Don Juan glanced at his feet as though he had forgotten. "They're in the grass," he explained, nodding towards the weeds. "I don't actually like shoes that much." Maybe it ran in the family; Shallot was barefoot more often than not too. Or maybe there was a part of him that thought he deserved to be a little uncomfortable tonight, a little too cold.

Hudson was being much nicer to him than he was being to himself. He had the sneaking suspicion that at some point tonight he would regret it. "We can go to yours," he relented with a sigh. "Can you apparate us from here, or should we walk to the floo?"

---

  

---

MJ made this <3

Dean chuckled quietly, moving away to collect the discarded shoes. It took him a minute, but he managed to find them both, holding them loosely in his fingers. "I can apparate from here." He hadn't had enough to drink and it wasn't too far. It felt like something else was on the edge of tonight but he could worry about it later. Right now he just wanted to get out of this cold forest and somewhere where Don Juan could fall apart or explain or whatever it was he needed to do.

"Hold on." Dean wasn't worried about the booze, that could stay, he had plenty at home. He reached out to take Dempsey by the hand firmly and didn't let go until they were in the sitting room. Dean stepped back, giving Dempsey some space to reacclimate, shrugging out of his overcoat, momentarily forgetting about the tux he'd been wearing for the night. He dropped Dempsey's shoes off to the side and looked down at his own critically; hopefully they could be saved. "Another drink?"

---

  

---

Don Juan had been aware that Hudson was dressed neatly before, but it didn't strike him until they were in the house and he was removing his overcoat just how nicely. He looked out of place in these surroundings; Don Juan was more used to seeing him in some state of half-dress, or pajamas, or nude while he was at home. It was obvious he'd been dressed up purposefully. Don Juan, with frozen sap stuck to the soles of his socks, felt very conspicuous.

"What did I interrupt tonight?" he asked, after nodding his assent for a drink. "With my poorly defined crisis?"

---

  

---

MJ made this <3

"Work," Dean said casually. "Nothing important." He was going to be in huge trouble when he finally heard back from his boss, but it was too late now, what was done was done.

Dean worked at the bowtie with one hand while he poured drinks with another. He couldn't really see what Dempsey had been drinking in the tree, so Dean pulled out the good whiskey. The stuff you sipped. Hopefully it would slow everything down. He set the two glasses down on the coffee table and pulled of the jacket, working at the cufflinks next. It was always his first instinct when he knew he was in for the night. Dean didn't mind dressing for the occasion, but this hardly fit.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" He cast a cursory glance at Dempsey, but left it entirely up to him.

---

  

---

Don Juan supposed he must have, or else why summon Hudson this way and pull him away from work? He felt that he ought to talk about it, but his trouble was he still hadn't worked out what to say. He picked up the glass Hudson had poured him but didn't drink it, instead frowning at the amber liquid and watching the way the light hit it. He flexed his toes against Hudson's carpet.

"She made it easy to walk away," he said in a tone that sounded like an afterthought. When Adriana had found him in Spain she had stayed just long enough to ensure his situation with Valencia was ruined. She hadn't seemed interested in doing much else. He'd asked her what she wanted, whether she was there for a divorce, but now he wasn't sure she'd ever answered him.

"She found me, in Spain," he said with a more pronounced frown and a thoughtful crease of his brow. "I don't know how she knew to look."

---

  

---

MJ made this <3

Dean kept stripping down until it was just the dress shirt and pants, all tossed haphazardly in the nearby armchair. He flopped heavily onto the sofa, picking up his own whiskey. Unlike Dempsey, he took a deep, settling swig, letting the whiskey sit on his tongue for a moment. Trying to get his head on straight for whatever this conversation was going to be might be tougher than anticipated, but he was going to try.

"You are hardly difficult to keep track of." Dean barely contained the chuckle. He'd kept loose tabs on Don Juan over the years, but it had never been all that difficult, most of the time the information found him and he didn't even have to try. "What came of it?" Dean prompted, feeling like he was only getting a portion of the story. Dempsey didn't have to tell him, obviously, but Dean suspected he had to get something off his chest at the very least.

---

  

---

Perhaps Dean had a point there. Don Juan curled into the armchair he had taken up and considered. The question wasn't really so much how she had found him in Spain, but rather why. Even though he had been off the beaten path somewhat (— more than he would care to admit to Hudson; the entire chapter of his relationship with Valencia felt humiliating in hindsight) it wouldn't have been hard to ask around and deduce where he was. But it would have taken some effort for her to get to Spain in the first place, then to figure out what had happened to him, then to travel to the bungalow where he was holed up with Valencia. It was an awfully lot of work for someone to go through when they didn't care if he lived or died. He'd chalked it up to spite at the time — Adriana could certainly hold a grudge, and she had a temper — but now he wondered if there was more to the story. But if there was, he'd never learn it now that she was gone.

It was egotistical to even consider the idea that she had been thinking of him steadily since he'd left, wasn't it? Watching him from afar, keeping track of any news, hoping for him to come back. If she had wanted him back she would have said so, and she never had. She could not have still been in love with him — could she have?

"Nothing," he said in answer to Hudson's question. "She yelled at me and then she left. Back to Holland, presumably." He hadn't even asked where she was living, only whether she wanted a divorce. How might that have stung if she had been waiting on him to come crawling back to her at some point? But he still didn't know if he could really believe that, as a premise — Adriana seemed too confident, too strong, too unknowable and uncontainable to have wasted a decade of her life pining for someone like him.

On the other hand — he had sent Dean a letter with no explanation and no signature, and then he'd canceled a work thing and trudged out to the wilds of Ireland.

"Hudson," he said, looking up abruptly to meet his eyes. "Do you still love me?"

---

  

---

MJ made this <3

None of this story made much sense, but Dean could only assume there had been some kind of residual feelings involved. Young and dumb did not always equate wrong. Maybe she'd wanted something out of Don Juan, a divorce, a reconciliation, but something had stopped it. Whatever it was Don Juan was leaving out probably had something to do with it, but Dean wasn't about to push. He looked too pensive, too fragile to dive deeper than he was willing to go.

The question caught him off guard. He would have thought it rather obvious by now. Several years, one spent at the bottom of a bottle, some close calls, and he still didn't sleep on the side of the bed Dempsey used to occupy; hadn't actually committed to a full night with another man since they'd split. He'd skipped an important work event that would wind up with an official reprimand to traipse off to the Irish forest because Dempsey had written to him. None of it made sense, but he had.

Dean leaned forward and set down the whiskey on the table and unbuttoned the rest of his shirt, shrugging out of the left sleeve to show the tattoo on the inside of his left bicep he'd gotten last year. "Se káthe zoí," written in Greek letters, σε κάθε ζωή. Call him an idiot, a romantic, a complete and utter fool, but it was the truth of it. He hadn't been able to quit Dempsey any better than Don Juan had been able to quit the drugs or the trouble or anything else he'd ever gotten into over the years.

---

The following 1 user Likes Dean Hudson's post:1 user Likes Dean Hudson's post
   Don Juan Dempsey

---

When Hudson started to remove his shirt Don Juan was almost annoyed. That was a serious question, he nearly said. I'm not talking about sex. But then Hudson looked back at him and Don Juan could see in his eyes that he had interpreted the question with the right level of gravity — so this was some kind of answer, just not one he immediately understood. And then he noticed what was different about Hudson's arm. Don Juan couldn't read Greek, but he recognized the silhouette of those letters — and how many Greek words could have been an answer to the question he'd just asked, anyway?

"You said you didn't want tattoos," he joked weakly, trying to mask the fact that this turn of events had left him absolutely devastated.

His whole adult life had been spent leaving people who never left him. Technically that wasn't true, but people cut him out for a moment and then he cut them out for life. Adriana had thrown him out. Hudson had told him once I'm not strong enough to do this. Elfrieda had urged him to flee. Valencia had demanded the ring back. And then he had moved on as though these were neatly closed chapters, never to be revisited, while they were constantly reminded of what was lost. Elfie had to think of him every time she was snubbed by someone in society; Don Juan had become popular in his infamy but she had all but disappeared from polite company. Adriana had been watching him from afar for years, and she had to be reminded to some degree every time she looked at her daughter. Hudson would have seen this in the mirror when he dressed every day; maybe he'd had to explain it to another lover. Don Juan had warped the life of everyone he'd ever cared for, and now they bent around the space where he had been, while he — what? What the hell did he even do with his life? Go to parties, flirt, drink, smoke?

"I don't think I'm a very good person," he confessed, slumping down deep into the armchair.

---

The following 1 user Likes Don Juan Dempsey's post:1 user Likes Don Juan Dempsey's post
   Dean Hudson

---

MJ made this <3

"I said I wanted to be a blank canvas," Dean countered as he tugged his shirt back on and did up the buttons again. It was a good reminder to see every day. Someone who mattered, someone who he loved, who had once loved him, someone he just couldn't seem to hold onto.

He watched with a frown as Dempsey seemed to struggle with it and Dean desperately wanted to know what he was thinking. Dean wasn't foolish or selfish enough to think that this had anything much to do with him. It seemed Don Juan was working through everything from that first marriage to now, trying to filter through the pieces and make them fit.

"True or not, it doesn't discount you from being loved." Dean didn't always think he was a very good person either. Clearly it hadn't stopped Dean, or his wife, or the woman whose husband had challenged Don Juan to a duel from falling for him.

---

  

---

No, it didn't, evidently (evidently was the perfect word choice: he was overwhelmed by the evidence of it). It might have been quite obvious to everyone including those involved that the sensible, logical thing was to move on, but it turned out it wasn't that easy to sweep mistakes under the rug. But even having recognized this, he still didn't know what to do about it. In the case of Adriana Spaans he couldn't do anything about it, not anymore. He wasn't sure he had many more options with any of the other women in his past. Elfrieda could hardly risk being seen with him now if she wanted to ever recover some semblance of a normal life, or keep her husband out of jail. And Hudson — was Hudson really much different? He might not have to worry about having his reputation ruined or having a jealous husband storm in, but that didn't mean being close to Don Juan was a low-risk affair. He'd hurt Hudson before; if he stayed, he was sure to do it again.

He shifted in the chair. He wanted to move to the sofa where the other man was and beg him to take him back, to give him another chance. He wanted to leave the country. He wanted to lock himself in his room until he could write something worthwhile; a masterpiece, an apology, art that could convey everything he couldn't say and make amends for everything he'd never done. He wanted to go to the sort of place where no one recognized anyone and get high. He wanted to go back to Lough Corrib and wade into the muddy bank and sit there all night, until he couldn't feel anything past the cold. He wanted someone to hold him. He wanted to feel as though he deserved to be held.

The problem was that he'd figured it all out too late. He had a role now, a place in the story of society which he fit into without much trouble: a worthless rake. If only he'd known that when he set out on his tour after Hogwarts. He might not have tried to seduce Adriana, or he might not have done it so sincerely. She had been so young, so bright — she could have met anyone, but then she'd met him. If he had worn the same veneer of smug disdain he brought to parties now then she would have known there was nothing in him worth derailing her life over; she would have let him pass her by, or she would have been foolish but not with her heart, and after he left she would have recovered. It was only the fact that it had been sweet, once, that doomed her. The same with Hudson, the same with Elfrieda — he had cared about them too earnestly and too honestly, and now they were stuck with the scars of it. (He had been dishonest with Valencia; maybe there was still hope for her.)

It dawned on him distantly that Hudson hadn't returned his question. He probably didn't have to; he knew the answer. Don Juan had loved him once, but there was no evidence of it in recent years. Every decision he'd made regarding Hudson was a selfish one, even if they appeared not to be. Summoning him tonight, knowing he would drop everything to come tend to Don Juan's needs. Keeping him from doing more in the fireworks room on New Year's Eve in order to protect Don Juan's ego, which couldn't stand another dose of guilt. Responding to his letters with snide remarks and trite wit, even when Hudson was being painfully sincere. When was the last time Don Juan had loved him? It hadn't survived the binge he'd indulged in after Hudson had asked him to leave; he'd taken his love and fed it to the opium.

"I should go," he said. His voice shook slightly as he put his still-untouched drink down on the end table and started to unfold himself from the armchair.

---

  

---

MJ made this <3

Whatever conclusion it was Don Juan had come up with, Dean knew that deep down, being here probably wasn't the answer. Still, it stung. Dean felt like every time he tried, it was pointless. Well, maybe that wasn't quite fair, but he was starting to wonder just what the fuck he was doing. All the honestly and the sincerity was going nowhere, Dempsey was caught up in whatever plight he'd found this time and Dean was just a spectator.

And just like that, he was leaving. Dean sighed and considered his options. If Dempsey was determined to leave, there wasn't anything he could do to stop him, but he'd worry as he always did. "What do you want from me right now?" Dean stood slowly himself, entirely unsure what the right course of action was here. Pride kept him from begging Dempsey to stay even if he wanted him to. He really didn't want Dempsey to go gallivanting off back into the Irish countryside to drink himself into dying of exposure in the winter air or finding some hovel to get high in either. Dean wasn't sure he could fix this, but he wouldn't mind trying. He'd been trying.

"You sent me a letter for a reason," he held his hands out uselessly at his sides, a gesture of discontent. "What was the point if you're just going to leave again?" Maybe this was selfish, but he had to know.

---

The following 1 user Likes Dean Hudson's post:1 user Likes Dean Hudson's post
   Don Juan Dempsey

---

Dean was on his feet in the same moment Don Juan was, which arrested Don Juan's progress towards the exit. He rocked from the balls of his feet to his heels and felt loosely frantic. "I don't know," he said with an agitated shrug. "Maybe there isn't a point. Maybe there's never been a point." Or maybe there simply wasn't a point that he would be willing to admit to. Writing the letter was purely selfish. He'd wanted company and hadn't spared even the barest thought for what he might be interrupting or derailing in order to get it. And Hudson had come running, despite not having had more than a passing conversation in two years. The last arguably sweet thing Don Juan had said to him had been about the Greek phrase in his letter, and Hudson had a damn tattoo. What was Don Juan supposed to say about it? How was he supposed to admit to his motivations tonight? He'd wanted Hudson to say something to make him feel better, he supposed, but how self- centered was that? He wasn't the one who had died. He didn't even know if he had a right to grieve her, given how little attention he had given her in the last decade.

"I want — something stronger," he said, half because it was true and half because he thought it would hurt Hudson enough that he wouldn't try to stop Don Juan leaving.

---

  

---

MJ made this <3

'That's not true and you know it." There had to be a point. It might not be obvious and it might not be what they wanted it to be, but there had to be something behind it. Dean was trying to keep the frustration and the panic out of his voice. He felt like if Dempsey left this time, that would really be the end of it. Dean wasn't sure he couldn't handle this again.

Something stronger. Always something stronger. It should have made him angry and maybe it did on some level, but knowing Dempsey was grieving made Dean a little more understanding. "Just stay." He said as he took a few steps across the room. He wasn't pleading, but he wanted to make himself clear. "Let me be the something stronger." It had been four, almost five years since Dean had thought himself incapable of handling Don Juan as a whole, but five years was a long time to figure oneself out and Dean always came to the same conclusion. It was what had him sending those letters, what had him chasing after Dempsey at the zoo, what had him following a cryptic note and a poorly drawn map into the woods outside Galway. What had him tattooing something he truly meant on his arm. Always the same stupid decisions, always for the same reason.

---

  

---

God, was there any bottom to the well of feeling inside Dean Hudson? Don Juan had just thrown him something sharp, something intended to sting, and he had absorbed it like it was nothing. He was the fucking sun: immense, constant, blinding, incomprehensible. Don Juan looked at him for a moment, then nodded as his shoulders drooped; resigned, like a child whose tantrum hadn't worked out as anticipated.

I'm never going to be good enough for him, he thought despairingly — but he had already ruined him forever regardless, so maybe what did it matter? Hudson had even told him that before, but Don Juan had brushed the remark off as idle romanticism. He ought to have known better. Perhaps Hudson was a romantic, but he wasn't an idle one.

"Take me to bed," he suggested softly, suddenly exhausted by the idea of doing anything except curling into Hudson's chest.

---

The following 1 user Likes Don Juan Dempsey's post:1 user Likes Don Juan Dempsey's post
   Dean Hudson

---

MJ made this <3

Dean blew out a breath in relief. He hadn't expected it to work if Don Juan had been hell bent on leaving, but at least this way Dean could keep an eye on him. At least for tonight. And then one night at a time.

This agreement was fragile, but Dean closed the gap between them anyway and put one hand to Don Juan's cheek softly. He looked into those familiar hazel eyes with a look that was both thankful and longing. He slid the hand down to Dempsey's and gently tugged him toward the stairs. "Come on." Dean was worried Don Juan might still take off, but if he held on tight tonight, maybe it would be alright.

Gesturing to the side of the bed Dempsey had always occupied, Dean moved to rummage through the drawers for something for both of them to wear.

---

  

---