Work Text:
“Right, what have you got?” Josef peered across at the piece of paper Mick held in his hand.
“A ball of string, man with a bowler hat, and a bowl of cherries.” Mick stole a quick glance at the paper in Josef’s own hand. “You?”
“A watering can, the ice-cream man, and The Getty Centre.”
“Right, well we’re in The Getty Centre already,” Mick’s brow furrowed with concentration as he looked around the building, “so that must mean…”
“Mick,” Josef shot Mick a sideways look, and arched a pointed eyebrow “please don’t tell me you’re actually taking this seriously?”
“Sure, why not. Beth thought it’d be fun to do something different for her birthday this year.” The tone of Mick’s voice held a clear lack of conviction.
“Of course.” Josef’s voice brimmed with overtones of mock politeness. “And running around a museum in the middle of the day, looking for,” Josef trailed a quick hand through the air, “the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, is your idea of fun these days is it?” Josef clapped a hand on Mick’s shoulder, and snorted a laugh. “You live life on the edge, my friend.”
“No, but…”
“…Come on,” Josef nudged an elbow into Mick’s ribs, halting Mick’s formed protest. “I’ve got a bottle of Whiskey with our name on it waiting in one of the storage rooms downstairs.”
Mick let out a sudden rush of breath, relief etched over his expression.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
“I thought you said you had a bottle of Whiskey for us, Josef?” Mick eyed the suspicious looking bottle of crimson liquid in Josef’s hand as he sat on the tiled floor of the windowless room, and leant his back against the wall behind.
“I do.” Josef settled in next to Mick, a grin forming over his features. “The kind that gets us drunk.”
Josef uncapped the lid, and downed a few quick mouthfuls, before handing the bottle over to Mick.
“So what are we drinking to?” Mick hesitated for a moment, and then took a hefty swig, feeling the thick, syrupy burn of blood laced whiskey as it slid down his throat.
“To the ice-cream man,” Josef took the bottle from Mick’s grasp and raised it in a mock salute, “wherever he may be, I have no intention of looking for him.”
“Yeah, alright.” Mick furrowed his brow in an expression of barely disguised annoyance as he watched Josef take a draw of the whiskey laced blood, and then offer the bottle back to him. “So it wasn’t one of Beth’s better ideas.”
“Ooh, I just thought of something else we should drink to.” Josef reached for the bottle once again, his voice edged with put on tones of childlike excitement.
“Oh yeah, what’s that?” Mick snorted a laugh, and shook his head as he handed the bottle for Josef to take.
“The understatement of the year.” Josef grinned, and arched a teasing brow in Mick’s direction as he pretended to toast the sentiment. “Cheers.”
“Tell me again why we’re friends, Josef?” Mick shot Josef a sideways look, and then snorted another quick laugh.
“Because we understand one another, Mick.” Josef’s expression fell serious for the moment.
Mick appeared contemplative, and then nodded his agreement, knocking back a few more quick mouthfuls of the contents of the bottle he had just taken from Josef’s proffered hand. Already he was beginning to feel the slow and steady hum of relaxation as the effects of the alcohol laced blood began to flow through his body.
“Do you remember that birthday party I threw for you that time?” Josef accepted the bottle being passed back to him, and downed some more of the contents himself.
“Which one?” For a moment Mick looked lost, Josef had thrown many parties, some for him, most just for the hell of it, over the years.
“1984, Mick.”
Josef chortled with wry amusement as Mick hurriedly grabbed the bottle out of his hands, and gulped down a sizeable amount of the contents.
Mick didn’t care. He was going to have to be more than slightly buzzed if Josef intended to bring that particular event up.
“I remember. Your Ferrari ended up in the swimming pool, and we ended up with six dead freshies on our hands. Wasn’t that the first time either one of us had ever required the services of The Cleaner?”
Mick was pointedly avoiding bringing up the real highlight of the nights events. The party games he had played with Josef, later that same evening.
“Probably,” Josef shrugged, and then pried the bottle from Mick’s fingers, setting it to one side. “But that’s not what I was referring to.”
“I know.” Mick swallowed back rising nerves.
“So, do you remember?” Josef’s hand cupped Mick’s chin, and tilted Mick’s face towards his. And then Josef’s lips were being pressed against Mick’s, his tongue probing the recesses of Mick’s mouth. And Mick was just drunk enough to allow the kiss to happen. “You tasted like blood and whiskey to me on that night as well.”
Josef broke the kiss, and whispered the words into Mick’s ear, his hair brushing against the side of Mick’s face, a finger tracing the contours of Mick’s jaw. Mick was desperately trying not to let it show, but Josef sensed the barely perceptible tremors that ran through Mick’s body, and scented Mick’s arousal.
“Beth’s going to be wondering where I am.” Mick was on his feet then, knocking over the bottle of whiskyfied blood in his haste. “I need to get back.”
“Oh, really?” Josef raised an eyebrow, and pointed to the tell-tale bulge in Mick’s pants. “Like that?”
“Crap.” Mick let out an exasperated breath, and sat back down, away from Josef this time, his back up against the wall on the opposite side of the room.
For a moment neither one of them spoke. The air between them cut thick with tension.
“So what is this?” Mick’s voice, etched with indignation, broke through the uncomfortable silence, “Your idea of more party games?”
“No. You already know the sort of party games I like to play, Mick.” Josef kept his tone matter of fact, Mick no longer needing to be reminded of the past with such blunt force trauma. “Why don’t we just call this an intervention?”
“An intervention?” Mick snorted a disbelieving laugh, and rolled his eyes. “Go on then, tell me why you think I need an intervention, Josef.”
Mick’s expression was a pointed mark of challenge.
“Beth...”
“…Yeah, I thought so.” Mick’s voice took on a bitter edge, the alcohol in his system turning his previous annoyance to righteous anger. “You can’t stand for me to be happy with her, can you? You messed things up with Simone, and now you expect everyone around you to be as miserable and lonely as you are. Well fuck that, Kostan. And fuck you.”
“Why, are you offering?” Josef cocked a salacious eyebrow, and then held up a placating hand when he saw the dark look on Mick’s face. “That’s not what this is about, Mick.” Josef shifted to sit alongside Mick, still maintaining a respectable distance between them. “Look at you. You’re hiding out in a storage room, drinking whiskey chased blood like some naughty little boy who’s terrified they’re going to be caught with their hand in the cookie jar. And the alternative you’ve been given is to run around some museum seeking the whereabouts of a milkman, and his happy little watering can? Mick, come on.”
Josef’s voice fell exasperated then, and Mick felt the need to point out that the milkman, and watering can, had actually been on Josef’s card, seeking to distract Josef from his line of conversation.
“Milkman, man with a bowling hat, the hurdy-gurdy man come singing songs of love…who the fuck cares, that’s not the point.” Josef wasn’t going to be dissuaded. “How long have you and Beth been together?”
“Two years, last May. You attended our anniversary party, remember.” Mick’s focus locked on the wall opposite, his eyes refusing to meet Josef’s gaze.
“Two years,” Josef repeated the words back to Mick and shifted closer, placing a hand on Mick’s shoulder, “and in all that time has she gotten any closer to accepting what you are? Really accepting it I mean.”
“Beth accepts me for what I am, Josef.” Mick’s snapped tone belied his uncertainty.
“Does she?” Josef pressed his point further. “Then why do I get the impression that she seems to insist on forcing you back into the mortal world?”
“She’s not forcing me to do anything, Josef.” Mick’s brow scrunched in a pointed expression of frustration at his friends seeming lack of ability to understand this was more about what he wanted, rather than what Beth insisted upon. “I want to be part of the mortal world; it’s what I’ve always wanted.”
“Mick,” Josef’s hand shifted to the back of Mick’s neck, fingers entwining casually through tendrils of hair, “you can’t force yourself to be part of something you’re not.”
“So I should just accept that I’m a monster, and be done with it, is that it?” Mick reached for the upturned bottle, and quickly drained what remained of its contents.
“No.” Josef cupped Mick’s chin once again. “Look at me. If there’s anything you’ve taught me in the years we’ve known each other, it’s that you can maintain humanity, and still accept that you’re not human. You should try taking your own advice sometimes, Mick.”
Josef’s tone was devoid of the mockery Mick might otherwise have expected to accompany those words.
“Yeah, I know.” Mick’s admittance was couched in reluctance. He hated the fact that he knew Josef was right.
“So then what are you going to do about it?”
It was a point Josef was forcing Mick to consider. The ball was in his court. Now it was Mick drawing Josef into his space, Mick’s lips pressed against Josef’s own. Josef moaned and arched into Mick’s embrace, hoping the kiss would turn into something more. It didn’t, not this time at least.
Mick broke the kiss and pressed his forehead against Josef’s, words whispered into the barely perceptible space between them. “I need to get back to Beth now, ok?”
“Yeah, you do.” Josef pushed Mick away then, and clapped his hand on Mick’s shoulder in a gesture of familiar camaraderie. “Go get ‘em tiger.”
Mick laughed, and got to his feet. Josef watched then as Mick began to move off, pausing briefly when he reached the doorway of the room. Mick turned back to face Josef. Gazes locked together, and the look on Mick’s face was unmistakable in that moment.
“I know how you feel about me, Josef. I’ve always known. And maybe I feel the same way. But I can’t give Beth up, not after I fought so hard to have her in the first place.”
And there was something else in Mick’s expression, something other than just the unspoken acceptance of mutual feelings. It was a promise, of things to come, of rewards given to those who were prepared to wait the mortal span of a lifetime.
Josef picked up the empty bottle lying at his feet, and toasted Mick with it, the gesture genuine this time.
“Here’s to Immortality…and, to eternity.”