Writer: here goes, almost done. References in this chapter are Carrie by Stephan King and The King in the Window by… ok, I don't remember…
"You finished it again?" I ask, surprised. In the past few days, I haven't had any time to do anything besides worry about saving people's lives and controlling incredible monsters that apparently live inside my mind, not reading books, much less the Odyssey.
Abe nods slightly, and then says "Yes." As though he forgot for a moment I was blind, and couldn't see that. Even if I could hear it. Things like this are kind of funny.
"I think maybe he was blind." Abe says suddenly.
I turn around to 'look' in his general direction, raising an eyebrow. "And he wrote it?" I ask, grinning a little.
"And he wrote it, yes. You obviously don't have any trouble. Maybe you're related." Abe mutters mock-annoyingly.
I snicker. "Or maybe our version of sight is just superior to all your creepy little eyeballs." I say. There's a pause, where Abe seems to stare blankly at me, and then I say "Sorry, did that sound too take over the world superior race…ish?"
"No, that sentence was a bit too strange for that. People who want to take over the world normally sound a lot less insane." He says simply.
"Ha ha." I mutter.
There's a pause, and Abe shuffles through a lot of papers in old books. By the sound of it, his fingers actually seem shorter than a lot of people's, the pages brush against the edges so quickly. But I don't think it's that. His hand had felt weird and different in mine when he was trying to stop me from exploding the whole building in the Les Miserbales basement. I smile slightly as I remember Hellboy's question, bare feet, and all the other crazy little quirks that make up a day here.
"Abe," I start quietly. "Why can't you close your eyes like a 'normal' person?"
Abe stops looking at the book and turns to me. There's a pause, and then he says almost defeatedly, almost trying to get it all out quickly, "because my eye lids are clear and slide over my eyes on either side like a fish's eyes."
There's a pause, and then I smile slightly at him.
This doesn't really seem to be what he was expecting.
"What…?" he asks.
"Well, Hellboy exists and has a New Jersey accent, the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense exists and is located in New York City, and now Merpeople exist. All these things should just really surprise me more, don't you think?" I ask, snickering slightly.
Abe looks blankly at me.
There's a long pause, and then I say "What do you look like?" and I slowly lift my hand. Abe steps forward slightly, and I gently place my fingers on his head. His skin is the same texture as the Thelodus, and it makes my heart thud for a moment, remembering that strange, for lack of a better word, dream.
His blood is colder than human blood, and as my fingers pass over his head his skin seems to collect the warmth from mine, the same way a snake or a frog does. He doesn't even have a trace of hair, his head bald and cold. My fingers run over the arches of where eyebrows would be, and I hear the blinking noise as my fingers run around the eyes. At the sides of his head, I feel a pulse in his vein, and it almost seems to quicken slightly for a moment. But just for a moment.
His nose is small and almost flat against his face, the nostrils slanted more than a human nose, and his mouth seems to almost have no real lips, curved in slightly like a fish's. I run my fingers quickly and gently over gills on the side of his neck, remembering some thought-to-be-useless piece of information I had picked up at high school about how sensitive fish's gills are and how easily they can be seriously hurt. I guess it's sort of like kicking someone in the groin if you punch a fish in the gills, that kind of pain. According to Theo, that really hurts, getting hit there.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you what I looked like, that I wasn't-"
"It's fine." I say simply, shrugging.
There's a pause, and then Abe says "It's… fine?" as though he had trouble hearing me the first time.
"Well, no one else really bothered to tell me what they look like. Besides some guy who tried to ask me out but apparently gets around on looks alone, but that's not the point. I mean, it's not really anything I can even begin to care about. Theo thinks even above all the other things I can do that would make me "not human", having it be impossible for me to give a shit what you look like is the number one. We're all just human anyway, doesn't really matter." I say simply, shrugging.
"I'm not human though Meg…" he says simply and quietly. God I feel sorry for this guy. He talks like he's stating his own death sentence.
"Whatever. You talk, you think, same difference. Besides, if we're going by specific qualifications for humanity, I'm not really in that category either." I say grinning slightly.
There was a pause, and Abe laughs in this weird quiet way that would be a snicker, if it didn't sound like some sort of dry deflated and highly depressing to listen to cough. I raise an eyebrow. "Shouldn't you get in the very large aquarium thing now? You sound like you're… I don't know, drowning on air or something." I mutter.
"I shouldn't have lied to you…" Abe mutters back. I shrug. I remember once I read a book where one of the main things was giving lies colors. A red lie was one of betrayal in blood, a gold lie was something a leader told his followers to make then feel braver, and a transparent lie was one where someone merely didn't mention something. it was a pretty good book, one of the kinds that manage to be good while making utterly no sense whatsoever. This though, was a transparent lie. I tell them myself a lot of the time. I smile slightly.
"I sort of understand why you did it though. Sometimes when I'm out walking without Shark Bate or anything, people don't think I'm blind because I don't act like the stereo type of blind. And well… I just forget to mention my eyes don't work. It's because I get sick of being treated like a really breakable person with brain damage, and being spoken to in a way where I wonder if they think I'm deaf too. If you look different, unless you meet someone like me, or someone very stupid, you can't really hide it like that. So just take a chance when one comes, that kind of thing." I say simply.
There's a pause, and then Abe says "you're comparing not being human to being blind?"
"Yes." I say simply.
Abe smiled slightly and shook his head. "That's a little insulting to the blind comunity."
"People say the same shit to us though. There's either pity or inferiority, and I don't know which one's worse. Sometimes fear. We're all the same in that way, like the world can see us in a way that's different than who we are..."
Abe shuffles slightly, almost awkwardly through one of his books. Then he glances up at me and says "Who said that?"
I squint slightly, trying to remember, and then I say "Some guy on disney channel. I think they sang it actually. I remember Theo obsessing over it."
Abe chuckles slightly. "What an extensive literature of sayings and quotes you have." He shakes his head again. He's not looking at me anymore, and seems to still be slightly dumbfounded by my words. "You're comparing not being human to being blind..." He repeats.
I raise an eyebrow at him. "Yes. It makes perfect sense to me, unlike every other thing in the newly twisted version of reality that I'm currently living in. So you better not have a problem with it." I say.
"No, you're twisted version of reality remains safe…" Abe says. I grin. At least he's getting better at following my nonsense.
I hear a thump as the rest of the books he's been collecting are placed down on the ground next to the music stands, and then another thump as Hellboy comes into the room. "Hey Meggie, you're up." He says.
This beginning of conversation is interrupted by me falling over laughing.
There's an awkward silence where Abe and Hellboy both stare blankly at me, and then Hellboy says "Ya know, if someone else did this, it would be weird."
"New… definitions… of… normal… with crazy… friends…" I say through laughter as an explanation.
"Yes, but you really act like a freak. We might have to isolate you, do tests on your brain, and poor pig's blood on you during dances." Hellboy says with a drop dead serious voice.
"What?" Abe asks, not getting the reference. All the books in this library are too old, he needs to read more mind melting gloriously gruesome Stephan King novels.
"Now, can you tell us what you're laughing at?" Hellboy asks, flopping down on the couch.
"Are the fish going to read…" I say before laughing again. I think I wouldn't find this nearly as funny if I had got it at that time, it's hardly even a good joke. But it's still somehow very funny from my point of view.
"I just got that…" I say between huffs of laughter.
There's a silence, and then Hellboy starts chuckling slightly. Abe stares at both of us in slightly sarcastic wonder. "Honestly, it wasn't even that funny from your points of view, and not funny at all from mine…"
It's still funny. While also being stupid.
I hear a sigh and bare feet steps, and then a splash as Abe gets in his giant tank thingy. There's a pause where Hellboy and I are both quieting down. I think he was more laughing at my insane delay and overreaction than anything else, but he seems pretty happy that obviously Abe has told me the secret Hellboy was torturing him with.
And then I say, just in passing wonder, "Hey Abe, what color are you?" There's a pause where Abe turns to face me in the water through the glass, and then says simply "Blue."
I grin.
Writer: Ok, have to say again, not a romance story! It gets a little romantic-ish, yeah, but this is not a romance story! If anything even slightly along those lines ever even happens, it'll be that someone slightly likes someone. That's it! More is coming. Even though no one reviewed, I'm continuing this and everything. I don't blame you, it is the holidays anyway. People still reviewed over Chanukah though, just not over Christmas. Well, this is a Hellboy fic, and in a weird twisted kind of way that means a lot of the people reading this or Hellboy at all are probably Catholic or Christian. Review please!