Dean was starting to piece things together, or so he thought. While Dempsey wrestled with whatever it was he was trying to say, Dean just ate quietly. The eggs had already gone cold, but he didn't much care. He just knew he was starving and this would likely be his only option to get some food into him for a while. He assumed anyway.

Once it all sort of came tumbling out, Dean put it together finally. Dempsey had overheard them, had figured out what was going on; was perseverating on the one thing that Dean said really wasn't a big deal. It wasn't who he was spending time with, it was how. Dean had meant it when he said that part of his life didn't need to be anything that happened between them. He honestly hadn't indulged for a while, but Thaleia had been interested and Dean knew it was better to start off with someone you were already comfortable with. There were a multitude of reasons he'd agreed to indulge her curiosity, but none of them had been because he missed it.

"Nothing is missing at all," Dean was perfectly content with their arrangement. He spent more time with Dempsey than anyone else. He enjoyed his time with Dempsey more than anyone else. "Thaleia asked me to introduce her," he wasn't sure if this was too much information, but he hoped it helped round out the picture. "It hadn't been the plan to bring her back with me, she was already headed to Paris to visit friends. Otherwise I would have let you know I was available sooner." Dempsey had been his first thought upon returning home, he just hadn't been available yet. "It's better to try it with someone you know, someone you feel comfortable with. Not somebody who's going to take advantage of the situation." Dean and his rules made him a safe person to experiment with. He would rather Thaleia learn her limits and how to use them with him than with somebody else. Then if she got into a situation with another person, she could take control if she needed to. "I only did it because she asked, not because I was particularly missing anything."

Finished eating, he mirrored Dempsey's position, forearms on the table, leaning forward, mug between his hands. "That was just sex, this is..." He trailed off, not sure how to finish the phrase. It was just more. It was decidedly not, just sex.

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Don Juan would never have worked up the courage to ask for details — too much of an overstep, when he'd already been where he shouldn't have and intruded on something he shouldn't have — but he was grateful for them. Every piece of information Hudson gave him was one thing to remove from the register of details he could catastrophize over later, when he went home and got in his head again. A woman; spontaneous, not a long-term affair; their first time doing this. He felt a twinge of guilt when Hudson said not somebody who's going to take advantage of the situation — something he had been afraid of when they first tried it. It felt almost like a betrayal to admit to the thought now, because he trusted Hudson now, but... at the time things had been more complicated.

All of the details were fine; nothing alarming. He still wasn't sure he believed Hudson when he said nothing was missing; this could have just been an empty platitude, the sort Don Juan used all the time to avoid conversations he didn't want to be having...

Then Hudson trailed off his last sentence, and Don Juan's thoughts ground to a halt. "Oh," he said, cheeks flushing. He knew how the sentence ended. He didn't know what to do with himself; he was concerned he might have looked either too sheepish or too foolishly pleased or both, and since he wasn't sure decided to hide his expression behind a large gulp of coffee.

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MJ made this <3

Dean couldn't help but to chuckle at the flush on Dempsey's cheeks. He took it as a good sign. They really weren't very good at this deep discussion sort of thing, but it seemed to be getting incrementally better as time wore on. Still, Dean would rather be proactive than reactive if he could.

"Do you want to think about some," Dean had to choose the right word here. "Boundaries?" He thought setting some expectations might help prevent some future disappointment. Boundaries set that clear limit. He already felt a little guilty for the whole thing with Thaleia, even though he hadn't done anything wrong. He didn't want Dempsey to get discombobulated because of something that could have been avoided. "Doesn't have to be now," he added, belatedly. It might warrant some thought beforehand, which was perfectly fair. Dean still wasn't sure what he wanted out of this personally yet. It would be terribly hypocritical of him to ask for monogamy when he wasn't always around, nor was he sure that he could commit to that himself. But if they put some more concrete thoughts out there and agreed on some rules, it might help.

He shrugged, still not sure what exactly they were doing here, but he did know he wanted to figure that out, so that had to count for something, right?

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Don Juan, having literally never had a relationship-defining conversation up until this point in his life, failed to recognize this for what it was. His brow creased briefly at the word boundaries, trying to contextualize it. The first thing that he landed on was what they'd been talking about just before — the things Hudson had gotten up to with his other bedfellow this afternoon. Boundaries. His heart rate increased slightly. Was this the ask he'd thought Hudson wouldn't make? But he'd just said there was nothing missing — Don Juan hadn't believed him, but that had been less than five minutes ago. Surely he wouldn't have changed his mind so quickly.

But Don Juan wasn't sure he was entirely opposed, if that was where this conversation was leading. Hudson had mentioned the woman today expressing an interest — that was certainly never something Don Juan would have done of his own volition. But if Hudson enjoyed this, and Hudson said it was about trust and intimacy... Don Juan was willing to explore it. Maybe not to make it a regular part of their time together, but at least to better understand this particular dimension of Hudson's life. The last encounter... hadn't counted. It had left a bad taste in both of their mouths, Don Juan knew that, and it was so far removed from what Hudson said this was. Since the last time had been Don Juan's fault — him pushing buttons, him getting in over his head, him saying things were fine when they weren't — he owed it to Hudson to at least take a look at this sort of thing with fresh eyes.

"Yes," he decided. He still felt very much out of his depth here, but had decided to take the plunge. If he put it off, he didn't know when Hudson might bring it up again — this one had taken months. And... well, he had been obsessing over this idea for an hour. He had come up with some general ideas, at least. Don Juan took a breath and said in a rush, "Alright, so — if you — hurt me, not in a way someone could see the next day." He raised his eyebrows at Hudson; he had no idea if he was entirely off-base with this and was seeking some approval that he was at least in the right category. "Something like that?"

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MJ made this <3

It took Dean a second to register what it was Dempsey was going on about. One step forward and two steps back. "Not what I meant," he chuckled quietly, shaking his head a little. He had to wonder why Dempsey kept going there. How could he make it any clearer that he really was not worried about Dempsey not being interested pushing those buttons?

"I meant around seeing other people, like when I'm gone. Or setting aside a specific, dedicated time between us that should come first." Like when Dean first came back from work travel. Dean was trying to think of things that he might want, but still hadn't had enough time to really think about. It was a strange sort of thing to put words to and he was sure things would come up that neither of them would anticipate (like today), but they could establish some sort of foundation for having those discussions in the future.

With two trains of thought trying to take precedence in his brain, Dean couldn't help but to worry that he'd accidentally set Dempsey up to think that he was discontented with their current activities. He tried to catch Dempsey's eye; he wanted to make it as clear as possible. "I absolutely do not want you pushing out of your comfort zone if it's just because it's what you think I want." That was not how this worked, not in his brain.

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Oh. Forget putting one's foot in one's mouth; he'd really gone and shoved it straight down his throat, hadn't he? Don Juan flushed with embarrassment and hid behind a gulp of coffee again. He had never had a conversation like this before. Rules about seeing other people, set time dedicated to each other. No one had ever offered him anything like this. Most of his relationships were casual, in which case there was a paradigm that neither of them owed each other anything — trying to establish anything like this would have seemed overbearing. He'd been married once, and that was the only exception; it came with the opposite assumptions, that they would never sleep with anyone else and spend every waking minute together if they could. When the marriage had collapsed he had presumed he wasn't cut out for those sorts of commitments... but coming from Hudson they seemed — sweet. He still didn't know if he could keep to boundaries like these, but it might at least be time to give it another try.

But first they had to deal with the can of worms Don Juan had just accidentally opened. "It's not that," he said with a helpless shrug. "I mean, it is, but it's not just that." He did want to make Hudson happy; if this was something Hudson wanted then that would have been enough of a reason on its own, even if Hudson didn't think so. "It's — there's some part of you I don't know. I don't like that," he admitted. "I want... I mean, I don't know if I want to keep doing it," he hedged. "But I think I want to — see what it's like, at least once."

Another factor, which he wouldn't share: he wouldn't have minded overwriting that memory from February. Maybe if he had a more enjoyable time of it the second go around, even if it ended up being something he didn't want to keep engaging in, then he could finally put the first incident behind him, instead of letting it creep back into his brain every few weeks.

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MJ made this <3

Dean wasn't totally convinced, but he supposed what Dempsey was saying made sense. Dean hadn't exactly showed him how to do it right that night on his birthday when everything had gone sideways. A conversation just like this needed to be had; limits, hard and soft, curiosities to indulge, or fears to soothe. The problem was that Dean felt like he fucked up so badly the first time he might still not be able to follow through correctly.

He owed it to Dempsey to try, if it was really what he wanted, however. Dean had never engaged in a scene with someone he cared about and he would be lying if he said he wasn't curious. There would be added layers to it that he'd never experienced, too. "I want you to be really sure, and we need to have a real conversation beforehand." Dean sipped more slowly at his coffee, watching Dempsey carefully. "I mean it. No bullshit. Ask questions, tell me what you do and don't want." Dean had to know and understand the limits to make it work. "I skipped that part last time, I was too worked up, it won't happen again." He meant it. Dean would not make that mistake again.

His tone was serious, but he softened a little, realizing that was that dominant part of him creeping up at just the start of the conversation. He purposefully relaxed his shoulders and passed Dempsey a lopsided sort of smile, but tired around the edges. "I'll do it if you really want to, but think about it— and what I said about everything else, we can talk about it then." Dean wasn't sure he had it in him tonight. It was going to be a serious conversation and he wanted to be more awake and clear-headed so he knew what to ask and what to confirm.

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Don Juan hadn't really expected Hudson to agree, so this was a pleasant surprise. All of the stipulations made sense. Normally Don Juan was one to shy away from conversations that had the potential to be fraught, but given what had happened the last time they'd attempted this, he was actually glad of Hudson's insistence. He'd know what to expect going into it, then — and he'd have a chance to change his mind before it happened, if things started to get too uncomfortable during the conversation itself. And what was there to fear about a hard conversation, anyway? Now that he knew Hudson wasn't going to run away if things went wrong, there wasn't anything to worry about. He might look foolish, but he'd looked plenty foolish already today, and Hudson was still smiling at him.

"Alright," he agreed, bright. "We'll talk about it. And thank you for... you called this dinner, didn't you?" he teased, picking up his fork again and gesturing towards the eggs and toast.

Now that they'd gotten to the other side of it — it was good to just be in Hudson's presence again. Don Juan had missed him while he had been away, and they were — more than sex, now, and both admitting to it. It felt good.

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MJ made this <3