Hudson hadn't said he was angry, or done anything to indicate it, but as he retreated down the hall Don Juan was left with a firm impression that he'd mismanaged that conversation. This was probably unsurprising, in the scheme of things; he habitually mismanaged anything important. He sat on the bed for a moment leaning on the palms of his hands and considered his options. It was an option to just leave, he supposed. Not sneaking out like a thief in the night but letting Hudson know he was going to give him some space: a gracious, dignified retreat. A glance around the bedroom dissuaded him if that, though. It was so thoroughly lived in from the past days, and he had half a chapter laying in disparate scraps of parchment. The idea of fumbling around and collecting them all on his way out was mortifying, but so was leaving Hudson with his messes. Another option: Hudson had technically given him permission to carry on with his plan of distraction through seduction, but given the lackluster response it seemed regrettably shallow now. They hadn't slept together in years; Don Juan had thought the idea would be enticing. Evidently not enticing enough.
The last option was to actually talk about it. Unfortunately this seemed to be the one he was left with. Don Juan took a breath and steeled himself to look and sound like fool. He didn't bother trying to think what to say, knowing that none of it would come out the way he'd planned even if he did. Then he pulled himself up out of bed and padded to the washroom where he lingered in the doorway, hands on either side of the frame.
"Listen," he said, looking at the muscles in Dean's back rather than his face in the mirror. "You don't have to. I appreciate that you want to be there. But you don't have to drop everything to come save me," he protested — rather weakly, because this was exactly what he'd asked of Dean before and they both knew it. "Not anymore," he added. A clarification? A promise? It was difficult to say.
There it was again. This was what had snagged inside his chest and put the edge into his voice. It was nothing new, really: Dean had always been trying to take care of him, from the very first, and Don Juan was often happy to be cared for. Except when it hurt Hudson, and it seemed like he never knew where the line was except in hindsight.
His instinct was to push it away again, to find any way at all not to talk about it directly, but the way Hudson gripped the sink and how severely he'd dropped his voice affected him too deeply to brush it off. So he wrestled with it, trying to find a way to force the thing that snagged inside him into words.
"I don't want to be the kind of person who can't be trusted to be alone," he finally said, in the quiet tone of an admission. But he was, obviously — Hudson didn't trust him, and it was killing him.
Don Juan leaned his forehead against one of his arms. It was far too pedestrian to say a happy ending. Hudson would think he was being glib, slipping back into humor to avoid a real answer. But for someone who had given their heart away wholesale at eighteen only to pull pieces of it out of the grinder a few months later, who had been abandoned once in the very room he'd begun to think of as more a home than his own, who had ruined a woman he cared for so badly she would never been welcomed in polite society again, the idea didn't feel trite, any more than it felt even remotely possible.
"I want to feel like I deserve you," he confessed miserably. "I want to believe this doesn't end with me hurting you. I don't know. I don't know how."
Dean didn't have to tell Don Juan that he could be patient. He was here. Five years and some months after things had ended between them the last time. Seven years and some months since things had ended between them the first time, and Don Juan couldn't have credibly argued he'd made any significant improvements to himself in the time between the two. Anyone with a limited supply of patience would have already been long gone. Hudson had dropped an important work thing to come find him by a lake in Ireland. He was unreasonably devoted. Don Juan thought then he'll take me back next time, already presuming this time would eventually fall apart. But he hadn't changed in seven years, so what was going to be different in another year, or two, or ten? He didn't know how to change, as a person. When he felt fitful he changed his surroundings; he put himself in a different context and hoped it would do what he couldn't. Spain had been the most dramatic example, because he had felt entirely miserable with himself after ruining Elfie — but what could have been his fresh start in a new place with a new person had just ended with him ruining her life, too. He was the same person no matter where he went.
Don Juan thought I do love you, but he didn't want to say it. He didn't know whether it was worth anything. It hadn't been worth anything the last time. He hadn't said it often enough and had never been able to prove it with action.
"Alright," he said, because there was nothing else to say, even if he didn't think he could hold up his end of the deal. He shifted his head against his arm to peer back at Hudson with one eye, as though he could hide behind himself. "But you will tell me if I'm being an idiot?"
He hadn't realized how much his question sounded like a deflection until Dean reacted to it. He hadn't meant it as one. He'd meant: I don't know how to do this. Even if I want it I don't know where to start. He'd meant: will you tell me when I get it wrong? Will you help me figure it out? Hudson couldn't do the legwork for him, fine, but Don Juan wasn't unwilling. Just — lost. He didn't know if this was something he was allowed to ask for help with, or if this was part of what Dean had said he couldn't do. Once upon a time he'd told Dean I don't know how to fix things when they break and Dean had said we'll figure it out, but god, they'd been young then. And neither of them had been thinking that the broken thing in need of fixing would have been Don Juan himself.
But the words he'd picked didn't convey all that; they sounded like a deflection, and this time Dean seemed ready to accept it. He held his arms open and it was as though the gravity in the room shifted. Hanging back would have been impossible.
"At least I've got that going for me," he returned. He crossed the room and tangled himself around Dean and set about kissing every spot on his face that had furrowed with tension today.