Xander (Spander eventually)
wordclaim50 prompt #3 Angst, word: whisper
Post NFA/Chosen
Warning: Drug use!

My Sweet Prince

by
Pirate Purple

Part One

I closed my eye as the needle pierced my vein. Almost a year in Africa, and this was the only bliss to be had. I’d traded everything I was for this short surcease from pain. Now they were sending me to L.A. to collect what was left after Angel’s big burnout. I laughed to myself, and a large brown hand slapped my side for disturbing the needle. A brown hand that moved to fondle the softness between my legs. I did too much of this stuff to really get hard anymore, but that didn’t really matter to most of them. I was compliant after a good fix, and that was what counted.

I woke up later, not sure how much later, to an insistent beeping from the cell phone. Willow, I had missed my flight, was I okay? I washed my face in the tepid water in the basin next to my cot. My stuff was all packed already. Gustaphe must have done it for me. Or Leonne, whichever one had been here last night. My sweet princes, bringing me painless nights.

I got on the flight to L.A.. Everything was too bright. I’d call Will when I got there and get my instructions.

Leftover mellow from last night whispers in my veins. How hard can it be to get morphine in L.A.?

Part Two

I was in a human bar on the seedy side of town when he found me. I had decided to find my fix before I called Willow. Well, morphine was kind of hard to get, so I’d taken off the edge with something else. Heroin, maybe? I'm not really sure. Anyway it had turned into a long enough binge that Willow had traced my credit card to find out where I had flown to, and Giles had given in and told them he was alive.

But no-one had told me. When his game face confronted me, I thought I had died and gone to hell.

“Not in hell yet, whelp, but you will be tomorrow.” I must have spoken out loud. Still, his voice brought back memories, memories I wasn’t ready for. The tears started to pour down my face. Anya. All those potentials that had died. Little girls. The slayers in Africa, I’d seen killed by their own people in the most terrible ways, because they were thought possessed. Spike being burned up from the inside. I couldn’t get away from that one.

“You’re dead.” My voice came out as a harsh whisper. God I needed something to drink. He brought a semi-clean glass of water to my lips, which I gulped, and then choked on. He sat me up and pounded my back until I stopped choking. Mind reader, much?

Now slightly more coherent, I sat up on my own. “Why are you here?” My voice rasped. I must have been screaming at some point.

“That’s a long story, mate. Longer than I intend to spend on your flabby arse.”

“I mean here, now? Why did you come to find me?” I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn’t hold me. My eyes rolled back in my head, and it was all black again.

Part Three

I woke to the chiming of church bells close by.

“They’re r-r-ringing for V-v-v-vespers.” My roommate explained, as if that meant anything to me. I looked blankly at the man in the next bed. He was junkie-thin, and obviously strung out, judging by the shakes that wracked his whole body.

“Where am I?” I had no earthly idea how I had gotten here.

“Th-this is St. Ann’s.” said the guy in the know, pushing greasy hair out of his eyes. “It’s a d-drug rehab c-clinic. A blonde m-man with a b-b-big leather jacket b-brought you here. I d-d-don’t th-think he left his name.”

“Spike,” I said, more to myself than to him. I wondered what he had told the girls and Giles. I was wearing a pair of characterless blue pajamas, and my clothes and things were nowhere in sight. I got out of bed and went to the bathroom.

My clothes were clean, in a locker in the bathroom. Keys, cell phone, everything was there. I put the clothes on and put everything in an appropriate pocket. I shrugged on my jacket. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Fighting, and making it look like some kind of ultra-violent dance, drunk when Drusilla left him, pale and resigned, the evening before he died for us. Only, for some reason, he wasn’t a pile of dust.

They gave me some static on the way out. Trying to get me to sign forms and the rest, but I just ignored them. The burning in my veins had already started, and I wanted answers before I had to find my next fix.

I had to find him, and know why.

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