Title: Don't Shut Me Out
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Josef Kostan/Mick St. John
Fandom: Moonlight
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,670
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 sighed, looking across the room at where Josef sat behind his desk, pointedly ignoring him. He could always tell when Josef was angry, and it wasn't just because he was being given the silent treatment, or from the stony look on his boyfriend's features.
He had no idea what he'd done now, but he must have said something to cause that look. Josef's face was closed, shuttered, as though he was hiding behind some barrier that Mick couldn't cross over. And that, for Mick, was utterly frightening.
He hated feeling cut off from Josef like this, shut out of his lover's life. And until he knew just what he'd done that could have caused this, there was no way for him to fix it. He couldn't apologize or make amends unless he knew what was wrong.
Yet he hated to simply ask Josef what was bothering him; he knew all too well that anything he said now could rub his lover the wrong way, and start an argument between them. So he needed to wait until Josef spoke first and gave him an opening.
So he just sat there, watching his boyfriend read through some of the papers spread over his desk, waiting for Josef to speak -- or even to look up at him. The way that Josef was acting, he might as well not even be in the room. He felt invisible.
That was one of Josef's ways of shutting him out -- to not take any notice of him. Mick had seen his lover do that to others before, but he'd rarely been the person who was the recipient of that treatment. It had always made him squirm, made him feel insignificant.
This waiting game couldn't last that long -- could it? Mick sighed and looked over at his boyfriend again. Josef had more patience than anyone he'd ever known. If he wanted to make someone wait forever, he was perfectly capable of doing just that.
He was going to have to be the one to break the silence that stretched between them, but he had no idea of what to say. He didn't even know what he could have done to incur his boyfriend's apparent displeasure, but he had to find out before he went crazy.
"Okay, Josef, what did I do wrong this time?" he asked with a sigh. "I know you're mad at me. You've made that obvious enough. Problem is, I don't know why you're mad at me. I don't know what I've said or done that's got you acting like this. So enlighten me."
Josef leaned back, finally raising his head to look at Mick and folding his arms across his chest. His glare was glacial; Mick could have sworn that just having those dark eyes focused on him made his body temperature go down by at least ten degrees.
Mick wanted to squirm under the steeliness of that glare; he was sure that he could feel the hair on his balls freezing under the scrutiny of that look. "Come on, Josef, you're freezing me here. Don't shut me out. Tell me what's wrong so I can fix things."
"Did you think I wouldn't find out if you started running around with her?" he said, his voice dripping icicles. "You might as well go back to her. I don't have any use for somebody who uses me and lies to me about how they feel, then goes sniffing around some whore."
"What?" Mick couldn't think of what Josef could mean -- until he remembered where he'd been yesterday, and who had been sitting there with him. "Josef, I can explain that. She was stalking me. I didn't invite her there. I didn't want to talk to her."
"Considering that she was wearing a top cut so low you could see how far her shriveled fake tits sag, and you weren't going anywhere, you sure as hell didn't look like you wanted her to leave," Josef retorted, his voice tight with anger. "You sat there and talked to that slut."
"Josef, if Beth wants to follow me around and corner me in a restaurant when I'm waiting for a client, I can't stop her." Mick was starting to lose patience now. "I can tell her to stay away from me, but you know what a nosy parasite she is."
"Yeah, I do." Josef's voice was controlled; he sounded calm and rational, but Mick knew him well enough to know that his boyfriend was at his most dangerous when he sounded like that. "And I know how to get rid of a parasite. Obliterate the damn thing."
"I wish we could." Mick ran a hand through his hair, sighing in frustration. "But you know that's not a good idea, Josef. She knows too much about us. If she suddenly disappeared, people would be all over that. And it could lead them straight to us."
Josef nodded, his arms still crossed over his chest. "So you make everything worse by talking to her, even when you know that she's threatened to expose me to force me to leave L.A. and leave you. Why do you bother to have anything to do with that worthless bitch?"
"Because I couldn't have just walked away when I was waiting for a client!" Mick almost yelled the words, turning around to face Josef. "She was trying to talk me into giving her some information that she knew I had, and I wouldn't. You must have seen that she walked out in a huff."
"Yeah, I did," Josef admitted, nodding. "But that doesn't make up for the fact that you let her sit there and bug you. I'm pretty sure she had a lot to say about me, how much she hates me, how being gay is gross and disgusting and all that jazz."
Mick shrugged. "No, she didn't, actually. She was too busy telling me all about how she's so happy with her boss, how she's fucking the hell out of him and how great he is. Trying to make me jealous. As if I cared. I'm glad now that I never slept with her."
"I keep forgetting that you didn't," Josef said, his voice softening. "I know you wanted to at one time. And I keep wondering why you never did. You could have -- and pretty much any vampire who wanted to take their pleasure with a human would have. But you've got, I don't know, scruples."
"It's not that." Mick shook his head, sighing again. "I never slept with her because a part of me knew that I didn't want her. I wanted you. It was always you, Josef. And I think she knew it, too -- which was why she tried so hard to hold on to me."
"If you felt that way, then why didn't you just say so?" Josef rose to his feet, dropping his arms to his sides. "Why did you shut me out and make me feel like you were all about her? Why the hell didn't you ever tell me that I had a chance with you?"
"Because I didn't know if you wanted me," Mick whispered, moving across the room to stand right in front of Josef. "And I thought you were shutting me out. I thought you just wanted to be my friend. Until the night you turned me. Then I knew there was more to us."
"I knew it long before then." Josef's voice was barely audible; if vampires could cry, Mick could swear that his boyfriend would be sniffling by now. "Don't shut me out like that again, Mick. Don't make me feel like I'm nothing more than your friend. I can't stand that."
"I've never tried to do that." Mick pulled Josef into his arms, wanting nothing more than to hold his lover close against him. "I'd never go back to her, Josef. Never. You're the only one for me. You have to know that. You have to trust me, Josef. You have to know that I love you."
"I guess I'm just scared that you don't love me in the same way that I love you," Josef gulped, his voice sounding strained and hoarse. "It's been more than fifty years since I loved anybody but you. You've had .... her. I keep thinking that she'll come between us."
Mick shook his head, holding Josef even more tightly, never wanting to let him go. "No, babe, she won't," he whispered, wishing that he could burst into tears himself. "I won't let her. Nothing's ever going to come between us -- as long as we never shut each other out of our hearts."
Josef gulped again, nodding, then resting his forehead against Mick's shoulder. "I won't," he said, his voice thick, as though he was having a hard time speaking. "I'm sorry, Mick. I'll never do that again. If I feel like something's wrong, I'll come to you first before I jump to conclusions."
"And I'll come to you if I feel like something's wrong. I promise," Mick told him, feeling a wave of relief rush over him. He and Josef were okay. They weren't on opposite sides of a barrier that they couldn't cross over; his lover was right here, in his arms, in his heart.
Something told him that neither of them was ever going to shut the other out again. At least, he hoped that was true -- because even though he was an immortal vampire, he wasn't sure if he could survive having another one of Josef's dark glares directed at him again.***