The Records of Dean Winchester and Elena Gilbert

Sillage

            "Oh yes," Dean says sarcastically, his eyes narrowing. The venom in his voice is deadly, and Elena drops her arms. "I always dismiss you. How horrible of me."

            "You don't have to act like that," Elena whispers. Dean clenches his jaw, but doesn't back down. Sighing, Elena rakes her hands through her hair as she sits down on the bed next to the evidence of her betrayal. "What do you want me to say, Dean? That I'm happy? That I'll never leave you?"

            "I don't know, Elena! I don't know what I want! An apology would be nice—"

            "You want me to say I'm sorry?" Elena jerks back to a standing position, suddenly too antsy and angry to sit still. Dean freezes, considers backtracking his words, until Elena says, "Well, I'm not."

            "Excuse me?"

            "I'm not sorry for printing out the articles," Elena continues, picking up the pages. She flips through them, a tug in her stomach reminding her that at the time, these pages had given her hope. "I'm not sorry for wanting to be happy; I'm not sorry for thinking about my future; and I'm sure as hell not sorry for considering the possibility that maybe my future doesn't involve you."

            Dean sucks in a breath, his stomach dropping as if it were weighted down by stones. He has to process her words, repeat them back to himself in his mind to confirm he'd understood correctly. It suddenly occurred to him, in the midst of all this screaming, how baffling the idea was. A future? Without them together? No, that didn't sound right. It didn't feel right.

[Editor's Note]: It did not feel right to any of us.

            "Do you regret meeting me, too?" Dean tries to ask the question with the same ferocity as Elena's words, but his voice sounds too small. Elena blinks, perhaps coming back from whatever angry place she had found herself in, and shakes her head. "But you regret being with me. That's what you're saying, isn't it?"

            "That's not what I meant—"

            "It's what you said," Dean snaps, eyes darkening. "I thought we weren't supposed to say things we didn't mean. Isn't that right?"

            "That was months ago—"

            "Don't say things you don't mean. Yeah, that's what you told me," Dean says, still glaring. Elena stops herself from rolling her eyes.

            "You're being ridiculous," Elena says instead, but Dean latches onto that too.

            "Oh, am I? Am I being childish, too? Because I thought we weren't supposed to call each other that anymore after last time," Dean comments dryly.

            "We have to stop," Elena says urgently, finally tossing the papers aside. They weren't doing them any good, and they were beyond that argument now anyway. "We can't keep lording things over each other. It's going to ruin us."

            "I think we're already pretty damaged," Dean snaps. "Hell, I spend most of my nights in the library now."

            "I didn't ask you to," Elena defends.

            "You didn't ask me to stay, either," Dean reminds her.

            "There we go again! We're talking in circles! Can't you see that? We have the same arguments over and over again, but nothing changes," Elena exclaims, her hands shaking. She steadies one over her necklace, the metal cold under her palm.

            "So what? Are you going to tell me that we need to open up more? I need to let you make decisions and all that crap?" Dean's mind is still one-track, focused on hurting Elena like she hurt him. "I'm not going to change who I am, Elena. Not even for you."