"Did he
see us?" Liz quizzed nervously.
"No, I think he just swam out
of sight" H.B breathed with a reassuring smile.
"Gah! This is
so low…spying on a best friend!" She began to rant
frantically, "Sure you can bloody foil evil plots to destroy the
universe but you can't keep it together spying on a comrade Liz!"
She continued to ramble to herself.
"He won't know a
thing; he won't even know you were here with me. I'll just waltz
on up there like I just arrived innocently and casually, strike up a
conversation with him and try to talk things through with him…"
H.B soothed, looking over his shoulder into the pallid and stunned
face of Liz as she now leant her back flat against the large, carved
wooden table leg and he patted her on the shoulder meaningfully. But
she failed an answer.
"Awww, c'mon Hun! We'll just
crack open a few beers, cry, hug, throw a base ball 'round and do
all that best-friend kind of stuff…" He continued, pulling out a
thick cigar and lighting it from a struck match, still watching the
tank closely for any signs of life through the billowing cigar smoke.
"Hellboy…"
"Yeah?" He replied thickly, eyes still
fixated on the tank.
"-I've been standing here for the past
seven minutes" a familiar voice sounded.
Stunned, Hellboy
turned, following Liz's unblinking gaze to lay eyes upon, no other
than Abe himself, already half dressed, towering over the both of
them looking rather cross.
"Oh crap…" Hellboy mumbled in
horror staring into Abe's face, slightly afraid to meet his
eye.
"Oh crap!" Liz shrieked pointing at Hellboy's smouldering crutch, which sure enough had been caused by an abandoned
cigar landing on the matchbook that had lay in his lap and in a
matter of a second, sent his entire pants alight.
And so, after
the few tempestuous seconds in time that became almost epic, Hellboy,
once realising his crotch was indeed on fire, came to hop about and
pat himself madly in an attempt to smother the flames. Soon enough,
he was bare-assed and in his panic, had flung the still burning pants
unto the Persian rug that accompanied the floor boards, the hungry
flames pouncing upon the straggled books that had previously fell to
the floor, devouring them mercilessly before the fast thinking Abe
tipped a vase of flowers on the ferocious beast-flames.
They simply stood there while the smoke cleared, Abe looking rather defeated, still holding the now empty vase. Any man could see he was seething, but desperately trying to remain calm for his friend's sake.
Hellboy, now realising his nakedness, blushed a deep purple and attempted his best to conceal himself. Liz however, remained motionless, staring at the pile of ash and the now scorched Persian rug.
"L-Look, Abe, I-" H.B started, before Abe
raised a commanding hand of silence.
This was repeated several
times until H.B gave up on explaining himself and sighed
remorsefully.
But after a minutes silence, Liz suddenly
erupted,
"Can you hear that?" in a surprisingly high pitched
tone, as she must obviously been suffering that silence between
them.
But sure enough, a loud clanking noise echoed about the
room, the sound drawing closer and closer…
