Title: Nobody Else
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Josef Kostan/Mick St. John
Fandom: Moonlight
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,820
Author's Note: Continuation of Tumbling Down.
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.

***

"Why do you want to know so much about my past?" Josef asked Mick, frowning as he set his glass of blood down on the coffee table. "I've told you most of it, Mick. It's not like there's some great secret about it. You know the worst."

"Yeah, I do," Mick said softly, fixing his gaze on Josef. "I know the worst. But there are a lot of things you keep back from me. It's not that you want to shut me out -- I know that. But I still feel like I'm behind some kind of barrier that you don't want to let me through."

"I keep some things from you for your own safety," Josef said, his voice softening as he fastened his gaze on his lover. "Some of the people -- and vampires -- that I deal with are dangerous, Mick. I don't want you to get caught in the middle of anything."

"I know you have to deal with some unscrupulous characters," Mick sighed, wishing that he could make Josef understand how he felt. "It's not that. You know that I'm willing to face danger for you, and you know I'm not going to betray you in any way."

"Mick, I ...." Josef's voice trailed off as he shook his head. "Why do you want to know? I'm not all that proud of a lot of things in my past. You know the high points -- and a lot of the low ones, too. The rest, I'd just rather forget."

"You can't keep the past buried forever, Josef," Mick pointed out. "Sooner or later, if you're running away from something, it'll usually catch up to you and bite you in the ass. And I want to know what to expect. I don't want to be taken by surprise."

"The past is buried, Mick. I don't let it surface -- unless you ask me about it. With anybody else, I just make a joke and shrug it off." Josef's gaze felt as though it was boring into Mick, seeing through him into his very soul.

He knew that Josef didn't divulge his past -- at least, not the important parts of it -- to anyone. There was a very select group of people that knew bits and pieces, but other than that, Josef kept his past guarded, even from his friends. And his lover.

"I don't need to know about your life before you were turned, or the things you've done, "Mick protested, shaking his head. "I'd just like to have some idea of what it was like to go through all of those historical times, to actually see them."

"What's it like to be alive in this day and age, Mick?" Josef swept an arm towards the picture window, at the night sky sprinkled with stars and the lights of the city glittering around them. "This is a part of history, too. Or it will be in a few years."

Mick was silent, wishing that there was some way he could make Josef understand why he wanted to know about those past times. But if he was honest, it wasn't the history of the times that his lover had lived through that most interested him.

It was Josef's personal history. He wanted to know more about the man he loved, what he had been like during those times. He wanted to know if Josef had lost his heart to anyone in the past other than Sarah -- if there was any other memory that he had to compete with.

Only Sarah wasn't a memory, was she? No, she was alive in New York. She was in a coma, that was true, but she was still there. And what would happen if she suddenly woke up, or if there was some medical advance that restored her to her senses?

He wouldn't stand a chance of keeping Josef with him then. His lover would turn to his first love, the one that he'd waited over three hundred years to find. Mick would be left alone, having to deal with the fact that he man he loved no longer wanted him.

"Mick." Josef's voice was quiet, resigned. "There's nobody else, you know. Nobody. I know Sarah isn't going to come back to me. I think I've known that for all these years. Even with my protection, she's not strong enough to live as one of us. I've lost her."

"And you only took me because I'm the next best thing," Mick muttered, wishing that he could bite his tongue off and take the words back as soon as he'd uttered them. But they were out now, into the open between the two of them.

He didn't want to look over at Josef, but he knew that he had to. He had to know what kind of effect his cruel words had on the other man. He had to know if Josef was angry, or hurt, or .... or if he was sitting there smiling and letting the words roll off his back.

Mick could feel Josef's gaze on him; he didn't want to look up to meet those eyes. But he had to. He couldn't just sit here in silence, not after he'd said something like that. He'd thrown down a gauntlet, and he had to accept whatever the consequences might be.

Raising his head, he reluctantly looked over at Josef, expecting to see a rising anger in his lover's gaze. Instead, all he saw was sadness -- and, if he wasn't mistaken, there was a glimmer in those dark eyes that told of incipient tears.

"Do you really think I'd do that?" Josef whispered, his voice barely audible. "Do you really think all the time we've been together hasn't meant anything to me, that you were just a substitute for somebody else? Because that's not true. It never has been."

Mick had thought that he couldn't possibly feel a guilt that ate into him any more deeply than what he'd felt when he hadn't been able to save people from horrible deaths. That guilt had seared into him; it had become a part of his soul.

The guilt that he felt now was far worse. He'd wounded the man who had been his lover for the last few months, and who had been his friend and mentor for much longer than that. He'd hurt the person who meant more to him than anyone else ever could.

"You don't want to know about the past times I've lived in," Josef whispered, shaking his head. "Don't keep using that as a cover, Mick. You want to know about the past that's in my heart -- and if it's any kind of a threat to you and me in the present."

"Yeah," Mick managed to whisper, knowing that Josef was speaking the truth. "I'm sorry, Josef. But I've got to know. I need to know if you're going to leave me if she somehow comes back into your life. I need to know where I stand with you."

"You should know where you stand with me, after the time we've been together," Josef told him, looking away. His voice was tight, controlled; it was obvious that he was keeping his emotions in check, not wanting to let them have full vent.

Mick got up and moved to the couch, sitting down beside Josef and taking his lover's hands in his own. "I'm sorry, babe," he said softly, hoping that his apology would smooth the obviously stormy waters between the two of them. "I don't know what else to say."

He gulped, wishing that he could express his emotions more easily. That had never been easy for him -- but he had to try. "I'm just so damned scared of losing you. I know there are people who have more of a claim on your heart than I do, and --"

"Nobody else has more of a claim on me," Josef interrupted him, his voice rising slightly. "Don't you get that, Mick? I've given my body to a lot of people, and my heart to one other -- but you're the only one who's ever had both my body and my heart."

"I know that," Mick whispered, feeling more guilty than ever. The past didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was the future -- one that he would share with Josef. How could he have doubted that this man would deny that future?

"I just want to know that I have a future with you," he managed to say, the words coming out in a croak past the tightness in his throat. Maybe this was it for them. Maybe Josef wouldn't want to be with a man who could doubt him in the way that Mick had.

"You've always had a future with me," Josef whispered, raising his head. He was blinking rapidly; Mick knew that the unnatural brightness of his eyes was due to the fact that he was trying not to shed tears. Josef crying .... that wasn't something he often saw.

"I'm sorry for doubting you," Mick said, releasing one of Josef's hands to place his palm against his boyfriend's cheek. "I hope you can forgive me for that. I guess there's a part of me that might be scared of betrayal, too. Bear with me, please?"

It was the same thing that Josef had asked of him not too long ago. This was what their future would be like, Mick thought, each of them having to bear with the other's fears and paranoia. But he would do it. He'd do anything for Josef.

He didn't have a crystal ball. HIs vampiric powers didn't allow him to see into the future. But he knew that more than anything, he wanted his future to be with Josef Kostan. There was nobody else for him. And he would sacrifice whatever he had to for that future to be theirs.

Josef nodded, his gaze still fixed on Mick's face. "I guess we'll just have to bear with each other, won't we?" he murmured, in an echo of Mick's thoughts. "It might not be easy, but nothing worth having is. At least that's how the saying goes. I never really believed it."

"I believe it now," Mick said softly, leaning forward and brushing his lips against the softness of Josef's mouth. He slid his arms around the other man's waist, pulling Josef close against him and closing his eyes as he lost himself in the growing passion of their kiss.

***