Sweet sat on his throne and watched Buffy Summers cry in her room. Dim girl, this one. Hurts herself and others around her out of sheer stubbornness. Still, she cut the man she loved to the bone, then kicked him while he was down. She definitely had possibilities ...

He watched Willow drink wine in her room. Ah, she sought to assuage her broken heart. In her room, Dawn slumped on her bed, rocking side to side, lips moving soundlessly. Poor little key-girl, so beset by loss, so many loved ones leaving her to cross over. It puzzled Sweet how humans kept hurting one another, yet always stuck together. As though they enjoyed pain, reveled in their tears.

The white-headed vampire was most fascinating. Sweet watched him in his crypt, lying motionless and staring at the ceiling. Waiting for your beloved Slayer to come and love you? Sweet suppressed a laugh. She will only use you then kick you aside, yet still you wait, impatient for her attention. Worry not, fine vampire, she will be coming to spit on you again, soon.

"I think it's time," Sweet spoke aloud to himself, "to bring some sweet music to the pathetic lives of these dullards." He frowned, then grinned, then frowned again as he waved his hand to open a portal to Sunnydale. Then he grinned again.

"Music," he intoned, "so good for the digestion."

OMWF***OMWF***OMWF***OMWF***OMWF***OMWF***

Spike slumped on his couch with a half-finished bottle of bourbon and wondered what Buffy was up to.

"Bet Buffy's doing the Bronze with the Boobies." A bleedin' Slayer, a damn bleedin' bloody Slayer and Spike was helpless with the memory of her, the hope of her. He yearned for her scent, for her touch. He sprang from the couch then threw himself back on it.

"Bollocks!" he hissed. "Go t'hell, Buffy."

He jumped again to his feet and kicked the couch. Its frame shattered somewhere under the upholstery, and he swore. He wound up a punch but there was nothing to hit. He ran to the crypt wall and walloped that, cracking the stone. Without willing it he was pounding the wall again and again, bloodying his fist, snapping the bones in his hand. He dropped to his knees, laughing and crying simultaneously. It's the liquor, he thought.

"You ... you love me," he stammered to the empty crypt. "Y-you want me." He crawled aimlessly until his head hit his tv stand. He clutched its leg with both arms and cursed with every filthy word he ever knew. Look at this, he scorned himself, I kill Slayers. I kill Slayers.

"I kill you," he shouted. "I don't need you. You'd be dead without me. Slayers die. You'll die."

He sat back and flexed his hand. the bones were knitting quickly, just as the alcohol buzz was dissipating. He chuckled wetly and palmed his eyes as he lurched to his feet.

He knew Buffy would love him, if only she would allow herself.

He sighed, knowing she never would.

Buffy sidled in through the crypt door.

"Spike, I need to talk to you."

Spike jumped in surprise - mentally. He turned slowly, his expression knowing and carefree. "Hello, Buffy old bean. How are you and the gang?"

He noted Buffy's distraught face and went to her.

"What's wrong?"

Buffy looked up at him and began to speak. All that came out was a sob, then Buffy cried and it was like a floodgate opening, and the sobs contorted her face and jerked her back muscles, and Spike almost stepped back, truly shocked at this outpouring. He opened his arms and she was instantly enfolded in them, her arms around him, her face buried in his chest. Spike felt drunk again, dizzy. Buffy's scent filled his senses and made his head light. A shard of fear lanced through his consciousness, a dread of what truth could lurk behind such unexpected sorrow.

"Is the little bit all right?" he asked softly. Buffy shook her head and pushed back from him. Effort twitched her facial muscles, then she gained control, tight-lipped and sober. Spike couldn't meet her gaze. He looked at the floor.

"Everyone's fine. I - I just ... look, I needed -"

"What, what is it?"

"Never mind. No." she discarded the thought. "This is about. It's me. It's about. Us. You. I can't do this right now, I can't.

"I have to go."

She started, but Spike grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her back around to face him. "No you don't. Talk to me, Buffy. Right. Now!"

"Let me go." Buffy's expression hardened.

"Don't do that, Buffy. We beat each other all the time, it's like we're some crazy trashy couple. Don't do it."

"You think - you say we're a couple?" Her shoulders felt like corded iron.

Spike let go of her shoulders and turned his back on her. "No. Now get out.

"Don't come back again, ever." He heard his voice say it, and it sounded so far away.

The crypt door opened and closed. Spike's head fell forward and he stayed that way. Idly, he thought about maybe staying that way forever, slouched against the wall, until his body shriveled from lack of nourishment. He could do it. It could take a year for the end to come, but he was a vampire, and he could do it.

Music began to play from some invisible source. It filled up in his ears like a tender cascade of warm water filling a tub. When Buffy touched his arm he betrayed his surprise, his whole center jolting under her palm.

A familiar impulse took him, and as he turned and started to sing he rolled his eyes - mentally, because Buffy was there to love and to hate and to take. He took her elbows and sang, his eyes fixed on hers.

"The world was on fire No one could save me but you. Strange what desire will make foolish people do. I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you, and I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you. No I, don't want to fall in love. No I, don't want to fall in love with you, with you."

Gone was the angry scowl from her face. A softer, calmer - dare he think it - affectionate expression, her standing there looking back at him, watching him, hearing him sing to her. Spike let his hands release her and he spun around, his body moving automatically, and in rhythm to the music.

"What a wicked game you play, to make me feel this way. What a wicked thing to do, to let me dream of you. What a wicked thing to say, you never felt this way what a wicked thing to do, to make me dream of you. And I don't wanna fall in love. And I don't want to fall in love."

Buffy reacted to the words as though they had great meaning to her.

Spike sang the last verse.

"World was on fire no one could save me but you. Strange what desire will make foolish people do. I never dreamed that I'd love somebody like you. I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you. No I don't wanna fall in love. No I don't wanna fall in love with you, with you."

His body moved in dance, conveying somehow his rage, his resentment of her and all the hurt, the knuckle-cracking pain Buffy the Vampire Slayer had seared into his being. He turned to see her face, to gauge her reaction, but then he didn't care. He swung back and performed a flourish with his feet, winding up at tghe wall, his back to Buffy. His face hidden from Buffy, and hers hidden from his view.

Sincere emotions swirled through his consciousness. He pounded them away.

He managed in a jovial voice, "Thanks a bloody lot. Y'know I didn't need you to stay and hear me sing."

He pulled at his pocket for his cigarettes.

There was no answer from Buffy, and his fingers shook as he lit up. He hoped she hadn't gone. "Sweet must be back again. Maybe a little violence is in our future, heh?

"And alcohol, lots and lots of alcohol."