Fic - "Hestia" (7/7)
Title: Hestia (7/7)
Summary: Azazel and Riptide retire from the Brotherhood, with Magneto’s blessing. This multi-chaptered story chronicles their life together on their houseboat over a period of ten years. We will see a wedding, a birth, the relationship getting into trouble and getting out of it, and more. Angel, Mystique, Magneto and others will make appearances.
Beta Testing: Thank you to RD for beta testing this entire fic!
Word count: All together, the word count for the seven chapters comes to 16,000. Each chapter is around 3,000 words.
Rating: R
Pairing: Azazel/Riptide
Disclaimer: I don’t own X-men, or Azazel or Riptide, unfortunately.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five,
Chapter Six
Hestia - Chapter Seven
***
1973, Continued
Today Riptide decided that he would teach Marina about art. He didn’t know much about it himself, but he could appreciate art in general. And he and Azazel had lately been taking the route of having Marina learn by doing. They did as best as they could with it on Hestia.
“Look what Papa brought us,” Riptide enthused, pulling materials out of bags and spreading them on the table. “Watercolors! We can paint. And he brought us brushes to paint with, and all sorts of surfaces to paint on. Feel how different they all are. And look at the colors.”
“Wow!” Marina said, her eyes lighting up. She eagerly reached for all of the new supplies, touching everything. “Colors!”
Azazel stood off to the side, his arms crossed. He was pleased that he had acquired the right supplies. His chest radiated a contented warmth as he watched Riptide and Marina. They spread surfaces on the kitchen floor and, at Marina’s suggestion, decided to engage in a finger painting contest.
“Let’s see who can draw Papa’s tail better!” Marina requested.
“You’re on!” Riptide agreed. He and Marina each knelt in front of their blank canvasses and set about finger painting. Marina kept taking backwards glances at Azazel, and specifically at his tail. Azazel swung it around and waggled it merrily. Marina giggled and resumed her finger painting.
“I’m gonna draw both Papa and Daddy!” she declared several minutes later, apparently forgetting about the tail-painting contest. After just minutes, Marina’s face, arms, and neck were decorated with paint in addition to her fingers and the canvass.
Marina’s picture emerged with lots of red hearts adorning the stick-figure iterations of her fathers.
“You draw many hearts,” Azazel noted, leaning over Marina’s shoulder as she worked.
“Of course. I love Daddy and Papa!” With that declaration, Marina reached for Azazel and kissed his cheek, and then did the same with Riptide. Azazel’s heart filled and he thought it odd that he couldn’t care less right now about how difficult it would be to clean the paint off Marina later on, let alone the messy paint splatterings all over his beloved ship’s deck. His heart danced a bit at the sight of the pure joy on his daughter’s face.
That night, Azazel and Riptide lay spooned in bed together. It was the comfortable position in which they always fell asleep.
“Thank you for this,” Azazel said quietly. “I never would want to become father. But you wanted it, and we took in Marina because of that. I love her.”
Riptide enjoyed the warmth of Azazel’s chest against his back. “I should thank you, no? You are Marina’s father.”
“We both are,” Azazel said straightforwardly.
“True. But…” he paused a moment to search for the right term, and retrieved it from his memory of one of Marina’s textbooks, “biologically she is here because of you.” Riptide was quiet for several moments, and then sensing that Azazel was a bit too overjoyed to fall asleep, he asked a question.
“When did you know?” Riptide asked, his voice a murmur. “Know that you and I were meant to be together? That it was more than just sex?”
It was Azazel’s turn to be quiet for several moments. Riptide might have thought that his husband had fallen asleep but he could tell from the positioning of his arms that he was awake.
“Not at one moment. It was gradual. And I knew from way that you kiss me. The way the kiss felt. Then I knew it was more,” Azazel finally said. “What about you?”
“I knew we’d be together forever just from the second time we went to bed together,” Riptide said straightforwardly.
Azazel raised his eyebrows but Riptide couldn’t see it. Riptide knew to continue. “You gave a lot away that night. Especially when you turned me around so we were face-to-face. That gesture and the look on your face…I knew something serious was there.”
***
“What’s your job?”
Marina sat between her fathers on their sofa. They had just finished reading with her a brightly-colored book that illustrated different adults working in many multiple professions, which had raised questions inside Marina’s head.
“We raise you,” Azazel said tonelessly, his eyes narrow. He had an inkling as to where this conversation was going. Why did Marina have to be so perceptive?
“But…you tell me that people work to get money. So how we get money?”
Azazel and Riptide exchanged a look behind Marina’s head. Her hair was still jet black and her eyes still blue; they were Azazel’s eyes. They dressed her each day in a different frock, with Mary Jane shoes on her feet. Riptide styled her hair differently every day; today it was in “Princess style” which was the term Marina had selected to simply mean that her hair was down with the sides pulled back and clasped with a sparkly barrette.
“Papa and I have special powers,” Riptide said, words he had uttered to her before. “Papa brings us money.” He smiled as he said the words.
Then, hoping to perhaps change the subject, Riptide added, “You might have special powers someday too.”
Marina seemed uninterested in this possibility. She fingered the pages of her book about careers. “Papa brings me toys and dolls,” Marina said.
“Yes. Many toys and dolls.”
Marina turned towards Azazel. “Do you buy us these things? And where do we get the money from?”
“We will tell you later,” Azazel said gruffly, his face turned away from his daughter.
“I read that stealing is wrong. We don’t steal, do we?”
Azazel looked at the clock hanging on the wall. “It is time for your bed, my sweet.” He abruptly rose from the sofa.
“Yes,” Riptide said. “Let’s get you into your nightgown.” He stood too, though his voice was mild and he couldn’t meet Marina’s intense gaze.
1974
Some major life shifts happen instantly, shockingly. Others are like water carving patterns into rock. It had been ten years since Azazel and Riptide had retired and begun their life together on a boat. Seventeen years since they had first laid eyes on each other and become inseparable. Their daughter had just turned seven.
Azazel and Riptide now sat on their deck, holding hands, occasionally reaching for their after-dinner drinks. It was a ritual they had repeated thousands of times now. Most evenings they were contentedly silent, enjoying the quiet after a day with the garrulous and busy Marina. They didn’t express themselves much through words, but gestures usually sufficed and they employed them often. Riptide silently stood up and began to rub the muscle relaxing cream (which he wryly noted had the words “Ben Gay” on the label) into Azazel’s sore shoulders and back.
As Riptide worked and Azazel felt the stinging warmth provide some balm to his aches, Azazel’s mind slowly churned over ideas it had been considering for a while. When Riptide finished, Azazel kissed his mouth and ran a few fingers through Riptide’s hair before Riptide sat back down next to his husband.
“So, I think about this a lot,” Azazel began, breaking the silence. His voice sounded loud and crisp on the still evening waters. “Maybe we get a house. A house on land. It can have…furnished basement, I think that is what it is called. So I can live in the basement and on Hestia - I can teleport back and forth. So I can still be recluse but Marina gets what she needs. You and Marina live in the house…sometimes come back to Hestia with me too but also live in house. She can go to school. Make friends.”
Riptide nodded, considering these ideas. He had been thinking of them himself. “She’s seven already. It will be hard for her to adjust to being around other children after only seeing them on TV and reading about them.”
“Yes. But she is brave little girl, smart one too. I believe she will manage.” Azazel grasped his husband’s hand. There was some residue from the warming cream still on his fingers.
“Oh, she definitely will. But it will be hard at first,” Riptide said, squeezing Azazel’s fingers and looking into his husband’s clear eyes.
“We will need to carefully pick where to buy house,” Azazel said. “You will appear to neighbors and parents at the school as a father with no wife. ‘Single father’, I think that’s what they say. And we need to find place that is open-minded, since you are Hispanic and Marina is partially Black.”
“And Marina might someday develop mutations,” Riptide added, leaning forwards. He then laughed. “But maybe we cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“We still have time.” Azazel paused. “We will need to tell Marina not to tell any others that she has two fathers.” He took another breath. “And this plan means that you will have much interaction with normal humans.”
Riptide shrugged. “I don’t hate them. I don’t like them, but I don’t hate them. And it won’t be that much - maybe at the school, or when I take her to the park.”
Azazel raised his eyebrows. “But think of what we see on TV. She will make friends. There will be birthday parties. Maybe she play sports like girls nowadays do. You will have many other parents to deal with, and teachers, coaches...”
“It is not something I look forward to, but I will manage for her sake,” Riptide said, taking a breath. “And as long as you are there with us. Either in the finished basement, or teleporting us back to Hestia - as long as you are there with us,” he repeated.
“It goes without saying. My life is with you and her,” Azazel said resolutely. He then turned his head, subconsciously looking in the direction of their bookshelf, thinking about research. “Do you have any ideas on where to live?”
Riptide was quiet for a moment. “A big city. Like you said, we need somewhere with open-minded people. People will constantly ask me what happened to my wife and why I am alone. We need somewhere with people of all races. I will not allow someone to turn up their nose at our daughter because of her skin color and features.”
“There are people of many races and a lot of gay people in San Francisco,” Azazel offered, with a tilt of the head.
Riptide furrowed his brow, as Azazel continued. “Probably not so many have children, but maybe some do. That might be good place,” Azazel concluded.
“I thought that perhaps you would not like that so much,” Riptide said. “Do you worry I’d be tempted?”
Azazel was quiet for many long moments. He moved closer to Riptide and pulled him into his arms. “I trust you,” Azazel said. “Wherever we go, it will work. We love each other. We’re a family.”
THE END
I hope you enjoyed this fic. It’s the longest Azazel/Riptide fic I’ve written and I hope it worked for you. Thanks again to my beta RD!
Summary: Azazel and Riptide retire from the Brotherhood, with Magneto’s blessing. This multi-chaptered story chronicles their life together on their houseboat over a period of ten years. We will see a wedding, a birth, the relationship getting into trouble and getting out of it, and more. Angel, Mystique, Magneto and others will make appearances.
Beta Testing: Thank you to RD for beta testing this entire fic!
Word count: All together, the word count for the seven chapters comes to 16,000. Each chapter is around 3,000 words.
Rating: R
Pairing: Azazel/Riptide
Disclaimer: I don’t own X-men, or Azazel or Riptide, unfortunately.
Previous Chapters:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five,
Chapter Six
Hestia - Chapter Seven
***
1973, Continued
Today Riptide decided that he would teach Marina about art. He didn’t know much about it himself, but he could appreciate art in general. And he and Azazel had lately been taking the route of having Marina learn by doing. They did as best as they could with it on Hestia.
“Look what Papa brought us,” Riptide enthused, pulling materials out of bags and spreading them on the table. “Watercolors! We can paint. And he brought us brushes to paint with, and all sorts of surfaces to paint on. Feel how different they all are. And look at the colors.”
“Wow!” Marina said, her eyes lighting up. She eagerly reached for all of the new supplies, touching everything. “Colors!”
Azazel stood off to the side, his arms crossed. He was pleased that he had acquired the right supplies. His chest radiated a contented warmth as he watched Riptide and Marina. They spread surfaces on the kitchen floor and, at Marina’s suggestion, decided to engage in a finger painting contest.
“Let’s see who can draw Papa’s tail better!” Marina requested.
“You’re on!” Riptide agreed. He and Marina each knelt in front of their blank canvasses and set about finger painting. Marina kept taking backwards glances at Azazel, and specifically at his tail. Azazel swung it around and waggled it merrily. Marina giggled and resumed her finger painting.
“I’m gonna draw both Papa and Daddy!” she declared several minutes later, apparently forgetting about the tail-painting contest. After just minutes, Marina’s face, arms, and neck were decorated with paint in addition to her fingers and the canvass.
Marina’s picture emerged with lots of red hearts adorning the stick-figure iterations of her fathers.
“You draw many hearts,” Azazel noted, leaning over Marina’s shoulder as she worked.
“Of course. I love Daddy and Papa!” With that declaration, Marina reached for Azazel and kissed his cheek, and then did the same with Riptide. Azazel’s heart filled and he thought it odd that he couldn’t care less right now about how difficult it would be to clean the paint off Marina later on, let alone the messy paint splatterings all over his beloved ship’s deck. His heart danced a bit at the sight of the pure joy on his daughter’s face.
That night, Azazel and Riptide lay spooned in bed together. It was the comfortable position in which they always fell asleep.
“Thank you for this,” Azazel said quietly. “I never would want to become father. But you wanted it, and we took in Marina because of that. I love her.”
Riptide enjoyed the warmth of Azazel’s chest against his back. “I should thank you, no? You are Marina’s father.”
“We both are,” Azazel said straightforwardly.
“True. But…” he paused a moment to search for the right term, and retrieved it from his memory of one of Marina’s textbooks, “biologically she is here because of you.” Riptide was quiet for several moments, and then sensing that Azazel was a bit too overjoyed to fall asleep, he asked a question.
“When did you know?” Riptide asked, his voice a murmur. “Know that you and I were meant to be together? That it was more than just sex?”
It was Azazel’s turn to be quiet for several moments. Riptide might have thought that his husband had fallen asleep but he could tell from the positioning of his arms that he was awake.
“Not at one moment. It was gradual. And I knew from way that you kiss me. The way the kiss felt. Then I knew it was more,” Azazel finally said. “What about you?”
“I knew we’d be together forever just from the second time we went to bed together,” Riptide said straightforwardly.
Azazel raised his eyebrows but Riptide couldn’t see it. Riptide knew to continue. “You gave a lot away that night. Especially when you turned me around so we were face-to-face. That gesture and the look on your face…I knew something serious was there.”
***
“What’s your job?”
Marina sat between her fathers on their sofa. They had just finished reading with her a brightly-colored book that illustrated different adults working in many multiple professions, which had raised questions inside Marina’s head.
“We raise you,” Azazel said tonelessly, his eyes narrow. He had an inkling as to where this conversation was going. Why did Marina have to be so perceptive?
“But…you tell me that people work to get money. So how we get money?”
Azazel and Riptide exchanged a look behind Marina’s head. Her hair was still jet black and her eyes still blue; they were Azazel’s eyes. They dressed her each day in a different frock, with Mary Jane shoes on her feet. Riptide styled her hair differently every day; today it was in “Princess style” which was the term Marina had selected to simply mean that her hair was down with the sides pulled back and clasped with a sparkly barrette.
“Papa and I have special powers,” Riptide said, words he had uttered to her before. “Papa brings us money.” He smiled as he said the words.
Then, hoping to perhaps change the subject, Riptide added, “You might have special powers someday too.”
Marina seemed uninterested in this possibility. She fingered the pages of her book about careers. “Papa brings me toys and dolls,” Marina said.
“Yes. Many toys and dolls.”
Marina turned towards Azazel. “Do you buy us these things? And where do we get the money from?”
“We will tell you later,” Azazel said gruffly, his face turned away from his daughter.
“I read that stealing is wrong. We don’t steal, do we?”
Azazel looked at the clock hanging on the wall. “It is time for your bed, my sweet.” He abruptly rose from the sofa.
“Yes,” Riptide said. “Let’s get you into your nightgown.” He stood too, though his voice was mild and he couldn’t meet Marina’s intense gaze.
1974
Some major life shifts happen instantly, shockingly. Others are like water carving patterns into rock. It had been ten years since Azazel and Riptide had retired and begun their life together on a boat. Seventeen years since they had first laid eyes on each other and become inseparable. Their daughter had just turned seven.
Azazel and Riptide now sat on their deck, holding hands, occasionally reaching for their after-dinner drinks. It was a ritual they had repeated thousands of times now. Most evenings they were contentedly silent, enjoying the quiet after a day with the garrulous and busy Marina. They didn’t express themselves much through words, but gestures usually sufficed and they employed them often. Riptide silently stood up and began to rub the muscle relaxing cream (which he wryly noted had the words “Ben Gay” on the label) into Azazel’s sore shoulders and back.
As Riptide worked and Azazel felt the stinging warmth provide some balm to his aches, Azazel’s mind slowly churned over ideas it had been considering for a while. When Riptide finished, Azazel kissed his mouth and ran a few fingers through Riptide’s hair before Riptide sat back down next to his husband.
“So, I think about this a lot,” Azazel began, breaking the silence. His voice sounded loud and crisp on the still evening waters. “Maybe we get a house. A house on land. It can have…furnished basement, I think that is what it is called. So I can live in the basement and on Hestia - I can teleport back and forth. So I can still be recluse but Marina gets what she needs. You and Marina live in the house…sometimes come back to Hestia with me too but also live in house. She can go to school. Make friends.”
Riptide nodded, considering these ideas. He had been thinking of them himself. “She’s seven already. It will be hard for her to adjust to being around other children after only seeing them on TV and reading about them.”
“Yes. But she is brave little girl, smart one too. I believe she will manage.” Azazel grasped his husband’s hand. There was some residue from the warming cream still on his fingers.
“Oh, she definitely will. But it will be hard at first,” Riptide said, squeezing Azazel’s fingers and looking into his husband’s clear eyes.
“We will need to carefully pick where to buy house,” Azazel said. “You will appear to neighbors and parents at the school as a father with no wife. ‘Single father’, I think that’s what they say. And we need to find place that is open-minded, since you are Hispanic and Marina is partially Black.”
“And Marina might someday develop mutations,” Riptide added, leaning forwards. He then laughed. “But maybe we cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“We still have time.” Azazel paused. “We will need to tell Marina not to tell any others that she has two fathers.” He took another breath. “And this plan means that you will have much interaction with normal humans.”
Riptide shrugged. “I don’t hate them. I don’t like them, but I don’t hate them. And it won’t be that much - maybe at the school, or when I take her to the park.”
Azazel raised his eyebrows. “But think of what we see on TV. She will make friends. There will be birthday parties. Maybe she play sports like girls nowadays do. You will have many other parents to deal with, and teachers, coaches...”
“It is not something I look forward to, but I will manage for her sake,” Riptide said, taking a breath. “And as long as you are there with us. Either in the finished basement, or teleporting us back to Hestia - as long as you are there with us,” he repeated.
“It goes without saying. My life is with you and her,” Azazel said resolutely. He then turned his head, subconsciously looking in the direction of their bookshelf, thinking about research. “Do you have any ideas on where to live?”
Riptide was quiet for a moment. “A big city. Like you said, we need somewhere with open-minded people. People will constantly ask me what happened to my wife and why I am alone. We need somewhere with people of all races. I will not allow someone to turn up their nose at our daughter because of her skin color and features.”
“There are people of many races and a lot of gay people in San Francisco,” Azazel offered, with a tilt of the head.
Riptide furrowed his brow, as Azazel continued. “Probably not so many have children, but maybe some do. That might be good place,” Azazel concluded.
“I thought that perhaps you would not like that so much,” Riptide said. “Do you worry I’d be tempted?”
Azazel was quiet for many long moments. He moved closer to Riptide and pulled him into his arms. “I trust you,” Azazel said. “Wherever we go, it will work. We love each other. We’re a family.”
THE END
I hope you enjoyed this fic. It’s the longest Azazel/Riptide fic I’ve written and I hope it worked for you. Thanks again to my beta RD!