drunken 'i love you's on top of the world

Title: Backbeat
Author: lillianmorgan
Setting: 1960s, Ireland
Pairing: Spike, Angel
Rating: PG-13 (dark and angsty mainly)
Warning: Character Death
Disclaimer: I don’t own Joss’ or ME’s toys.
A/N: Many, many thanks to yourlibrarian and myfeetshowit for the very helpful beta.
Written for ladyoneill’s What If Spike Ficathon. With apologies for the lateness
For rethought who asked: What if Spike had never parted with Angel(us)? rethought was open to any Fanged Four pairing and/or characters to be included but requested shopping, Guinness in Ireland and superstition.
So I don’t want to give this too much away, but obviously it goes vaguely AU from the scenes in China in BtVS 5.7 Fool For Love and AtS 2.7 Darla.

Backbeat

Spike sauntered off the gangplank with the kind of attitude only a vampire could possess. Well, a vampire recently returned from his latest sojourn across the Irish Sea, that is. He felt envigorated from his once-yearly solo trip, granted with the clemency of his Sire, and no-one about to watch his every move. This time he had investigated the buzz around Carnaby Street, included shopping for the svelte new fur-lined army green parka that adorned his now bristling body, tapped into the verve of Liverpool where he found the beat (and a merseybeat no less) and generally soaked up the human spirit that was freshening up the place of his birth.

The blood was so much richer, too. Delectable, even.

With a sniff, almost of disgust, he contemplated the locals, going about their business in the Cork early evening. Their blood tasted musty, sluggish and tainted with the years of depression and Catholic guilt. That only a sea separated him from all that luxury made him sigh.

Finding Angelus was the easy part. He sat in one of the grimy pubs that lined the waterfront, sipping on a half-empty Guinness. Spike didn't like to second-guess Angelus. He could be waiting for Spike or just happen to be there. The uncertainty inevitably set his hackles higher.

“Wotcha.” Spike sat down beside him, sinking into the foamy seats.

Angelus lifted his eyes, then lowered them again. Something sparked inside them as he did, but it was fleeting.

“Brought you something back from Merry Old.” He slid the gift-wrapped box across the sticky tabletop toward Angelus’ pint of beer. “Just a little present. Nothing special.” He contemplated his fingernails, waiting for the other vampire to open the package.

Angelus took another sip on his beer, continued to read the crumbled newspaper held between his elegant fingers and Spike surged to his feet. “Right then. Off out for a spot of food. Want anything while I’m out?”

“Don’t kill anyone, Spike.”

“Yeah, yeah, sing me a new ditty.” He wandered out into the night air, toward the old town and the hospital where Angelus found his weekly supply of blood. The building was built before the Age of Enlightenment, old, degraded and ill-managed. Thus when blood and other sundries – say, a few dying patients here and there – went missing for a few hours the paperwork had a brave job keeping up. It was a deft thing, but Spike always managed to keep on Angelus’ good side – His Royal Foreheadness being fussy and all, with what he ate, and the no-killing policy. (There were some exceptions – the mortally ill, paedophiles and murderers - neither vampire was close to being a saint after all.)

Spike returned with a few pints of recently expired O and A pos. One of the nurses had taken a shine to him, probably from the extra pizzazz he put on whenever he entered the Nurses’ Station. He had a Kinks record in his bag for her, too, to sweeten the pill. There would come a day when he’d have to kill her. She really was just too young and scrumptious. The act itself would have to be kept on the hush-hush, of course, and that was why her identity was hidden from Angelus.

He didn’t want to end up like Drusilla, after all, dust flying in the wind because she pushed too many of Angelus’ soul-tinged guilt-filled buttons one night in a fit of deranged confusion. Too mad to realise that having a soul gave Angelus a greater perspective on all the dark things he’d done, the worst of them being the perfect creation of his Dark Beauty. If remembered with anything but realistic sympathy, thinking back on those twenty years--those transient, turbulent, whimsical years with Drusilla--would make him maudlin. And maudlin was not what Angelus desired. He wanted Spike to be spry and fit and teasingly sweet but saucy. Spike could either continue playing the well-versed role of the good boy, or spend eternity without Angelus, and he’d made his bed sixty years ago in China.

Who knows what would have happened if he and Drusilla hadn't met Angelus? That fateful night as he fled from Darla’s cruel words and Spike had killed himself a Slayer. Well, for one thing, Drusilla wouldn’t be dead. At least, not by Angelus’ hand. Perhaps they’d be together, somewhere, living the highlife. Away from Angelus’ constrictive penitent soul-encased care.

It wasn’t as if they had stopped trying to get rid of the soul. (Spike always tracked down the local know-it-all whenever he went somewhere new. Granted, they didn't go anywhere new often, but he maintained his inquisitive nature.) All number of mages and witches and magical doo-hickeys had been consulted, tried and tested. But it seemed as if the gypsies had trapped Angelus’ soul deep down inside him as tight as gelatinous glue. And besides, killing just wasn’t fun going solo. Especially when the Sword of Damocles, in the form of the sharpened stake that Angelus slept with every night, informed Spike’s every move.

He noticed with relief that Angelus was wearing the racing green, gold-embossed Jaguar cufflinks. Spike slipped the packets of blood onto the seat next to him.

“Like them alright?” he asked, nodding toward the cufflinks.

“Good choice,” mumbled Angelus. “Time enough for another round then? What’re you having, Spike? Guiness?”

Spike nodded and watched as his Sire ambled toward the bar, his steady gait free of tension and fear. In complete contrast to the ball of nerves Spike was. He instantly lit up a cigarette and sucked on the sickly-sweet nicotine, its heady perfume relaxing him.

In the distance, he heard church bells chiming across the city, mimicking the rhythm of the Angelus mass. Funny, the thing that should drive them away, bells being too loud for demons as the superstition went, seemed to draw them in, settle them, and make them stay. He shook his head at the irony.

If only they could leave, thought Spike as he watched Angelus calmly though silently pay for the drinks and return. If only life were different.

Finis

**

A/N I have to really apologise for the character death in this, but I felt it was necessary to portray Angel's state of mind. I've often wondered what might have happened if Angel had stayed and been confronted (with his soul in tact) with Drusilla every day whether it might have driven him slightly mad. But hopefully everyone knows how much I love Drusilla.