One Shot #2 Secrets

It was fun finally getting an apartment of my own. A lot of work, some heavy dose of trouble, but fun. I had Tom to help me out too, so that was good. I gently pet Puffball, one of my cats. He was old and tired, but Tom worked miracles to keep him in good shape. The guy would make an amazing vet. I had no doubts that he'd get accepted into any program right away.

Today though, my parents were coming over for a visit. My parents were almost never in the same room together. The only times they really spoke was when I'd go from my mom's house to my dad's house and back. They didn't hate each other, just lived seperate lives. I hadn't seen them together in so long, since I had started going to college and had eventually moved out. You can understand that I was doing my best to hide any stains and put away as much junk as I could. I had to force the cabinet to fit in all the random game cases that were scattered around the little tv we had. I smiled when I came across the copy of Okami we had. Tom had bought it for me on my birthday one year, he knew I had wanted to play it for so long.

I hastily took Mika, Tom's cat, off the table and set down a bowl of food. The animals quickly rushed over to the bowl to eat the precious brown bits. I smiled at how ravenously they ate. I then opened the front door to let the cats out. We were on the ground floor, so it was an easy access outside for them. After carefully placing the last controler on the shelf, I sighed and plopped down on the couch. The springs creaked dully under my weight. I winced, hoping my parent's didn't think of me too poorly for it.

I felt that slightest static at the edge of my conciousness, the signal that we were in range for communication. "Hey! How are you doing?" "I got food. Your parents there yet?" "No, not yet." "Ok. Well I'll be there soon." And just as he finished that last word, I felt that distinctive drop in temperature as he slenderwalked in. It would have been strange to anyone else to see a tall faceless man in a fancy dark grey shirt with dark jean shorts, wearing a scarf and carrying bags of groceries. To me, this was my everyday life.

I stood on tip-toes and he bent down to kiss me. He took the bags with his tendrills and placed the groceries on the counter. He just held me in his arms gently, nuzzling the top of my head. What I didn't know though, was that the front door, which was parallel to the kitchen, was still open...and that my mother was arriving. Me and Tom both snapped back to reality when we heard a shrill scream. I looked up and felt my stomach drop. My mom was in the doorway, frozen in shock and as white as Tom was now. Tom... Oh no. He let me go and backed away.

Just as I thought things couldn't get any worst, I noticed my dad was down the path, having heard my mom's shout, he ran over and froze in place. My mother slowly began to back away and ran. I ran after her. "Mom, wait please!" "Tom, change back. It's no point hiding anymore." I felt the sense of fear and dissaproval from his mind, but I think he listened to me. I pushed past my dad and ran up to my mother, grabbing her hand. "Mom...please...calm down..." She looked to me with frantic eyes. She was shaking. Never had I waited so long for her to respond, to react in any way. I had never seen her scared like this before.

Her eyes still locked with mine, she slowed her breathing, bringing the hand I wasn't holding up to her chest. Suddently, her look of terror shifted to one of anger. "WHAT IS GOING ON? WHAT DID I SEE?" I flinched at her tone of voice. She was mad at me... I looked down to my feet, then around me. We were out in front of the house. I didn't want to attract a crowd. "Mom...please come inside." Her eyes flashed with fear for a bit. "You want me to go back in there?! With that...that thing?" "He's not a thing!" Her eyes fell on me again, she seemed to be thinking. Then, in a neutral and dull tone, she merely said. "That's your boyfriend, isn't it. What is he?" I started walking back inside, still holding on to her wrist.

As I walked into the apartment, I noticed that my dad was still horribly pale, caught in some kind of starring contest with Tom who had returned to human form. He was stiff, almost looking affraid to move. When his sky blue eyes fell on me, I felt a single message reach my mind. "Help me..." I snapped both of my parents back to reality as I spoke. "Mom...Dad... I'm sorry, but we've been keeping secrets from you. I rubbed my arm nervously. They both looked from me to him. They clearly didn't know what was going on.

I was surprised they didn't ask if it was just a prank, some guy in a costume, but they were smart enough to know that some guy in a costume couldn't simply stand at over 8 feet tall like that. We all sat at the table, forgetting about talking about my studies. Forgetting about food. Forgetting about everything that was planned. Part of me felt relieved. It was time to tell them this part of my life I had been hiding so long. Both parents sat at the other side of the table, Tom was at my left. He fidgeted nervously. "You can do it you know. Not much left to hide anyway." I then saw both of my parents flinch when a shadowy tendrill extended from Tom's back to curl around my wrist, which was on the table. They didn't dare speak, and I didn't know where to start. "So..." "I'm a slender." I looked to my side in surprise when Tom finished my sentence for me. He spoke it in one short breath. His voice held no emotion as he said it, and he just looked up at my parents with his eerie sky eyes. If I couldn't feel his mind against mine, I would never have known how terrified he was right now.

He took a shaky breath, finally letting his shoulders droop. I noticed that he had also extended his three other tendrills, coiling them around his midsection, but from the angle at which he sat, my parents couldn't see this. He continued to speak, now looking down at the table and his tendrill curling tightly around my arm. "I...I'm not human. I have tentacles, I can teleport, I can sense people's emotions...and I can change into...what you saw earlier." He looked away. My mom was still shaking. "If I hadn't seen you back there, or what you're doing now, I wouldn't believe you. I'm still not sure if I do." My dad was still staring, as if searching for the right words to say. "Hey...wait a minute. Weren't there horror games made after your kind or something? You some flesh eating monster?" His eyes narrowed. Reflexivly, Tom's back straightened out and his tendrills coiled backwards, wavering slightly in the air. "We're not what the internet thinks of us!" He then blinked a few times, realizing what he just did. He slouched back down, lowering his tendrills and wrapping one around my arm again. "...sorry."

My parents were in mute shock. I tried to change the subject a bit, talking about my grades. It worked to some extent. I got my parents to smile a few times. The air was heavy and tense though, all from my boyfriend's aura. "Dude, you're sending your mood for like a mile around." He smiled to me sheepishly, the tendrill on my arm curling a bit more around it. "Sorry. I'm just...stressed. What if they hate me? What if they get you away from me?" I smiled up to him and gently traced my fingers over the tendrill. "They can't ever keep us appart." I suppose my parents noticed our unusual sudden silence, or our expressions. My dad blinked and looked at us sceptically. "Are you two like...speaking? Like...in a way only you two can hear." I looked back up to him. He was more observant than he looked. "I...yes. Yes we are." My parents still looked cautious, but they were starting to calm down.

Finally, they seemed to get over it. Still eyeing his tendrills suspiciously though. We gave them a tour of the house. Which wasn't much really...A kitchen, a living room with a table, a bathroom and one little bedroom with a ridiculously tiny bed for a couple. My mom cast an other glance at Tom, her eyes lingering on his tendrill. "You sleep in the same bed..." She said it like an accusation. Well I was 23 years old! I do believe I was allowed to do so. She then noticed one of the paintings that were on the wall. It was the one I had made for Tom on Christmas years ago. She looked from the painting to him, and to the painting again. It showed him in slender form. My dad had noticed too. "The guy can really just...change to be that way?" He seemed stunned, talking more to himself than to me. I looked back to Tom and to my parents again. From the way the tendrill tightened around my arm, I could tell he had picked up on my train of thoughts.

Letting go of my arm with his tendrill, which now fell limply at his side, he made a small noice in his throat. He looked over both of my parents intently before raising a single hand, slowly letting the colors drain from his skin until it was pure white. My parents both looked shocked. He then closed his eyes and I watched him grow in height, I watched his hair melt away, I watched his other tendrills extend. Hid bare head now touched the ceiling and he had to actually tilt his head forward a bit to fit in the room. My parents looked at him in shock. Part of me questioned why he had left his tendrills out, they only made him seem even more unreal and terrifying. But then I thought that maybe if they saw all he was capable of now, they wouldn't feel as scared in the future.

There was a good three minutes of silence before anyone spoke, before anyone moved. For long the only sound in the room was the sound of our collective harsh breathing. Then slowly, very slowly, my dad took a step forward. He looked up to the man that was still two feet taller than him. "Dang you're tall." Tom smirked and laughed a bit. It was a pretty silly thing to say after all this tension. To avoid anymore discomfort, he shifted back to his human image quickly. The mood kind of settled and there was no longer so much tension, but it was still there.

As I went to the door to say goodbye to my parents, my mom turned to me. She had worry in her eyes. I hadn't seen her really worry about anything in years. "Please be carefull." I smiled to her, a somewhat sad smile. "I will be. And don't worry about a thing, He'll protect me." She returned my sad smile and left.

I turned back to Tom who was rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "They're gone. Heh...at least we got that detail out of the way." I smiled and walked over to him, kissing him. This time, there were no frantic screams and I threw my arms around his neck. Static filled me at that moment. I felt his teeth growing sharp and his height changed. When I opened my eyes again, I was met with his blank face I had grown so close to. I rested my head on his slightly cooler than average chest and sighed. "At least we can relax now."

AN: Wow this is a long one-shot...ya...wow...long. So yeah. This moment was refferenced in Sakura's Journey, but it never went into great detail. So if the parents are all anxious in Sakura's Journey when they see Tom coil a tendrill around Sarah's wrist, it's cuz it reminds them of when they found out he was a slender. And yeah...I didn't expect to write something this long XD