Just a small snippet could become a story but I may leave it.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or Hellboy itself and I make no money off of this.
- - - - - enjoy - - - - -
It has started out of sheer boredom, in the winter months few people moved outside in the freezing weather conditions and funnily enough most of the demons out there shared the human's views sticking to warmer climates. So that left Red sitting around bored out of his skull, and so he had taken to John watching.
It began innocently enough; John had been making coffee and hadn't noticed Red behind him until he was already too close. Twisting John bumped straight into his chest poring coffee down himself.
"RED!" John pulled at his top trying to stop the burning.
"Sorry Scout"
"God Red you're as sneaky as you're cats sometimes" John huffed stalking off to get changed.
Red grinned 'maybe I won't be so bored after all'
It had continued from there discovering where John's room was at the BPRD, to his favourite place to do his work, even when John ate, which in Red's opinion wasn't very often and was very little 'no wonder the kids so scrawny'
Even Abe's lecture had done very little to persuade him to abandon his new pass time.
- - - - - - Flashback - - - - - -
John had fallen asleep in the study hunched over the professor's desk, his paperwork strewn around it and some had fallen off the desk onto the floor. Red had tiptoed round the study pulling a blanket over John, a smile curling his lips.
"You know what you're doing is called stalking right" Abe tutted reading a book.
"Hey it's not stalking ….im just keeping John on his toes…like training" Red grinned at the sapien.
"Uh Hu" Abe crosses his arms "And what brought on this sudden interest in our young agent?"
Red blushed for a moment looking at the small agent sleeping on his father's desk "I just want him to stay safe in the field, he's been slacking"
"John never slacks Red; he works too hard to prove he belongs here" Abe almost frowned.
"…And I want to make sure he sticks around" Red glided over it quickly and to be honest he wasn't lying, he was the only agent that had ever kept up with him, on occasion he even surpassed Clay.
"Just ease up on him Red" Abe floated gracefully in his tank.
- - - - - End flashback - - - - -
And so it was because of Abe's careful eye on him after that, that red had resorted to his current tactic jumping from roof to roof watching john bellow walk through the thick snow, his body wrapped tightly in his coat with scarf and mittens, from here red could even see his red frost bitten cheeks and the little smile that graced him as he made his way home. Red smiled at the sight trying to memorise it.
Jumping to another roof top and feeling the snow crunch underneath his boots at the impact, his tail lashing out for balance and hid hot breath came out in thick folds like he was smoking one of his cigars. He followed John to one of the apartment complexes, it was a modern building with large glass windows and looked very sterile and plain, jumping again he made to land on the next building his fingers reaching out for the brick wall only to miss it by a hairs breath, he landed heavily in the snow, trying to stand he felt more snow fall fully covering him. The impact was loud enough to startle John who made his way back to the building, his hand slipping under his coat to take hold of his gun, keeping it hidden from view he made his way closer only to see a mound of snow moving, he raised his gun at the white shifting pile and grimaced as the cold wind swept under his coat.
The white pile shifted shaking the snow away from the figure underneath only to have a red figure hauled himself out with a disgruntled look; Red stayed quiet glaring at the figure before him and sheathed his gun back in its holder. The click of the gun is what drew Red's attention away from getting the snow out of his side burns as it melted onto his skin. Slowly turning he grimaced then gave a shy nervous look as John glared at him.
"H..Hey scout...errrrr" he rubbed the back of his neck with his stone hand.
"You're stalking me" John stated
"Pfft! I would never…"
"You did the same thing to me and Liz when we went for coffee" John raised an eyebrow "You threw a stone at my head"
"It wasn't a stone … more like a small pebble" Red mumbled
"What was that?"
"Errrr nothing" Red quickly covered "I went for a stroll, got bored cooped up inside"
John eased up on glaring "well come on then"
"Wait…what?" Red tried to catch up with John.
"It's freezing out here I'm going inside, you coming or not"
"Won't I be seen by the cctv?"
"As if you've ever cared before" John chuckled at reds grin "The cctv is fake, it's just to keep up appearances" John unlocked the door with his key card moving in slowly to check no one was there, luckily the building was pretty deserted, they made their way to the third floor and into John's apartment, sighing in relief. John immediately turned up the heating, slipping off his coat, mittens and thick boots. He turned to find red in the kitchen his head stuck in the fridge.
"Hey scout you got anything decent to eat?" pulling his head back out the fridge
"You realise I'm not in work Red, I don't get paid for this"
"Awww come on Scout" Red moved over to drape an arm round John's neck, surprisingly John didn't move, enjoying the warmth from Red to much.
'Well he's not going back to the Bureau in a hurry might as well accept it and stock up' John grumbled shifting in reds grip he reached for the phone, dialling his favourite Chinese
"Hello…yes I'd like to order two of everything from your menu …. No this is not a joke…..yes I can pay over the phone if you don't believe me ….yes that's fine….also do you have any baby Ruth's?...ill have some of those too"
Red stopped listening, almost drooling at the thought of Chinese food, baby Ruth's and John as he lent over the counter….wait a minute why was he staring at John's ass….. John's perky ass that was covered with tight black jeans…Red swallowed hard.
John placed the phone down and turned back to red seeing his drooling face "close your mouth red the food will be delivered soon" John moved past Hellboy, Red's jaw snapping shut at John's laugh "Wanna pick a movie?"
"Sure" Red threw his trench coat over the back of the couch and careful sat down, checking it could hold his weight before relaxing into it, one arm resting on the arm and his legs propped up on the table, flicking through Netflix he landed on pitch black "I've heard this is meant to be good, want to give it a try?"
"Sounds good to me" John turned off the light, stripped off his jumper and slumped on the couch next to Red making himself comfy. Red tried not to look, clicking play and adjusting the volume. They got half way into the movie before a buzzing was heard, pausing the movie and buzzing them to let them into the building.
"Red go hide in there, he pointed to a door" Red moved quickly anxious to get food, closing the door behind him, he noted he was in a small tidy room , the surfaces of the furniture were covered in photos of John and his uncle with various car parts or motorbikes, one when John had graduated college with all of his classmates throwing their hats in the air and various other ones, he reached out and found a small worn picture of a five year old with obviously the kids parents as they had a picnic, it looked like it was the kids birthday, obviously John's only momentous of his lost family. He moved onto another grinning, it was obviously a picture Liz had taken before she left. The picture was of him hugging scout and grinning while John looked shocked a huge blush on his face.
Red remembered that moment well but why did john have a picture of it?
- - - - - In the front room - - - - -
No sooner had Hellboy left the room did he hear a knock on the front door, opening it to see five men come in with arms full of Chinese food placing it on the kitchen counter and giving him a weird look at the amount of food with only himself in the apartment. They left just as quietly still eyeing him, and shutting the door behind themselves.
"You can come out Red" John unwrapped the food, placing the majority of it on the table and placing the spare cartons by the side of the couch where Red was previously sitting. Hellboy poked his head out, spotting the food he almost ran over spotting chicken in curry sauce he grabbed chopsticks and dug in.
"When did you learn to use chop sticks?" John spoke between mouthfuls of his chicken noodles.
"When I was younger and we were looking for a base for the BPRD we visited Japan for a while, dad insisted I learnt to use chopsticks" Red grinned at the memory and they comfortably went back to watching the movie.
By the end of the movie, half of the food was gone and John was leaning against Red; Red's arm resting on the back of the sofa while his other continued to stuff duck rolls into his mouth. It was only by the end of the second film (chronicles of Riddick) that all the food was gone and Hellboy noticed John had fallen asleep against his chest.
Red smiled down at the small man on his chest, shifting carefully so not to wake John up he pulled his legs up onto the couch to got comfy; pulling his coat off the back of the couch to act as a blanket for John and lastly turned the TV off. He pondered in the moments before sleep if head ever felt this happy and how he felt towards the young man, drifting off into sleep himself he didn't see John smirk up at him and snuggle closer...
- - - - - please review - - - - -
Review and let me know what you think . . .
