Moonlight Becomes You - PG13

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Lilly
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Moonlight Becomes You - PG13

Post by Lilly »

This is my winning entry from the MoonlightCon 2008 Fanfic writing contest, which challenged writers to compose a piece of Moonlight fan fiction, using 2500 words or less, given the title “Moonlight Becomes You.” It subsequently became the first part of a trilogy. The second piece, "Interlude," can be found here.

Disclaimer: I do not own Moonlight - or its characters. Every once in a while I like to take them out to play, but I always try to return them, none the worse for wear. No copyright infringement is ever intended.

Rating: PG13

First published: 5/2008


Moonlight Becomes You


Say it with music – at least so she’d heard. Of course, she had chosen music for them to dance to before and he had always waited patiently to see what she had selected. With her, he never knew if it was going to be Bill Haley or Beethoven. Her choices had often amused him, sometimes surprised him, but he had never complained. Their tastes in music often ran in quite opposite directions, but the truth was that their musical preferences paralleled their outlooks on life. One was a romantic optimist, the other a cynical realist. That they had found each other at all still amazed him.

He watched with a bemused expression as she fumbled a bit with her selection. She was usually so outgoing, so confident in her decisions. Yet, tonight she was like a school girl on her first date and, for reasons he could not begin to explain to himself, he was delighted at the thought. Delighted. Now there was a word he hadn’t used to describe himself in – well, forever. Why now did he get the intoxicating feeling that they were heading into uncharted territory?

As she stood across the room waiting for the song to begin, she turned expectantly towards him, the barely audible hiss of the older recording the only sound in the room.
Violins. A harp. Bing Crosby? He hadn’t seen that coming.

“Moonlight becomes you. It goes with your hair. You certainly know the right thing to wear. Moonlight becomes you – I’m thrilled at the sight. And I could get so romantic tonight…”

He raised his eyebrows slightly. He had no idea why she had chosen this particular song, but he was game to find out. With a deliberate nod in her direction, he held out his hand inviting her to join him.

“An oldie?” Although the song didn’t seem particularly old to him, he knew she would think so. It was the whole age difference thing. The actual difference in their ages never really concerned him as much as the difference in their perspectives, though. Well, that, and the reason for the age difference. That was the real sticking point. Tonight, however, he wouldn’t allow these fleeting shadows to cloud the warm smile on his face.

He watched her cross the floor, her high-heeled shoes falling silently on the oriental carpet. The only sound of her movement was the swish of the emerald satin of her dress as she floated into his waiting arms. Without missing a beat, he swept her into a dance and she instinctively melted into him, resting her cheek on his shoulder as they swayed together. Her warmth – and it ran far deeper than mere body heat - seared through the layers of his clothing as he held her close.

He looked down at her, his lips brushing her hair as he spoke. “I’m curious.”

He could feel her heart pounding against him, almost as if it were beating in his own chest. He had thrilled at how it had raced for him before, but tonight her scent was different. Adrenaline, he wondered. What was she so nervous about? He drew her in a bit tighter and waited. She would tell him when she was ready. And he had all the time in the world.

When she finally opened her lips to speak, she didn’t look up to meet his gaze as she usually did. Instead, she spoke softly, her mouth close to his neck.

“This song reminds me of you.”

He allowed a low chuckle.

“I’m serious. I guess it’s kind of silly – I mean, it’s supposed to be sung to a woman – but I…” She fell silent. This was so unlike her. She was never at a loss for words.

“I like it,” he lied earnestly. “But, Bing’s not really my type. Couldn’t you have had Ella sing it to me instead?”

She giggled. She never giggled. No, Sarah Whitley had a warm, throaty laugh that was completely uninhibited and honest. It was one of the many reasons he fell in love her.

Josef, on the other hand, was a master of half-truths, handing them out like calling cards to promote his own self-interests. It was not a skill he was accustomed to using to spare the feelings of another. He couldn’t remember the last time he was concerned with someone’s feelings, and he marveled at what this woman had done to him. Even so, regarding Sarah’s song choice, he wasn’t even being half truthful. Josef had never cared for the song – not when it was first recorded twelve years earlier for one of those inane Bob Hope / Bing Crosby “Road” pictures, and not in any version that had hit the charts since. It was bad enough he was dating a human. If that asinine drivel reminded Sarah of him, then perhaps he was in bigger trouble than he realized.

As for the comment about Crosby, it was true that there was no love lost there. Their paths had crossed more than once, as they had briefly moved in the same circles before Josef left Hollywood in the early forties. The crooner was so insufferably full of himself, prone to strutting about with self-importance peppered with paranoia, that Josef would have taken him for a vampire himself were it not for the fact that man regularly played his 18 holes in broad daylight rather than after midnight as Josef was wont to do.

Hope, on the other hand, was all right – for a human. He didn’t take himself too seriously. He had a quick, natural wit and a way with sarcasm that Josef could appreciate. He was also a much better golfer.

Personalities aside, Josef hated their movies. It wasn’t that he had anything against comedies, although he usually found irony much more to his taste. It was the sappy “buddies through thick and thin” premise that made his borrowed blood boil. Two guys sticking together through serial misadventures, giving each other grief at every turn and yet being there for one another when the going got rough? What a load of crap. No one had friendships like that – and certainly not vampires.

Whistling.

Josef rolled his eyes. If songs could have clichés, then here it was - the requisite Crosby whistling that assaulted his sensitive ears like a silver ice pick to his brain. His eyes darted about the room. Surely there was something he could drive into his own heart to put himself out of this misery. Nope, he’d still hear the damn whistling.

As the song drew to an end, Josef shook off the bitter reverie and refocused his attention on the beautiful woman in his arms, spinning her out with a flourish and just as fluidly pulling her tightly to him again.

“If I say I love you, I want you to know – it’s not just because there’s moonlight, although moonlight becomes you so.”

“You sure you’re not just teasing me, babe?” Josef finally broke the silence as the stylus on the phonograph began its scritch, scritch, scritch on the center groove. Even at that, he wondered. She hadn’t been teasing him as much lately or playfully chiding him about his choice of tie or his uncommon knowledge of European history. His beautiful firecracker had become uncharacteristically introspective.

“Charlie, – I want to talk to you about something – and I didn’t know how to start,” Sarah pulled away from him to attend to the record and to gather her courage. Josef stood silently admiring her, as he waited for her to switch off the phonograph and return to his arms. “You know what they say – say it with music,” she offered as she took his hand and led him to the sofa. Kicking off her shoes and curling her legs up under her, she leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder with a sigh.

“I guess the song is kind of silly, but moonlight really does become you. I’ve seen how relaxed you are in the moonlight. You’re more – I don’t know – carefree? I’ve seen you looking at the stars when we walk through Central Park, even though you can hardly make them out with all the city lights. The way you breathe in the night air. You’re different at night – it’s like you come alive then.”

He looked down at her with a tight-lipped grin that quirked up just slightly on one side. You have no idea, he thought, but he said nothing as he allowed her to continue.

“You’re not the same during the day, Charlie. You’re uncomfortable – almost out of place.”

“What can I say, babe? I’m a night person.” Over the centuries, he had elevated evasiveness to an art form, but in modern day New York – the city that never sleeps - it was easier than usual to cover his unusual habits.

“It’s more than that – a whole lot more. Last week, when I caught my heel on the way down the stairs, somehow I ended up in your arms even though you had been behind me.” She lifted her eyes to search his face for a reaction, but he allowed nothing more than his most charming smile.

“How long have we been seeing each other?”

“Not long enough,” he quipped, waggling his eyebrows, while silently he counted four months, twenty-seven days.

“It’s been almost five months, Charlie. And - I’m not complaining, honestly I’m not – we’ve been to the opera, shows, movies, night clubs, museums, parties, but in all that time we’ve only had dinner together twice. And even then, you didn’t eat a thing.”

Josef opened his mouth to offer one of his stock explanations, but was cut off abruptly by her next question.

“You can’t, can you?”

“Can’t what?” He was stalling now. Why was he so damned attracted to feisty redheads? He knew darned well she wasn’t going to let this go.

“Can’t eat. Regular food, I mean. I’ve never seen you take so much as a bite. Well, once you did, but it ended up in your napkin when you thought I wasn’t looking. For a while I thought maybe you had some sort of terrible stomach disorder, but that’s not it. You’re much too healthy. Besides you drink an awful lot of alcohol for someone with digestive problems.”

“Sarah, Sweetheart…” His expression was almost pained.

“You can tell me – you know that, don’t you? You can tell me anything. Just don’t tell me it’s my imagination.”

Josef gracefully wrapped an arm around her and pulled her onto his lap. He pressed his lips together, his eyes trying to convey what came so difficult for him to say aloud – words he hadn’t spoken in well over 300 years.

“Sarah Elizabeth Whitley – I’m….”

He paused, shifting his gaze for a moment and moistening his lips as if to allow the words to flow more easily over them. Her eyes never left his face and her warm accepting smile never faltered as she waited. As his eyes found hers again, his voice was soft and low.

“…I’m hopelessly in love with you.”

With one hand on the back of her neck, fingers snaking up into her silken red hair, he pulled her into a long, tender kiss. Even as their lips met, his thoughts began to race. She meant everything to him. How had he allowed himself to be this vulnerable? Why hadn’t he guarded his heart as carefully as he guarded his secret? And, perhaps most importantly, how much longer could he hide from her what he was – how could he make this last?

As the epic kiss dissolved into increasingly smaller ones, Sarah opened her eyes, and placed a delicate hand on his cheek.

“I don’t think you’re an ordinary man.”

“I hope not,” he scoffed playfully, adding with a rakish grin, “especially after that kiss.”

“Charles Fitzgerald, I’m serious.” Her eyes narrowed.

She was calling him Charles. Now she meant business. Roles reversed, the predator was beginning to feel like the prey. How strange that he almost wanted to be caught.

“You know how much I love you, don’t you, Charlie?”

He hoped that he did, that his long-dead heart wasn’t mistaken.

“If you love me like you say you do, then you need to trust me.”

“Just what is it you think I should trust you with?” The boyish grin never left his face, but the muscles of his jaw clenched slightly.

“You have secrets, Charlie. I guess everyone does, but yours are - different. It’s crazy what I’ve been thinking – you’re so sweet and gentle …” Sarah took a deep breath. “… It doesn’t make sense and I can hardly believe I’m saying this – but I think that maybe, in a way, you’re something like a modern day - Dracula.”

Damn. There it was. Josef briefly considered admonishing her for too much time spent with dime store novels or in Saturday matinees. He might have leveraged himself a little more time, but the truth was he was tired.

The Clark Kent routine was wearing thin. He had always reveled in what he was – a creature of many passions. Yet, for her he had denied that side of himself almost completely. Apart from the necessities of feeding, he had cut off virtually all contact with the lifestyle he relished.

He had more than once fought back the pressure of his fangs and with it the seething desire to join with her in the most intimate of ways. On some nights those pangs offered the most exquisite form of torture – holding back, in a valiant attempt to hold on. To her. There was an unfamiliar hunger – a craving for more than the blood coursing through her veins. It was a hunger for something he thought he had lost.

Finding Sarah had made him feel young again, as young as he looked, and against all reason she had made him believe in destiny. If he was meant to find her, then perhaps he was meant to tell her. And trust her.

As he allowed the mask of pretense to fall from his face, he looked more vulnerable than she had ever seen him. His brow furrowed and he swallowed deliberately.

“And what if I were?” What if I lived off of human blood and savored every drop?

“If you were,” she answered slowly but assuredly, “then we would just have to spend more time in the moonlight.”

She threw her arms around his neck. “Charlie, I don’t need you to endure the sunlight for me. We’ve got the moon and a million stars. If we’re together, we have everything we need.”

Josef closed his eyes and let the enormity of her declaration wash over him. He wanted to tell her he would endure just about anything to be with her. Even that damn song. But he didn’t need to. She knew. She knew and she felt the same.


---
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Re: Moonlight Becomes You - PG13

Post by ari »

Truly amazing! Love this one, have ever since I read it the first time
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Re: Moonlight Becomes You - PG13

Post by nutmegger911 »

This is so romantic.
Lilly wrote:He had more than once fought back the pressure of his fangs and with it the seething desire to join with her in the most intimate of ways. On some nights those pangs offered the most exquisite form of torture – holding back, in a valiant attempt to hold on. To her. There was an unfamiliar hunger – a craving for more than the blood coursing through her veins. It was a hunger for something he thought he had lost.
What a wonderful description of the reawakening of a heart.
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Re: Moonlight Becomes You - PG13

Post by jen »

Lilly

This is just so fabulous!!!

I have always adored the pairing of Josef and Sara and hoped to see her wake up and return to him some day.

How have I not found this before

I love this section
Personalities aside, Josef hated their movies. It wasn’t that he had anything against comedies, although he usually found irony much more to his taste. It was the sappy “buddies through thick and thin” premise that made his borrowed blood boil. Two guys sticking together through serial misadventures, giving each other grief at every turn and yet being there for one another when the going got rough? What a load of crap. No one had friendships like that – and certainly not vampires.
Now THAT is just delicious. Lovely!!

:hearts: :hearts: :hearts: :flowers: :flowers: :flowers:
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Re: Moonlight Becomes You - PG13

Post by allegrita »

Lilly, this story was so deserving of the fanfic award at MoonlightCon. It perfectly captures the feelings that we saw on Josef's face in the flashbacks on the show. I can see them dancing, hear Josef's thoughts, see the uncharacteristic hesitation on Sarah's face as she struggles to find the right way to tell him what she knows. I love the fact that this is almost, but not quite, the Josef we know. He must have been changed in very profound ways by the experience of knowing and losing Sarah... subtle ways. You do a perfect job of showing us the Josef that existed at the beginning of those changes. And the other stories in your trilogy are equally wonderful. In fact, I'm gonna go reread them now.

Josef's musings about the relationship portrayed by Hope and Crosby in the Road pictures really made me smile. He sneers at the ludicrous idea of buddies sticking by each other, ribbing each other but having each other's backs through thick and thin. How could vampires--of all creatures--possibly develop a friendship so deep and true? Nah--couldn't happen. :whistle: (Sorry for the whistling, Josef!) :laugh:
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Re: Moonlight Becomes You - PG13

Post by Lilly »

I can't believe I have two comments from January that I never apparently never responded to. :sadface: Bad author.

ari and nutmegger - thank you so much for reading and taking the time to comment -- and I apologize for not acknowledging you sooner. :rose:

jen and Alle - Thank you both for your kind words. Everyone has their own OTP (one true pairing) and for me, I guess, it's Josef and Sarah. :heart: I think that Josef was a very different person when he was with Sarah -- different from what he had been before or has been since. Still, I don't imagine he would have been a complete and hopeless sap. I had to give him something to grouse about. Just because the challenge made me use the song -- it didn't mean Josef would have to like it, or the movie it came from, for that matter. :snicker: The more I thought about it, the more I suspected that, at this point in his existence, he might be too cynical to embrace the idea of a true blue buddy. That came later.
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Re: Moonlight Becomes You - PG13

Post by mitzie »

What a beautiful story!! Sarah won't let him try to deflect from the issue. I love that you show her intelligence and stubbornness here. Gorgeous... :hearts: :yahoo: :yahoo: :clapping: :clapping: :clapping: :cloud9: :devil: :angel: :hyper2: :clapping: :clapping: :clapping: :clapping: :thud: :thud: :thud: :thud: :notworthy: :heart: :rose: :flowers:


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Re: Moonlight Becomes You - PG13

Post by Albra »

Wonderful story ...
Perfect Josef ...
Cute and clever Sarah ...

Thank you, Lilly
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Re: Moonlight Becomes You - PG13

Post by Lilly »

Thank you, mitzie and Albra. :rose: I'm so glad you both liked Sarah. I always felt that there had to be much more to her than her father described for Josef to have fallen in love with her. At the risk of shameless self-promotion -- I do expand on her a bit more in "Interlude." :blushing:
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Re: Moonlight Becomes You - PG13

Post by jen »

So lovely!

Thanks, Lilly!

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Re: Moonlight Becomes You - PG13

Post by Lilly »

Thank you for coming back for a re-read, Jenna. :rose: That's the most wonderful kind of compliment. :hug:
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Re: Moonlight Becomes You - PG13

Post by allegrita »

Back for a reread of this lovely story. You do a marvelous job of capturing the true love that Josef and Sarah shared. You make it make sense that such a cynic could fall for a 20-year-old. And stay true to her for 50 years of limbo, too. :heart:
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Re: Moonlight Becomes You - PG13

Post by Lilly »

Thank you so much, Alle. :hug:
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Re: Moonlight Becomes You - PG13

Post by jen »

Lilly

This is one of those fics that need to be revisited periodically.

The scenes from Sleeping Beauty where we saw Josef and Sara together were brief and you have taken the emotions in those shots and given us a beautiful glimpse of their relationship and the soul of a woman that captured his heart and still held it fifty years later. Apparently, she would later come to know the truth of her suspicions in greater detail but here, her heart lead the way and she was not afraid to follow.

Fabulous!

Thank you!
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Re: Moonlight Becomes You - PG13

Post by Lilly »

Thank you so much, Jenna. :rose: I'm truly touched that you've come back again for another read. :hug:
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