Title: Don't Want To Lose
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Josef Kostan/Mick St. John
Fandom: Moonlight
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,015
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.

***

Mick opened his eyes, looking around Josef's bedroom and blinking away sleep. The shadows were starting to deepen; he could tell that dusk was settling on the world out these windows. Soon, it would be time for the two of them to get up.

For the last two days, they'd spent the sunlit hours making love and sleeping. It wasn't their usual routine; he and Josef had learned to become creatures of the day as much as the night, and the two of them usually spent the daytime going about their respective business.

But the past two days had been the weekend, and Mick didn't have any important cases that required his immediate attention. So he had some free time to spend with Josef, something that he hadn't seemed to have enough of lately.

Josef hadn't seemed to mind altering his schedule to spend time with him, either. Mick was sure that his lover had fully enjoyed the past two days as much as he had; he'd certainly seemed to banish some of Josef's sexual inhibitions during that time.

He had to laugh at the direction that his thoughts were taking; it was hard to believe that a man who had lived as a vampire for nearly four hundred years could have any sort of inhibitions whatsoever. But Josef hid more vulnerabilities than Mick had realized at first.

It was amazing how much someone could lose in a lifetime, Mick mused as he looked down at the man sleeping in his arms. Well .... in Josef's case, it had been several lifetimes already. But even in his brief human life, he'd lost more than most people.

Mick hoped that he had been able to replace some of what Josef had lost -- namely, whatever love he'd had in his life before he'd been turned. He knew that Josef hadn't had anyone to love him since he'd become a vampire; there had only been Sarah.

And that had ended in tragedy. Mick was sure that Josef still felt a terrible guilt over what he considered was his fault, even though Mick didn't feel that he was to blame. It was simply one of those cruel twists of fate -- something that Josef had suffered from far too often.

It really didn't make sense to Mick that Josef hadn't been able to turn Sarah -- Mick had known fledgling vampires who could turn a human. With the power that Josef could wield, it was very strange that somehow, the turning hadn't worked.

If only he had some explanation for that, Mick thought with a sigh. He hated to think of the crushing burden of guilt that Josef had carried with him for over fifty years; he wanted to take that burden away as though it had never existed.

Would Josef feel that the burden wasn't something he wanted taken away, though? Mick heaved a sigh, looking down at his lover again as Josef stirred slightly in his sleep. He'd lived with it for over fifty years. Was it something he now considered a part of him?

Of course he wouldn't want to carry that kind of guilt around for the rest of his life, Mick told himself firmly. No one would. And given that vampires had a much longer life span than humans, Josef certainly wouldn't want to be saddled with crippling guilt for the rest of his.

But Josef hadn't lost the love of his life, an inner voice spoke up in the back of Mick's mind. He'd been able to replace that love -- and Mick didn't feel that he was second best. He had for a while, if he was honest -- but he was learning to push that feeling away.

Still, he lost so many other things, Mick thought, gently brushing a lock of Josef's hair back from his lover's face. He'd lost his innocence in some ways on the night that he was turned -- and more than that. He'd lost a way of life.

Well, they all lost that when they were turned, didn't they? he told himself with an inward sigh. He'd lost the life that he was used to, the life that he was comfortable with. But he'd had Josef to be his mentor, and to help him through the transition.

Josef hadn't had anyone there for him. The vampire who had turned him had only done it out of boredom -- and, as Josef had told him, because he'd thought that his victim was a pretty boy. There had been no one to guide him into his vampiric existence.

No one had explained anything to him; he'd more or less been left to stumble along in the dark. He'd learned the very basics of survival -- and then his sire had left him, leaving him to his own devices, and telling him that he would find others of his own kind.

He had done that -- eventually. But as he'd told Mick, there had been things in his past that he wasn't proud of; he had done terrible things during those first few years of his vampiric existence, things that he had lived to regret. He had, as he himself said, gone crazy.

The night that he'd been turned, Josef had lost his human life -- but, as he'd told Mick, that life hadn't been such a wonderful one. Becoming a vampire had certainly been preferable to bleeding to death in a ditch, the victim of a brutal gang rape.

Josef had no regrets about being what he was. Somewhere, over the last four centuries, he'd come to terms with his existence and even begun to love it. He wasn't ashamed of what he was; there were times when Mick wished that he himself could feel that way.

It was strange, Mick thought, closing his eyes as he let himself sink more deeply into the comfortable pillows of Josef's bed. His lover had lost so much more than he had, and yet, of the two of them, Josef was the one who seemed to be happier with his life.

Of course, he'd had much more time to come to terms with losing the things that had meant the most to him, Mick reflected. Josef had been around for over four hundred years; Mick had only been a vampire for a little over fifty years, a very short time in their world.

Josef had been living as a vampire for nearly four hundred years. Mick could hardly imagine that -- what had it been like to see all of those centuries go by? Josef had seen so much history, the dawning of so many important different ages.

And through all that, he'd kept himself aloof and alone. But Mick was sure that during all of that time, his boyfriend had been searching for love; he might try to come off as cold and calculating, but Mick knew him better than that.

Underneath that suave, sarcastic veneer was a man who had been lonely for centuries -- a man who had deliberately kept himself from reaching out to others. So many people claimed to be his friend, but those were people who didn't really know Josef -- and who would never know him.

He wouldn't have fallen in love with Josef if he was the unfeeling playboy that he tried to give everyone the impression of being. It hadn't taken him long to discover Josef's vulnerable side -- the side of him that was lonely and needed to be loved.

Mick had wanted to give him that love for so long before he'd been allowed to do so. But maybe it was a good thing that their feelings for each other had developed over time, rather than overtaking them like a flame that would burn out as quickly as it was ignited.

Their feelings had been there from the first day they'd met; it had just taken them time to surface -- and taken both men time to admit to those feelings. But once they had, the flames had leaped up out of nowhere, searing them both from the inside out.

He couldn't have begun to imagine what his life as a vampire would have been like without Josef there as his mentor and friend -- and now, he didn't want to even think about a life stretching far into the future unless Josef was always a part of it.

That was a loss that he couldn't bear to suffer. Josef had been through that already -- he'd lost one person he loved, and Mick wanted to make sure that he didn't lose anyone else. But more than that, he didn't want to lose the man he loved.

Maybe it was time for him to leave his business and do something a little safer. Something that would ensure that he'd keep himself out of some of the dangers he exposed himself to now. And something to assure Josef that he wouldn't be left alone again.

His own losses on becoming a vampire hadn't been that bad -- at least, not compared with Josef's. Yes, he'd lost his love for Coraline -- but that had probably been the greatest casualty. But even as the thought crossed his mind, Mick knew that wasn't true.

The greatest loss he'd suffered had been the loss of his humanity. He'd spent so long wanting to be human again that he hadn't learned to fully accept the life he had now as a vampire until recently -- and he regretted that more than he could say.

Josef was teaching him to embrace what he was. He would never be able to kill humans in the way that Josef did; he would never be able to have such a cavalier attitude towards what he'd become. A part of him would always look at himself as being a monster.

But with Josef's help, he'd learned to cope with his losses -- and now, the unswerving need to be human again wasn't so strong. In fact, he hardly ever thought about it any more. Being human had lost its appeal, now that he had Josef.

If he became human again, he would lose Josef. They would still be friends, he was sure -- but he was equally sure that they wouldn't continue as lovers. And now that he'd taken that leap and let Josef into his heart, there was no going back.

He didn't want to lose Josef. Even if they stayed friends, now that this man had become his lover, Mick knew that he'd never want anyone else in his bed, in his arms -- or in his heart. That would be the one loss he would never manage to get over, no matter how long he might live.

Yes, Josef had lost a lot in his life. But Mick stood to lose just as much -- and whatever happened, he didn't want to lose the love he'd found. He intended to hold on to this man for as long as they both lived, and to do whatever he had to do for them to stay together.

What would losing Josef mean? It would be not only losing the person he loved, but the person who was his closest friend and confidante. He would lose so much more than the love of his life if he lost Josef -- he would lose his heart and soul.

That was a loss Mick hoped that he would never have to face. Turning over onto his side, he tightened his arms around Josef, pulling the other man closer against him. They'd both suffered some losses in their lives, but now they had each other. And to him, nothing else really mattered.

***