Fic: Unwoven 4/6 (Azazel/Riptide)
Title: Unwoven 4/6 (Completed Fic)
Fandom: X: First Class
Rating: PG
Pairing: Azazel/Riptide
Summary: Azazel sleeps with Raven, and everything falls apart.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own words.
Part 1, Part 2
Part 3
Chapter 4
“Alright,” Janos told Azazel upon returning to the study. “Here’s what we're going to do. We’re going to date. Like those young couples do. We’ll spend time together and I’ll see if I can handle being around you. Alright?”
Azazel nodded.
“Yes. Sure. Of course.”
“Alright.” Janos nodded to himself, crossing his arms in what was really a semi-hug. “Right.”
°°°°°°°°°°
Dating turned out to be less awkward than Janos anticipated. Due to Azazel’s physical appearance, their options were limited. They were restrained to mostly solitary activities, like playing cards and bowling, which wouldn’t have been Janos’s preferred way of starting to get comfortable with Azazel again, but he didn’t want the rest of the team gawking at them either as he and Azazel struggled to engage in a civil conversation without Azazel insisting that he would never hurt Janos again or Janos freaking out about the fact that the man he did want to spend his life with, damn him, now came attached to a kid who looked like the bitch he cheated on Janos with. A kid who wanted a second dad. He’d even said he wanted Janos to be that second dad. What did Janos know about kids? He’d had two younger siblings back home, but he had been a kid himself when his parents took him and his older brothers and sister to San Juan, leaving the smaller ones with their grandparents in Utuado, because who could afford to feed six kids in a city that was bursting at the seams with slums when neither of his parents could find a proper job? Janos hadn’t even known how to talk to Juan when the kid smacked him upside the head with his presence. Why couldn’t Raven be raising him instead?
But Azazel looked so happy when he spoke of his son. Tired, frustrated, flustered as he told another wild tale of childhood madness, but always with a joyful smile of wonderment at the end, and Janos remembered how desperate he had felt when he begged Raven not to abort. He wouldn’t deny Azazel this. Janos asked about Juan more than he meant to, startling himself. Due to his involvement with the Brotherhood, Azazel couldn’t keep an eye on Juan all the time, so he found, of all things, a circus for him to spend time in.
“Yeah, I know,” Azazel said, grimacing over his hand of cards. “But I turned out alright. Mostly. And they’re better than the people I grew up. Besides, where else can a kid like him be?”
Juan was in the particular care of a middle aged woman named Carmen and her husband Antonio. Carmen was telekinetic, so she could stop Juan from teleporting away without permission and getting himself into trouble, and Antonio could walk through any material as if it were naught but air, so Juan couldn’t get stuck anywhere he couldn’t get out of. His teleporting abilities were still developing and it would be a while before he achieved his father’s dexterity. Juan also got to spend time with other mutant children who lived at the circus and, once he was old enough, he could get schooling from someone who actually knew what they were doing, though Azazel was doing well at teaching him Russian. The circus was based off Seville, which explained why Juan spoke their version of Spanish, but Azazel said he taught him some Puerto Rican terms here and there. Fancy that. While Janos had been fervent in his attempts to forget Azazel, Azazel had engaged in just the opposite. Janos wondered if Azazel had chosen a circus in Spain out of necessity or because they spoke the same language as Janos, more or less (it had taken Janos quite a while to accustom himself to all the different terms the first times he went). But he didn’t ask. He mustn’t risk getting overwhelmed again.
As the days passed, they grew more comfortable with each other. Azazel started teasing him with some of the old jokes and Janos played along, even initiating some of his own. They sat closer on the couch when they watched television. Once, Azazel reached out with his tail and brushed Janos’s ankle. Janos gasped. He didn’t pull away, forcing his eyes to remain open and fixed on the TV set even as phantom memories of Azazel’s past touches burst through his mind, and he wished his tail would slip under his pant leg and touch bare skin, but it was too soon. They’d hardy been at this for a week and a half. Janos didn’t trust him yet. He wasn’t sure he could trust him again, but he trusted himself less not to stop before he got hurt. Slowly, he eased his leg away from Azazel, glancing at him from the corner of his eye, yet he didn’t dare look him full in the face.
“Not yet,” Janos said, shifting on the sofa.
Azazel let his tail drop.
A few days later, they invited the others along to bowl in the single alley the team had built in the basement (Raven was conveniently dispatched on a mission that day). Emma kept smiling at Janos when Azazel wasn’t looking, stopping short of projecting ‘I told you so’, though she came close. Angel regarded Azazel with guarded eyes, but went along with it, saying, “Well, as long he behaves himself.” Erik scrutinized them both as if at any moment they would start fighting and rip the house to pieces. He did his best, though, teasing Janos when his ball kept curving too far to the left, asking Azazel how Juan was doing.
“Well, if you can make it work, I’m happy for you,” Erik told Janos afterward. “Someone deserves to be happy around here.”
Janos caught the trace of bitterness in his eyes and thought of Erik’s own failed chance at happiness with the man who was now their enemy. Erik probably had no more hope of getting over Charles Xavier than Janos had of getting over Azazel.
Three weeks into the dates, Azazel called to cancel. Juan had chicken pox and the poor, little guy was marooned in bed with a fever and uncontrollable itching. Azazel sounded harried and exhausted, his worry tightening his voice. Juan started crying for his dad and Azazel quickly apologized again, hanging up. Janos stood for a long while with the phone sticking to his hand from sweat until the damn thing started beeping at him, grumbling that the call was over and would he please hang up already?
Hysterical laughter bubbled in Janos’s throat. Azazel-Azazel of all people-was at this moment likely sopping up child vomit and putting cold compresses on his kid’s forehead while murmuring that it was going to be okay. Reading a children’s book would follow, no doubt. It was so ordinary. So domestic. He had never pictured Azazel doing such things. Yes, Janos had known these past weeks that Azazel was raising a child, but it didn’t ram home into Janos’s head until now whilst he sat on a leather sofa in an empty apartment wondering what he was still doing here.
He shot up to his feet, yanked his jacket over his shoulders, and ran down to the drugstore.
°°°°°°°°°
“Hello?”
“Hi. It’s Janos. I was wondering, I could come over and help you with Juan. I don’t really know about this, but I could at least watch him while you take a nap or something.”
There was a pause on the line. When Azazel finally spoke, amazement suffused his voice.
“You really want to help me with him? It’s not pleasant, you know.”
“I know. But he’s your kid. I got anti-itching cream and Tylenol. They say that’s good for chicken pox.”
“Yeah. Alright. That’d be great.”
°°°°°°°°
Janos had forgotten how miserable a little kid can be when he’s sick. The nausea, the crying, the throwing up, the need to have one’s parent always by their side. Juan barely noticed Janos’s presence at first. He was just another shadow in the room. His dad was the only one he paid heed to while he lied curled up on his bed, legs and tail tucked up to his chest, his face squished into the pillow, scratching and scratching no matter how many times Azazel told him to please stop that. The anti-itching cream helped some, but it proved right tricky to stick through the thick fur covering Juan’s body. It felt like short cat hair and just as tough to penetrate. One had to dig through the strands to see the pox marks, those inflamed red nubs that had caused Janos his own share of misery when he was seven. He’d never quit scratching, either, the sharp scraping of fingernails providing such a pleasant relief, if only for a few seconds. What did kids know of infections and burst sores and needing to run for the doctor in the middle of the night? Janos got off easy. His own pox never got infected, while his brother wound up with scars dotting his neck after spending two weeks moaning in bed instead of one. Remembering this made Janos spread the cream on Juan faster, coating it on his arms and torso while Azazel took his tail and legs . The damn pox had spread everywhere, giving the boy no chance of relief, and he squirmed under their grasp, moaning his misery with plaintive whimpers that made Janos’s heart constrict. His fever only worsened matters. The thermometer read 100°, then 103°. Azazel palpated his son’s forehead, grimacing at the heat burning under his fingers. But this was normal in fevers, Janos told Azazel. It would go down soon enough.
After the cream ordeal ended, Azazel read Juan a book about a pirate who couldn’t find his parrot, which the boy only half listened to, but it achieved its purpose, and soon Juan was slumbering for the first time in eighteen hours. Azazel and Janos slipped out of the bedroom, leaving the door halfway open so they could hear him if he called, and stumbled down to the living room. Azazel collapsed on the couch. His eyes closed as soon as he hit the cushions, all his limbs lying flat and limp in exhaustion.
“God, having a kid’s tiring,” he murmured.
“He’ll be fine,” Janos said, plopping down next to him.
“I hope so.”
They rested in silence. Janos watched Azazel, who didn’t seem to be aware of his regard. His eyes were shut, a worried frown wrinkling his brow. Janos’s fingers twitched at his side, wanting to reach out and brush away his distress, telling him that Juan would to be alright. But he wished to do more than touch. Not for the first time, Janos stared at Azazel’s mouth and pictured himself kissing him again, tasting his teeth with his tongue, and sucking on his lower lip, one of the most delightful delicacies Janos had ever experienced.
But this was not the time for such things. Azazel’s sick son slept upstairs, and the father was hardly in better shape.
“You can sleep if you want,” Janos said. “You don’t have to stand on ceremony for me. You never did before,” he added in a light tone, remembering how often Azazel loved to nod off at random moments during the day, in the console room, on the deck of the boat, on a hammock slung between two palm trees in an uninhabited island somewhere in the tropics where no one could interrupt his cat nap.
“Won’t you get bored without me?” Azazel asked, sliding his eyes open.
“I’ll find something to do. Don’t worry about me.”
Azazel was too worn down to complain any further.
“Alright, shoo,” he said, prodding Jonas off the couch so he could lie down. “Wake me if Juan calls for me.”
Jonas didn’t find that much to do, really. There were a few non-children’s books lying about, but he couldn’t concentrate on the words for more than a few sentences straight without his thoughts flying to the man sleeping on the couch or his offspring upstairs. Slapping shut the latest in a string of failed readings, he went outside. A cool breeze smacked him on the face as soon as he stepped out the door-the Irish temperature wasn’t kind in October-but he didn’t care. The house was set on the rising side of a slope about a quarter mile from the base, so a low valley stretched out below and beyond, ascending again in the distance to crest in the form of emerald mountains set against the sky, luminous despite the clouds it streaking in shades of grey. A slim stream meandered across the valley, the bubbling of running water rising up to Janos’s ears. Flowers danced in the wind, dotting the tall grass blue, pink, and yellow. Azazel had chosen the location for its cool climate and its isolation. Juan’s fur made heat tougher on him than on most people, so it was a refreshing change to come here after spending the day in southern Spain, especially in summer. And the valley was the ideal playground for a child. Plenty of space to run, some scattered trees to climb on, a river to splash in, as long as you didn’t mind rain pouring down on you at random times. But Janos was more than used to that. Puerto Rico was like that, only with much more sun and stifling humidity. It wouldn’t be so hard to call this place home.
A few hours later, Juan called out. Janos was on Azazel’s bed. He shouldn’t be, yet he hadn’t wanted to resist indulging himself by lying on the sheets Azazel slept in every night and relishing his scent on the pillow. The boy’s cry sent him bolting from the bed onto his feet, guilt cringing in his skin as he clutched his hair back and yanked his shirt smooth. Stumbling out into the corridor, he stepped into Juan’s room. The boy was squirming beneath his comforter, scratching again.
“Don’t do that,” Janos pleaded. “It will hurt worse.”
“But they itch,” Juan moaned.
“I know, but you have to take care of yourself. We worry about you.” Janos paused, frowning at how natural it felt to say ‘we’. “I’ll go get your dad,” he added, seeking to put some distance between himself and the boy, but Juan wasn’t having it.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
Janos turned back toward the boy, who looked up at Janos with an odd resentment in his eyes.
“What?”
“Papa said he didn’t know if you’d come back. But I wanted you to. You should be with Papa. He misses you.”
The funny feeling in Janos’s stomach intensified.
“Um… I’m sorry about that,” Janos said. “I’ll see what I can do. I’m going to get your dad now.”
Janos felt a smile tug on his lips as he hurried down the stairs. Halfway down, he stopped. His grin widened. A tiny whirlwind grew on his palm, which he hovered down to prance atop Azazel’s left ear. The man jerked awake, bating at the side of his face as if a really vicious wasp had stung his him, then twisted around on the couch until he saw Janos laughing on the stairs.
“Why do you always do that?” Azazel asked, glaring at Janos as he pushed himself upright.
“It’s hilarious,” Janos said, doubled over on the steps, clutching the railing for dear life. “C’mon,” he gasped out. “Your son wants you.”
Part 5
Fandom: X: First Class
Rating: PG
Pairing: Azazel/Riptide
Summary: Azazel sleeps with Raven, and everything falls apart.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own words.
Part 1, Part 2
Part 3
Chapter 4
“Alright,” Janos told Azazel upon returning to the study. “Here’s what we're going to do. We’re going to date. Like those young couples do. We’ll spend time together and I’ll see if I can handle being around you. Alright?”
Azazel nodded.
“Yes. Sure. Of course.”
“Alright.” Janos nodded to himself, crossing his arms in what was really a semi-hug. “Right.”
°°°°°°°°°°
Dating turned out to be less awkward than Janos anticipated. Due to Azazel’s physical appearance, their options were limited. They were restrained to mostly solitary activities, like playing cards and bowling, which wouldn’t have been Janos’s preferred way of starting to get comfortable with Azazel again, but he didn’t want the rest of the team gawking at them either as he and Azazel struggled to engage in a civil conversation without Azazel insisting that he would never hurt Janos again or Janos freaking out about the fact that the man he did want to spend his life with, damn him, now came attached to a kid who looked like the bitch he cheated on Janos with. A kid who wanted a second dad. He’d even said he wanted Janos to be that second dad. What did Janos know about kids? He’d had two younger siblings back home, but he had been a kid himself when his parents took him and his older brothers and sister to San Juan, leaving the smaller ones with their grandparents in Utuado, because who could afford to feed six kids in a city that was bursting at the seams with slums when neither of his parents could find a proper job? Janos hadn’t even known how to talk to Juan when the kid smacked him upside the head with his presence. Why couldn’t Raven be raising him instead?
But Azazel looked so happy when he spoke of his son. Tired, frustrated, flustered as he told another wild tale of childhood madness, but always with a joyful smile of wonderment at the end, and Janos remembered how desperate he had felt when he begged Raven not to abort. He wouldn’t deny Azazel this. Janos asked about Juan more than he meant to, startling himself. Due to his involvement with the Brotherhood, Azazel couldn’t keep an eye on Juan all the time, so he found, of all things, a circus for him to spend time in.
“Yeah, I know,” Azazel said, grimacing over his hand of cards. “But I turned out alright. Mostly. And they’re better than the people I grew up. Besides, where else can a kid like him be?”
Juan was in the particular care of a middle aged woman named Carmen and her husband Antonio. Carmen was telekinetic, so she could stop Juan from teleporting away without permission and getting himself into trouble, and Antonio could walk through any material as if it were naught but air, so Juan couldn’t get stuck anywhere he couldn’t get out of. His teleporting abilities were still developing and it would be a while before he achieved his father’s dexterity. Juan also got to spend time with other mutant children who lived at the circus and, once he was old enough, he could get schooling from someone who actually knew what they were doing, though Azazel was doing well at teaching him Russian. The circus was based off Seville, which explained why Juan spoke their version of Spanish, but Azazel said he taught him some Puerto Rican terms here and there. Fancy that. While Janos had been fervent in his attempts to forget Azazel, Azazel had engaged in just the opposite. Janos wondered if Azazel had chosen a circus in Spain out of necessity or because they spoke the same language as Janos, more or less (it had taken Janos quite a while to accustom himself to all the different terms the first times he went). But he didn’t ask. He mustn’t risk getting overwhelmed again.
As the days passed, they grew more comfortable with each other. Azazel started teasing him with some of the old jokes and Janos played along, even initiating some of his own. They sat closer on the couch when they watched television. Once, Azazel reached out with his tail and brushed Janos’s ankle. Janos gasped. He didn’t pull away, forcing his eyes to remain open and fixed on the TV set even as phantom memories of Azazel’s past touches burst through his mind, and he wished his tail would slip under his pant leg and touch bare skin, but it was too soon. They’d hardy been at this for a week and a half. Janos didn’t trust him yet. He wasn’t sure he could trust him again, but he trusted himself less not to stop before he got hurt. Slowly, he eased his leg away from Azazel, glancing at him from the corner of his eye, yet he didn’t dare look him full in the face.
“Not yet,” Janos said, shifting on the sofa.
Azazel let his tail drop.
A few days later, they invited the others along to bowl in the single alley the team had built in the basement (Raven was conveniently dispatched on a mission that day). Emma kept smiling at Janos when Azazel wasn’t looking, stopping short of projecting ‘I told you so’, though she came close. Angel regarded Azazel with guarded eyes, but went along with it, saying, “Well, as long he behaves himself.” Erik scrutinized them both as if at any moment they would start fighting and rip the house to pieces. He did his best, though, teasing Janos when his ball kept curving too far to the left, asking Azazel how Juan was doing.
“Well, if you can make it work, I’m happy for you,” Erik told Janos afterward. “Someone deserves to be happy around here.”
Janos caught the trace of bitterness in his eyes and thought of Erik’s own failed chance at happiness with the man who was now their enemy. Erik probably had no more hope of getting over Charles Xavier than Janos had of getting over Azazel.
Three weeks into the dates, Azazel called to cancel. Juan had chicken pox and the poor, little guy was marooned in bed with a fever and uncontrollable itching. Azazel sounded harried and exhausted, his worry tightening his voice. Juan started crying for his dad and Azazel quickly apologized again, hanging up. Janos stood for a long while with the phone sticking to his hand from sweat until the damn thing started beeping at him, grumbling that the call was over and would he please hang up already?
Hysterical laughter bubbled in Janos’s throat. Azazel-Azazel of all people-was at this moment likely sopping up child vomit and putting cold compresses on his kid’s forehead while murmuring that it was going to be okay. Reading a children’s book would follow, no doubt. It was so ordinary. So domestic. He had never pictured Azazel doing such things. Yes, Janos had known these past weeks that Azazel was raising a child, but it didn’t ram home into Janos’s head until now whilst he sat on a leather sofa in an empty apartment wondering what he was still doing here.
He shot up to his feet, yanked his jacket over his shoulders, and ran down to the drugstore.
°°°°°°°°°
“Hello?”
“Hi. It’s Janos. I was wondering, I could come over and help you with Juan. I don’t really know about this, but I could at least watch him while you take a nap or something.”
There was a pause on the line. When Azazel finally spoke, amazement suffused his voice.
“You really want to help me with him? It’s not pleasant, you know.”
“I know. But he’s your kid. I got anti-itching cream and Tylenol. They say that’s good for chicken pox.”
“Yeah. Alright. That’d be great.”
°°°°°°°°
Janos had forgotten how miserable a little kid can be when he’s sick. The nausea, the crying, the throwing up, the need to have one’s parent always by their side. Juan barely noticed Janos’s presence at first. He was just another shadow in the room. His dad was the only one he paid heed to while he lied curled up on his bed, legs and tail tucked up to his chest, his face squished into the pillow, scratching and scratching no matter how many times Azazel told him to please stop that. The anti-itching cream helped some, but it proved right tricky to stick through the thick fur covering Juan’s body. It felt like short cat hair and just as tough to penetrate. One had to dig through the strands to see the pox marks, those inflamed red nubs that had caused Janos his own share of misery when he was seven. He’d never quit scratching, either, the sharp scraping of fingernails providing such a pleasant relief, if only for a few seconds. What did kids know of infections and burst sores and needing to run for the doctor in the middle of the night? Janos got off easy. His own pox never got infected, while his brother wound up with scars dotting his neck after spending two weeks moaning in bed instead of one. Remembering this made Janos spread the cream on Juan faster, coating it on his arms and torso while Azazel took his tail and legs . The damn pox had spread everywhere, giving the boy no chance of relief, and he squirmed under their grasp, moaning his misery with plaintive whimpers that made Janos’s heart constrict. His fever only worsened matters. The thermometer read 100°, then 103°. Azazel palpated his son’s forehead, grimacing at the heat burning under his fingers. But this was normal in fevers, Janos told Azazel. It would go down soon enough.
After the cream ordeal ended, Azazel read Juan a book about a pirate who couldn’t find his parrot, which the boy only half listened to, but it achieved its purpose, and soon Juan was slumbering for the first time in eighteen hours. Azazel and Janos slipped out of the bedroom, leaving the door halfway open so they could hear him if he called, and stumbled down to the living room. Azazel collapsed on the couch. His eyes closed as soon as he hit the cushions, all his limbs lying flat and limp in exhaustion.
“God, having a kid’s tiring,” he murmured.
“He’ll be fine,” Janos said, plopping down next to him.
“I hope so.”
They rested in silence. Janos watched Azazel, who didn’t seem to be aware of his regard. His eyes were shut, a worried frown wrinkling his brow. Janos’s fingers twitched at his side, wanting to reach out and brush away his distress, telling him that Juan would to be alright. But he wished to do more than touch. Not for the first time, Janos stared at Azazel’s mouth and pictured himself kissing him again, tasting his teeth with his tongue, and sucking on his lower lip, one of the most delightful delicacies Janos had ever experienced.
But this was not the time for such things. Azazel’s sick son slept upstairs, and the father was hardly in better shape.
“You can sleep if you want,” Janos said. “You don’t have to stand on ceremony for me. You never did before,” he added in a light tone, remembering how often Azazel loved to nod off at random moments during the day, in the console room, on the deck of the boat, on a hammock slung between two palm trees in an uninhabited island somewhere in the tropics where no one could interrupt his cat nap.
“Won’t you get bored without me?” Azazel asked, sliding his eyes open.
“I’ll find something to do. Don’t worry about me.”
Azazel was too worn down to complain any further.
“Alright, shoo,” he said, prodding Jonas off the couch so he could lie down. “Wake me if Juan calls for me.”
Jonas didn’t find that much to do, really. There were a few non-children’s books lying about, but he couldn’t concentrate on the words for more than a few sentences straight without his thoughts flying to the man sleeping on the couch or his offspring upstairs. Slapping shut the latest in a string of failed readings, he went outside. A cool breeze smacked him on the face as soon as he stepped out the door-the Irish temperature wasn’t kind in October-but he didn’t care. The house was set on the rising side of a slope about a quarter mile from the base, so a low valley stretched out below and beyond, ascending again in the distance to crest in the form of emerald mountains set against the sky, luminous despite the clouds it streaking in shades of grey. A slim stream meandered across the valley, the bubbling of running water rising up to Janos’s ears. Flowers danced in the wind, dotting the tall grass blue, pink, and yellow. Azazel had chosen the location for its cool climate and its isolation. Juan’s fur made heat tougher on him than on most people, so it was a refreshing change to come here after spending the day in southern Spain, especially in summer. And the valley was the ideal playground for a child. Plenty of space to run, some scattered trees to climb on, a river to splash in, as long as you didn’t mind rain pouring down on you at random times. But Janos was more than used to that. Puerto Rico was like that, only with much more sun and stifling humidity. It wouldn’t be so hard to call this place home.
A few hours later, Juan called out. Janos was on Azazel’s bed. He shouldn’t be, yet he hadn’t wanted to resist indulging himself by lying on the sheets Azazel slept in every night and relishing his scent on the pillow. The boy’s cry sent him bolting from the bed onto his feet, guilt cringing in his skin as he clutched his hair back and yanked his shirt smooth. Stumbling out into the corridor, he stepped into Juan’s room. The boy was squirming beneath his comforter, scratching again.
“Don’t do that,” Janos pleaded. “It will hurt worse.”
“But they itch,” Juan moaned.
“I know, but you have to take care of yourself. We worry about you.” Janos paused, frowning at how natural it felt to say ‘we’. “I’ll go get your dad,” he added, seeking to put some distance between himself and the boy, but Juan wasn’t having it.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
Janos turned back toward the boy, who looked up at Janos with an odd resentment in his eyes.
“What?”
“Papa said he didn’t know if you’d come back. But I wanted you to. You should be with Papa. He misses you.”
The funny feeling in Janos’s stomach intensified.
“Um… I’m sorry about that,” Janos said. “I’ll see what I can do. I’m going to get your dad now.”
Janos felt a smile tug on his lips as he hurried down the stairs. Halfway down, he stopped. His grin widened. A tiny whirlwind grew on his palm, which he hovered down to prance atop Azazel’s left ear. The man jerked awake, bating at the side of his face as if a really vicious wasp had stung his him, then twisted around on the couch until he saw Janos laughing on the stairs.
“Why do you always do that?” Azazel asked, glaring at Janos as he pushed himself upright.
“It’s hilarious,” Janos said, doubled over on the steps, clutching the railing for dear life. “C’mon,” he gasped out. “Your son wants you.”
Part 5