A/N: Buffy's song is I Dreamed a Dream from "Les Miserables" and Spike and Sweet's song is Music of the Night from "Phantom of the Opera." It's a different version than the lyrics I used, but you get the idea.

*****

Chapter 11: Music of the Night

After an hour of fruitless, shell-shocked research, Buffy closed her book, giving in to the itchy, restless sensation crawling over her skin. She needed action. Announcing she was going to patrol, she left the Magic Box before anyone could object.

It was no surprise to her that her feet, entirely of their own accord, carried her directly to Restfield and right to his crypt. She hesitated at the door, for some reason unwilling to kick it open as she normally did. She raised one tentative fist to knock, only to let it drop back to her side.

Spike saved her from the indecision by opening the door and finding her standing there. “Shouldn’t you be off figuring out how to get the witch back?” he asked, one eyebrow raised as he let her in.

“I know… I should,” Buffy replied, a note of resignation in her voice. “But… it’s this music – it… it makes me do what I want, instead of…” She caught Spike smirking at her. “What?”

“You want me.”

“I…” She started to protest, but realized it was useless and rolled her eyes. “Well, yeah, I think we established that pretty well already. But – I don’t love you. I do not, could not, will not love you.”

Spike cocked his eyebrow again at her insistence. The lady doth protest too much, he thought to himself. Shakespeare had a fine bloody point. “Why do you keep coming back, then?”

“Because I need this. I need to –” She cut herself off with a sigh, relenting but turning so her back was to him. It was hard enough, allowing herself to open up to him – she couldn’t look at him while she did it. “Since I came back, I’ve been… numb. Going through the motions.” A tiny, ironic smile stole over her face at the memory of her first song in the graveyard. “But I can’t – I can’t be the Slayer like that. I need my emotions. I need that fire to… do what I do.”

“Hence the ‘dance till you burn’ routine.”

“Yeah… but…” Buffy turned around to face him. “But you showed me that I… that I could live and still have that fire.” She reached out, pulling him towards her and capturing his mouth in a long, slow kiss. “This fire.”

“So, that’s all this is, then,” Spike said, backing away. “You just needin’ to feel something.”

“Yes!” she cried, but almost immediately corrected herself. “No!” Finally, she settled on, “I don’t know.”

“Well, thanks for clearing that up.” He started to show her the door.

“Spike!” She grabbed his arm. “Please…”

He shook off her grasp, catching her gaze in an intense stare. “No. We have something, Buffy, you and me. I’ve known it since the first moment I met you.”

“The first moment you said you’d kill me,” Buffy said dryly.

“Well, yeah. Vampire. And after all the fighting and bloodshed, here we are, doing this.” This time, it was Spike who initiated the kiss, pressing his lips fiercely against hers, leaving her breathless. “It’s bloody epic, ’s what it is.”

“I’ve done epic,” Buffy retorted. “Not interested in a sequel.”

Spike scoffed at the reference to Angel, but didn’t say anything. He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment before saying, “You’re right – you used to have a fire.” One hand came up to caress her cheek. “I saw you and you burned brighter than any other Slayer I’d ever seen. And you made me burn, Buffy. God, I’m still… and I see it, sometimes, even now. I see it in your eyes, when we’re making love.”

“Don’t call it that!” she cried, jerking away from him. “It’s not –”

“It is love, Buffy! Wake up!”

“I can’t love you,” she insisted. “I can’t… love.”

She blinked, and they looked at each other, both startled by her admission. Before Buffy had a chance to process why she’d said it, the music was tugging the confession further out of her.

“There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting”

“Buffy…” Spike started.

She shook her head and continued to sing.

“There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting

“There was a time
Then it all went wrong…”

As the mysterious music filled the crypt, Buffy moved, dream-like, to the center of the room. Spike took up a perch on the sarcophagus, her attentive audience.

“I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high and life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving

“Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted”

The music hit a dark minor chord, and Buffy suddenly changed, the peaceful expression on her face filling with anguish as sweet memories clouded over, becoming painful ones.

“But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
As they turn your dream to shame”

As Spike watched and listened with rapt attention, she moved to a pillar, extending one hand to caress the stone as though it were a lover.

“He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came”

Buffy spun around, pressing her back against the pillar as though it were holding her upright, an expression of longing on her face.

“And still I dream he'll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather”

Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, building to the climax of the song.

“I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed”

With the last line, the energy, driven by pain and heartbreak, seemed to go out of her, seeping away as she slid down the pillar to crouch on the floor, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

Spike stared at her for a minute, his throat tight with emotion, before he let a noise of bitter disgust escape from him. “So, it’s all about Angel, then,” he said. “You’d rather be with your precious Angel.”

Buffy scrambled to her feet. “No, it’s just… Look, I know it’ll never work with Angel. I know that.” She tried to meet his eyes, but the disappointment she found there pierced her heart. “And he was – he was that once in a lifetime thing, you know? If I couldn’t make it work with him, how can I make it work with anybody?”

“Because Angel was bloody stupid, that’s how!” He shoved off the sarcophagus to pace angrily around the crypt. “You’ve got him all up on some pedestal, pet. Trust me, he doesn’t deserve it. Angel and Angelus – they’re the same person. You’re looking for some line of bloody demarcation that isn’t there! Angelus was always inside him, Buffy. He just learned to hide it better with the soul, is all.” His rant ran out of steam, and his shoulders sagged. His head tilted to the side, and he looked at her with a mixture of love and regret. “Can see he did a number on you, love. Hurt you so bad you think it’s not worth trying again.”

“Maybe it’s not,” Buffy said quietly. “Riley wasn’t any different, in the end.”

Spike cracked the tiniest smile. “You ever think maybe you’re just dating the wrong blokes?”

“Oh, and you’re the right one?”

He shrugged. “Could be. But you’ll never know if you don’t try. Let yourself go. Live in my world for a bit.”

As he approached her, the music faded in again, soft and melancholy, enthralling her, beckoning to her.

“Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation
Darkness wakes and stirs imagination
Silently the senses abandon their defenses”

Spike reached out with one hand, running his fingers through her hair as he circled around behind her.

“Slowly, gently, night unfurls its splendor
Grasp it, sense it, tremulous and tender”

He sang softly in her ear as his strong hand turned her head, guiding her gaze towards him over her shoulder.

“Turn your face away
From the garish light of day
Turn your thoughts away from cold unfeeling light
And listen to the music of the night”

His hands slid down her arms, grazing her skin with his fingertips as the music built to a crescendo.

“Close your eyes and surrender to your darkest dreams
Purge your thoughts of the world you knew before”

His fingers intertwined with hers, bringing her hands up to her stomach as his arms wrapped around her waist.

“Close your eyes, let your spirit start to soar
And you’ll live as you’ve never lived before”

She did, closing her eyes, and letting the music wash over her, falling under the spell it wove.

*****

Far away, someone else picked up Spike’s song, a demon intent on seducing his prey.

“Softly, deftly, music shall caress you,” Sweet sang, trying to lull Tara into complacency and eradicate her fears and trembling. “Hear it, feel it, secretly posses you.”

They were in a small wooden rowboat that seemed to move of its own accord, since neither of its occupants was using the oars. The bow cut through the thick mist that shrouded their surroundings in mystery. As they went on, Tara guessed they were on a lake, maybe underground, or in some sort of cave, but the fog and darkness effectively blotted out any land.

Tara had no idea what dimension they were in. All she knew was that she had been in the Magic Box, and the next instant, they were standing on a small dock, with only a single torch illuminating their transport. She didn’t know why Sweet hadn’t just teleported them to the other side of the lake in the first place, but she supposed he liked the Phantom of the Opera setting.

Seated behind her, Sweet pressed his hands to Tara’s temples as he continued to sing to her. Her eyes flickered closed as foreign sensations washed over her.

“Open up your mind
Let your fantasies unwind
In this darkness which you know you cannot fight
The darkness of the music of the night”

Tara felt herself relaxing against her will. She wanted to be tense; she wanted to be frightened, but she couldn’t fight the intensity of the music as it rolled over her, seducing her with its power. The gentle sway of the boat added a false sense of calm, like a mother rocking her child to sleep.

“Let your mind start a journey through a strange new world
Leave all thoughts of the life you knew before
Let your soul take you where you long to be”

The song crescendoed to its height as Sweet let his voice ring, resonating against the cave-like walls and rippling over the lake. Then, he paused, and Tara held her breath as the note echoed in the silence.

“Only then,” Sweet sang, softer and slower now, “can you belong to me.”

Two demons, separated by time and space, singing in unison, as Tara succumbed to Sweet and Buffy melted into Spike’s arms.

“Floating, falling, sweet intoxication
Touch me, trust me, savor each sensation
Let the dream begin
Let your darker side give in
To the power of the music that I write
The power of the music of the night”

As the music swelled into an instrumental, Buffy surrendered to her emotions, her lips finding Spike’s in a deep, bruising kiss. He clutched her protectively, possessively, as she poured into her kiss all the love she couldn’t admit she felt. Pressing her body intimately against his, Buffy found refuge in his arms, letting the euphoria wash over her in waves of pleasure as she tasted his sweet mouth and explored his body with her hands.

Tara was jolted to alertness as the boat abruptly arrived at the far shore of the lake. She tried to resist as Sweet pulled her out of the boat, but found herself swept along by the music as he led her deeper into his underground lair. The cavern suddenly opened into a vast throne room, which glittered with bright lights and colors, in stark contrast to the place they’d just emerged from. Brilliant sunlight poured in through a row of windows across the room, dazzling Tara and prompting her to run across the room to peer out. Sweet let her go, and, looking down, she felt slightly as though she were in an M.C. Escher drawing, realizing they’d come out from underground only to find themselves at the top of a high tower, the tallest of a series of turrets and towers of a shimmery Emerald City-like castle.

Stunned, she turned to stare at Sweet, who gave her a saucy grin. “Welcome to hell,” he said, not the slightest bit surprised by her disbelief. Escorting her with one hand, like the royalty she apparently now was, Sweet guided her to the opposite end of the long hall, where a pair of gold, jewel-encrusted thrones with red plush seats were positioned on a raised platform, beneath a draping red and gold canopy. Sweet seated Tara in the smaller queen’s throne and took his own place next to her.

“You alone can make my song take flight,” he sang to her. “Help me make the music of the night.”