Don Juan hesitated at the question. Obviously this entire conversation had been his idea in the first place. Hudson wouldn't have been seeking him out if he hadn't waltzed in to his home unannounced. But the context had shifted from the beginning of the night, and Don Juan still wasn't sure how far. He wasn't at all sure what conversation it was they were about to have. Hudson was here, and that meant something... but it could have only meant that he had never stopped worrying that Don Juan couldn't be trusted to be alone. He might have been here out of obligation, because he thought that if he ignored the situation Don Juan's sobriety would crack like a dropped glass. (And he wasn't entirely wrong, was he? It wasn't as though Don Juan hadn't felt the itch on the back of his hand while he was waiting in the parlor, like there was something in his pocket that he wanted to reach for, even though his pockets had been empty for days).

"If you do," he ventured. "I didn't mean to... presume." He had presumed, of course. It had never occurred to him that Hudson might have someone else in his life now — not someone he cared for more, at any rate. Sex was one thing; they'd always had other people they slept with. But the woman tonight hadn't been just that, and Don Juan didn't know enough about the situation to know what she was... or how much room was left for him in Hudson's life.

---