Title: Something Worse
Fandom: BtVS
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Buffy, Angel.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 400
Spoilers: Becoming Part 2, Beauty and the Beasts.
Summary: Killing Angel should have ben the worse thing Buffy ever experienced, but in some ways this is worse.
Content Notes: None needed.
Written For: Challenge 411: Amnesty 68, using Challenge 256: Restraint.
Disclaimer: I don’t own BtVS, or the characters.




Buffy had thought killing Angel was the hardest thing she’d ever have to do. Seeing the confusion and betrayal in his eyes as she’d thrust the sword though him to close the portal Angelus had been opening had all but destroyed her, shattering her heart into razor-edged fragments that tore her apart with every breath.

This was worse. It should have been over the moment she’d sent the man she loved to Hell, but here he was, back again, a feral beast unable to communicate or even recognise her. It had been a shock to see him, running half-naked through the woods. A bigger shock when he’d attacked her, but she’d acted instinctively, fighting back, knocking him out, and dragging him back to the mansion.

It shouldn’t have been so easy. It had been obvious during their brief battle that he was weaker than she remembered, and there’d been no real skill to his fighting, nothing but an animal savagery. He looked like Angel, but he wasn’t, not anymore.

Leaving him running loose hadn’t been an option, he was too dangerous, and at the same time, too vulnerable. If any of her friends found out he was back… No, she couldn’t risk that, they’d want to kill him and while she couldn’t entirely blame them for that after what Angelus had put them through, she needed to find out why he’d been returned, what it all meant, whether the man she loved was still in there somewhere.

Now Angel crouched barefoot on the cold stone floor, hunched over, head down, shivering slightly although the night wasn’t cold. The chains she’d shackled him with clinked faintly with every shudder that wracked his body, and Buffy ached to comfort him. He was clearly suffering.

She tried speaking to him, but there was no response, he didn’t look up. Cautiously she moved closer, reached out to touch his shoulder, feeling his skin like ice beneath her fingers in the brief instant before he snarled and lunged at her, fighting against his restraints.

Stumbling back out of reach, Buffy stared at him in mingled horror and pity. What had ben done to him to make him like this? She couldn’t begin to imagine. But she had to at least try to help him, she owed him that much.

She’d take care of him, feed him, but keep him restrained, so he couldn’t hurt anyone.


The End