Title: You Had Me At Hello
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Josef Kostan/Mick St. John
Fandom: Moonlight
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,590
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.***
"Do you know what my first impression of you was?" Josef asked as he lay back in Mick's embrace. The two of them were lying in bed, moonlight streaming through the open window, illuminating their naked bodies when Josef kicked the covers off.
"I thought you told Coraline that I wasn't cut out to be a vampire," Mick laughed, stretching out next to his boyfriend. "At least that's what she she told me you said. I'm guessing you thought I was too much of a wimp -- or maybe just too obsessed with her."
"Actually, that was only what I thought on the surface," Josef corrected him. "What I really felt was a lot different. I'm pretty sure that even though you told her I was a pompous jerk, you didn't really think that deep down inside, now did you?"
"Oh, she actually told you that, did she?" Mick wanted to sound indignant, but he couldn't help laughing at the memory. "Yeah, I did think you were kind of a jerk. Only the words I used were 'pompous ass.' She might have been trying to soften the blow a little."
"That's not really what you thought of me, is it?" Josef asked, sounding a little wary. "I don't mean just what you were thinking on the surface, because I'll admit that I might have been a jerk to cover up my real feelings. I mean what you felt inside."
"I ...." Mick closed his eyes, searching for the memory of those feelings and letting it come to the surface. "I thought you were gorgeous. I'm serious, Josef. I wasn't looking for any kind of a relationship with you then, but I thought you were the best-looking man I'd ever met."
"You did?" Josef sounded surprised, as though he hadn't expected Mick to say something like that. "I was the same about you. I couldn't take my eyes off you when the two of you were walking around that room. I wanted to be the one next to you, instead of her."
"What was your first impression of me?" Mick asked softly, wanting to hear just what Josef had thought of him. "I know it took a lot of courage for you to admit to yourself that you were attracted to me. It's kind of hard to believe that it happened so instantaneously."
"It did," Josef murmured, his gaze dropping, long lashes veiling his dark eyes. "I thought you were not only the most gorgeous man I'd ever seen, but I knew then and there that I wanted to be with you. It shocked me, but I didn't want to push those feelings away."
"Why not?" Mick asked, curious as to why Josef would embrace having such a strong attraction to a man after what had happened to him on his last night as a human. "I know it had to have been hard for you to admit to those feelings, Josef. Why me? Why then?"
"I didn't want to ignore those feelings because I just knew that you were the right one," Josef told him, his voice strong and steady in spite of its softness. "I knew that you were the person I wanted to spend eternity with. Even though I had my doubts about you being a vamp."
"Why? Because I was so completely obsessed with Coraline at the time?" Mick sighed, shaking his head. "That was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I wish that I'd found out in time, before she'd turned me. Maybe then you could have been the first one to do it."
"I was the second, so that's good enough for me," Josef said with a soft laugh. "And I'll be the last. I hope you've given up the whole wanting to be human gig, Mick. It was okay for a while, but I don't want you to go through eternity with that kind of longing in your soul."
"I don't want to, either," Mick asserted, his own voice firm. "I'm past that, Josef. I stopped wanting to be human again when I finally admitted how I feel about you. If I was human, I wouldn't be able to spend the rest of eternity with you. And that would be a tragedy for both of us."
"If you had stayed human, I would have turned you back," Josef whispered, his voice barely audible even to Mick's preternatural vampiric hearing. "I know you might have hated me for it, but I couldn't let her win, Mick. I couldn't let her have you when I knew that she didn't love you."
"I wouldn't have stayed with her, y'know," Mick told him, turning over onto his side to face his boyfriend. "I couldn't have. Not when I knew that I had such strong feelings for you and had just been denying them all along. I knew that being with her was wrong."
"Was that why you never slept with her?" Josef asked, his dark eyes searching Mick's face. "Did you know that she didn't feel the same way about you that I do? Could you tell, even though you wanted to think that she loved you and your life was all neatly wrapped up?"
Mick nodded slowly, his blue gaze not leaving Josef's. "Yeah, I knew," he whispered, reaching out to brush an errant strand of hair away from his lover's face. "Not only that, but I knew that I didn't love her. I knew that I couldn't spend eternity living a lie."
"Would you have turned her if you had stayed with her?" Josef asked him, his voice quiet. "I know you thought you were in love with her at the time -- and I know she wanted you to turn her so she could have an even stronger hold over you."
"No." Mick shook his head, his voice strong and decisive. "I would never have turned her, even if she had begged me. I'd have let her die before I'd have done that. She would have been an albatross around my neck for eternity, and I wanted you. Not her."
"That's good to hear," Josef said, sounding relieved. Mick could almost feel some of the tension go out of his boyfriend's body as Josef snuggled against him, those strong arms wrapping around his waist. "I really thought for a while that you'd turn her, and I'd be out of luck."
"That would never have happened," Mick told him, his voice soft and husky. "I wanted you too much to have been happy with her, no matter what I might have tried to make it seem like. I don't know why I was so stupid about waiting to tell you how I felt."
"Because you weren't ready to admit it yet," Josef said calmly, his gaze not wavering from Mick's. "If you had been, then I would have said something sooner, too. I almost did, but I held myself back. I wanted you to be the one to come to me, to be sure of what you wanted."
"You were already sure, weren't you?" Mick asked, swallowing hard. Josef seemed to have known for so long that they were each other's destiny, and he'd been stumbling along in the darkness. He felt like a fool for not realizing sooner how strong his own feelings were.
"Yeah," Josef said, leaning forward to brush his lips against Mick's. "I was sure from the first time we met. I might have said one thing on the outside, but I knew how I felt. I knew that I wanted you -- and that I was willing to wait for however long it took to have you."
"You got what you wanted in the end," Mick said with a soft laugh. "And I'm glad you did. If you hadn't had the patience to wait for me, I'd be a pretty lonely man for the rest of eternity. And I think I'd have ended up wanting you, even if you had changed your mind about me."
"I'd never have changed my mind," Josef told him as Mick reached for the covers and pulled them back up, then wrapped his arms securely around his boyfriend and pulled Josef close. "I would have loved you forever, no matter whether you were with me or not."
"Even if your first outward impression of me said something very different?" Mick couldn't resist teasing Josef a bit, softening his words with a gentle kiss. He knew how his lover felt about him; he didn't need to know anything else about his first impressions.
"Even then," Josef whispered, burrowing into Mick's embrace. "You had me at hello, Mick. Maybe even before. All it took was one look -- and I was in love. I might not have admitted it at the time, but that was my first impression. And it's never changed."
Mick could almost swear that he felt his heart swelling in his chest as he bowed his head to kiss Josef again, longer and more lingeringly this time. What did first impressions matter? The important thing was they they loved each other now -- and that they always would.***