// The Taste of Your Eyes
Disclaimer: The characters of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Angel are not mine and belong to Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox, Mutant Enemy. They are used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.
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Feedback is incredibly welcome.
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It was easier when you had one face. Hair eyes lipstick smile--they were all you, especially the smile.
You weren't good at lying even then. You could hear their voices, your mom's and dad's, as you breathed across your mouth in the mirror. Silencing that ghost-you in the glass because you couldn't silence them.
It comes to this, the mirror-knowledge that there's more than one you. You've peeled away from them, shedding selves. The you in that mirror. A face for your mom (an open door, now shut) and a face for your dad, a face for your friends. The you gliding into the Bronze only to find tweed-librarian talking vampires (Daddy Daddy he's not you Daddy I still think of you), the shadows closing in around you. The you who died and got up again (his mouth waking you not his mouth). The you stormswept by impossible love for an impossible man (yes his mouth no). The you who will kill him.
It comes to this: mirror-bright swords crossing over and under (oh yes, over and under and all spaces between, his mouth, his eyes, yours). The hell-wind of his obsession. His sword lunging for your eyes. Faces falling away one by one. You feel lighter. You feel heavier. At the end of all mirrors, naked of reflections, you are yourself.
What is it like to live in thrall to blood, to have two outward faces for the choosing?
You have him. You raise your sword.
The world is about to be engulfed--and his eyes are his again.
Yourself. Your demon-lover. You who will kill him.
He closes his eyes. You can't see your reflection in them any more.
There is a mirror in your hand, long and bright and sharp. You know its purpose.
The taste of your eyes, in all your faces, is salt.
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