuse the stressed atmosphere - an atmosphere that I was damn well knew that his own Slender powers were at fault for creating - whether he meant to or not.
Yes, it WAS my idea, but that didn't mean that I still couldn't freak the hell out! My parents and brother would be here in less than ten minutes, and I was hyperventilating as I came to the realization that I wasn't ready. I mean, how do you tell your family that you have a four month old child and that your baby daddy is the Slender man? My father would kill me surely.
Slender wasn't quite to the level of frantic hysteria that I was at, but that wasn't to say that he wasn't nervous as well. The cold vibe that seeped through the air and left a faint ringing in my ears was his doing, but he couldn't really control it. It was his aura - his power - and it just reflected how he felt.
Smooth tentacles slithered around my waist and bound my arms at my sides, rendering me immobile for the most part. An alabaster finger pressed against my lips to cut of the string of unintelligible obscenities. "Sky, breathe," he commanded with all the strength and authority and comfort that I needed to hear at the moment. Slowly, I inhaled deeply and he nodded. "Good girl," he murmured gently. He stooped to plant a quick kiss on my forehead then released me. His tentacles slithered to the ground and collected the shattered remains of the plate I'd dropped and then disposed of them in the near by trash bin. Unsurprisingly the jagged glass didn't leave so much as a scratch on the myth. I almost snorted in amusement. The man was probably bulletproof - broken glass was no problem for him.
"Robin's crying," I observed with a sigh as the wails finally made their way through the fading red haze and reached my ears. Guiltily I wondered how long she'd been crying before I noticed and admitted to myself with shame that she was probably crying because I was yelling in the first place. I walked over to her crib and gently lifted her into my arms. "Hush baby, hush," I murmured gently. "Mommy's sorry for yelling. She didn't mean to scare you sweety," I promised.
I had just managed to calm her when the dreaded knock sounded from the front door.
"Oh fuck..."
"Language little one. We don't want our daughter picking words like that as her first," he scolded lightly. "I'll be back after you've broken the news to them," he informed me.
"How will you know?" I asked skeptically.
He smirked at me, "I'm the Slender man little one. I have my ways," and then before I could blink he slender walked to some location unknown to me.
I tucked Robin into her crib as a knock sounded from the front door again. "Coming!" I called in the general direction, trying to keep the nervous quiver from being evident in my voice. Taking a deep breath I opened the door.
"Hi there!" my mom beamed at me and I was engulfed in a hug before she'd even come all the way through the door.
My dad was next. "Hey sweety pie," he greeted me and surprisingly surpassed the usual awkward one-armed-dad-hug and have me an almost crushing bear hug instead.
I couldn't help but laugh. "Gotta breath Dad," I reminded him. He grinned and let me go.
Charlie didn't even bother with a hug. He was going through that 'I'm too cool cause I'm a man now' teenager phase. You know, that time in every kid's life when they know everything and everyone else around them knows nothing. "Sup?" he mumbled nonchalantly.
I chuckled and pulled him into a hug anyway. "Hey lil bro," I said, and laughed at his indignant protests as he squirmed to get away from me.
"So how have you been? We haven't seen you in forever!" my mom asked as I ushered my family into the living room and we all sat down.
I smiled and hid my shaking hands by sitting on them. 'Deep breath Sky,' I reminded myself.
"I'm doing alright," I said. "I've been quite busy lately, actually."
"I can see that. You've got circles under your eyes," Mom observed with her eyebrows furrowing slightly, and with all the motherly concern I'd gotten used to from her.
'Just get it over with now,' my subconscious advised with a sigh.
"Yeah, I've had a lot to deal with lately..." I trailed off slowly, loosing my courage towards the end of the sentence. "Anyway," I tried to recover while at the same time steering away from what I'd been about to say, "how have y'all been?"
Dad shrugged. "We've been good. Everything around the house is the same as it always is," he said.
"What about you Charlie? How's school?" I asked.
"It's cool," he said in indifferent tones.
I smirked at him and teased, "Do you have a girlfriend?"
He shot me a withering look. "Sky..." he complained and I couldn't help but laugh. I loved messing with my brother - I'd rather missed it actually.
Unfortunately 'girlfriend' was the key word with my mother. "How about you Sky? Have you found anyone yet?" she asked hopefully.
If my nerves hadn't already been fried, I might have laughed at the irony of the situation. 'Yes, but you're gonna wish that I hadn't.'
"Um... Uh yes, actually there is someone," I said slowly.
My dad sat up a little straighter and his eyes got a little sharper. "Oh really? Who is it?"
By this point my brain was a string of panicked obscenities. Why on Earth had I elected to put myself through this?
"You'll get to meet him later," I said as casually as I could. "He'll be coming home in a bit..."
"Coming home?" my father repeated dangerously. "You two are living together?" He hasn't missed the allusion.
I swallowed. "Um, yes?"
Awkward silence. "I hadn't realized you were that serious with anyone," my mom said slowly.
I looked down at my knees, unable to meet their disapproving gazes. "It's more serious than you might think," I all but whispered. There was silence as my family waited for an explanation. "We um... Well you see, the thing is... Um... We sorta had a kid..."
I'd trade the worst of Slendy's anger induced ringing atmospheres with the feeling in the room at that moment, any day.
"What?" my dad growled. I still couldn't look up, but I was willing to bet that my mom was just sitting there in shock. Who knows what Charlie was doing.
"How far along are you?" Mom asked with a dangerous calm.
I shook my head. "Not GOING to have. We DID have..." I corrected, wanting nothing more than to crawl into a hole and die.
"You had a baby?"
I nodded. "You have a four month old granddaughter named Robin," I said softly. I finally dared a glance up. Oh yeah, they were pissed.
His voice starting to rise, my dad asked, "And you couldn't tell us about this before now?"
I clinched my fists to stop the shaking. "No, because I couldn't tell you who the father was."
"And why not?" he demanded.
"Because one, he didn't want me to tell anyone, and two because you wouldn't have believed me anyway!"
"Why wouldn't we believe you?" Mom asked angrily.
"Is he that bad?" Charlie asked with wide eyes.
"Stay out of this Charlie," my dad snapped at my brother and then resumed his furious glare towards me.
Moment of truth. "Because he's the Slender man!" I blurted and then bit my lip.
Three pairs of eyes looked at me as if I'd gone nuts.
"This isn't funny Sky," my mom said. Charlie was trying his best to hide a smile despite her words.
"No, it's not," I agreed.
"Then stop playing games with us," my father growled.
"I do assure you Mr. Steele, that the last thing either Sky nor myself wants to do right now is play games," said a cool silk voice behind me. My family sat frozen with looks of disbelief and fear flashing across their faces. "I agree with Mrs. Steele, this is not a laughing matter." A hand gently squeezed my shoulder. "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Sky's boyfriend, the Slender man."
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A/N: Hey guys! I'm sooooooooooooo sorry its been such a long time since my last update. It's been awful trying to find time to just sit down and write recently. The school year is winding down which means finals and AP test are coming up, plus I'm taking the SAT in May so I've been busy preparing for that as well. Work's been really busy lately and my boss has been calling me in a lot more which takes up even more of my time. Plus I have the lead female role in Dr. Suess's "Suessical the Musical" in two weeks, so rehearsal has been monopolizing all of my time that I'm not either in school or at work. Prom is the same week as the musical to boot, and since I'm helping plan it, that's a whole other pile of things to take care of. Then on top of all of that I have to create a lesson to teach next week at a leadership conference I'm helping with. All in all, I'm just trying to do too many things right now, and I still have to find time to spend with family, friends, boyfriend, and people like that (cause you know, they get cranky if you ignore them). You'll have to forgive me, but until things die down some, updates are going to be really hard for me to get posted. I'll do my best I swear, but no promises. Just bear with me please. I promise, once everything's calmed down, I WILL come back to this story, and all of my other stories. That I CAN promise.
Anyway, so until then, please enjoy this chapter and continue to read, review and vote. I appreciate you guys so much, you have no idea! Love you guys <3
- Erin