Title: Creatures of Myth
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Josef Kostan/Mick St. John
Fandom: Moonlight
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,551
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.***
"What do you think most people would want to know about us if they knew we existed?" Mick asked Josef, wondering what his boyfriend's thoughts on the matter were. It was an idea that he'd been turning over in his head quite a bit lately.
"I think the first thing they'd want to know is how to kill us," Josef answered, his tone wry. "What are you thinking about, Mick? Exposing the whole of the vamp community to humans? That'd be the end of us, and you know it. They can't know we exist."
"But some humans know about us, and they don't care," Mick protested, even though he knew that it was a futile argument. Josef would never agree that vampires and humans could co-exist peacefully if humans knew about them. And he just might be right about that.
"Yeah, and they've proven that they can be trusted," Josef shot back, sitting down at his desk and leaning back in his chair to look up at Mick. "The majority of the human race hasn't done that. Why? Because the majority of them aren't trustworthy."
Mick nodded thoughtfully; that was true enough, in his experience. He'd known more than his share of humans who were duplicitous; he'd even been involved with one during the brief time he'd been so stupid about Beth. The thought still made him wince.
How many humans out there were like her, only thinking of what they wanted, and not caring about the consequences of achieving that goal? He didn't want to think about that; there were probably too many of them for him to even begin counting.
"Maybe it's a good thing that we're nothing more than creatures of myth and mystery to most humans," he said, his tone musing. "If they knew that we really existed, they'd either be trying to kill us, or to become one of us. And some of them wouldn't have good intentions."
"I don't think many of them would," Josef said flatly. "They'd want to become one of us to either fulfill some kind of twisted desire to be immortal, or they'd want to have the kind of physical abilities we do so that they could lead lives of crime. Not good in either case."
"Would you have wanted that, if you'd been given a choice when you were turned?" Mick asked, wondering how his boyfriend would answer that question. "I mean, you wanted revenge against your dad, didn't you? For not being much of a father to you."
"Maybe I would have wanted to be turned just so I could ruin him and take away everything he had that he never wanted to acknowledge should have at least been partially mine," Josef admitted. "But as it turned out, I had other reasons to want revenge on him."
Mick held up a hand, shaking his head, not wanting Josef to go into that part of his life. It wasn't something he was comfortable with thinking about, and he didn't want the memories to plague Josef. He wanted the man he loved to put all of that behind him, not dwell on it.
If Josef kept dwelling on the circumstances that had caused him to be turned, as he had for so many years before he'd even met Mick, he could end up not trusting humans at all. And that would be bad for him personally, not to mention what it could do to his business.
"Besides, you forgot one thing that humans would want to do to us if they knew we actually existed," the other man said, leaning back in his chair and regarding Mick. "They'd want to dissect us, cut us up and find out what makes us tick."
That was something he hadn't thought about -- but Mick had to admit that it was true. "I guess there are some humans who'd be that way with any mythical creature they might find. A vampire, a unicorn -- they'd want to find out what made it the way it is."
"Yeah, and I've had to deal with some of them in the past," Josef said dryly, shaking his head. "It's not a situation you want to be in, Mick, believe me. It's scary, even for a vamp. I've been through some close calls, and I don't want you to face anything like that."
"I already have, more than once," Mick reminded him with a sigh. "Don't forget what my job is, Josef. I'm not in the safest profession in the world. If you want to keep me completely safe, the only way to do that is to lock me away from the world. And neither of us want that."
"My daredevil boyfriend," Josef said fondly, stretching out a hand across the table to take Mick's hand in his and twine their fingers together. "Don't ever change, Mick. I know you might get into bad situations once in a while, but hopefully, I can always help you out of them."
"I don't intend to change," Mick said softly, his gaze meeting his lover's across the table as he gave Josef's hand a reassuring squeeze. "I don't want you to change, either -- even though I'm sure we've both got some habits that are going to get on each other's nerves."
"That's going to make living together kind of a challenge, isn't it?" Josef murmured, his gaze focused on Mick. "Don't worry. I'll still want you to live with me, Mick. Any kind of differences we have, we'll be able to work them out. I want you with me."
"And I want to be there," Mick said softly, his emotions coming out in his voice. "Only a couple of days, Josef, and I'll be there. Hardly any time at all, and I'll be living in your penthouse, and spending every night with you. It'll be better than being halfway across the city."
"I've always hated that," Josef said, his voice husky. "I used to go to bed thinking about how far away you were, and fighting this crazy impulse to go over to your place and look up at the window, just to see if you were still up. But I didn't do it all that often."
"I didn't know you did that at all!" Mick said with a laugh, trying to hide his astonishment. He was learning more and more about his lover every day, he reflected. There were things that Josef had done for him that he'd never have thought this man was capable of.
"I guess I'm kind of like another mythical beast -- your guardian angel," Josef told him with a laugh. "I've always had a hard time staying away from you, Mick, even when you were married to Coraline. There were nights when all I could was think about you and want to be with you."
"If I had known you felt that way, maybe I would have come to you after Coraline was gone instead of being an idiot and waiting so long to realize how I felt myself," Mick said softly, keeping his gaze focused on the other man. "I'm sorry about that, Josef."
"It's water under the bridge now," Josef told him, waving his free hand. "Don't worry about it. The important thing is that we're together now, right? And that we always will be," he added, his voice sounding breathy and husky at the same time.
Mick knew what his boyfriend was thinking when his tone took on that husky sound; Josef was probably ready to head right for the bedroom, but he had other things in mind first. And he knew that once he put those ideas into words, Josef would run with them.
"I'm thinking that you're ready to go to bed -- but I've got another idea before we do that," he whispered, his gaze holding Josef's. "What do you say we take a shower together? I love doing that -- and I've got a few tricks up my sleeve that I think you might like."
"Oh yeah?" Josef shot him that insouciant grin that he'd grown to love so much, the look that could make his heart turn over in his chest, his knees weaken, and the blood run hot in his veins. "Then I think you should lead the way to the bathroom, lover."
"I might just turn into some mythical beast in the shower and whisk you away into a wet world," Mick teased, getting up from the table and stretching. "Or maybe we'll both turn into vampiric mermen. Hey, it could happen. We're already mythical creatures, y'know."
Josef's only answer was a laugh as he followed Mick out of the room and down the hallway, tugging his shirt over his head and dropping it on the floor behind him. Both of them were looking forward to seeing where the night would lead -- and what other mythical beasts their imaginations might conjure up.***