Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I do not own Moonlight, nor am I making any money from this, though I'm certainly having fun playing with the characters. No infringement intended.
Warnings: None in this one.
Summary: Thanksgiving, 1954.
A/N: Written for the Champagne Challenge #152.
As always, I thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who is the source of all inspiration.
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Blood Ties
Thanksgiving, 1954
Mick stood in his parents’ backyard, hidden by the shadow of a tree he had often climbed with his brother. The remains of their old tree house were still clinging to its branches. That house had never been much to look at, though Mick remembered how proud he and Andrew had been when they’d built it.
He used to wonder, fleetingly, why his father had never bothered to take it down.
Now, looking at his parents' home, at the warm glow from the window that was just out of reach, he thought he understood.
Mick swallowed tightly, his fingers curling into a fist at his side.
He could hear them talking.
His parents. His brother Andrew and his wife and their two little girls who were already so much bigger than the last time Mick had seen them. He tried to let that distract him, tried to let the sound of his family’s voices keep his eyes from lingering on the empty chair they’d left at the table.
His chair.
But, every once in a while, someone would glance over at that empty chair, and the conversation would just…stop.
Mick closed his eyes and drew a deep, unnecessary breath.
The smell of his family’s Thanksgiving dinner filled his nose, the scent drifting out the open window. None of it was very appealing now, but he could remember a time when it had been. The turkey, the dressing, the pumpkin pie…they were his grandmother’s recipes, most of them, passed down to his mother.
Once, before he'd know the truth, he'd hoped his mother would continue the tradition and give them to Coraline.
“I had a feeling I’d find you here.”
Mick opened his eyes but didn’t bother turning around. He’d known that Coraline would track him down eventually; she always did.
“You’re only going to make it worse, torturing yourself this way,” she added, sounding resigned.
He didn’t answer, and she sighed softly - this was a fight they’d had many times, and maybe she was just as tired of it as he was. She moved to stand next to him, then reached for his hand and twined their fingers, letting her head rest against his shoulder.
Mick thought about pulling away, but he couldn’t seem to find the energy for that. And, if he were honest, a part of him welcomed the comfort.
He’d come here wanting to relive the memories he was trying so hard to hold on to, but instead, those memories seemed faded and tattered in the face of the present. Two years had passed, and the world was already moving on without him. The proof was in the new gray hair at his father’s temples, the extra lines around his mother’s eyes, and that empty chair.
Coraline must have guessed his thoughts because he felt her shift, her chin pressing into his shoulder as she turned to stare up at him.
“Mick, I know you miss them, but if you’ll let me, I can help take your mind off of all this.”
She ran her free hand along his jaw, turning his head, forcing him to look at her. Her dark eyes were hopeful, and he’d heard it in her voice, the hint of vulnerability she hadn’t quite been able to hide.
She loved him, in her own way. She tried to make him happy…tried to make him forget what he’d lost. What she’d stolen.
Sometimes, she almost succeeded.
“Okay,” he said simply.
Coraline smiled and squeezed the hand she still held. “Come on. We’ll celebrate, just the two of us. We can go out, anywhere you want. Anywhere at all. Or,” she said raising herself up so that her lips brushed his ear, “we can always stay in…”
She was whispering promises to him as she tugged him by the hand, leading him away from his parents’ home and down the darkened streets.
For the rest of the night, Mick did his best not to look back.
Fin
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A/N: I hope you enjoyed it and please let me know what you think!
-Laughter
This story really puts Mick and Coraline's relationship into a nutshell. He couldn't let go and couldn't forget what she had done; she couldn't understand his desperate clinging to his former life, and tried over and over to give him comfort and lead him away from what she saw as unnecessary self-torture. In a way, their desires were mutually exclusive. He couldn't be Mick without his need for humanity. And that meant he couldn't be the vampire she pictured him to be. 
This. 
