AN: All right, here it is! Elena's birthday.

Enjoy!

Addendum: Outtakes

Referenced in Ch. 20

Acuña

In a bar in Mexico on Elena's 21st birthday, Dean and Elena are doing tequila shots while Sam is chatting with a pretty brunette across the bar.

"You think Sammy's gonna practice his Spanish with her?" Dean grins at Elena.

She's wearing a little red dress, a fragrant gardenia tucked into her loose hair, looking dangerously perfect in the neon lights.

Elena smiles back at him. "I do think Sammy's going to practice his Spanish with her," she replies. "But not in the way you mean it."

He shakes his head. "Can't teach that boy nothin'." He looks back at her. "So, what now? More tequila shots?"

"Hmmm, I've always wanted to try a paloma," she says instead.

Before Dean can reply a man approaches Elena.

"¿Baila conmigo?" the man grins at her.

"What's he saying?" Dean asks.

Elena glances at him. "Dance with me."

Dean shakes his head, answering the man before Elena can.

The man looks at Elena imploringly, but she echoes Dean, shaking her head. "Por favor, no." She waves her hand at him to emphasize.

The man grins at Elena, shaking his head in return as he leaves them.

Elena looks at Dean. "¿Baila conmigo?"

Dean shakes his head immediately. "Elena, no."

"Please?" she asks.

He shakes his head again. "Aren't we supposed to be drinking palomas now?"

"We can drink palomas later."

"Elena," he says her name like a plea for mercy.

She looks at him directly. "Dean, it's my birthday: I'm going to dance. I can either dance with you or with someone else."

Dean looks back at her with great reluctance. "I can't dance like that, Elena."

She bites her lip. "I'll teach you."

There is already another man approaching them. "Shit, okay," Dean says suddenly, realizing he can either watch her dance with someone else or do it himself. "But you can't make fun of me if I look like an idiot."

"I would never." Elena takes his hand, leading him to the dance floor. "Besides, I think you're better at this than you think you are. It's not like you're uncoordinated."

Finding a free space, she guides his hands to her waist, him standing behind her.

"Follow my hips," she says over her shoulder. "We won't move our feet yet, just focus on the way our bodies move with the music."

He bends his head to hear her so she can feel the shaky exhale he lets out at her words against the bare skin of her shoulder. Her hips find the beat. When his hips sync with hers she keeps one hand on his and raises the other to drift up his back, "Now your upper body," she says, her hand urging his spine to follow hers. His hands still on her hips, he catches the hem of her shirt, sliding his fingers under to trace her bare skin.

"How am I doing, teach?" he asks, his voice low in her ear.

"Very good," she praises him. She looks up at him. "You ready to add a little footwork?"

"Fuck no," he says immediately.

She laughs, tossing her head back to rest on his shoulder for a moment. She doesn't know the picture she makes, her bright laughter, her wild curls and the flash of her white teeth, the exposed line of her neck – she's a fucking masterpiece.

Fondly she presses a kiss to his jaw before lifting her head from his shoulder.

"Okay, we can stay like this for a little while longer," she promises. "Just follow my body with yours."

"I can do that," he says.

Her instructions and his promise sit heavily between them. Dean's not sure if he's ever understood the purpose of dancing until this moment but having her this close might be his exact definition of heaven. That this might be the closest he ever gets to her might be his exact definition of hell.

Elena has kept a respectable distance between their bodies, not fully leaning against him, close enough that he can hear her but not touching at any point beyond her hand on his back and his on her hips. It's torture but it's probably for the best too.

"Okay, I'm gonna step forward with my right foot then my left and then go back with my right foot and then my left, and we'll just keep repeating that pattern, you just follow along," Elena says in his ear.

"Elena, no, I'm not ready," he insists.

She shakes her head. "You've got to make your move sometime, Dean," she says simply, starting to move her feet.

"Fuck," he swears, obediently following along. "Do not let me fall on my face in front all these assholes who wish they were me, okay, Elena?"

"Never. You're doing great." She laughs. "It's okay to watch our feet while we get the hang of it," she reminds him.

After a couple of stumbles, he finds the rhythm again, following the simple two-step pattern she's tracing on the dance floor. It's hypnotic almost, he could get lost in it: the writhing mass of bodies on the dance floor, the music, and her, above all, he could get lost in her. The nearness her and how perfectly she moves her body, like the music is speaking to her and she is answering without words.

He's always enjoyed watching her dance. Can remember the first time she slipped away from his side, winding through the bodies on the dance floor until she found her place and let the music move her. He was captivated, right away – and scared too. Anything that perfect could never be his. And now here he is, on the dance floor with her, hands on her hips, body moving with hers, following along like he knows this language too. For all her linguistic fluidity – Elena's never met a language she couldn't conquer, ever adapting, ever expanding – nothing seems to come more naturally to her than dancing. He wondered why she wanted to teach him so badly, now he knows.

Suddenly Elena breaks contact, stepping away from him. At the same time, she grabs one of his hands on her hips.

"Elena, what are you doing?" Dean asks clumsily.

Together she raises their hands in the air then spins to face him pulling their arms down in a rush so his hand falls to her shoulder and she can wrap her arm around his neck. She takes his free hand and rests it on her hip again, never losing the beat.

"Keep doing what you were doing," Elena urges him as she slides her hand up his back again, urging his spine into motion with gentle pressure.

"I was following you," he reminds her.

She shakes her head. "You were following the beat, find it again."

He's too distracted by her to listen. "You're going backwards," he tells her.

"I'm supposed to," she tells him. "We mirror each other. Now shut up and listen: find the beat again."

He snorts, shaking his head, but he takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and listens. He can feel the flex and sway of her body under his hands, her hips and even her shoulders move with the music. Now her breath is hitting his face, and she smells like tequila and lime and salt and Elena and that perfect white flower nestled in her hair. After a moment he takes a step, then another. Another moment and he finds his whole body is moving with hers again, but instead of them facing the same they're face to face and it's like a push and a pull, like gravity between them. He finds the beat again in the gravitational pull of her body.

She pushes and pulls him back and forth and side to side and it's the easiest thing he's ever done, following her. Finally, he opens his eyes, and she is staring up at him, all of her focus on him.

She smiles. "Told you you'd be good at this."

He laughs, dropping his forehead down to press against hers. "You're a good teacher," he says.

"You're a good student," she replies. She lifts her face a little to brush her nose against his, their breath intermingling. Her fingers brush through the short hairs at the back of his neck, precariously close to pulling. Her other hand on his spine traces a restless pattern up and down and up and down…

He rubs his thumb over the bare skin of her hip, silky smooth, his other hand sliding up her shoulder into her hair to grip the back of her neck, too.

Abruptly the song ends, and the world comes back into focus.

"We are…" she trails off.

"Too close," Dean finishes.

She nods, the movement bringing their lips into contact briefly, causing them both to shudder. She pulls the gardenia from her hair, offering it to him. Bemused, he takes it.

"Palomas?" she asks, stepping back from him, abruptly breaking contact.

"Yeah, good idea," he agrees quickly.

She leads him off the dance floor towards the bar.

"What's in a paloma anyway?"

AN: Palomas are made of tequila, lime juice, and grapefruit soda! They're actually much more popular in Mexico than margaritas. Elena is wearing a gardenia in her hair that she gives to Dean. In Victorian flower language gardenias stand for secret desire. Not that their desires are all that secret, lmao.

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xoxo

-Pixie