Title: Pictures of A Gone World
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Josef Kostan/Mick St. John
Fandom: Moonlight
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,716
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 as he leaned back in his chair, picking up the package of photos he'd been sent. Photos from long ago, he assumed; he'd been told that they would hold some interest for him, though he couldn't imagine why. Those photos were too old to have anything to do with him.

His stomach tightened as a thought occurred to him. These pictures had been taken in the 1930's, when he was only a child. Could it be that they were photos of someone he knew, someone who had been in his life back then? Could they somehow be threatened now?

The only people he knew who had been around back then were .... vampires. And there was one vampire in particular who was closer to his heart than anyone had ever been. He was the person who Mick would most want to protect from any kind of trouble.

Josef. Maybe these pictures were of Josef, images that could incriminate him in some crime, photos that could put his life into an uproar. His heart thumping in his chest, Mick opened the manila envelope with fingers that were suddenly trembling.

It was obvious at first glance that these pictures had been developed in a hurry; whatever roll of film they had come from had obviously been around for a long time. The images were grainy black and white; even with his vampiric vision, he had to squint to make them seem clearer.

He spread the photos out, perusing each one carefully. Josef was in every photo; his image seemed to leap out at Mick the moment his eyes alighted on each picture. Josef smiling, Josef drinking, Josef with a group of people, Josef looking angry, happy, annoyed.

There were twenty pictures in all. And in every one of them, Josef was with someone who had been well-known in the 1930s. All of these people were in their graves, but the man he loved still looked exactly the same, Mick thought, his uneasiness deepening.

If these pictures got out, they could raise a lot of uncomfortable questions. People would want to know what Josef Kostan was doing in that era, rubbing shoulders with people who were influential in politics, glittering show business notables, and financial giants.

Who could want to bring Josef down? Mick didn't have to look far to find a dozen or more names pouring into his mind, names that most people, human or vampire, would recognize. People who were at least as powerful and influential as Josef himself was.

But so many of those people weren't vampires. And they couldn't possibly know what Josef was. His lover was always very careful to keep his personal life -- and the knowledge that he wasn't human -- hidden from his business associates, and even more so from his enemies.

Mick shuffled through the pictures again, wishing that Josef was here and that he could talk to his boyfriend about this. If it was some oblique threat to Josef, then why had these photos been sent to him? It didn't make sense.

If someone wanted to warn him that Josef was in danger, that was understandable. But what could he do? Only try to keep watch over the man he loved, protect him as much as possible, and keep any sign of impending danger from touching him.

Even if that had been the intent, Mick still didn't have any idea of why those pictures had been sent to him. Did whoever had sent them think that seeing his boyfriend with people who were long dead would make him jealous, sever him from Josef in some way?

He almost snorted aloud at the thought. If that was their idea, it would fail miserably. He didn't care who Josef might have been with in the past. Josef was with him now -- and anyway, he knew that his lover had only been in love once before, and that person was gone as well.

No, if the intent behind this had been to turn him away from Josef, that wouldn't work. But if the intent was to somehow warn him that Josef might be facing some unknown danger -- well, then his senses were awake, alert, and ready to leap to his boyfriend's defense.

Mick's head jerked up at the sudden knock on his door; he swept the pictures back into the manila envelope and slid it under some other papers on his desk, where it couldn't easily be found. He'd worry about those photos later -- preferably after he'd talked to Josef.

He knew who was at the door before he reached it; he could sense Josef outside, feel the other man's impatience to come into his apartment. He wasn't surprised at that; Josef didn't like to be kept waiting, even if he wasn't an expected guest.

Opening the door, he leaned against the frame and quirked an eyebrow at his boyfriend. "What are you doing here?" he drawled, trying to keep himself from smiling. But he couldn't hold back his smile for long; he was always too happy to see Josef not to let it show.

"I was in the neighborhood," Josef told him, raising an eyebrow at his boyfriend and crossing his arms over his chest. Mick knew that wasn't true; Josef didn't hang out in this part of the city unless he was coming to see Mick, and then he made his way to the apartment as quickly as he could.

"Come in here, you." Mick mock-growled the words, standing back so Josef could come in and locking the door after him. He turned to the other man, sliding his arms around Josef's waist and nuzzling his cheek against his boyfriend's hair. "I'm glad to see you."

"I'll be glad when your lease on this place runs out and you can move in with me," Josef sighed, leaning back against him. "Do you know what a pain in the ass it is to drag myself over here just so we can make love on the nights you don't feel like being in the lap of luxury?"

"Only a couple more months, babe," Mick breathed in his ear, tightening his arms around the other man's waist. He wanted to take Josef upstairs to his bedroom now, without any further ado, but he had to ask his boyfriend about those photos first.

"Josef, I think you need to see this," he said, reluctantly pulling away from his boyfriend and going to his desk. He picked up the envelope and handed it to Josef with a frown. "I don't know who sent me these or why, but they obviously involve you."

Josef took the envelope, sliding the photos out of it. He looked at them all, taking what seemed like a very long to do so. When he finally looked at Mick again, he was scowling and shaking his head, but he didn't look nervous or even rattled -- only annoyed.

"This world is long gone, Mick," he said, tossing the pictures back onto his boyfriend's desk. "I got my own copy of them -- and I know who sent them. Believe me, they've been dealt with. I'm just sorry they sent you copies and made you worry."

"What's this about, Josef?" Mick asked, frowning. "And why would somebody send me pictures of a gone world that you were a part of? The only thing I could think of is that either it's a threat against you, or a warning that somebody's after you."

"Somebody's always after me," Josef told him, shrugging and leaning against the desk, shoving his hands into his pockets. "But I know how to take care of myself. And besides --" he added, pulling something out of his pocket and holding it out to Mick, ".... I've got these."

It took Mick a moment to realize that Josef was holding a roll of film out to him. The negatives. Josef had the negatives. Had they been sent to him -- or had he moved quickly and decisively when he'd gotten the pictures to remove any threat that might be directed at him?

He didn't want to know. Whatever Josef might have done, he'd apparently neutralized any threat that might have been aimed at him. And if he had chosen a less than legal way to do that, then Mick wasn't going to probe into whatever action he might have taken.

"Do whatever you want with them," Josef said, tossing the negatives onto Mick's desk with a casual shrug. "I'm sure others have probably gotten copies of those pictures by now, too. I've already got a cover story that's worked before. It'll work again."

"And that cover story is .... what?" asked Mick, arching an eyebrow. "That the person in the pictures is your dad, and that you literally look just like him?" He could see where the ruse would work; after all, most people who Josef dealt with in business already believed that lie.

"Of course." Now it was Josef's turn to raise an inquiring eyebrow at his boyfriend. "That's an old story, but it's always worked pretty well for me. And it's not unheard of, either. It'll be believed, simply because people want to believe the simple explanation."

"Let's hope those images can be explained with something that simple," Mick said with a sigh. "If not, then we might have a problem." He couldn't help feeling worried; he couldn't stop thinking that whoever had sent him those pictures was trying to send a warning -- or a message.

Whatever that message might be, he wasn't going to worry too much about it unless Josef told him that there was cause to. But Mick couldn't keep back a feeling of impending danger -- and he was sure that it was heading not only in his boyfriend's direction, but in his own as well.

***