Title: Feels Like Love
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Josef Kostan/Mick St. John
Fandom: Moonlight
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,722
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the lovely Josef Kostan or Mick St. John, unfortunately. Please do not sue.

***

Josef looked around the living room of his penthouse, sighing softly as he sank into his favorite chair with a glass of blood in his hand. Mick was late again, but he should have expected that. He knew that the other man was working on a new case.

His boyfriend always kept busy -- he didn't seem to have the leisure time that Josef did. Of course, he also didn't have the vast amount of money that kept him from having to work, Josef thought, a wry smile twisting his lips as he lifted the glass to drink.

This wasn't normally how he liked to get his blood supply -- but since he'd become involved with Mick, he had given in to his boyfriend's wishes that he not take blood directly from the vein all the time. And he hadn't personally killed anyone in .... well, ages.

Not that he did a lot of that any more, anyway. Killing was something he didn't particularly relish, but he wasn't going to deny that he did it. He'd been a vampire for over four hundred years; killing was something that had become second nature to him.

It almost felt as though he'd been used to it from the first -- but when he'd first been turned, he'd been a little crazy. He'd done some things that he bitterly regretted now; he'd made enemies that would follow him throughout the rest of his life.

He hadn't told Mick that; his boyfriend had enough to worry about most of the time without knowing the full truth of his lover's past. Besides, if he were to admit to all of that past now, it could cause a rift between him and Mick, and that was the last thing he wanted.

And anyway, Mick knew the worst of what had happened to him, he told himself. He didn't need to know exactly what Josef had done to avenge those wrongs. He knew some of it, and that was enough. No one needed to know everything.

The only one who would ever know the entire truth of some of the things had had done was himself -- and he'd spent centuries living with that knowledge. He wasn't proud of it, but he'd learned to make peace with it. There was nothing else he could do.

Josef sighed again, swirling the blood in the crystal glass and staring into the rich red depths. He'd hidden the worst parts about his past from everyone. There were few who still knew of the more unpalatable parts of his history, and he stayed well away from them.

Well, at least he tried to. That was why he'd made his home here, in Los Angeles, and why he'd taken on a name that was far from his original one. He'd had a lot of names over the centuries, of course, but the one he had now was one that couldn't be connected with his distant past.

Except for those few enemies who always seemed to know how to find him sooner or later, no matter how well he hid himself. He'd had so many homes over the years; those enemies had kept him looking over his shoulder, never feeling completely comfortable anywhere.

But now he had more of a reason to want to stay here and make LA his permanent home. This was the city where he'd first met Mick, and his boyfriend loved this place. He didn't want to leave, any more than Josef did, and he wouldn't be talked into leaving.

What would he do if those enemies who knew more about his past than was safe for him should find out exactly where he was? He'd have to protect Mick first and foremost, even if it meant sacrificing his own safety to do so.

Mick had done that often enough in the past. When Sarah's father had come after him, Mick had gone out of his way to try and find out who was targeting him -- and he could easily have been killed if Mick hadn't had his back. That was something he'd never forget.

He'd never had a friend like Mick before. And now that they'd gone from friends to lovers, his connection to the other man had only intensified. He should have known from their first meeting that Mick would become much more than a friend.

Somehow, being with Mick felt like coming home. He'd had countless lovers over the centuries -- but they had all been nameless, faceless people who hadn't made a lasting impression on his heart. With Mick, it was different. Mick was the love of his life.

His lips curved into another smile as his mind conjured up an image of his boyfriend. He had never found it easy to tell anyone that he loved them; he'd always come across to people as being rather cold, never letting his emotions have full rein.

But that was only a facade he kept up, Josef told himself with an inward sigh. Mick had torn down those walls a little at a time -- and now, he couldn't imagine his life without the other man being a part of it. He didn't want to think of a life without Mick.

Mick was his home, his safety, his security. He'd never let himself get so close to anyone; even though he'd loved Sarah, she hadn't captured his heart and soul in the way that Mick had. In time, maybe he would even have gotten tired of her.

He would never get tired of being with Mick. The fact that his lover was a vampire who could share in his immortality was a definite bonus, but that wasn't what had formed the bond between them. Even before Mick had been turned, Josef had felt an attraction to him.

For some strange reason, Mick had always felt like home to him. There had been a sense of peace in his heart when the other man was around, even when he'd thought that Mick was happy with Coraline and would never want to be with anyone else.

At that point, Josef had known that he and Mick could never be anything more than friends. He hadn't thought about having Mick as a lover, and he certainly hadn't thought that his attraction to Mick might possibly become more than friendship.

Then had come that night that had almost seemed like a fantasy, the night when he'd finally broken down and told Mick about his past. He'd spent that night in Mick's arms -- and sometime during the dead of night, when the moon was shining down on them, they'd become lovers.

That, too, had felt like coming home. He'd never thought that he could feel so comfortable in a man's arms, that a man could give him the passion he'd sought in so many women over the centuries and yet never been able to find with anyone.

It had taken him a while to admit that what he felt for Mick was love. He hadn't wanted to admit that he could be in love with a man, not after what had been done to him on the night he was turned. But he knew love when he felt it. There was no mistaking that emotion.

That love had only grown, until Josef knew that he wanted to have Mick by his side for the rest of eternity. He wanted the two of them to go through the centuries together, sharing their bodies and hearts, baring their souls to each other.

And he wanted them to be able to do that here in Los Angeles, the city that they'd both made their home. It was where he felt most comfortable -- though he could concede the fact that he was probably only so comfortable here because it was Mick's home.

Still, that comfort wasn't something that he was willing to give up. And if that meant that he would have to tell Mick everything about his past, including the things that he'd prefer no one knew -- then he would cross that bridge when he came to it.

Raising the glass to his lips, Josef sipped at the blood, wishing that he were getting it straight from a vein than drinking it from even the finest crystal. But this was what Mick preferred -- and he was willing to go along with his boyfriend's desires, to a point.

He wasn't going to stop drinking blood from humans. That was a part of who he was; he wasn't going to turn away from his vampiric instincts, no matter how much Mick might hate them. That was an issue that the two of them were never going to agree on.

Hopefully, Mick would be able to live with who he was. He would have to, if they wanted to stay together. Josef would give up some things for his lover, but unlike Mick, he didn't hate what he was, and he would never keep himself from doing what came naturally to him.

But he would try to curb those instincts when he knew that he would be spending time with Mick. Mick knew that he wasn't going to give up everything in his life; and as long as Josef didn't flaunt that side of his existence, then they would exist peacefully.

Because, Josef told himself with another sigh, this one audible, he wasn't going to give Mick up, either. He needed the comfort of knowing that someone loved him for himself, needed to know that Mick would always be his shelter, his home.

He glanced toward the door of the penthouse as he heard Mick's key in the lock; it was time to push all of these thoughts aside and enjoy being with the man who felt like love and home to him. Putting down his glass, he rose from his chair, returning Mick's smile as his boyfriend entered the room.

***