Title: Save Tonight
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Josef Kostan/Mick St. John
Fandom: Moonlight
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,665
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.***
Los Angeles, 2008
"You've got to leap over that chasm sometime, Josef." Mick's voice was soft, his gaze following the other man as he paced around the living room of his penthouse, his hands clasped behind his back. "You can't keep putting this off."
"What, because you'll leave me if I don't put out?" Josef stopped pacing, turning to face Mick with one brow raised, a slight smile quirking the corners of his lips. "That's usually what a guy does when he doesn't get what he wants from a girl. I didn't expect it from you."
"Don't be stupid." Mick frowned, standing up and crossing the floor to stand in front of Josef. He wanted to reach out and take the other man into his arms, kiss him breathless and carry him off to the bedroom. But that wasn't the best way to go about this.
When he'd decided that tonight would be the night he seduced Josef Kostan into his bed, he'd planned everything out. He had been so sure that he could say the right words; he'd seen himself as being a silver-tongued devil and Josef being out of his clothes by now.
Instead, he'd seemed to say the wrong thing from the moment he'd walked through the door. All he'd done was make Josef feel that he expected something, and that had put the other man on the defensive right from the start. Definitely a bad beginning.
All he wanted to do was to take Josef in his arms and murmur into the other man's ear how much he loved him -- how much he wanted him. But he knew what Josef's response to that would be. Wanting and loving were two different things.
Josef should know how he felt, Mick thought with a flash of irritation. He wasn't good at this whole seduction thing -- that was more Josef's area of expertise. But he was determined to have Josef naked in his arms tonight, if it was the last thing he did.
And that was exactly the way he shouldn't be thinking, Mick told himself with a sigh. That was how Josef had come to be so wary of men in the first place -- those kinds of thoughts would only get him pushed away, not beckoned to move closer.
Mick watched as Josef walked to the window, shoving his hands into his pockets as he gazed at the city outside, the stars twinkling in the velvety indigo sky. He ached to touch the other man, to wrap his arms around that slender waist and press his lips against Josef's skin.
As though his limbs had taken on a mind of their own, he found himself moving across the room to stand directly behind Josef, hesitating for only a moment before he followed his instincts and slipped his arms around the other man's waist.
To his surprise, instead of pulling away, Josef leaned back against him with a sigh, lifting his hands to place them over Mick's at his waist. Mick bowed his head, brushing his lips lightly against Josef's cheek and whispering softly in his ear.
"I know why you're scared," he murmured, wishing that he could take away the fear he knew that Josef was dealing with. "But you can't compare me to them, Josef. I'm not like them. And you know I'd die before I'd do anything to hurt you."
Josef nodded, another sigh escaping his lips. "I know that," he whispered, still looking out of the window. "But it's not that easy to put what happened out of my mind. I've been living with that experience for nearly four hundred years. That's a long time to remember."
"I know it is," Mick whispered, his lips against Josef's hair. "But it was a long time ago, Josef. You can't let that one experience color the rest of your life. Eternity is a long time to carry that kind of fear with you. I don't want you to see you keep hurting over something that happened so long ago."
"I don't want to keep holding on to it," Josef whispered, closing his eyes. "But it's hard to let go of, Mick. Every time I think about us --" he swallowed hard, then continued. ".... About us having sex, I remember how much it hurt. And I tense up and back off."
"I'd never hurt you. You know that," Mick told him, tightening his arms around Josef's waist. Taking a deep breath, he waited until he felt that his voice would be steady, with no hint of trembling in it, before he continued. "I love you, Josef. I love you more than anything in the world."
"Do you know how long I've waited to hear you say that?" Josef whispered, his voice barely audible. "I've wanted you to just say it out of the blue, when we were talking. I've wanted to hear those words when you were holding me and kissing me. And you say them now."
"I've said them before," Mick protested, lifting his head. "I've told you that I love you. But if that's what you need to hear, I'll say those words to you every day for the rest of our lives. Because I mean them. Maybe that's why they're so hard for me to say."
Josef nodded slowly, the ghost of a smile crossing his features. "If you said them too often, then they'd lose a lot of their meaning, wouldn't they?" he murmured, turning in Mick's arms to face the other man. "I love you too, Mick. You know I do. I always have."
"I never pictured you as the kind of guy who needed to hear someone say they loved you," Mick said softly, choosing his words carefully. "I've always thought you were the kind of person who had a hard time saying them yourself."
His eyes met Josef's, trying to read the emotions hidden in those dark depths. But whatever Josef was feeling, he was keeping it well hidden. Mick couldn't read his expression, but whatever Josef felt, he would try to understand that emotion and sympathize with it.
"I've only been in love once before," Josef whispered. "You know how that turned out. I can't deal with something like that happening again. And I guess that's why I'm scared of saying those words. I'm afraid that if I say them too much, I'll lose the person I love."
"I've lost the people I've loved too, you know," Mick told him, raising his hand to brush gentle fingertips across Josef's cheek. "They age and die -- or they're like Coraline. But it's different with you. Neither one of us is going anywhere. I'm not going to leave you, Josef. Ever."
"Don't make promises you might not be able to keep, Mick," Josef told him, shaking his head. "Like you said, eternity's a long time. You might get tired of me. You might find somebody else. Or you might just decide you can't put up with me any more."
Mick shook his head stubbornly, negating everything Josef had just said. "You must be crazy. Leave the man who owns my heart and soul?" He took one of Josef's hands, brushing his lips across the other man's fingertips as their eyes met. "It'll never happen."
"Never?" Josef's laugh sounded shaky; he tilted his head to the side, giving Mick that smile that he loved. "I always said that I'd never let a man sleep with me. But here I am, going to bed with a man for the first time in nearly four hundred years. Never say never."
Josef was going to sleep with him. This wasn't going to be a matter of trying to seduce him into bed, of convincing him that he wouldn't be hurt and that he was doing the right thing. Josef wanted to be with him, despite his fears.
If he was capable of crying real tears, Mick would have. Instead, he did the only thing he could think of to do at the moment -- he wrapped his arms around Josef, pulling him close and burying his face against the other man's neck, breathing in his scent.
When he felt that he could look at Josef without his throat closing up and preventing him from speaking, he finally raised his head, whispering into the other man's ear. "You won't regret it, Josef. I promise. I'll make tonight a memory you'll want to save forever."
"I'll want to save tonight for eternity just for the fact that this might be the first time I've ever told anybody I love them without it having to be pulled out of me," Josef said, trying to laugh, his voice sounding shaky. "And for the fact that I'm sleeping with you for the first time."
"Only the first time of many, sweetheart," Mick breathed into his ear, his voice soft and seductive. Moving back slightly from Josef, he bent quickly, slipping one arm behind the shorter man's knees, the other behind his back, and lifting him into his arms.
Josef's eyes widened in surprise, but he didn't protest as Mick headed towards the bedroom. His arms wound around his boyfriend's neck, his eyes not leaving Mick's face as they moved into the shadowy recesses of the bedroom and Mick closed the door with his foot.
Heading for the bed, Mick could feel his pulse quicken, his breath start to come faster. It was up to him to make this a night that they would both remember for eternity -- and to give Josef a night that would take away all of the fears he'd carried with him for so long.***