Title: Let the Guard Down
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Josef Kostan
Fandom: Doctor Who/Moonlight
Rating: PG-13
Table: 1, fanfic50
Prompt: 20, Guard
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Tenth Doctor or Josef Kostan, unfortunately. Please do not sue.

***

Josef sighed as he leaned back in his chair, gazing at the large viewscreen in front of him. Sometimes it was hard to believe that he was actually here in space, traveling around in a blue box with a man who wasn't human. It was like something out of a science fiction novel.

But it was true -- and it was what his life had become. This was a life that he had no desire to change; he was happy with where he was, and even more so with the man he'd fallen in love with. The Doctor might not be human, but he was the most amazing man Josef had ever met.

It didn't seem odd at all that after all the hundreds of years that he'd kept his heart protected, not letting himself fall in love with anyone, he'd finally been able to open his heart to a man who was so completely different from himself -- the man he'd waited for all of his life.

With the Doctor, he didn't have to worry about watching his lover age and die. He didn't have to feel helpless in the knowledge that he couldn't stop that aging process, and that he would live on for long centuries after every lover he'd ever had was long dead and buried.

He could let down his guard with the Doctor, in a way that he'd never been able to do with anyone else. For just a fleeting moment, Mick St. John's face coalesced in his mind's eye, but he pushed that image away, refusing to think of what might have been.

Mick was his best friend -- and he wanted them to stay that way. He didn't want to take the risk of ruining a perfect friendship by introducing sex into the mix -- and he knew that if he had stayed on Earth, he would have tried to exactly that, against his better judgment.

He'd had to be on his guard with Mick all the time, trying to keep his friend at arm's length, even though his heart told him to take their friendship just one step further, to cross the line from being friends to becoming lovers. But he'd held himself back from doing that.

He didn't want to risk the friendship he had with Mick -- and Josef knew that if he crossed that line, there would be no going back to mere friendship if their physical relationship ground to a halt. He didn't want to risk losing Mick in that way; it was better to stay nothing more than friends.

In the back of his mind, he had known that Mick wasn't the one for him. He loved Mick, and a part of him wanted to be with the other man. Maybe he would always feel like that, for the rest of eternity -- or however long his vampiric existence might last.

But that feeling of intense desire was fading rapidly since he'd been with the Doctor. The Time Lord meant more to him than anyone else ever had -- even the man who he considered his closest friend, the person who knew him better than he'd ever thought anyone could.

He had fallen in love with the Doctor; he might as well admit that to himself, he thought with a wry smile. He hadn't been planning on losing his heart, but it had happened -- and he didn't want to take that heart back. He was perfectly content to leave it in the Doctor's hands.

Still, he kept his guard up in some ways -- he had no choice but to do that. He didn't want the Doctor to see the more feral side of who and what he was; he wasn't ashamed of his vampiric nature, but it wasn't the way that he wanted the man he loved to view him.

What would happen if he needed blood at some point, and the Doctor's was all that was available? Josef shuddered at the thought of his feral side getting the better of him, leading him to take blood from the Time Lord without the other man's consent.

He'd done it before; it wasn't hard to nearly hypnotize someone with his gaze, take blood from them, and send them along their way without them knowing what had been done. But the thought of doing something like that to the man he loved made his blood run cold.

Was he capable of it? If he was honest with himself, he knew that he was. He had never scrupled about things like that before -- but then, he had never been faced with taking blood from someone he loved without them knowing exactly what he was doing, and not having a problem with it.

He'd always had to be on his guard around people he cared about when that hunger rose in him; there had been incidents when he hadn't been able to control himself, and even though he'd never seriously hurt any person he'd had feelings for, he had pushed too many of them away.

Or they'd been the ones to do the pushing, Josef thought with a soft sigh. Too many people had pushed him away in horror when they had seen that side of him, seen how frightening his vampiric nature could be. He really couldn't blame them; if he was human, he'd have run away, too.

He had spent a fair amount of time running away himself -- from any kind of close relationship, from anything that would point out just how different he was from everyone around him. But with the Doctor, he didn't have to do that. The Time Lord loved him just as he was.

Maybe he didn't have to keep that guard up any more, he mused, gazing at the vast expanse of space that was presented to him on the viewscreen. Maybe he could simply be who and what he was, without running the risk of the Doctor turning away from him in horror.

He hadn't even trusted Mick not to do that, even though the other man was a vampire himself, Josef thought sadly. He had run away from the person he'd cared for the most -- but that might have been the best thing he could have done for either of them.

Being with the Doctor had made him happier than he'd ever been -- even happier than he could have been if he and Mick had thrown caution to the winds and become involved. Mick had never been the person he was intended to spend his life with -- but the Doctor was.

Josef didn't know why he was so sure of that, but something in his heart and soul told him that after all the centuries of guarding his heart, of running away from relationships and trying not to care too deeply about anyone, he had finally found where he belonged.

He had to start letting his guard down completely around the Doctor. He couldn't keep any barriers between them if he expected them to get closer -- and he wouldn't be able to fully give his heart and soul to the Time Lord if those barriers were always kept in place.

It was so hard to relax his guard, both because of his fears and because of his natural caution. But he had to find a way to it, Josef told himself firmly. He had to tear those walls down, to come to the Doctor with open arms and and open heart.

He would still have to guard against letting that feral side of himself surface -- but he'd been able to do that quite well for centuries, so it shouldn't be something that worried him too much. If that side of himself did surface, he was sure that the Doctor could deal with it.

After all, his lover wasn't human. He wasn't from the same world that Josef had always inhabited, with its ingrained prejudices and fears. He would be able to deal with Josef's vampiric nature much more easily than a human would -- even the more unpalatable side of that nature.

If he kept his guard up, he would be effectively pushing the man he loved away from him -- and that wasn't what he wanted to do. He wanted to bring the Doctor closer, to share everything that he was and all that was in his heart. He couldn't do that if he put up walls.

He would still have to keep his guard up when it came to unleashing his vampiric instincts; he didn't want the Doctor to be repulsed by some aspects of what he was. But if it came down to needing his lover's blood at some point, he hoped that they would be able to cross that bridge with no problems.

If not .... Josef closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and pushing that thought away from him before it could coalesce in his mind. They would deal with that when and if it happened. Until then, he would continue to enjoy their relationship, and not worry about things that hadn't occurred.

He would stay on his guard as far as letting his vampiric nature have free rein, Josef told himself, opening his eyes and getting to his feet. But in other ways, he would let the walls that he'd built up around himself come crumbling to the ground -- and hope that it would bring him closer to the man he loved.

***