New story! :) I don't know how long this is going to be but I've been dying to write Delijah since before Klaus even appeared and Klefan took over my life. So without further ado...

Disclaimer: I don't own much of anything TBH.

Warnings: Future slashiness, 3x12 onwards spoilers.

Ignite

He was hesitating – for once in his life. Damon Salvatore didn't hesitate right? So why couldn't he just go through with his own damn plan and pull the stupid dagger out already?

They were on the clock. He only had so much time before Klaus would be here. He'd moved that one special coffin sure but that wasn't good enough. Klaus was going to get his hands on all four and then most of their advantage would be gone.

This had stopped being about getting rid of Klaus the minute he had joined Stefan. Regardless of what he may have told his little brother this was always going to be about revenge. He was Damon Salvatore and he hadn't changed.

Stefan thought he had. Stefan thought he'd gone soft. That he cared too much about Elena to be of any use to him anymore. But he was wrong. Nothing had changed since a hundred and fifty years ago. He may have been in love with Elena but he used to love Katherine as well and as much as it pained him to say it, it was all the same – it all felt the same. History was just repeating itself.

He was Damon Salvatore and he always had a diabolical plan up his sleeve. He wasn't the good guy and he really didn't give a shit who got hurt because of him...for the most part anyway. So why the hell was his hand still hovering hesitantly over the dagger in Elijah's chest cavity.

Just rip it out.

It was a rhetorical wonder of course – he knew exactly why he was hesitating, but he certainly didn't want to admit it to himself. He wasn't Stefan, it's not like he went home every night and spilled all his worldly experiences and his every thought out onto paper to keep track of it all. No, he just bottled everything up and kept it locked away tightly where no one would ever see – not even himself.

But this was clawing it's way to the forefront of his mind and he couldn't control it anymore. He didn't want to wake up Elijah. He really didn't. Elijah...changed him. The original vampire had an effect on him that he couldn't control and Damon hated it. He hated not being in control of himself. Katherine had done it to him, Elena had done it to him – why in the world would he wake up someone else that pulled that gut reaction out of him?

Granted they all did it in different ways, but they all made him feel something. Do something different. Want things that he never would have before.

And that was really the crux of the issue wasn't it? Elijah made him want things. Made him want to be different. There was a spark in Damon that was ignited whenever someone challenged him. It was the spark that fuelled all of his diabolical plans, all of his perfect revenge plots and Elijah? Elijah set him alight.

When he was around Elijah he didn't just feel a competitive spark coming to life, or a churning ember – he was already burning. It wasn't a good thing in Damon's book and it wouldn't be in anyone else's either if they knew what that meant for him. It made him want to be...bad.

The first time he really spoke with the original was at the Historical Society Tea Party which, like all events in Mystic Falls was at the Lockwood's. When they had first begun to banter it had brought out the dark side of him that had been getting a little bored since he'd ripped out Mason Lockwood's heart, so naturally he'd jumped at the chance of a war with words.

As they had begun to circle each other his heart had begun to race. He had taken a moment then to be thankful that he'd recently fed because otherwise at the speed his chest was thumping around blood his veins would have soon been rubbing against each other like sandpaper.

They were taking turns at trying to figure the other out, push them into slipping up and making them reveal more than they should but neither would take the bait and that just made Damon all the more eager. His competitive nature had definitely been an enhanced trait when he was changed.

When the original had tried to quickly end the conversation and make his leave though Damon had acted without thinking, he'd launched himself in front of him, blocking the doorway before he even knew what he was doing himself.

He couldn't forget the fact that when Elijah had gripped him by the throat and thrown him up against the wall his still racing heart had practically leapt out of his mouth and not in fear. The prospect of facing down the original excited him like nothing else. He was supposedly one of the strongest vampires to ever exist and damn it if that didn't get Damon's blood running hot.

When Elijah breaks his wrist it dawns on him that yeah, he's bitten off more than he can chew for sure. But would he change it? No way. Elijah had sneered down at him, "You young vampires, so arrogant. How dare you come in here and challenge me?" Damon couldn't help but let out a grin even as the hand on his neck tightened and he could feel his spine beginning to splinter.

Besides wondering exactly how old the guy must be in the first place, the arrogance and the confidence it was delivered with mirrored Damon completely and he liked it. He was burning to rise to the challenge - to tear the older vampire's grip away and show him exactly why he dared. But he couldn't – he simply wasn't strong enough and that made him furious.

He loved the fight, he would rise to the challenge but most of all...he liked winning. He usually did. But with Elijah, he wasn't even sure if that possibility was even in the ball park.

Elijah is silent at his grin and Damon swears his head almost tilts to the side as he studies him. He would also swear that he saw a flash of the same spark light up the other vampire's eyes, burning just like his at the prospect of a good challenge.

He re-thinks that however when the original drives a pencil through his jugular. Hazily, in the back of his mind he's laughing about how ironic it is because he's sure he's seen this in a movie somewhere. He's still itching to hold his ground even though he's knows his chances of ever winning this battle are slim to none as he leans back and grasps at his bleeding throat.

When Elijah leans forward, offering him a tissue for the wound he accepts that he's lost. The hands are gripping at his sides and he can't help but reach up and tighten his in an expensive blazer all the while inwardly cursing himself.

"I'm an original. Show a little respect."

Elijah: 1, Damon: 0. And the score on his side would probably remain the same for a very long time.

Still that injury is laughed off compared to when he wakes up chained in some torture device in his own damn house – at the mercy of werewolves no less. He talks shit back to them, taking a stab at Jules about how he killed her wolfy boyfriend Mason the same way but on the inside his composure is slipping and short of a miracle like Stefan coming home from the lake house early (which definitely wasn't going to happen) he didn't know how the hell he was going to get out of this one.

They keep asking for the moonstone and he keeps deflecting. They keep literally yanking his chain and he keeps screaming, biting clean through his lower lip. He isn't going to tell them shit but unfortunately he wasn't getting out of this chair either.

When Elijah cut in, "looking for this?" in all his elegant original glory Damon wouldn't deny letting out a sigh (more like a gasp) of relief. He was surprised yes, and he had stared a second in wonderment before he regained his cocky facade.

He offers them the moonstone and Damon would smirk if he had the energy and even though he had a smug inkling as to what was about to happen, nothing could have prepared him for the explosion that was Elijah. Three werewolves down in seconds, their hearts completely torn out and dropped to the floor like trash.

He kills the last offender and then removes the chains around Damon's wrists, freeing him from the contraption before stating with a subtle air of arrogance, "you realise this is the third time I've saved your life now?"

That kills him too; the fact that he wants to hate Elijah – he's an arrogant prick and all things considered their personalities clash horribly. But he can't – because the damn original kept pulling shit like this. It wouldn't be the last time he saved him either.

Long after the original had left, Damon had been glued to the same spot, staring ahead unseeing still locked on the image of Elijah standing across from him, two arms out, dripping with blood and gore having just ripped his attacker's hearts out.

That image haunted him for weeks after that. And damn if it didn't make his dark side want so much more.

There were so many reasons he was relieved when Elijah was finally firmly daggered. He made Damon want horrible things. To do things that he didn't need to. He made him want things and Damon hated it. He was still on zero weeks later, never able to win a battle of wills or otherwise against the original and it irritated him to no end.

Any time the vampire was around Damon's dark side burned white hot and it had to end, so he was glad that while not disposed of, Elijah was out of the way until they had further use for him – or Klaus did in any case.

And now here he was, hand hovering over the dagger, hesitating for his own selfish reasons, his chest clenching and his brain refusing to let him think about the people of Mystic Falls and about Elena and all the other reasons that he needed to wake the original vampire up.

While his mind may have been in conflict though his body was on autopilot and when his sensitive ears picked up the sound of leaves crunching outside under heavy boots his instinctual reaction was the grip and pull. And he did.

He stared at the dagger clutched in his hand for a moment before slamming the lid down on the coffin and swinging back around, preparing to face the hybrid, Klaus.

Continue? Or not? Y/N? :)