A blindfold. Don Juan's breath caught. Was this alright? When Hudson had him in his mouth it had been easy to forget everything else that had happened and give over to the feelings. Now he thought of Hudson holding him up against the door. Robbing him of his vision was giving Hudson yet another advantage, if it came down to it, and Don Juan was already entirely outmatched. But Don Juan wanted Hudson to sleep with him, and he had the sense that if he said no to this — if he said no to anything — it might not happen. Not tonight, maybe not ever; they hadn't seen each other in months before this.

Hudson was expecting a verbal response. "Alright," he confirmed, and added any remaining misgivings to the tension in the pit of his stomach.

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MJ made this <3

Despite the agreement, Dean wasn't sure Dempsey was alright and Dean needed him to be. It didn't have to be like this, it could go back to their normal, more casual, less intense. Had he made his point finally? Despite the arousal swimming in his veins, Dean had complete control of turning it off at any moment and he thought they might be there.

The sigh was inaudible. Against his better judgement, he did care about the man standing naked and blindfolded in front of him. That hadn't changed, no matter how much he'd tried to pretend otherwise, had tried to talk himself out of it or shove it down and not think about it. Dean wrapped his arms around Dempsey's waist, pulling him back again. "You don't sound sure," he rested his chin on Dempsey's shoulder. "Remember what I said about stopping. This is about your limits, not mine." That was the point; it was why the one surrendering control needed to have the clarity to decide those limits, in the moment, based on what was or was not working. "Do you see why I keep these rules now?" The tone of his voice was gentler than it had been all evening, without an ounce of disappointment or admonishment in it.

Dean was a man of his word, he would stop, pause, wait, whatever was asked of him, no questions, no hesitations.

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For some length of time — he had no idea how long or short it was — all he could feel was his own heartbeat. His eyes were closed beneath the blindfold and Hudson wasn't touching him, wasn't moving that he could detect, wasn't saying anything. Don Juan had no notion of what might happen next, and that was both exhilarating and anxiety-inducing. The only directive Hudson had given him was listen, so he was listening, and only coming back with the thrum of his own blood in his veins. Was this what Hudson wanted from him, or was this just a test? Was he simply trying to prove a point? And if he was — how far was Don Juan prepared to let him go in order to prove it?

He hadn't realized how much the anticipation had tensed him until he felt Hudson's touch at his waist, soft, and nearly shuddered in relief. He felt the shift in Hudson's demeanor immediately, as though everything up to now had been a mask and he had just removed it and tossed it aside. Don Juan turned towards him, pushing the blindfold up to his forehead as he did so, and curled his head down against Hudson's bare chest — now without the slightest concern that he would be censured for having taken too much agency. It was strange — Hudson had been the one to put him in that scenario, the one who had made him feel so shaky inside, and yet here Don Juan was clinging to him like a romance heroine who had just been saved from imminent disaster.

Hudson asked him a question. Don Juan took a deep breath and nodded slightly against Hudson's chest... but he wasn't sure he did understand what was happening, and it was gnawing at him. In his head there was an echo of Hudson's earlier directive: you need to answer me aloud. He didn't think they were playing by those rules anymore — he thought they had probably been discarded along with the rest of the facade — but the anxiety in his stomach was still clawing its way up, and this was one of the footholds it used for purchase.

"Are you trying to scare me away?" he asked — not defiant, not teasing. Plaintive, if anything. It was a genuine question — one possible explanation for how they'd gotten here. Don Juan had slept with half a dozen men by now and he'd experienced people who were rough, and people who were careless. Hudson was the former, but not the latter. But what had just happened was difficult to reconcile with anything he remembered from when they'd been together before. Little moments of dehumanization — not being allowed to kiss Hudson himself, having special rules about how he answered questions, the blindfold — wrapped in just enough tenderness to keep stringing him along. Was Hudson just trying to push him until he broke, until he cut his losses and fled?

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MJ made this <3

He'd pushed too far, caught up in the make me directive from earlier and now he regretted it. As Dempsey curled into him, Dean sighed heavily. This was better, their sort of normal, bordering on a little more attachment than he was used to. The weird part was that he didn't hate it. Unexpected, but not unwelcome, strangely enough. Dean ran his fingers through Dempsey's hair gently, the other arm still wrapped tightly around his waist.

"Not at all," Dean wondered if Dempsey remembered that it was him who left that night last year. Dean hadn't sent him away, he'd left the invitation open, had held onto the coat in hopes Dempsey would come collect it, but instead everything had just slowly and silently fallen by the wayside. Fuck, even though he'd sent the cigarettes back with the coat, he'd gone and found the exact brand and there was new package in the little sidebar in his room. "I shouldn't have taken it that far, I'm sorry." Dean may be dominant in nature, could be demanding in the bedroom, but he also knew that everything leading up to and after were more important. He knew now Dempsey needed something different and that was fine; it did not have to be like that between them. This was about trust as much as it was anything else and Dean held that in high regard. There was supposed to be an inherent safety in giving up the control and if Dempsey hadn't felt that, Dean had failed to be a good leader and that would not do.

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Hudson had his hand in Don Juan's hair now; it was hard to believe this was the same hand that had tugged his head back by the roots of his hair not twenty minutes ago. He met Hudson's eyes, searching. There was no lie he could find in Hudson's expression. Not trying to chase him away — then what? This was really what he wanted? They'd slept together on and off for months; it had never been like this. Maybe something had changed in the time he'd been away, or maybe coming back had changed something. Maybe he didn't have the patience for pretending any more.

"Okay," he said. Okay, I believe you, not It's okay or I'm okay. He still felt unbalanced by the entire experience. Nothing Hudson had done had hurt him physically, and that was probably intentional — he was sure Hudson could have hurt him if he'd wanted to. But there were elements of it that Don Juan had never dealt with before, and that left him feeling... he didn't even know how to describe the feeling that had been growing in his gut. It was like — like everything was impersonal, like it didn't matter that it was him in the room as opposed to anyone else. Hudson didn't want him to take any agency in what they did, only wanted him to listen and do as he was told. Then he'd covered his eyes — it was the sort of thing one did with animals. Falconers hooding their hawks, huntsmen shuttering their horses. I'll let you know when you need to see again. And maybe that wasn't the way Hudson was thinking of it, but it felt dehumanizing all the same.

Don Juan had held Hudson's eyes for another moment, heat rising to his cheeks as he tried to think what to say. He didn't know why it was different now; he couldn't find the words to ask. Eventually he unwrapped his arms from Hudson's chest. "I'm going to go," he announced, face still deeply flushed.

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MJ made this <3

Ah fuck. Dean had done it this time. This didn't feel okay. Dean wasn't sure he could talk his way out of this one, which was... something. A first, possibly.

Dempsey wanted to leave and after everything Dean had preached about abiding by boundaries, he couldn't exactly argue. "If that's what you want," Dean managed as they stepped apart. "I'll get your things." They'd played too close to the fire and it turned out it was Dean who'd gotten burned by his own flame. He padded quietly across his room, finding Dempsey's shoes and pants in the hall, bringing those back first and setting them on the bed.

His mind was buzzing with some way to fix this, to salvage the night, a reconciliation, anything. He made his way down the stairs slowly, finding the discarded clothes in the living room. He tossed on his own shirt for good measure, buttoning a few of the bottom buttons. This desperation wasn't something Dean was used to feeling and it left him feeling off kilter and out of control. Which was perhaps how he'd gotten here in the first place. Dempsey had seemed keen to see what Dean had meant, but clearly he hadn't known what he was asking and Dean had stretched the moment out too far in trying to get him to see. As he trotted back up the stairs into his room, he gave Dempsey some space, leaving the clothes on the bed again and taking a step back. "If it counts for anything, I don't want you to go, but I understand if you need to." Maybe a little actual honesty would go further than the rest.

"What that was is just a part of me," not his best either, but it had a time and a place and this was obviously not it. "It does not have to be a part of what's between us." There was something, that could not be denied, otherwise this would not be so damn difficult; Dean thought he could feel it slipping through his fingers again. Dean could be possessive and domineering and a whole host of other things. He could also be responsive and thoughtful and pay attention to his partner's wants and needs if given the chance.

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When Hudson left the room he seemed to take half the air with him. There had been so much pressure, so much tension, and when Hudson went to the hallway Don Juan immediately felt how naked he was, how alone, how vulnerable. He sat down on the bed heavily. When Hudson brought the first half of his clothes in he got his trousers on in something of a daze. He was still turning over everything that had happened — how like and unlike his memories of Hudson it had felt. It would almost have been easier to understand if it was all foreign, but it wasn't. There were moments of tenderness wrapped up inside it, here and there — and plenty of familiar heat. Blended with something he'd never experienced from a partner before... he was confused, more than anything, and having trouble sorting out where to even start.

Hudson dropped the rest of his clothes on the bed and backed away. Don Juan grabbed his shirt and pulled it into his lap, but didn't put it on right away. Instead he worried the sleeve while Hudson tried to explain. Hudson didn't want him to go. Don Juan wasn't sure he could stay.

"What would have happened?" he asked, meeting Hudson's eyes for the first time since he'd pulled out of his arms. "If I'd said yes and meant it?"

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MJ made this <3

Dempsey wasn't fleeing and Dean thought that might be a good sign. It gave him a chance to try at least. "Nothing you weren't comfortable with. I stand by what I said; it's about your limits, not mine." Dean dared to cross the room again and sat down on the edge of of the bed, but with a good gap between them. It felt weird to have that distance between them both physically and metaphorically. "I'm so rigid on consent because a situation like that is about pushing the limits, but only within what somebody can handle."

Dean wasn't sure he'd ever actually had to explain this to anyone who wasn't interested in it, who didn't already have some of the groundwork and understanding of a situation like that. "It's an exchange of power, I take control and the need to make decisions or worry about what comes next or what to do is surrendered. It's more an act of intimate trust than anything else." Those were the more general guidelines. Dean rather thought Dempsey wanted specifics.

"I would have teased and tempted with everything I knew worked, edged you to the point of being overwhelmed." He'd almost had Dempsey there once or twice, before things had derailed. "And then, I would have given us what we both wanted. It's not just about what I want or what you want, it's supposed to be a mutual experience of satisfaction." Dean hoped he was making sense. "And then I would have cleaned us both up, poured us a drink and held you until you fell asleep." After care was critical. An experience like that could be exhausting, physically and mentally. "But that doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for a lot of people, and I don't think any less of you for it. You asked me to make you understand and I failed to do that in a way where you felt safe and cared for." That was the crutch of it really. Dean felt oddly exposed here now, like he was baring more than just his body and he just hoped it worked otherwise he would feel like a real fool.

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Intimate trust, Hudson said. The way he strung it all together, Don Juan could see the argument to be made... but that certainly hadn't been his impression of it in the moment. They hadn't spoken for months; why would he have defaulted to trust in a situation like this? He only trusted Hudson as far as he had because of their shared history — he'd been prepared to go even further and had agreed to the blindfold even with his steadily climbing unease about the whole affair — but none of their history had been like this. He'd been entirely unprepared.

Hudson's answer about what would have happened next didn't really get at what Don Juan had been asking, either. It was an answer, but that didn't sound so different from what they'd done before. What Don Juan really wanted to know was how far down this particular well went, if one let go the railings and fell? Was violence a part of this? Hudson had bruised him in the past, and Don Juan had never minded. Would he have drawn blood tonight? Or how far did the control piece go? Would Don Juan have been forbidden from making noise while Hudson pleasured him? Been made to beg for his release? What was on the table, and what was off of it? Hudson hadn't given those answers, and Don Juan didn't think he could find the words to ask.

But there was a lot in what Hudson said that sounded nice, too. Held you until you fell asleep. Don Juan shifted on the bed, frowning at his shirt.

"I need to go home tonight," he decided. "But — I'll come back, if you want."

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   Dean Hudson

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Maybe he hadn't explained it right. Maybe he had and what Dempsey had heard made him someone who was no longer of interest to him. Dean supposed he could blame Dempsey for that. It wasn't a particularly pleasant part of Dean's life, but he only shared it with people of a similar mindset, people who did have that trust in him to do and say the right things to bring a certain kind of pleasure.

"I understand." Dean agreed, sticking to everything he'd said tonight. If Dempsey wanted to come back that would mean that Dean hadn't completely screwed this up, but if he was just saying that to placate him and as an excuse to finally leave, then it would be better if he didn't come back. "Invitation's open, if it's what you want." He left it at that, managing a lopsided sort of smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. He'd already said he wanted Dempsey to stay and that hadn't changed. If he was going to go and come back another time, it wasn't all that different. Maybe some space would help soothe the rough edges, but Dean how no idea what to expect and would have to suffer in the limbo he'd created until he found out.

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