Late Spring, 1893 — A week after Dean's letter — Dean's House, Bartonburg

He had been writing. At least he had after Hudson implied that he wasn't, because he wanted to be able to say he was writing in an upcoming argument and have it sound true, so he had to make it true. It was obvious what Hudson thought he'd been doing, and — well, he'd done that too, but he was still telling himself that he hadn't been planning it until Hudson had gone throwing out accusations and he'd suddenly had too many feelings bottled up inside and no other way to drown them out. He hadn't been planning on skipping out on his plans with Hudson to get high. He just hadn't had it in him to repeat the same fight from the night before, and it felt inevitable if he came back the next night. So yes, his excuse about the publisher had been invented, but he still felt Dean jumping to the conclusion he had was entirely unfair.

Not that he was going to say so. He hadn't responded to the letter and had stayed back from Hudson's house long enough to let the matter die, he hoped. If not — well, he'd prepared for the argument, but he also thought he was more than capable of distracting Dean tonight. He'd written first — briefly, just can I drop by tonight?, but he didn't want to risk catching Dean in a bad mood and making it worse by surprising him.

He arrived through the floo and went off in search of Hudson, tugging the sleeve on his jacket as he walked to keep his shirt from sticking to his swollen skin. "Hey," he said on finding him, finding a place to lean (he was always leaning on things rather than standing up straight). "Are you free on Thursday? I wanted to make plans."

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