X-men First Class fic: Priceless (1/1) - complete
Title: Priceless
Fandom: X-men First Class
Word count: 4,000
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Azazel/Riptide
Summary: Written in response to this prompt on 1stclass_kink. The prompt reads, "Azazel and Riptide were together before they ever joined Shaw's Hellfire Club. They met, f---ed, and were attached at the hip from then on. Shaw couldn't recruit one without the other.”
Disclaimer: Wish I owned them, but I don’t.
Priceless
***
Somewhere in Latin America, circa 1956
It began with a note left on the floor of Riptide’s apartment. The handwriting was somehow…stilted, foreign - maybe even a bit alien.
‘Do you want to team up? We will make more money that way. I have been watching you. Like you, I have some special abilities.’
The note went on to specify a date, time, and place for them to meet but Riptide never even saw the details because he had already begun to tear the note into shreds. He had no idea where this note came from, but he worked alone and was making a fine living doing so. Riptide knew that various authorities and even more numerous gangs wanted an end to him, but he had the confidence of the very young.
***
Only a few days later, Riptide had occasion to regret his failure to even consider the offer in the note. The local thugs had not only tracked him down but taken him by surprise. One gang member was pummeling him with a club while another was demanding to know where he kept his money. Another yelled for them to “Find out how he does the wind and tornado thing!”, which might have produced a sarcastic laugh - given that these men didn’t look like scientists and Riptide himself certainly couldn’t explain it - had he not been nauseatingly ill from the beating that the other gang member was delivering.
And then, he sensed it. Riptide would never forget that moment, even though it was a subtle and quick one, even though his head and back were already throbbing with pain. Across the room, a flash of fire. Fire surrounded by a vivid red and black substance - dust perhaps? All of this within a split second’s time before a man suddenly materialized inside the apartment, a man with an appearance so frightening that Riptide was too stunned to even gasp. He did not have long to ponder who the man was or how he had appeared there instantly, and neither did the gang members. Those gang members not wise enough to flee, moving faster than they ever had before, were handily dispensed of by this man who looked like a demon. The thugs had not even begun to mount a defense when they were pummeled. The man - or creature - had a tail! He used it to lash or choke his enemies.
Riptide was still in too much pain to move, much less muster a tornado. His demise would surely come next and he was about to begin beseeching the Virgin Mary when it became apparent that this man/demon was not after him.
“How you feel about teaming up now?” The question was asked in heavily accented English.
It took the injured Riptide a few moments to adjust. English was not Riptide’s first language either.
“You sent me the note?” he asked, but he asked the question in Spanish.
“You speak English,” the demon said, and it sounded like both a command and a question.
“Yes,” Riptide answered, struggling to his feet and wincing in pain. He concentrated hard and formed the words in English. “You send me the note?” he asked again, this time in the language that both men had a ‘good enough’ knowledge of.
“Yes. I have special powers too. Maybe we talk.”
***
“You have a pretty good - how do you say? - operation here already. You don’t need me. Why do you seek me out?” Riptide asked.
The two men were now inside Azazel’s headquarters, a basement in some city, hidden away in a small European country. Riptide had to admire the hideaway. Although dark and underground, it was richly decorated and warm. At one point the dwelling had been an ordinary two-bedroom apartment. It was not overly spacious and was almost cozy; it did not have the dank feel of a basement. Weapons were hung on the wall alongside a few paintings and a tapestry, and a liquor cabinet stood off to the side. Complex radio equipment and other machines that were used to monitor news reports - equipment which had led to Azazel’s discovery of Riptide - comprised one corner of the main room. The kitchen was not badly stocked either.
Riptide had been here for a few days already. Azazel helped him recover from the gang’s attack and made his proposition to him: that they work together. Partners in crime, with the earnings split evenly.
“I tell you already,” Azazel said. “I am older than you. You will find someday that you get tired of operating alone. It is less dangerous that way, as you see three days ago with that gang. We each have different powers, so if we work together it increases our strength. We make more money.”
“Is there another reason?” Riptide asked. He sat on the sofa, still nursing a sharply painful back and neck from the beating. Azazel had pulled up a chair from the kitchen and was sitting opposite him.
For a moment, Azazel worried that Riptide had already detected another underlying reason, one which Azazel wanted to keep hidden for now. But when the younger man continued, it was clear that he hadn’t yet discerned it.
“Someone who look like you,” Riptide went on, “has trouble in normal society. Too many places you cannot go. People fear your looks. So maybe you need me as a…a…” he struggled for the words, “a person who can move around society better,” he finished, wishing he had had more schooling and had studied English more.
The young man was astute, Azazel noted. “True. And my powers of teleportation - “Azazel swiftly demonstrated teleportation since he had spoken the word in Russian, not knowing how to say it in English - “would make your life much easier. As you saw, I can teleport anything that I touch, you included.”
“I saw. By the way, how long you were watching me?” Riptide asked.
“A few months,” Azazel shrugged.
“Are there…are there others like us? With these powers.”
“I have never met another,” Azazel answered honestly. Riptide did not yet know him well enough and was unable to detect the hint of heartbreak in his answer. Azazel, however, had already lived more than a decade of loneliness and was adept at covering it up.
“I don’t know why we are like this,” Riptide shook his head. “How we have these powers. And why only us? I think, for long long time, that I am alone. Totally alone in this world.”
“So did I. But now we see that we are not alone.”
Riptide was silent for a few moments. Not alone. There was something so comforting in that, after having spent the past few years with hardly a soul to talk to. And really, what was so grand about his life back home? A warmer climate, true. But he had already racked up countless enemies there and would be dead if not for Azazel.
“How I know I can trust you?” Riptide asked.
“I guess that someone who look like me is hard to trust, yes?” Azazel was forced to admit. He had hoped that by now he was calloused enough that people’s reactions to his appearance no longer stung. Yet this reaction hurt, as much as he tried to bury it under a million others much worse.
“Never mind,” Riptide said quickly. In truth, he did not fear Azazel’s appearance, not after the Russian had spent the last few days helping him recover from his injuries. “I am in. Let us shake hands. Which room is mine?”
***
The partnership proved successful from the start. They easily pulled off two heists in their first month, further lining their pockets.
In the evenings, they counted their earnings, ate, drank, listened to music, played cards, studied English with books and records that Azazel had stolen (one set geared towards native speakers of Russian, the other Spanish), used the radio equipment to monitor criminal activity, planned what type of equipment they needed to procure, or watched Azazel’s black and white television. Occasionally Riptide went out in the evenings, but not often.
Riptide soon noticed that Azazel did not seem to care overmuch for the money. Azazel had enough to stock his hideaway with the necessities - weapons, food, alarm systems and monitors. And Azazel was not without an appreciation of beauty; in addition to the paintings and tapestry, the hideaway was decorated well. One of the floors was an exquisite mosaic pattern, for example, and a boldly-patterned vase sat on a side table. But Azazel never seemed as excited as Riptide when the younger man added up their bank accounts. He nodded and seemed glad that they were doing well, but Riptide had known that Azazel had been financially successful beforehand too.
Azazel did, however, appear to appreciate it when Riptide arrived home from a shopping trip wearing an elegant new suit. “Very nice, very nice,” Azazel had appraised, eyeing Riptide in the new suit. “I like your new shoes too.”
It was the first inkling Riptide had that these strange powers were not the only thing the two men had in common. He forced himself to put those types of thoughts out of his head, something he was no stranger to.
A few evenings later, the two men sat on their sofa. Both had been drinking that day; Azazel’s liquor cabinet was always stocked. Riptide had tuned out the show playing on the television, and thought that perhaps Azazel had done the same.
“Do you ever wish you could spend more time outside?” Riptide asked.
“We go outside sometimes,” Azazel shrugged. It was true. At night, they would occasionally teleport outside and breathe the cool, crisp air. Azazel liked to look at the moon. Riptide would walk next to him; sometimes they were in a park, other times a cemetery as Azazel had an affinity for those places. If they sensed that other people were nearby or approaching, they teleported back to their headquarters.
“What about daylight? Sunshine?”
“I do not miss it. Where I come from, it is much different. Not as much sun as you.” Azazel was quiet for a few moments. “You miss it?” he asked.
Riptide picked up on something in Azazel’s tone. A hint of sadness, maybe a bit of fear.
“A little,” Riptide admitted. “But it is ok. I can go outside during the day. You picked a beautiful place for our - your - home. It is nice during the day. I like it here. The city is old and…. and quaint; I think that is the right word. But I wish I did not have to enjoy it alone.”
And then subtly and almost delicately, Azazel’s hand traveled to rest on Riptide’s thigh. The touch was somehow gentle but firm and Riptide felt the color rising in his face, his emotions starting to whirl around like one of the gusts of wind he could generate. There really could be no mistaking Azazel’s gesture.
Still looking straight ahead at the television, Riptide finally said, “So. We have this in common too.”
Azazel responded, “I thought it might be so. That maybe you feel…some attraction.”
“I cannot deny it,” Riptide admitted. “But it is not for me, not anymore,” he said, gripping Azazel’s hand and removing it from his thigh. When he was safely free of bodily contact with Azazel, he continued, “I am done with this. If you study me for months before we meet, maybe you see some things about my life, but maybe you not see everything. In the past, I did used to…to do this. With men. But I stopped. I want to be right with God and I am not going to live my life as a…a queer.” Riptide spoke the word “queer” in Spanish, but Azazel knew what he meant.
“Really? So you will not be sexual with men ever again?”
“No. It is not right in God’s eyes,” Riptide insisted.
“I must remind you, that you are criminal. We steal money.”
“Only from banks and gangs and those who do not need it. I do know that stealing is wrong. But this…this is far, far worse. To be with a man as if with a woman. There can be no sin that is more bad. And I will not do it again. Men who do this can be put into places for the insane!”
“Or to gulag, in my country,” Azazel was forced to admit, grimly. “But I think that you feel attraction for me. I can feel it; I can even smell it in the air. You really believe that it would be wrong?”
Riptide shook his head. “What do you care about right and wrong? You are - no offense- a godless Communist.”
Azazel chuckled, and then added, “That I am. And a queer on top of it,” and he too used his native language’s word for “queer” but Riptide knew what he meant. After a pause, he then asked, “So what is your plan? You will find girl someday?”
“Maybe. They find me attractive,” Riptide said, almost boastfully.
“Do you find them attractive?”
Riptide’s silence suggested the answer, which in truth was, ‘Not at all, and certainly not anything like the way I find you attractive.’ Women didn’t make Riptide’s heart pound. It was Azazel who Riptide thought of at night when he touched himself. Azazel’s hands, his strength, his skill.
But instead Riptide ended the discussion with, “Let us not discuss this again. If you are this way, it does not bother me but I cannot act this way again.”
***
Riptide stayed away during the next several days. He returned to the hideout in the evenings to help plot their next heist, to eat dinner, and to sleep. He didn’t fear that Azazel would make advances on him, and the older man gave him no reason to fear.
During the day Riptide walked the city, ducking into the old, ornate chapels, and praying intermittently. As he walked along cobblestone alleys, he tried to sort out the thoughts in his head, tried to see if there was any explanation for his feelings that didn’t render him insane or bound for hell. Why was he so attracted to men in general, and why this strangest of men in particular? Could the demon-man have been placed in his life as a test? Could Riptide continue to suppress the feelings?
***
Despite Riptide’s avoidance, they still saw each other each day for a few hours. One evening they played a card game at the table.
“You are win, just like always,” Riptide laughed as Azazel’s earnings from the game piled up. He had a smile on his face; he was a graceful loser. “Maybe you have the ability to wish for something and to get it!”
“That is not true. The one thing that I wish for, I do not have at all,” Azazel said. His eyes were intense and pained.
Riptide was silent. He took a few sips of his drink.
“I am sorry. I make you uncomfortable,” Azazel said at last.
“No, no, not at all. I am fine.”
The men continued their card game, but in silence. Each one’s thoughts were somewhere else, each one trying not to think of how badly he wanted to press his lips against the other’s, how much he needed to undress the other and feel his firm body against his own. The hideaway suddenly felt too warm and small. Riptide pleaded fatigue and went to bed early.
***
The next day, Azazel woke early so he could catch Riptide before he left for his daily time away from the hideout.
“Wait. I need to talk, Riptide,” Azazel said.
“Yes, of course,” Riptide said. He had been putting on his suit jacket.
“I must tell you this. I am sorry, but I cannot continue to live here like this. With you. I understand that you do not want to be with man again. I respect your wishes; I understand that you do not want me. But I cannot continue to live here with you and not be able to touch you.”
Riptide’s mouth dropped open. He had spent the last several days in something of a holding pattern, maybe even something of a daze. But he hadn’t seen this coming. “But I - I…are you serious?”
“I am sorry. I not say this to try to force you into anything. I think about this for many days now. Let us divide up our earnings and split everything. I will teleport you back to where you came from. Or wherever you wish.”
Riptide opened his mouth to speak again but was still flabbergasted. “I - I’m so surprise. Can I not stay here with you?”
“No. I just cannot keep my hands from you and I do not want to lead you into something you do not want. Better that you leave and I try to forget.”
As the surprise wore off, Riptide realized Azazel had a point. He, too, could feel their attraction as soon as he arrived back home in the evenings and as soon as he woke up in the mornings. It was a struggle to keep from going up to the dark, attractive man; it was a struggle to not run his fingers through that jet black hair, to not want to feel that rough goatee against his own face, to not want to pull that shirt off. Falling asleep every night wondering what Azazel’s mouth would feel like or what Azazel would do with his hands or what positions Azazel enjoyed coupling in was too much of a struggle. In fact, it was insanity.
“Perhaps you are right. I will pack now.”
“There is no rush. Take your time.”
“No. Let’s count out the money now. You can transport me back to where I came from. I know their underground well.”
Azazel nodded. “Be more careful this time, Riptide,” he said gently. “It is…rough world out there.”
“I know.”
Rough, cold, and lonely.
***
Azazel was woken by loud pounding on the window above his bed. It was a basement apartment, but one small window stood high on his bedroom’s wall, with a dark curtain constantly shielding the view.
Azazel blinked and looked at the time. Nearly noon. His head hurt and an empty vodka bottle lay on its side on floor of the normally-neat room.
The pounding sounded again, and this time Azazel realized it was real. He sprang to his feet and grabbed a sword off the wall.
“It’s me!”
Azazel’s heart - which had seemed to have been pounded into a lifeless clump of rock once and for all - started throbbing again. Riptide!
Azazel instantly teleported outside and teleported both of them back inside.
“How you get here?” Azazel asked, as he looked at the man he loved. Riptide’s appearance was unchanged. He still wore a crisp suit, he still moved elegantly. His face remained as handsome as ever, his eyes still able to make Azazel melt.
Of course, Azazel realized, much time had not gone by. A cursory glance at the calendar would reveal that it had been three weeks and four days since Riptide had left. Although it had felt like a year.
“I buy expensive airplane tickets, and I transfer planes two times. I have to travel how normal people do now,” Riptide explained with a smile.
Riptide seemed relaxed, noted Azazel. He perhaps seemed even carefree or unburdened. Azazel glanced at the small suitcase held by Riptide.
“May I get you anything? Something to drink?”
“No, no thank you. I - I need to talk to you, Azazel.”
“Of course,” he replied, gesturing to the sofa.
For the first time, Riptide took his eyes away from Azazel and instead took stock of his surroundings.
“You make changes. This is new,” he gestured at the entertainment center. “And you paint the kitchen, right?”
“Yes.”
The bathroom had also been completely re-done. Azazel hadn’t had much else to do. Keeping busy kept him from going insane. His criminal activity in the past three weeks had intensified and several of those who had tried to stop him had met with an early demise. Azazel had tried to feel guilt but had not been able to muster it - he was suffering and didn’t care that he caused others to suffer.
“So why you buy plane ticket and fly to other end of the world?” Azazel asked. Part of him knew the answer, though he forced himself to squelch the hope. It could not truly be the reason he wished for. `He must need me for a heist,’ he told himself. `He needs a teleporter, and he needs someone better at hand-to-hand combat. Maybe he has a whole scheme planned.’
“I - I,” Riptide attempted to answer but failed. He had spent three interminable flights rehearsing what to say but still his mind was blank. “I miss you,” he finally admitted. “But I don’t know if you want to see me again.”
The two men remained standing in the middle of the room, facing each other. Riptide noticed that Azazel now looked as if he wanted to take the two steps forward that would bring them to each other, but was holding himself back.
Azazel forced himself to remain calm, his feet planted on the ground. “I do. I do very much. But it is as I told you, Riptide. It is too difficult to be around you and not be able to touch you, not be able to love you.”
“I know. But I…I don’t know how to say this. It will sound silly, but I must.” As Riptide spoke, Azazel again noted that the younger man appeared relaxed and unburdened. “Back home, I went to speak to a nun. I feel such agony over what I feel for you. You will not believe this, but the nun told me that God loves us the way we are. She said God made for us to have these feelings of love, these desires, and that it is not a bad thing. She said all love is beautiful, two men feeling love for each other is beautiful. She said that she is certain that is the case, even if most of the clergy don’t agree with her. We talk for a long, long time. I know you do not believe in God, I know that you don’t care what any nun or priest says. But she…she totally changed me. I don’t feel that this is a sin. And I am so glad I spoke to her because I was going crazy without you!” Riptide paused and then concluded, “I think the only sin was how I treated you, telling you that it was wrong. Can I ever have your forgiveness?”
Upon hearing Riptide’s words, Azazel could almost have become a believer for the first time in his life. He could not believe his good fortune that Riptide spoke to the one member of the clergy in Latin America who affirmed how they felt for each other!
“You do not have to ask. I am so happy that you are here.”
“I feel like I am home again.”
In unison, the two men stepped towards each other. Alone no more. With Riptide’s fears behind him, they easily fell into a loving and passionate kiss.
***
A few years later, Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost found them. It was clear that Azazel and Riptide were a package deal, and Shaw gladly accepted both wealthy men as members of the Hellfire Club.
Shaw never questioned their relationship. In fact, he never said anything about it at all, but with Emma on his side surely he knew despite Azazel and Riptide’s ingrained habit of keeping it discrete.
There was no reason not to join the Hellfire Club. Azazel and Riptide already had all the money they wanted, but Shaw promised them things they could not buy. One promise was unity with other mutants, now that they had learned the word that described that other important aspect of their being. Imagine - a whole community of people like them! Azazel did not need other people as much, but Riptide was thrilled at the thought. Another promise Shaw made was a world where mutants ruled, a world where one who looked like Azazel would live freely and openly if he wanted to. Those things were priceless.
THE END
Feedback is always appreciated.
Fandom: X-men First Class
Word count: 4,000
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Azazel/Riptide
Summary: Written in response to this prompt on 1stclass_kink. The prompt reads, "Azazel and Riptide were together before they ever joined Shaw's Hellfire Club. They met, f---ed, and were attached at the hip from then on. Shaw couldn't recruit one without the other.”
Disclaimer: Wish I owned them, but I don’t.
Priceless
***
Somewhere in Latin America, circa 1956
It began with a note left on the floor of Riptide’s apartment. The handwriting was somehow…stilted, foreign - maybe even a bit alien.
‘Do you want to team up? We will make more money that way. I have been watching you. Like you, I have some special abilities.’
The note went on to specify a date, time, and place for them to meet but Riptide never even saw the details because he had already begun to tear the note into shreds. He had no idea where this note came from, but he worked alone and was making a fine living doing so. Riptide knew that various authorities and even more numerous gangs wanted an end to him, but he had the confidence of the very young.
***
Only a few days later, Riptide had occasion to regret his failure to even consider the offer in the note. The local thugs had not only tracked him down but taken him by surprise. One gang member was pummeling him with a club while another was demanding to know where he kept his money. Another yelled for them to “Find out how he does the wind and tornado thing!”, which might have produced a sarcastic laugh - given that these men didn’t look like scientists and Riptide himself certainly couldn’t explain it - had he not been nauseatingly ill from the beating that the other gang member was delivering.
And then, he sensed it. Riptide would never forget that moment, even though it was a subtle and quick one, even though his head and back were already throbbing with pain. Across the room, a flash of fire. Fire surrounded by a vivid red and black substance - dust perhaps? All of this within a split second’s time before a man suddenly materialized inside the apartment, a man with an appearance so frightening that Riptide was too stunned to even gasp. He did not have long to ponder who the man was or how he had appeared there instantly, and neither did the gang members. Those gang members not wise enough to flee, moving faster than they ever had before, were handily dispensed of by this man who looked like a demon. The thugs had not even begun to mount a defense when they were pummeled. The man - or creature - had a tail! He used it to lash or choke his enemies.
Riptide was still in too much pain to move, much less muster a tornado. His demise would surely come next and he was about to begin beseeching the Virgin Mary when it became apparent that this man/demon was not after him.
“How you feel about teaming up now?” The question was asked in heavily accented English.
It took the injured Riptide a few moments to adjust. English was not Riptide’s first language either.
“You sent me the note?” he asked, but he asked the question in Spanish.
“You speak English,” the demon said, and it sounded like both a command and a question.
“Yes,” Riptide answered, struggling to his feet and wincing in pain. He concentrated hard and formed the words in English. “You send me the note?” he asked again, this time in the language that both men had a ‘good enough’ knowledge of.
“Yes. I have special powers too. Maybe we talk.”
***
“You have a pretty good - how do you say? - operation here already. You don’t need me. Why do you seek me out?” Riptide asked.
The two men were now inside Azazel’s headquarters, a basement in some city, hidden away in a small European country. Riptide had to admire the hideaway. Although dark and underground, it was richly decorated and warm. At one point the dwelling had been an ordinary two-bedroom apartment. It was not overly spacious and was almost cozy; it did not have the dank feel of a basement. Weapons were hung on the wall alongside a few paintings and a tapestry, and a liquor cabinet stood off to the side. Complex radio equipment and other machines that were used to monitor news reports - equipment which had led to Azazel’s discovery of Riptide - comprised one corner of the main room. The kitchen was not badly stocked either.
Riptide had been here for a few days already. Azazel helped him recover from the gang’s attack and made his proposition to him: that they work together. Partners in crime, with the earnings split evenly.
“I tell you already,” Azazel said. “I am older than you. You will find someday that you get tired of operating alone. It is less dangerous that way, as you see three days ago with that gang. We each have different powers, so if we work together it increases our strength. We make more money.”
“Is there another reason?” Riptide asked. He sat on the sofa, still nursing a sharply painful back and neck from the beating. Azazel had pulled up a chair from the kitchen and was sitting opposite him.
For a moment, Azazel worried that Riptide had already detected another underlying reason, one which Azazel wanted to keep hidden for now. But when the younger man continued, it was clear that he hadn’t yet discerned it.
“Someone who look like you,” Riptide went on, “has trouble in normal society. Too many places you cannot go. People fear your looks. So maybe you need me as a…a…” he struggled for the words, “a person who can move around society better,” he finished, wishing he had had more schooling and had studied English more.
The young man was astute, Azazel noted. “True. And my powers of teleportation - “Azazel swiftly demonstrated teleportation since he had spoken the word in Russian, not knowing how to say it in English - “would make your life much easier. As you saw, I can teleport anything that I touch, you included.”
“I saw. By the way, how long you were watching me?” Riptide asked.
“A few months,” Azazel shrugged.
“Are there…are there others like us? With these powers.”
“I have never met another,” Azazel answered honestly. Riptide did not yet know him well enough and was unable to detect the hint of heartbreak in his answer. Azazel, however, had already lived more than a decade of loneliness and was adept at covering it up.
“I don’t know why we are like this,” Riptide shook his head. “How we have these powers. And why only us? I think, for long long time, that I am alone. Totally alone in this world.”
“So did I. But now we see that we are not alone.”
Riptide was silent for a few moments. Not alone. There was something so comforting in that, after having spent the past few years with hardly a soul to talk to. And really, what was so grand about his life back home? A warmer climate, true. But he had already racked up countless enemies there and would be dead if not for Azazel.
“How I know I can trust you?” Riptide asked.
“I guess that someone who look like me is hard to trust, yes?” Azazel was forced to admit. He had hoped that by now he was calloused enough that people’s reactions to his appearance no longer stung. Yet this reaction hurt, as much as he tried to bury it under a million others much worse.
“Never mind,” Riptide said quickly. In truth, he did not fear Azazel’s appearance, not after the Russian had spent the last few days helping him recover from his injuries. “I am in. Let us shake hands. Which room is mine?”
***
The partnership proved successful from the start. They easily pulled off two heists in their first month, further lining their pockets.
In the evenings, they counted their earnings, ate, drank, listened to music, played cards, studied English with books and records that Azazel had stolen (one set geared towards native speakers of Russian, the other Spanish), used the radio equipment to monitor criminal activity, planned what type of equipment they needed to procure, or watched Azazel’s black and white television. Occasionally Riptide went out in the evenings, but not often.
Riptide soon noticed that Azazel did not seem to care overmuch for the money. Azazel had enough to stock his hideaway with the necessities - weapons, food, alarm systems and monitors. And Azazel was not without an appreciation of beauty; in addition to the paintings and tapestry, the hideaway was decorated well. One of the floors was an exquisite mosaic pattern, for example, and a boldly-patterned vase sat on a side table. But Azazel never seemed as excited as Riptide when the younger man added up their bank accounts. He nodded and seemed glad that they were doing well, but Riptide had known that Azazel had been financially successful beforehand too.
Azazel did, however, appear to appreciate it when Riptide arrived home from a shopping trip wearing an elegant new suit. “Very nice, very nice,” Azazel had appraised, eyeing Riptide in the new suit. “I like your new shoes too.”
It was the first inkling Riptide had that these strange powers were not the only thing the two men had in common. He forced himself to put those types of thoughts out of his head, something he was no stranger to.
A few evenings later, the two men sat on their sofa. Both had been drinking that day; Azazel’s liquor cabinet was always stocked. Riptide had tuned out the show playing on the television, and thought that perhaps Azazel had done the same.
“Do you ever wish you could spend more time outside?” Riptide asked.
“We go outside sometimes,” Azazel shrugged. It was true. At night, they would occasionally teleport outside and breathe the cool, crisp air. Azazel liked to look at the moon. Riptide would walk next to him; sometimes they were in a park, other times a cemetery as Azazel had an affinity for those places. If they sensed that other people were nearby or approaching, they teleported back to their headquarters.
“What about daylight? Sunshine?”
“I do not miss it. Where I come from, it is much different. Not as much sun as you.” Azazel was quiet for a few moments. “You miss it?” he asked.
Riptide picked up on something in Azazel’s tone. A hint of sadness, maybe a bit of fear.
“A little,” Riptide admitted. “But it is ok. I can go outside during the day. You picked a beautiful place for our - your - home. It is nice during the day. I like it here. The city is old and…. and quaint; I think that is the right word. But I wish I did not have to enjoy it alone.”
And then subtly and almost delicately, Azazel’s hand traveled to rest on Riptide’s thigh. The touch was somehow gentle but firm and Riptide felt the color rising in his face, his emotions starting to whirl around like one of the gusts of wind he could generate. There really could be no mistaking Azazel’s gesture.
Still looking straight ahead at the television, Riptide finally said, “So. We have this in common too.”
Azazel responded, “I thought it might be so. That maybe you feel…some attraction.”
“I cannot deny it,” Riptide admitted. “But it is not for me, not anymore,” he said, gripping Azazel’s hand and removing it from his thigh. When he was safely free of bodily contact with Azazel, he continued, “I am done with this. If you study me for months before we meet, maybe you see some things about my life, but maybe you not see everything. In the past, I did used to…to do this. With men. But I stopped. I want to be right with God and I am not going to live my life as a…a queer.” Riptide spoke the word “queer” in Spanish, but Azazel knew what he meant.
“Really? So you will not be sexual with men ever again?”
“No. It is not right in God’s eyes,” Riptide insisted.
“I must remind you, that you are criminal. We steal money.”
“Only from banks and gangs and those who do not need it. I do know that stealing is wrong. But this…this is far, far worse. To be with a man as if with a woman. There can be no sin that is more bad. And I will not do it again. Men who do this can be put into places for the insane!”
“Or to gulag, in my country,” Azazel was forced to admit, grimly. “But I think that you feel attraction for me. I can feel it; I can even smell it in the air. You really believe that it would be wrong?”
Riptide shook his head. “What do you care about right and wrong? You are - no offense- a godless Communist.”
Azazel chuckled, and then added, “That I am. And a queer on top of it,” and he too used his native language’s word for “queer” but Riptide knew what he meant. After a pause, he then asked, “So what is your plan? You will find girl someday?”
“Maybe. They find me attractive,” Riptide said, almost boastfully.
“Do you find them attractive?”
Riptide’s silence suggested the answer, which in truth was, ‘Not at all, and certainly not anything like the way I find you attractive.’ Women didn’t make Riptide’s heart pound. It was Azazel who Riptide thought of at night when he touched himself. Azazel’s hands, his strength, his skill.
But instead Riptide ended the discussion with, “Let us not discuss this again. If you are this way, it does not bother me but I cannot act this way again.”
***
Riptide stayed away during the next several days. He returned to the hideout in the evenings to help plot their next heist, to eat dinner, and to sleep. He didn’t fear that Azazel would make advances on him, and the older man gave him no reason to fear.
During the day Riptide walked the city, ducking into the old, ornate chapels, and praying intermittently. As he walked along cobblestone alleys, he tried to sort out the thoughts in his head, tried to see if there was any explanation for his feelings that didn’t render him insane or bound for hell. Why was he so attracted to men in general, and why this strangest of men in particular? Could the demon-man have been placed in his life as a test? Could Riptide continue to suppress the feelings?
***
Despite Riptide’s avoidance, they still saw each other each day for a few hours. One evening they played a card game at the table.
“You are win, just like always,” Riptide laughed as Azazel’s earnings from the game piled up. He had a smile on his face; he was a graceful loser. “Maybe you have the ability to wish for something and to get it!”
“That is not true. The one thing that I wish for, I do not have at all,” Azazel said. His eyes were intense and pained.
Riptide was silent. He took a few sips of his drink.
“I am sorry. I make you uncomfortable,” Azazel said at last.
“No, no, not at all. I am fine.”
The men continued their card game, but in silence. Each one’s thoughts were somewhere else, each one trying not to think of how badly he wanted to press his lips against the other’s, how much he needed to undress the other and feel his firm body against his own. The hideaway suddenly felt too warm and small. Riptide pleaded fatigue and went to bed early.
***
The next day, Azazel woke early so he could catch Riptide before he left for his daily time away from the hideout.
“Wait. I need to talk, Riptide,” Azazel said.
“Yes, of course,” Riptide said. He had been putting on his suit jacket.
“I must tell you this. I am sorry, but I cannot continue to live here like this. With you. I understand that you do not want to be with man again. I respect your wishes; I understand that you do not want me. But I cannot continue to live here with you and not be able to touch you.”
Riptide’s mouth dropped open. He had spent the last several days in something of a holding pattern, maybe even something of a daze. But he hadn’t seen this coming. “But I - I…are you serious?”
“I am sorry. I not say this to try to force you into anything. I think about this for many days now. Let us divide up our earnings and split everything. I will teleport you back to where you came from. Or wherever you wish.”
Riptide opened his mouth to speak again but was still flabbergasted. “I - I’m so surprise. Can I not stay here with you?”
“No. I just cannot keep my hands from you and I do not want to lead you into something you do not want. Better that you leave and I try to forget.”
As the surprise wore off, Riptide realized Azazel had a point. He, too, could feel their attraction as soon as he arrived back home in the evenings and as soon as he woke up in the mornings. It was a struggle to keep from going up to the dark, attractive man; it was a struggle to not run his fingers through that jet black hair, to not want to feel that rough goatee against his own face, to not want to pull that shirt off. Falling asleep every night wondering what Azazel’s mouth would feel like or what Azazel would do with his hands or what positions Azazel enjoyed coupling in was too much of a struggle. In fact, it was insanity.
“Perhaps you are right. I will pack now.”
“There is no rush. Take your time.”
“No. Let’s count out the money now. You can transport me back to where I came from. I know their underground well.”
Azazel nodded. “Be more careful this time, Riptide,” he said gently. “It is…rough world out there.”
“I know.”
Rough, cold, and lonely.
***
Azazel was woken by loud pounding on the window above his bed. It was a basement apartment, but one small window stood high on his bedroom’s wall, with a dark curtain constantly shielding the view.
Azazel blinked and looked at the time. Nearly noon. His head hurt and an empty vodka bottle lay on its side on floor of the normally-neat room.
The pounding sounded again, and this time Azazel realized it was real. He sprang to his feet and grabbed a sword off the wall.
“It’s me!”
Azazel’s heart - which had seemed to have been pounded into a lifeless clump of rock once and for all - started throbbing again. Riptide!
Azazel instantly teleported outside and teleported both of them back inside.
“How you get here?” Azazel asked, as he looked at the man he loved. Riptide’s appearance was unchanged. He still wore a crisp suit, he still moved elegantly. His face remained as handsome as ever, his eyes still able to make Azazel melt.
Of course, Azazel realized, much time had not gone by. A cursory glance at the calendar would reveal that it had been three weeks and four days since Riptide had left. Although it had felt like a year.
“I buy expensive airplane tickets, and I transfer planes two times. I have to travel how normal people do now,” Riptide explained with a smile.
Riptide seemed relaxed, noted Azazel. He perhaps seemed even carefree or unburdened. Azazel glanced at the small suitcase held by Riptide.
“May I get you anything? Something to drink?”
“No, no thank you. I - I need to talk to you, Azazel.”
“Of course,” he replied, gesturing to the sofa.
For the first time, Riptide took his eyes away from Azazel and instead took stock of his surroundings.
“You make changes. This is new,” he gestured at the entertainment center. “And you paint the kitchen, right?”
“Yes.”
The bathroom had also been completely re-done. Azazel hadn’t had much else to do. Keeping busy kept him from going insane. His criminal activity in the past three weeks had intensified and several of those who had tried to stop him had met with an early demise. Azazel had tried to feel guilt but had not been able to muster it - he was suffering and didn’t care that he caused others to suffer.
“So why you buy plane ticket and fly to other end of the world?” Azazel asked. Part of him knew the answer, though he forced himself to squelch the hope. It could not truly be the reason he wished for. `He must need me for a heist,’ he told himself. `He needs a teleporter, and he needs someone better at hand-to-hand combat. Maybe he has a whole scheme planned.’
“I - I,” Riptide attempted to answer but failed. He had spent three interminable flights rehearsing what to say but still his mind was blank. “I miss you,” he finally admitted. “But I don’t know if you want to see me again.”
The two men remained standing in the middle of the room, facing each other. Riptide noticed that Azazel now looked as if he wanted to take the two steps forward that would bring them to each other, but was holding himself back.
Azazel forced himself to remain calm, his feet planted on the ground. “I do. I do very much. But it is as I told you, Riptide. It is too difficult to be around you and not be able to touch you, not be able to love you.”
“I know. But I…I don’t know how to say this. It will sound silly, but I must.” As Riptide spoke, Azazel again noted that the younger man appeared relaxed and unburdened. “Back home, I went to speak to a nun. I feel such agony over what I feel for you. You will not believe this, but the nun told me that God loves us the way we are. She said God made for us to have these feelings of love, these desires, and that it is not a bad thing. She said all love is beautiful, two men feeling love for each other is beautiful. She said that she is certain that is the case, even if most of the clergy don’t agree with her. We talk for a long, long time. I know you do not believe in God, I know that you don’t care what any nun or priest says. But she…she totally changed me. I don’t feel that this is a sin. And I am so glad I spoke to her because I was going crazy without you!” Riptide paused and then concluded, “I think the only sin was how I treated you, telling you that it was wrong. Can I ever have your forgiveness?”
Upon hearing Riptide’s words, Azazel could almost have become a believer for the first time in his life. He could not believe his good fortune that Riptide spoke to the one member of the clergy in Latin America who affirmed how they felt for each other!
“You do not have to ask. I am so happy that you are here.”
“I feel like I am home again.”
In unison, the two men stepped towards each other. Alone no more. With Riptide’s fears behind him, they easily fell into a loving and passionate kiss.
***
A few years later, Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost found them. It was clear that Azazel and Riptide were a package deal, and Shaw gladly accepted both wealthy men as members of the Hellfire Club.
Shaw never questioned their relationship. In fact, he never said anything about it at all, but with Emma on his side surely he knew despite Azazel and Riptide’s ingrained habit of keeping it discrete.
There was no reason not to join the Hellfire Club. Azazel and Riptide already had all the money they wanted, but Shaw promised them things they could not buy. One promise was unity with other mutants, now that they had learned the word that described that other important aspect of their being. Imagine - a whole community of people like them! Azazel did not need other people as much, but Riptide was thrilled at the thought. Another promise Shaw made was a world where mutants ruled, a world where one who looked like Azazel would live freely and openly if he wanted to. Those things were priceless.
THE END
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