Disclaimer: Any similarity between any actual fanworks and the made-up fanworks mentioned here is purely coincidental. This is just a playful parody. Rest assured I include myself in most references of how weird geeks can be. Please have a sense of humor, guys. Thanks in advance to the generous souls who take the time to comment.
Out of the Fandom and into the Fire
Abe walked the corridors of the DPRD headquarters with a mug of red tea in one hand and a stack of mail in the other. Ever since Hellboy had forcibly "outed" the team, Abe's incoming letters had gone from a trickle to a flood. He sipped his tea and fanned the letters in his other hand with his webbed fingers. No longer were the bulk of his letters typed on sterile letterhead and stamped with 'Confidential' and 'For Your Eyes Only.' These new letters were handwritten, the more exotic of which were in looping cursive and reeked of perfume. The letters with hearts dotting the "i"s made him a little uncomfortable, but he supposed it was preferable to Hellboy's fanmail. Red's incoming letters were usually written in pencil block letters by self-proclaimed anarchists, rambling praises for the very satanic forces that the DPRD fought to suppress.
As Abe walked past the hallway that led to Hellboy's room, he could hear Red's bellowing laughter followed by an exasperated sigh from Liz. He paused and cocked his head towards his friend's room, wondering if Liz had shared the good news of Red's fatherhood yet. Abe supposed it was none of his business, but it seemed rather cruel for her to keep something so important a secret.
Red's familiar red slab of a face peered out the door of his room and down the hall. "Hey! That you, Abe? You gotta check this out. It's a laugh riot!" He started chuckling again and wiped tears from the corners of his eyes, his laughter reducing to a wheeze.
Liz's disembodied voice trickled through the doorway from behind Red, sounding weary. "Don't waste your time, Abe. Just go to bed."
Liz was usually right about these things, but Abe's curiosity was already piqued by Hellboy's laughter. He hadn't heard Red so amused since the broadcast of Manning making a fool of himself and rambling about gas pockets. Against his better judgment, Abe walked down the hall and poked his head into Hellboy's room. Taking care not to step on one of the tabby kittens scampering underfoot, he gracefully crossed the room to stand beside Liz and Hellboy who were both engrossed with something on Red's computer.
"Check this out," Hellboy said, pointing.
Abe startled to see the monitor displayed an image of himself. He was bare from the waist up, which wasn't so unusual, but what was odd was the way he stood. In the picture, he had his hands tucked behind his head in a provocative pose. Flustered, Abe turned immediately to his friends to explain himself. "I never posed for that!"
"Amazing what they can do with PhotoShop these days, innit?" Red growled in amusement, his voice garbled by the cigar clamped in his teeth.
Liz put a hand on Abe's shoulder in reassurance. "Don't worry," she said. "It's not just you. They got me and HB, too."
"Yeah," Hellboy said, tapping his cigar ash into a soda can beside his keyboard. "But mine's mostly photo edits of me destroying Manhattan or something. Pretty awesome."
"What about you, Liz?" Abe asked, a little worried. He knew she hated to be the center of attention, and eroticized images were bound to upset her even more.
She rolled her eyes and hugged her arms to her chest. "Oh, you know," she said. "Every fire-related pun guys can think of. Jokes about me being 'hot' or 'smokin.' The same tired old crap."
"But at least it's true," Hellboy interrupted.
Liz just shook her head and ducked her chin towards her chest, hiding her face behind a curtain of dark hair.
"It is rather flattering," Abe suggested helpfully. "They think you're beautiful."
Liz tossed her head, flipping her hair back from her face. "Yeah, but they don't even know me," she said. "If I was a normal girl they wouldn't give me a second glance. They're only interested because they think it's cool I can start fires. I'm still getting singled out as a freak."
Abe raised a webbed index finger and wagged it in admonishment. "But that's part of who you are, too," he reminded her. "If I ever find the right lady, she would need to accept me for this,"—he made a sweeping gesture down his slim piscine body—"as well as for my personality. You love Hellboy for his ability as an investigator as well as for his looks, don't you?"
Liz gave a limp shrug. "Yeah, but that was more after the fact," she said. "I like you guys for your personalities. The rest is just extra."
Abe dipped his head in a shallow bow. "It's most kind of you to say so."
"Hey!" Hellboy interrupted, getting bored. "Whenever you two are done with your sappy hug fest back there, let me know." He removed the stump of cigar from his mouth and exhaled smoke through his nostrils.
Abe was quick to change the subject. "But what did you want to show me? If it's just more tabloid pictures…"
"Awww, no," Hellboy said, waving his oversized stone hand. "We've seen all that before. People got tired pretty quick of all the facts and photos. Now they're onto something called 'fandom' where they just make things up."
"Make things up?" Abe echoed. He looked to Liz for confirmation, but she'd turned her face away. He turned back to Hellboy, cocking his head in perplexity. "What do you mean?"
"Fan websites and stuff," Hellboy explained, clicking through bookmarked pages. "Here's one for you, Blue: a fan shrine to everyone's favorite ichthyo sapien."
"Shrine?" Abe repeated. The word was more than a little disconcerting. It chilled him how often the scales of curiosity tipped into obsession. Many of the deranged cultists they fought had started out with an unhealthy obsession with the occult before sliding into a crude form of worship to dark gods.
"Everybody's worshipping something," Hellboy said, quoting something Professor Bruttenholm had often said. "The people who think they aren't are probably worshipping themselves," Hellboy added. This last part was his own addition, not Professor Broom's.
"There's a whole mess of artwork… Speculation about us in blog communities," Red continued. He tactfully avoided typing in Liz's name and ran a search on Abe's instead as a demonstration. "Hey, check this out." He skimmed down the page and started laughing again, clutching his ribs. "Looks like a group of gals curious about what ol' honest Abe is packing in those tight shorts of his…"
"Oh, please!" Abe said, flustered. "I don't see what business it is of theirs!"
"Well," Red gasped, as he temporarily controlled his laughter, "They figure if you've got gills to breathe, you might have something else to—" He skimmed lower until he read something that made him double over, clutching at this stomach with laughter. "Milt?" he wheezed. "What the heck is 'milt,' Blue?"
Abe's eyes widened and his jaw dropped. "Well, I never!" he gasped, indignant. He reached for the mouse so he could click away to a different page, but Hellboy slapped his hand away.
"C'mon, Abe!" he laughed. "Inquiring minds want to know! What is it?"
Abe tried to grab at the mouse or hit the power button on the monitor to make him stop reading, but Hellboy easily overpowered him.
With his palm spread over Abe's face, holding him at arm's length away from the computer, Hellboy lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Is that how fishies do it?" he asked innocently.
"Just--! Give it--!" Abe struggled, helplessly flailing his arms to reach around Hellboy's broad shoulders, trying to click to a different page. The heat rose to his face so fast it made his skin tingle.
"Are you blushing, Abe?" Hellboy chuckled. "I think you just turned a darker shade of blue! I didn't know you could do that!"
"Oh! You--!" Abe's words hung in the air as he pared through his substantial lexicon for an appropriate come-back. Flummoxed, he found his words had completely left him.
"I thought you didn't like the cold, H.B.," Liz interrupted the boys cryptically.
"Huh? You know I don't," Hellboy said. He peered around Abe to lock gazes with his girlfriend. She wasn't smiling.
"Well, I know your bed's a lot colder with only one person sleeping in it instead of two," she said. "And that's how it's gonna be tonight if you keep this up."
"Whoah!" Hellboy released Abe immediately. "Hey, I was just kiddin' him, babe. You know that!" His eyes quickly took on a pleading, apologetic look.
Abe clicked to a different webpage and nodded his head gratefully toward Liz in an unspoken 'Thank you.' She gave a half-hearted one-shoulder shrug in reply as a silent, 'Don't mention it.'
"Has anything good come out of this fandom thing?" Abe asked, peering at the latest page Red had bookmarked. This one was mostly text, an archive of stories. "What's fanfiction?"
"It's exactly what it sounds like," Red explained. "Stories written by fans about stuff we haven't actually done before."
"How interesting!"
"Yeah, you'd think so, wouldn't ya?" Hellboy put a fresh stogie in his mouth and was about to light it when Liz snatched it from his lips without explanation. Hellboy looked like he was about to protest, but stopped himself, perhaps because of how recently she'd threatened to make him sleep alone. Abe had heard Liz complain of Red's smoking before, but never seen her intervene directly. He guessed her attitude towards second-hand smoke had changed since she found out she was pregnant. But when was she going to tell Red?
"The problem," Hellboy continued, "Is this one dame keeps messing things up. She's got lots of different names in the fanfics, but ultimately, her name is always Mary Sue. Pretty awful character if you ask me."
"Ah," Abe said absently. He wasn't really paying attention any more. His focus was immediately stolen when he saw a certain word leap off the page of story descriptions. "What's this?" he said, pointing. "It's a story about… pregnancy." He turned to give Liz a meaningful look.
"I wouldn't know, Abe," Liz replied. She jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow hard enough to draw an undignified 'Oof!' from her friend. "The story description doesn't mention me. Just Agent Sapien and Agent Hellboy." She crossed her arms and regarded her friends.
"Hmm. Perhaps I was mistaken," Abe confessed. "It's not just pregnancy, but something called 'm-preg.' What's that?" He looked to Hellboy for explanation, but the demon shrugged his massive shoulders.
"I dunno. Why doncha just click on it and see?"
Abe clicked the link to the story. The three paranormal investigators leaned forward to start reading. In rapid succession, Liz's dropped her jaw, Abe's eyes widened, and Hellboy covered his mouth like he was about to be sick. Their screams of horror could be heard all the way on the other side of the underground compound.