All of the things Don Juan hadn't wanted to talk about the night he'd arrived at Dean's house still had yet to be discussed. Don Juan knew he ought to get around to unpacking them, but — well, they were rather cozily packed, weren't they? Shame to take them all out of these cute decorative boxes he'd placed them in; better to stack them in the corner and forget about them for a while. Maybe push a piece of furniture in front of them. In the meantime he had plenty to occupy himself with: hiding under blankets, playing with Hudson's hair, eating cold cuts from the icebox, smoking out the bedroom window, running his fingertips over Hudson's tattoo while he was sleeping. He was staying plenty busy, really.
He did feel a bit victimized by the fact of Hudson having to go to work for hours today. Why did the world have to continue on when he wasn't ready for it to resume yet? So he had determined to spend the entire time Hudson was away pretending he wasn't; lazing in the bedroom or occasionally venturing to the kitchen while tricking himself into believing Hudson was in the next room and would return imminently. He didn't check the time. Eventually Hudson did return and Don Juan set aside the parchment he'd been scribbling on (he had gotten an owl from his publisher at some point today and had, lazily, decided to start on it) and pulled the other man into his lap.
"You looked terrible on your way in," he observed, running his fingers through Hudson's hair as casually as one would pet a cat. "Exhausting, being away from me all day, isn't it? Perhaps tomorrow you shouldn't," he added, teasing.
Hot water...? "No, you aren't," Don Juan said, tone pleasantly baffled. With the tip of his index finger he circled a prominent curl on Hudson's forehead, twirling it gently before sweeping it back. "You could be, though, if you'd like me to run a bath..." Don Juan had been in bed most of the day, though more lounging than sleeping. He could certainly stand a little soap at the moment, and he was rarely opposed to soaking when the opportunity provided itself. Particularly not if he had company — though if the goal was to let Hudson relax after whatever had so tired him out at the Ministry, perhaps it would have been more efficient for Don Juan not to join him. He could only possibly serve as a distraction.
Hudson wasn't getting up, which meant Don Juan wasn't either. Hudson was leaning on his lap and Don Juan had no inclination to disturb him. He shifted his hand down to the base of Dean's neck and toyed with the locks there. There was something here that could have been discussed, he felt. Another one of those neatly packed away little boxes. He could sense its presence, and could also sense that if he didn't ask, Hudson wasn't going to open it himself. It was the same thing they had been doing the past few days, with everything Don Juan owed it to him to say and wasn't working up the courage to talk about. He thought: we can only be happy together when we're pretending, and then he wondered whether it was true.
Did it matter? He was happy, letting his fingers trail through the small hairs at the nape of Hudson's neck. He thought it likely that Hudson could just keep unfurling here until he was entirely relaxed, and then fall asleep. Don Juan could listen while his breathing slowed. He would wake up in an hour and they would trip down the stairs to eat more cold cuts from the icebox, chased by whiskey. They could do that, tonight. Tomorrow, the day after, maybe the rest of the week. Eventually it would become unsustainable, wouldn't it? Like building a house of cards, higher and higher until the inevitable, colossal collapse.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Don Juan asked, tentative, still half-hoping the answer would be no.
Don Juan frowned. He wasn't sure whether nothing to discuss was an indication that Hudson was cross with him. His posture didn't look like he was angry — entirely the opposite — but this was very much Don Juan's fault.
"What does 'reprimanded' mean?" he asked. His experience with discipline stretched from being assigned detention in Hogwarts to having his mother throw things at him (usually soft things). Professionally he supposed he'd had consequences imposed for things, including having lost a few jobs, but those didn't really count. He'd never cared about any of them. He'd never cared about detention at Hogwarts, either. Maybe the only real discipline he'd ever had were his mother's lectures while she used him for target practice. Dean did care about his job, though. The tension when he'd come home was starting to make much more sense.
Probation sounded very serious to Don Juan, whose only experience with probation had been that he was placed on one briefly before being fired from a job he didn't like. Emotionally he hadn't been even slightly invested, but in terms of financial consequences it was potentially far more serious than a lecture. His frown deepened. He wanted to apologize, but he didn't think sorry was really sufficient; he'd apologized to Hudson for any number of things in the past, and his apology had never been worth more than a day or two of marginally improved behavior.
"If you lost your job, I'd help you get a new one," he offered instead, with the tone of a concession. "My parents have friends in publishing." So did he, technically, but he thought their recommendation would hold more weight. Don Juan hadn't built up enough rapport to ask anyone for favors yet (but still did regularly enough for his own sake; his respect for deadlines was rather limited). "Or Endymion works at the bank. I'm sure someone needs a translator."
Hopefully Hudson was right. For all his talk, Don Juan wasn't entirely sure how effective he would be at leveraging his family to get him new employment. They had the connections, that was sure, but how would he explain to them why they ought to care whether or not Hudson was employed? How would he explain who the other man was to him, or why it had been his fault that he'd found himself unemployed. Much cleaner if the whole conversation could be avoided.
He had stopped playing with Hudson's hair at the news that he'd been reprimanded, but now he let his fingers drift again, slowly and thoughtfully. "I am glad you came," he said, but that phrasing felt immediately inadequate. It was obvious to the point where it was stupid to have even verbalized it. Don Juan paused, then tried again with more specificity of emotion: "I'm grateful you came."
The way Hudson furrowed his brows while he thought looked so serious. Don Juan wasn't sure whether he ought to be touched by that, or exasperated by the idea that Hudson thought he would regularly require someone to come and save him from himself, for lack of a better word. But then — he supposed he didn't have much evidence towards the conclusion that he was a self-sufficient, emotionally well-regulated adult who made responsible decisions. Perhaps he ought to be touched.
"I'll endeavor not to become a widower again while you're busy," he said. He meant it as a joke, but his tone didn't end up quite as light-hearted as he'd wanted it to be; maybe some of the exasperation he wasn't fully entitled through was showing through in the hard edges. He frowned and shifted in the bed, jostling Hudson's head slightly so that it was only resting on one leg instead of properly in his lap. He didn't actually want to be petty, but he didn't know how to dispel the lingering feeling of it in the air. "I'm getting a cigarette," he decided. "You want one?"
Don Juan was noticing a pattern he didn't care for: any time he said something hurtful, intentionally or not, Dean responded with sentiment. The other night when Don Juan had said he wanted something stronger, or when he'd sent a letter in Spanish accusing Hudson of not caring, or this edge he couldn't get rid of in his tone. It would be easy, he thought, to hurt Hudson over and over and over again, because he was determined never to show it. He had to be handled like a fragile thing, because he would never let the cracks show — and Don Juan had demonstrated, time and time again, that he was nothing if not careless with others.
"I know," he said, equal parts affection and resignation. It maybe would have been better for Hudson if he didn't, but there was nothing Don Juan could say to dissuade him. "You've been an angel. I still want a cigarette," he said, tone turning playful. "But I could be convinced to make it a post-coital cigarette, if you're up for it."