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Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee.
Blessed art Thou amongst women, and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
The world was ending.
The remains of St. Paul’s cathedral shook around you. Dust and debris tumbled from the ceiling as the ground yawned open, the smell of acrid smoke and brimstone spilling forth. At any other time, you would have been interested to see how deep the fissures went, exactly where in the earth’s crust the portal to hell was located, and how many scented candles it would take to clear the air. But not now. Now, the world was ending. And all you could do was stare, awe-struck, at him.
You had always known Red would end up destroying the world. As soon as the two of you finished dancing around and moved firmly from friends-with-benefits to dating, he had sat you down and explained his supposed destiny. He was giving you the choice to back out. Lucky for him, you weren’t a quitter.
Besides, at the time the earth’s demise was the furthest thing from your mind. Fleeting touches and beer-soaked fucks in the dark had become movie nights and pet names. For as many months as it took for him to be intimate with the lights on, many more were spent together in a tangle of limbs, affection flowing freely between you. He taught you how to shoot, how to fight, how to shotgun a beer without spilling a drop. Not long ago you had even made the move to his room, thankfully being accepted by the colony of cats that resided there before you. As far as you were concerned, your world had just begun. But now, with Red transformed before you, you realise everything has come to its end.
You had wondered, more than once, how Red would look if he let his horns grow. Every night when he got out that accursed grinder and set your teeth on edge with the sound, you couldn’t help but hope he would eventually let them be. One night, before you officially belonged to each other, you had sat and watched him. He was drunk at the time. You were too. But you remember thinking he probably shouldn’t be holding heavy machinery so close to his face. He let slip that it made him feel like he fit in better. That even when he was sent out to fight some otherworldly being, people would know he was the good guy. It had made your heart ache.
You understood a little better now. Already an intimidating man in size and stature, the addition of great ridged horns that curved elegantly into the air almost made you want to run. Their sharpened tips were singed black, and both were lit by the crown of flame suspended neatly between them. He looked in every aspect like the King of Hell.
Nimue fell to her knees before him, aware that his power now far exceeded her own. You wondered idly why she expected mercy from a demon, especially with Broom’s corpse cooling not five feet away. If you weren’t numbly stuck in place, you would have asked where she got the goddamned nerve to change her tune, considering how much trouble she had put you all through. To your surprise, he helped her gently to her feet. You watched, stomach roiling, as she cupped his face in her palms, as you had many times before.
His expression never changed, even as she let out a shaky sigh, a smile in her voice. ‘My King.’
For a long moment everything was still. The only sound the eerie humming of the apocalypse raging outside. Then, in a single movement, Red stepped away and swung the flaming Excalibur clean through the witch’s neck.
Her head rolled across the floor, shrieking with betrayal.
It came to a stop beside you and you tore your eyes away from the demon long enough to glance down. Damn. She should be used to that by now. Nimue’s hateful gaze filled your vision for all of two seconds, before a hoofed foot kicked it aside to tumble down a hellish crack.
Blessed art Thou amongst women, and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
You had enough time to take one, sharp breath before you were looking into burning yellow eyes just inches from you. This close, the flame of his crown was pleasantly warm against your skin. You searched desperately for a sign of emotion, of recognition, of assurance that you were not about to meet the same end as the sorceress. You’re afraid. And yet you don’t shrink away when his hand moves to cup your face, mirroring the way he was held not moments ago.
You swallowed once. Twice. ‘Red?’
His expression doesn’t change.
‘Red, can you…’ You tongue darts out, nervously. ‘It’s me.’
He watched your lips as you spoke, and you feared he might not understand you anymore. His hand, sulfuric rock aglow with power, skimmed your neck, down your side, until he hefted you up against his hip. You yelped and clutched at his side, steadying yourself against his shoulder. His skin was warm to the touch, as always, and despite the situation you were comforted by the contact. You weren’t sure what you expected next, but it wasn’t for the demon to turn on his heel and walk back down to the newly revealed tomb of King Arthur. You kept your eyes pointedly away from what remained of Broom as Red settled onto the stone throne, allowing you to wiggle awkwardly from his hip to his lap. You tentatively let your hands rest against him.
Excalibur was left beside the throne, ready to be used at a moment’s notice, but the lack of a weapon did help keep you calm. At this point, you were sure he didn’t consider you a threat, if he still remembered you at all.
‘Red—’
He cut you off with a snarl, a rumble of what might have been words followed.
‘What?’
‘Anung Un Rama.’
You frowned. "Light from the darkness", if your Ancient Egyptian wasn’t too rusty. Pretty weird phrase to say out of nowhere. Flattering if he was referring to you, but realistically it probably had some other meaning. You really weren’t in the right headspace for a riddle.
Red didn’t seem pleased with your silence. You could feel the growl rumbling up from his chest before you heard it. What did he expect you to say?
‘Anung Un, uh, Rama?’ The foreign words felt clunky in your mouth, but they elicited the first reaction you had seen in him since he changed.
A grin, distinctly unhinged, split across his face. The bubbling growl morphed into a kind of purr, and he touched his forehead to yours. The gesture had your breath catching in your throat. Maybe he did recognise you.
That hope grew as he tilted forward and brushed his lips against yours. They were dry. You used to carry lip balm for him, make him put it on before bed.
‘It’s part of grooming.’ You said. ‘No one wants to kiss crusty lips.’
He took it as a challenge and the rest of your night was lost.
But things were different now. You weren’t canoodling amongst a colony of cats, but the corpses of your friends. The distant blare was the city being ravaged for real, not on a multitude of tv screens. And you couldn’t be certain this Hellboy was your Hellboy, despite how familiar he felt beneath you. You made a move to shift back, create some distance between you, but Red’s hands had dropped to your legs and kept you in place. You could feel him gently knead them through the fabric of your pants and it made a bolt of excitement shoot through you. Surprised, you stopped moving. Really? The world was coming to an end. You’re in a church for Christ's sake! Was that not enough to curb your horny ass? His hands crept higher, fingers pressing into the seam where your thighs and ass met. Damn. Guess not.
Red tugged you forward and pressed your hips together deliciously. It seemed you weren’t the only one. You bit the inside of your cheek as he did it again, a low huff escaping him. Was this okay? No. God, no. You should be helping, talking to him, trying to stop this. All of this. But his hand cups your ass and squeezes and you rut right back into him.
Your mind might be torn, but your flesh was eager enough that Red went ahead and snapped your belt clean off. You’re suddenly aware of how hard you are, the brushes of his fingers making you strain against your pants. Red wasn’t far behind you. In fact, he had already undone his fly and shimmied far enough out of his pants to leave his cock fully exposed.
You’ve seen Red’s dick before. The first time, you were sent out on a mission together and he had apparently had quite a fun night beforehand. Halfway there he had forced your driver to pull over so he could piss in the woods. You went with him, because at the time he could barely stagger in a straight line, and the last thing you wanted to be doing was helping the guy out of a puddle of his own piss. It wasn’t like you were looking for an eyeful. You weren’t looking at all. You just happened to glance over, and there it was. The bastard hadn’t even turned away from you properly.
The next few times were similar. Roadside pit stops, sneak peeks in the locker room, completely normal and appropriate dick-viewing times. And if you happened to return to your room and jerk off while imagining that dick doing unspeakable things to you, well that was your business.
But every time you get the privilege to see Red’s cock up close and personal, purpled at the head and throbbing in time with his heart, it feels like the first time. This form may appear more beastly, but you were familiar enough with this part of his anatomy to say, with confidence, that nothing had changed. Not that you would want it to.
Red laughed above you, you had been staring open-mouthed at his cock for probably too long. Where he would usually become self-conscious, this Red seemed confident and preened under your attention. He thumbed at the waistband of your underwear and you felt a wave of vertigo. This was a precipice and you knew it. If you made the choice, gave in to this debauchery, that would be it. The end. The end. The end.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
You tugged down your boxers, releasing a breath as well as your aching cock. In a sense, you felt more exposed than you had ever been. Red rumbled that pleased purr of his and nudged your cocks together, both of you revelling in the two-inch size difference between you. He spit in his hand, the soft one, then held it out to you. Like sealing a pact, you spat in it too, and he encompassed you both in his palm. Fuck, it was hot. Red’s hand moved slick and firm, savouring the press of your flesh to his. Your hands slipped from his chest to his arms, feeling both flex beneath your fingers as he worked. The air between you grew humid with the smell of sweat and sex. With each downward stroke you pushed forward, aided by the stony hand still firmly on your ass.
When that hand slipped under your clothes and a finger just barely skimmed against your hole, you let out your first broken moan. Red didn’t stop, but the finger pressed more insistently with each thrust. You knew he wouldn’t finger fuck you like this; he never used his stone hand in case you got hurt, but the threatening pressure kept you on edge.
You glanced up at Red to find that he was already watching you. You recognised the determined grit to his jaw and knew your pleasure was his only goal. It was so sweet, and so him, that you surged upward and kissed him. He paused, almost like he seemed unsure of the sudden affection. You pulled away at the lack of response, but he followed you, slanting his mouth over yours and continuing to move. You tried to retreat, the need for air growing stronger by the second, but he continued forward until you were forced to grab his shoulders to keep from falling.
He couldn’t reach your lips like this and as much as that was a loss to be mourned, he turned his attention to your chest. The hand not wedged under your ass rose to tear right through the front of your shirt. You couldn’t help but notice it was wet with more than just spit. With your shirt successfully out of the picture, Red was free to regain his tight grip on your throbbing cocks and begin lathing at your nipples.
They were a weak spot of yours, which is a secret Red hadn’t known about until a few months into your friends-with-benefits deal. You couldn’t help that they shot electricity straight to your dick. After being trusted with your secrete de boudoir, Red took every chance to tease you out on the field. He would ask for your help investigating a site and press his palm against your chest, tweaking a nipple between his fingers and telling you that you were standing too close. It took three missions for you to realise that he liked riling you up and setting you loose later that night. For that reason, you let the teasing continue.
Right now, though, Red was not teasing. He attacked your chest with a purpose, one that left you gasping and scrabbling for a place to put your hands. Eventually they settled, one with fingers threaded into his hair and the other clutching on to a ribbed horn. His crown was dangerously close to your skin, but the warmth only spurred on the fire in your veins. Moral quandaries were forgotten, hell most rational thought had fled you at this point. All you knew was Red, on you, around you, and you desperately wished inside you. All too soon you tensed beneath him, thighs quivering as he jerked you through your orgasm.
Slowly, awareness returned. You felt your own ragged breathing. Sweat beginning to cool on your lower back. The cramping protest of your thighs held in one position for too long. And your limp form being supported by Red, one arm around your back, the other tracing idly over your stomach. He must have come too, judging by the amount of liquid currently cooling on your skin. You went to wipe it off with the tattered remains of your shirt but Red stopped you. His hand opened, big enough to cover your whole abdomen, and he pressed his palm over the mess.
You weren’t exactly a stickler for cleanliness, but dry come was never fun to remove. You would have said so, had Red not been murmuring in that rumbling language you couldn’t place. When he lifted his hand, there was no sign of any post-coital fluids.
‘Huh. That’s a neat trick.’
He allowed you to clamber off of his lap and you balanced against the arms of the throne as feeling buzzed back into your legs. Your shirt was a lost cause for sure, so you let it fall off you as you tucked yourself back into your boxers. When you looked back at Red, he was hefting Excalibur back onto his shoulder.
All of a sudden you were back to square one. It was clear Red recognised you, and at this point didn’t feel like killing you, but he still hadn’t spoken a word about what was going on. Jesus, you had actually let him jerk you both off in a church while the apocalypse began. Red didn’t give you a lot of time to work back into a moral tizzy. He slung one heavy arm across your shoulders and lead you up to the main cathedral, as if he was helping you stumble drunk out of a bar. What awaited you there was, somehow, also a shock. You would think with the kind of day this had turned into; nothing would surprise you anymore. Somehow, you never expect dragons.
It’s a lindwyrm. You can at the very least identify dragon subspecies by sight. Bipedal, one pair of wings, elongated tail for steering and weight counterbalance. Despite the numerous holes in its leathery wings, you’re sure it can fly just fine. It filled the belly of the cathedral, and if it opened its jaws you could probably fit inside them standing up. An impressive creature, and one you really, really don’t want to be casually strolling towards.
Red ignored your silent protest as you tried to pull away. He tightened his grip on you as the dragon’s massive head began to swoop down to you both. A pupil-less eye that may as well have been a bathroom mirror sized you up. This close you saw that a set of iron chains were pierced through the side of the beasts scaled mouth, and as Red murmured at the beast and hefted you up you realised, they were reigns. Red swung himself up behind you and in a smooth motion, the beast tensed and threw itself through the stained-glass ceiling of the church.
Your screams and Red’s laughter mixed as the world fell away around you. There was no turning back now.
Amen.