Title: Straight Into Darkness
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Josef Kostan/Mick St. John
Fandom: Moonlight
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,624
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 trudged down the street, bowing his head against the slight mist in the air as he walked along. He probably should use his vampiric speed to get himself to Josef's penthouse without getting wet, but he needed the time to think.
It almost shocked him that he had come to be so accepting of his life as a vampire. He would never have thought he could accept the life that he led now when it had first been sprung upon him -- and he not only liked this life, he enjoyed it.
There were so many perks to being a vampire, things that he was capable of that he'd never have even been able to dream of doing when he was human. And those abilities -- his speed, strength, and agility, to name just a few -- had come in handy at times.
He'd been able to do his job so much better with the vampiric abilities he possessed. If he didn't have them, he'd be just another run-of-the-mill detective, getting older and less capable with the years that passed. He would be retired by now.
He would be over eighty years old if he was human, wrinkled and grey-haired, incapable of doing much mire than hobbling around a rent-controlled apartment. He would have to relive his glory days in memory only, rather than still being a young man, at least in looks.
When he had first been turned, his initial thought was that he had fallen straight into darkness, a never-ending darkness that he would never be able to escape from. He'd thought that he was a creature of the night, a monster, something that was forever damned.
Coraline's monstrous actions during their disastrous marriage had done nothing to swerve his mind from that scenario. She had been completely deranged; it hadn't taken him long to realize what a mistake he'd made when he had fallen for her.
How long would he have felt that way about himself if he hadn't had one saving grace in his life? How long would he have hated his existence, keeping himself apart from sexual and emotional contact, having a few friends but no lovers who actually touched his heart?
What would he be like now if Josef Kostan hadn't come into his life and stayed there? If Josef hadn't felt that he was worth loving, and hadn't had the patience to stick around through all of Mick's screwups, he'd be alone now. Alone and unloved.
That would have been a darkness that he could never have escaped from. He might have had periods in his life when he thought that he'd found love, but he would never have found a love as strong and enduring as the love he shared with Josef. Nothing could ever compare to those emotions.
Fortunately, he'd had the good sense to grasp the hand that Josef had held out to him before he'd let himself tumble back into that darkness. And he had emerged from what had seemed an eternity of living in the dark into a world that was full of light and love.
Without Josef, he would very likely have ended up spending his eternity with Beth, a woman who had only wanted to use him for her own selfish ends -- and who would have tired of him eventually. She had been an even bigger mistake in his life than Coraline was.
Well, now he was well rid of both those bitches -- and he was with the man he loved. There was no more fear of going straight into a darkness that he couldn't control and would never find his way out of, a darkness that would surround him and envelop him for all of his life.
But there was still some doubt in his mind, wasn't there? Mick sighed, shoving his hands more deeply into his pockets and sidestepping a woman who was hurrying along the street with his head bent against the misting rain. Yes, there were still questions in his mind.
He couldn't help wondering if Josef would eventually get tired of him, if they would end up parting. He didn't think they would, but there was always that little seed of doubt in the back of his mind, the thought that he wouldn't always be what Josef wanted -- or needed.
Josef wasn't used to being with one person for a long period of time. Mick had to wonder if he could be -- or if his boyfriend was biting off more than he could chew by being in a long-term relationship with another vampire. It was something Josef had never done before.
He'd obviously had relationships over the centuries -- though he knew that Josef didn't see them in that way. Josef saw them as nothing more than involvements -- he had never given his heart to anyone other than Sarah, and even she hadn't had all of that heart.
What if they didn't last? What if he found himself plunging straight into darkness again, if Josef should ever decide that they were no longer right for each other and that he didn't want to be involved with a man any longer? What would he do then?
Sighing, Mick shook his head, sending droplets of water flying through the air. He would look like a wet dog by the time he got to Josef's place, but he didn't doubt that his boyfriend would have warm towels there -- or that Josef would suggest a shower for two.
That was one of the things that made them so compatible, wasn't it? The fact that they were comfortable with each other, that they knew each other's needs and desires, that their moods seemed to match a lot of the time. They were so much alike.
And yet they were so different as well, in a lot of ways. Josef embraced the vampiric life much more than Mick had ever felt that he could -- and even though Josef was taming himself in some ways since they'd been together, Mick knew that those desires still existed.
Josef was never going to be happy getting his food from a blood bank -- he would always want to tap it fresh from the vein. And Mick couldn't bring himself to do that, not even with someone who was willing to give him that blood freely, as a kind of gift.
Mick still felt that if he allowed himself to give in to that side of his nature, he would be slipping straight into a darkness that he'd struggled for so long to free himself from. He'd never been comfortable with taking blood from a human, and he wasn't going to start now.
At first, when they'd only been friends, Josef had tried to talk him into embracing that darker side of his nature. But Mick hadn't been able to do it, though he'd been tempted. And he'd been glad that he hadn't -- though sometimes he doubted the rationality of that decision.
Wouldn't it have been better to give in to that darkness that lurked within him, to live his vampiric life in the way that Josef always had? That was, after all, their nature -- at least, that was what Josef had always pointed out to him in the past.
But now, it seemed as though his boyfriend was actually starting to come around to his way of life. Mick knew that the man he loved wouldn't always live the way he did, but he could deal with that. There were compromises in any good relationship.
Josef would only feed on the people who offered him their blood; there would be no sex, nothing that even involved them being close. He would merely drink from a proffered wrist, and that would be it. He'd done it before, hundreds of thousands of times, maybe even millions.
It wasn't a free fall straight into darkness, at least not according to Josef. And he'd assured Mick over and over that there didn't have to be any kind of sexual contact involved -- and that he felt nothing for the people he drank from other than friendship. There was no danger to their relationship.
Mick sighed as he looked up at the building that he now stood in front of, knowing that Josef was in the penthouse on the top floor, waiting for him. His boyfriend probably wondered where he was; he'd expected Mick to come over more quickly than this.
Was he right to make those compromises? Was he being stupid to feel that giving in to that darker side of himself would send him straight into a darkness that he'd been trying to avoid falling into ever since the first night that he'd been turned?
Of course he was right, he told himself firmly. He wasn't giving in to the darker side of who and what he was by being in love with Josef. In fact, Josef's love was helping him to turn away from that darkness, that hopelessness that had threatened to consume him when he was alone.
Running a hand through his wet hair, Mick pushed open the door to the lobby of the building. He'd be with Josef in just a few minutes -- and once his boyfriend was in his arms, there would be no doubt in his mind that he'd left any lingering darkness far behind him.***