Title: New Life

Author: Jeanie.

glitterghost2001@yahoo.com.au

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Apollo/Midnighter

Summary: Voyeurism, Buffy, cheesecake and Mantrap. In that order.

Warnings: Slash, spoilers for A Finer World.

Disclaimer: I own none of these characters and make no money out them, but I can dream, can't I?

Dedication: To Lachesis. Her superpowers include writing and betaing; her turn-offs include misplaced modifiers.

Notes: This is only the second fic I've posted to this list. Please be nice.


New Life
by Jeanie

The one called Fahrenheit led them down a corridor to the guest quarters, talking most of the way. What she spoke about was largely the help that King was offering them for their retirement, and the procedures they had to undergo before they left the next morning. Apollo and Midnighter let her talk. After five years out in the cold, the ordinary (if extremely comfortable) package she was describing sounded like paradise, and neither were willing to interrupt and spoil the pleasure of anticipation.

She came to a halt before a couple of doors and started to punch in the passwords on the monitors beside them. "... so, just go find Christine Trelane tomorrow before you leave, and she'll take care of all the details. These rooms have laundry chutes in the bathrooms, so just throw anything you want cleaned down them and you'll get them back in the morning, as well as some civilian clothes I'll go dig up for you. When you shut these doors they'll lock automatically, but only from the inside. The rooms are adjoining, and above the beds are spare fetishes if you guys need anything. And, um, what else? Oh yeah - one room has Foxtel, the other has Optus, but I think Foxtel is screening a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon at eight."

As she spoke and punched buttons, she kept sneaking sly glances at the two, as if puzzling something out. Midnighter noticed; when she finished speaking he told her calmly, "Yes. We are," and reached out to grasp the hand of the man beside him.

Fahrenheit smiled. "Oh, don't mind me. I was just wondering which room I should have your meals sent to."

"Food!" Apollo's eyes lit up and he turned to his companion, beaming. "She *offered* us *food* ..."

"Let's invite her in for a threesome."

Fahrenheit laughed. "So what do you guys want to eat? We can get the kitchen staff to whip up just about anything."

"Then please do," Midnighter told her earnestly.

"And send it up with six kinds of desert ..."

"... each ..."

"... doesn't matter what kinds, just tell 'em to close their eyes and point."

"Okay, you should have it in about an hour." She gestured to the door closest to them. "That one's showing Buffy."

She set off back the way she'd come, leaving them to get settled.

~*~

Jackson King hated being himself sometimes.

Take right now, for example:

It was the end of a very satisfying day for StormWatch. With the help of the two rogue superhumans, last of Henry Bendix's elite, which they had managed to track down only that morning, the Nevada Gardens had been destroyed and its trees brought onto SkyWatch station. In the hands of StormWatch, they would now be used to create beneficial medical technology - such as a means to generate organs to fit the DNA of their recipients - rather than the extremely deadly and powerful weapons they had been used to create before. The fact that it was U.S. government agencies that had been selling said weapons to inner city gangs for black-budget money only sweetened the deal. To top it all off, since the two rogues were officially non-existent, known to no-one except the late Bendix and now the people of StormWatch, the Garden's "destruction" could never be traced back to Jackson King and his crew.

All in all, an excellent day's work.

The two rogues went by the codenames of Apollo and the Midnighter. They had spent the last five years homeless and on the run, keeping underground to avoid the notice of higher powers, specifically the Weatherman. Still, they had managed to find the wherewithal to fight injustice during their exile, going wherever people needed help, striving, as they had told King and Trelane, "for a finer world." This was despite the risk they ran if Bendix had ever managed to locate them. They had actually been on the way to the Nevada Gardens themselves when King had had Fahrenheit and Hellstrike intercept them, even though Apollo's energy output when he flew left a clear signal for a SkyWatch sensor sweep to tack onto. They had discovered the Gardens' existence when they prevented an arms sale in New York, and risked breaking cover to destroy it and the dirty uses it was being put to.

Christine Trelane, Weatherman the Second, had only learned of the Gardens herself after a gun - powered by a human brain, able to select victims based upon clothing style, size, shape, skin color, and never miss - had been recovered from the scene of the aborted sale. So really, it was thanks to Apollo and the Midnighter that StormWatch had even discovered the uses the Gardens were being put to. When they had told the rogues of Bendix's death, compared notes on the Gardens, and asked them for their assistance, the two had agreed immediately, swearing their powers were up to it. And they had been better than their word.

Almost all of StormWatch had gathered in the transfer bay, to watch on the monitors the work of the two Majestic-class superhumans, built and trained by the mad (but brilliant) Henry Bendix himself. As Apollo took out the military weaponry guarding the site, Midnighter entered the soldiers' barracks alone, in open view of every fully-armed, highly-trained soldier in the place, and had them all crippled and disarmed in minutes without as much as a single bullet nicking his black leather trenchcoat. Then, he took a moment to copy the files stored on the base's computer and destroy the hard drive that stored the originals. Then he rejoined Apollo, rigged the trees for teleportation, and they stood and watched as the entire Garden was teleported whole onto SkyWatch station, leaving nothing behind but a vast crater. Upon their return, they had been greeted by a standing ovation from every man and woman present.

When Christine Trelane asked them what they wanted in return, they had asked for nothing except the recovery of their lost identities, wiped by Bendix immediately before their first disastrous mission. This, unfortunately, King was unable to do; Bendix had left behind no trace of these men's histories, not even their real names. But King had been able to promise them new lives, away from StormWatch, as comfortable and protected as he could manage. The gratitude on both sides had been earnest and earned. Midnighter, by far the more subdued of the two, had actually become emotional upon finally being brought in from the cold.

Ironically, all this was precisely why King despised himself so thoroughly at the moment.

He sat alone in his office, a small portable monitor open before him. He touched a button on the console, and the monitor displayed the interior of one of the suites he'd just had Fahrenheit escort them too. Empty. He pressed another button, and the suite's bathroom appeared. Also empty. He went through the same process with the other suite, with identical results. He went back to the first suite's interior, changing every few seconds in the same order until a door finally opened and both Apollo and Midnighter walked in.

King blinked, wondering for a moment if Fahrenheit had screwed up and forgotten that they had been granted a suite each. His confusion quickly vanished as he listened to their voices filter through the monitor's speaker.

"Shower first?" said Midnighter.

"Naturally. You think I'm gonna have sex with someone who stinks like you? I have my self-respect."

"You had sex with me and my stink just last night."

"And in less than twenty-four hours, your stink has grown out of all proportion."

"You keep on about me and my stink -"

Apollo kissed him, obviously to shut him up, then pulled him into the bathroom by the hand.

Watching them undress and step under the spray, King felt like a fool. It had simply never occurred to him that these two, cut off for five long years from friendly contact with anyone but each other, may have developed a closeness that went beyond simple comradeship. King was an enlightened man; though completely heterosexual both by experience and inclination, he not only tolerated other kinds of love, but accepted them. It actually touched him to think of the comfort these two must have given each other during their years of banishment. Towards other men he was simply indifferent as far as sex was concerned, to the point that he lacked even the squeamishness that most heterosexual men seem to consider part and parcel of their orientation. Even the knowledge that he was about to witness Apollo and Midnighter get more physical with each other than he'd ever seen two men get - at least when bloodshed wasn't involved - didn't make him squirm. No, what caused his discomfort, and it was extreme, was that in the name of the global security that these two had defended for so long at the risk of their lives, King was about to spy on a moment that he knew they wouldn't want witnessed for the world.

They spent a long time just washing themselves at first; lathering their hair and letting it run clean under the spray, scrubbing each others' backs. And fronts. Standing close to them before, King had gotten a strong whiff of body odor and wondered how long it had been since they had last been able to wash. He tried to imagine himself and Christine in the same situation - learning to live with their own stink, unable to maintain any kind of intimacy without the assault on their sense of smell, enduring it because their relationship was the only thing that kept them sane, until the stink became as much a part of their togetherness as necessity, or love. As the two on the screen stood kissing, Apollo using the soap to both lubricate and stimulate his lover to erection, King remembered that the whole last year of their exile had been unnecessary; Jenny Sparks had killed Bendix when he tried to escape SkyWatch, StormWatch's orbital space station. Apollo and the Midnighter had had no way of finding this out until they'd been captured and brought in. Ironically, the same vigilance on the part of StormWatch that had made their exile necessary had also been the thing that ended it.

In the suite's bathroom, Apollo had worked Midnighter into a solid erection. He put the soap aside, embraced Midnighter around the neck, and used his solar powers to lift and wrap his legs around his waist as he lowered himself into position. Midnighter pressed him against the wall of the shower, fucking him slowly. King could see Midnighter's back, Apollo's legs crossed over his buttocks, arms around his neck, the half of Apollo's face that wasn't hidden by Midnighter's head. They drew it out, kissing and embracing passionately, so lost in the act that King felt he could almost be standing in there beside them and go unnoticed. Apollo was giving off the golden glow that his solar powers gave him, but instead of being concentrated into a bright corona around his head, it was more subtle, diffused through his entire body. Perhaps, King thought, the energy his body stored could react in concordance with extremes of emotion. He mused for a while on what might happen if Apollo was to witness something that caused him great anger or fear - a threat to Midnighter's life, for example. Jackson made a mental note to read his file more thoroughly once they had departed, to fully acquaint himself with all the man's abilities.

As Jackson mused, Midnighter tensed on the screen, his whole body seeming to pulse with orgasm. Jackson could see just enough of his profile to tell that his eyes were closed, but Apollo's were open, fixed on Midnighter's face, his head leaning forward so their foreheads touched. They both remained completely still, aside from they way Midnighter's muscles contracted rhythmically under his skin. As his climax passed, he stepped back from the wall and lowered his head to plant a kiss on Apollo, just beneath the hollow at the base of his throat, then allowed him to dismount. When he was standing again, Apollo grasped his face between his hands and kissed him as Midnighter's hands vanished between their bodies, where Jackson couldn't see them, but it didn't take a genius to figure it out. Apollo let him continue for several seconds, then broke the kiss and swatted Midnighter's hands away. "Leave it for later," he whispered.

They finished washing and shut off the spray. Ignoring the towels piled within easy reach, Apollo simply put his arms around Midnighter and radiated a heat that caused the water soaking them both to steam and evaporate. He moved himself slowly down his companion's body, first grasping his head between both hands as he kissed him again, then embracing him around the shoulders, then around the waist. He moved lower still, until he was on his knees before Midnighter, running his big hands up and down the backs of the slightly smaller man's legs. He planted a kiss somewhere between Midnighter's navel and pubic bush, then opened his mouth and started doing something that King didn't think was likely to get Midnighter any drier, or cleaner.

Apollo seemed to enjoy taking care of his lover's needs while delaying his own gratification. King thought back to a woman he'd known in his twenties, a wild-living bisexual who had told him that, among lesbian couples, if one woman refused to orgasm until she'd brought her lover to it first, then she was considered the "butch" one of the two. King wondered if similar standards applied to relationships between men, or if it was inverted, which would make Apollo the more feminine of the two, or if in general this couple paid little attention to such distinctions and were simply acting on
the spur of the moment. His train of thought - and Midnighter's blowjob - was interrupted by the sound of someone knocking on the door of the guest suite.

Apollo wrapped a towel around his waist and approached the door. "Who is it?"

"I've got your dinner here."

"Just leave it at the door. Thanks."

He waited for a few moments, listening at the door for retreating footsteps while Midnighter wandered out of the bathroom and flopped onto the bed, reaching for the T.V. remote. As his lover channel-surfed, Apollo went into the hall and returned a few moments later, bringing with him not only a trolley laden with covered dishes but a wooden crate that he carried easily in one hand.

"What's that?" Midnighter enquired, while on the screen Buffy slew vampires with flair and enthusiasm.

"A case of wine. With a note from Christine Trelane."

"I think she's got a crush on you."

"Maybe she's a fag hag. *You* should have hugged her, too."

"I don't mind if she's a fag hag, but I don't *do* hugs."

Apollo laughed and cracked the wooden crate open with his hand. He extracted two bottles and tossed one to Midnighter, along with a corkscrew, then wheeled the trolley to within easy reach of the bed.

Apparently Fahrenheit had repeated Midnighter's request to the cook word-for-word, if the number and variety of dishes on the trolley was anything to go by. Before the credits rolled on Buffy's second adventure of the night, Apollo and Midnighter had put away two steak dinners with asparagus and potatoes, a large dish of fried chicken, a salad the size of a small forest, a cartwheel-sized pizza with every topping on it that one could think of putting on a pizza, an apple and rhubarb pie with an entire tub of ice cream on top, half a cherry cheesecake, and a bottle of wine each. As they tucked in, lying on their sides with their faces turned to the screen, Midnighter felt for Apollo's feet with one of his own and inserted it between them. King noticed the casualness of the gesture, as if it was just a given that these two were to remain in physical contact at all possible times. Had he and Christine ever been that tactile with each other?

Another bottle of wine each later, and Midnighter abruptly grew bored with T.V. He rolled onto his back, his cock swelling to erection again as he reached out one hand and ran it lightly from Apollo's stomach to just beneath his chin. Smiling, Apollo turned down the volume, put aside the empty bottle and covered Midnighter's body with his own. They kissed deeply and passionately as Midnighter opened his legs wide around Apollo's hips, wrapping one arm around his neck and reaching down with his other hand to squeeze Apollo's backside. Their sex was much more vigorous this time, almost brutal in the way Apollo pushed himself in and started pounding with barely any time for Midnighter's body to adjust. But instead of showing discomfort, Midnighter ground back against him and ran his hands over every part of Apollo that he could reach, trying to pull him closer. Apollo kissed his neck and his ecstatic face was visible on King's monitor. From mouth to groin there was barely an inch of their bodies that wasn't welded together, Apollo's hammering gaining in speed and intensity to his lover's obvious delight. Immediately after he came - white-blond head thrown back, short, ragged gasps breaking from him - he promptly withdrew, sat on his haunches, lifted Midnighter's hips with one hand beneath the small of his back while Midnighter's head and shoulders remained on the mattress, and proceeded to suck him with as much enthusiasm as he'd fucked him. Not content to let him run the whole show, Midnighter braced his feet on the mattress, gripped Apollo's head between his hands, and thrust all the way into his throat. Apollo held still and let him set his own pace, until Midnighter's spine arched and he trembled in an orgasm apparently even more intense than the one he'd had in the shower.

He went limp, as suddenly as a piece of elastic that's cut at full stretch. Apollo lowered him onto the bed and covered him as before, but this time with the laziness more appropriate to the afterglow. After a while he stood, breaking neither the kiss nor the embrace, and carried Midnighter into the bathroom, not letting him stand until they were under the spray again. They washed up with the slowness of the weary and dried themselves in the more conventional manner, then emptied their bladders into the toilet bowl and urinal, set into adjacent walls. As they stood there, whizzing into the porcelain, Apollo transferred his dick from his right hand to his left so he could reach out and grasp Midnighter's free hand with his own.

Then, back to bed. They shut off all the lights, threw off the stained top sheet and settled themselves to sleep. With yet another bottle each, they lay in a kind of T-shape, Apollo lying across the top of the mattress with all the pillows, Midnighter in the center of the bed with his head on Apollo's stomach. They drank and watched more Buffy and spoke a little about the kind of house they wanted, how they would furnish it, what sort of area it would be in. They both agreed that they needed cable, preferably Foxtel, and either a cat or a dog. And that the world could just look after itself for a while. The conversation died away naturally until Apollo set aside his third emptied bottle of the evening, yawned hugely, and wished Midnighter goodnight. Midnighter watched T.V. for a little longer, then put his own drained bottle aside and shut off the T.V. By the time King had switched the camera sensors to infra-red, Midnighter apparently was already asleep.

King sighed. With his eyes still on the monitor, he reached for his fetish and requested a pot of strong, black coffee. He had some hard choices to make, and wanted to be sure he was alert enough to make them.

Jackson King was the Weatherman - the director of StormWatch, the crisis intervention team funded and sanctioned by the U.N. to protect the welfare of the entire planet. In other words, the Weatherman was relied on to save the world whenever necessary. As such, he was forced to put his responsibilities above all other concerns, letting no personal bias of any kind affect the decisions he had to make. If the job required him to send even Christine on a suicide mission against Daemonites, as Bendix had sent Apollo and Midnighter five long years ago, he would do it and know he was right; as Weatherman the Second, she would accept such a mission without a protest. Jackson believed, without a shadow of a doubt, that all he had witnessed tonight was a couple glad to have their lives back, more concerned with a comfortable retirement than interfering with world
affairs, who liked Buffy for Christ's sake, and were plainly as much in love as himself and Christine had ever been. King's surveillance, while necessary, had revealed nothing to indicate that these two men were planning anything that could be construed as a threat to the interests StormWatch was created to protect.

*But* ...

Apollo's abilities made him the most powerful man on earth. Midnighter was the most dangerous. Henry Bendix had created them as such, and Henry Bendix had been insane. God alone knew what sort of psychological profiles he had favored in his elite recruits. Yet it was Bendix that had labeled them rogue - most likely because, on the loose, they were a threat to his power. But if that wasn't the case then these men were either angels or devils. And King didn't believe in angels.

All that was in the files in Bendix's memory tower, deciphered just recently by Christine, was that seven officially non-existent posthumans had been sent on a mission for a purpose not recorded. The mission was a failure, and five bodies were recovered. The two not recovered were Apollo and the Midnighter. The most powerful and the most dangerous.

Two years later, Bendix made an entry regarding an anomalous reading from a SkyWatch sensor sweep. He believed the anomaly to be evidence that the two were still alive. It was at this point that he labeled them rogue.

Another three years later and Bendix was dead, and King managed to track down the two and bring them in to tell their side of the story. He had scanned them telepathically as they spoke, and found nothing to contradict what they had told him. Unfortunately, he had also detected evidence of memory-tampering, and he was unable to tell how old the tampering was and what it concealed. Perhaps it had simply been the result of Bendix wiping their identities prior to their mission. Perhaps not.

And even if it had all happened *exactly* as Apollo and Midnighter remembered it, with no blanks left to fill, there were still too many variables. Their activities during their exile may have been prompted by the worthiest of motives, but who knew what their ultimate vision of "a finer world" involved? History had many precedents of basically decent people who, in pursuit of the same ideal, caused events that had catastrophic results. Even Bendix had thought he could make the world a better place - had been StormWatch's first Weatherman. Apollo and Midnighter were talking of retirement *now* ... but give them a few months of peace and quiet, while the news kept telling them about drug rings, and third-world child labor, and terrorism, and man's general inhumanity to man ... who knew what they might someday think was necessary for the sake of the world?

King tapped a button on the monitor's console. A small window opened to the side of the screen, displaying a list of options. He clicked on "Mantrap." The other options vanished, and another list appeared of different locations around SkyWatch station. He clicked on the option labeled "Guest Wing," then narrowed it down to the room containing Apollo and Midnighter. Then he clicked on a button marked "Deploy."

More words appeared on the monitor. "Are you sure you want to deploy Mantrap to Guest Wing room A7?"

King looked for a long moment at the two men, sleeping the sleep of the just, on clean sheets, with full bellies, for probably the first time in five years. Gentlemen, he thought, in the name of global security, I humbly beg your forgiveness.

He clicked again on "Deploy."

Seven hours later, the coffee pot empty, the last half-cup stone cold beside him, he watched as Apollo and Midnighter awoke and stretched. After a quick breakfast (leftover pizza and the rest of the cheesecake), quick sex, and a quick shower, they donned the civilian clothes that had been left outside their door along with their costumes, thoroughly cleaned, and hailed Christine Trelane on the fetishes left by the beds. It wasn't long before Fahrenheit turned up to escort them to Christine's office - Christine had insisted on working out their retirement package herself, and given what his own responsibilities involved, King had been more than happy to let her. When the room was empty again, King switched off the monitor and gave
himself over to black thoughts.

Sometime later, the door behind him opened and Christine strode in. He couldn't bring himself to look at her, but he could hear the smile in her voice. "They're gone."

"I know."

"That worked out well. What made you decide to play it like that?"

"Like what?"

"Well ... trusting them. I'm glad you did, but -"

"I didn't." He stood up and headed for the door. "I had the pair of them sprayed with a bacterial Mantrap before they left the station. They never knew." He pressed the door's controls. "At the first sign of something I didn't like, SkyWatch would send a signal that activated the Mantrap, riddling them with poison. Now if you'll excuse me, Christine, I have to go and throw up."

She said nothing. He heard her light a cigarette as he exited the room; the sharpness with which she exhaled the first puff told him volumes about her reaction to his news. But he also knew she would give him no grief over it later. She understood the responsibilities of a Weatherman as well as he did.


End