Title: The Lighter Side
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Josef Kostan/Mick St. John
Fandom: Moonlight
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,361
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 sighed contentedly as he stretched out his long legs in front of him, leaning back and glancing up at the clock on the wall of his living room. Josef should be here in less than half an hour; his boyfriend had said that he would be over after a business meeting.
He didn't want to ask what kind of a business meeting kept the man he loved busy at this time of night; for all he knew, Josef could be at the La Brea tar pits, taking care of something that Mick would prefer not to know about, or have anything to do with.
If Josef had to take care of business in that way, then Mick wasn't going to interfere with it. As much as he didn't like the fact that his boyfriend was involved in the killing of humans at times, he knew that Josef didn't prey on innocents.
Josef always liked to pretend that he was completely vampire, and that he didn't have morals or scruples. He was fond of saying that he lived by a different code than humans did, and that their moral restrictions didn't have meaning for him in any way.
But Mick knew differently. He knew that Josef would never harm humans that he considered innocents; he wasn't that kind of a man. There was still enough human in him, even after four hundred years, to have a code of honor that he upheld, more so than anyone else Mick knew.
And he also knew that Josef was capable of more love and loyalty than any human he'd ever met. Josef was a man of contradictions, but Mick knew that his darker side was something he kept carefully in check, a side that he only let out to intimidate when it was needed.
Josef had a softer side to who he was, a side that not many people ever got to see. And Mick was sure that even the women who he'd taken to bed in the years that they'd known each other, and in the centuries before that, had never seen the side of Josef that he had.
There was not only a softer side to Josef, but a romantic side, as well. When he dropped that mask he always wore, that barrier that he hid himself so carefully behind, there was a loving romantic man inside him who wanted, even needed, to be loved.
Or was that only the side that he saw because he loved Josef so much? Mick wondered, closing his eyes and musing on the question. Anyone else would probably tell him that Josef was hard and tough, the consummate businessman to the core.
Some people who knew what Josef was would say flatly that he was a vampire, nothing more. That any feelings he displayed that seemed softer were just for show, and that he had an ulterior motive for letting those emotions be seen, however fleetingly they were displayed.
Mick knew better than that. He knew who and what Josef was; he'd known this man for over fifty years, in the role of a friend and now as a lover. He had no illusions about Josef's dark side; he'd seen it often enough, and he'd felt its sting more than once.
But that wasn't all there was so Josef. There was a bright side to the man he loved, a side that reveled in poetry and romance, a side that only came out when he was alone with Mick. And that was the Josef Kostan he knew and loved, the man who owned his heart.
That side had come out more and more as their relationship had progressed; Josef even let his lighter side show more publicly now. Not enough for anyone to think that he was weak, of course. Mick knew that his boyfriend would never allow himself that kind of freedom.
Still, it was good to see Josef laugh and have a good time at the parties they sometimes went to, and to see him loosening up around people that he might formerly have felt an antipathy towards simply because they knew what he was and might be able to use that against him.
Josef had dealt with too much of that in his life, and Mick knew his lover well enough to know that it was why Josef was always so wary about letting the lighter side of his personality show. But it was there, even though the other man was careful to keep it buried.
Mick delighted in letting that bright side out. It was a side of Josef that he loved seeing, a side to the man he loved that drew them closer together. Mick was sure that he was one of the few people who had ever seen that side of Josef, and he treasured it.
Had Sarah seen that side of him? Mick frowned at the thought, knowing that she more than likely had. He wasn't the only one who knew how playful Josef could be; he wasn't the only human who had ever seen that sweetness that hid under Josef's carefully cultivated veneer.
But she didn't matter, he assured himself. She was part of Josef's past, a part that had slipped away, finally giving up the half-life that the coma had consigned her to. She was dead and buried, and Josef had moved on. He owned the other man's heart. He knew it.
Josef said it often enough. He had a hard time saying the words "I love you," but there were other things he said, oblique references to his emotions, that told Mick more than hearing those three little words just how deeply Josef's feelings for him ran.
And he loved Josef. Far more deeply and completely than he could ever imagine loving anyone. It had been different with the two women who had been the mainstays of his life, both as human and vampire; they had both showed their true colors in the end.
Neither of them had really loved him. They had loved themselves, and their own desires. That had come through loud and clear the longer he'd known them, and his feelings for them had faded quickly once he'd found out what each of them was really like.
His love for Josef was different. His feelings for the other man hadn't been based on a tissue of deceit; his lover had never asked for anything from him. Josef had loved him unselfishly, even going so far as to hide his own feelings when he'd thought it was best for Mick.
He'd always looked on the bright side when it came to Josef, really. He'd never once thought of the man who'd been his friend, and then his lover, as the dark, menacing creature that others might see him as. To Mick, he was just .... Josef.
A friend. And a lover. And the person who owned his heart, the man who had captured him so completely that he couldn't imagine spending eternity with anyone else. The man who Mick wanted to share his life and his heart with, until the end of time.
He sat up, his senses alert, looking toward the clock again. Josef should be here by now; he would be arriving in a few seconds, that long coat he wore swirling around his knees, that insouciant smile that Mick so loved lighting up the room as he walked in.
As if in response to his thoughts, Mick heard a knock on the front door; he could sense his lover waiting for him just outside. Mick got to his feet, his footsteps quick and eager, a smile on his face. In just a few seconds, his evening was going to get a whole lot brighter.***