Hudson didn't spare a glance for him while he fumbled for the door, which was just as well. After he'd stopped Don Juan had a mildly panicked realization that Hudson could have asked him in, and that put a pit in his stomach. If Dean asked, Don Juan would have to be the one to turn him down, and he didn't want to cope with the look on Dean's face when he did. He didn't want to reject Hudson, ever, in anything, but he knew he couldn't go inside.

Hudson didn't ask. Don Juan exhaled, relieved.

"Mmmm," he murmured. "Figured I owed you one."

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Dean swallowed hard and exhaled, trying to find purchase in his thoughts to make any sense of this. There was still that dull ache in his chest and he hadn't quite been able to get rid of it. He knew why, despite the months and the decision being his, he still loved Dempsey and it was killing him slowly.

All he could do was shake his head. "I don't think of it that way." Was the only clear thought that poked through and he meant it.

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Don Juan frowned at him. "I do," he said, meaning that he still felt he owed Hudson a great deal. After he said it he wondered if it might have come across wrong — like everything between them had been transactional, and remained transactional. He blinked at Hudson, unsure whether he should clarify or let it lie. What did it matter, in the end? Hudson was drunk. He would take it however he wanted to, no matter what Don Juan said, and he might or might not have some hazy recollection of this conversation later.

A rogue thought: if Hudson was drunk enough not to remember, then Don Juan could say something without worrying he'd regret it. What would he say to Dean, if he knew his words would never leave this moment?

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"It was more than that." Dean didn't know what he was scrambling for, the parallels in the conversation as he stood her like an idiot drunk looking at Don Juan like a lost puppy. He'd never been insecure until things had started to fall off the rails. Worried he wasn't enough, wasn't doing enough and in the end that had been it, wasn't it?

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Don Juan looked at Hudson, thinking. Sobriety is awful when you're not here, was one thing he could say to Hudson, if he wasn't going to remember it. He wouldn't have said it to him sober, for all that it was true, because he wouldn't have wanted to make Hudson feel guilty. It wasn't Hudson's fault that Don Juan had been out of his mind for six weeks after their last conversation. It wasn't his fault that was the only way Don Juan had felt like he could survive it. It wouldn't be his fault when Don Juan kept dipping back into the same vices for the coming weeks, months, years, however long his sorry little life carried him. He didn't want to make Hudson shoulder that, like if only he'd stayed anything would be different. Nothing would have been different; Hudson just would've had a front row seat to it all.

He could have said: You don't have to do this. I'm not worth drinking over. The same sorts of reasons he wouldn't have said it to Dean on a normal day: too much self-pitying bullshit, no responsibility for anything that had happened. Nothing Hudson could respond with that would be productive for either of them, nothing that would make him feel any better.

The most dangerous thing to say: If I got sober, would you take me back? Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous. Too dangerous to be thought, let alone said, no matter what state Hudson was in. It was the thing he wanted to ask the most, because he wanted to hear yes; he wanted to cling to that yes even if he knew it would never actually happen. And dangerous, because he shouldn't let himself have that hope when it was impossible. He certainly could never risk giving Hudson that kind of hope. But if he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Hudson wouldn't remember this, maybe he would ask, looking for the affirmation. Looking for the I love you, even if it was only spoken between the words.

"Yeah, it was," was what he eventually said, with a resigned sigh. "Goodbye, Hudson."

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