MBsides - Track 01 - "The Stranger"
Jan. 10th, 2008 11:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prodigalwatcherTrack 01 - "The Stranger", Billy Joel
Well, we all have a face that we hide away forever
And we take them out and show ourselves when everyone has gone.
Some are satin, some are steel,
Some are silk and some are leather.
They're the faces of the stranger,
But we love to try them on.
More than once in these past few months, I have looked at myself in the mirror and not recognised the hard, cold eyes that stared back at me. His expression is so serious and determined that his mouth has been drawn into a tight, cruel line. The man in the mirror is a product of his circumstances, born of the deeds of others and the choices I myself made and for which I myself must pay.
More disconcerting, though, is how easily and how comfortably into that stranger's skin I have slipped.
Well, we all fall in love,
But we disregard the danger,
Though we share so many secrets,
There are some we never tell.
Why were you so surprised that you never saw the stranger?
Did you ever let your lover see the stranger in yourself?
Was that where he was born, this stranger I've become? Did it happen when my heart broke? She can't have known, I would tell myself over and over again, but never once did the words ring true. There was no possibility that she was unaware of my interest. Everyone knew. But she made her choice, and it hurt more than any blade or bullet.
Perhaps if I had been a man more like the one I have become, things would have been different. Yes, I think. I think they would have been very different.
Don't be afraid to try again.
Everyone goes south every now and then.
You've done it.
Why can't someone else?
You should know by now.
You've been there yourself.
And so, the stranger in the mirror is me now. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, redefined... remade and re-imagined. Thousands of miles, both literally and figuratively from the man who crossed from London to Sunnydale only a few short years ago. A man changed already, in fact, since I lost the title of "Watcher" and with it, all the things I had believed I might be.
Once I used to believe I was such a great romancer.
Then I came home to a woman that I could not recognize.
When I pressed her for a reason,
She refused to even answer.
It was then I felt the stranger kick me right between the eyes.
Although it might be difficult to find the exact moment of his conception, the stranger's arrival is simple to pick out. It happened the moment I made the decision not to ignore Lilah Morgan or have her thrown out of that bar. It happened the moment I made the decision to take her to bed. I was in every manner sleeping with the enemy, and it was from that time on that I have seen this other man in the mirror.
You may never understand how the stranger is inspired.
But he isn't always evil and he is not always wrong.
Though you drown in good intensions,
You will never quench the fire.
You'll give in to your desire when the stranger comes along.
As I said, the most surprising aspect of this new man's nature is how very little of a change he seems to feel to be. Perhaps it is only the fact that I the change was not so much a switch as an inevitable progression. More than that, though... when I see the stranger with the cold, cruel eyes in the mirror? I am glad to see him.
The stranger, this new man his new fighters simply refer to as "Pryce"? He gets the job done. Demons are killed. Wrongs are righted, or better yet, prevented. The evil are beaten back into the shadows. And he... and I... will never, ever be hurt again.
(444)
Well, we all have a face that we hide away forever
And we take them out and show ourselves when everyone has gone.
Some are satin, some are steel,
Some are silk and some are leather.
They're the faces of the stranger,
But we love to try them on.
More than once in these past few months, I have looked at myself in the mirror and not recognised the hard, cold eyes that stared back at me. His expression is so serious and determined that his mouth has been drawn into a tight, cruel line. The man in the mirror is a product of his circumstances, born of the deeds of others and the choices I myself made and for which I myself must pay.
More disconcerting, though, is how easily and how comfortably into that stranger's skin I have slipped.
Well, we all fall in love,
But we disregard the danger,
Though we share so many secrets,
There are some we never tell.
Why were you so surprised that you never saw the stranger?
Did you ever let your lover see the stranger in yourself?
Was that where he was born, this stranger I've become? Did it happen when my heart broke? She can't have known, I would tell myself over and over again, but never once did the words ring true. There was no possibility that she was unaware of my interest. Everyone knew. But she made her choice, and it hurt more than any blade or bullet.
Perhaps if I had been a man more like the one I have become, things would have been different. Yes, I think. I think they would have been very different.
Don't be afraid to try again.
Everyone goes south every now and then.
You've done it.
Why can't someone else?
You should know by now.
You've been there yourself.
And so, the stranger in the mirror is me now. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, redefined... remade and re-imagined. Thousands of miles, both literally and figuratively from the man who crossed from London to Sunnydale only a few short years ago. A man changed already, in fact, since I lost the title of "Watcher" and with it, all the things I had believed I might be.
Once I used to believe I was such a great romancer.
Then I came home to a woman that I could not recognize.
When I pressed her for a reason,
She refused to even answer.
It was then I felt the stranger kick me right between the eyes.
Although it might be difficult to find the exact moment of his conception, the stranger's arrival is simple to pick out. It happened the moment I made the decision not to ignore Lilah Morgan or have her thrown out of that bar. It happened the moment I made the decision to take her to bed. I was in every manner sleeping with the enemy, and it was from that time on that I have seen this other man in the mirror.
You may never understand how the stranger is inspired.
But he isn't always evil and he is not always wrong.
Though you drown in good intensions,
You will never quench the fire.
You'll give in to your desire when the stranger comes along.
As I said, the most surprising aspect of this new man's nature is how very little of a change he seems to feel to be. Perhaps it is only the fact that I the change was not so much a switch as an inevitable progression. More than that, though... when I see the stranger with the cold, cruel eyes in the mirror? I am glad to see him.
The stranger, this new man his new fighters simply refer to as "Pryce"? He gets the job done. Demons are killed. Wrongs are righted, or better yet, prevented. The evil are beaten back into the shadows. And he... and I... will never, ever be hurt again.
(444)
