1885 — Some Party, English Society Scene

Presumably the string quartet was playing different pieces throughout the night, but Don Juan felt he'd heard this one at least three times — this party was circling the drain, from his perspective, and he was itching to leave it. There was nothing stopping him. He could have gone back home at any point, or he could have gone to the club, or he could have gone to another party, or a friend's. He'd caught wind of two other parties just from listening to people talk during this party; he hadn't been invited to either but was hardly averse to crashing them anyway if they were more interesting. He hadn't been invited to any friends' houses tonight either, but he was starting to collect a handful of friends whose doors were more or less always open. So he had places to go, and nothing keeping him here... except for a connection he'd made tonight, which he might or might not have been imagining.

They'd shared a conversation at the beginning of the party. Something that started as the typical, forgettable small talk but evolved into something more interesting. He'd circled back to find them again later in the night and had not been disappointed. The conversation was deeper than the sort that one usually had at balls; he felt like he knew them better than some people he'd known for weeks, and they'd only been talking maybe twenty minutes all together. He didn't fall in love anymore — he'd learned his lesson, from Ana — so it wasn't as though he thought he'd found a soulmate, or anything. But he did feel a sense of camaraderie, a fondness that may or may not have been reciprocated. Now he couldn't leave the party while they were still here, because he didn't want to feel as though he was abandoning them.

When he found them for the third time that night they had a drink in hand. "Hello again," he said warmly, then with a significant glance towards their drink, "If you were looking for something to help keep you awake, I don't think that will help."

---

Don Juan grinned, not because of the question Hudson had asked him or because of the answer he was planning to give — just because Hudson was smirking at him and he couldn't help but smile.

"A change of scenery would be the surest route," he suggested. Then, with a mischievous glance towards the plodding quartet, he added under his breath, "Or in a pinch putting a double-time jinx on the cellist's fingers. Maybe that would liven things up," he joked. He wasn't a malicious person, but he didn't always consider people on the receiving end of little pranks like this might not find them quite as amusing. They were one of the mainstays of Excalibur. If one wanted a good night's sleep one could go to Atlantis, or home — sleeping at Excalibur was a sort of continuous long-form warfare. All in good fun, of course.

"Must be nice speaking so many languages," he remarked idly; they'd discussed Hudson's job earlier and Don Juan had giddily asked him to say something in the most obscure language he knew. He'd heard the tale end of something not English as he approached. "I bet you can get away with talking about all sorts of things in broad daylight, hm?"

---

Don Juan knew enough French and Spanish to recognize the language Hudson slipped into as Italian, but not enough to parse out what he'd said. Something about the cellist. It didn't really matter. Don Juan was already smiling at it; the sounds of the words were lovely enough to put a buzz in the back of his brain even without his understanding the words. And there was something delicious about the way he'd said it, lowering his voice and leaning in just slightly as though the two were sharing a secret. At the moment, enchanted as he was with his new acquaintance, Don Juan might have been perfectly content to listen to an entire conversation he couldn't follow just to have an excuse to watch the way Hudson's mouth worked. Particularly if he was going to be leaning in this way, with that particular look in his eye.

"You're not here with anyone?" Don Juan asked. "There's a party at a house near Diagon. We could walk," he ventured. They were already in London, though not in the same neighborhood as the party he was referring to, so it would take at least a quarter of an hour to make their way over to it. They could also take the floo just as easily, or apparate, but — he was keen on the idea of having Hudson's company to himself for some time, if he could manage it. It was why he'd suggested the London party and not the Hogsmeade one.

---

Ostensibly Don Juan's question about whether Hudson was here with anyone was meant to encompass people he would have to check in with before he left — parents, sisters he was chaperoning, that sort of thing — but it also could have been any easy out if Hudson was here because he was interested in someone at the party. Don Juan had felt in their conversations so far that probably wasn't the case. One of the remarkable things about their talks was that he felt as though he had Hudson's full attention and could give his own in exchange, which was rare for ballroom small talk and would have been impossible if Hudson had been scanning the dance floor or watching the entrance for a particular young woman. Still, there was a small rush at having his suspicions confirmed. Don Juan hadn't been willing to leave the party without Hudson coming with him; Hudson was perfectly up for leaving with him, which didn't exactly mean this was directly reciprocated, but it was a step in the right direction. And they were going to be walking alone together in London for some while, and Hudson was up for a little adventure. Don Juan's pulse was picking up. He didn't even know what kind of adventure he had in mind — adventure could mean anything — but he was eager to get it underway.

"Allons-y," he echoed with a grin. Once they'd cleared the front door of the ballroom and had an arm's distance from the crowd, he picked up one of their earlier conversations right where they'd left off, as if there hadn't been forty minutes of other mundane conversation with other people shoved in between. "You know, you may have only been abroad a quarter of the time I was but most people would never know it. You really soaked up everything," he said appreciatively. "What's your secret? For wringing so much life out of an experience?"

---

Don Juan nodded. He'd been raised with French, the way most wealthy children were, but he assumed that wasn't what Hudson meant when he said a bilingual household. Don Juan's first exposure to another language had been in lessons from his tutor; he'd studied it in the classroom and been forced to speak it and read it, but hadn't ever used it casually around the house. He had been exposed to a little gaelic too, but not in any serious way — more as a curiosity to dive into when they occasionally read Irish literature. The source word for this translation is X, isn't that interesting? The same word that was later translated as...

(This was the second time that Hudson had brought up adventure, Don Juan did not fail to notice. He was second-guessing his suggestion of a house party as their next destination. It wasn't too late to suggest a detour to somewhere else — to do something else. But he hesitated over the idea... it seemed to him that there was a right answer here, and he would regret suggesting the wrong thing, and he wasn't sure yet what the right answer was).

"The people," he answered; immediately and thoughtlessly. He was still mulling over adventurous. He was adventurous, too. He wanted Hudson to see him as adventurous. "And," he continued — more purposefully now, swilling the words around his mouth like wine to get the taste of them before he committed them to the air, "The freedom. Being anonymous in a crowd means you can be anyone. Do anything."

---

Don Juan only knew a handful of people who would certainly be at this second party, since he hadn't been formally invited; three friends, two friends-of-friends, and half a dozen others he might know or might not, but wouldn't discover until arrival. He didn't know anything about Hudson's social group, he realized, and didn't know if any of the people invited would be people he already knew... and if not, would they be the right sort of people for Hudson to get along with? Don Juan ran the known ones over in his mind. Fred Slegspittle was a fair partner for any card game that was played with doubles, and had good taste in liquor and tobacco, but his jokes were on the crass side and he told them in a conspiratorial tone that sometimes annoyed Don Juan. Aviv Kapoor was good company for the first four drinks of the night but then had a tendency towards maudlin naval-gazing that often led to him being abandoned by the more raucous groups, which then left whoever had been stuck with him pinned down with no hope of escape from his droning philosophizing. One of the friends-of-friends had just gotten engaged and was a bit of a killjoy now, being too desperately obsessed with his fiancee to talk or think about much else.

He didn't want to introduce Dean Hudson to any of these people, Don Juan realized. He didn't want to be responsible for them; didn't want Hudson's first impression of him to be tied up in whatever antics they might get into tonight. He was the one who had recommended they leave the first party, and now he was responsible for making their subsequent activity an improvement. The house party had seemed like a fine idea at the time, because everything had seemed like an improvement over being stuck in that ball any longer, but now that he was actually forced to consider the details Don Juan didn't like this. Of course, this left him in quite the predicament, since he'd already gotten his new companion on the road to it. If they were going to divert course he needed to think of something sooner rather than later.

He wanted to lie, at least for now; he wanted to tell Hudson they were going to meet poets and artists and playwrights, the sorts of people that would make Don Juan seem interesting just for knowing them... but if he lied now then he was really on the hook for finding a way to divert the pair of them before his lie could be found out.

"You don't want to keep it a surprise?" he asked. Fortunately he was practiced enough at the teasing, half-flirtatious tone that he could put it on without letting any of his underlying turmoil show through. "Where's your sense of adventure? Something and someone new, you just said — though I suppose in English magical social circles there's only so much new to go around," he admitted. "Maybe if we wanted to be adventurous we ought to go off the beaten path a bit more."

---

The coolness of Hudson's response was nearly maddening. You're in charge, he'd said. Don Juan wasn't used to being in charge, at least not in groups of other men. He went with the flow: accepted any suggestions; tried things because they were pressed into his hands; followed blindly when someone grinned and said trust me. Now he was in charge, which meant he was going to have to figure out what he wanted. His insides tingled. He hadn't thought about it yet tonight. He'd been driven by things he didn't want. Didn't want to leave without Hudson. Didn't want to share his company with a crowded party. Didn't want to introduce him to anyone who might prove embarrassing. Didn't want to make a bad impression.

He did know what he wanted, though he hadn't admitted it to himself until now. Whatever strikes your fancy, Hudson had said.

"You do," Don Juan said, his voice clear but quiet. He watched carefully for the other man's reaction.

---

Don Juan had been careful not to hold his breath, to preserve his escape route if he'd misjudged — act casual, pretend Hudson had misheard him, change the subject, act as though Hudson was the weird one if he insisted on dwelling on it — but he still exhaled a little more heavily when the other man mentioned his flat. They had the same idea, it seemed — or at least, Hudson was amenable to skipping a party in order to spend more time with him in a more private location, which was several steps in the right direction. He wouldn't really know if they were after the same thing until they were alone together... really alone together, not the sort of alone you could get from being the only people within earshot in a ballroom or walking along a half-empty street together. He'd let Hudson make the first move once they got to the flat, Don Juan decided. He'd taken one risk tonight, and he'd given Hudson the signal he needed to act confidently.

"Yeah, let's go," he agreed. He was already smiling, almost involuntarily — the familiar high that came along with the certainty that the night was going to get better from here. "Got all the company I need."

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