Dean was loath to surrender the contact after going so long without, but he supposed he couldn't argue with the loss of the layers. Dempsey had been gratuitously overdressed for the occasion to begin with.

As Dempsey sunk to the floor, Dean had to chuckle. There was always that rush of lust at the sight and Dean couldn't ignore feeling of it swimming in his bloodstream. He leaned back, arms on the back of the couch, lifting his hips only enough to allow for the fabric to slide off easier. This was a dangerous game, tipping just a little over the edge and he'd be useless for anything further, but he was pretty good at knowing the limit.

Things progressed to the point where he had to tap out and instead hauled Dempsey off the floor, hands under his thighs as he'd taken him up the stairs and tossed him on the bed. Nothing too unexpected, nothing even remotely as aggressive as last week, firm, but not anything that had been a problem in the past. He'd taken his time, though not agonizingly slow, to reach a good build up before giving in.

It wasn't until he was spent and splayed out on the bed with Dempsey beside him, the Dean realized he'd probably needed that more than he'd realized. "Your cigs are in the nightstand." He waved lazily with one hand in its general direction, but he was too tired to move.

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Basking in the afterglow — not something that happened all that often for him. When he slept with women Don Juan tried to see to their pleasure first which meant sex was over when he climaxed, and then depending on the nature of the tryst he was either getting dressed and getting out before he could be spotted by the wrong person, or surrendering to the drowsiness that came on after — the same thing Hudson was doing now. With Hudson the roles had always been reversed though, and Hudson kept him active enough in the moments after he came to easily burn through the lethargy. So oftentimes after Hudson took him to bed Don Juan was left with some minutes to himself afterwards, feeling blissfully at ease and watching fondly as Hudson drifted off.

Maybe the remark about the cigarettes wouldn't have affected him so deeply if it had been said at any other time, but it hadn't been; it found him in this window, in the stretch of golden moments between good sex and good sleep. He blinked at the words, almost suspecting he had misheard, then leaned over towards the nightstand Hudson had indicated and pulled the drawer open to see if it was true. There they were. Right brand, right flavor. A full pack. These weren't the ones Don Juan had left at Hudson's flat however long ago; those had been sent back in the pocket of his coat. Hudson had bought more, at some point, and then he'd held on to them. Not just one passing thought that he'd happened to act on, either — he'd moved to a new house, and he'd decided to bring these with him and to put them in the nightstand in his bedroom, even knowing Don Juan didn't have his address.

Don Juan looked from the pack of cigarettes to the shape of Hudson's shoulder as his arm lay carelessly across the bed and a thought occurred to him, sitting heavy and solid at the base of his brain: I could fall in love with him.

That hadn't worked out very well for him, before.

He tossed the cigarettes back into the drawer, which he didn't bother to close, and snaked his way back into bed, finding his way back to the space he'd vacated beneath Hudson's arm. "Don't fall asleep yet," he said, pulling his body up close to Hudson's from top to bottom. "I want to tell you something."

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   Dean Hudson

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He'd closed his eyes, lulled into the exhaustion of a night well-spent. Oblivious to whatever it was Dempsey was doing with the cigarettes, Dean got more comfortable on the bed, shifting up toward the pillows and tucking one arm beneath his head. His limbs were heavy and loose at the same time, though he managed to at least pull the sheet across his waist to ward off the missing warmth against his body.

Except that came too and he instinctively wrapped the other arm around Dempsey's waist, pulling him back in. He reluctantly peeked over, meeting Dempsey's gaze with heavy-lidded eyes. All he could mutter was an, "Mmm?" Despite his earlier conviction of wanting to finish the conversation, he had put it out of his mind in the interim. It could be a tomorrow problem, or maybe it could wait until they were both ready to have the conversation seriously. His was too tired and too content at the moment for much else.

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Hudson had barely cracked his eyes open, but Don Juan did his best to meet his gaze regardless. He chewed the inside of his lower lip, but his eyes were steady, resolute. Hudson only looked half-awake at best, but there was nothing to be done about that; waiting wouldn't improve matters. And now that Don Juan had decided to say something, he didn't think he would be able to sleep without having done so.

"I got married," he said in a rush. Barely half a second later, he continued, "Five years ago. I was eighteen." Were these the most important details? He had no idea; he'd never admitted this to anyone before. He'd parted ways with Ana mere months after the elopement, and hadn't spoken to her since. No one in his family knew she existed. But he thought it was important that Hudson know, if they were going to carry on this way — that he had done this once before, and that he had fucked it all up.

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Of all the things Dean could have expected Dempsey to say, that hadn't even been in the realm of possibilities. He tried not to react too quickly despite the shock, but his eyes widened anyway, sleep shoved off as he focused on what Dempsey was saying.

That wasn't a lot to go on, but it had him bristling a little. Dean had gotten involved with a married woman all of once and had quickly learned his lesson. He still had the scar on his leg from bolting out the window through the garden half-dressed. What he did was already risky, (currently, this was illegal) but the added factor of a spouse finding out wasn't something he was willing to screw around with. Dean (typically, present company side) liked loose attachments, something quick and fun, there was no need to bog down the enjoyment with those kinds of heavy concerns. The less potential consequences, the better.

That Dempsey had been married before was not the issue, but was he still involved with the woman? "But you're not still married, right? He'd never said, and he wasn't wedding a wedding band, so Dean sincerely hoped not.

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Don Juan shrugged. "Technically." He hadn't spoken to Ana since she'd kicked him out, but he also hadn't taken any actions to dissolve their legal connection. He would have had a difficult time finding a lawyer to handle it without coming clean about the ordeal to at least someone in his family, and he'd been far too embarrassed to admit it. Of course, he didn't know what she had been up to, so it was possible she had done something. Ana certainly wasn't the sort to shy away from a task on account of embarrassment. Was it possible to be divorced in abstentia? Perhaps he already was.

"I mean, I think," he continued, muddling through and feeling as though he was getting sidetracked before he'd managed to reach the point of bringing this up in the first place. "I don't talk to her."

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MJ made this <3

It sounded like technically (legally), but not actively. The knot of uneasiness that had wound itself up in his stomach ebbed a little. He visibly relaxed against the pillows again.

"So she's not going to come hunt me down for hogging your attention then?" A tease to hopefully break the tension that had taken over the room. It sounded like they had been young, reckless; Dean couldn't even imagine marrying at eighteen, he couldn't even imagine from married now, wasn't sure he wanted to get married ever. He wasn't surprised, both in knowing Dempsey the way he did, and given the nature of the nuptials, that it hasn't lasted.

Getting involved with a married partner was one if those morals Dean would never go against, but it sounded like, in this case at least, that it wasn't really a problem. He would keep the other boundaries he'd set with Dempsey, but might let this one slide and see where it went.

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Don Juan paused. He had never considered that, so he had to think for a second to determine whether it was a reasonable concern. He didn't expect to ever see Ana again, honestly; it had been four years since they'd last spoken, and she had been little more than a passing though in the meantime. No sudden appearances, no letters, nothing to interrupt his life. He doubted that would change. If it did, he doubted even more that Adriana would be in much of a mood to fight for his attention. She had seemed rather disinterested in ever breathing the same air as him, when they'd parted ways.

"No," he decided. "She's not English." The location piece was rather secondary to the bit where she never wanted to see him again, but it felt like a rationale that would require far less explanation. Don Juan was starting to lose his train of thought, however — he knew he'd had a reason for bringing this up, but now it felt more slippery. He had maybe supposed that Hudson would just get it once he dropped the initial announcement; he hadn't thought through what to say next. "I haven't seen her in years," he continued. "It's not like we're together, you know? But I meant —" What had he meant? He supposed he'd been expecting Hudson to ask what happened; he supposed he'd thought that the fact that he was no longer actively married, as it were, would have been obvious without having to be said. And since marriages were in most cases expected to last forever, the obvious next question was how it had gone off the rails.

"I wanted to tell you," he said, starting again. "I thought I loved her. I was happy, for a bit. And then we argued about things and she told me to leave and I left," he said with a long exhale. "And then I never saw her again. That's where I'm coming from, you understand? That's my experience with —" things like this, but that was coming on too strong; he stopped himself. Pressing on as though he hadn't left the sentence dangling: "I don't know how to fix things if they break."

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MJ made this <3

Dean was struggling to understand the relevance nearly as much as it seemed Dempsey struggled to get it all out. Dean hadn't mentioned this other rule for himself because he didn't expect it to be part of the equation. The way Dempsey explained everything though, did make it seem like it certainly wasn't current and maybe short-lived.

The more Dempsey talked, the more things started to sort of fall into place. That was the last time Dempsey had been involved with someone more than causally; like this tentative situation they were trying. It didn't have a definition, but he didn't think he needed one right now. Dean nearly opened his mouth to say he was sorry for how things had ended, but then they wouldn't be here, so he swallowed that thought. "You were young," Dean reasoned instead. Eighteen, four years ago for him, right after graduation, felt like a while ago now. Things changed, people changed.

Still Dean knew he had to tread lightly here, the admission seemed to have been weighing on Dempsey's mind. "Thank you for telling me, we'll figure it out," Dean hoped anyway. They were obviously still learning how to communicate with one another, but it already seemed to be working a little better, when they bothered to talk things through.

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Hudson sounded more confident than Don Juan felt. Don Juan nodded, willing himself to let the issue go... but he really didn't want to ruin this, and it seemed inevitable that he would. Last year he'd botched things badly enough that they hadn't spoken for months; last week could just as easily have forced an insurmountable rift. It was only Don Juan's determination to force his misgivings down and pretend it hadn't happened that had gotten him back here tonight. He was glad he was here, but it was far from an inevitability. Something else would happen sooner or later, he was fairly sure of that. It was nothing short of a miracle that he'd made his way back to Hudson's bed after two near-misses; he didn't know how he was going to manage it again, when he was no good at fixing things.

But there was nothing else to do about it now, that was true. Telling Hudson was the only thing he could do, and he'd done that. And he wasn't trying to belabor the point, lest he accidentally manage to talk Hudson out of wanting him to stick around at all. Don Juan pressed his lips up to Hudson's and kissed him, and kept kissing him until he felt the urge to keep explaining himself pass. Too many words would get him into trouble.

"I haven't told anyone else about that," he admitted, nestling in closer to Hudson as he prepared to sleep.

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MJ made this <3

Maybe he was better prepared now, for anything that might pop up in the future. It felt unsettled in a way, but Dean needed to sort through his own thoughts before they talked about it again. He slipped into the kiss easily; it was easier, more natural, his grasp tightening naturally and if he wasn't so totally spent and now reeling a little with the new information, he might have been coaxed into fooling around a little more.

There was an intimacy to the moment that he couldn't find the right response to and so all he did was kiss Dempsey gently on the temple. They'd crossed some sort of line and Dean had to wonder if they were going to continue to tiptoe carefully or go stumbling blindly into whatever it was that came next. It was hard to tell if he was going to fall asleep, but he could try. He could usually pass out at the drop of a hat, anywhere, especially when he'd been worn out like he had tonight. So he allowed himself to relax into the pillows more, rolling onto his back and pulled Dempsey snug against his side, yanking the warmer comforter up. Right now, he could be content that they'd managed to patch things up to this point and hopefully they could continue on like this for a while, like it was before.

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