AN: Wo… back at it. Sorry for the supermassive long wait, but I really didn't have one single free moment to get this up. It's still not really finished properly. I just onced it over and decided to put it up cause it's been a month and a week since my last update. Insert sad face here. I had to back read twice. This fan fic is too long! I'll try for shorter, more manageable concise chapters. I'll try.

Anyhow, thanks again to everyone still reading this. I've had some time to mull this around and I have something kinda weird that I want to try… If it gets too weird and unfollowable let me know, except, I kinda have the whole thing rooted now so it'll be kinda hard to deviate.

Apparently 'kinda' is my favourite word.

This chapter's mostly just some Damon introspection, and a recap. Doesn't really take up much actual time and runs timewise in sync with the latter half of the last chapter 'Meet Jaxxon'. I really want to get into Damon's damage a little bit. I mean, it's a Bamon, but I've a vested interest in creating a fleshed out Damon.

Thanks for reading. Even if I might not change the plot, still drop a comment to approve or disapprove, so I'd have an idea for the future if I want to try another fanfic. All criticism is good criticism, unless you cuss me out or something… So if you stop following it, lemme know why, please!

Big thanks for reading!

The abattoir butchers had always been fun to watch. Many a Sunday afternoon he'd spent peering into the slaughter house when he was young. A century and a half ago, give or take. And how he used to hate them, those vile abattoir men. How he'd wished them dead, and damned… and at the same time, how he'd revered them. He'd stand there on his tiptoes peeping, afraid, disgusted and enraptured, with the open mouthed fascination only a bloody red cleaver could generate.

If only he'd become a butcher instead of a soldier, he might have had some skill at carcass dressing hybrids. If only he'd helped out with the kitchen staff a little more and learnt the tricks of the gutting trade. If only Klaus had had a proper cleaver in his silverware collection. If only...

Story of my life.

If only Katherine hadn't been a grade A bitch; if only Elena didn't look just like her; if only Stefan had been born cross-eyed or chromosome deficient; if only I hadn't drank Katherine's blood and got shot through the chest by the old man; if only…

If only he'd not been so snarly that time he'd been trying to get the crystal to open the tomb. If only he'd not gotten her grandmother killed. If only he'd not founded the "Let's Sacrifice Bonnie for Elena" campaign…

Her own fault, most of it…

Well, it was. Always with that 'get thee hence' attitude. Always with that chin in the air, parading around on her stilted, constipated, high horse.

He liked to think they'd had a 'playful banter' thing going, but there'd been days when he'd see clear as daylight that she was dead serious about setting him on fire… That, and she'd actually set him on fire the once…

Damon sighed and wiped the non-existent sweat off his brow; gutting a man was hard work. His muscles were tight with the effort, and a faint bitter taste in the back of his throat was telling him he'd pushed himself too far outside his limits.

He should have taken a sip of all the tasty, bubbly, nigh effervescent, 100% proof hybrid blood that Elijah and Magwyr were guzzling, but he'd wanted to keep the taste of Bonnie on his lips… The hunger was doing him in. He was out of it. Just touching Klaus' body and battling through the musky, murderous aura it seemed to exude was draining him…

He felt like a human kid again. Like a pathetic whelpling running uphill with a wicked burn in his thighs…

I'm a kid compared to these guys,he realised.

Klaus, Mags, Elijah, Geraldine, Jaxxon… They'd been prowling in the shadows centuries before old man Giuseppe had ever even dreamed of getting lucky with his mother. They'd come up in the times of Vikings and wars and Atilla and…

Sure he had some war experience under his belt, but while he'd been trained to handle a rifle, Klaus had grown up handling broadswords and claymores, living a sword-and-shield lifestyle. Just because the dude bought his clothes at the local GAP, didn't mean he wasn't still a heathen barbarian deep down.

And who am I to call anyone a barbarian?

He glowered over the circle of blood and intestine he'd created.

Who am I to call anyone heathen?

After realising that none of the kitchen knives were going to open up the hybrid in a permanent way, (the guy could heal faster than a sumbitch), he'd elected to just rip the entire gastrointestinal tract out through the mouth.

Yeah…

Messy.

Stuff of nightmares.

Funny how you get creative when the situation calls for it. If it hadn't been for Greta and her de novo method of torture, the idea might not have come to him at all. Pre-torture Damon used to keep it clean. A heart-rip used to be the limit of how gory he'd go, but now?

His brain was doing backflips and summersaults… A touch of mania, perhaps?

Maybe… Reaching down somebody's throat and ripping their ass out through their mouth seemed a kinda manic thing to do.

Who knows?

He was either evolving or devolving. The verdict was still in the air.

On one hand, he'd used more of his vampiric power in one week than he'd used in the last century. He'd regrown a hand, regrown a liver, survived the wickedest Mad Hatter Tea-party of all time… If he were a Pokémon, he'd definitely be evolving… with all the experience points he'd been accumulating.

But he wasn't some cute cuddly Pokémon that could only say one word. He was one of the darker creatures. Cute and cuddly and sexy, but dark. And what if dark creatures of the night didn't get to evolve? What if they devolved? Lost their minds… Lost their humanity? Until some random day, he'd wake up with a hankering to eat raw brain and make a baby bonfire…

What if that had happened to Klaus during the slow passage of a millennium?

Mere days ago he'd been sitting in his own house browsing through an old Seventeen magazine that Elena had left behind. Come a thousand years, would a batch of kids break into his place and rip his ass out through his mouth?

Do unto others…

One good turn…

What goes around…

He wiped his bloody hands in his jersey and surveyed the gory circle he'd made in the living room. Tongue to anus… That's how he'd made the circle. Tongue, oesophagus, stomach, small intestine, colon, rectum, anus…

Damon Salvatore had handled another man's anus and there was no soap, alcohol or UV light that could purify him, he mused, staring at his evil handiwork. Sure, there been no actual faecal matter, only blood and bone and fur… a lot of hair… fingernails… a reindeer horn (?)… three hooves…and a red scarf, but just thinking 'guts' had him cringing.

He'd done it in the name of Bonnie, so no one could blame him …

He started to put down the candles.

What the fuck am I doing…

All his life he'd been the man with the plan, but lately, he was beginning to feel like a man doing 250 mph with no brakes.

The only sure idea was that one way or the other, before the day was out, they were going to kill Klaus. Or literally die trying. When had it become so complicated though? It had been simple enough before…

Then Bonnie'd popped up naked in a restaurant.

Then he'd gotten tortured by a witch he'd killed three or four months ago.

Then he'd had sex with Bonnie – the girl that used to hate him who he'd recently started a delayed love-at-first-sight thing with – except that Bonnie was now possessed by another dead witch he'd killed a couple years back… who Elijah and a couple other vampires had killed as well. And except that they hadn't really had sex because it was all in his imagination…

Then he'd ripped an unconscious man's ass out through his mouth.

And Bonnie'd burned down his house…

And he still had to kill Jeremy at some point or the other… Most like, he'd outsource the job and pay someone to make it look like an accident… Drowned in a toilet bowl or something…

He missed Mystic Falls…

Weirdly.

Caroline and her obscene bubbliness.

Stefan and his frustrating rationale and mediocre, witty-ish banter.

He missed his brother from another mother… and father. The A-Man. The Minimum Wage Man. Al. Al…; he'd try it out next time he got a chance to call. What's up Al-man?

He kinda sorta missed Elena. Or, he kinda sorta missed Katherine… Katherine would be kicking ass and taking names. No. Not even taking names – she wouldn't care. She'd just kick anonymous ass.

Katherine kicks, and stomps, and spits, and shits on you without even knowing your name.

If I was more like Katherine… I'd be exactly the way I was last year.

Like an asshole.

And that's enough introspection for today.

It never paid, self-meditation. Too much thinking had been his undoing time and time again. All plans hereafter need to be kept simple:

First up, kill Klaus.

Second up, deal with Mags.

Third up, actually have sex with Bonnie. In real life. Preferably in a public place – like a mall or at the Grill… A true proper claiming would need witnesses.

Fourth, the killing of Jeremy Gilbert.

And fifth, set up his own, personal Blood Bath.

That was another thing about the hybrid that he didn't get… Why would someone with so many enemies be so absolutely careless? He'd left buckets and buckets of his own blood in the freezer labelled – 'for the children'. What fucking children, Damon had no idea. The guy must have spent days on end with a needle in his arm, bleeding out for the leeches.

As a vampire he could relate to the goodness of having a pint of quality blood in the fridge,(his favourite flavour was diabetic hypertensive, his worse - vegan), but a freezer full of hybrid? Psycho Greta and psycho Maddox had been kicking it five star style. And she was pissed about being turned? Get real… Gallons of hybrid blood chilling in the fridge? She could not have had it any better. No way, Jose. When he'd been turned he'd had to go vagrant hunting, feeding off the riff raff of impoverished Southern America.

Good blood is wasted on the young.

Maybe Klaus isn't such a bad dude, he thought for the seventh time in the day. It was hard to be in a man's house, bathe in his bathroom, eat his apples, drink his beer, drink his blood, watch his tv, get tortured by his live-in bodyguard/girlfriend, go through his internet history and not come away with a better understanding of how the clock ticked.

Klaus had some issues, but who didn't? What if all he really needed was a hug?

Alaric had been a royal pain in the ass, but a couple of beers had done wonders.

There used to be a time when he'd had daytime dreams about garrotting Stefan with catgut, but they'd worked that out, more or less.

What if all Klaus needed was a pat on the back, a mug of mead or tea or whatever, and an adopted kid from Malaysia or somewhere?

'Change Bonnie when she's… eighteen?' the thought popped into his head randomly. Is she still growing? Or is that puberty thing done? Can she ever be better than she is now? She's kinda short, but I'm good with short…

He groaned as he tottered to his feet. When he got home, he'd have to make a stop at a church and confess this latest sin. He hadn't expected it to hit him so hard, but for mercy's sake… He'd had to take a hammer to the hybrid's face to break away some of the jaw… The feel of it… He'd remember it for all time - the feel of bashing in somebody's face with a hammer…

That time when he'd tried to rip out the heart, his hand had gone in easily enough. Sure it had gotten ripped off at the elbow, but he'd gotten it in. This time around the hybrid's skin was thick as dragon-scale. Some kinda witchy woo-woo protection, no doubt, to cover him while he was zoned out.

In a thousand years… will I become like him? They weren't so very different, him and Klaus. They were both outsiders. They'd both been lesser sons… They'd both suffered through siblings they'd prefer to have dead…

"Stop that," Mannie entered the room with a frown on her pretty face. She'd been mind-sweeping again, no doubt, listening in to his secret, cerebral ramblings. "What did I say Damon? Keep your shit together! The amount of power at play in this building right now is catastrophic and the fact that we're all gathered here to take out the number one? You can feel the Reaper breathing on you. Stay focused and keep your head and your feet planted, otherwise," she snapped her fingers, "You might get lost in the whirlpool."

Lost in the whirlpool?

She slapped him for good measure across the cheek. There might have been a little vervain on her hand because it stung. "Focus."

He pushed her off. "I'm focused!"

"No, you're mesmerised! You're getting caught up in his thrall. You need to FEED!"

"I'm good!" Or I want to be good. His teeth were just itching to burst out of his gums and sink into her warm, smooth neck… Mags wouldn't mind… He might even be able to work in a quickie. "I'm not feeding on anybody. And I'm not drinking his blood. I'm not enthralled."

"Well, good on you, because this place is so laid down in spells and protective magic, I'm starting to reconsider using this place as the summoning site."

"Chicken?"

"It was subtle at first, but don't you feel it? There's some kind of magic around here that's making it hard to think," she said soberly. "Either that, or it's his blood that enthralling me…"

"Magwyr,I swear, if you jump sides the instant Klaus comes through the door, I'll kill you myself."

"I won't. Whatever magic's at play here, I'm stronger, though. I can resist it."

She leant up on her tip toes and hugged him suddenly. Pressed herself against him in the best way possible and made him forget about the slap… "Don't worry," she spoke into his throat, "I got this. Trust me. I'm not your precious Bonnie, but I love you too. More than she does. I'll never set you on fire. I'll never hurt you. I'll protect you."

"Huh." Death had made her soft. The Mags he used to know never loved…

The doorbell was ringing, he noticed. The heavy, cloying fog of death was thicker… And Bonnie squeezed him tighter. For all essential purposes, this was Bonnie, wasn't it? He took a deep breath inhaling the scent that was so familiar.

No.

This is Mannie, remember?

He set her down as the doorbell rang a second time, followed by a quick rap of knuckles. "Klaus?"

Mannie stepped over the manhandled body of the hybrid, kicking the head accidentally, or not so accidentally, as she passed. "And he's in a bad mood."

"Wonder why," Damon muttered, his insides coiling over on themselves. None of his encounters with the hybrid had gone swimmingly, and he had no reason in the world to expect better this time around. Whose asinine idea had it been to set up shop in Klaus' humble abode? Obviously he'd have the home field advantage. What if the place was bobby trapped? Why was no one thinking about booby traps? There was so much to go wrong… And it wasn't as if he was bringing a whole heap of good luck to the table. "We're all going to die, aren't we?"

Bonnie, Mannie, Bonnie? No, Mannie… One of them or both of them gave him a wink as the doorknob turned. "That's not even the worst case scenario."