The Point Last Seen PG13 / Champ Chall #138: Still Human

[Lucy]

Okay, writers, here’s your challenge. Let’s hear about Mick as a newly-minted ex-vampire. He had over six days to try out being human, so, what happened?
Any rating, any length. Any pairing, but really, Mick needs to be involved here.
The challenge will run through the end of April.
Please note that all entries should be new stories, and should be inspired by the Challenge prompt. Thanks!
Please post your entry in your office and a link in this thread, and we'll make sure the OP gets updated. If you don't have an office, please PM allegrita and she will be more than happy to set one up for you.
Your Admin and Mod Staff
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PG13
Disclaimer:
I don’t own Moonlight.
All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners.
No copyright infringement is intended.




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The Point Last Seen

By the time I get called on a case, generally the Police have established the place that the subject was last seen or known to be, identifying a place last seen and their direction traveled rides high on my list of clues.

I could say I had been abducted but that wasn’t it. I had surrendered to Coraline, my heart, my soul and my vitality. Now being “human” I wondered what threads of vampirism interwove with this “Cure”, which supposedly “masked” the signs of my immortality.

Could I find my mortal self if I returned to that point and put an eye to the clues of my straying? I sat here on the side of the uncomfortable sofa and thought how far I had travelled from the Motor Court Hotel I had strayed from in 1952. I grasped at evidence of my footfalls as a vampire; they had been broken sequences rambling back and forth between Coraline and Josef. Then, spacing myself from my misguided center of affection, I landed at 411 West 5th Street.

Initially, when I dug into my pockets for the hot dog I didn’t even see the girls staring at me. If I had been y old self I would have scented their suntan lotion or the hormonal cocktail of their summer sweat. Now, they were two girls looking to flirt with a guy on the boardwalk. I was a guy again and that unseen vampire nature had taken a breeze.

I have a “date” with Beth, a picnic on the beach. Why am I so --- edgy?
It’s a picnic, not a walk down the aisle.
Beth’s going to feed me, not feed off me.

My thoughts scattered like the sun’s glint on the waves as I strolled in the sun, yeah I strolled feeling the wash of heat followed by the sea-salt breeze on my chest. I could videotape moments like this but I cannot box the sensation of warm cotton on skin that has been numb for so stinking long. Where can I sock away these sensations to savor when my fangs return? All I can do is hope that every cell in my body remembers nature’s caress over Coraline’s kiss of death.

In 1952 I was so damn young and the irony is that I’ve woken from this “vampire coma” and the culture shock isn’t about the cars we drive or the clothes we wear. My culture shock is how my heart beats when I see Beth in the distance, how that frozen control I had with Beth has become, well as vacillating as jellyfish tendrils. My resolve over pursuing her? Well that has about that same embodiment.

Capricious thoughts pin-ball through my brain, did she bring a swimsuit? Did she bring cold beer or wine? And the Mack-daddy of my questions, will she be wearing Josh’s ring?

All these thoughts wrestled each other while I hunted to connect my past’s mortality that I could use today. What were the broken stems, branches and twigs that I could follow to find “Mortal Mick”?

Certainly friendships and family had been the bruised vegetation that I had bumped on my way out of 1952. Losing family had been a given. I had given up following St John progeny somewhere around 1973; it was a weight my undead heart couldn’t carry. Of all of the friendships I had broken I thought about Lilah and Ray. Had I bruised my relationship with Josef to be like this, sweating in the sun, waiting to eat on the beach with Beth? With an uncertain mortality ahead, I hoped I hadn’t.

Beth hadn’t seen me yet and I was overwhelmed by the sight of the square of color in the broad expanse of sand. Everything I want at this moment was there, a picnic basket and Beth. Unable to find “mortal Mick” and suffering from tracker burnout I surrendered to the moment. Fact is I’m a thirty-something guy with crush on a twenty-something gal and for the time we have I’d relish the dance however awkward the tune.

[jen]

Lucy

This is wonderful!

You pack so much in this short piece--Mick is, by choice, a private investigator and he turns the skills he employs to solve a case toward recovering the young man who married a woman he expected to spend the rest of his life with (later on his wedding night, that wish was granted).

Excellent answer to the Challenge!

Thank you!

Jenna

[Lucy]

Lucy

This is wonderful!

You pack so much in this short piece--Mick is, by choice, a private investigator and he turns the skills he employs to solve a case toward recovering the young man who married a woman he expected to spend the rest of his life with (later on his wedding night, that wish was granted).

Excellent answer to the Challenge!

Thank you!

Jenna

Merci! So glad you enjoyed it!!!!!

[allegrita]

Oh, I like this very much. He's trying to use his training to follow a trail long cold, but this is a trail that can't be followed physically. It's the trail of a life thrown off course, and Mick's looking for memories to guide him through a very human situation when he doesn't trust his instincts.

That last line is just great:

Fact is I’m a thirty-something guy with crush on a twenty-something gal and for the time we have I’d relish the dance however awkward the tune.

That's it in a nutshell. None of us have a clue how to move through our human lives. How does a temporarily-human immortal deal with mortal feelings? Same way we all do. He just has to do it, and see what happens.

I love the way these thoughts lead right into that first, incredibly awkward conversation that we saw in FtP. So much was said in the silences of that picnic. But by the end of the afternoon, Mick had a tan, and Beth had a smiling picture of a 30-something guy who had a crush on her. So I guess they were doing something right.

[Lucy]

Oh, I like this very much. He's trying to use his training to follow a trail long cold, but this is a trail that can't be followed physically. It's the trail of a life thrown off course, and Mick's looking for memories to guide him through a very human situation when he doesn't trust his instincts.

That last line is just great:

Fact is I’m a thirty-something guy with crush on a twenty-something gal and for the time we have I’d relish the dance however awkward the tune.

That's it in a nutshell. None of us have a clue how to move through our human lives. How does a temporarily-human immortal deal with mortal feelings? Same way we all do. He just has to do it, and see what happens.

I love the way these thoughts lead right into that first, incredibly awkward conversation that we saw in FtP. So much was said in the silences of that picnic. But by the end of the afternoon, Mick had a tan, and Beth had a smiling picture of a 30-something guy who had a crush on her. So I guess they were doing something right.

Thank-you, thank-you....
and yes I too think they were.....

[Marigold]

All I can do is hope that every cell in my body remembers nature’s caress over Coraline’s kiss of death.

I love this line. I really hope Mick is able to remember the sun's warmth, the feeling of the breeze, the smell of the ocean, and all the little details of his afternoon with Beth.

This is a great response to the challenge, Lucy!

[Lucy]

All I can do is hope that every cell in my body remembers nature’s caress over Coraline’s kiss of death.

I love this line. I really hope Mick is able to remember the sun's warmth, the feeling of the breeze, the smell of the ocean, and all the little details of his afternoon with Beth.

This is a great response to the challenge, Lucy!

Thank-you...thank-you...thank-you.....SO much!

[darkstarrising]

Very creative way for Mick to reflect on his past and future, Lucy He puts his detective skills to work, trying to see how the path he's been on since 1952, if at all.

In 1952 I was so damn young and the irony is that I’ve woken from this “vampire coma” and the culture shock isn’t about the cars we drive or the clothes we wear. My culture shock is how my heart beats when I see Beth in the distance, how that frozen control I had with Beth has become, well as vacillating as jellyfish tendrils. My resolve over pursuing her? Well that has about that same embodiment.

Mick has regrets - he had to give up friends and family when he was turned, but if he hadn't met Coraline, he would never have known Beth. Still, I like how you had him worrying over how his friendship with Josef might be lost by his pursuit of his very human dreams.

[Lucy]

Very creative way for Mick to reflect on his past and future, Lucy He puts his detective skills to work, trying to see how the path he's been on since 1952, if at all.

In 1952 I was so damn young and the irony is that I’ve woken from this “vampire coma” and the culture shock isn’t about the cars we drive or the clothes we wear. My culture shock is how my heart beats when I see Beth in the distance, how that frozen control I had with Beth has become, well as vacillating as jellyfish tendrils. My resolve over pursuing her? Well that has about that same embodiment.

Mick has regrets - he had to give up friends and family when he was turned, but if he hadn't met Coraline, he would never have known Beth. Still, I like how you had him worrying over how his friendship with Josef might be lost by his pursuit of his very human dreams.

Thanks!
I think the lesson in Moonlight is that....an incident could have caused you pain....but there's a chance an inimitable vitality can be born out of a bad situation.
I appreciate your visit!

[francis]

Mick's thoughts are all over the place. He tries to bridge the gap between 1952 and now, and is bound to fail. But he finds a new appreciation for the small things he lost, like feeling the sun and the breeze, and he finds a new start with Beth, even when he's not so sure of where he's standing right now. I love this!

[Lucy]

Mick's thoughts are all over the place. He tries to bridge the gap between 1952 and now, and is bound to fail. But he finds a new appreciation for the small things he lost, like feeling the sun and the breeze, and he finds a new start with Beth, even when he's not so sure of where he's standing right now. I love this!

Many...many thanks!

[maggatha3]

I enjoyed re-reading this story , it was a lovely answer to the challenge, Lucy!

It was awkward for Mick to deal with his so longed immortality and you pointed it out perfectly! He tried to rationalise, he tried to see through the new condition of his and all it involved, how it would affect him, Beth, even Josef..and in the end , he did it ''the mortal way'' , he just went along. We got a lovely summer scene, full of sun and smiling Mick and he got a wonderful memory and the promise of a future..

[Lucy]

I enjoyed re-reading this story , it was a lovely answer to the challenge, Lucy!

It was awkward for Mick to deal with his so longed immortality and you pointed it out perfectly! He tried to rationalise, he tried to see through the new condition of his and all it involved, how it would affect him, Beth, even Josef..and in the end , he did it ''the mortal way'' , he just went along. We got a lovely summer scene, full of sun and smiling Mick and he got a wonderful memory and the promise of a future..

[Shadow]

I first read this story weeks ago and since then I have re-read it many times and have been simply haunted by it! It isn't just that I adore human Mick and am fascinated by how vampire Mick might have reacted to the change in his life during that mortal week . . . it's that this is a take on that moment that I had never imagined, with so many ideas I'd never really considered, and it's so subtly and gorgeously written. This is the first line that grabbed me and wouldn't let me go the first time I read it:

Now being “human” I wondered what threads of vampirism interwove with this “Cure”, which supposedly “masked” the signs of my immortality.

It is so intriguing that Mick thinks of being "human" in quotation marks. Coraline described the creation of the Cure as a technique to mask the symptoms of vampirism, so is it really a cure? Is Mick truly human or does he just appear to be? Has his DNA changed back to human, or is there still a vampire there, hidden beneath a veneer of humanity?

Something I didn't notice on the first read (I leaped straight into the story) is how wonderful the title and illustration are. And I love the way the title is embedded within the artwork, in exactly the place where it belongs. That image with Coraline was the point last seen, Mick's last moment of mortality. (I love the way that pic has been manipulated too, as if to show that that moment is about to break into pieces.)

Could I find my mortal self if I returned to that point and put an eye to the clues of my straying?

Wow. Every sentence in this story says so much. This one reminds me how hard it must have been for Mick to reconnect to mortality. Losing the enhanced senses he'd had (so deftly shown when he couldn't smell the girls' suntan lotion) and trying to reconnect to human senses. This struggle, this transition, was never really seen on the show, but it had to have happened. Mick had to have been disoriented, his body confused, not quite remembering how to be a human. And this line also lets us see the way his mind works, how he's trying to apply his training and experience as a detective to try to find . . . himself. That whole "detective" approach to his quest is really endearing.

I have a “date” with Beth, a picnic on the beach. Why am I so --- edgy?
It’s a picnic, not a walk down the aisle.
Beth’s going to feed me, not feed off me.

WHOA. The first time I read this, all I noticed was how well that fit in with the awkwardness of Mick and Beth's beach meeting. The third time I read it, I thought, how did I miss all that? Of course, he's nervous and edgy because the last time he was a human guy going off to see a girl, he walked down the aisle and lost his blood and his life. I had always thought Beth and Mick's beach meeting was awkward just because of Josh's death and how that had affected them, but of course those memories of Coraline would be haunting Mick - especially since Coraline was the one who gave him the cure.

Where can I sock away these sensations to savor when my fangs return?

There's something wonderfully evocative and one hundred percent Mick about they way you've written that. It's just like him to ask himself such a deep question with such light words.

All I can do is hope that every cell in my body remembers nature’s caress over Coraline’s kiss of death.

And it feels as if here, he's finally acknowledging to himself just how important that question really is to him. There's something very desperate about that statement.

My culture shock is how my heart beats when I see Beth in the distance, how that frozen control I had with Beth has become, well as vacillating as jellyfish tendrils. My resolve over pursuing her? Well that has about that same embodiment.

That is such a perfect illustration of what we saw during the course of the last four episodes. It really interested me that Mick did lose that frozen vampire control about Beth when he became human, even though he knew he would turn back. I love how you've explained that here. He's human and he's in shock and that cold logic simply does not apply any more.

Unable to find “mortal Mick” and suffering from tracker burnout I surrendered to the moment. Fact is I’m a thirty-something guy with crush on a twenty-something gal and for the time we have I’d relish the dance however awkward the tune.

I love Mick's realization that he hasn't found his old mortal self, but in surrendering to the moment it seems that he's also surrendered to . . . being human.

"I'd relish the dance however awkward the tune." I love that last bit especially. It's so so human.

This is such a beautiful, deep story.

[Lucy]

I first read this story weeks ago and since then I have re-read it many times and have been simply haunted by it! It isn't just that I adore human Mick and am fascinated by how vampire Mick might have reacted to the change in his life during that mortal week . . . it's that this is a take on that moment that I had never imagined, with so many ideas I'd never really considered, and it's so subtly and gorgeously written. This is the first line that grabbed me and wouldn't let me go the first time I read it:

Now being “human” I wondered what threads of vampirism interwove with this “Cure”, which supposedly “masked” the signs of my immortality.

It is so intriguing that Mick thinks of being "human" in quotation marks. Coraline described the creation of the Cure as a technique to mask the symptoms of vampirism, so is it really a cure? Is Mick truly human or does he just appear to be? Has his DNA changed back to human, or is there still a vampire there, hidden beneath a veneer of humanity?

Something I didn't notice on the first read (I leaped straight into the story) is how wonderful the title and illustration are. And I love the way the title is embedded within the artwork, in exactly the place where it belongs. That image with Coraline was the point last seen, Mick's last moment of mortality. (I love the way that pic has been manipulated too, as if to show that that moment is about to break into pieces.)

Could I find my mortal self if I returned to that point and put an eye to the clues of my straying?

Wow. Every sentence in this story says so much. This one reminds me how hard it must have been for Mick to reconnect to mortality. Losing the enhanced senses he'd had (so deftly shown when he couldn't smell the girls' suntan lotion) and trying to reconnect to human senses. This struggle, this transition, was never really seen on the show, but it had to have happened. Mick had to have been disoriented, his body confused, not quite remembering how to be a human. And this line also lets us see the way his mind works, how he's trying to apply his training and experience as a detective to try to find . . . himself. That whole "detective" approach to his quest is really endearing.

I have a “date” with Beth, a picnic on the beach. Why am I so --- edgy?
It’s a picnic, not a walk down the aisle.
Beth’s going to feed me, not feed off me.

WHOA. The first time I read this, all I noticed was how well that fit in with the awkwardness of Mick and Beth's beach meeting. The third time I read it, I thought, how did I miss all that? Of course, he's nervous and edgy because the last time he was a human guy going off to see a girl, he walked down the aisle and lost his blood and his life. I had always thought Beth and Mick's beach meeting was awkward just because of Josh's death and how that had affected them, but of course those memories of Coraline would be haunting Mick - especially since Coraline was the one who gave him the cure.

Where can I sock away these sensations to savor when my fangs return?

There's something wonderfully evocative and one hundred percent Mick about they way you've written that. It's just like him to ask himself such a deep question with such light words.

All I can do is hope that every cell in my body remembers nature’s caress over Coraline’s kiss of death.

And it feels as if here, he's finally acknowledging to himself just how important that question really is to him. There's something very desperate about that statement.

My culture shock is how my heart beats when I see Beth in the distance, how that frozen control I had with Beth has become, well as vacillating as jellyfish tendrils. My resolve over pursuing her? Well that has about that same embodiment.

That is such a perfect illustration of what we saw during the course of the last four episodes. It really interested me that Mick did lose that frozen vampire control about Beth when he became human, even though he knew he would turn back. I love how you've explained that here. He's human and he's in shock and that cold logic simply does not apply any more.

Unable to find “mortal Mick” and suffering from tracker burnout I surrendered to the moment. Fact is I’m a thirty-something guy with crush on a twenty-something gal and for the time we have I’d relish the dance however awkward the tune.

I love Mick's realization that he hasn't found his old mortal self, but in surrendering to the moment it seems that he's also surrendered to . . . being human.

"I'd relish the dance however awkward the tune." I love that last bit especially. It's so so human.

This is such a beautiful, deep story.

My apologies for being gone so long when you have gifted me with so much thought. Words fail me that you have enjoyed the tale enough to spend such time with it. RL has brought some heartache to attend to and I returned tonight for a breath of ML love... you certainly embraced me with your kind words.