Paint the Sky with Stars

[emerald1972]

Title: Paint the Sky with Stars
Fandom: Moonlight
Pairing/Characters: Josef/Mick
Rating: Low Level NC17
Disclaimer: All publicly recognisable 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 any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Two different nights, decades apart, each with their own promise set to a backdrop of fireworks.

posted to moonlight_slash and smallfandomfest

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Josef checked his reflection in the rearview mirror one last time, took a quick inventory of his hair, donned a pair of aviator shades, and then gunned the engine of his Ferrari. He was meeting Mick in half an hour. Beth had seen fit to loosen the chain just long enough to allow Mick a ‘boys night out’, and Josef intended to make the most of it.

They were headed to some outdoor event, “A rock festival”, or so Mick had described. Not exactly Josef’s idea of painting the town red, but there would be music, and dancing, and Freshies at a price…

…And there would be Fireworks.

There had been another night, a different outdoor event. There had been fireworks on that night as well, in more ways than one.

Josef relaxed one arm out the window, the hand of the other loosely gripping the steering wheel as he pointed the car Northbound, and let his thoughts drift with the rhythm of the night’s highway.

“Oh, fuck.” One hand braced against the wall of the alleyway, Josef rested the other on top of Mick’s head, more for balance than guidance. Mick certainly didn’t need any guidance, that much had been established within the first five seconds. He was currently sunk to his knees, amidst the grit and grime of L.A city’s streets, giving Josef one of the best blow jobs he’d had this side of half a century.

They’d attended an evening at the Hollywood Bowl with the Philharmonic. Orchestral entertainment wasn’t exactly Mick’s scene, Josef was aware of that, but he’d been given free tickets, and Mick looked as if he could do with a night out. It had been six month since Coraline, and the fire. Josef knew events still weighed heavy on Mick’s mind.

So they’d gone, and there had been music, and dancing, and Freshies at a price. And there had been Fireworks, a pyrotechnical, laser light show of binary kits, and hanging charges that had lit up the Los Angeles night sky.

The last of the Fireworks were still bursting overhead, when Mick took Josef by complete surprise. Dragging him, unannounced, into a side street as they headed back into the heart of the city.

“What would you say if I blew you? Right here, right now.”

Mick was already on his knees, Josef’s cock released from its constraints, lips and tongue working the length of the shaft, before Josef even had a chance to think of a suitable response.

And it was good, oh god it was good. Josef had almost lost track of the years - decades - he’d been waiting for, fantasising about a moment like this. Coraline herself had initiated a number of false starts. Mick had never seemed interested - Until now.

Josef caressed a hand over the top of Mick’s head, his fingers moving downward, tracing the contours of Mick’s jaw. He slipped a thumb into Mick’s mouth, felt himself on Mick’s lips; groaned as he felt his balls tighten, drawing up closer to his body.

And then his mind was shifting gears, no longer focused on his impending orgasm. Josef wanted more. Opportunities, such as this, weren’t likely to present themselves twice.

“Mick,” Josef tapped a commanding finger against the side of Mick’s face, bidding Mick rise, “Mick, wait, stop. I don’t…”

“Am I doing something wrong?” Mick was on his feet then. Head tilted, his expression masked with confusion.

Josef snorted a laugh, his hasty reassurance tinged with acid tongued wit. “Trust me, Mick, if you were doing anything wrong you would have known about it by now.”

“Then why…”

“…I want to do this properly,” the very last flare of light, and colour burst above them in the distance. “You’re worth more to me than a quick blowjob in the middle of the street, Mick.” Josef shifted toward Mick then, his lips pressed against Mick’s ear, “Let me take you to a hotel.”

“And do what?” Mick swallowed nervously. This was supposed to have been a quick statement. A point he had decided to make for himself, and then move on, nothing left to see here. Josef was forcing him to consider otherwise.

“Paint the sky with stars.” Josef took a momentary step back, grinning as he gestured grandiose towards the heavens. And then he was moving back into Mick’s space. His lips pressed once more against Mick’s ear, “Anything, nothing. Whatever you want.”

Whatever he wanted. Mick hesitated, uncertain, and unprepared. Another moment of two to think, a proposition considered, and weighed. And then Mick was nodding his ascent.

“Alright.”

Josef had questions of his own, as they moved hurriedly through neon lit streets. ‘Where the hell had Mick learned to suck cock so well?’ for one, and ‘Why here, why now?” for another.

Questions could wait. For the time being all that mattered was getting where they were going. Josef spied a suitable looking establishment along the way, clean, discrete, most likely stocked with supplies they would need.

Taking charge, Josef had procured a room, paid the requisite amount from a wad of cash drawn from his inner suit pocket, acquired a key, and was just now attempting to co-ordinate the manoeuvring of both of them through an unlocked doorway. The two of them tangled up in a heated frenzy of limbs, and fangs.

“What’s brought all this on anyway?” Josef managed through a series of rapid-fire kisses as they headed for the bed in the middle of the room. It seemed at least one question couldn’t wait.

“You’re the one who’s always telling me I should accept my Vampire nature.” Mick shrugged as he fell backwards toward the mattress below, aided by a hand exerting pressure, placed in the middle of his chest.

“Mick?” Josef hovered over Mick’s supine form, one eyebrow arched in bemusement, “Exactly what part of the memo, ‘we suck blood not…”

“…Yeah, ok.” Mick cut Josef off with an embarrassed huff. And then he was launching an attempt at a lengthier explanation. Tripping, and stumbling over a cascade of words flooding forth, tinged with nerves, and arousal.

“Mick,” Josef placed a finger against Mick’s lips, and halted Mick’s outpouring. “Don’t worry about it. We can talk later.”

“But you wanted to…” Mick’s brow scrunched with confusion, even as his breathing fell ragged at the touch of Josef’s fingers moving deftly over buttons, and other fastenings.

“It doesn’t seem so important now.” Josef stripped Mick of his clothing, and then followed suit with his own. And then his lips were tracing the path where his fingers had been. “You’re magnificent, you know that, don’t you.”

“Thanks.” Mick didn’t know what else to say.

Hours passed. The two of them locked in an intimate dance; Josef setting the pace, changing the tempo every so often, bringing them both to the brink of crescendo, and then dropping back down again. Mick had to admit, even as he cursed, and growled, and bared his fangs in Josef’s face, only to be met with an arched brow grin, and a titter of wry amusement, Josef had surprised him. He’d expected ‘good’. After near four centuries it was reasonable to assume Josef would know what he was doing. That much Mick had been proven correct on, Josef was a consummate lover. What Mick hadn’t expected was ‘gentle’. He hadn’t considered for a moment he might find a certain level of tenderness in Josef’s considerations.

Mick hadn’t expected to be loved…

There was a moment, just before Josef had allowed them to slip over the edge, together. Mick had been on top then, head thrown back, muscles, and tendons straining, snarling his pleasure to the paint chipped, plaster ceiling above them. Josef’s hand was on Mick’s hip, guiding the pace of Mick’s movement, the other wrapped firm around the shaft of Mick’s cock. And for a moment, just for a moment, in that no-man’s land hovering between plateau, and release their gazes had locked.

Mick had seen the emotion etched clear ahead of Josef’s lust, and impending orgasm then. And Josef had silently berated himself for letting his guard slip.

“So explain to me how us having sex equates to you being more of a Vampire, Mick.” Josef gave Mick a moment to settle when they were done, waiting until the rhythm of Mick’s breathing had calmed, his heart rate slowed, and then rephrased his question from before. For now, at least, it seemed other issues could wait. Josef almost breathed a sigh of relief.

“Because this was the last thread of mortality I was still clinging on to.” Mick lay stretched out on his side, next to Josef’s supine form on the bed. His head tucked into the crook of Josef’s shoulder, one leg draped over Josef’s lower body. Eyes closed, drifting comfortable as he enjoyed the sensation of Josef’s fingers running an absentminded scale up and down his spine, Mick had taken a few moments to reply. “The way I was raised, what we just did, was unthinkable. It didn’t happen. It would never have happened, not if I’d been human.”

“You’re not a virgin though, are you?” It was a rhetorical question, delivered with Josef’s usual trademark aplomb, replete with a layer of dry, chortled wit, “No virgin I’ve ever met sucks cock like that.”

“Well, thank you.” Mick replied with a curt nod. He assumed he was supposed to take that as a compliment. “And no, I’m not a virgin. War is hell, you find what comfort you can, with who you can.”

As if that one sentence encapsulated everything.

“You could apply the same to us,” in a fluid, rapidity of movement, Josef shifted back over Mick, pausing to nip at the line of Mick’s throat, leaving pinprick trails of blood in his wake. “We find comfort where we can, or pleasure, at least, with who we can.”

Mick groaned, his arms drawn around Josef’s shoulders, legs wrapped around Josef’s waist, as Josef began to ride up against him. “And what about you, and me? Is this comfort, or pleasure?”

“Both.”

That night had been the start, a legacy of more than two decades. There had been others, on the side, and in-between. But always, always they circled back to each other.

Only once had Mick broached the issue of emotions, remembering back to that first night, the expression he’d seen that Josef hadn’t quite been able to hide.

“Josef?” Mick asked one night as the lay together; both drained, and filled, slick with perspiration.

“What?”

“Do you love me?”

Josef had thought for a moment, brow lined with consideration, before responding simply, “Yes.”

They’d left it at that. Josef hadn’t offered anything further, and Mick hadn’t asked. In that moment neither of them had wanted to upset the established order of things. They were best friends, brothers, soul mates tipping over into lovers. Beyond an unknown place lay silently accepted, but never explored.

“You having a good night?”

They were back in the present then. Stoned on pot-laced blood, Josef laid back in Mick’s arms, surrounded by the driving, thumping din of rock music that permeated the air around them, a finger tracing patterns over the skin of Mick’s forearm drawn across his chest.

“Surprisingly yes.” Josef turned to Mick, an arched brow grin set in place. Relaxed, teasing, the way it had always been with them. He lifted up a hand, and patted the side of Mick’s face.

For his own part, Mick rolled his eyes, and snorted a brief laugh at Josef’s patronisation.

And then patronisation was turning to caress. His fingers interlaced with Josef’s own, Mick brought Josef’s hand around to meet his lips. A kiss placed in the middle of Josef’s palm, before Mick rested his forehead against Josef’s own.

The first of the evenings firework display burst overhead. And for a moment they were transported back to another time, another place. The spark still remained.

It was Josef who broke the embrace. Saying nothing, Josef cleared his throat, and offered Mick a brief smile. And then he was sitting up, and shifting forward slightly, placing a more platonic distance between them. Mick was with Beth, for now his commitment was to her. Josef wasn’t going to interfere with that. For the time being, Mick was happy. That’s all that mattered.

Besides, he had reasoned, it’s not as if they had made any promises over the years. Not to each other, not in so many words. And despite what had gone before, Mick still clung to those last remnants of mortality. He wasn’t ready to explore the spaces in-between, that unknown place that lay beyond best friends, and brothers, soul mates tipping over into lovers. And Mick had always meant more to Josef than a quick blowjob in the middle of the street.

Joseff waited until enough time had passed, and then settled back into Mick’s arms.

“You know I never figured you to have such an overwhelming sense of honor.” Mick remarked as he drew another arm across Josef’s chest, a little looser this time.

“It balances out my under whelming sense of decency.” Josef retorted.

“The two of you look very cosy together.”

“Beth.” Mick scrambled to his feet, explanation at the ready, and then stopped. “Wait, you followed me here?”

Mick’s disapproval was evident in his folded arm stance, and the tilt of his head.

Beth stifled a laugh, her own expression brimming with smug confidence, and pointed to a woman standing nearby that Mick recognised as one of Beth’s co-workers. “Girls night out, remember? Teresa, and I had plans for this evening as well. Looks like we both coincidentally ended up at the same place.”

“Looks like.” Mick backed down, his hands hastily shoved in his pockets as he affected a sheepish look of contrition. And then his tone was shifting eager, “Hey, while we’re all here we might as well make it a foursome.”

“No,” Josef spoke up then, forcing a smile as he rose to his own feet, and waved a hastily dismissive hand. “It’s ok, you two, or three, or - however many, have fun. I’ve spied a particularly delicious looking morsel over there I plan to become better acquainted with. And quite frankly,” Josef shot Beth a sardonic grin, “hanging out with the two of you, cramps my style.”

“Bye Josef.” Beth called after Josef’s retreating form, her own supercilious wit coming through behind sugar coated tones.

Josef was already a speck in the distance, moving effortlessly through the gathered throngs. And then he was slowing his pace, ears pricked to a conversation carried on the evening’s breeze, coming from behind.

Mick speaking first, voice brimming with more acts of contrition. “Beth, listen, me and Josef, we were just…”

And Beth cajoling, reassuring, “Mick, it’s ok. You and Josef are good together, I’m glad you’ll have a friend when I’m gone,” and then probing, prodding, tongue in cheek, “So what are you and Josef planning to do once I’m not around to keep an eye on the two of you?”

Josef stopped in his tracks, his ears still tuned to the sound of Mick and Beth’s conversation. And then he was smiling, shifting to an unabashed grin that spread across his features. He’d known, he’d always known. Mick would come around, eventually. Josef had learnt long ago to cultivate patience where Mick was concerned.

“Me, and Josef?” Mick’s words were punctuated by another burst of light, and colour overhead…

“We’re going to paint the sky with stars.