Title: The voice in her head
Rating: M
Subject: Buffy Summers
Pairing/Characters: Mentions of Buffy/Spike; Buffy/Angelus overtones.
Prompt: 54. Hearing
Author's Note: This is set roughly during season 6 but definately after Smashed

He was always there at the back of her mind; that inner voice had stopped being her own just after her 17th birthday. Her subconscious was the one who invented new fun ways to torture her on a daily basis. The constant flogging and inner turmoil took on a new meaning when the scourge of Europe decided to take up residence in her head. Everyone has that little voice inside them telling them not to do this, that they look fat in that skirt and that he is defiantly the wrong guy and you're entirely too stupid not to see it. Not everyone had the monster that wore their lover's face as the one saying those things.

She'd almost prayed that if she let someone else hurt her enough he'd leave her alone. She suspected if she let Spike humiliate her just a little bit more maybe that voice would switch from smooth and velvety to rough and accented, but it never did. Weren't you supposed to get a say in who dealt out your inner torment? Shouldn't it be her own voice taunting her as she slayed, fucked and groomed? Shouldn't all the hate she felt towards herself be given by her? Why him?

He dealt out all her inner humiliation. He called her a slut after Parker and Riley, a whore after Spike and some part of her knew she was just a little bit crazy. The fact was she had to be because when he wasn't taunting her she missed him. She often wondered if this was how Angel felt every day and wondered if she'd ever tell him his monster was her own.

The darkness Spike said she craved existed inside her, all rolled up into dark soulless orbs that she wished she could will away from her thoughts. He's the reason she gave into Spike, the reason she let the darkness he offered consume her.

When she was with the blonde she'd close her eyes and imagine it was him she was fucking mercilessly. She had to bite her lip to keep from calling out his name. If it weren't so insane she might find it funny, she took solace in the wrong vampire because the right one was locked away tight in the body of her ex-lover.

She couldn't help but wonder if Spike would be more pissed off if he knew she pretended he was someone else; or if he knew that some one else wasn't Angel.

It was Angelus who kept her company at night; his was the voice she heard in her head.