Authors Notes: Xander's thoughts as he is being bled to death. It's another one of my three am things. Anyway, tell me what you think. Email: sweet_old_lady@serialkiller.co.uk

Spoilers: Season four, but nothing major.

I know Buffy would freak if she heard me say it, but being drained by a vampire is actually an okay way to die. I mean, come on, exotic. It's not like dropping dead reaching for a can of beans in Wal-Mart at the age of eighty. Hell, it even puts all those people out in Africa who get mauled to death by lions to shame on the weird death scale. And you know, I can see Riley's point. I mean I'm not saying I would trade in Buffy's love for some skanky vamp ho sucking on my arm but it does feel pretty good, once you stop fighting for your life and just give into it. Kind of like floating somewhere between dreams and reality. That nice warm place you find yourself waking up in the morning. Not quite asleep, not quite awake. Just drifting softly along before you have to face the real world again. Not that I'll have to worry about that any more.

My blood is rushing out. I can feel it leaving me. Spurting into his mouth at an impossible rate. If he took his mouth away, I'd bleed to death in minutes anyway, so I guess I better enjoy it while it lasts. Before the blackness takes over entirely. God knows where I'll end up when I get to the other side of the darkness. I know there's a heaven and I know there's a hell, but I don't really feel like I belong in either of these places. I'm not religious. If there is a God, he sure as hell hasn't done me any favours, my current situation being a case in point. I never really took him seriously. Even when I was a kid, and my father would force me to church every Sunday, before dragging me home so he could beat the shit out me. My father loved God. He didn't love me, and he sure as hell didn't love my mother. Seeing as to how he hasn't given me any signs of his approval up to now, I'm ruling out heaven in the Christianity sense of it. And I know I don't belong in hell, after all I've done to protect the world, after all the lives I've saved. Maybe neither of these places exists the way we think of them. Maybe it's just different dimensions, and I'll end up somewhere in between. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Once I get to that unspecified place, maybe I'll laugh about all of this. Maybe I'll watch them all gathered around my cold, white body and laugh my dead ass off as Spike tells them all he didn't see it coming. Whoever it was, they knocked him out. Left him there, and drained the boy dry. It's highly unlikely he'll tell them the truth.

"Yeah, it was me. Chips got a bloody loophole. Sucked the whelp dry."

And the loophole? I asked him to. We had a verbal sparring match. I told him to hit, hit me if he could, then bleed me dry. I told him he was pathetic. Then he hit me. Didn't hurt. Him at least. Felt like my face was caving in. Then he bit me. And I'm guessing that didn't hurt him either. Unless he's putting on an extremely brave face. I don't really understand, but I'm guessing it didn't hurt because for Spikey, it's by invitation only now. I told him to hit me, I told him to bleed me dry. I let him do it, so he could. To be honest I don't even regret it that much.

Well, I guess it's time to go find out what's on the other side of that darkness now. Maybe they have a special heaven for the dumb and the gullible. Somewhere my mouth won't get me into anymore trouble.

Wherever I find myself, I hope I can remember the getting there, because if it was nothing else, it was a hell of a ride.