Title: One Too Many Nights
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Josef Kostan/Mick St. John
Fandom: Moonlight
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,768
Author's Note: Spoilers for the Moonlight episode Fated To Pretend.
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 sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets as he looked down at the city below him from the vantage point of his penthouse. The lights of Los Angeles spread out in a glittering arc beneath him, inviting him to come out and play.

But he wasn't going to. He was going to wait for Mick to get here, and then they'd spend the rest of the night together. It was how he'd been living ever since the two of them had first confessed their feelings for each other and he'd spent his first night in Mick's arms.

That night had been a revelation for him. He'd never unburdened himself of all the pain and fear he'd felt on the night that he'd been turned to anyone else; not even to Sarah, who he'd thought for so long as the love of his life. No one else had ever known.

He'd never been able to bring himself to tell anyone what had been done to him on that night; not merely because he didn't want to relive that horrific night by speaking of it, but because he was ashamed that he'd let it happen. He didn't want to face that shame.

It hadn't been his fault. That was what Mick had told him over and over again; that there had been no reason for him to carry that guilt and shame with him for nearly four hundred years. But he hadn't been able to rid himself of what he'd felt about himself for so long.

Not until Mick had held him and kissed him and made love to him. It had been terrifying to let all of those feelings go, to let them slip away from him and expose all that had happened to Mick's scrutiny. But he'd done it, even though it had been hard for him.

He'd bared not only his body to Mick on that first night, but his soul. He'd never been so scared in his life, not before or since he'd become a vampire. All he'd been able to think of was that Mick would be repulsed by him and push him away, then walk out of his life.

But that hadn't happened. It had shocked him to realize that Mick wanted him -- in a physical way as well as in the friendship that had bound them from the first time they'd met. He hadn't thought that there was anything physical about him that would attract the other man.

He had obviously been wrong about that, Josef thought with a small smile. Mick had pleasured his body with a deliberate slowness that had sated both of them, and he'd taken such utter satisfaction in doing so that Josef couldn't deny the physical attraction.

How many nights had he spent alone, wishing that there was someone he could trust enough to unburden himself to about the events of the past? There had been too many to count, he thought wryly, turning away from the window. Far too many over the course of four hundred years.

At least he didn't have to spend his nights -- or days -- alone any more. He had Mick now. He'd spent one too many nights wishing that he had the kind of relationship that the two of them had found, desperately wanting to feel that someone loved him.

That was such a weakness, he admonished himself, heading for the bar at one side of the room to pour himself a glass of blood. Wanting to be loved was not only a weakness for a vampire, but one of the worst dangers they could subject themselves to.

Maybe that was why he'd always put up a wall between himself and everyone around him. The only time that wall had come down was when he'd met Sarah, and that had turned out to be one of the biggest tragedies he'd experienced in all the centuries of his long life.

What was it about Mick that had brought him out of his self-imposed isolation? He couldn't really put his finger on just what attracted him to the other man. There had just been a spark, a connection that had drawn him towards Mick from that first glance.

Of course, when he'd first met Mick, there had been Coraline. She had been jealous of their friendship, and had spent a great deal of time trying to keep them apart. But in spite of that, they'd managed to stay friends over the course of the time that she had been in Mick's life.

She hadn't been able to keep them apart -- and Josef had to admit that he'd felt a sort of pride in the fact that, in effect, Mick had chosen their friendship over his marriage, even though Josef had always had the feeling that it would eventually happen.

That relationship really hadn't been good for Mick, he thought with a shudder. Coraline hadn't been the person for him; that had been obvious to so many people from the start. But that fatal passion hadn't been something that Mick could avoid.

And, truth be told, Josef couldn't be unhappy that Coraline had turned Mick. He'd dreaded the thought of watching the man he secretly loved grow older; once Mick had been turned, that fear had been taken away from him, and he was thankful for it.

But he was also glad that he hadn't been the one to turn Mick -- especially when he'd seen how horrified the other man had been to find out what he had become. Even now, he still thought of himself as being a monster of sorts.

Everything had changed now, though, Josef thought with a sigh. This time, Mick had begged to be turned. He had wanted it -- but the thought that he'd done it to save that bitch still rankled. He hadn't done it because he'd wanted to be with Josef.

At the time, he'd only wanted to be turned again to fill a need. Josef hadn't wanted to fill that need -- but he hadn't wanted to go through the pain of watching Mick age and die. So he'd let himself become Mick's sire, in spite of his fears.

He'd seen the regret in Mick's eyes when in those seconds before he'd plunged his fangs into the other man's neck. And even though Mick had forgiven him even before he'd done the deed, he couldn't help feeling more than a little guilty about it.

Would he feel like this for the rest of his life? Josef hoped not, but he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that he'd done Mick a grave disservice. He'd tried to talk his boyfriend out of becoming a vampire again -- but admittedly, his effort had been halfhearted at best.

Though deep down, if he was honest with himself, he hadn't really wanted to do it. He'd been terrified that the same thing would happen with Mick as with Sarah -- that he would turn the person he loved into a living doll, breathing and existing, but with no consciousness.

He'd spent too many nights of his life wishing that he'd never tried to turn Sarah, and cursing himself for his perceived weakness in not being able to do it correctly. It had taken a long time for him to realize that it was her physical weakness that had led to the tragedy, not his.

But by the time he'd come to that realization, he'd spent years blaming himself, years that he could have spent with Mick. So much time had been wasted in regrets over the past when he should have been looking ahead to the future and what it could hold.

Josef sighed softly, raising the glass to his lips and draining it in two gulps. It was no good looking back at past times and having regrets over what couldn't be undone. Mick would tell him that if he was here; he'd do his best to turn those thoughts away.

Mick should be here before too much longer, he told himself with a frown, moving back to the window and looking down at the city spread out below him, closing his eyes and concentrating. He couldn't feel Mick anywhere near, but that wasn't important.

The man he loved was somewhere out there, in this city that he'd adopted as his own. There would be no more lonely nights -- or days -- when he was left staring out of this very window over the city and wishing that there was just one here who truly cared for him.

There had been far too many nights spent doing just that, far too many years of his life that he'd felt that gaping emptiness at the center of his life. He'd tried to lose himself in promiscuity, but that hadn't helped. And eventually, he'd even tried cutting himself off from his emotions.

That had been working -- until he'd met Mick, and his attraction to a human male had turned his life and his perceptions of himself upside down. All of the emotions that he'd kept bottled up inside had been let out of their cage -- and they'd roared into life with an unexpected intensity.

He wasn't going to spend any more nights holding those emotions back, Josef told himself as he turned away from the window, a smile crossing his features at the sound of the elevator starting to rise from the bottom floor. There was no need for them to hide any more.

Mick was on his way here; he'd known that from the moment he'd heard the grinding of the elevator gears, far off in the back of his mind but still audible to his vampire senses. He could feel the lift of his spirits, the happiness that flooded into every fiber of his being.

He'd spent one too many nights feeling that he was alone and would never have anyone in his life who could fully understand him -- and love him. But now, those nights were over, he thought, smiling at the thought of seeing his boyfriend. And with luck, they would never be back to haunt him again.

***