Moonlight – Virtual Season 2
Episode Seven – A Dangerous Game
Rating: R
Writer: ClChen
Beta'd: Writers Group
VS2 Writers Group includes PhotoSue, CIChen, Sunny, Misfit, Evilous, mxwwmickd, Night Owl, PhantomPhoenix, and candomom.
Disclaimer: Moonlight and its characters are owned by CBS and Warner Brothers. All use of Moonlight and its characters in this venue are for entertainment purposes and completed solely for the pleasure of Moonlight lovers. The original storylines and episodes have been created by the VS2 Writers and Discussion Group. We hope you enjoy.
Mick and Beth's morning starts just like any other morning, Beth showering, getting her overnight bag packed, readying herself for work. Mick can already smell Oscar approaching his door. A slow frustrated sigh escaped his lips. He began to twirl his dinner around in his glass and then slammed it back all at once before walking over to Beth, who was bent over the couch, finishing with her bag. Smiling to himself he places his hands on her hips, pressing into her gently, then bending over to place a gentle kiss to the back of her neck. He hears her heart quicken and he smiles against her ear.
"Don't start something you are unwilling to finish, St. John ." Beth turns to him, quirking an eyebrow and placing a quick kiss on his lips. He gives her a boyish grin and steps away from her, already feeling the effects of that one small act. Beth smiles at him again, her face lighting up completely. She feels his hands go around her waist and he pulls her close again, placing a gentle yet playful kiss on her lips.
"It isn't that I'm not wanting to start something…" He looks away and she almost believes he could blush at that moment. "I want it to be special." He raises his eyes to hers and she almost stops breathing. She could feel her cheeks flush and her heart pounding, what he could do to her with just a look, a quick glance. Beth pulls her arms from him and turns back to her bag, wanting them both to cool down.
"Is Oscar here yet?" She asks as she closes her bag.
"He's outside." Mick rubs his jaw and takes in a deep breath. As Beth places her bag over her shoulder, he decides he wants to take her to work himself. "How about I take you in today?" He smiles as he closes the distance between them again pulling her toward him and placing another kiss to her lips.
"Its okay, really, Oscar is here now. Besides, it's your bed time remember," she says teasing his coarse chest hairs. Beth watches as he looks away, and she realizes something is bothering him. "You aren't jealous of Oscar are you? It was your and Josef's idea that he follows me everywhere, remember?" She fights the urge to smile at him, realizing that this might be something that is genuinely bothering him.
"NO! Why would I be jealous of Oscar? He's supposed to watch you." Mick lets her go and walks to the door. Turning to look at her, his frustrated look now replaced by uncertainty. "I just miss taking you to work, that's all." He crosses his arms, trying to hide his feelings. He hated that she could read him like a book.
"That was for about a week. Mick, you were all nervous about the Foster boys… but I would love your company, so hurry up." Beth smiles at him again, she steps closer and pecks his cheek quickly. Her smiles brightens once more. As he moved away from her, he was smiling ear to ear. Beth shook her head and released a sigh, sometimes he was just like a little boy in a vampire's body.
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Mick is still tense and worried as the elevator stops at his floor. Even though Oscar watched Beth, Mick still felt it was his responsibility to make sure she arrived safely at work every day. It cut into his freezer time, but he didn't care, the league was becoming bolder. With this new business about her blood and all the other connections, Mick was beginning to get antsy. He buzzed himself into his home and froze dead in his tracks. Not far from his stairs, looking out over the city, was a tall stately woman. She was wearing a long white gown and seemed out of place, or even out of time. She turned to face him and Mick felt an uneasiness creep over him. Sensing who she was, he immediately vamped and hissed at the woman before him..
"Don't think about it, St. John . You would be dead before you reached me." She wasn't fazed as she turned completely toward him, a long sword in her hand. A claymore, used by English and Scotsman in the Dark Ages, its double edge blade perfect for removing heads or limbs with ease. Her voice was cold and her accent was definitely English. She was calm, too calm and confident in her abilities. Mick slowly returned to normal, his chest heaving with fear.
"What do you want?"
"We have a common need, you and I; to end this foolishness, when there are no easy answers how. We've been watching you, the elders and I. You aren't like other vampires, are you?" She said as she slowly came to him. "You live by an honor code that is strange for your, how do you say, tribe." She chuckled to herself as she toys with the claymore in her hand. "If others lived by this code, we may not have had the need to kill you, or your kind." This confirmed Mick's suspicions, she was part of the Legion.
"If I'm so important, why do you want to kill me?" Mick glared. The woman before him chuckled again.
"Awe, yes, that PI mind of yours, always with questions. All in due time, St. John , all in due time." She watches him closely as he begins to move.
"Why are you here?" He kept his questions short as he circled around her. She matched his movements with ease, never shifting into a defensive posture.
"Please, St. John , quit this posturing. It is futile. If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead. Besides, don't you want to live for Beth? We can help each other, you and I. You want answers regarding her blood and its connections. We want the harvesting of people to end. We have a common goal, not all of us want to see the vampires wiped completely out. Good cannot survive without evil, equal balance. However, good shall always overcome. Besides, I grow weary of these games." She slowly walked past Mick and out the door, leaving him more confused than he had been before. He needed answers, and somehow he knew Josef had them.
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Josef stares at his ball, then at the hole in his make shift putting green inside his office. He taps the ball slightly and smiles as it sinks into the hole.
"Still improving your game?" Mick says as he leans against the doorway. Josef glances behind him as he bends to retrieve the ball from the hole.
"Can't improve perfection, I thought you knew that." Josef sets the ball down on his desk as he turns to check the stocks in Japan . "Just fine tuning it."
"You're up kind of late, aren't you?" Mick pushes away from the wall and takes a chair in front of Josef's desk.
"Yes, well, Asian markets giving me a headache, so…" Josef sets down in his chair and folds his hands in front of him. "And you are here because… you're not in trouble with Beth again?" Josef says, eyebrows arched. "No, if you were you would go straight to the bar and be grunting one word comments. So, what is it?" He lays his head back and sets his feet on his desk crossing his ankles.
Mick gives a heavy sigh, he looks out Josef's window then back at him.
"I had a visitor this morning, after I dropped Beth off at work. A very old and distinguished woman, who favors a claymore." Josef slowly straightened in his desk as he looked at Mick.
"How distinguished looking?" Josef's eyes became cold as he looked at Mick.
"Very, long white hair… She said she was with the Legion, and how she got into my apartment… you're the only one who makes beating my security a game."
"Since you seem to think poker night is bad luck, breaking and entering into your place is the only way to show that I can still beat you at any game."
Mick stood up from his chair rubbing his jaw nervously. "She said that there's a war coming, sides would have to be chosen. She said that she was watching me. Me and Beth." He turned to Josef, who was sitting more alert and focused in his chair.
"She didn't say anything else?"
"She said that they were tired of humans like Beth being harvested. Why would Beth be harvested?" Mick's voice was quiet but piercing as he watched Josef rise from his chair. He stood in front of his large window behind his desk, his hands on his hips. Mick could tell a battle was waging inside his friend. Josef did know something, and he was debating on how much to tell Mick. Weighing how much information would be too much, and what would do harm more than good.
"Beth..." Josef looked behind him then back to the window. "Beth would be killed for the Cure. Drained, actually."
"What?" A look of horror and shock over came Mick's face as he quickly walked to his friend.
"AO-, Beth's blood, is part of the Cure. I mentioned it the night we rescued Katherine Simmons. You got distracted." * A slow laugh came from Mick as he looked up into the air, that was the night he found out Beth asked Josef to kill Foster.
"You're gonna have to try and keep track of all the balls that are in the air and start thinking with your big head, Mick." Josef ran his hand through his hair as he walked away from Mick, heading to his bar. He needed a drink and he was sure, before this was over, so would Mick.
"You know, for someone who said there was no such thing, you seem to know a lot about the Cure. Mick shoved Josef's chair aside as he walked to where his friend was standing. He looked at the Scotch that Josef was holding, he grabbed it and slugged it back, then slammed the glass back on the bar.
Josef gave a light smile to his friend, his usual smile, the one that said, let me tell you a story. He filled Mick's glass again and touched his friends shoulder to guide him over to the suede couch.
"Mick if I shared every secret I had, with every person I knew, including you, how successful do you think I'd be." Josef's smile quirked further up his face as he pushed Mick down onto the couch and chuckled at the frustrated sigh that escaped Mick's lips. He sat in a chair across from him, crossing his legs and taking a slow sip of his drink.
"I do know of the cure, I never had access to it like you did." Josef sat his glass down and repositioned himself, resting his arms on his knees, folding his hands in front of him. "Before Sarah died I was trying to find it, for her. But Lance kept it hidden. Why do you think I was mad, when you showed up, all human again." Mick looked at Josef realizing how painful it must have been, to know the Cure was true, only to be to late for his Sarah.
"People like Beth were kept for the cure, their blood was harvested, but after the Revolution, and the scattering of the tribes, the number of AO- donors and the bloodlines that held that particular blood type were lost." Josef rose from his seat and moved to the back, gripping it with his hand." As the centuries moved on, and technology advanced, we were able to track the bloodlines. I'm not sure what Coraline was planning for Beth, her wiring was off once she met you. But I do know that with the Legion becoming more and more predominate, Beth is in as much danger from them as Lance and Coraline."
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Mick came down the stairs in a rush; he was late for a meeting with a client. He had forgotten all about it. Being visited by a lead council woman from the Legion seriously put his day in a twist. As he hit the bottom step, he was overcome by an all too familiar scent… Coraline. He froze, then slowly made his way to the monitor and turned it on; he rolled his eyes, not wanting to deal with her usual need to goad him, or his own stupidity, at how easily he allowed her do it. Leaning his head against the door wearily, he clenched his jaw and opened the door. Coraline turned and gave him a dazzling smile, she always one for the dramatic effect. Her deep brown eyes and raven hair sparkled with renewed vigor. His jaw tightened and he cursed his own body's usual response. He stepped aside to let her enter against his better judgment but knew if she was here, he probably should know why.
"My, my… Don't you look well." Her eyes hungrily took in his face and body as she stepped past him. She scented the apartment and immediately picked up on Beth's aroma which permeated the entire space. She flashed with an instant of jealously, quelling it with difficulty it as she turned to look at Mick. He was now standing behind his winged back chair gripping it, as if it would give him strength or a barrier from her usual charms.
"Aren't you going to offer a girl a drink?" She said as she folded her hands in front of her and gave him an innocent glance. He swallowed hard, his mouth feeling like sand paper and pushed himself away from the chair deciding a stiff drink might be just what he needed, to learn the reason for her visit. He grabbed two glasses and poured some nicely aged scotch into each one, then walked over to Coraline, handing her one. Abandoning the barrier Mick had placed between them he sat in the chair with a huff. He studied her for a few seconds before downing his glass of scotch.
"What do you want?" He asked coldly. Coraline's eyes slowly travel from her glass to Mick, taking in his nervousness, his arousal and his dread. He was full of contradictions, and she reveled in it.
"You." she said with a smile. Mick shifted in his seat and almost stood to take her out the door when she giggled and sat down her glass. "Relax, Mick, geeze. You used to be so fun. Has Beth made you so prudish?" She quirked an eyebrow, Mick covered his mouth with his hand and rubbed his jaw nervously.
"Get to the point, Coraline. I'm expected at a meeting." He gripped the arms of the chair trying to regain back his own control. Coraline sat back in the leather couch pouting, he wasn't playing her game the way she wanted. She folded her arms and crossed her legs bouncing one of them ever so slightly.
"So… Did you enjoy your mortality?"
"Yes, I did." he said with a soft smile. The memory of the beach and Beth seemed to give him a little strength against her charms.
"I'm here about the Cure."Coraline suddenly said as she stood from the couch walking over to Mick's fireplace. "And about Beth." She slowly turned around to look at Mick as she felt the coldness his protectiveness toward Beth set in. Mick's head cocked to the side and his eyes narrowed as he waited for Coraline to continue.
"What do you know about her blood type?" Coraline moved to sit near the fire.
"Extremely rare and the same as yours. Is that why you took her, Coraline? For the Cure?" Mick stood and walked over to her. Coraline could feel the anger rolling off of him. She looked at the fire then back at him.
"I took her to try and make us work. You were so hung up on being human, I thought a family would help you. Who knew it would make you want me dead." She said with her best hurt voice.
"She was a child, Coraline, a child with her whole life ahead of her. That wouldn't have fixed things between us and you know it." Mick turned and took several steps, rubbing his chin then his neck. He closed his eyes, trying to get his old anger over the subject under control.
"Other Vampires are watching her, watching you. They want to make sure that you are doing things for the tribe. Her blood is meant for the Cure, Mick." She slowly came up to him, touching his shoulder. He flinched from her touch and she smiled to herself.
Mick closed his eyes, knowing what was coming; he felt her hand ease around his waist and up his chest. She let her hand caress him as he pulled it away, smiling at Mick's sharp intake of breath. She easily moved to his front and touched his cheek.
"You still miss me, don't you?" She said in a sultry voice, her face lighting up with a seductive smile. She moved her finger tips over his lips and Mick caught her hand. His breathing had become erratic from her touch.
"Don't." His hoarse voice was barely above a whisper. Coraline caught the ding of the elevator and then the sweet scent of Beth. Another devilish smiled crossed her face and she leaned into Mick, holding his pained eyes with her own. She waited till she heard the door click before she captured his lips with hers, tracing them with her tongue and being rewarded with just the hint of his. Once the door was completely open, Mick pulled his head away, his mind reeling with guilt and shame.