Title: Only One Reason
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Josef Kostan/Mick St. John
Fandom: Moonlight
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,662
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.

***

"How could you do something so stupid?" Josef asked for what seemed to Mick like the hundredth time. "You know that if you go after a vampire that's been around a lot longer than me, I can't protect you! He'd eat me for breakfast, Mick. And you too."

"Is he the one, Josef?" Mick asked through clenched teeth. "Is he the one who put a stake into your chest? Is he the one who hurt you? If he is, I'm going to confront him, no matter what you say. I'm not going to let him get away with what he did to you."

"Let it go, Mick." Josef's voice was quiet, more so than Mick was used to hearing it. There was no hint of subservience or fear in his tone; rather, he was simply stating a fact, saying that he wanted Mick to do something for him without questions or protests.

"I can't." Mick turned to face Josef, his emotions written on his features. "If you saw me like that, could you not want to go after the person who did it, no matter how dangerous they might happen to be? Tell me the truth. You would want revenge, wouldn't you?"

"Yeah. I would." Josef's voice was still quiet, his hands shoved into his pockets as he paced around the living room of his penthouse. "But I'm a lot stronger than you are, Mick. And he's stronger than I am. He's not someone you can go up against and win."

:Maybe I can't." Mick swung around to face his boyfriend again; he wished that Josef would stop his frenetic pacing and stand still for ten seconds. "But I can make it clear to him that you're not a target, and that I'm going to protect you no matter what."

Josef let out a short bark of derisive laughter, shaking his head. "And do you think he's going to give a damn for that protection? He'll laugh at it, Mick. And he'll probably come after me again, just to spite you and to prove that you don't have any effect on him."

Finally stopping the pacing, he came across the room to rest his hands on Mick's shoulders, looking into the other man's eyes. Mick was surprised to see an emotion there that he didn't recognize; was Josef actually pleading with him?

"Mick, I love you. You know I do. But I don't want you to get involved in this. This is an old vendetta from way back, before you were even a twinkle in your dad's pants. Hundreds of years before that. And it's not going to stop just because I've got a lover now."

Josef's voice was soft, but strong and firm. "He's not going to care that I've got somebody protecting me. He knows that he's got the strength to defeat whoever that might be. I don't want you in the middle of this, Mick. I don't want anything to happen to you."

Mick took a deep breath, unable to look away from his lover. He didn't want to listen to what Josef was telling him; he wanted to protest, to shake his head and negate the words that were coming out of his boyfriend's mouth. But he knew that he couldn't.

Judging from what Josef was saying, this vampire who had some ancient vendetta against him was one of the most dangerous creatures imaginable. But what had Josef done to get him to this point, where he was apparently attacking his enemies out of the blue?

"Who is he, and what does he want with you?" Mick asked bluntly, his gaze holding Josef's. "If he's such a powerful vampire, why haven't I ever heard of him? And if there's a vendetta going on between you two, why haven't you warned me about him?"

"Because we've had a truce for a long time," Josef muttered. This time, he was the one to look away; his gaze moved from Mick's face to some place beyond him, keeping his eyes fixed on anything that didn't make him look directly at his lover. "Over a hundred years."

"Why has he ended that truce now?" Mick asked, curiosity overcoming him. Josef might think that he didn't need to be mixed up in this, but he was Josef's lover -- which, to him, meant tht he was already in the thick up it, whether Josef wanted that or not.

"Because some girl he's had the hots for since the turn of the century accused me of going after her," Josef said, shaking his head. "I didn't, you know that. I haven't even looked at a woman -- or at anybody else -- since I've been with you. But she had her reasons."

"She knows that you've got money, and she tried to catch your interest?" Mick guessed, raising his brows in question. Josef nodded reluctantly, and Mick swore under his breath. "Just like a woman. Human or vampire, they're all the same."

"And now you're sucked into this in a way, because you're with me," Josef told him with a sigh. "I don't want you to interfere, Mick. I tried to talk to him, to tell him that she was lying. But he wouldn't listen to me. It was a case of 'stake first, think later.'"

"I'm part of it, whether you want me involved or not," Mick said, his voice firm. "I'm not going to back out and let you put yourself in danger, Josef. Maybe I can talk to him and set him straight. Maybe that's what it's going to take, since he won't listen to you."

Josef shook his head, scowling. "No! I don't want you in the middle of it. I'll talk to him over the phone, I'll do something to let him know that I wouldn't touch that bitch. I'm not risking you, Mick. You've got no reason to get involved in this."

"Josef, you're not understanding me." He slid his arms around his boyfriend's waist, hoping that he could come up with the words to make this man understand what he was feeling, how his heart constricted with trepidation on knowing that his lover had such a powerful enemy.

"Feel this." Mick placed Josef's palm on his chest, against his heart. "Every time my heart beats, there's a reason. Every time I draw a breath of air into my lungs, there's a reason for that too. Every thought I have, every choice I make -- there are reasons behind all of it."

He took a deep breath, hoping that his words were getting through to Josef, and that he was making sense. "There's a reason for every thought in my mind, Josef. A reason for every second of every day that keeps me going. Only one reason. Just one."

He raised a hand to rest it on Josef's cheek, his intense gaze locking with the other man's. "You're that reason, Josef," he whispered, his throat tightening on the words, reducing his voice to a mere breath of sound. "The only reason I have for being here."

Josef didn't speak; Mick could see him swallow hard, his eyes widening just a bit at his lover's words. But there was silence between them, a silence that stretched from a few seconds into minutes. Minutes when Josef didn't speak, just looked at him as though he was seeing into his very soul.

When he finally did speak, his voice was so soft that normal human hearing might not have caught the words. But Mick heard every one of them loud and clear; his preternatural hearing brought the words not only to his ears, but to his mind and his heart.

"You're the reason I've kept going," he whispered, his gaze not leaving Mick's. "Ever since the day I met you, I knew that I'd found the reason that I needed to go on. I'm not going to leave this world, Mick. I'm not going to let him take me out of it. Not as long as you're here."

"I'll always be here," Mick managed to whisper, his voice choked. He closed his eyes, wishing that he had tears to cry; he could feel Josef's hands in his hair, then those soft lips were on his, their mouths meeting in a symphony of words that they'd left unspoken.

All he wanted to do was to kiss Josef until the two of them melded together; he wanted to submerge himself in this man, to reaffirm his reason for being. He wanted to hold Josef so close that he could feel their hearts beat again each other, in rhythm, in unison.

"I don't need any reason other than you to be here," Mick whispered, wanting Josef to believe his words more than he'd ever wanted anything. "If I lost you -- then I'd have no reason to live. I'm not going to let anyone take you away from me now that I've found you."

"Nobody's going to take me away from you," Josef whispered, pulling back slightly and raising a hand to stroke Mick's cheek. "I promise. I've been around a long time, Mick. I'll be around a lot longer." He smiled, tilting his head to one side. "Besides, now that I have you, I've got a reason to be here, too."

Mick's only answer to those words was to bend his head to capture Josef's lips with his own again, moving his hands down the other man's back. This was his reason for living and breathing, his reason for being. And he was going to hold on to that reason with everything he had -- or die trying.

***