Chapter 1
Mick sat by himself on the lounge, swirling an overly generous shot of blood whiskey around in the glass that dangled loosely from his hand and staring down at the ring that now took pride of place on his left hand.
He remembered back to the night in Paris, when Josef has proposed and he had asked him what the engraving on the ring had said; as they walked together down the Champs Elyse and Mick had questioned Josef on the meaning of marriage for those for whom death do us part did not apply.
"Immortal beloved", Josef had replied and then cracked some joke about not being able to fit, "immortal fairy queen of the damned" on there.
Mick smiled to himself in fond memory of that night then felt his thoughts cloud and darken as he thought back to their most recent argument, just a few scant hours ago.
It had been over something inanely trivial, like they all had been of late, something that really shouldn't have even been worth having a discussion over let alone a full blown shouting match.
"I am not wearing a dress" Josef had snipped at him, as Mick sat at the table in the kitchen reading a copy of bridesmaid's monthly and Josef looked over his shoulder.
"It's not for you, you idiot" Mick had snipped back, rolling his eyes in disbelief and frustration, "you're not going to be a bridesmaid now are you"
"Well I'm not going to be the bride either, Mick" Josef had thrown back in response.
"Why not?" Mick had half teasingly challenged him, "it's not like you've never worn a dress before, Father Lucias"
"Ok, so maybe the lead up to the argument had been over something inanely trivial, but it probably wasn't a good idea to make a joke like that" Mick thought to himself, letting out a reluctant sigh of admittance.
It had all just gone downhill from there. Josef had insisted, or rather ranted, about the difference between dresses and Priest's Cassocks and Mick had done his best to try and placate him by making a joke about black being inappropriate attire for a wedding anyway, which had not gone down too well. Before they knew it they were hurling barbed insults at one another, complete with a full chorus of raised voices and angry snarls, and Mick was demanding to know why they were getting married.
"Hey, you're down here"
Mick turned his head towards the tentative voice and saw Josef approaching, almost catlike in his movements as he padded cautiously towards him.
"Yeah" Mick muttered monosyllabically in response, glancing over at Josef and then looking away; returning to his dark reverie of glass swirling.
"What are you doing?" Josef asked, smiling at Mick hopefully as he took a seat on the couch next to him and wrapped his arms around his neck.
"Having a drink" Mick replied darkly, throwing back a pointedly large gulp of the contents of his glass.
"That can wait 'till later. Put that down" Josef told him matter of factly as he took the glass from Mick's hand and placed it on the table in front of him, then nuzzled his head under Mick's chin and began nipping the skin of his throat very lightly with his fangs; kissing his way along the line of his neck at the same time, "I'm trying to apologise to you, you damn fool"
If there was one thing Josef knew how to do it was give a good apology, and Mick found his rate of breathing quickening almost as fast as he felt his cock twitch and harden, as Josef slid down his body with feline grace and knelt in between his legs.
Slowly undoing the belt and other fastenings on Mick's trousers, he looked up at him with a salacious smile, before releasing Mick's cock from it's material confinements and wrapping his lips around his hardness, working his mouth and tongue expertly over the head and shaft.
Mick gasped at the sensation, letting out a soft snarl of desire and appreciation as Josef's mouth and tongue continued working their way over his erection.
"Shit, Josef" Mick half panted, laughing and shaking his head at the same time; hips undulating in time to Josef's oral administrations, "that's certainly some apology you've decided to give me"
Josef paused for a moment and looked up at Mick, a wicked smile playing over his features, "Oh trust me", he replied salaciously, "I'm just getting started".
"Oh fuck" Mick muttered under his breath, as Josef went back to lashing the attention of his mouth and tongue over his erection; feeling his cock twitch in anticipatory desire at the words Josef had just spoken to him.
Josef reached underneath him with his hands and pulled him forward, positioning Mick's hips just off the edge of the couch to give him better access to his arse. Pausing for a moment to moisten two fingers with some saliva, he then pressed them against the entrance to Mick's passage and gently pushed them inside.
Deep snarls of heightened arousal began emanating from Mick's throat, as Josef's fingers sought out and found their target; continuing to work his mouth and tongue over his erection as he pressed his fingers against Mick's prostate and massaged it with firm even strokes, knowing just the right amount of pressure to apply to send Mick into a near frenzy of desire.
Josef felt Mick's body start to shake, shockwaves of pleasure running along his spine as he neared the point of no return, and quickly stepped up the pace of his pleasuring; pushing him over the edge a few short moments later.
He heard Mick snarl with sheer unbridled pleasure and felt his arm being roughly yanked up towards his mouth, as Mick fell into the orgasmic abyss and sank his fangs sharply into the back of his hand; riding out wave after wave of climactic pleasure as he released himself into Josef's mouth.
Still working his fingers in Mick's arse, Josef smiled triumpantly as a second, third and fourth wave of climax hit Mick in rapid succession just after the first had ended; his fangs sinking deeper into Josef's flesh as he bit into his hand as hard as he could and went into near convulsions of pleasure.
"So? Am I forgiven?" Josef asked Mick with a sly smile a few moments later, after the last pulsations of his repeated climax had died away and he'd given Mick enough time to recover his senses.
"Yeah...you are" Mick replied with a breathless laugh, pulling Josef up onto his lap and wrapping his arms around his neck.
"Mick, I really am sorry you know" Josef told him with quiet sincerity, as he returned Mick's embrace and nuzzled his head under his chin.
"I know", Mick replied, reaching up to stroke the back of Josef's head with his hand, entwining his fingers through his hair, "You have been acting very difficult though lately, Josef" he added, gently chiding him.
"I just want everything to be perfect" Josef responded back to him in a slightly pleading tone of apology.
"And I just want to get married" Mick replied simply, "that's all I really want, just for us to be married. We don't have to turn this into some sort of operatic production"
"I haven't been turning it into some sort of operatic production", Josef began to protest indignantly.
"Yeah, you have Josef" Mick replied, quickly pressing his index finger against Josef's lips and hushing him before he had a chance to finish what he had started to say, "and you need to relax more and stop stressing over every little detail...before you drive the both of us completely insane" he added with a teasing laugh of frustration.
"Yeah, ok" Josef half sheepishly admitted under his breath, as Mick stood up and pulled him to his feet with him, "I need to relax more and not stress over every little detail. Point taken"
"Good" Mick replied with a grateful smile and then took Josef by the hand and began to lead him towards the stairs the stairs to their bedroom.
"Come on" he told him with a wicked smile, as they began mounting the steps "it's your turn."
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"So who was it for?" Josef asked Mick offhandedly as they sat at the kitchen table the following evening sipping their respective glasses of blood.
"Who was what for?" Mick replied.
"The dress you were looking at"
"Beth, of course"
"Beth?" Josef questioned, raising his eyebrows and giving Mick a quizzical look, "What? she's going to be a bridesmaid is she."
The tone in Josef's voice was challenging, with more than a hint of and why wasn't I consulted on this in it and Mick quickly shot a dark warning look over the table at him.
"Josef. Don't start" Mick told him pointedly, letting out a slight huff of frustration at the same time. "Remember what we talked about last night"
"What?" Josef responded indignantly, "I'm just saying, do we need to have a bridesmaid. There's not going to be a bride there after all" he added with more than a touch of sarcasm; hinting at their previous fight.
"No, but we do need witnesses to the Wedding" Mick replied matter of factly, refusing to rise to Josef's bait and risk getting into yet another argument that he really was not in the mood to have.
"Ok then" Josef replied half dismissively, taking a small sip of blood from the glass in his hands, "well, you just could have told me. Alright"
"Alright. I'm sorry" Mick started to say in an apologetic tone of voice, but Josef quickly waved a hand in front of his face and cut him off.
"Besides", he began matter of factly "I need to know what everyone is doing so I can make sure they're dressed properly. We can't have Beth wearing a bright green dress if we're going to be wearing red shirts and black ties. It won't look right"
"No. Of course not, Josef" Mick responded sarcastically and rolled his eyes, "I'm sure our outfits not being properly colour co-ordinated would be a disaster of epic proportions. And who says we're going to be wearing red shirts and black ties anyway" he quickly added.
"I do" Josef directed in response, and then looked over at Mick and smiled happily, "I've already picked out our outfits for us, Mick. Two very nice black single breasted Chamize suits with matching red satin shirts and black ties. You'll look gorgeous in it"
"So let me get this straight, Josef" Mick threw at him over the table, gritting his teeth and crossing his arms over his chest "you expect me to consult you on every possible conceivable little detail about our Wedding" he paused for a moment and shook his head in sheer disbelief, "but it's ok for you to just go right ahead and pick out what I'm going to be wearing and I get no say in it".
"What?" Josef responded, looking more than a little hurt and confused by the tone of Mick's voice and the half defensive half challenging body language he was displaying towards him, "You've always said you're not good at the whole fashion thing and I am, so..." he shrugged and finished the sentence with a quick gesture of his hands to indicate that he had fully expected Mick was going to be completely happy when he had picked out his Wedding suit for him. "By the way" he added; leaning back in his chair and waving a dismissive hand in the air, "I forgot to tell you. The invitations arrive tommorow. One of us will need to be here to pick them up"
"Invitations, Josef? Invitations to where?" Mick shot at him with lashings of more disbelief as he threw his hands in the air in complete exasperation. "We haven't even decided where we're getting married yet"
"Lestat's garden, of course" Josef replied bemusedly, "You don't remember us discussing that. I said 'wouldn't it be romantic for us to get married at Lestat's place seeing as we got together there and it's where I proposed to you'" he quickly reminded Mick, "and you said 'the garden might be nice'"
"Yes. Josef. Exactly." Mick replied, shaking his head in frustration, "I said the garden might be nice. I didn't exactly say 'go ahead and make the arrangements'. What if there was somewhere else a little closer to home that we might have wanted to consider. Did you even think about traveling arrangements for any of our guests. Paris isn't exactly just down the road from here you know".
"But..." Josef started to protest, staring at Mick in wideeyed disbelief; the mere thought of him not being utterly over the moon at the idea of them being married in Lestat's garden never having entered his mind.
"Oh for fucksake, Josef" Mick suddenly snapped at him, as he shot to his feet and glared at him furiously "Look. Why don't you just go ahead and arrange this whole damn wedding and then tell me when and where to show up"
And with that he turned around and stormed out of the room, in a gesture of movement that was becoming all too familiar to both of them.
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"Josef" Mick began tentatively, as he approached him a few hours later; finding him sitting behind the desk in the drawing room upstairs, shuffling papers and pretending to be incredibly preoccupied with something of great importance whilst looking for all the world like a little dark storm cloud with fangs, "I'm sorry."
"Doesn't matter" Josef muttered in response and waved his hand dismissively, "Don't worry about it" he added with a forced smile.
Judging by the quivering tone of his voice, the look of hurt on his face; that he was failing miserably at trying to cover up with one very fake grimace of a smile and the number of torn up tissues lying on the desk in front of him, Mick had to assume that Josef was lying through his teeth at that particular moment. It did matter and he should be worried about it.
"Josef, I'm sorry" he repeated gently, walking over to him behind the desk and taking a seat in his lap; wrapping both arms around Josef's neck and drawing him into an embrace. They stayed together like that for a few moments, breathing in each other's scent and listening to the respective beats of each other's undead hearts; the tone of Josef's a little less audible owing to his lack of proper blood intake for the day, before Josef spoke up in a sorrowful voice and said,
"I though you'd be happy, Mick. I was just trying to make thing's easier on you".
"I know you were" Mick replied with a tender kiss, "you just could have told me about it beforehand. It's my wedding too you know." he paused for a moment and then corrected himself, "it's our wedding, Josef"
"Do you want me to cancel the order on the suits then?" Josef asked him with a melancholy sigh.
"No. I didn't say that" Mick replied, "You've already gone to the trouble of picking them out, I'm sure they'll be just perfect. You do have impeccable taste. Just next time", he added quietly, "tell me before you go ahead and just decide to arrange or do anything. Ok?"
"Yeah, ok" Josef started to respond, but stopped mid word and furrowed his brow in confusion.
"Wait a minute", he said, looking at Mick with a questioning expression, "I thought you didn't want me stressing you out over every little detail of our wedding plans?"
"Josef" Mick replied, a note of exasperation creeping into his voice, "What we're wearing and where we're getting married are not little details. It's not like it's 'what colour are the invitations' I'm talking about"
"Ivory white, matte finish. Dark charcoal, Garamond font face" Josef quickly replied.
"Pardon?"
"The invitations, they're being printed on ivory white matte finish paper. The type setting is Garamond, dark charcoal"
"Sounds very elegant, Josef" Mick teased him gently, "make sure you have one sent to me so I know exactly when and where to show up to this wedding of yours"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Josef suddenly snapped at him defensively, prompting Mick to press a finger to his lips and gesture for him to hush up.
"Josef, I didn't come up here to have another fight about the wedding. Ok"
"Well what did you come up here for, Mick" Josef asked in a darkened tone, a sulking scowl passing over his features.
"This" Mick replied simply and then grabbed Josef's head in his hands and crushed his mouth against his, probing his lips open with his tongue and drawing him in for a deeply passionate kiss.
Josef's initial response was to stiffen slightly and pull away, but the intensity of Mick's passion got the better of him and soon he was returning the kiss with equal amounts of force and desire.
"Josef?" Mick half mumbled into his mouth a few moments later.
"What?" Josef asked, half breathlessly as he broke away and began smothering Mick's neck with hot rabid kisses.
"You shouldn't sulk, it doesn't suit you" Mick replied, fumbling with the buttons on Josef's shirt and running his hands over his chest.
"I wasn't sulking, Mick. I was brooding".
"Oh. Is that what you call it, Josef" Mick responded with a teasing laugh before he got up off his lap and instructed him to "stand up"
"Why? Where are we going?" Josef asked, as he got to his feet and stood facing Mick
"We're not going anywhere" Mick replied with a wicked smile and a hinting raise of an eyebrow, "you're just going to turn around, bend over this desk here and let me fuck you".
Josef didn't need to be told twice, rapidly shedding his clothes, and helping Mick to do the same, he quickly turned around and then felt himself being shoved face forward down onto the desk in front of him.
"Stay there" Mick directed him and then hurriedly retrieved a small tube of lubricant from one of the drawers of the desk. Quickly applying a little of the slippery liquid to the head of his penis and around the entrance to Josef's arse, he then pressed himself against him and entered his passage in one forceful thrust; hearing Josef cry out with a snarl of shock and pleasure as he began to withdraw and then thrust back into him over and over again, gradually building up the pace of his movements until he was eventually gripping onto Josef's hips to give himself more leverage and fucking him at a increasingly frantic pace.
Mick could feel Josef pressing back against him with every thrust of his hard cock into his arse, trying to force him to go as deep as possible inside him as he dug his fingers into the desk beneath him and let out continous vampiric snarls and growls of increasing desire and arousal. He felt the first stirrings of his orgasm building up within hi, as he continued to grip onto Josef's hips and fuck him faster and faster; picking up the pace even more until he was withdrawing and slamming back into him as hard as Josef's body would allow him to go.
"Oh. Fuck. God. Damn" Josef cried out suddenly, the force of his climax almost overwhelming him as he desperately grabbed for Mick's arm and sank his fangs sharply into his flesh; deep growls and half sobbing snarls emanating from deep within him. A few quick thrusts later Mick sailed over the edge with him and went into his own shuddering, snarling cry of release as he bent his head to Josef's neck and bit into the soft skin that he found there.
Waiting for the last pulsations of their respective orgasms to fade away, Mick quickly pulled himself out of Josef and then helped him to the floor; the strength having gone completely from Josef's legs. Lying down next to him, he wrapped his arms around his shoulders and rested his head on his chest; listening closely to the barely audible whispered tones of his undead heart trying to beat without the assistance of blood to fuel it.
"You haven't fed enough today, Josef" Mick said a few moments later, moving up to give Josef a tender kiss and looking at him with gentle concern.
"I'm fine, Mick. Really" Josef replied dismissively, still a little breathless from their recent coupling.
"No. You're not Josef" Mick responded with a still worried look as he traced a finger down the contours of Josef's face and thought how much he loved him, "I can barely hear your heartbeat".
"Mick. Stop fussing" Josef chided him with a small laugh, "I'll have some more blood to drink before we hit the Freezer. I'll be fine, ok. I promise"
He reached up and drew Mick back down towards him, kissing him lovingly as he ran his fingers through his hair and whispered gently in his ear.
"I love you"
"Ditto" Mick whispered back to him as they lay there together, wrapped in each other's embrace, and fell asleep.
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Over the following weeks, Josef's behaviour did not get any better. In fact, as inconceivable as it was to Mick; who had begun to feel at times that he was now living with a complete stranger, it got steadily worse.
First the Wedding invitations arrived with a minor printing flaw, the typesetting off by the barest of millimetres; not something any ordinary person, or Vampire for that matter, would even bother to notice, but Josef certainly did and flew into a rage of torn confetti'd paper and angry Vampiric snarls.
Then it was discovered that the colour on their suit shirts was a mere one eighth of a shade darker than the colour on their pocket kerchiefs. Mick had had to restrain Josef from flying out the door and tearing off at Vamp speed to rip the tailor's head from his body with his bear hands at that little faux pax.
The final straw had come one cold mid week night, when they had stood in the kitchen across from each other, in defiant opposition, and Josef had decided they needed to have a full blown knock down drag out argument over a wedding cake.
"Josef. What the hell are we going to do with a wedding cake" Mick had spluttered in disbelief, when Josef had informed him of the arrangements he had made for one very expensive and very austentacious wedding cake, "we're Vampires. We don't eat. Or have you forgotten that"
"We have to have a wedding cake, Mick" Josef had shot back at him incredulously, "it's traditional"
"Yeah. And so is being married in a church by a priest, Josef" Mick had hurled at him in response and then added sarcastically, "Or don't tell me, you're planning to do the entire ceremony yourself. Will you be reciting Requiem mass before or after we kill each other at the altar"
Josef had taken the opportunity at that moment, to pick Mick up and throw him clear across the room; watching him sail through the air and land with a resounding thud and a sharp crack of his head on the wall opposite, before he realised what he'd done.
"Mick. Mick oh my god. I'm sorry" he had blurted out, the words tumbling out of him a torrent of contrition as he rushed over to where Mick had landed and hurriedly smothered his face with apologetic kisses.
"Just get away from me, Josef" Mick had responded ominously, glaring at him with barely quietened fury as he pushed him aside and scrambled to his feet. He had quickly mounted the stairs, three at a time, and shut himself in the bedroom with a jarring slam of the door, whilst Josef had rushed up after him and practically torn the door of it's hinges; flying across the room to gather Mick up in a tight embrace, still begging his forgiveness and smothering his face with yet more heated, apologetic kisses until Mick finally relented and they had fallen to the floor together in a tangled mess of limbs and fangs and snarling passion.
They had proceeded to make up at least four more times in various parts of the house after that, Josef alternating between repeatedly begging Mick's forgiveness and making contrite declarations of love and promises that he really would be on his best behaviour from now on.
Somehow, even as he clung to Josef's back and listened to the words that were rushing out of him in short breathless little snarls of heated desire and overwhelming emotion; as he withdrew and thrust back into him at a rate borne of desperately contrite passion, Mick still wasn't quite sure if he could believe what Josef was telling him.
Now, one week later, he found himself sitting opposite Beth one dark evening in a dimly lit bar and pouring out his problems over the table at her.
"So how are the wedding plans coming along" she asked matter of factly, casually sipping a glass of scotch whiskey to which she had discretely added a few drops of blood from a small vial in her handbag.
Mick had tried to force a smile and a nonchalant wave of a hand, planning to answer with a completely false cheerful response of "Great, thanks". Instead he found the words sticking in his throat and the smile turning to a grimace as he buried his head in his hands and muttered, "Don't ask".
"That good hey?" she replied, with the raise of an eyebrow and a small wrinkle of her nose.
"He's gone insane" Mick exasperated, making a gesture with his hands to convey his frustration before proceeding to run through a litany of Josef's recent combined antics and near hysterical idiocy over their wedding plans.
"Mick" Beth started to say, in the most understanding tone of voice she could muster, when he had finished venting his frustrations, "this is Josef we're talking about. You know he never does anything by halves. I'm sure he just want's everything to be perfect for you"
"Yeah, and I just want to get married. That's all I care about, not whether or not the typesetting on the invitations is a fraction of a millimetre off centre or the colour of our shirts doesn't matching perfectly with the colour of the pocket kerchiefs on our wedding suits, just the two of us, coming together and being married. That's what's important to me, not a three ring circus or song and dance about the whole damn wedding procedure"
"Have you told Josef this?" Beth asked.
"Yes. Repeatedly as a matter of fact" Mick replied, the tone of his voice still dripping with exasperation, "I've all but gone down on my knees and grovelled at his feet to 'please relax and let's just get married'. The way things are going at the moment though" Mick added defiantly, " I'm about to call the whole thing off".
"You don't mean that, Mick" Beth told him with a knowing smile.
"Don't I?" he replied with far more conviction than what he actually felt.
"No. You don't" Beth responded pointedly, "think about what it would be like if Josef wasn't in your life"
"I don't. I don't think about it. It's not something I ever want to have to consider again, once was bad enough. I couldn't go through a repeat of that" Mick stated with quite sincerity, referring to the time in Paris 50 years ago when he had come close to losing Josef forever.
"Well there you go then. If you can't even think about life without Josef, then you're hardly going to call of the Wedding now are you?"
Mick smiled and shrugged in response then muttered half sheepishly, "I guess so" before he looked at Beth with a slightly lop sided smile of defeat and admitted , "Yeah, ok. You're right, I'm not going to call the Wedding off. I just want him to relax about everything though, before we both end up with grounds for justifiable homicide"
"Do you want me to see if I can get Ryder to have a word to him?" Beth asked with gentle concern.
"Yeah, that'd be great" Mick replied with obvious relief and gratitude, "thank you, Beth. Really I mean that"
"Hey" she replied with a simple smile and quick squeeze of Mick's hand across the table, "what are friends for".
They said their respective goodbyes after that, Beth heading towards the main railway station to catch the next available train back to Cologne and Mick quickly walking in the opposite direction through the streets of Salzburg, back to the house he had shared with Josef for just over 3 decades.
Arriving home he was so lost in his own thoughts and silent reverie regarding exactly what to do about the issue with Josef, that he didn't even notice the small bundle of wrapping that lay on the front doorstep, until he almost literally fell over it. Squatting down and looking at the small swaddling package for a closer inspection, he hissed with a sharp intaken breath of utter dismay and disbelief as he saw exactly what it was and his heart sank to his knees.
"Oh fuck. This is all we need" he dark muttered to himself through gritted teeth, as he carried the squirming, mewling infant inside.