Livin On A Prayer

He thought he knew what to expect...

After all, it hadn't been that long ago it'd been Rose in his place. Rose... losing herself inch by precious inch to insanity, past and present blurring until it had been a kindness for him to drive a stake through her heart. One of his most selfless acts.

But this?

Damon scoffed as he watched himself writhing on his bed, Stefan and the rest of the Scoobies running around trying to find a miracle cure to save him from the werewolf bite that was killing him.

Who'd have thought that dying would be a spectator sport?

He hated watching – it was so undignified – but was unable to look away from the image of himself, sweating and groaning, a scant few hours away from dying. Like for real this time. His kind already had one foot in the grave but he never thought he'd ever plant the other foot in too.

No one ever really did, he supposed.

Add to the fact that it was because of a fucking dog... As if dying wasn't enough he was now in a right mood about it.

Stefan ran his hands through his hair again and if the gesture hadn't reeked of regret and sorrow it would have made Damon laugh how it made his hair stick up on end afterwards. Kind of like Don King. Really, he wished Stefan would just end this for them all. Damon hated this out of body experience and didn't relish watching those he supposed he could consider his friends fretting over him, reaching out blindly at straws when in his heart, Damon had already given up.

It is what it is, he thought. Sucked he was going to be dead, but hey, that's the way the cookie crumbled. Life and death just went hand in hand and the only way one knew they had truly lived is to die and face their own mortality; it was true even for those considered immortal. The devil had called Damon's number and if he was going to go, he wanted it to be fast and preferably in style. Not this limbo of watching people rush to save his already doomed ass while he writhed like a stuck pig. There was no dignity in this death and he really thought Stefan owed it to him to put on his big girl panties, grab a stake and put them all out of their misery.

"You have lived rashly," a voice sounded from behind him, no louder than a whisper on a raven's wings. Though there was a surprising lack of emotion behind the words, Damon could have sworn it sounded like him; as if another copy of himself was standing behind him giving them voice.

Not bothering to turn around, his eyes remained glued to his own death scene. Damon snorted, saying, "Well what do you expect when I had nothing to live for?"

"Is that what you believe?"

The emotions he'd been suppressing hit him like a cinder block dropped to the head. He felt like Wile E. Coyote getting hit by his own anvil, falling victim to his own schemes. "What good's an eternity without a purpose?" he asked, the words grating out around the lump in his throat. He continued quieter yet, "Without someone to spend it with?"

"Hm-m," he got in return and the dismissive tone to his uncharacteristic confession pissed him off and had him whirling around to face –

Nothing.

There was nothing there.

"This is it," he said, the words hollow as the fell. "I've gone well and truly mad now. I must already be dead..."

"Not yet," the voice sounded again, once more from behind him. "You are in a holding pattern."

Fuck this metaphysical shit, Damon thought. "And just who the fuck are you? The ghost of Christmas Past? Let's just skip that bullshit and hit the fucking play button letting me die because I've got shit to do in Hell."