Title: Some Kind of Devil

Author: s.a.

Rating: R.

Pairing: Buffy/Angelus.

Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Disclaimer: Other people's gardens. I just like to play in them.

Spoilers: AU-ish twist in season two.

Author's Notes: Minim needed motivation. I offered her this. She ended up writing, so it all works out.

Summary: So close to heaven, and ever nearer to hell.

Some Kind of Devil
by s.a.

Impatient fingers scrabbled up her body. She held deathly still, as if this would all simply stop if she didn't respond to his skillful, cutting touches. It didn't, of course, but thinking loudly to herself kept her a hair's breadth from insane.

She couldn't count the weeks she'd been there. Time had been stripped away, and she remained chained to a wall. She faintly remembered the times she'd attempted to struggle, knowing she could break the iron bonds, and failing. Angelus watched on with a leering smirk, and once he'd tired of watching her humiliate herself over and over again, he'd informed her of the magic that strengthened the metal.

She'd started crying at some point, and now tear tracks overran her face. She barely noticed anymore, working to recede into the distance that would enable her to get through this. She had to believe that she'd survive.

The days he beat her dragged on like molasses, thick and sweet with the smell of blood. He seemed fascinated by what her body could take, determined to push her to the very brink. There were moments when she could feel death cresting over her, a welcoming black. But then there would be a spike of pain, clear and unrelenting, and she would be pulled from the precipice.

Slowly he started to introduce pleasure with pain, and she gasped with shock when he took her brutally, timing each thrust with a deafening blow. He trained her, made her so that she whimpered with joy as he slid razor-sharp knives down her skin, pleaded wordlessly for more when his thumbs withheld air from her fragile lungs.

Each night he would return her to her corner, and she would huddle there, pulling her arms close to her body and burying her head in her hands. It was more routine than sorrow. She remembered reading somewhere that humans could adapt to anything, given enough time. Any situation could gain some semblance of normalcy. A remote part of her mind, remnant of the Buffy-that-was, wondered how she could possibly define this as normal.

That small voice in the back of her mind chanted the names of her friends, a mantra that meant she'd get out of this. Sometimes she would whisper their names across creamy white skin, causing Angelus to move harder and thrust as if to burn those words from her brain. Her gasps would falter, and more than once he had slaped her back to consciousness.

Angelus was ever searching for the part of Buffy that would break her completely. She bent to his will, and she was young enough that he could manipulate her well to his intentions. Still, something eluded him, and he was ever intent on discovering what exactly it was.

For endless moments she had lucidity, and Angelus would frown and beat the clarity out of her. She would smile, the soft curve of mouth she'd saved for her lover, and Angelus would be that much more determined to bring her down.

END