Title: In A Lonely Place
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Josef Kostan/Mick St. John
Fandom: Moonlight
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,840
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.***
Los Angeles, 2008
Josef smiled contentedly as he snuggled into Mick's arms, feeling warm and sated after their lovemaking. His body was still throbbing pleasantly with the intensity of their coupling; he could almost still feel Mick inside him, becoming a part of him.
He had never let anyone into his body fully and completely, the way he'd done with Mick. He'd never loved or trusted anyone enough to be able to let himself go like that; even with people he'd been convinced he was in love with, he'd always held something of himself back.
Mick was the only lover he'd ever been able to open himself to. He'd grown so used to holding himself back for so long that even when he'd fallen in love with Sarah, he hadn't been able to give her all of himself. He hadn't been able to leave the lonely place he'd always been in.
He'd held onto that lonely place for all of his life as a vampire, feeling that he had no other choice but to exist there. He'd always felt that falling in love with a human was dangerous -- for very different reasons than the ones he actually told people.
His real reason for not wanting to be involved with a human was that he knew they would leave him unless they chose to become what he was. They would eventually age and die -- leaving him even more alone than when the relationship had begun.
He had seen it happen time and time again with his friends, and he didn't want to feel the pain that he saw them go through when their human lovers died. He didn't want anyone to own his heart that completely. And he'd always made sure that no one did.
That had been before Sarah had come into his life -- and he blamed himself for what had happened to her. The coma that she'd fallen into for over fifty years was worse than death. It was a waking death, an ageless sleep that she would never awaken from.
He'd long ago given up hope that some miracle would happen to effect her resurrection. And when she had finally slipped away quietly, he'd felt sadness, yes -- but he had had also felt relief. He was free now -- free to be with Mick in every way, with no guilt lingering around his heart.
That lonely place had been his home long before she'd come into his life -- she had managed to pull him out of it for a while, but he'd never been able to fully leave that place and trust her to bring him into the light and love of an existence that completely enveloped the two of them.
No, it had taken Mick St. John to do that. Mick had not only pulled him out of that lonely place he'd been in for so long, hiding himself away behind walls that he'd thought were impenetrable -- but he'd torn those walls down and made sure they would never go up again.
At first, it had been frightening, knowing that he didn't have the protection of those walls to hide behind any more. His lonely place was gone, the place that he'd told himself he never needed to leave, the place that he'd been comfortable in for so long.
But he knew now that he could never be comfortable in that place again -- and maybe he never really had been. Maybe he'd only told himself that he was because he was so afraid of being hurt, of opening his heart and having it brutally crushed underfoot.
He'd been in a lonely place for so long that when he'd first fallen in love, he hadn't known how to come out of that darkness into the light that was being held out to him. And maybe that had been the right thing to do, because that love hadn't been one that would last.
This time, he'd been able to emerge from that lonely place into a world of light and love -- because the love that had been held out to him was unselfish, a love that only wanted to envelop him in peace and happiness, rather than taking something from him.
Mick didn't want anything from him but his love. No one else had ever given of themselves so completely and asked so little from him in return -- though at one time, he wouldn't have thought that being asked for his heart was a little thing.
That was the one thing that he'd never wanted to give anyone before. He'd given his body generously to so many people that he'd lost count of them -- and truth be told, most of them had faded into the woodwork over the centuries. He couldn't even remember their names.
He remembered the famous ones. Harlow, Garbo .... even Rudolf Valentino, though they had never done much more than fool around. But he'd known them, and he'd been fond of them, even though he'd never been able to leave that lonely place he inhabited to give himself to them fully.
He'd thought that Sarah would be the one to finally knock down those walls and leave him unprotected, to bring him out of his the loneliness he'd inhabited for centuries. But even though he'd loved her, in the end, her love hadn't been strong enough to cross into his world.
When he had first fallen in love with Mick, he'd tried to stop it from happening. He had told himself over and over again that even spending all of eternity in the lonely place that he was in would be better than falling in love with a man who would eventually leave him.
And at first, he'd thought that Mick could never love him. He'd despaired of breaking through the obsession that Mick had wrapped himself in, thinking that the other man was bound too tightly in the chains that he'd willingly created for himself to ever let them fall away from him.
What would he do if he didn't have Mick, if something were to happen that would take his vampire lover away from him? Josef couldn't hold back a shudder at the thought; he burrowed more closely into Mick's embrace, tightening his arms around the other man.
"Hey, what's this about?" Mick asked softly, one hand raising to brush Josef's hair back from his forehead. "Having a bad dream even thought you're not even all the way asleep?" His voice was soft, a teasing hint in his tone -- but underneath that teasing lay a real worry.
Josef took a deep breath, trying to clamp down on the sudden fear that had washed over him in a wave that he couldn't stop. "I'm okay," he said softly, hoping that he was telling the truth. "I just .... had a sudden thought of what my life would be like if you weren't in it."
"You don't ever have to worry about that, babe," Mick said softly, gentle fingertips stroking across Josef's cheek. "I'm never going to leave you. I think that's the real reason I wanted you to turn me -- even though I hid that reason from both of us when I asked you."
"If you weren't with me, I wouldn't be living, Mick," Josef said slowly, shaking his head. "I'd have an existence, but I'd go back to being in a lonely place, like I was when I first met you. Only this time, there would be no way out of that place. Not ever again."
"It's not going to happen," Mick told him firmly, drawing Josef closer against his body and running a hand down his back. Josef moaned softly as he felt the other man's hand cup his ass, squeezing gently before resting on his bottom in a gesture of possessiveness.
"Josef, you might have been in a lonely place for a long time, but you're not there any more." Mick's voice was soft and gentle as he continued to speak. "I'm not going to let you go back to that. You were lonely for way too long, and you deserve better than that."
"I'm scared to let you out of my sight sometimes," Josef whispered, closing his eyes and letting his fears come to the forefront. "I'm scared that something's going to happen to you because of what you do for a living, and I won't be there to save you."
"You can't be around me all the time, Josef," Mick said softly, placing a hand under Josef's chin and tilting his boyfriend's face up to his. He bowed his head to press a gentle kiss against Josef's parted lips, closing his eyes and savoring the contact.
"I know I can't," Josef whispered, feeling that if there was any time he'd wanted to be able to cry since he'd become a vampire, this would be it. "And that scares me. If I lose you, then I go back to being in that lonely place. Forever. There's no way I could ever come back out again."
He could feel the tug of that lonely place looming up in the background again; it wanted him back, wanted to swallow him whole, envelop him in the darkness that he'd lived under cover of for so long. But Mick's next words drove it back, making it retreat before it could move any closer.
"Then I'll just have to be extra careful to make sure that nothing happens to me, won't I?" Mike asked, his soft lips caressing Josef's cheek, then his mouth. "Don't worry, babe. I can take care of myself. I'm not going to leave you. Not now, and not ever."
He wanted to believe Mick's words, more than he'd ever wanted to believe anything in his life. He wanted to assure himself that his lover would always here by his side, and that the lonely place he'd spent so much of his life in could be allowed to fade away into the mists of memory.
All he had to do was force those memories into the background and close the door on them. He had to make himself believe in Mick's words, and he was going to do that. He was going to have faith in the man he loved, just as Mick always had faith in him.
Josef snuggled closer to his lover, closing his eyes and giving himself over to the sensations of Mick's mouth and hands working their magic on his body. That lonely place seemed very far away now -- and if he was lucky, he would never have to think about being locked into it ever again.***