AN: This starts immediately at the end of the Oct. 10, 2015 segment of Ch. 15, for anyone who wants a refresher. I do believe I promised that I'd eventually post what happened with Dean and Elena in Charleston, so here it is.
I have a specific date in mind for the next chapter of Addendum in mind, I'm just keeping it to myself in case I don't meet my own deadline for the chapter count I want pre-written before I start posting again. I just want to put that out there so ya'll know that I'm actively working on that one, This was written last summer and cut from Ch. 15, as it says in the title.
Anyway, enjoy!
Addendum: Outtakes
Excerpt from Ch. 15
Charleston
South Carolina: October 2015
"I left my stuff at home, so we'll have to go back."
Dean nods. "Thought so. Did you get a new phone already?"
Elena pulls it out to show him.
"Good, my dad was not thrilled to hear about what happened to yours."
She winces, nodding. "I know, I talked to him this morning. He doesn't want you to bring me back, he wants to meet up with us. Or send me to Denver."
"Yeah, I know, he sounded pretty intent on not letting you come back when we talked. I guess you wore him down again, huh?"
She shrugs. "I'm very stubborn."
He snorts. "I'm getting that."
She smiles grimly. "You don't know the half of it."
He hesitates, then plunges in. "Would it be so terrible to leave? Your brother's not even here anymore, and it was your idea for him to go. What's keeping you here?"
She can't exactly say that she can't leave because of the homicidal hybrid who destroyed what was left of her family. So she goes for the other reason.
"I guess I feel like if I leave now it'll be like giving up." She looks at him, shaking her head. "I'm not ready to give up."
He nods slowly. "I guess I get that."
Dean insists on stopping for all of the road trip staples: corn nuts, slushies, beef jerky, one of every sweet in the candy aisle. All through the store she teases him about how it's not really special if he eats it every day.
He throws a bag of pork rinds into the basket she's carrying.
"You do realize like half your diet is hangover food, right?"
He snorts. "Half my life is hangovers," he retorts.
She laughs then stops to consider him.
"What?" he asks, looking confused.
She shakes her head. "Nothing, I just realized this should be weird."
"Weird how?"
She grabs a bag of grape flavored licorice more out of curiosity than anything else.
"I don't know, this is like only the second time we've hung out in person, and since the first time was after my aunt and uncle's funeral, I'm pretty sure this should be weirder than it is."
Dean shrugs. "I mean, we talk on the phone a lot, and text, so, it makes sense that it's not weird."
She nods. "Right, that's true." The truth is, she's a lot more comfortable with him than she expected to be. It feels easy.
Dean makes a face at the pile of peanut products.
"You Virginians are super obsessed with peanuts."
She grins. "Get the honey roasted, it's my favorite."
They spend a few fun hours happily squabbling over the music and end up stopping somewhere in North Carolina for lunch. Elena's been ignoring her phone diligently. She sent the same text to all of her friends: she's going out of town with a friend for a few days. Needless to say, no one is pleased with her impromptu vacation. Except Alaric who seemed on the verge of telling her not to come back and packing his own bag to follow her out of town.
Since she doesn't want to deal with any of Klaus' dramatics, she actually calls and tells him. He's surprisingly genial but then again, he almost got her killed the night before – and almost got Caroline killed too, come to think of it. Maybe even Klaus needs to rest between homicidal episodes. He simply asked her to call when she gets there and that had been that.
"Your phone will not stop buzzing," Dean observes over lunch.
She makes a face. "Yeah, my friends are not exactly thrilled with the whole spontaneous vacation thing."
"By friends do you mean Stefan?"
She shakes her head. "I didn't tell him. We're officially not talking."
He nods, stealing some of her fries. "Good. He sucks."
She laughs at him. "Stop telling me all of the men in my life suck."
He raises an eyebrow at her.
She throws a fry at him but of course he snatches it out of the air and eats it.
"All right, we're going back to when we didn't talk about boys."
He shakes his head. "Nah, we've already started, no going back now. I will always know that Stefan sucks and his brother's a creep."
She points a fry at him. "You need to be a little less opinionated about my love life."
"Not at all possible, I've heard you cry about it too many times, it was traumatizing. Now I'm always gonna be overly judgmental about every guy you choose to date."
She rolls her eyes to the ceiling. "Oh god."
He snickers but sobers too quickly. He looks at her very seriously.
"You deserve better, Elena."
She looks back at him, eyes narrowed. "Is it about deserve or about what I want?"
He shakes his head. "Just because you want it, doesn't mean it's good for you."
That hits a little too close to home.
"Can we talk about something else?"
He nods. "Sure, why don't you tell me about whatever monster's after you?"
She snorts. "Nice try."
He shrugs. "It's worth a shot."
"Trust me, you are better off not knowing."
He looks doubtful.
"If me crying over boys is traumatizing for you, imagine what it'll be like if you have to hear me recount all of those horrifying memories."
He looks wary now, so she knows she's heading in the right direction.
"I'll definitely cry, and since you're here in person, you'll have to comfort me, and I will get snot all over you." She waves her fry around to indicate the rest of the diner. "Everyone will see and think you're breaking my heart or something."
He winces. "Okay, I give." He gives her an admiring look. "That was well done."
She grins, happily munching on her fry. "Thanks, I try."
He shakes his head. "Hurry up and finish, we've still got a few hours to go."
Which just reopens the argument about why he won't tell her where they're going. She barely looks at her phone as she puts it on silent, not even glancing at the texts from her friends.
They arrive right before dinnertime.
"Charleston?" she asks, perking up considerably. She's been drooping for the last hour or so, Dean had resorted to the rowdiest rock mix in his collection in order to keep her awake. It's worth it to see the look on her face when they pass the welcome sign.
"Yup, we're gonna spend the week being normal, boring tourists."
She looks over at him, something like hope shining in her eyes.
"Us? Normal? Boring? Never."
He laughs. "True, but we can pretend for a week. We'll be Dick and Jane."
Elena raises an eyebrow at him. "Dick and Jane are a couple."
She has fun watching him stutter for a few moments before she lets him off the hook.
"Relax, I was, as the kids would say, fucking with you."
He rolls his eyes. "You're too much, Elena Gilbert."
"Whatever, feed me."
"Yes Ma'am."
After dinner he drags her to the night market. They run around for a few hours before Dean can't resist challenging her claim about never getting carded. So, they end up in a bar, and Elena tests out a few old tricks to complete a perfect score.
She's brushing her hair over her shoulder, delicately sipping her Blue Moon when she looks over at Dean. He looks a bit dumbstruck.
She leans forward so only he can hear her. "I'm 18."
That snaps him out of it. "Jesus Fucking Christ, how did you do that?"
She shrugs. "I dunno, it's just something I've always known how to do, like an instinct or something."
He nods slowly. "Don't take this the wrong way, but please never do that in front of me again. At least not while you're still in high school."
She laughs. "Deal."
She turns her head, hair still gathered over one shoulder, neck bared as she gazes out over the bar, basking in her triumph.
Dean sucks in a breath. He takes a swig from his own drink.
"Interesting scar," he says as neutrally as possible.
Her hand flutters up to cover the clear-as-day bite marks on her neck. They are silvery white, not at all fresh, but Dean suddenly remembers the gauze taped to her neck the day they met, at her aunt and uncle's funeral.
She turns back to her drink, slips her hand from her neck to under her hair, fluffing it out and flipping it over her neck, hiding her scarred neck from view.
He keeps his eyes on her, making it clear he expects a response.
"Oh, you know," she says, finally looking up from her drink to fix her gaze on him, "Some people just leave their mark on you."
She gives him a bitter smile that drops stones into his stomach.
With Elena's blessing, Dean gets them a room by the water with two queen beds.
The girl at the check-in desk looks at them in complete disbelief when he insists on the separate beds.
"What's her problem?"
Elena shrugs. "She probably thinks we're too hot not be a couple, or something."
He wrinkles his nose. "Or something."
They spend their days doing every tourist-y thing they can think of, even stuff Dean finds boring, like museums and the swamp garden.
Elena likes to give the portraits absurd voices and have them narrate all their disgusting period appropriate ailments until Dean is wheezing with laughter. She runs through the garden with such enthusiasm that he can't help but see the appeal.
At night they find the coolest bars and best music venues. Elena has fun challenging herself to see if she can convince the bartender to give Dean free drinks too. Dean is in awe when it works.
He quickly retracts his ban on her flirting with service industry professionals. "Never mind, you can do that whenever you want as long as I don't have to pay."
On their third night Dean discovers Elena is a pool shark.
She has some guy on the hook and he keeps upping the pot, caught up in her cupid's bow and how her eyes sparkle in the dim bar lights. It's almost $800 and Dean can practically feel his knees quaking.
Elena tosses her hair, shimmying her chest in her tank top and watches as the guy sinks the white ball right down the hole with all of his cash.
Elena grins at him so sweetly he doesn't even flinch when he hands over the cash.
"Good game."
The guy walks away in a daze.
"You are a pool god."
Elena shrugs like it's no big deal.
"The local watering hole in Mystic Falls has a pool table, I practically grew up playing."
She hands him the cash like it's nothing. "Here, I don't need it."
He looks at her like she's crazy.
"Are you sure? That's a lot of money."
She shrugs.
"Seriously, my dad was a doctor. He saved a lot, and set up college funds for us, not to mention the insurance money from the accident."
He nods in comprehension. "Still, you won this money fair and square."
She laughs, shaking her head. "No, I'm pretty sure it wasn't fair." She pauses, considering his words and then her cleavage. "And definitely not square."
He laughs despite himself.
She looks at him. "Seriously, you did not have to drive all the way to Virginia and then drive all the way here and hang out with me for a week to give me a vacation. Take the money, Dean. Consider it a thank you."
He points his finger at her. "I will take it, but I really don't need a thank you. This is fun. I never take vacations." He shrugs, trying to be nonchalant. "You're good company too."
"So are you." She gestures at a free table. "You wanna play? Just for fun?"
He nods. "Yeah, but I warn you, now that I've seen you play, there's no way I'm gonna go easy on you."
She grins. "Good, I was never gonna go easy on you."
He points his pool stick at her. "Hey, you keep it PG okay, I'm fragile. If you flash me, I might have a heart attack. Unlike that guy, I actually know that you have school on Monday." He adds as an afterthought, "And not the hot co-ed kind, the 'you can still get in trouble for truancy' kind."
She rolls her eyes, shaking her head. "Please, I don't need to play dirty to kick your ass, Dean."
They trash talk their way through the game and to Elena's very narrow victory. Dean wins the next round and then they head back to their room to watch bad horror movies until the sun comes up.
Every night they fall asleep in their separate beds, whispering in the dark to each other. The space between them and the darkness of the room are enough to make it feel like they're on the phone together, like usual. It's easier to be honest in the dark.
Dean, being aware of the history of Mystic Falls, has all kinds of questions about the Founders' Council and Elena all too happy to explain their insanity as long as it detracts from his curiosity about exactly what haunts her in the middle of the night.
Their second night there, Dean is on the verge of sleep when Elena speaks.
"Today is Jeremy's birthday. He's 17."
She sounds so matter of fact, but he can tell her heart is breaking.
"That's rough, spending your birthday alone."
Her throat feels tight. "I know, but it was the only thing I could think to do." To keep him safe, she adds in her head.
"I get that." He sighs. "I didn't realize you were so close in age."
She nods. "It's one of those things, you know? A couple can't get pregnant, so they adopt – in this case, me – and then not too long after my mom found out she was pregnant with Jeremy."
"So, you're saying every couple trying to have a kid should adopt?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
Both of them are quiet, so Elena gathers her courage and takes the plunge.
"You never talk about your brother, Sam."
There's a pause and then. "Wow, you and my dad have some pretty deep conversation, huh?"
"I annoyed it out of him."
"I don't really know what you want me to say," he admits. "I have a brother, his name is Sam. He wanted to go to college, so he went, and he never looked back."
She can only see the outline of him across the room, but he still seems tense. It's enough to make her feel bad for bringing it up.
"That must be hard," she says, her voice quiet.
He inhales sharply. "Yeah, I guess."
She considers their situations, not the same, but parallel in a way that makes her chest feel like it's caving in. She can't help but remember Bonnie's accusation that she's trying to control Jeremy by compelling him to leave.
"Is it worse to you, that I sent my brother away?" She doesn't mean to ask but she can't take it back now that she's said it.
He sighs. "I guess not. You're just trying to do what's best for him."
She releases the breath she's been holding. Maybe he'd hate her if he knew how she got Jeremy to leave, but he doesn't, and his acceptance means more to her than it should.
"I bet he misses you," Elena whispers.
Another pause and then-
"Nah, he's got the normal life he always wanted."
"Trust me," Elena says firmly, "He misses you."
Dean feels like he's been hit by lightning. He fumbles for something to say.
"Did you call your brother today?"
She nods. "This morning, while you were sleeping."
"Good, that's good."
The silence fills up the room, but it's comfortable, easy.
"Good night, Dean."
"Good night, Elena."
When their week is up Elena can't quite explain her disappointment at going home. By all accounts she should miss her friends more than she does. She does miss them, but not as much as she misses Jeremy, and she's having so much fun with Dean that she mostly forgets to miss them. He's the easiest person in the world to be around.
Dean drops her off later, declining her offer to sleep on the couch, citing a case in Maryland that his dad had called him about.
"Thank you for the vacation, Dean."
"Any time, Elena."
He waits until she's inside to drive away.
Elena isn't all that surprised to find Damon waiting for her inside.
AN: This one was a little longer, and quite heavy on the Deanlena, so hopefully a bit more entertaining for those of you who are only here for the shipping! :) Questions? Comments? Please leave a review!
xoxo
-Pixie
