Rating: PG-13
Characters: Beth, Mick, Lola, Josh
A/N: From Black Crystal, for the Monologue Challenge #157. Beth's POV.
I really wanted to post this yesterday while we were still in May, but, well... I'll probably be late at my own funeral. I'm sorry...
Also, saying I haven't written much is an understatement. I was visited by a Muse once, and never again (not for lack of thinking about Moonlight though!). Now I'm tired of waiting for her to get back
, so I decided I just have to write without her. Hey, maybe that'll lure her back, right? In the meantime, I'm afraid the result is not a very original piece. 
I just tried to answer what I've always wondered about (and love wondering about!): what is Beth thinking in BC as she looks in the mirror? So I just hope you enjoy that too! 
IN A YEAR OR TWO
I gently lower the tiny bottle into the drawer of my dresser. Josh knows better than looking in here. It's my space, he knows that, he'll respect that.
From the safe shelter where I'm laying it to rest, my precious little loot stares back at me one last time. So docile, so innocent now...
"What does it feel like..." "Taste it. Just once and you'll see..."
"Beth, dinner's ready!"
Geez! Josh's words feel like a slap in the face.
Why is that? Not because of the guilt I feel for hiding this too from him. Not really. It doesn't matter now, anyway. It's just that... How can he possibly expect me to care about dinner right now?! He's always been so annoying with his obsessing over trivial stuff like that. Still... he didn't used to annoy me this much. "Since you met this guy, screwed up has started to seem normal". Yeah, maybe he's right... God his "normal" seems so far away from mine now, like we live in different worlds. It feels like everyday we get a little further apart, like another barrier comes up between us. I don't want to be close to him...
"Okay, I'll be just a minute."
... not right now.
And yet I wanted to this morning. I couldn't wait to get out of Mick's and rush back to Josh to make amends. Was it out of guilt? Yeah... sure. I still can't believe what I did last night! Darn crystals.
I watch them disappear as I close the drawer. It feels like I'm shutting away a part of myself.
It wasn't just guilt. I really was longing to be with Josh again, longing for normality. For him to bring out the Beth he knows, and feel like myself again, the me I know. I needed familiar, comfortable...
Which is not like me at all! But hey, after a night like that. And anyway, that was then. Now I've recovered a bit. So now... yeah, normal isn't familiar any more.
My eyes leave the drawer and fall onto the mirror like into a trap. Last time I stared at it that Other woman was who stared back. I can't even tell whether I'm relieved or sad she's not showing up this time. It felt so weird... like she was taunting me into Wonderland. Alien, scary, exciting... promising maybe...
Was she me?
Would I want her to be me?
No, of course not. I mean, I wouldn't want to behave like that.
But experiencing everything that way, feeling everything, everyone... Would it really be like that? That part yeah, I'm sure it would. I'm sure Mick can do that. This fifth sense he has, it makes sense now.
But what about the high? I felt invincible. "What does it feel like to move through the night so powerful, nothing can touch you?" It sure seems that Lola felt that way.
"It sounds like this drug really gives you all the highs of being a vampire without the lows." And Mick agreed, sort of...
But then again he doesn't look high. No, in fact, high is the very last thing Mick looks!
"Do you feel like this all the time?" "I don't know. I doubt it." No, definitely not high.
Perhaps it's just him though, because he didn't want to be turned? Or maybe the lows just compensate for it, bring balance somehow. Or maybe you just adapt after a while, the feeling of invincibility doesn't make you high anymore. Only more confident maybe. I wouldn't mind that...
"I don't want that."
"You say that now. You're young, but in a year or two, when he stops coming around and you look in the mirror..."
I look at myself, straight in the eyes.
Do I? Do I want that?
And what if I did? Would Mick ever agree to it? He hates being a vampire so much.
"They say it gets easier the longer you live, but I hope that's not true."
"Really? I'd think you'd hope for the opposite."
"To forget what it's like to be human? No way. Never."
Not exactly Sire material.
And yet last night... Was it just my imagination? Or was he actually... tempted?
"Turn me! Turn me! Do it!"
"No, Beth."
"Do it!"
"It's just the drug."
Factually correct. But what if it hadn't been the drug? Would you actually have considered it, Mick? Did you perhaps... regret it was just the drug???
And what if I don't want that. Or if he never agrees to it. Where does that leave me? Or... us? Does it really mean we can't be together? I mean, if we ever wanted to that is.
"It never ends well."
...
"He cares about you, but he hasn't turned you."
Like that's what vampires typically do when they care about someone... But why? Because that's the only way a vampire couple can be together at all? Or only together forever? Forever...
"You're young, but in a year or two... "
What will my life be in a year or two? Will I still be with Josh? Or will I be with Mick? Will Mick even still be part of my life or will he have "stopped coming around"?
My eyes slide down the mirror and onto the hard wood of the dresser.
God that thought hurts. Is that it? What I have with him right now, is that all there will ever be between us? Will I even feel this close to him ever again? And what I lived last night, that waking dream, my first glimpse into His World... was it really a foretaste of Forever? Or was it all I'll ever get to see of it? My first and my last trip in Wonderland...
"Remember, darling, half the world is night."
Oh, I'll remember, Lola. I won't ever forget.
You just keep on writing, sweetie--who needs a Muse when you can create this wonderful bit of Moonlight magic on your own?? 
And I wonder if anyone has used it in a fic, perhaps in a multi-chapter? Just curious.