"The North Star found no beginning as one unobtainable speck in the night sky.
Since the Dawn of the First World, the North Star has been the ultimate tool to accomplish the impossible.
It is now a rumor among Ancients. A whisper in what is now Darkness.
Terrible dominions used the almighty power of the North Star for the creation of a kingdom built upon Chaos and brought on the destruction of the First World.
The North Star cannot fall into imperfection.
Life will surely die."
-excerpt from The Canon of the North Star.
Chapter One || Chapter Two || Chapter Three || Chapter Four || Chapter Five || Chapter Six ||
Summary: HABIT, in the body of a flight technician, has to escort something with no name across the Atlantic Ocean into snowy war-torn Europe to locate a missing "personal asset".
Fandoms : Slender Man Mythos, Everyman HYBRID
Characters : HABIT & Slender Man, w/ Minor Original Characters
Relationships : HABIT/Slender Man
Tags : Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, World War II, Period-Typical Racism, Canon Related, Canon-Typical Violence, Forced Proximity, First Meetings, Hate to Love, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Past Trauma, Major Character Injury, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Slender Man is a Woman, It/Its Pronouns and She/Her Pronouns for Slender Man, Slender Man is Blind, Slender Man Has a Human Form, HABIT Has a Different Vessel
Chapter Six : Immortal Punishment
Word Count : 3.9K : Reading Time : 19 Minutes
Something embarrassing to admit was that HABIT and Sticks weren't too different. It hated to dwell on that fact, but it was hard to ignore, especially with a man's blood dripping from its chin. Iron and a sickening thickness hung on its tongue and teeth. With every attempt to swallow it down, something then threatened to rise. A choke and a sob fought past its lips. Blood soaked hands attempted to wipe at the mess on its face, but it was only dragged into gruesome shapes. Accentuating the gore of what had occurred.
Unfortunately, this room it had found itself in was well lit. It could see the form of the man on the floor, bitten through veins of the neck still flowing red. Its eyes tried to focus on the color, and the color alone. It believed red to be the most beautiful color it was capable of seeing. Most others were dull because of its terrible vision. The world blended together into an ill yellow or green, but red… Red stood out, and if it could see the color, could any other color in the world really matter?
Sticks' fogged vision met the ceiling. What about this world mattered? Did it matter to HABIT that he left it at the fence? It had only turned for a second and that beast disappeared into the dark. After that, the decision to go and fulfill some of its needs was an easy one to make.
Ten minutes was all it took to find a suitable meal after HABIT left. A communications building sat on the opposite side of the base. The doors were simply bypassed. Black wingtips guided against the short-fiber carpet of the winding, dark halls quite easily. It slipped off its gloves, then its glasses to tuck them into the breast pocket of its vest.
The man slumped against the desk in the central room listened to a radio broadcast, ready and waiting for anything to come though the headset. A notepad next to him was filled with tic-tac-toe games he had been playing against himself. Best out of nine; he started another grid. His brow furrowed and the pencil paused on the paper. The crackling in his headset slowly grew more severe. Then terrible feedback exploded in his ears.
The communicator yelped, quickly throwing the headset to the desk. The audio continued to throw a fit as he fiddled with the controls of the broadcast. Nothing was working. A soft swear left his mouth and he started to search for the mechanism to power off the machine. But the radio powered down before he could find it. The singular light to the room shuttered.
His eyes slowly lifted. His breath hitched. A subconscious instinct to listen deeper into complete silence burst to life. A shadow hung in the corner of the room. The corner of his eye caught it. The communicator's head whipped around. He was only alive long enough to catch a tall man in a suit, wearing a hat, sharing the empty room with him. Teeth then lodged past skin and ripped at his throat.
How terrible. And how embarrassing.
It leaned back against the wall. It had been standing there for a while. Sticks had to cover its mouth to control its gag reflex. Its eyes attempted to focus on the mass against the ground, not because it wanted to, but out of shame. If it shamed itself terribly enough, maybe this viciousness would leave it. A foolish, childish passing thought to hold onto. Once it rationalized the thought, it let it go. What a curse upon it.
Consuming living flesh made the use of its exhausting abilities easier for a day or so, if it didn't run itself ragged. Then, it slept. Once it woke, it only had a few hours before hunger completely consumed it. Hunger drove it to bad behavior something fearsome.
Not a state it preferred to be caught it. Especially not by the likes of HABIT. It would rather swim a dozen seas than have that bug treat it like an equal. A shine on the man's disembodied arm caught its blurry eyes. A golden ring on his finger caught the overhead light just right. A shudder left its mouth, which was caught in a battle of hunger and disgust.
HABIT could never compare to it.
It stepped forward and knelt down, head tilting. Sticks squinted to try and make out the death mask that remained of the man's face. Blood slid on his cheeks where its thumbs rubbed. It leaned close, its breath bouncing off his skin.
"I am grateful for you. Terribly, terribly…" It paused to ease its shaking breathing. "Grateful."
It went to rise, but paused and went ridged. Again, the yellow light in the room flickered. The clothes it wore shrank to its form, showing off every rib and every curve of its stretching muscles. Its growing limbs bunched together.
Its flesh rose in several places until a bark-like texture was created. Its hair was pushed by the growth of a black shell beginning to form down its back. Features of its face slowly melted, and smoothed. Claws rose through its long fingers. Sticks froze in this state for a moment. This monstrous, deformed, faceless state.
A gasp sucked through a mouth that quickly reformed along with the rest of the body. Human features resumed their placement, its black hair fell back over its forehead, and clothes leapt forth. It looked as it did, just before feeding. Sticks' face, clothes, hands, and teeth were clean of blood. A hand made sure that no sappy residue remained. No, the regenerative form took care to absorb whatever was left of its meal.
It spared the man on the floor one last look before it disappeared from the room. Black branches broke through the carpeted floor to grab at the body, starting to pull it to the hell they came from.
A shiver ran down its back when its face met the cold. The tip of its shoe dug into the ground while it pulled its gloves back on, finding strange straight lines in the concrete. Wind made its eyes scrunch, so the glasses found their way back to its face. A rumbling went through the ground. A vehicle was approaching. It backpedaled to avoid getting struck by it (the feeling of metal colliding with its legs was not pleasant. It found this fact after a few weeks of trekking alone). Apparently, that was the wrong thing to do.
"Put your hands up!" It was screamed at by a man accompanying the car. The lights attached to the front of the machine made any person difficult to see. "Hands up!" His voice cracked. This boy seemed serious.
Another voice joined. "Put your fucking hands up or we'll shoot!" Well, the severity of the situation seemed to be lost on it, but with these two men sounded as serious as they did, it hesitantly raised its hands to its shoulders. "Higher!" Was demanded of it.
Was it supposed to appear unarmed or controllable? It raised its hands to its ears with a sigh. A thunder of footsteps followed its compliance. Men scattered from the vehicle like rats, Sticks now able to follow their silhouettes past the headlights. Four approached it, three sprinting for a large building in the distance. The four didn't even ask before grabbing at its arms and under its coat.
It tore itself away from gloved hands, the sounds of adjusted weapons following. The end of one of the rifle barrels tapped its rib, to which it suggested it away with a finger. "Excuse me, boys." Sticks adjusted its clothes. "Is there a problem?" A beat of silence followed its question.
"Hands on your head!" The one in the back yelled.
"Would you like the opportunity to answer my question?" When the rifle was pressed into it again, the barrel was grabbed in its giant hand and was aimed to the concrete. "Or would you not?" The boy on the opposite side of the gun struggled for control of his weapon. "I can respect a request. However, a threat and a request are not one in the same, and you should know this." It tilted its head down, dark eyes peering over the sunglasses.
Be at ease.
The men in uniform, one by one, lowered their rifles, eyes wide with slack mouths. A dazed hypnotized look. Slowly, it slid the glove off its free hand with its teeth and pressed its two fingers to the front boy's forehead. A drawn out breath left its lips.
"Sleep."
A moment passed for the command to process through their ears, then like rag dolls, the four fell to the ground. Sticks groaned softly and held its head. Seemed as though it was to overexert itself tonight. Coughing erupted from its chest after it reapplied its glove. While it halfway suffocated itself on its inner arm, a gun fired across the runway. Something lodged in its shoulder with a sharp, terrible pain.
It barely had time to react before a flurry of those same sharp explosions across the field and in its body overwhelmed it. Sticks felt like it was oozing, as if half of its body was about to spill out of its skin. It took a step back, but its leg buckled. Less than gracefully, it fell to the runway.
Where was HABIT?
Staff Sergeant Greene walked with two riflemen to the fallen body of their prime suspect. He didn't like shooting holes in a man who deserved to be brought to justice, but it was difficult to ignore the fallen bodies of four other members of his squad. Three of his men had been killed inside the most eastern hangar, and he had sent four more in full confidence that they could detain one man. Apparently, he underestimated that man.
Greene looked over the dead body of the tall man while the fallen were cared for. He didn't have any weapons on him, from what Greene could see. His fingers lifted the trench coat to find no gun or knife, so he unbuttoned the suit jacket. A red vest laid just under it, the pockets of both not bearing any answers.
"Sarge!" One of the riflemen made Greene raise his head. "They're still breathing, they're just unconscious!" He glanced over his soldiers. Alive, just knocked out. Greene hummed, squinting down at the dead and bleeding body. He slipped off the dark glasses to look over his face. A middle aged man with giant, blind eyes, who had died too quickly to close them. The outfit was the main detail throwing him off. What was such a well-dressed man doing in the middle of the biggest military airfield on the East coast?
His hands started to pat the body down, just to be thorough. Any weapon, any personal item, any identification, anything would be useful in finding an ounce of information. Greene's hands dragged over the man's sides, the man's stomach, and then the chest. His brow furrowed. Curiosity quickly got the best of him as he peeled back the vest.
This wasn't a man.
He glanced back up at the body's face to reevaluate it, but he found an eye staring at him. The sound of metal falling against the cement made Greene's eyes shoot sideways. A used bullet laid on the runway, steaming. Then another sounded and appeared. Then another. Then Greene caught a bullet sliding out of the body onto the ground. That eye was still looking at him.
"Remove yourself from me." It commanded through teeth.
Sergeant Greene leapt backward with a yelp. He could see the runway lights through its body in some places as it sat up and stood. Black blood soaked the cement that it had no issue leaving. Just as Greene couldn't believe it, neither could the riflemen. One took aim directly at its head. It rolled out its shoulders, then turned to spit blood that seeped into its teeth.
Sticks wasn't about to tolerate anymore guns.
The gloves on its hands seeped into its skin, and it extended one forward. With a swipe of its fingers, a sharp crack came from the man aiming his rifle, his head almost twisted all the way around. It heard the click of a second firearm, turning in time to stare down the boy holding it. The bullet that shot never met its body. Instead, it found a warm place to call home in between the shoulders of the man that fired it.
Sticks turned its attention to the staff sergeant once the first rifleman was dead and the second was collapsed against the ground, screaming in pain. Greene was struggling with his belt for his sidearm, but froze when it approached him, bullet wounds completely healed. It appeared to have incredible disgust for him.
He held out a hand. "Please! Please, please, please!" His hands came together, as did his knees, and he started to bow before it. It tilted its head at the display. Greene was sobbing into the concrete, "Please, don't…"
Its hands clasped. "Be specific."
"Please don't kill me."
"Interesting. All of the men that you have sent my direction have fallen, but only one of them is dead. Would you rather I spare you and steal the lives of the rest of them?"
"No!" He curled up against the ground, tucking his head between his knees.
"Then be specific." It called its glasses to its hand, slipping them back over its eyes.
He continued pleading for a moment, shaking praying hands at it. This was starting to sound like desperation and Sticks had known desperate men, and they all enacted on the same terrible routine. It was going to run out of energy before too long, so this couldn't drag out any further. It motioned its hand up, then on the arch down, HABIT's hunting knife appeared in its fingers. Keeping it close was precautionary in either the event that its hold on the parasite gave out, or in situations like this one.
It felt the validity of the blade against the plane of a finger, listening to the man's shallow breathing go soft. Seemed as though he made a decision. The man's hair was pulled and the knife driven through his eye before he could free his pistol, the hammer already thrown back. Sticks dropped the body, starting to walk off the runway while its tongue drifted over the flat side of the blade.
It stopped when it heard boots beating against the pavement, but a sigh of relief left its body. HABIT had received its call. He slowed, looking over the bodies of men puddled together, taking amusement in the man screaming for his mother. After a moment of swiveling his head back and forth, from the carnage to Sticks, his lip quirked up. "Did you do all this?"
"I trust that you disappeared for a good reason?" Its finger slid on the spine of the blade, then licked the blood from it.
He glanced at its motion. "…Is that my knife?"
"Is it?" With a simple turn of its hand, the blade disappeared into thin air. HABIT curled his lip, but he didn't try to argue this time. There wouldn't be any point to that because it wouldn't answer him.
"We can't just leave the bodies here, they'll lock down the base." HABIT gestured before them. "Nothing will be able to leave when that happens."
"How many men did you murder?"
"Six."
It sighed. "Fine. Leave that to me. Find our transport in the meantime. This may take me a while."
"What are you going to do?" HABIT adjusted the rifle on his shoulder.
"The mess you made will disappear." It left his side, removing its coat to free up its arms. The trench coat was then tossed to HABIT, who fumbled with it.
"It's not just my mess!"
"Go, HABIT." It sat with crossed legs, folding its hands together. "And only return when I call you."
"I'm not a dog," The parasite muttered, but he turned anyway. He hung its coat over his arm, then broke into a sprint.
Sticks took a deep, relaxing breath, closing its eyes behind its glasses. This wasn't going to be pleasant. The process of casting bodies into the space between this world and the one before it had inconsistencies. Especially when it felt as weak as it did now. Tedious was a good English word for the process. Sticks stretched its long arms over its head and across its body before digging the tips of its cold fingers into the concrete.
That poor man it had consumed was easy to discard through the floor of the dimension, because it was only one and it knew its energy allowed for only one at a time. From the two it fell and the half dozen that HABIT butchered, that meant it had to make eight men with lives, personalities, and families cease to exist. They would be missing and no one would ever find them.
A quick prayer for forgiveness was whispered between it and the December night, but it doubted any decent god would ever excuse this monstrous behavior. But it had made a habit of doing so long before it was faced with such impossible situations. Sticks lingered on the memories of asking forgiveness for less serious offenses, before it threw them away.
HABIT had finished creating an opening for the two of them to slip into when he felt the cement under his feet give a violent, distant shake. Bomb? If it were a bomb, then there should've been an explosion. Instead, the air held a pained scream that echoed around the airfield. HABIT resisted his curiosity… for around five seconds, and then he looked out the doors of the hangar.
The cement of the runways was split up to where Sticks was stood, stance wide. Its graceful hands shook with intensity, curving and holding, like a orchestral conductor commanding a slow and intense piece of music. And it was commanding dark roots that had burst from the seams of the runway.
They grabbed at the two dead men, coiling and twisting in an ugly way. Meanwhile, to HABIT's shock and terror, the soldiers he shot were walking out the doors of the hangar. Their feet dragged, dead and empty, in a double line. Even in their state, the boys still could recall their training. When they reached a certain circumference of Sticks, their bodies simply fell through the floor. As if they hit the deep end of a pool.
With one last, final gesture from Sticks, the coiled branches did the same, the giant cracks slowly came together seamlessly, and it collapsed to its knees. HABIT watched it spit up black with a violent heave. It crawled forward on its hands to brace against the runway, body visibly shaking, even from where HABIT was standing. The sleeping bodies (included the one previously screaming) were completely undisturbed.
His jaw was slack and he slid back into the hangar. One of the doors shuddered from his back being placed against it. Even with its fall and less than imposing aftermath, HABIT had to admit: that was the most impressive display of control he had ever seen. There was a question destroying his brain, though.
"Why didn't you want me to watch?" HABIT asked from the front seats of a Jeep ready to be transported. They settled into the cargo bay of the transport plane, albeit slowly. Sticks was still suffering from muscle weakness after exerting itself. He had already asked about the fates of the sleeping soldiers, to which it just muttered something about them 'forgetting the day'. It didn't seem much for conversation at the moment. It was very focused on muttering a hymn to itself in the pitch black.
HABIT turned over in the Jeep, shining one of the flashlights he collected on it. It winced. "Hey, can you hear me?"
Sticks sat by the door, its legs folded, hands rested palm-side up on its knees. It was pale and sweat dripped off its face.
"Yes," It bit a response before continuing.
"Why?"
Its went quiet and its stiff posture sagged, head dropping. Sticks took a breath and fought its gloves off. "Don't start this now. And turn that thing off, it hurts my head."
HABIT scowled, then he grinned, swinging the light back and forth out of its eyes. "Is it a condition of your… time powers?" A short cackle escaped him.
"You are an immature little bug," It snapped. Then it struggled off its suit jacket while it continued, "No curiosity. Just cruelty. Always looking for an opportunity to make a joke of something. No wonder why you're alone." The jacket made a soft sound as it collided with something else in the cargo bay.
HABIT just stared at it sitting in the dark. He jerked the light at it again, to which it gave an ugly snarl, "HABIT!"
He scoffed, something to brush off the remark. HABIT then lit up his own face. "I'm not alone! I have people around me all the time. I lead very active social lives."
"Connection and presence are not the same thing."
"Well, what would you know?" HABIT barked at it. The top of the plane echoed with his voice. Soles of wingtip shoes dragged against the grated floor as it pulled its knees to its chest. A terrible grin formed on his face, and he whipped the flashlight back around. "You're alone. You're so alone that you had to drag something like me—a beast, humanity's great abomination—into your mess because there isn't anyone or anything to help you." He put his boots on the dash of the vehicle. "Is that the secret to great, almighty power, Sticks? To be forgotten? To be a god with no disciples? A king with no subjects? To be so worthless that your creator didn't bother so much as to utter a name?"
It said nothing for a moment. HABIT clicked the light off in finality, settling back down to sulk for the night.
"You can't hide from me. Even from inside there," It muttered.
"Inside where?"
"Your head." It settled against the cold metal floor, laying there on its back for a moment. "I know what's inside it."
"You don't know anything."
It sighed, tilting its head to think. "A part of my mark is that we have an exchange. You give me what you know and I gift you life. No mortal injury may find you. That means I can't escape your thoughts. Your feelings."
"I don't like it."
"I know. I don't either. Your mind, HABIT, is frayed into so many strands. It's too much to really process in one moment. It feels like waves."
HABIT's eyes, which had previously been scanning the floor of the vehicle hopelessly in the dark, finally lifted. "You can feel it?"
"I feel your pain. And your humor. And your hate." It started to mumble, like it was something it hated to admit. HABIT's lip stiffened and his head shook. "It's not your fault you are what you are."
A quick shot of pain went through HABIT's chest. Something between rage and confusion boiled at the back of his throat. How dare you. But it couldn't shove past his teeth for whatever reason. Must have been the result of some other strange magic it placed upon him. It had to be. "Stop." Was all he could muster.
Summary: HABIT, in the body of a flight technician, has to escort something with no name across the Atlantic Ocean into snowy war-torn Europe to locate a missing "personal asset".
Fandoms : Slender Man Mythos, Everyman HYBRID
Characters : HABIT & Slender Man, w/ Minor Original Characters
Relationships : HABIT/Slender Man
Tags : Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, World War II, Period-Typical Racism, Canon Related, Canon-Typical Violence, Forced Proximity, First Meetings, Hate to Love, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Past Trauma, Major Character Injury, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Slender Man is a Woman, It/Its Pronouns and She/Her Pronouns for Slender Man, Slender Man is Blind, Slender Man Has a Human Form, HABIT Has a Different Vessel
Chapter Five : Mitchel Airfield
Word Count : 3.8K : Reading Time : 19 Minutes
HABIT sat on top of the car, watching the row of hangers across the air field vanish and reappear in the blowing snow. They had been parked like this, taking shelter on a small maintenance road a mile or so from the air field, for three hours. They would have to wait quite a bit longer if they were to use the cover of dark, like HABIT preferred. The vessel's face started to sting, and soon, he would have to get back in the car, so that this cycle could be repeated for the fifteenth time.
A plane roared overhead, and HABIT craned back in an attempt to watch through snow, but more importantly, to listen. HABIT held onto many important qualities of his vessels, even long after they succumbed to him. This body was no different. The sound of a plane's engine still soothed the mind. HABIT's hands were still able to fix them.
A stolen talent at best. A crude imitation at worst.
HABIT listened to the wheels of the distant aircraft scream when they hit the runway. He clapped his hands together. "Bingo."
He slid off the roof and looked through the window of the backseat. Sticks was still asleep, as it had been for the past five hours. HABIT shook his head. How typical. To be privileged enough to sleep for hours upon hours. He sat in the driver's seat with little regard for its unconscious state. He even slammed the door shut to keep the snow out, but it didn't budge. HABIT blew hot air into his hands before he started the car and turned on the radio. Jazz music stuttered through the machine. They were barely in range, but HABIT turned it up a little louder.
HABIT glanced in the rearview mirror. Its back was still turned to him, breathing slow and steady. Its hat was in limp fingers, halfway wrapped around itself in some sort of hug. He debated waking it to tell it their magic carpet had arrived, but he just rested his head back on the seat. The feeling of sleep was contagious, HABIT realized as he rubbed his eyes. If he fell asleep, there was a possibility of being snuck up on. He wasn't going to risk being chewed out by Sticks for the umpteenth time today. But the body was exhausted.
The hour that Sticks forced upon him in the dorm was a taste of what HABIT denied himself. Denied himself for how many days now? He couldn't remember. Who kept track of that? The night that Sticks intruded, he had finally wound himself down into a sense of security, which did not last long.
The music soothed him, it was comfortably cold inside the vehicle, he had no energy left to care about imaginary threats, and they were about to embark on a quest through a place worse than Hell. He then agreed with himself: an hour wasn't enough.
.𖥔 ݁ ˖ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ .𖥔 ݁ ˖
Light filtered through gaps in the canopy, creating shining spots on the dark floor of the forest HABIT found himself in. He was alone, and he found the air too warm for the dead of winter. If he was where he was supposed to be, anyway. But he didn't pay much mind to the pleasant change. What he did mind was a strange breeze, which demanded he look down. He happened to be naked.
Not only that, but his body was changing with the passing seconds. His proportions, his complexion, sometimes his sex would bend, but altogether, this bizarre phenomenon wasn't something he paid much thought to. The mental pain and fatigue he was accustomed to wasn't gnawing at his head. If he did mind whatever was happening, it would be a very ungrateful thing to do.
HABIT sat beneath a tree as his bodies continued to cycle through diverse senses of touch, sight, hearing, and baseline emotions. He stretched and settled before pulling his knees to his chest. His chin rested on one, and HABIT's eyes drifted around the dark trees. A suspicious hum filtered through a set of vocal chords before they could change. Even if he was physically comfortable, that was just an invitation for his clear mind to catch fallacies.
Inside this warm and temperate forest, there was no birdsong. The grass beneath him was too soft and too white. He was completely alone. All his other dreams were fun recreations of fights, battles, victories on hilltops, and the occasional sex scene. Explosions of action, color, and feeling. If this were truly one of HABIT's dreams, there would at least be blood.
A rock twitched in the distance.
It was in the corner of his eye, so HABIT squinted past a few rows of trees to a dark mass he originally skimmed over. It was breathing. Not well, but it was breathing nevertheless.
HABIT crept on his hands and the soles of his feet toward the breathing boulder, keeping his head tucked low. Maybe it was a stone, maybe it was a tight ball of vegetation, it could've been an animal, or it could've been none of those things. It appeared to have a black shell wrapped tightly to its pale body. The closer he got, the louder its whispering got. Or, humming?
Was it singing?
Rhythmic language was being muttered into its chest, but HABIT couldn't tell where its head, shoulder, and chest began or ended. It had coiled itself tight enough that some of its flesh now combined with separate sections of its body. His hand pressed to its bark-like shell with caution. It had no reaction, possibly too focused on its prayer or in too much pain to respond. It smelled syrup sweet, and with closer inspection, HABIT found why.
Supposedly, it had a second arm at some point and another half of its featureless face. In its place were dripping wet patches of dark sap, which flowed down its soft underbelly and pooled at the ground beneath it. HABIT touched the injured part of its face, and it flinched. He felt the sticky substance between his fingers. When he looked back, it had turned to peer at him with no eyes.
Whispers of every language and voice HABIT had ever spoken entered his head. His pain slowly returned to the front of his brain and ligaments. And as the soft voices got louder and louder, vines and branches wrapped tightly around HABIT's arms and legs. Not out of aggression, but desperation. He knew the feeling because it was now his. A conglomerate of feelings that didn't belong to him racked through his body. Fear, despair, anger, confusion, and a terrible, terrible sadness.
HABIT cried out, "Stop!" He fought to tear his head away from the vines that started to engulf his neck and jaw. They clawed at his face, too agonized to let go. He couldn't hear anything beyond the begging and crying. He couldn't feel anything other than terror foreign to him. He was about to scream at it again before the warm, pale world went quiet. The branches had disappeared. He looked down at the crouched creature, with its head tucked tight once more.
"Find me," It whispered.
.𖥔 ݁ ˖ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ .𖥔 ݁ ˖
HABIT didn't even remember going to sleep, but by the time he jolted awake, it was terribly dark. The car's engine wasn't running. The skin of his face ached. When he reached to feel an ear, HABIT wasn't able to tell if they existed. It was difficult to check his hands for discoloration, but he shrugged off hypothermia when he figured he could bend his fingers far enough.
While HABIT fought with his jacket sleeve to squint at his watch, his breath went white. His eyes then bugged. Ten minutes past two in the morning. He had been asleep for nine hours. He whipped around to check the backseat.
Sticks was gone.
HABIT's legs almost buckled entirely into the snow when he leapt out of the car. His neck hurt from how hard he threw his head around the maintenance road and its accompanying forest. It was unrecognizable with how much snow had fallen. "Shit." A hand flew to his forehead. Why would it wander off? Why would it wander off? His eyes scanned the ground for prints. Prints that belonged to Sticks or otherwise. If it was taken then he was next. He would surely be next.
A whine built in his throat. His boot shifted toward the expanse of the road. HABIT's eyes shifted from left to right, until he realized that he should be looking up and down as well. He listened to the crisp air for any lick of sound. He did jump, hand to his chest, when a distant owl shrieked.
That annoyed him enough to finally call out, "Sticks!" His voice echoed around the woods.
A sharp, clear whistle came from the opposite side of the car. If he strained to look, he could see Sticks' tall, dark figure standing at the edge of the woods. Seeing those dark glasses let his breath finally cloud the air again.
He trudged through the snow to its side, and kicked its leg, which it allowed. It only wrinkled its nose at him, but didn't say anything. "Let me know before you wander off again," HABIT muttered. "What are you doing out here? It's freezing. Your face is red."
"Looking." It slipped its glasses off. "There are lights there."
"Your magic powers tell you that?" A gloved hand gracefully slapped the back of his head. HABIT rubbed at the sting, pouting.
"Does that mean people are there?"
"Only security, but they shouldn't be too hard to navigate around. Ya know, in the cold, skin is a lot more sensitive." He continued to hold his ache.
"Risk of weapons?"
"It's the United States of America. In wartime. What do you think?" A laugh escaped him. "Not to mention they're guarding a lot of heavy equipment."
"Such as?"
"Fighter planes, bomber planes-"
"Bombs?" It slanted at the mention.
"Explosives?"
HABIT watched it stiffen and take a step backward. Its face contorted. It held its glasses in two hands, its posture was tight, and the nose it had held high for two nights was tucked toward its chest. "I hate this place…"
He flicked his eyes to the field, then back at Sticks. The parasite wasn't known for his emotional adeptness, but something about Sticks' response wasn't a simple remark, despite its vagueness. He chuckled to lighten the mood, "Yeah, humans are scum."
"Some are."
"Oh," He scoffed. "You don't know them like I do."
"On the contrary," It muttered. "How do we get in?" It slipped its glasses back on.
"Really?" He backpedaled the conversation. "How could you possibly know that? I haven't seen a single one do something that wasn't for themselves."
It turned its head only slightly to look down at him. "HABIT. How do we get in?" It asked slower. When HABIT opened his mouth to keep arguing, it just raised its brows at him.
He scowled. "When am I allowed to ask questions about you?"
"When I know you won't abuse the answers."
HABIT rolled his eyes. "We hop the fence. Use the cover of night to round buildings. Avoid the lights, avoid any guards. If either of us are seen, we run to hide. Our goal is to collect supplies and to sneak onto a transport aircraft." A hand went to his chest. "I'll do the selection. Now, if this works, and we aren't dead by the time the sun rises, we'll be on our way."
The first part of the plan went accordingly. HABIT hopped the fence, only slightly getting snagged on a few pieces of barbed wire (he untangled himself with a few whispered swears). Sticks skipped the fence altogether, and by the time HABIT landed on the other side, it was waiting there, hands in its coat pockets.
The second part was supposed to have gone just as well.
HABIT took up the front, his boots quiet against the pavement and snow. He kept his posture low and hands open, ready to grab and maim if needed. He only let his breathing enter and exit slow. Adjusted eyes scanned the shadows for movement. HABIT walked like this until he hid himself behind a warehouse. And Sticks was supposed to be right behind him.
"…Sticks?" He whispered, glancing between the fence and where he was standing. HABIT couldn't see too far, so he wasn't able to conclude much. He looked behind him just to make sure. It was nowhere to be seen. "Fuck," He hissed through his teeth. After some debate, a few anxious taps of a boot, and another string of swears, HABIT tucked his head down to start stalking back through his steps.
His hand met the fencing and he scanned the ground for its prints in the snow. It had stepped forward for a moment before it had turned around. Snow was packed down from a circle of confused steps before they simply disappeared. There were no prints of it ever leaving this spot, nor were there any coming to it. Did it leave him?
HABIT's eyes shot up when a light was cast on him. "Hey!" A guard shouted to him when he dashed into the dark for cover. He winced at the loud collision his back made with another hangar. The cold air hurt his lungs, but his body heaved for it. HABIT could hear the guards yelling to each other, a chain of voices confirming to search for a breach.
He peered over the edge of the wall. It would only be a matter of a few moments before a group of armed men were on top of him. But if he ran out into the clearing with the runways, that would make him an even easier shot. The base's buildings were out of reach. Did he go back over the fence? If he got snagged on the wire, he couldn't be caught for long. Men's voices were starting to line the warehouse. Time was almost up.
He looked up the wall to find a window.
Glass shattered and fell to the cement floor of the hangar, and HABIT's boots followed soon after. He slid under the fighter plane that sat asleep and quickly ducked in front of a large toolbox, opening up various drawers. Riveters, pneumatic chisels, hammers (a great second option), but he shoved them out of the way, uncovering a large, blue screwdriver. He ducked back to cover when the hangar doors started to slide open.
Two guards entered the hangar. They crept in while two lines of guards waited outside the walls. The monster they were after, sat cramped between the floor and the tail of the plane. He listened carefully. HABIT knew better than to charge the two boys when at least four other soldiers waited just outside the building. The buddy system was his least favorite procedure in modern warfare.
HABIT carefully squatted himself against the floor, using his hands to guide him forward in the dark, screwdriver between his teeth. One of the guards was rounding his side of the aircraft. He could see the mouth of the rifle in the moonlight. HABIT had to be quick and precise.
He rolled out his shoulder before taking the screwdriver from his mouth. Then he started to stand. Position himself correctly. If he didn't, if his throw was slightly miscalculated, death would come too easily. His arm went out and his body slanted. He waited for a face.
The boy holding the rifle tried to find eyes in the silhouette, stood completely still, and only then did he attempt to take aim. A human mistake. HABIT's arm exploded forward before the gun rose. The screwdriver flung through the air. The tip landed in the pocket at the top of the boy's sternum, and fought a terrible hole in the boy's jugular.
"Danny!" His buddy screamed, rushing back around the plane. A rookie. Danny was arched against the floor, choking and trying to gasp through the metal in his throat. Black was pooling around the boy's head. His rifle was missing.
The four other men entered the hangar, firearms drawn. Their eyes scanned the shadows for movement and they moved along the walls of the building. That made it easier for HABIT.
From under the tail of the plane, HABIT was tucked tight against it, the back of his neck against the aluminum. The mouth of the rifle hung low, the butt of it stuck hard in his shoulder. He had eight rounds to use.
Color flashed from the barrel after he raised it toward the two on his left side. The terrible sound reverberated in the steel building. He let out a breath, then turned quickly to find the men taking aim on his other side.
HABIT shook the sound from his ears as he stood. That was almost too easy. A bullet whizzed past his shoulder. He looked down the body of the aircraft to find Danny's rookie buddy standing over him, barrel aimed at HABIT. The boy was horribly frozen, eyes wide. HABIT could hear the rifle shaking in his hand. HABIT didn't think twice about firing another round between his eyes.
He clicked his tongue, stepping over bodies. It made HABIT sick how unprepared these kids were. He squatted down to look over the now clouded eyes of Danny. Removing Danny's cap, the boy came into his eighteen year old face. Maybe he was slightly older, or he could've been slightly younger. HABIT had heard stories of kids who had forged their age to 'fight the good fight'. Government-fabricated bullshit.
HABIT yanked the screwdriver out of his throat and wiped the blood with the bottom of his button-up shirt. He then raided the rookie's rifle for its clip, and it went to his back pocket. Before he left the hangar, rifle on his back, one other clip was also collected.
While Sticks was gone, the least HABIT could do was keep to his original plan. Collect supplies and find that aircraft he heard earlier, if it hopefully hadn't already taken off.
He kept a decent pace as he ran down the streets behind the hangars. Two story buildings slowly dragged past, until he took a sudden stop and redirected his dash. HABIT jumped the stairs to a base's administrative office, and stuck his back up against the wall. No later did a Jeep full of more military police pass on that road. Very possible that they heard the gunfire and were doing a further investigation. HABIT kicked himself. Six fresh dead bodies and he didn't clean up after himself. The base would be locked down, no doubt.
No matter, he slid from the building and continued running.
HABIT jumped the steps of a building with a steeple. A chapel was good for them. The purpose of a chapel was to create normalcy for the personnel on base. And with normalcy, came food. Inside, he shook off anymore broken glass that lingered on his coat. He took a deep, resting breath, the rifle now down to his side. When he made sure no one was about to come running out, he started digging through drawers.
Papers, notes, pictures, were all that he had found in most of the office spaces. He made sure to scribble a crude note or two on most of the desks. There were so many Bibles that he yanked some pages from. Most of the closets he opened up held a whole lot of nothing. One of the last closets he opened, had a man's dress uniform that hung, freshly dry cleaned and ready to be worn. A giggle left HABIT as he reached in to feel the fabric of the green coat. This was the first time he had ever seen the dress uniform for the newest branch of the United States military: First Air Force. He felt giddy.
Carefully, he pulled the hat that belonged to the uniform from the top shelf. The brim of it was so shiny and smooth. The insignia on the front was a freshly polished gold. HABIT licked at his teeth. "You're coming with me." And he put it on, the cap beautifully tight. He paused before exiting the office, making sure to take up the papers in the 'out' basket, and tossed them in the air.
Food was easy to find. Canned products were kept in a small kitchen area, along with something to open them. A bag to hold them, he located in the chapel itself.
He stared down the iconography of the pews, the podium, and the cross bearing a suffering Jesus, which hung from the ceiling. HABIT was stuck at the doors. The obstacle was purely the fault of the body, not his.
He took slow steps into the chapel, eyeing the crucifix. George Hayes was a Protestant Christian. A terribly religious Protestant Christian. The personal beliefs of the body affected his ability to act accordingly in certain settings. Thankfully, he had worn Hayes down enough that the subconscious of the body wouldn't react in certain situations, but his influence and patience only stretched so far. He had to be careful here. One domino could easily crash into the other.
He stood in front of the statue hanging from the ceiling. A slow breath left his nose. He could feel Hayes' nostalgia, memories, and promises mixing with his. He shook out his head before leaping the stairs of the pulpit. Behind the chapel was a small room used for preparations. It held robes, ropes, and things for rituals and such. HABIT opened up a closet and found an assortment of books and props for nativity scenes.
"A-ha!" He pulled out a duffel bag that was full of candles, golden table accessories, and small Bibles. The contents were quickly dumped to the floor. For a moment, he looked up. There was a small, baby blue Easter basket, half spilling out of the closet.
A flash of a toddling boy in a white, Easter outfit flew through his mind. The small boy held on tight to a baby blue Easter basket.
HABIT slammed the closet door shut. A shuddering breath left his body.
"Not mine," He whispered.
He decided to leave the chapel quickly after that. Cans of various food-stuffs were shoved into the duffel, along with a can-opener, a large flashlight, two thermoses that he filled with water, a couple of pens he stole from the offices, paper to scratch on when bored, and a second lighter (in case his ran out).
The front door clicked as he unlocked it, and he pulled his collar up higher once he stepped outside. The wind hard started to pick up again. Time to find that plane. But he skidded to a stop on the stairs.
That ringing in his ears and eyes had returned. It beckoned his head to turn toward the hangars he just come from. Was it there? Gunfire rung out in the near distance. Dread sunk in his chest.
Summary: HABIT, in the body of a flight technician, has to escort something with no name across the Atlantic Ocean into snowy war-torn Europe to locate a missing "personal asset".
Fandoms : Slender Man Mythos, Everyman HYBRID
Characters : HABIT & Slender Man, w/ Minor Original Characters
Relationships : HABIT/Slender Man
Tags : Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, World War II, Period-Typical Racism, Canon Related, Canon-Typical Violence, Forced Proximity, First Meetings, Hate to Love, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Past Trauma, Major Character Injury, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Slender Man is a Woman, It/Its Pronouns and She/Her Pronouns for Slender Man, Slender Man is Blind, Slender Man Has a Human Form, HABIT Has a Different Vessel
Chapter Four : Point of Reference
Word Count : 3.1K : Reading Time : 15 Minutes
"Oh, don't make me do this any longer," Sticks practically whined.
"We just started!" HABIT laughed from the driver's seat, briefly glancing to the passenger's seat of their stolen car. Its gloved hand was clawing into the leather interior and for some reason, it wouldn't stop flipping itself around in place. It was already almost too big for the vehicle and this strange behavior was not helping. It was acting like a cat caught in a box.
"Sit. Down!" HABIT grabbed it by the coat, his pull accentuated by his words.
"The world is spinning, stop this blasted thing." It sank lower in the seat, and a large wingtip shoe pushed against the dash.
"You were spinning. I imagine there's some sort of correlation."
"How much longer?" The question was a jab.
"Two hours."
"I refuse." It went to open the door.
"Hey!" HABIT grabbed the collar of its suit jacket, his eyes quickly jumping between Sticks and the road. "You can't jump out of a car going forty miles an hour! Do you want to get to Mitchel Field or not?"
This situation, the two zipping through the New Jersey woods in a stolen 1936 Cadillac, was all to blame (at least HABIT believed so) on Alexander Nikolas. An earlier conversation with the kid had revealed that Mitchel Field would be their way out. Although, why they were taking the word of a snot-nosed brat was beyond him.
That morning was ordinary for Alexander Nikolas. He had a dorm all to himself on the military base, and he was allowed to wake up slowly. He didn't have to go onto the runway for another couple of hours. The boy did work until after midnight, after all. No, the late morning was all his, and he was allowed to use it to think of anything other than the tragedy of yesterday or tragedies otherwise.
Alexander Nikolas didn't enjoy the straight concept of the war. His older brother had been sent off to provide aid in France, and his family soon after received two officials at the front door. Their caps were in hand with bowed heads earlier in the month, announcing that his brother was missing in action. Despite the devastating news, the young man was here, working. The most that Alexander could do in the meantime was keep working. Gift his parents some peace of mind after losing their golden and oldest child. At least he felt useful, in that sense.
He was small and suffered a minor spinal injury early in life, but that made him perfect for crawling around inside of plane bodies. Like a Jack Russell in a tunnel. Nikolas found that he was efficient, quick on his feet, and he did indeed look handsome in uniform. He's never felt this capable before, nor did he believe that there would be many opportunities outside of this moment of his life. But maybe that was just his self-esteem. It had always been low.
Routine kicked off as usual: brushing his teeth, showering, tea with a leftover pastie, and he had picked up his father's habit of reading the newspaper before the start of the day. He took great care to slip into his technician's garb, pulling a thick jacket with furred lining over that, and soon, he was out the door to catch the bus onto the flight line. At least, that would be where he would've gone if his collar wasn't caught as soon as he passed the threshold of the door.
George Hayes was walking him backward, with a sickening grin on his face that make Nikolas' heart drop. "Hey, buddy." The man kicked the door shut.
"Hayes-" The boy's boot tripped over the carpet, making his pace stutter. But the officer tutted in his face.
"How about I do the talking? Alright? Sit." He shoved Nikolas back onto his cot. Hayes suddenly became agitated, whipping around to gnash his teeth at a man Nikolas hadn't even realized was in the room. "I'll do as I damn well please. You want information, I'll get you information. So, shut up." He seemed to reply, even though the tall man in the suit had not uttered a word.
Nikolas tried to ease his breathing. "What- What's happening?" A hand that smelled of copper pressed to his mouth, and Hayes gently shushed him, the man's face uncomfortably close to his.
"Don't try to be brave. Okay? I want information about planes coming from Europe. What kinds, what they're carrying, and where they are."
"Why- Why would I know that?!" The boy's eyes were wide.
"That's the fun," Hayes laughed, seemingly overjoyed that Nikolas' face was growing pale. "There is no world where you would, and I didn't expect you to. But you better start giving me something if you want to keep all your fingers." Nikolas glanced at the unspoken man. The man in the suit looked… sad. Like he took pity on Nikolas. On the situation. Hayes snapped his fingers at him. "Don't look at him. Look at me."
Nikolas wasn't sure what to make of Hayes' crazed and exhausted eyes. When was the last he slept? Was he sick? Hayes was happy once, from what Nikolas could remember of the man from the summer. Happy in a human way. An adjusted adult to the boy's twenty-year-old life. He tightened his grip on the stolen flight jacket Hayes' wore so proudly.
"Are you going to kill me? Like you killed Stickers?" Nikolas stiffened his quivering lip. "Right, George?"
"And it's gonna be fun."
A hand started to creep on top of the boy's neck, but it didn't even get a chance to tighten before it went limp. Hayes' eyes were wide, jaw starting to slack as well. "Oh, that's not fair," He muttered before his whole body slanted, his eyes rolled back, and he fell to the ground.
Nikolas looked up to see the tall man coughing into a handkerchief. Nikolas stared, quickly pulling his knees to his chest. "Is he dead?" He asked softly.
The tall man clicked his tongue, then started to amble to the short coatrack Nikolas owned. "No. Only asleep." He placed his hat on the stand after a few tries, as if he couldn't really articulate where the hook was. A shuddering breath from Hayes supported his claim. "Come to me, Alexander."
"…How do you know my name?"
"He told me," The tall man gestured to the crumpled form on the floor. Hayes gave violent twitch. "You seem like a nice boy. Help me with my coat." He turned back toward the coatrack.
"What do you want?"
He paused, one glove off, the other halfway past his palm. His head turned and Nikolas could see one dark hazel eye, clouded at the center, through the gap in his glasses. "Tell me about your brother."
Now, Nikolas would consider himself a sensible person, timid and a little like a mouse at times, but this man had a strange presence. Like he'd known him since he was a child. Maybe he had, even though he's never seen such a person before. And it was a person of some kind that Nikolas couldn't strictly classify as a man because they were gentle, spoke like his mother, and they cared enough for Hayes to toss their coat over his sleeping form.
Not that a man couldn't be gentle, but Nikolas wasn't very familiar with the type. That must've been what it was. And no ordinary man would sit down and wait for Nikolas to fulfill a request to hear about an older brother Nikolas didn't remember mentioning to anyone. His family's grief was theirs and theirs alone. And it wouldn't help any to leave his sorrow or regret on anyone else's mind. But they… asked.
The two of them sat across from each other, Nikolas on the two-seated sofa, and the stranger on the short coffee table. He took his time to remember his brother's face, which was freckled like his, and clipped hair, which they shared in gold happening. His hands were what he missed the most. They also shared the same tinkering itch, but his brother favored wood while him, machines. His eyes fell on a coaster with a block pattern to the stranger's right.
"His name is Patrick. We call him Patty. He left for the front in France a few months ago, from his post in Iceland. He volunteered to. But he was declared M.I.A in November, which we only heard the first week of December." His hand wiped under his nose. "How did you know about him?"
"Why do you think he volunteered to leave?" They did not answer.
"Because… he's brave?" Nikolas sniffled. "And he knew he could help."
"You look up to him?"
"Didn't really have a choice." He laughed through watering eyes. "He's seven years older than me. He's always been so strong. I can't imagine him… not being that." Nikolas crossed his arms over himself. "God, he must've been so scared," He whispered to himself.
"I can imagine your brother was scared leaving for Iceland."
"I doubt it. He's flown from Mitchel Field dozens of times. I would always go with to drop him off. He was never scared. Just seemed excited to go to a new place. They loved him there." He wiped an eye with the heel of his palm. "Must be why everyone let him go in the first place…" The strange viciousness in the boy's otherwise sweet tone made the person in the suit lean in close. "Sorry." He tried to make his tears disappear.
They didn't offer anything to say, nor change their expression in any sort of reassuring manner. At least, not initially. The dark sunglasses were slipped off with a graceful hand, and they looked back up toward the boy as they folded the frames. Nikolas flinched away at the eye contact. Not because he was scared, but he was embarrassed.
His uncle had a lazy eye like the one on their right side, and his mother taught him not to stare. It was rude. And if anyone didn't need to become more aware of a flaw they knew existed, it was a stranger he had never met. But they touched their fingertips to his chin, slowly guiding him back to their face.
They were aged, made clear by the smile-lines and crows-feet etched into their tanned skin. A sunspot was just starting to bloom on their forehead, underneath tussled black hair. Nikolas wasn't sure what to make of their large eyes, centers barely encasing terrible cataracts. He didn't really feel any sort of way about it, actually. It just was.
Somehow they conveyed an expression, on a mostly blank face, that made the boy relax. And his sudden rage dimmed. It wasn't gone, it would surely return, but he felt a sense of calm for the moment.
They touched a hand to his arm before standing, and put the sunglasses back in place to shield their eyes. "Go ahead and proceed with your day. I will make sure Mr. Hayes does not disrupt you again."
Nikolas turned in his seat, glancing at the man still passed out on the hardwood floor. "Why does he want me dead?"
They pulled their suit jacket taut at the hem and sleeve, and took care to dust out any imperfections in the dress pants. "Because he believes it will help."
"Help with what?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all. Whatever he believes is beyond me."
"Do you know why he's so different? In July, he was… normal."
They gave a look that Nikolas could read, even between dark glass. His head ducked. "Sorry."
They sighed. "People will change. They're people. Doesn't mean that it's right or wrong. It just is."
The boy sat with the words before repeating a few of the phrases under his own breath. Like confirmation. Nikolas then hesitated. "Are you a person?"
It was slightly taken aback by the question. "Don't toe the line of things you shouldn't know. That makes me a danger to you." It shook its head.
.𖥔 ݁ ˖ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ .𖥔 ݁ ˖
HABIT woke with a startle, eyes wide, and he flipped onto his hands and knees, hard enough to make the room shake at floor-level. His eyes snapped up to the two-seat sofa when Sticks spoke, "I can't have you attacking children in my presence."
"Did-?! Wha-?!"
"If you're going to speak, at least say something. This," It vaguely gestured, "makes the air heavy."
HABIT's boots knocked around on the floor before he shoved himself into Sticks' personal space. It leant its head back when he only breathed, and his eyes shot daggers through his brows. His nose and lip curled and the only thing he could really muster was a snap at its chin.
"If you need to alleviate yourself, then go outside."
"Take it off." HABIT was very grave.
"Referring to?"
"This!" HABIT craned his neck and pointed to the circle and cross branded into it. He began to scratch at it. "O Gods, Stars, the Heavens and the Earth, just take it off!" The parasite at this point had thrown himself down against the floor, trying to rub the burn off with the decorative rug. "I am not a pet that you can pull party tricks on! I know exactly what you are and you are not that impressive! I'm gonna make you take this collar off one way or another!"
It could only listen with a disgusted look as HABIT hurled himself around the boy's dorm room, knocking into various things, as if his vessel was attacking him. Seemed as though the tantrum the parasite had last night didn't end, it had only stalled. And with a sickening ferocity, it resumed.
So, it sat there with an ankle crossed onto its knee, boring itself by tracing a manicured nail against the grain of the sofa while it listened to HABIT curse, spit, and bellyache into the afternoon. Surprisingly, for a human body that had only procured less than an hour of sleep, HABIT was expending a lot of energy.
At some point, a knife appeared in his hand from the boy's kitchen. HABIT locked his gaze on the back of Sticks' head, across the small apartment space. His arm arched backward, but stalled when attempting to throw forward. Frozen again.
At the lack of movement, Sticks decided to speak again. "Mitchel Field. That is where we need to go." It turned its head at the sound of the blade and the body dropping to the floor. "Find it within yourself to behave."
"Behave like what?" HABIT asked slowly.
"You are in a man's body. It's disrespectful to that man to not act accordingly."
HABIT let out a short scoff. "If we're talking about respect, then I have a few choice words for you."
"Then use your words. Your weapons will fail you. And once we can have that conversation, then I will consider respecting you. " It faced forward again. "But for now, I will tell you that we need to go to Mitchel Field."
"Where's the kid?" HABIT finally looked around.
"I sent him on his way."
HABIT scowled. "…What's at Mitchel Air Field?"
"That boy explained that we can leave from there. If we can manage to set off, then we start our journey East."
"We're taking the word of some kid you've never met?"
"I am. And you will follow me."
"You're really making me do this?"
"There is no way around it."
HABIT's face only slightly contorted, potentially too exhausted to fight any harder. "New York, huh? Well, I haven't been there in a while." He kicked the knife away from him. "But, that means that I'm gonna have to borrow a car. If that's alright with you, Your Majesty?" HABIT sneered, terribly sarcastic.
"I don't care what you must do, just do it."
.𖥔 ݁ ˖ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ .𖥔 ݁ ˖
HABIT leaned up against the car, arms crossed. He watched the thing lay in the snow blanketing the ditch on the side of the road, of which they had only spent fifteen minutes on. He would've been laughing if he wasn't wearing its bile. His jacket was also in the snow, halfway covered from HABIT's attempt to scrub the sick off of it. Not that he didn't appreciate the humor of the situation, but HABIT wasn't the biggest fan of being thrown up on.
"You ready?" He grabbed the bomber jacket, shaking the snow off.
"Spinning," It breathed.
"Yeah, we're not walking." His back hit the vehicle, clearly annoyed when it only curled up on itself. "I have no issue leaving you here!" HABIT glanced it over for a reaction. "I'll go back home!" Nothing. Either because it decided he didn't need to be answered, or it just couldn't.
HABIT sighed, the back of his head hitting the shell of the car. "Okay." He drew a hand across his running nose from the biting cold. "Fuck it." He threw his jacket on the ground to grab at its arm, starting to pull its knees from its chest. "Come on!" Only when he started dragging it toward the car, did it give any tell that it was responsive, because it bit him.
Needle point teeth sank through the fabric of HABIT's sleeve, piercing the skin underneath. Naturally, he recoiled. HABIT held his wrist, and watched the white of his shirt bleed red. He was more shocked than anything. Sticks' lip was raised in a snarl that was accenting too many sharp teeth to count. Even worse, its eyes had disappeared, as though eyes never existed there in the first place. Then it relaxed, and fell back into whatever illusion kept its appearance so human.
And then it remembered itself. Sticks abruptly disappeared from sight, only to be stood beside the car when HABIT whipped his head around. It then vanished again inside a blink and had took up the backseat of the vehicle. HABIT picked up his coat again and secured his strut of victory to the driver's side.
"So, let me get this straight." He closed the car door and made sure to smirk around at the thing laying on its back. It fidgeted with the rim of its hat, knees hiked up terribly.
"Don't."
"Oh, don't be so embarrassed. It's only natural," HABIT cooed. "I'm actually impressed. That's a good pair of gnashers you have."
An exhausted breath left its body as it sunk its hat over its face. "Don't speak to me until we arrive."
HABIT popped a cigarette in his mouth, the engine remained still until it was lit. "Gladly." The car accelerated for only a second before he stopped it again. "When we stop, you're cleaning my jacket."
It detached its startled claw from the head of the seat. "Do that again and we will never leave."
When the car finally pulled off the curb, snow had started to flake from their place in the clouds. From how dark the sky appeared, seemed as though the snow had only begun, and it wasn't going to stop anytime soon.
Summary: HABIT, in the body of a flight technician, has to escort something with no name across the Atlantic Ocean into snowy war-torn Europe to locate a missing "personal asset".
Fandoms : Slender Man Mythos, Everyman HYBRID
Characters : HABIT & Slender Man, w/ Minor Original Characters
Relationships : HABIT/Slender Man
Tags : Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, World War II, Period-Typical Racism, Canon Related, Canon-Typical Violence, Forced Proximity, First Meetings, Hate to Love, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Past Trauma, Major Character Injury, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Slender Man is a Woman, It/Its Pronouns and She/Her Pronouns for Slender Man, Slender Man is Blind, Slender Man Has a Human Form, HABIT Has a Different Vessel
Chapter Three : Stick in the Mud
Word Count : 3.4K Reading Time : 17 Minutes
That morning was drab by comparison. HABIT stayed up the rest of the night, even when the thing disappeared. He felt disturbed. It had waltzed into his life, effectively twisted HABIT's arm, and fucked off. Disappeared into the various dark corners of the house to watch and wait. It was laughing at him. It had to be. No matter what card HABIT would pull from his bag of tricks (of which had worked in the past), it anticipated them and shut them down effortlessly. No amount of annoying questions, mind games, or violence was getting through to it.
Eventually, he found himself trudging down the basement stairs and he pulled the light on. Everything down here had remained unchanged, for the most part.
He stood in front of the pole he had tied the man to, who was now scraps. And his head was still bitten off. HABIT twirled the twine from his victim's wrists around his fingers, then he unwrapped them, so that he could only do it again. HABIT stared into nothing as he did this.
There was some sort of ball growing in his gut that he could only akin to claustrophobia. He had once, and only once, experienced the feeling before, when he had lodged a vessel of his into a hole in the ground. Being upside down for that long made him adverse to jumping into anymore crawlspaces after that.
He pulled the light again.
HABIT laid back on the cold concrete. If he tried, he could almost imagine the vision the thing gave of the stars, the roots of universes colliding, and the colors of some sort of unexplainable space dust. Such a beautiful sight given from such a self-satisfying and egocentric beggar. He bit the twine, repressing a snarl. Oh, how he hated that thing.
And he could hate it as much as he wanted, but he couldn't do anything about it.
"What do you think I should do?" He turned his gaze past his legs, toward the headless and meatless corpse. "This mess just feels completely… arbitrary. I'm not some sucker for it to tug around. I'm not a fan of being snuck up on either. If it were up to me—because it is—I would stay right here." The topless neck didn't make any objection or agreement. HABIT didn't expect it to. "I would stay right here in New Jersey. In the middle of a war. Doing… nothing."
He sat up, lips jutted out. HABIT stared at the headless man. The cut wasn't clean, there were serrated edges and tears in whatever flesh remained. His face deepened in a scowl as if the body was explaining something that he didn't want to hear. HABIT laid back and threw the string to flail with little sense of direction.
Once he left the basement, he sat at the kitchen table. HABIT let a deep sigh leave his nose, and his chin met the edge of the table. The vessel's eyes darted around the corners of the dining room. The floor was lined with mess, and the wallpaper was decorated with claw marks. HABIT wasn't usually such an untidy and unruly character. Despite his destructive nature, the places he called home were well-kept and reflected his satisfaction.
HABIT cursed under his breath and looked away. He glanced to the living room to find that the thing had returned, and sat on his floor, back straight, hands folded in its lap, sunglasses staring at the wall. It looked just as miserable as him. HABIT sighed. "Hungry?" He caught its attention.
.𖥔 ݁ ˖ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ .𖥔 ݁ ˖
The two of them walked three or so blocks to a local restaurant that Hayes frequented, even after his personality shifted. The sun was rising over the trees in the distance, the snow and wind had stopped. Now the fresh snow on the ground was being carted away by plows and early rising neighbors with a score to settle with a shovel. The parasite frequently glanced over his shoulder. He hated being walked behind.
HABIT sat in a booth, watching it cautiously grab the ledge of the table and ease itself across from him. He only raised a brow before grabbing a Camel from the box in his pocket, just as it placed its hat down. His lighter clicked a few times before flame jumped out. "Alright." HABIT inhaled smoke. "What are the details on this?"
"I explained all that you need to know."
He blinked at it. "What am I taking you across the Atlantic for? What's so important? You wanna… piss somebody else off in a different country?"
"At this rate, you won't hear anything else about it."
HABIT scowled before puffing more smoke. "Fine. That's fine with me. We'll end up on a dock in Europe, your mark will be removed, I get my reward, and then it's 'see ya'."
"No." It started. "One, you are here for navigation and safety. I would not have selected you if I didn't think you suitable."
"Charmed."
"Two, there will be no water."
HABIT sat across from it, staring, with his tongue dancing around in his mouth. "What?"
"No boat."
"I heard what you said. What?" It sat back and crossed its arms. "Wha- How am I going to get you across an ocean if you refuse to be in a boat?"
"Figure it out."
"You figure it out!"
"Watch your tone."
HABIT wore a thin-lipped grin, "I like my tone."
"Beast."
"Bastard."
The two were about at the point where they were about to leap over the table at each other. HABIT's teeth clicked at its curved nose, which it cringed at. They leaned apart when a waitress with a yellow apron placed down water and menus between the two of them. "Good to see you again, Mr. Hayes. The usual?"
"Yes, ma'am." HABIT made sure to flash a smile and quickly put out his cigarette at the table's ashtray. "And let me say, you are looking terribly beautiful today."
The waitress tucked a stray piece of brown hair behind her ear, a bashful smile meeting the floor. "Oh, thanks. You're just saying that."
"Sincerely, Ms. Emile." HABIT resisted yelling out in dull pain when he was kicked under the table. The thing shot him a glare through its sunglasses.
"And what about your friend?" Emile asked, but not without caution, glancing between the two of them.
It gave a smile that looked scarily natural. "I'll be a moment, Emile. If you don't mind."
"Um, no, not at all. I'll come back." She tucked her notepad into her apron before quickly stepping to another table to check in on. HABIT watched her leave, and came back to his company, finding it scowling at him.
"You're disgusting."
"The hell are you talking about?" The parasite flinched back when a gloved finger tapped against his forehead, and then dodged HABIT trying to grab its arm. "Stop touching me!"
"I can hear what you're thinking about that poor girl."
"Then stop listening. And shut up. Why do you care anyway?"
"Because hearing about your wolfish activities is ruining my morning."
"You're ruining my morning. And stop listening to my thoughts. It's invasive."
It refrained from commenting on the irony. Instead it only scowled when HABIT continued.
"Aren't things like you supposed to, I don't know, encourage 'wolfish activities'? At the very least, not care? What I find fun doesn't concern you whatsoever. You can start worrying when I want to go from a 'fun' activity to a gratifying one. So, keep that giant nose out of my brain." HABIT watched that same nose lift into the air, nostrils flared. "Stick in the mud," The parasite grumbled to himself, eyes catching another waiter, a heavy set man, speaking in Emile's ear. The girl was motioning to their table. HABIT's brows furrowed, then glanced at 'Stick in the Mud' with suspicion. The man took a cup from Emile and gave her a reassuring pat.
The other waiter approached their table, placing a steaming cup of tea in front of HABIT. The waiter nervously ran a waist-towel over his hands. He looked like he wanted to say something to the two of them, but only turned on his heel and left after HABIT raised a brow at him.
HABIT sipped his mint tea and when he glanced back across, the tea had somehow duplicated, the extra now in the thing's glove. His mouth hung open as it took a soft sip and hummed in vague acknowledgement. HABIT was having a tough time trying to keep track of the list in his head.
Teleportation. Telepathic. Some sort of trans-figurative ability, keeping in assumption that it caused that damage to the aircraft. And now, it could apparently conjure things at will.
"The thing I can't understand is why you're so desperate for my help in the first place. You seem plenty capable." HABIT swirled his drink.
It sighed, clearly exhausted. "Navigation and safety. As I have stated before. I am capable, but only in situations that aren't this one."
"Well, why not?"
It only curled its lip in disgust, sipping its tea to cool its nerve. HABIT logged the reaction to memory before continuing to pester.
"You can teleport. Just… pop over to where you need to be."
"…Teleport?" It droned as if it were offended by the remark.
"Being in one place and then suddenly appearing in another."
"Yes, I know what it means," It snapped. "I don't do that, I don't teleport." The scoff that HABIT gave apparently pissed it off enough to explain.
It took a sip of its tea before placing the ceramic mug on the table in front of HABIT. It openly gestured to it.
"…What?" HABIT raised his hands.
"Is this moving?"
"No."
"Incorrect."
"Oh, shut up." HABIT closed his mouth when a finger rose to silence him.
It then pointed to the mug. "This is always moving. There's always a path that it's going to go in, sooner or later. For example, move it over here." It slammed its pointing finger to the table beside the mug. HABIT stared up at it, watching it wait patiently.
"Are you serious?"
"Move it," It ordered.
HABIT slammed the mug into the table, then pouted and crossed his arms. His glare widened when it clicked its tongue, tutting him. "What? The fuck do you want me to do?"
"Too slow."
"Excuse me?"
"Why would I waste all that time simply moving an object to where I want it to be?" HABIT's brow furrowed. "Pick it up. Quickly." HABIT almost toppled with how fast he went to grab at nothing. He caught air. HABIT spun his head around, finding the mug at the table behind him. He whipped around to grab at the next booth, and once again, he grabbed nothing.
He then remembered where and who he was, and he slipped back into his seat. A deep scowl set in his jaw. It held the mug again.
"Instead of waiting to be served, why could I not reach into the time where I was before you?" It gestured between HABIT's mug and the one it gently placed back down in front of him. Only now did HABIT realize that the two mugs had the same chip on the lip. "Or other times where instead of mint, I receive green tea, or black tea, or ginger tea, or espresso?" HABIT watched the drink in the mug change as it rotated a hand through its hypothetical.
"But, I think I'll keep the mint tea for now. It's very soothing." It took another sip of the tea, now returned to its original making. "Especially when I'm irritated."
"I don't think that answers my question."
"No, I guess it doesn't."
HABIT's plate of hash slid in front of his blank stare. He picked up a fork and stabbed at the spam, being sure to maintain hard eye contact with the black glasses across from him. That only broke when he noticed the waiter still standing at the lip of their booth. HABIT slowly turned his head, very aware that he looked like a feral animal hunched over a month-awaited meal. "What?"
The waiter seemed very interested in Officer George Hayes' new companion. "Who gave you the drink?" He asked it.
"Well, that's not an introduction. That's rude. Mind your manners." HABIT hit the back of his hand against the man's arm. "Try that again." He went to take another bite of food, but when the waiter didn't utter a word, he dropped his fork against the plate, almost to get the entire attention of the diner. Then he stood from the booth. "I gotta do everything," He muttered.
"This is Paul!" HABIT grabbed the waiter around the shoulders, tapping on his name tag. "Introduce yourself, Paul. This is… Sticks. My friend Sticks. A good friend of mine. Now, this is the part where you shake his hand." HABIT's fist gathered around Paul's wrist, forcing the man to extend out toward it.
It only raised its brows in amusement and very gently put its gloved hand in Paul's. "Salam," It said simply, placing its other hand over its chest.
"What does that mean?" Paul glanced at HABIT.
"Well, what are you supposed to say when you meet someone new? Go on. Say, 'it's nice to meet you'. Don't be shy. He doesn't bite."
After he looked between it and HABIT, Paul ultimately decided that this strange man was the less threatening one in this situation. "It's nice to meet you…" The two shook hands briefly.
"There we go! See, that wasn't so bad." HABIT gave him a pat on the shoulder before grabbing Paul by the back of the neck. "Now, with formalities out of the way, what did you need so terribly?" HABIT was so close he could see the beads of sweat that started to form just below Paul's hairline.
The man stammered and stuttered through his sentence, muttering about a cup of something, to which it only tilted its head. "A cup?" And when Paul went to point in front of it, the vinyl on the table was the only thing he gestured toward.
His eyes bugged. "There- There was a mug there."
"Alright, Paul. I think you need to sit down for a while." HABIT suggested him away from the table, but Paul stood his ground.
"Hang on a second. You, stand up." He talked over HABIT's head, pointing at its curved nose.
"Paul," HABIT warned.
"I'm just checking."
Paul went to take a step past HABIT, but a hand caught his shoulder. "All this over a cup of tea?"
"It's stolen."
"There's nothing there."
"I swear, I saw what I saw, Hayes." All anger left Paul's face and was then flooded with dread when it stood; because Paul wasn't present for the moment when it barely cleared the door on the way in. Its long face was easily cast into shadow as it looked down at Paul, leaving only the tip of its nose, and the shine of glass strikingly visible in whatever light remained. It touched the mug to Paul's hand.
It spoke slow and soft, so quietly that the tone hung in ears, "You did see what you saw, you are observant. Mr. Hayes saw that I had no drink, so he gave me half of his. Apologies for the inconvenience, but I am not used to the climate. It is very cold. Don't you think so?"
"Um-" Paul's voice caught in his throat.
"It's very cold, Paul," HABIT assured.
"So, take it from me. And I will leave."
"Hold on-" HABIT started but shut up when it raised a hand.
"Deny me," It told Paul.
Paul's brows furrowed at the strange verbiage. "Is that some kind of threat?" His sharp question was dulled by his crumbling posture.
"No." It was sincere.
Paul glanced between its passive expression and HABIT's intense stare. HABIT now had him by the collar, nose only a inch or so from his. "Mr. Hayes," It said gently, like a reminder. HABIT growled and let the man go, but circled Paul before he landed by its side. One final vague threat. The waiter took the mug from it.
It then grabbed its hat from the booth and started heading for the entrance, hands in its coat. HABIT's eyes lingered on the patrons of the restaurant and the staff, eyes resting on Paul. The waiter's eyes quickly averted to the floor. HABIT's lip curled, ready to declare something. Anything that would be more meaningful than a mug half-empty with watered-down mint tea. But it waited at the door, "Mr. Hayes."
HABIT grabbed the plate of hash, "I'm taking this," He announced as he joined it. "You guys have an extra mug now anyway!" He opened the door with his back.
The sunshine from the walk in had only lasted that long. Clouds now covered the sky that overlooked the downtown curb the two sat on, possibly filled with more snow. It let HABIT finish his breakfast there, between two cars, so it didn't have to listen to him try to chew and walk at the same time. But that had backfired on it anyway, because now HABIT was trying to chew and talk, instead.
"You didn't have to step in, I was handling it."
"I didn't want to listen to you finish it. That was going to end terribly." It flinched when a car stormed past on the road.
"Humans need to get knocked around a few times to understand things. They kill themselves for stupider shit. A fight isn't a terrible way to end something like that."
"You weren't going to end it. You were only going to make the problem bigger. You weren't-" It flinched again when another car drove past. "You weren't helping. The only reason I stepped in is because I knew the quickest solution to the problem."
"You surrendered."
"It was a cup of tea."
"It wasn't just that! Food, drink, warmth, shelter, a better fuckin seat than a block of concrete. And we'll probably get screamed at again for loitering."
"Humans are very rigid in their rules."
"It's not a rule! It's ego. That's all it is. If humans can't get over themselves, then their whole damned race is doomed."
"If they're doomed, then I don't want to get caught in the middle of it. It's better to let them be."
"You do understand what just happened, right? They kicked us out over a drink."
"No, they kicked me out. You could've stayed."
"I didn't want to stay there anyway."
It sighed.
"It's better for an individual to stand down in the face of adversary. In a place with very little allies, an individual does not have the means to defend themself. It is-" It flinched from a passing car. "It is better this way."
"Who are you? Sun Tzu?" HABIT quipped through his last bite of breakfast.
HABIT slid the empty plate onto the snow-covered curb beside him. A car passed and it reacted again. An unsatisfied growl left his throat and he kicked some snow into the road. A hard cough came from deep in its chest, supposedly from the cold air, leaving it with a wheeze. A handkerchief was pulled from its coat pocket and it continued to cough into it. It looked pained. HABIT's nostrils flared.
"Can't you… get something else to drink?" HABIT pushed his mumble into his hand.
It could only answer when it pulled away from the handkerchief. "No." It cleared its throat. "That wouldn't be good."
"Well, why not?"
It didn't speak for a moment, folding up the cloth to tuck away in its pocket. Another car: Its shoulders jolted. The two monsters continued to sit on the curb, staring into nothing, and not really enjoying each others' company either. But the air wasn't tense, or terribly irritating. HABIT's scowl deepened as he realized him and it had found a place of common ground. To have something in common was as concrete as declaring ally-ship. At least HABIT believed that to be true.
"'Sticks'?" It broke their boring silence.
"What?"
"Why 'Sticks'?"
"Well, I gotta call you something. And it suits you." He stood and brushed off the lingering snow.
It looked up at him. "That's not a name."
"It is now." HABIT shoved his hands in his pockets, as the tips of his fingers started to sting. "Well! If we're gonna get you anywhere, then the most important part is: we start moving. Sticks in the mud don't tend to move themselves."
If its expression judged accurately, it was unamused by the pun.
"Even better, I know where to start." HABIT grinned.
Summary: HABIT, in the body of a flight technician, has to escort something with no name across the Atlantic Ocean into snowy war-torn Europe to locate a missing "personal asset".
Fandoms : Slender Man Mythos, Everyman HYBRID
Characters : HABIT & Slender Man, w/ Minor Original Characters
Relationships : HABIT/Slender Man
Tags : Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, World War II, Period-Typical Racism, Canon Related, Canon-Typical Violence, Forced Proximity, First Meetings, Hate to Love, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Past Trauma, Major Character Injury, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Slender Man is a Woman, It/Its Pronouns and She/Her Pronouns for Slender Man, Slender Man is Blind, Slender Man Has a Human Form, HABIT Has a Different Vessel
Chapter Two : The Tall Man Needs No Introduction
Word Count : 3.4K : Reading Time : 17 Minutes
It had refused to speak. Strike one. By default, it had refused to introduce and title itself. Strike two. What information HABIT did pick up on, such as it held its head high, mimicked human behavior to a terrifying degree, and it obviously expected something from him, rubbed him the wrong way. Strike three. There was no reason why HABIT wasn’t actively killing this thing. So why couldn’t he move?
It wasn’t complete immobility. It was more like moving his legs was a mental roadblock. Must’ve been one of this thing’s tricks. Along with zipping around and stealing HABIT’s things, debilitating fatigue was difficult to combat. Any attempt to move was immediately locked down. It made HABIT’s legs and arms ache. What did it want?
“I won’t attack you.” HABIT had to resist rolling his eyes. Something told him this thing wouldn’t necessarily appreciate his enthusiastic compliance. After a moment or two, the hold on his muscles relaxed. HABIT didn’t bother going back on his word. Especially when that hold could easily be put back in place. He just stared.
The way its hair was combed back, slick with oil, made HABIT start to wonder. How easily could it adapt to its environment? All men walked around with the same style dress, and this thing adapted to match the hair, the clothes, and the mannerisms perfectly.
Was it like him?
HABIT’s eyes narrowed, trying to mask his paranoia. “Who are you?” It was less of a question and more of a command. Its hand simply raised, extended toward the parasite, and motioned him forward. An uneasy growl left his throat.
“I will explain if you listen.” Its voice was rich, low, and smooth. It reminded HABIT of the men who introduced the jazz numbers on the radio. And its voice wasn’t just velvety, it was authoritative. HABIT knew the tone well. And he also knew that if he didn’t follow this thing’s instructions, his vessel could very well be smeared across the hardwood floor in three seconds, so he placed his wine glass down in the kitchen before he carefully paced himself forward.
The man in the dark suit and trench coat only slightly lifted its chin at his sluggish attempt of a brave approach. Standing before it, HABIT grimaced as he was looked over, judged, and objectified. It grabbed the vessel’s arm in a gloved hand, turning it over to further inspect before the parasite yanked out of its grasp, “Hey!” He held his wrist as if its touch wounded him. It ignored him. Instead, it craned its neck to the side, presumably just to commodify him more. HABIT could now see dark ink, ending in a swirled point, barely peeking out the collar of the finely starched shirt. This thing was getting more and more irritating by the second.
“What do you want?” HABIT tried to tilt himself away from the eyes glaring at him underneath dark sunglasses.
It just gave a dissatisfied hum. “You’ll have to do,” It muttered to itself. HABIT was having a difficult time placing its accent.
“‘Have to do-’ Have to do for what, exactly? Woah.” HABIT reeled himself backward as it stood, his eyes following his neck as he craned himself to look it in the face. As well as he could anyway. This thing must’ve had a foot on him, at least. He knew this body wasn’t the tallest, but this was ridiculous. The tilt in his neck mimicked the one that belonged to the ceiling. HABIT was so focused on the space between where its wingtips touched the floor and its well-combed hair, that he didn’t notice it toss its hat to the side and slide a leather glove off.
At first, HABIT felt it grab him. A firm, warm hold, but not desperate. He would’ve dealt with it, maybe complained about it suddenly holding his neck in a very intimate way, if a hard burn didn’t proceed directly after. HABIT leapt backward, hissing and spitting swears, holding his throat tightly. He looked up to see it reapplying a glove over a large, tan hand, with fine white scars extending outward over the back of its palm like plant roots. “I’ll kill you!” He struggled to articulate. As the last vowel left his shaped mouth, the thing watched HABIT’s eyes roll violently into the back of his head and all the fight leave his body, the vessel now crumpled to the floor. At which, it merely sat itself back down. It watched and waited.
The images that flashed through HABIT's mind were too fast to describe, but somehow, his feeble human brain was able to connect the disjointed pieces, even if that meant seizing on the floor. He would admit that this thing was amazing if he wasn’t so annoyed. The subconscious of HABIT’s host created a story that went like this:
Across fields, oceans, towns, and countries, there was something waiting for it. HABIT was to lead it from one place to the next, to the next, and to the next. The reward that awaited him wasn’t material, by any means, but it involved a power so rich and so beyond him that stars, galaxies, and floating swabs of color that could only be compared to amoebas flew through HABIT’s vision, as if created from nothing. Power.
Power…
HABIT woke up, refocusing on the ceiling. His hope of the strange man, their chase, the burn, and the vision being a fever dream faded quickly when the thing leaned into his line of sight, its judgemental stare unwavering. HABIT stared back, the ambient buzz of the living room accenting his confusion.
“That’s quite a handshake you got there,” He grumbled, a wave of nausea hitting him.
“Do you understand?” It asked coolly.
“Gimme a second…” HABIT stayed there on his back for another moment before quickly righting himself. The vertigo had left. “A guide? You gotta be kidding me.”
“I am not.”
HABIT wiped away a strand of tear that had fallen. He was now looking at his hand in disgust. “And there isn’t anyone else in this godforsaken place that can guide you?”
“A human cannot suit my needs.”
He chuckled. “What I am to you, then?”
It looked at HABIT like he was stupid. It arched a brow expertly. It then sighed. “I will phrase this in a way that your feeble, parasitic brain may be able to understand.” HABIT made sure to inject an offended scoff before it continued, “I am in the wrong place. You will escort me from this wrong place to the right place. That will not happen quickly if I have to replace humans that decide to die every leg of the journey.”
“Yeah, your Majesty, that’s impossible.” HABIT laid his arms against his knees. “If you don’t know, there’s a war on. No one can go anywhere other than where they are right now.”
It lifted its nose. “Then explain the point of raising an army to fight in a war on the other side of the planet.”
“Okay, not no one, but it’s still a bad idea to be traveling across country lines at the moment. Soldiers are the only people that can really travel,” HABIT strained as he got up off the floor.
“Is this body not one of a soldier or am I fool?” It cocked its head at him.
HABIT looked over how it was sitting, ankle hooked over its knee, head still raised high even while demanding him for help. His lip curled, “If you think you’re so clever, then get your ass across the ocean yourself, and out of my living room. And for your information, Officer George Hayes is a technician for the United States Marine Corp, not a foot soldier. I made sure he wasn't.”
"Makes sense, you don't seem like the fighting type."
HABIT's nostrils flared, top lip almost raised to show his teeth. "And I'm not the delivery type either."
It sat with this for a moment before a sigh left its nose. “And for your information, I don’t believe I’m clever, I am observant. Now, I do apologize for my intrusion on your miserable excuse for a stolen life, but my position has led me to you.”
“I hate things like you. Things like you are always dancing into lives, dismantling them slowly with no questions! I'm not helping you!”
“This is not a matter of will or will not.”
The lights throughout the house, and even the streetlight outside the window, shuddered. The house was vibrating under HABIT’s feet at the same rate that the self-monologue in his head was twisted, "I must comply. I must obey." HABIT’s hands clasped over his ears. The vibration of it manipulating his internal voice was maddening, HABIT felt like he was going to explode if it went on for too long. It was enough to bring him to his knees. Thankfully, its hold eased before the brain of his vessel leaked through the ears. HABIT still coughed. “Can you keep your hands off my brains? They’re the only ones I got.”
Its leather clad hands found the floor as it crawled itself into the parasite’s face, lip curled. “Escort me across this miserable planet, or so help me, I will find myself across this ocean, and then once everything is done, I will come back to find you, only to make you plead and beg for mercy at my feet. Beast,” It spat. HABIT stared into his reflection in its glasses, eyes only leaving when the scrape of its nails against the hardwood was deep enough to wiggle through its gloves. The sound made HABIT draw comparisons between it and the deep marks he saw in the plane body a few hours prior. His lip had raised to chuckle, but HABIT paused when he remembered how the plane looked after it decided to keep flying against this thing's wishes. So he held his tongue. Its gaze was unflinching.
Oh, it was serious.
His pride tasted of bile as he swallowed it down. “Fine,” He found himself muttering. It sat up, rage now alleviated. “But I’m not gonna be happy about this and I’m gonna make you're aware of that fact the entire time.” HABIT swiveled his head around after it disappeared again. He only blinked. He found it aimlessly adjusting HABIT’s forgotten wine glass on the kitchen counter.
“Whether you are happy about this or not doesn’t matter to me. I’m not particularly ecstatic to be stranded as you are not to be assisting me.” HABIT stood and dusted himself off, following the tall man to his kitchen.
“And what’s my payment for such services?” He mocked its manner of speaking, to which it only gave an eerie grin.
“I won’t kill you. How is that?”
HABIT’s mouth thinned. “Blunt.” He watched it swirl the red wine in the glass by the foot. HABIT held back a retch. It was as if it believed everything this thing touched was magically its own.
“Then how’s this? Where I have placed my hand upon you is now where my mark lies.”
HABIT’s eyes widened, then practically slapped his hand into his neck. Sure enough, the flesh was now raised in a burn. His mouth opened to stammer, but nothing would spit itself out.
“I own you. And this means a few things.” It picked up his wine glass, the heels of its wingtips tapping the kitchen tile as it started to circle him, “You will follow orders, on an instinctual level. You are not aware of this fact, but it has already taken effect. You cannot kill me, you cannot lie to me, and you cannot deceive me. I know every crevice of that sickened and disgusting bloodsucking mind of yours. I am inside of your head. If you don’t like me being there, then you will take me across this wretched planet as I have asked of you, and once you do that then my mark will be removed. Am I understood?”
It had circled itself in so tight that HABIT could smell the av-gas on it, leftover from the plane wreck that it caused. It took a sip of his wine. HABIT’s lip started to curl along with the bridge of his nose. “Yes.”
It sighed and backed itself up, dusting off the presence of HABIT from its trench coat. “Again, I apologize for the intrusion.” The thing slid HABIT’s glass back onto the counter where it started, appeared its hat into its hand to place over its dark hair, stepped out of HABIT’s vision, and then it vanished. He presumed it was just somewhere deeper in the house, waiting and watching. He opened his mouth to scream something at it, but when nothing would come out, he snapped the jaw of his vessel shut. What threat could possibly even be made at this point? The parasite had hardly gotten a word in before it wrapped him around its leather-clad finger.
HABIT turned on the faucet to start doing the dishes. He watched blood wash off the cutting board and vortex out of sight. He chewed on his vessel’s lip and leant over the rushing water. The green eyes of the body darted from one side of the sink to the other.
A growl left his throat that was supposed to come out as an annoyed question. What is that thing? He wrung out his mind for centuries of experience, for knowledge. HABIT knew of great things, but nothing that could adapt, speak, manipulate, and almost compromise. Not all at the same time. And nothing that was so pretentious as to not utter a title.
That was annoying him the most. It made sure to touch all of HABIT's things—it made sure to touch HABIT, burn him, and mark him as its own for fuck's sake—and it expected itself to remain nameless. If it were a god, then its inability to help itself was inexcusable. HABIT closed the tap hard enough to almost snap the knob off. Posing as a god was even worse. He started to pull the used knife off the counter, the plan he had for it growing more vivid in his mind by the second, but he had to stop.
What was the harm in seeing this out? Nefarious or not, the plan the thing seemed to have in mind for HABIT sounded a lot more interesting than whatever was happening here in cold, snowy, smelly New Jersey. Across the Atlantic was where the action was. He slid the kitchen knife into the sink, then stood back to clasp his hands in thought. As much as he hated this false god, it was answering a silent prayer. He then chuckled to himself. Bastard.
If he stripped away the presence and bravado of the thing, then he had to admit that his interest was piqued. To guide something of power (if it was as was claimed) over the sea, HABIT being the only one to do so in this case, and act as its aid, would gain him immense leverage. A reward if it held him in favor, and because of the reasons stated before, it already did. Sure, the promise of removing the brutish branding HABIT received was a good start, but if this parasite was going to go out of his way to deliver this thing across an ocean and through war zones, some prize had to be put in place. It may have been dog-like behavior, but it had already, so affectionately, called him a beast.
So, HABIT stood in the center of the living room and held a wide stance. He listened for a moment before clearing his throat. Even before he opened his mouth to speak, a crack of snapping fabric made him flip his head back around toward the kitchen. The false god had taken off its dark coat and loudly smoothed it out just to toss it on the dining room table that existed just past the wall of the kitchen. It was giving him an unimpressed look and one eyebrow then raised. HABIT had half a mind to grab the knife from the kitchen.
But he just plastered on a grin. "How about I formally introduce myself?"
"No need. You already praise yourself enough in your head that I know what to call you."
It seemed to know all the right buttons to press. "Don't you dare rename me."
"I would not," It sounded offended. But it sighed and its tone relaxed, "You are a HABIT. I know of this because I know of things. Many things. And believe me, finding what you call yourself didn't require much depth into your brain."
HABIT chose to ignore its last sentence. "What things do you know about? Do you know your own name?"
The nostrils of its hooked nose indented. "I know many things." It reiterated quietly.
HABIT crossed his arms. "I don't believe you." His smirk was coming back to his face now. "I've met many things that aren't capable of power or control, but they're capable of lying. Like demons. If you were just a run-of-the-mill demon, then there really is nothing for me to be worried about. This mark could be an illusion, which is just a fancy lie." He motioned to the burn as he started to stalk forward, grabbing the dining room chairs to ease him along. It kept its nose raised. "So… prove it." He lurched out at the thing and it flinched at the sound of a chair scraping the ground.
"That is impossible."
"Then I don't believe you. So, I've changed my mind. I'm not going anywhere." He poked it in the chest which earned his hand a slap. HABIT just grinned. "But, if you promise me a reward of such magnitude that only something of power would possess, then I'll reconsider. What can you give me?"
"I've told you what you get."
HABIT's grin fell and bore his teeth at its chin. "You're not listening." He pulled out the chair the thing was hovering over and sat backwards in it, watching the thing stumble from the suddenness. "The branding, let's say, is an illusion. There are no real repercussions if I were to keep it. You don't own me, but you're able to create that illusion with the scar. You see the problem? The only real threat is your declaration of a threat. That doesn't work for me."
"I am not going to bargain with you. I hate to disappoint. I am not a god, and therefore, not a miracle worker. But, I would rather die a terrible death before I let something like you call me a liar. And if none of the things I've done thus far have convinced you of such, then I believe that's your issue, not mine."
HABIT sat there, crouched before it, and processed the information. It truly could hear the things rattling around in his head. "I have a right to."
"Maybe so."
He then snarled at it. "Okay, and when I finish tugging you around, what then?"
"Then the mark will be removed. And if I feel generous, then I will grant… one request," It was said like its teeth were being pulled. "Nothing more."
HABIT stared, then took the chance to leap from his huddled position, hands extended to grab at its throat. It was insane to think that he would follow the orders of something he had never heard of. Hell, it was insane to ask him for help in such an authoritative way. He had heard out its points, demands, and rewards. To maim and kill it was only logical at this point. But he had suddenly frozen in time.
Just as he was about to grab the front of its suit jacket, his hands froze in place. The harder he tried to rush forward, the harder his own body betrayed him. Something was wrong with his vessel. HABIT stepped back and took huffing breaths.
"You may not be human, but you inhabit a human body." It watched as HABIT threw a chair against the wall, just to its left. "I warned you that you would not be able to harm me."
"Warned!" HABIT almost cried.
"Yes, warned. Something like you would not be used to such an impossibility as not being able to hurt or kill whenever you please. So I warned you." It righted the chair HABIT threw and took a seat.
HABIT was bracing himself against the dining room table. He felt like he was burning. To be stripped down of his fundamental right to hurt was impossible. He was born in hurt, blood, fire, and death. He turned to stare down the tall man seated before him. "What are you?"
Summary: HABIT, in the body of a flight technician, has to escort something with no name across the Atlantic Ocean into snowy war-torn Europe to locate a missing "personal asset".
Fandoms : Slender Man Mythos, Everyman HYBRID
Characters : HABIT & Slender Man, w/ Minor Original Characters
Relationships : HABIT/Slender Man
Tags : Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, World War II, Period-Typical Racism, Canon Related, Canon-Typical Violence, Forced Proximity, First Meetings, Hate to Love, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Past Trauma, Major Character Injury, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Slender Man is a Woman, It/Its Pronouns and She/Her Pronouns for Slender Man, Slender Man is Blind, Slender Man Has a Human Form, HABIT Has a Different Vessel
Chapter One : The Bad Habit of George Hayes
Word Count : 3.4K : Reading Time : 17 Minutes
DECEMBER, 1942
Everyone had been waiting on this plane for over an hour.
A pilot had called in, quickly explained that he belonged to Mitchel Air Base in New York, was losing fuel faster than the devil, and that he needed to make an emergency landing. Officer George Hayes didn’t mind standing around to do a whole lot of nothing, but that was a different story in the middle of December. There were two problems with this situation: it was too windy to land a small plane, and if the pilot was going to land anything, the plane had to show up. No plane, no pilot, just snowy Atlantic wind.
The man chattering away on the radio did not ease the cold running up Officer Hayes’ back. The wind that came inland, off the shore of New Jersey, was bitter and almost judgmental that men were running around on a big open field, ignoring it as if they were children. Humans weren’t built for the cold. If they were, then Hayes wouldn’t be watching men try to duck punches of winter breeze. He pushed his coat up higher on his back in an attempt to cover his ears, muffling the sound of the radio show someone turned on for moral support. The runway was almost completely covered in white and some poor sap had to keep rushing in to halfway clear it. Hayes would almost laugh if he wasn’t so insufferably cold. And the sky was still only filled with snow hurling clouds.
The walk to the hanger was stiff, the fluids in his body like sliding slush, jumpsuit painfully freezing his skin as the fabric tried to warm itself. Hayes wasn’t walking alone, other airmen too had given up.
They couldn’t dwell on the loss, however. Cadets had to be trained, aircraft had to be maintained, and orders still had to be barked over the roar of the wind. The airmen warmed themselves for a minute or two before they inevitably had to return to the snow covered runways. The radio had started to skip and stutter from the ferocity of the storm, the poor piece of machinery having to be rescued before it froze. A flurry was quickly turning into a blizzard. But they had to jump when told to.
Hayes groaned when snow was practically dumped into his boots. It had been pushed off a utility box to ill affect by a smaller airman on his squadron, an Alexander Nikolas, with a stubby nose and freckles. Nikolas nearly dropped the box at the terrifying realization of who he had gone to retrieve it with. Hayes almost could feel his pride melting the snow on his jacket.
“Don’t do that.”
“I won’t,” Nikolas promised.
“Good.”
It wasn’t just this snub-nosed kid that flinched under Hayes’ gaze. All the men on his squadron looked at Hayes with the same uncertainty. He was never the same after the one they affectionately called ‘Stickers’ died. In the context of war, death was still jarring and unexpected, but the topic was normalized for the occasion. The only issue was Stickers died without leaving the country. He was found on a running trail, drowned, eye shoved into the back of his throat. Hayes wore Stickers’ jacket less like an homage, more like a trophy. And he made sure the other men operating the runways knew as such.
When Hayes almost couldn’t see his own hand in front of his face, that’s when the technicians hunkered down into a hangar. The likely scenario was that everyone was going to have to call it a day, let the next shift pick up the slack in a few hours after the storm blew over. In the meantime, there was a group playing cards, another group who had decided to get their rest while they had the time, and Hayes, who took refuge at a small table. He took a position that looked over every man in that building.
He drew his nail around the wood, eyes with dark bags gliding over the tops of all the heads before him. The radio that had previously been tucked up and out of the storm was now in the back of the hangar, a weather report droning on about the snow, the wind, and the war. The war had infiltrated many everyday conversations at this point.
Hayes had turned his attention back to that Alexander Nikolas, that nose, that ever quivering bottom lip. Hayes wanted nothing more than to tear them from that pale face. If Nikolas were to be on the front lines then some enemy fire would have already done that favor. But thanks to these technological advances—these machine guns, tanks, and airplanes—people, of any sort, were needed to maintain them. Men who would’ve otherwise been unfit for war. Oh, but who was Hayes to compare himself to a boy that was on the same side as him?
Nikolas met his eyes and froze like a deer. Fitting, because Hayes seemed to be hunting him. Staring him down across the field of heads. Baby blue eyes widened with the rebirth of an instinct that died with the development of civilizations. He was staring a man eater in the face and no one seemed to notice or care. Hayes knew this as well and he grew a smile while his gaze kept still. It was an intimate stare, that could only be broken by a sudden rumble from the sky.
If it were thunder, then it was the strongest thunder Hayes had ever heard.
The rumble turned into a whistle, which then turned into a roar, and many men rushed to look out of the circular windows that lined the hangar doors, squinting through the blizzard. A near-distant explosion shook the cement beneath Hayes’ boots.
Ah.
The plane had decided to arrive after all.
A scramble to collect gear and clothing happened all at once, along with the scraping of the hangar door. An overlap of voices were all screaming at each other to get to the wreck as quickly as possible. Nikolas was one of the first to slip out. Hayes grit his teeth and rolled his eyes, slapping his hands into his gloves to drag them off the table. Might as well.
Mother Nature was just as unbearable as before, if not even worse that they were all braving the fifty feet past the airfield. Hayes made note of the wide spray of metal debris everyone didn’t bother to mention. Possibly for good reason. An impact like this one wouldn’t have a survivor. The officer drug himself closer to the front of the group. Hayes breathed a chuckle of disbelief as the sight of what used to be an aircraft blew in and out of perception through the hurling snow.
It had taken a nosedive into the earth, causing the front end to crumple in on itself like a can. The glass was obliterated. A few cadets had to shield their own faces at the sight of the pilot hanging out of the cockpit. Well, he would’ve been hanging out if the top half of his body was still there. Hayes covered his mouth with a glove for no other reason than to hide a less than discrete grin.
“Alright, stand back, stand back!” Their supervisor started shoving airmen away from the plane. Hayes heard a man retch behind him. The older man had a tarp with him, grabbing an officer on the other side of the wreck to make an attempt to pin it down over the cockpit. The wind ensured that they made a piss-poor job of it. Both the supervisor and the officer stepped away once the tarp was somewhat secured, “Well, I think that’s everyone’s sign that the day’s over.”
There had to be a whole spiel that the older man went into about safety and whatnot, but Hayes couldn’t focus on the speech when there were claw marks in the side of the body that grabbed more of his attention. Four lines dug deep into sheet metal, that in some places, tore through to the other side. The more he looked over the small plane, the more he realized there were several other major tears in the alloy. They were all over the body, on what was left of the wings, and around the cockpit. These weren’t just from falling out of the sky.
“What the hell is that?” Snapped him out of his concentration. One of the other airmen was pointing across the field. The snow blowing around definitely made anything difficult to see for a moment, but then, clear as day, a man.
He was standing maybe seventy feet away, clad in dark, formal attire. Just standing in the snow, like the wind didn’t bother him whatsoever. Hayes winced as something that he could only really describe as feedback went through his eyes and out of his ears. The man in the snow moved only to place a hat on his head, then started to walk out of view, bearing a limp. The men around him couldn’t stop screaming in mass confusion and mild panic; a brief moment of spontaneous insanity. Hayes simply stared into where the strange man disappeared, snow swirling around the man clad in black fabric until he vanished.
Hayes left the airfield with his coat up to his ears, hands shoved in his pockets, moving as quickly as he could bear to in this body that was feeling more and more like an ice tray every second. Even when the wind had calmed to just a few hard blows every few minutes, the dark wasn’t helping. His house should hopefully provide him with proper warmth for the first time today, it was after midnight after all.
The officer froze when warmth suddenly pooled down his spine. It was both as if his prayer had been answered, but in the most jarring way possible. It made him nauseous. He turned quick when he felt eyes on that same feverish spot. A tall man. Coat. Suit. Tie. Hat. Standing at the edge of the block he had started on, but the man seemed to be paying him no mind. He was watching the intersection. He looked as if he wanted to cross, even though he was free to do so. That same fuzzing in Hayes’ eyes and ears returned. It was a coincidence that the officer didn’t like, but he continued on his way home.
Hayes’ fingers and the tip of his bulky nose burned from the blood quickly rushing back in place, having no need to keep his heart pumping out in the cold anymore. The house kept heat decently well, despite how small it was. At one point in time, one could’ve believed that it was well-kept, the picture frames on the wall straight and the decorative rug still soft. Now, it looked as though a wild animal nested itself in every corner of the stark, white walls. Hayes watched the stove, perfectly content with the mess of blankets, pillows, ripped up paper, packaging, and some broken glass that littered the small den and dining room.
The officer sat himself on the floor, pulling some blankets over his lap, blowing on his tea cup. It was going to be bitter, but it was going to be warm. He sat in blissful silence, listening to the wind hit the door. Beside it was a small coat hanger and it did it’s job of holding Stickers’ coat, along with a child’s winter coat, and a woman’s. The woman’s jacket still had blood spatter on it.
Hayes flicked on the light that flooded the stairs to the basement. On the cement level, poles stood out of the floor and connected up to support beams. He pulled a string to further light the area, then let out a sigh, glancing down, and crossed his arms in discontent. Wrists were tied with twine around one of the solid metal poles, almost blue with bruises. The man they belonged to was laying limp against the ground, jaw ajar, with a glossed over film covering his eyes. He had died while Hayes was out.
The officer scowled before delivering a hard kick to the partially exposed spine of the body. It was sickening how long these men lasted in his care. He mildly preferred women, they lived quite a bit longer, but this friend of Hayes had been stuffing his nose where it didn’t belong. Still, a shame he died so quickly. It had only been a week, and hey, to the officer’s credit, he was going to let him sit in the snow a little first before he bled one of his central arteries into a tank. Just to have on hand.
Hayes flipped open his pocket knife and cut the man’s wrists free with a swift motion. He turned the body onto its stomach, admiring how the cement floor had almost an icebox effect on the flesh. The cats would be getting a gourmet dinner. Hayes sighed, standing again to roll his shoulders out a bit and wander to a toolbox in the corner.
Well, in all honesty, Hayes was a normal, adjusted, everyday man. He had a bit of daddy’s money and used it to buy this house for him, his wife, and child. He was then drafted and put his technical knowledge to use to maintain aircraft for the war. A family man. However, Officer George Hayes hadn’t been Officer George Hayes in some time.
The man had complained of frequent nightmares. Those frequent nightmares turned into walking into the woods at night, then coming back bloody with no recollection of where he was. What he had done. His wife, Dorothy, bless her, was more worried than anything. The love from her was so sickly sweet that this changed man entertained it for a month or so before he started sharing his affections in the only way that he now seemed to know how. The presents he retrieved for her were fit for an overgrown barn cat rather than a human being. She only tried to run with their son when it was too late.
George had long been adamant about being called ‘HABIT’ by the time he ran them into the snow covered forest. She kept pleading for George, tried everything from spitting at the devil below to praying to God above. HABIT felt like he was reexplaining himself at this point.
“Would you like George to watch the light leave your eyes, or Bobby’s?” She had only wailed in response and that was the end of that. He then packed the bodies in the car and watched it drive itself into the bay. Now, HABIT had to walk everywhere.
The parasite pulled a forelimb off at the shoulder once he had cut through the tissue cleanly all the way around. This one was for him. HABIT had made quick work of cleaning the rest of the meat off the bones, which he had separate plans for separate parts. Unfortunately, because of his vessel, he couldn’t take the brain, but it would be something the birds might enjoy. He made sure to wash his hands in the laundry tub underneath the basement stairs before he placed some paper down to wrap the meat in.
Grinding meat was a slow and tedious task, but the stray cats deserved it. It was nearing their dinnertime anyway, so HABIT had to do this one way or another before a hoard of felines started to collect at the door of the back porch. He sipped on some red wine while he lazily spun the hand crank in order to grind the evidence that a man even was there in the first place. He nearly dropped his glass when he heard the door in the basement slam shut.
“The hell..?”
HABIT kept a steady pace down the basement stairs, a large, serrated hunting knife in hand. He saw no one. Impossible. He looked to the door that led outside, at the far side of the basement. The parasite narrowed the eyes of his vessel and approached it with caution. The door practically swung off its hinges when he opened it up. Cement steps led into the earth, and they were practically covered with snow. No footsteps of any kind. Except for the bottom platform. Large, wingtip styled indents. A hard crunch of bones shattering made him whip back around. Nothing. HABIT growled.
He slammed the door and marched himself around the perimeter of the cement floor. Something was fucking with him.
Then he noticed the dead man’s body was now missing its head and HABIT backed himself up against the stairs, gripping the knife to save a life that wasn’t his to start with. The silence made his teeth clench.
A creak came from the top of the stairs, the parasite whipping around to catch just a sliver of a glance at a tall man, dressed in black, wearing a hat. The door to the basement stairs slammed shut and the light bulbs blew themselves out before HABIT could do much of anything. HABIT yelped as he missed a step, running blindly, slamming the long blade into the door. He jiggled the doorknob before ramming his body into the panel to free himself.
He ran from the front of the small home to the back, searching for this figure that seemed to be haunting his past twelve hours. “Come out!” He barked once he found himself spinning in the foyer. There were few things that he hated more than being snuck up on, and one of them was being confused. The man was on the airfield, then on the block, then he was just outside his house. He was in the basement, but then he was at the top of the stairs. HABIT felt like he was catching glimpses of this man in whichever corner he looked, but at the same time, it felt like he was also behind him. It was like this thing was everywhere.
HABIT whipped around again, and he was standing right beside him, like he was there the entire time. HABIT went to swing into the man densely wrapped in fabric, but he stepped out of view for a moment and he was gone again. HABIT couldn’t help but yell at nothing, taking his frustration out on the room. He kicked over the coffee table, threw a picture frame halfway across the house, and when he attempted to bring his blade down on the sofa, what was supposed to be in his hand, had vanished. “Son of a bitch!” HABIT’s eyes shot from corner to corner, his human brain overloading with information and too many questions to keep track of.
This thing couldn’t have been human in any capacity. It was too fast and didn’t seem too worried that he was flinging a knife every which way. Not to mention that every which way could’ve been its face at some point in time. No, it wasn’t concerned at all.
A smidgen of worry flashed through HABIT’s mind. He had encountered maybe three other intelligent forms in his time, and all three put his abilities to shame. The three had also made it known, in some way or another, that HABIT was unwelcome and would be kept as a mere pet if he were to even so much as toe the line of their patience. The parasite did not feel like dealing with a fourth.
So, HABIT huffed and decided to cut his losses. If this thing wanted to toy with him, he wasn’t about to play along. He stepped back into the kitchen and continued to grind meat for the strays, trying to even his breathing. Wasn’t much left to get done anyway. HABIT practically chugged the rest of the wine in his glass once he smeared the minced meat on a wide plate.
He swiped some of the snow on the back patio away with a boot and set it down gently. HABIT could see some furred faces starting to poke out of the bushes. Right on schedule. His breath went white in the cold, gently stroking down the side of a tomcat. These things were the only ones that made a lick of sense at the moment. HABIT poured himself another tall glass of wine and took a sip as he stepped out of the kitchen that he actively choked on.
HABIT stared wide-eyed at the tall man sitting on his sofa, twirling HABIT’s knife in its fingers, a gray fedora waiting for use on the knee of a crossed leg. This was mildly infuriating. It looked like it was waiting for him. HABIT swallowed down his wine before it could attempt to shoot out of his nose.
