On a related note, this weekend I've been mulling over B/A fic ideas for the
iwry_marathon and to get me in the mindset I was browsing through past entries. One fic that I came across and is in utter need of reccing is Courting Sin by 
leni_ba. I suppose any B/A 'shipper likely know this 'verse already, but as one of the uninitiated it's completely new to me. A bit late to the party, I suppose, since this was written in 2005. Nonetheless, I read it as a lark at Octaves of the Heart and I was pretty much awe-struck. Set in an AR S2, Leni diverges somewhere around Passion and spins a dark, psychological "what if" tale about how a relationship between Angelus and Buffy might have started. It sounds like a totally outrageous and even unappealing concept, but my god is it executed brilliantly. The story unfolds through brief vignettes told from Buffy's POV and is so plausible as to be disquieting. Buffy's slow slow fall, the co-dependence that the two of them begin to share, the brilliant tweaking of canon events to suit this original and fascinating story is just... wow. The characterization is spot on and the writing... the writing is what really got me. It's beautiful. Elegant, streamlined, thoughtfully crafted and so deliberate that the words pack a sizeable punch. We know that Buffy has a lot of darkness in her that she only taps into later in the show, but with Angelus' clever mind games she sinks quickly, but more surprisingly starts to match him stride for stride. Happy reading. 