This was not John’s day; in fact he could put it down as his worst day ever. Yes it was so bad that it dethroned the day that Dr. Manning’s new assistant, a woman 10 years John’s senior, decided that he was her soul mate and broke into John’s room to seduce him. That was the day the entire western hemisphere, and maybe some of the eastern, learned that he was gay. Oh god, could Dr. Francis shout.
And Abe was less than amused, but at least he did not leave him. In fact, he ordered a sleeper-couch to be put in Professor Bruttenholm’s old office, which was still Abe’s room, and insisted that John start sleeping in there and he did everyday for two years, long after Dr. Denise Francis quit and no one ever questioned it, or made any negative references to their living arrangements.
John finished his last shred of paperwork, he had been doing it non-stop from 8AM (someone else was covering Hellboy nanny duty) until, John checked his watch, 2AM. Today, er, yesterday had been Abe’s birthday and he promised to take the day off and do things together. Instead at 6AM the red alarm of doom went off and they all had to run out in the middle of a snow storm to fight a doomsday occultist, who ended up casting a spell wrong and killed himself just as Hellboy rose to fight him. Yeah, it was pretty pathetic. The whole situation had pissed off the normally cool and calm Abe so much he did his job, and went right back into the truck. He threatened the next time that happened that he would not be disturbed, but John couldn’t tell what Abe was more pissed about the fact that they were disturbed at 2AM or the fact that the alarm went off while his he getting a blow job.
The day quickly went downhill from there, everyone piled back into the trucks and on the way home they were involved in a car accident caused by black ice. Nine agents were sent to the hospital, Abe had cracked his elbow and John got a good knock on the head. John was moved into the back for Abe to take care of, which only seemed to make Abe angrier.
“Is everyone okay?” John opened up the back of the truck, he was cold, blood was frozen in his hair and his head was throbbing. An agent was holding him up by his collar, he always disliked that bastard.
“What the hell happened… crap, kid, get in here,” Hellboy said, picking John up and putting him into the back, the other agent closed the door, “what happened to your head?”
Abe was tending to Liz’s busted lip and looked up at John, “Are you all right?”
“I had my seatbelt on, the guy sitting next to me didn’t, and he went right through the windshield. I’m not sure what exactly happened, except that the first truck, which had Dr. Mannings, flipped over. They are sending them to a hospital.”
“That is not what I asked you,” Abe gestured for Hellboy to put John down next to him.
“I’ll be better when I get home, thaw and go back to bed.”
“Here, here,” Liz agreed.
John slumped down and put his head on Abe’s shoulder, predictably Abe froze up a moment and then made quick work on dressing the wound and healing it as much as possible. Somewhere in the dressing the wound, John decided it was wise to pass out.
As soon as he woke up though, he sincerely regretted that decision.
Abe was stroking his hair when he woke up, but under the tenderness was cold rage. “You cannot be serious! He is already overworked, hasn’t slept and was promised this day off eight months ago. He has a painful head wound to top it all off.”
“Look, okay, he is the one Dr. Manning put in charge of operations in case anything happened to him, temporarily.”
John opened one eye, the truck had reached the Bureau okay, which is good, but Abe was arguing with a bunch of agents, which was not good. “Look, everyone knows he asked for this day off because he knew it was your birthday,” the bastard agent said, “and Meyers has to realize that he is an agent first and your boyfriend second.”
“He is not my boyfriend,” Abe said evenly.
John sat up slowly and yawned, “What’s going on and slowly.”
“They want to throw you in charge,” Hellboy said, “and Abe’s going postal… well as postal as Abe can go.”
“Me in charge? I guess I hit my head harder than I thought.”
“Look, Meyers,” bastard Agent said, “Everyone else was taken to the hospital and Manning put you in charge. You will do this or else I will have your job.”
Hellboy stood up and the heated exchange between the agents and Abe/Hellboy continued. Liz was about to stand up and join in when John decided that this would be a good time to intervene. “Okay, okay, everyone calm down,” John said, “I’ll go access the situation and see what in the hell is going on.”
“Don’t you dare,” Abe said, “you hear me!”
“Abe, I’m sorry, but if Manning put me in charge I’ve got to do it. What if the car accident wasn’t an accident? We need to cover all the bases.”
“If you do this then I highly suggest that you do not come back to the room,” Abe got out of the van and briskly walked down the hallway, “or else you will get a very cold reception.
Liz gave John one of the ‘yep, you screw up’ look, followed by the ‘give him time to cool down’ look. John sighed and followed the other agents to Mannings’ office to decide what exactly needed to be done.
* * * *
2 AM and twenty cups of extra strong black coffee later, John was finally done with the last piece of paperwork. His head ached worse than ever and he decided to call it at night. The problem is that he didn’t know where to go, if he went back to Abe’s room he knew he would get hell from the merman about his conduct today, but if he did not go there Abe might end up being more upset. Either way he would most likely be dealing with an unamused Abe, which is never a good thing.
John got up and walked down the hallway toward Abe’s room. “Agent Meyers!”
John closed his eyes and growled slightly, he really was starting to hate that agent bastard with every ounce of his being. “I don’t care if God, the Devil or the President needs something I am going to bed!”
“What if it was the Buddha?” the man said sarcastically.
“The Buddha wants nothing, it’s that whole desire nothing and get to nirvana thing,” John said, silently added ‘dumb ass’.
“Look, we are all working our asses off here, Meyers…”
Meyers turned around and glared at the man, as only an exhausted man who was strung out on caffeine can. “What do you want?”
“Manning wants an updated condition report on his desk when he comes back tomorrow.”
“Do you have above a code level 10 for security?”
“Sure, I’m a security officer.”
“Then you go and do it. I’m not a security expert, you are, now go buzz off, I need a shower and at least ten hours asleep.”
“It’s not my job…”
“Well as acting commander-person I’m telling you it is now. Unless it’s Armageddon you better not wake me up.”
Liz appeared from around the corner, she looked very far away, like she was trying to hide something, “John, there you are!”
“Yes, me and my shadow,” John used a thumbs up to gesture to the bastard agent from behind him.
“Buzz off, Agent Matthews,” Liz said taking John’s arm, “Hellboy, Abe and I have decided that it is past time that you got some sleep.”
John’s stomach made a hungry sound, “And something to eat to.”
“But…” bastard agent Matthews said.
“Matthews, would you like to be crispy, fried or flambéed?” Liz asked in a deadpan voice.
Matthews paled slightly and walked away very quickly. John slumped and sighed, “I’m going to take a shower and go to bed.”
“You are shaking, are you okay?”
“Too much caffeine, I’ll be fine once I lay down. Abe still upset with me?”
“You have to ask but I think you will win sympathy points with him when he sees you. What did you have to do, John, run the whole place?”
“The Occultist was a part of a Doomsday cult and his cult wanted his body back to try to resurrect.”
“They must have tried some pretty talking.”
“No, they said that (insert stupid sounding Fantasy name here) was the pleasure slave of (insert another sound Fantasy name but make this one attempt to sound cool), their leader and beloved of some demon guy, completely forget his name, and thus they need the body back in order to resurrect him so he can go back to bottoming for their leader.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, Liz, welcome to my day. They have threatened to release demonic crap to the media and just be a bee sting in our ass.”
“Oh that sounds like fun, do you wanna stop by the kitchen and get something to eat?”
“Nah, shower, pass out for now and I’ll eat tomorrow morning when I get up to do it all over again.”
“Don’t you sound optimistic?”
“You spend all day dealing with stupid people that have lost the line between fantasy and reality while playing a demonic role playing game, while doing everyone’s paperwork, while drinking bad coffee and feeling insanely guilty for missing your boyfriend’s birthday and stupid for thinking that this would not take long.”
“It’s your own fault.”
“I’m going to tell Manning never ever to leave me in charge again. I’m not a management person, problem solving yes, management not in a billion or trillion years! At least tell me if the two pictures came.”
“They arrived about an hour ago, gift wrapped and looking very pretty. They are being moved into your and Abe’s room now.”
John looked up and saw the big doors that lead to Abe’s room where open and two men were carrying the pictures inside. Abe was awake, looking cool and informal, like normal, sitting in a chair. He looked tired as well. “What’s Abe doing up?”
“He’s been waiting for you. In fact he was the one that sent me to pull you out of the office, kicking and screaming if I had to.”
“It wouldn’t have been me kicking and screaming; it would have been Agent Bastard.”
Liz pulled John around and looked into his eyes, “John, he has spent all day being very worried about you. That is not a nice way to spend a birthday.”
“I know, it was not the way I wanted him to spend his birthday either. I wanted us to have a nice lazy day together, and I even had a few surprises for him.”
“I know it wasn’t directly your fault and even though we weren’t happy with your decision we do know that you did what you had to do. Now go in there and make it up to him, okay?”
John smiled weakly, took in a deep breath and walked in the room, while the moving men were leaving. They closed the door behind them. “Hi,” John said, “I’m sorry that your presents arrived late.”
“Presents? I’m more upset that you arrived late,” Abe said quietly.
“I had no idea that was going to take that long or else I would have told them where to stick it!”
“No, John, you wouldn’t have because there was chance of us being in danger, even though it was extremely remote.”
“The whole ice thing was nature’s accident…”
“That’s besides the point,” Abe sighed, “I’m still not happy with you but I do understand.”
“Yeah, I know, I’m not too happy with myself either,” John looked around and saw his chair had been moved to the other side of the room, “may I sit down?”
“You haven’t bathed in 48 hours, you are coming down off a caffeine high and your head wound started to bleed again. You better sit down before you fall down.”
John sat down with a flop and Abe stood up and walked over to him. “Let me look at your head,” he said, gently touching John’s head, leaning down to kiss his forehead and then went back to examining, “you scared me earlier when you pasted out and then you had to get up, act like you were completely fine and work over a twelve hour shift on your day off! When Dr. Manning gets out of the hospital, he and I are going to have to have a very long talk about his concept of crisis management. He’ll have someone else get put in charge if he ever becomes incapacitated again! Hellboy almost killed your substitute today.”
“Get a security expert in there,” John hissed in pain as Abe touched the wound to treat it.
“Completely opened back up, how did that happen?”
John muttered a response and Abe pulled back and look him in the eyes, “Repeat that and louder, please.”
“I banged my head against the desk,” John admitted slightly louder.
“Hellboy doesn’t need the nanny, you need the nanny. I’m seriously starting to rethink the idea of taking you as my mate. I should be your nursemaid instead.”
John looked down, “I don’t need a nursemaid, but I need a shower.”
“Can I open my presents first?” Abe asked quietly.
John looked up as Abe released his head, “Sure, if you want.”
Abe walked over to the two wrapped pictures and then turned back around to John, “Which one should I open first?”
“You pick?”
Abe slowly started to open the one on the left, logical for him since he read left to right. John smiled at how excited Abe was acting, quickly trying to open the present while trying not to rip the paper. After seeing a peek of it, he gave up completely and slashed the paper to shreds. It was a painting of the merman and his male lover, sitting on a beach looking out on a star filled clear night being reflected on an ocean. It was an oil painting in vibrant colors; the picture looked almost like a photograph. It was at a gallery in New York, where some Satanists had a showing of their artwork and then decided to bring it to life. Abe had seen the picture and had fallen in love with it, so of course John called up the Gallery the next day and bought the painting.
“This painting cost over five thousand dollars, John,” Abe said, “why did you buy it?”
“Because, silly, you liked it and I thought it was rather symbolic of our relationship.”
Abe picked the painting up and sighed, “Yes, I agree with that. John, I…”
“Well open your second one,” John smiled, “I admit you will probably be let down after the last one.”
“If you got it for me then I will like it,” Abe said walking back over and opened the second one. He stopped and just stared. This picture was a sketch colored with colored pencil. It was of Abe, nude, climbing out of the tank, with a strategically placed bar over his groin, with his head tilted back and the water falling from him in droplets. It was the first time that John had seen Abe nude, by accident of course, letting him know that he had come back form the debriefing early. Abe stared at the picture and felt his skin prickle. The light colors and the shadowing, the artist made him look like some sort of mer-angel, all beauty and light. He looked down in the corner and saw the initials J.T.M.
“I told you it wasn’t…”
“J.T.M.? You drew this?”
“Yes, I drew it, if you wanna call that drawling. I was so embarrassed that day that I said the first thing that came out of my mouth.”
“Yes, I remember, it was ‘wow’ and ‘er… I love you, bye’”
“Yeah, I know, not the most romantic declaration of love ever made,” John laughed, “I kicked myself very hard when I realized what I had said.”
“It was a first move and did accomplish something for me. It gave me hope that you didn’t want to move out, I had become very attached to you and I still am. The reason I am so upset is that I wanted to consummate our relationship tonight, to make love to you and you were too busy working.”
“I’ve been working my ass off all day to keep pictures of you and Hellboy away from the media maybe that makes me a bad boyfriend…”
“You are not my boyfriend!”
“Then what am I?”
“You are my mate, my life partner! Saying that we are boyfriends to each other makes it sound so casual and I do not enter into this relationship casually and I know that you do not either.”
“I love you, Abe, and I screwed up, I’m sorry. No matter what happens I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“You are tired and we are both rather cranky so lets finish this discussion after we get some rest.”
“I’m gonna hop in the shower.”
“You are planning to rest here tonight, right?” Abe asked walking toward John slowly, almost like he was afraid to get to close to scare him off.
“If you want me to,” John said.
“I do, we’ll talk in the morning.”
“Sounds good,” John walked up to Abe and kissed him lightly, “and I am sorry, Love.”
“I know you are,” Abe kissed him back; “this is the wonderfully charmed life we lead.”
“I’m talking to Manning as soon as I’m able to and I’ll do my best to make sure that this never happens again. I hurt you and I cannot forgive myself for that, especially on your birthday.”
“Go take your shower,” Abe stepped away from John and headed back toward the entrance to his tank, “I’m going to go to sleep.”
“Talk to you in the morning?” John asked as he headed into the back, where the Professor had his own personal bath and restroom, probably to take a quick shower right after one of the more gory missions. John stripped, jumped in the shower and was pleasantly surprised by the amount of hot water available. His stressed out body turned into a pile of melted butter and he nearly fell over. He grabbed a bar of soap, Irish Spring since it was Abe’s favorite scent, and made a weak lather and quickly washed himself. He didn’t feel like fooling with his hair at the moment. He rinsed off and turned the water off, grabbing a towel from the nearby rack and then towel dried himself off. He did not even bother to put night clothes on; he just went back out into the room naked, pulled out the mattress on the sleeper couch and set his alarm. He collapsed on top of the mattress; face first, his legs spread slightly apart. It would have been quite seductive, if John had not been semi-snoring at the time.
* * * *
Abe watched him from the doorway that led to the tank room. It was the first time he had ever seen John naked and he found that besides the obvious differences John was as gorgeous to him as any male or female of his species.
He walked toward John and grabbed a blanket from the chest, where he kept all his belongings. He carefully wrapped John in the feather light material, as much as Abe enjoyed looking at John’s nudity it would not do for someone to walk in and feast on the same sacred sight. Secondly he walked over and turned off John’s alarm clock. He was not waking up in three hours to do the whole thing over again and if anyone complained they would deal with him personally, even if he had to tie John to a chair to make him stay put!
Manning knew better than to question his authority and luckily he should be back tomorrow, early, he had to be kept overnight. A knock on the door disturbed Abe’s thoughts and he quietly opened it. “Hey, how is,” Hellboy said at full volume without thinking.
“Shhhh!” Abe whispered loudly, “He is finally asleep so out into the hallway, out into the hallway.”
Abe pushed Hellboy out into the hallway and closed the door. “He is exhausted and needs rest.”
“Err, you two didn’t… you know?”
“No, we didn’t because he was too tired and we were too busy disagreeing about today.”
“Oh, so he is naked for no reason?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Well, it will make things easier tomorrow morning. No clothes to take off,” Hellboy smirked.
“Very funny.”
“No, in all honesty is he okay? Liz said he looked awful rough.”
“He has had a very bad day and needs his rest. Would you mind having that other agent again tomorrow?”
“Yeah, but I’ll do it for you and Meyers. He is far too noble for his own good, Abe, you better take good care of him,” Hellboy said.
“I will, Red, thank you and good night,” Abe opened the door and went back inside the room. He smiled and walked over to him and kissed him on the forehead, “good night, sleep very sweet.”
* * * *
Abe had trouble sleeping when he went back into his tank; all he could do was stare at John and marvel at his gentle beauty and innocence as he slept. John would sleep until the early afternoon probably and, if John still wanted to, they would lay together. Abe had not wanted to take a mate before John, he had never even considered it, and now he could not imagine a time when he did not want to be mated to him. Abe looked at the clock, 6 AM and then it turned 6:30 AM, Abe shook his head and he must have dozed off. He looked back at John’s bed to find him gone but a light in the bathroom. John came over a second later and smiled at Abe. “Hi.”
“Hello,” Abe said quietly.
“What are you doing awake?”
“What are you?”
“Couldn’t sleep anymore because my dreams are no longer good enough,” John said.
“I understand,” Abe whispered, “I’ll be there in a moment.”
Abe quickly swam to the top of the tank, jumped out and went into the main room. John was lying on the bed, legs spread while he was pumping his hardening cock in one hand. The image burned itself onto Abe’s mind as he walked over slowly and sat on the side of the bed. He leaned down to kiss John’s inner thigh and then looked up. “I have a better idea,” he said, taking John’s hand off his own cock, moving his legs further away so he could kneel between them. He moved John’s hand to his own hardening cock and began to pump John’s and when he touched him images of fantasies John had all of which glorified Abe and turned the merman on even more. “Abe?” John asked his voice rough around the edges.
“Yes,” he replied.
“I want you,” John said.
“I know, you have no clue how much I know, but are you sure? You know what this means to me.”
“I’m sure, Abe, I love you,” he said as he reached blindly beside the bed and picked up a small bottle of extra creamy lotion and handed it to Abe.
“I love you to,” Abe said taking the lotion and popping the top. He put some on his fingertips and moved them to his entrance and noticed how everything smelled of that soap he liked.
“A boy scout is always prepared,” John whispered, answering Abe’s unasked question.
“You will be rewarded for your efforts,” Abe said as he gently rubbed the lotion onto John’s opening, making the entrance nice and slick. John tried to push back down on the teasing digits but Abe moved his free hand to hold John’s hips down. Once he knew John wasn’t going anywhere he squirted half the contents of the lotion bottle on John’s other hip and tossed the bottle aside. The coated his fingers liberally with the cool lotion before gently thrusting one finger inside. John was hot inside and already pretty slick and not as tight as when Abe had fingered him before when they were figuring out each other’s bodies. John noticed Abe’s confusion and choked out, “I told you, a boy scout is always prepared.”
“How many fingers?” Abe growled.
“Two, tip of a third, hard to do it to myself,” John cried out as Abe brushed against his prostate.
Abe massaged the spot lightly and John made loud mewing noises. “Hurry, Abe, please!” John said, reaching down for Abe and only able to reach the tip of his cock and began to play with it.
Abe threw his head back, it felt good, more than good, it felt great. He could no longer dam up the heat and desire he felt for John, he allowed his emotions to come untapped and felt an increased urgency to bury himself in his lover. He thrust two more fingers inside of him, scissoring them back and forth, stretching him gently. He wanted him so badly but he refused to hurt him. John semi-sat up and reached down and grabbed Abe’s wrist, “Now!”
It was not a request.
John used his hands to get most of the lotion off his hip and rubbed it up and down Abe’s already leaking erection. Abe cried out and thrust himself into John’s hands, his hands were so hot and the tough so roughly tender that it almost made Abe cum right then and there. Abe picked up John’s legs and put them over his shoulders, and then removed his fingers, his tip now brushing the entrance, he looked John right in the eyes, and they both held their breath as Abe slowly thrust inside. He moved slow, moving another centimeter every few seconds until after a minute he was completely inside and both let out the breath they were holding. Abe could feel the discomfort his mate was feeling, it burned slightly and he felt incredibly stretched.
“Don’t stop… love you, don’t you dare… stop,” John said.
“Are… you sure?”
“Yes,” he cried out as Abe adjusted his angle slightly and bumped against his prostate, “Abe!”
“I… have you, John,” he said as he pulled out and thrust into him again, it was so hot and heavenly. This made up for every time he had to do something for the Bureau that was unpleasant or in an unpleasant place. John thrust down against him and it was Abe’s turn to cry out, “I love you, John!”
He moved the hand from John’s hip, wrapped it around his cock and then…
The red alarm went off.