Title: I'm on Fire
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Josef Kostan/Mick St. John
Fandom: Moonlight
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,623
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 peered at himself in the mirror, wondering if he should change into another shirt before Josef got here. No, this one looked okay, at least to his own eyes. But Josef had such weird ideas about what looked good and what didn't.

Why was he trying to dress to please Josef? he snorted inwardly, trying to rid himself of his nervousness. It had never bothered him before when Josef had criticized the way he dressed -- all right, well, maybe a little, he admitted, surveying his reflection anxiously.

He'd been waiting for this for what felt like eternity. Now that he was free of Coraline, free of Beth, and free of any other entanglements that might have distracted him, he could concentrate on Josef, and what the other man had come to mean to him.

For so long, he hadn't even been sure of just what Josef meant to him. A friend? A mentor? More than a friend? He hadn't wanted to admit his feelings to himself, much less to the other vampire. They'd seemed crazy, ridiculous, even misplaced.

Why in the hell should he think that he was in love with Josef? That couldn't be possible. He'd spent long years telling himself that, even as he'd known that his feelings for the enigmatic older vampire were growing. He hadn't wanted to admit that he could love a man.

But as time had gone on, he'd had to admit to himself that his feelings for Josef amounted to much more than mere friendship. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was in love with a man. Maybe he had even been in love with Josef far longer than he realized.

There had always been a spark between the two of them, from the very first time they'd met -- even when he had been so entranced by Coraline that he hadn't been able to see anyone else. Josef had always been there, on the periphery of his vision.

And during the time he'd been with Coraline, it had been Josef who he'd always run to when he'd needed help, or someone to talk to about his confused feelings. It had always been Josef who held that special place at the center of his heart, not Coraline.

Coraline had been gone for years now. Mick had been involved with Beth, thinking that somehow, the little girl that he'd saved from Coraline's lunacy could somehow replace her; he'd thought that they had some kind of connection that would keep them together.

But he had been wrong. Beth had turned out to be very different as a woman from the courageous child she'd been when Mick had first rescued her from a vampire's clutches. She'd turned into something very different from what he'd expected.

He had thought that he would be with a woman who was strong and independent, a woman who would be able to understand him. He'd thought that she was the kind of person who could be trusted to care for him under any circumstances, in any situation.

She had turned out to be selfish and deceitful in a way that had shocked him. She had put her career and notoriety ahead of what they could have shared; fame had been more important to her than love. In short, she had turned out to be everything that Mick didn't want.

Josef had every right to smirk at him and say "I told you so." Mick had been surprised that the other man hadn't done just that, but Josef had been more understanding than he would have ever believed. He'd only said that he was sorry it didn't work out, and offered him a shoulder.

No, Josef was offering him more than that, Mick told himself, a slow smile spreading over his face. Josef was holding out a hand not just in friendship, but possibly in the hope that the two of them would be more than friends. And tonight was the beginning.

That little spark that had always existed between them was rapidly leaping up into a flame, a fire that Mick was sure would turn into a roaring conflagration at the first opportunity. The two of them just had to give that flame a chance to build itself up.

He was more than willing to do that. Just thinking of Josef set him on fire; the mere mention of the other man's name, the mental image of Josef's face, could send a hot wave of desire like nothing he had ever known coursing through every fiber of his being.

Mick only hoped that Josef felt the same way, and that he hadn't misread the signals that the other man had been sending out. He'd known Josef for so long that he was sure he hadn't misinterpreted them, but he could be wrong about that.

No. He wasn't wrong. Mick took a last look in the mirror, shaking his head at his own thoughts. Josef did feel the same way. He had to. There was no way that he could misread those longing looks between the two of them, or some of the things that Josef said to him.

He almost jumped when he heard the knock on the door; taking a deep breath, Mick went down the steps from his loft bedroom into the living room, looking around him as he went. Yes, he'd set the mood properly with a few candles in strategic places.

Would Josef even notice that, though? He wondered if the other man might think that he he had just been invited here for a night of talk and jokes, and more of the awkward flirting that they seemed to engage in more and more in the past few weeks.

Taking a deep breath, Mick closed his eyes for a moment, then reached for the doorknob. He turned it easily in his hand, pulling the door open to reveal Josef standing there, looking more attractive than Mick had ever seen him in all the time they'd known each other.

For a moment, Mick couldn't say a word; he felt as though his entire body was on fire from the inside out -- a fire that was kindled in his heart and reached to every outward part of him. He couldn't speak, couldn't move, almost couldn't breathe.

"Mick, are you okay?" Josef's words snapped Mick back to the present; he shook his head to clear it, blinking as the other man spoke to him. He almost didn't realize what Josef had said; he was too focused on what he was feeling.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he murmured, standing back to let the other vampire enter his apartment. "Have a seat, make yourself at home. Like you always do," he added with a laugh. He closed and locked the door, his pulse pounding, feeling short of breath.

"I'm not," announced Josef as he settled himself on the couch, raising an eyebrow in Mick's direction. "I haven't been okay since you asked me to come over here tonight. Does this mean that you're finally ready to admit that we've got feelings for each other?"

Mick didn't know what to say; Josef's words hit him like the proverbial ton of bricks. He simply stood there, gaping at the other man, unable to think of a single word. It was as though the fire in his veins had suddenly turned to ice, frozen in place by what Josef had said.

"You .... I .... we ...." Mick realized that he wasn't making any sense, but the words that he needed to say were all jumbled up in his head, refusing to come out in any kind of a coherent sentence. All he could think of was how his body was burning -- and now, his mind was, too.

"Don't look so tongue-tied, Mick," Josef said with a laugh, patting the couch cushions next to him invitingly. "Come here and sit down. We need to talk --" He laughed, raising his brows in a questioning look. 'Or maybe do something else. Like kiss. A lot."

Mick didn't know how he got to the couch, but within seconds, he was sitting next to Josef, searching the other man's gaze for some sign that he was joking. But there was nothing of the sort in those clear eyes; all he could see was a desire that matched his own.

"Just looking at you sets me on fire," Mick whispered, raising a hand to run his fingers through Josef's hair. "I shouldn't be saying that so early in the evening, but you and I are past the point of flirting. We don't need to play stupid games, do we?"

"We've never needed to play games," Josef said softly, his gaze not wavering from Mick's face. "But we do need to talk. And we need to figure out just where this is going -- and how we're going to get there." His tone was warm, intimate, his voice almost a purr.

Mick didn't want to talk any more; all he wanted to do was to take Josef into his arms and kiss the other man. He was on fire, his body, his heart, his soul. And it was a fire that he never wanted to quench, he thought as he reached for Josef and pulled him close.

***