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Beauty and the Beast Within	By : TheShadowCat Category: G through L > Hellboy Views: 15623 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Hellboy, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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PAIN!!!

Holy crap but his head hurts. He can’t recall it ever hurting this bad before and he’s got a lot of experience with pain in every part of his body, some parts more than others. It feels like his skull is about two sizes too small and there’s a jackhammer convention currently being held right behind his eyes.

He tries to take a deep breath and the smell of astringents and cleaners assaults his nostrils making him wrinkle his nose in distaste. He can hear the monitors quietly beeping and whirring nearby, so it’s confirmed that he’s in the medical facility again. As he becomes more aware of his body and surroundings, he can feel the needles stuck in his arms and the sensor pads attached to his head and chest, annoying, but tolerable. However, the strangest sensation has to be the warm, soft weight on his left side.

After several moments, he finally cracks open his eyes despite his eyelids feeling like they’re made of lead and looks down at his body. The top of a very familiar head is resting on his chest, her body crammed into the over sized medical bed beside him. Suddenly the pain doesn’t seem as bad as before and a small smile creeps onto his lips. He lets out a contented sigh and closes his eyes, slipping back into a more restful sleep.

The sound of voices quietly talking nearby and the pounding in his head wake him some indeterminate time later. He tries to tune them out and concentrate on the woman beside him only to realize that she’s not there any more. He opens his eyes and groggily frowns at the empty spot beside him.

“Iiiizzz?” he croaks out in a slur.

His frown deepens and he tries to clear his throat in preparation to call her name again.

“She’s not here right now,” a familiar, calming voice tells him.

With quite a bit of effort and some serious amounts of pain, Hellboy turns his head to look at Abe, his face relaxing a bit at the sight of his old friend.

“I sent her to get something to eat and to take a shower,” Abe explains as he steps up to the bed. “If it weren’t for the pregnancy, I doubt I could get her to leave your side at all and unwashed human is a smell even I don’t enjoy.”

“Whahapnnn?” Hellboy tries to ask and his frown returns.

“You had an aneurysm,” Abe answers. “If you didn’t have your advanced healing factor, you would more than likely be dead now. As it is, it created a blood clot that had to be surgically removed. Your speech is going to be slurred for a while and you’re going to have to go through some physical rehabilitation and speech therapy, but I don’t anticipate that taking more than a week or two at most. You’re hair, on the other hand, will take a bit longer.”

Red hesitantly reaches up and touches his head and his fingers immediately encounter bandages followed by the short stubble of hair on his head. He glares at Abe and the merman simply shrugs and waves a graceful hand.

“It couldn’t be helped,” Abe explains. “It’s just hair, Red, it will grow back.”

Hellboy continues to scowl and draws a deep breath only for Abe to raise his hand in a ‘stop’ motion.

“It’s best if you just think your questions to me,” Abe tells him. “As I said, your speech is going to be slurred for a while.”

How long…have…I been…out? Hellboy thinks as best he can with the pounding pain returning.

“Nearly two weeks,” Abe tells him.

Hard to…think, Hellboy continues, closing his eyes. Hurts.

“Yes, I imagine it does,” Abe replies as he starts to move around the bed and Hellboy opens his eyes to watch him. “That’s why I’ve set up a morphine pump that you can control.”

Morphine pump? Hellboy asks in confusion.

“Yes, let me show you,” Abe replies as he steps around to Hellboy’s left side and Hellboy can see a strange box attached to the IV stand. “When you become too uncomfortable, push this button on the controller, it will administer a small dose of morphine into your IV drip. If after about ten minutes, the pain is still bothering you, push it again. The controller is set up to give you no more than three doses in a half hour period. Keep in mind that the more morphine you take, the more disoriented you’ll become. Do you understand?”

Yeah, Hellboy answers, pain evident even in his thoughts.

“Do you want to try it?” Abe asks as he moves the IV stand closer to the bed.

Nah, I’m good, Hellboy replies, shifting around to get more comfortable and Abe cocks his head to the side.

“You, my friend, are horrible liar,” Abe states as he pushes the button to release the morphine.

Hey! Hellboy protests and the drug starts to hit his system a few seconds later.

“You’re body will heal much faster if you’re not fighting the pain,” Abe tells him as the merman walks away. “Get some rest. Liz will probably return soon so just relax. I’ll get one of the techs to set up a TV and DVD player for you in a bit.”

Whadda I do in the mean time? Hellboy demands.

“Try reading a book,” Abe answers as he waves a hand at the table next to the bed.

Hellboy turns and looks and sees a small stack of books on the table next to him. He turns to make a scathing comment about the baby and pregnancy books sitting there only to find that he’s alone in the room once more. Thinking several unkind things about big blue amphibious pains in the butts, he closes his eyes, ignoring the soft chuckling he can hear in the back of his mind.

When he wakes up again, the familiar and most welcome warm pressure is on his left side again. With a happy sigh, he wraps his arm around her as best he can since it feels like lead and he can hear her quietly chuckle. He feels her place something on his chest just before she snuggles up closer to him, wrapping an arm across his belly and he manages to crack an eye open enough to see one of the baby books sitting on his chest.

“Hey, Red, how are ya feeling?” she ask when she sees he’s watching her and he groans in response. “Yeah, Abe said you’d be feeling like shit for a while. Abe also said you shouldn’t try talking since the aneurysm caused your brain to short circuit and screwed up you speech center. Well, that’s what it boils down to after Abe gave this rather long winded and complicated explanation. You know, I really think we should get him a pet. He’s in that library by himself waaaay too much.”

He chuckles in response, causing her head to bounce up and down, but she just laughs with him and gives him a one armed squeeze. After the humor runs out, they lie there in silence, just enjoying the other’s presence.

“Damn, Red, when you went down, it about scared me half to death,” she quietly admits after they’ve been quiet for a while. “You were just lying there and I couldn’t get you to move. I don’t remember much after that except that I remember screaming. There was a lot of screaming. I think it was me. God, please don’t ever do that to me again.”

With that she scoots up his body until she can bury her face into his neck and he holds her as close as he dares, leaving his right arm out of it as her tears get his neck wet. He stares at the ceiling, blinking back his own tears and ignoring the throbbing pain in his head while the woman he loves continues to quietly cries into his neck. He tries to make comforting sounds, but it comes out like gurgled groans and it just makes her sob even harder, so he stops and starts stroking her hair.

By the time her tears run dry, his head feels like it’s about to split in two and he hopes she doesn’t notice him moaning in pain. At least he thinks he’s moaning, though it sounds more like whimpering to his ears, but he refuses to believe he could make such sounds. He can feel the blood pounding through the veins in his temples and he’s pretty sure at any given second they’re going to burst.

Almost as if his hand has a mind of its own, his left hand leaves her soft tresses and slowly reaches for the box on the IV stand. With trembling fingers, he manages to push the button and then his arm drops back down onto the bed as if it weighs a ton. A short eternity later and the pain starts to subside, but there seems to be a strange weight on his chest now.

It takes him a while longer to realize that the pressure on his chest is Liz and that she’s fallen asleep part way on top of him. He smiles through the pain as he wraps his arm around her again and then closes his eyes with a happy sigh. While the pain lessens, he can feel his muscles starting to relax and while the egotistical part of him curses his weakness for needing the drug, another part is quietly thanking Abe for installing the pump. As he feels himself drifting back to sleep, he swears he hears the words You’re welcome softly in the back of his mind.

“So, how are you feeling this morning?” Abe cheerfully asks as he descends the spiral staircase.

“Llllike crrrap,” Hellboy growls, his words still slurring like he’s drunk, but not as bad as it was when he woke several days earlier.

“That is to be expected,” Abe replies as he comes off of the last step and into the late Professor Broom’s office. “Now, do you remember why you’re here?”

“Yessss,” Hellboy hisses, in even a fouler mood than before. “I donnn’t liiike it.”

“I know, but I need to know what happened to you the morning of your collapse because I can find no medical reason for the aneurysm and since you can’t seem to remember much past having an argument with Liz, this is the only way,” Abe tells him and Hellboy scowls at Blue. “Just relax. This will go much easier if you don’t fight it. I promise I won’t go anywhere but that morning.”

Hellboy sits in the wingback chair, but doesn’t really relax and Abe knows there’s really nothing he can do to make Hellboy calmer. The merman is just glad his old friend isn’t in one of his raging tirades again, something that unfortunately seems to be a side effect of his collapse. With no fear of being interrupted since he requested that the two of them be left alone except for the most dire of emergencies, Abe lays his bare hand on Hellboy’s head just above the sawed off horns.

“Think back to that morning,” Abe quietly instructs. “Try to remember what you and Liz were fighting about…Oh my, that wasn’t very nice. When a woman tells you no, Red, it means no.”

“Heeeey, you ssssaid you wouldn’t prrry,” Hellboy snaps, trying to shake Abe off but finding his lack of coordination, the high sides of the chair and Abe’s suction cups working against him.

“I didn’t pry, you showed it to me,” Abe points out as Hellboy glares daggers at him. “It’s not my fault that’s what you two were arguing about. Now, let us continue.”

Abe delves deeper into the memory, watching Liz through Hellboy’s eyes, feeling what Red was feeling at that moment. He monitor’s Hellboy’s vital signs peripherally in the back of his mind while he watches the scene unfold. He carefully notes the feelings Red had that fateful morning, the raised blood pressure, the anger, the frustration.

Suddenly, both Hellboy and Abe are screaming in pain and it feels as if someone has taken a knife and stabbed between Abe’s eyes. The pain is excruciating and it takes every bit of will for Abe not to lose his lunch. Then, as quickly as it began, it ends and Abe lies there on the floor actually panting though he doesn’t need the air, wondering how he ended up on his back.

A rather unwelcome and loud sound reaches his tympanic membranes as he picks himself off of the floor making Abe tense for action. He looks over at Hellboy and sees his large red friend writhing around on the floor, his hands clutching his head and him bellowing like a wounded bull. Abe quickly rushes towards his friend and then just as swiftly has to dodge as Hellboy rolls around on the floor, his legs and tail thrashing causing furniture to become overturned.

Abe deftly moves around the overturned furniture to reach his fallen friend and then feels his heart quicken when he sees the faint outline of a fiery crown over Hellboy’s head and his horns starting to grow to their true length. Quickly dropping to his knees next to Hellboy’s head, Abe holds his hands over the demon’s shaking head in his hands, thankful that he didn’t bother wearing his gloves for this morning’s session. Abe lightly touches Hellboy’s mind and is immediately assaulted by the struggle between Hellboy and Anung un Rama as they battle for dominance.

Abe jerks back and gasps in shock by the anger and hatred and pure evil that is Anung un Rama and then he looks down to see Hellboy’s face contorted in agony as he gives out another scream of pain. Knowing that there’s very little chance of Hellboy winning this fight by himself this time, Abe braces himself for the onslaught, grabs a hold of Hellboy’s head and merges his psyche with Hellboy’s. Hellboy shrieks in fury as he tries to shake Abe off, but it does him no good as Abe has applied the suckers on his hands onto Hellboy’s bare skin, knowing full well it’ll leave marks and not caring.

Abe merges his mind with Hellboy’s even further; moving past memories and emotions from his friend’s past, seeking to find the beast within Hellboy. Within seconds of touching Hellboy’s mind, Abe is attacked by Anung un Rama causing the merman to cry out in pain, but despite the intense pain, he refuses to let go of Hellboy’s head. Fortunately, Abe only has to endure the assault for a few moments before Hellboy joins the fray and starts beating the monster back. Abe starts to fight back as well, helping Hellboy to beat Anung un Rama into submission, but as soon as the demon finds that he is outnumbered, he disappears.

Where the Hell did he go? Hellboy demands, Abe easily reading his friend’s anger and frustration and Abe has to admit to himself that he’s feeling pretty much the same way.

It appears he is hiding somewhere in your memories, Abe answers a few moments later. Why didn’t you tell me he was becoming more aggressive?

Hey, I can handle it, Hellboy replies defensively.

Yes, I can see that, Abe snaps back. It looks like you’ve been doing a lovely job of it, too.

I didn’t ask for your help, Hellboy snarls.

Abe can feel himself getting angrier in response and suddenly he realizes that being this close to Hellboy’s mind and emotions is affecting him. He takes a mental step back and carefully builds a mental shield between himself and his friend that’s strong enough to keep the emotions in check, but pliable enough for him to be able to work in Hellboy’s mind.

No, you didn’t, Abe calmly replies several moments later. But I am here, none the less. We need to find a way to control you demon half so that you can live your life without fear of it.

Fear? Hellboy scoffs. I don’t fear that worthless sack of shit.

No, I imagine you don’t, Abe responds. But I believe that ‘worthless sack of shit’ is responsible for your aneurysm.

What!? Hellboy demands. How the Hell is he responsible for my aneurwhatsit?

Aneurysm, Abe patiently tells him. I’ll explain later, right now, we need to find your demon and then find a way to control him.

And beat the crap out of him, Hellboy adds with a growl.

Figuratively speaking, yes, Abe says. Now, which memory do you think he’s hiding in?

How the Hell should I know? Hellboy asks. You’re the psychic, you tell me.

Since he’s a part of you, I can’t distinguish him from the rest of your mind, Abe explains. We’ll just have to start with your earliest memories and work our way from there.

Great, Hellboy grumbles. So much for you not messing around in my head.

It can’t be helped, Abe replies with a mental shrug. This may be the only way to bring your demon half under control.

I guess we’re going to take ‘fighting your inner demons’ to a whole new level, huh? Hellboy comments as images of his past start to swim around them.

So it would seem, Abe says as they reach the memory of a cavern in a ruined abbey with a sarcophagus in it and the image of a stone cat sitting on it fills his mind.
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Beauty and the Beast Within