Chapter Six: Abe Sapien ~
Becoming Brothers, Becoming Partners, Part Two

Author's note: Some of what is below derives vaguely from the original Mignola Hellboy comics Box Full of Evil and Right Hand of Doom and a smattering of the spin-off comic B.P.R.D.: A Plague of Frogs.

Trevor Broom had set up a large, round table in a quiet corner of his office for Abe to use while he was working on learning Russian. He had more room to spread out there than in his own private quarters. More and more often he had Hellboy use this table for his lessons rather than using Hellboy’s more chaotic and often noisy room.

Abe never could figure out how Hellboy managed to concentrate on anything with the ten or fifteen different televisions that always seemed to be on. He had also learned the hard way that you don’t ask the big guy to turn them off.

Abe began to understand that this constant chatter from these televisions was an attempt to fill up a silence that too often reminded Hellboy of his enforced isolation from that outside world he would much rather inhabit. Abe, who more often preferred silence, realized that in many ways his essential nature was much more like Trevor Broom’s no matter how close or special Hellboy’s relationship was with the man who loved him as a son.

On the other hand, preferring silence did not necessarily mean a preference for solitude. Abe found that this was something that bound all three of them together—a need to be part of a larger group where one could be accepted as different and yet still be an essential part of the whole.

This need was very much a part of Hellboy’s nature even if he seldom overtly acknowledged it and Abe recognized that Hellboy had let him see this more vulnerable side of himself; a side that he showed to very few people outside of Trevor Broom. Abe found Hellboy spending more and more time in Broom’s office with them and often enjoying the togetherness he found there.

Yet, over the last several days, Abe noticed a certain unpredictable impatience in Hellboy. He would end up picking some fight over nonsense with either Abe or Broom and then storm out of the office to sulk, refusing to speak to them about what was troubling him.

This was certainly making Abe’s Russian lessons a bit on the chaotic side. He was having trouble enough learning a whole new alphabet, on top of dealing with a language whose nouns in general needed twelve different endings depending on placement in the sentence and whose adjectives could take twenty-four different endings; it was not helping Abe’s confusion with all these different endings to have Hellboy fly off into some temperamental outburst just because he had dared to ask why this had to be so.

“Why?” Hellboy groaned, “Who the hell cares about why? Just memorize the goddamn pattern.”

Abe sighed, looked at his paper, and tried again.

“I am a student. Ya student. I love the student. Ya lyublyu studenta. The student has a textbook. U studenta est uchebnik. I call the student. Ya pozvonyu studenta.”

“No! No! No!” Hellboy shouted, “Ya pozvonyu studenty. Studenty! Studenty! Studenty! If you don’t memorize this crap, Abe, you’ll never learn it. It doesn’t need to make sense.”

Trevor Broom looked up from his work. “Son, I see no need to shout at Abe like that.”

Hellboy glared at Broom, looking like he wanted to say something further. He then shrugged, turned away, and walked out of the office.

Abe, who was still seated at the table, put down the paper he had been attempting to translate from and got up from the table. “That’s the third time in almost as many days that something like this has happened, Professor. What’s up with the big lummox, anyway?”

Broom stood up from his chair and stretched. “I’m not sure, Abe. He seems to be worried about something but he won’t talk about it. I don’t think it’s anything about us. I think it’s time I just went and asked him what it is. You can stay here and study more or return to your aquarium; whichever you prefer.”

Broom walked out in search of Hellboy. He first went to his room, but Hellboy wasn’t there. Broom eventually located him on the roof that overhung the entranceway to the building that was the aboveground portion of the Bureau main headquarters. Broom stood in the fire-exit door that lead on to the roof and watched Hellboy for some time before walking out on to the roof.

It was now just after sunset and the sky all around was still tinged with the fire of the sun’s last light. Hellboy was seated, legs dangling over the edge of the overhang, facing the gated entrance to the BPRD’s secret compound. He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he had not heard Broom’s approach until he sat down next to him on his right side.

“Father,” Hellboy said in a low voice without turning towards him. Broom could sense in that one word and the tone in which it was spoken that there was something definitely troubling this unique individual he loved as much as any father could love a son of his own body. He hated prying when Hellboy was reluctant to share his concerns, but this time felt he needed to know.

They sat together in silence watching the light fade slowly from the sky. It had been a relatively warm day for December, but now the warmth that had come from the sun was dissipating. Broom shivered slightly and Hellboy sensed this.

“Look, Pop, I can tell that you’re starting to feel cold. Go on back in and tell Abe I’m sorry I snapped at him like that. I’ll be all right; just need to think some things out.”

Broom looked up at Hellboy. He was avoiding looking at Broom and was instead gazing intently at some distant point on the horizon as if he could find all his answers there.

“Son, I’m not that cold and plan on sitting here until you are willing to talk to me.” Broom was wearing a tweed jacket over his shirt and wool vest. He pulled the jacket closer and patiently waited for some response from Hellboy.

After a long while, Hellboy looked down at him and laughed. “Jeez, Pop, you can be damn stubborn, you know that?”

He gently pulled Broom closer with that mammoth right hand of his and wrapped him up in a part of his tan-colored leather coat. Broom smiled up at Hellboy, enjoying both the warmth to be found in snuggling next to him and the affection he heard in his voice. “I prefer the word persistent, Son; I can be persistent when I feel the need. Please tell me what is bothering you. It might help to speak of it.”

Hellboy looked out into the gathering gloom of dusk and held Broom tighter. He took a deep breath, “Father, I don’t like not knowing who I really am. I don’t remember much of what happened when I was possessed, but I do remember a horrible voice and some of what it said. You’ve been the best father a guy like me could ever hope for and I’ve always wanted to think of myself as your son. But once in a while something like this shoves my real origins in my face and it’s hard to pretend anymore.”

Broom seized Hellboy’s left hand. “Son, there’s nothing ‘pretend’ about what I feel for you. You are my son and no entity claiming to be your ‘real’ father is going to take you from me.”

Hellboy shook his head. “I’m not sure that answer’s good enough anymore.”

He gently squeezed Broom’s hand in his before he continued. “I’ve been having this strange dream lately. I go to visit this priest I’ve never met before and he hands me this weird little piece of parchment. It’s got all these strange markings and a drawing of something that kind of looks like my right hand. It’s also got something written in Old Lemurian on it that translates into ‘Behold the Right Hand of Doom’. The priest looks at me with this sad face and says ‘I am afraid that it is your burden, my son, your curse.’ That’s when I wake up.”

Broom attempted to look into Hellboy’s face, but in the now quickly gathering darkness it was hard to read his expression. “I will continue to call you ‘Son’ until the last day I draw breath. Have faith in my love for you. I wish you trusted me as you did when you were young.”

Hellboy abruptly stood up from his seated position on the roof’s edge and pulled Broom to his feet into a tight embrace. “God knows I have plenty of faith and trust in you, Father. It’s myself I don’t have faith in and I feel like there’s this whole part of my own body I can’t trust.”

Broom gently interrupted him, “Tell me, Son, do you trust Abe?” Hellboy nodded. “Why ever would you trust some odd creature whose origins are as mysterious as your own?”

“We shouldn’t distrust him until give us a reason,” Hellboy replied as they walked toward the building and Broom pulled open the fire-exit door.

“Exactly so, Son. We should look upon him as having a clean slate and only take into consideration those acts he performs now in this life. You should give yourself that same benefit of the doubt,” Broom said as they walked back into the building. Just as they entered the code red alarms all went off.

Hellboy suddenly smiled. “Well, I guess there’s still some work for this old right hand of mine. I think Abe’s up to going with me again. What do you think, Pop?”

“Yes, I do believe that it is time he started going out with you again.”

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