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Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of Moonlight or any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
"I was aiming for the heart." Mick says as a nearly 400 year old vampire pulls a large chunk of wood from his chest with an irritated look.
Josef moves with almost blurring speed and smacks Mick in the back of his head. "I know Coraline is crazy, but I've never known insanity to be passed on by a turning." Mick just looked at him confused and a little frightened. "I know she told you how old I am. It's nothing short of insane for a baby like yourself to try and kill me. I assume that was your intention. Just annoys me, frankly."
"Are you going to kill me now?" Mick asks, looking up at Josef from beneath impossibly long lashes. There's something almost pleading in that look.
Josef sighs, "So you were hoping to die, is that it?" He smacks Mick again, this time backhanded across his cheek. "Well, I'm afraid I won't be obliging your suicidal tendencies today."
Mick nods slowly as he gets to his feet again. He doesn't argue. He just leaves. Josef can see he is going to have to have a little talk with Coraline. No matter how pretty the boy is, she should never have turned him. He's not going to make it as a vampire, not when he can't stand what he is. Josef doesn't expect him to make it through the decade.
~*~*~
Coraline had blood dripping from her chin and fingernails, it was even in her long black hair. "I was aiming for the heart." There's an oddly dull quality to her voice, as if there is nobody behind it. She looks at her husband in disgust as he pulls a shard of wood from his chest.
"You weren't," is all Mick says.
She snarls at him and is about to attack him again when someone else walks through the door. "Coraline." There's a touch of command to the voice. "Enough." She seems to freeze.
Only her mouth moves when she responds. "He's mine. I can do with him as I please." She says, sounding like nothing more than a petulant child.
"Now, now, slavery has been out of favor for some time, Coraline." Josef says, his usual light tones returning. "Go." She does, with a growling sound.
Mick doesn't speak. He just watches her go with that same tortured look in his eyes, the one that Josef had thought spelled his death fifteen years ago. He's stronger than Josef had given him credit for.
"What did you do to incur the wife's wrath?" He asks with a smile, as if Mick isn't standing in front of him still dripping with his own blood.
Mick shrugs. "I'm apparently not what she wanted me to be." He says without inflection.
Josef laughs, he can't help himself. "Come on. We'll get you cleaned up and fed. You'll be staying with me for awhile, but I expect you to find your own place."
Mick gives a short nod of his head. "Okay." There's a pause as if he's considering his next words. "Do I have a choice?"
"About finding your own place? No." Josef answers with a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "As for the rest, always. You'll always have a choice with me, Mick." There's a message there that Mick doesn't quite understand, but he thinks he likes it.
~*~*~
"I was aiming for the heart." Mick's eyes are still silvery. Blood is dripping from his fingers, but none touches his mouth. The broken end of a pool cue still protrudes from his chest. "I started the fire, then tried. I couldn't make myself stay."
Josef, tugs him in the door, ignoring the mess that's being made of his new carpeting. "Jesus, Mick." He presses him into a chair, only centuries of learning to control himself no matter how scared or nervous keeps his hands from shaking as he draws out the wood. "You can't do this." He pulls his friend to him, blood streaking his once pristine white shirt. "She's gone. Killing yourself won't bring her back. It won't even the score, or any of the other nonsense you've told yourself." He fights back his own tears as he cradles his friend's head in his hands, fingers running through the thick dark hair, soothing. "I saved you from her years ago. I'm not letting her take you from me now." He usually keeps the fierceness from his voice when he says things like this. He usually doesn't say things like this, not to Mick.
Mick allows Josef to pull his ruined clothes away and gently wash the blood from a wound that is only an inch from the heart. He allows himself to be redressed in soft clothes and tucked away into a bed. He allows it all, but he doesn't participate. He's broken in ways that Josef isn't sure he knows how to fix.
Josef gently strokes his hair away from his face. "If I thought you'd drink, I'd offer you one of my donors. I'll have to make a call so that I can get you some of that ridiculous bottled blood you exist on." He's pretty sure that he fails spectacularly at keeping the concern from his voice.
Mick's eyes are hollow when he repeats the only words he's spoken since arriving on Josef's doorstep. "I was aiming for the heart."
As Josef softly pulls the door closed, he whispers, "You found one."
~*~*~
Mick is angry, pacing. "I was aiming for the heart."
Josef is sitting on the edge of Mick's desk, looking calm and in control, in other words how he always looks. "I know."
"You should have let me do it." Mick snarls. "It was my responsibility."
Josef stands and stops Mick's restless movement with a light touch on his arm. "You would never be able to live with yourself. I can."
Mick is shaking his head. "No, it was my fault. I was to blame for what she became. You should have let me finish it."
"No, Mick, you weren't." Josef says in that quiet way he has that is twice as commanding as the loud brash orders he gives most of the time. "You didn't want her to know what you are. Maybe you could have prevented it, maybe not. Either way, her introduction into our world was as much her doing as it was yours. And what Beth became. It wasn't your fault. You didn't turn her, and you certainly didn't cause her to become what she did. Put the blame where it belongs, on Jonas. You killed him."
Mick has calmed, but there's still something a little wild in his eyes. "Why are you always saving me from myself?"
Josef smiled, "Am I?"
"Every time."
The smile leaves Josef, but his voice is still tightly controlled when he responds. The only sign that his control is slipping is the way his eyes are sliding into amber gold. "Fifty years ago, you were aiming for my heart. You found it, just not with the stake." They've been dancing this dance for half a century. He's tired of it.
Mick's confusion is evident in the way his brow creases and his utter silence. Some part of him understands though, because he's moving with almost glacial slowness, but he's pressing in closer and closer to Josef who makes no move in any direction. "You mean..." Mick gestures between them. "All these years?"
"It's why I didn't kill Coraline myself. How could I blame her for any of it." Josef says, still entirely too serious. "I might have made the same mistakes if I was her." He laughs, but it's not a happy sound. "Instead I made entirely different mistakes." He reaches a hand up to slide along, Mick's jaw. "But at least I kept you alive."
The confusion is fading, and Josef isn't sure how to read what's replacing it. He isn't sure until Mick's lips are on his. The kiss begins gently, but it can't stay that way, not with fifty years of desire behind it.