November, 1887 — An Opium Den

Can you come get me? the note had read, with a floo address crookedly scrawled beneath. He didn't stop to sign it; by now he thought Hudson recognized his handwriting. Hopefully that still hold true even when his hand was shaking as he wrote it. Hudson wasn't going to enjoy the task, he was sure of that; Hudson didn't like this sort of thing. If he'd had other options, he would have taken them... but the friends he'd arrived with had disappeared, perhaps back through the floo to somewhere else or perhaps into one of the private rooms at the opium den or perhaps into thin air, for all he knew. He couldn't get himself home because his pockets were empty — no wand, no coin to buy a pinch of floo powder, and apparently no credit at the counter (he was not sure how that had happened; presumably he'd bought quite a bit of opium and either not realized it or forgotten about it). He couldn't walk, because it was cold and half his clothes were gone, and anyway no one walked anywhere — certainly people did not walk from whereever-this-was to Ireland in the span of a night. So he needed help from someone, and though there were other people he could have called upon — friends, siblings, even the staff at home — the person he wanted was Hudson. No one else had occurred to him until after he'd already handed the letter over. He didn't see any owls around, but they said it would be sent. He'd just have to hope for the best.

He'd sent the letter in a brief moment of lucidity: suddenly looking around and realizing the state of affairs, seeing that he was surrounded by unfamiliar faces and had no conception of how long he had been here. It didn't last long. Retreating from the counter and falling back into a pile of cushions stacked vaguely into the shape of a chair, Don Juan was immediately offered opium pills. His, apparently, and yes he had bought quite a large amount of them, and seemed to have been generous enough to share with half the room. He didn't consciously decided to take it; just his body working on habit and instinct, crushing the first pill between his teeth and the using his tongue to push the powder up into his gums so that he'd feel it faster. No one who was serious swallowed pills whole.

It started with the rush, then the drop. When the unnatural relaxation started the wane, he took another pill and let the process start over. His entire body relaxed, piled languidly like melted wax at the base of a candle. His eyes moved behind closed lids. His mind shut off. By the time he heard someone say his name he had entirely forgotten having written a letter at all. "Hmmm?" he mumbled. It took great effort to flutter his eyelids open, and even more effort to try and focus his gaze. Hudson? Not a person he expected to see in a place like this; maybe he was hallucinating. He reached a hand out lazily to try and touch him, expecting some dream-logic to take over and prevent him from making contact. Hudson was standing up and Don Juan had no desire to be, so his hand connected with the fabric of Hudson's pants just below the knee. His fingers closed around it, rubbing the cloth through his fingertips as though he needed to be convinced that the sensations aligned with reality. He certainly did feel very — solid.

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Dean had been working late in his home office and the letter had found him exhausted. He'd know that scrawl anywhere and the address was wholly unfamiliar, but the message was clear. Dean threw on his jacket and ran to the floo, throwing in the powder and announcing the address. It was more than a little anxiety-inducing because Dempsey had come to him plenty of times when he couldn't go anywhere, else, but Dean had never had to go get him.

He flooed to the address and was greeted by a sight he wasn't so unfamiliar with, but had never cared to explore. Dean had plenty of experience in foreign countries and dens of inequity, but he had always had different goals in mind. It took a few minutes of searching the house to find Dempsey, spread out on the floor, too far gone to even know where he was. Did he even remember sending the owl? Now wasn't the time and Dean knew he wouldn't get any answers out of him at the moment. "Jesus Christ Dempsey." There were tones of both genuine concern and flaring annoyance. This was the worst he'd seen him and Dean wasn't so sure he had the stomach for it.

First thing was first though, they had to get out of here. "Alright Princess, time to go." He crouched down, taking the hand off his pants. "Can you stand?"

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Princess — that was cute. Don Juan had a passing fancy to preen, maybe tuck the back of his hand under his chin, to indicate that he was amenable to the joke. Ultimately the idea did not persist long enough for his body to rouse itself to the motion; his free hand stirred and he smiled absently but that was all. Hudson had plucked his other hand off of his trouser leg. Don Juan decided he was probably real. Certainly a real person, really here and really touching him. Probably Hudson. Sometimes in the thralls of opium he could get confused, think a stranger was a friend for a minute, but those usually didn't last very long. Hudson's features were not resolving into unfamiliar ones the more Don Juan got his eyes to focus. Probably actually Hudson, actually here, actually asking him to go.

Could he stand? An excellent question. Probably. Hadn't he just walked somewhere, not long ago? Even so, he decided it was better to try before answering too confidently. He leaned on his elbows, then the heels of his hands, propping himself into a sitting position. He pulled his legs in as he bent his knees and was briefly distracted by the sensation of the floor moving beneath his feet. He glanced down at them, blinking.

"I don't have shoes," he observed. He wasn't sure if Hudson already knew this. He also wasn't sure if his shoes were somewhere here or somewhere before here. Surely he would have been wearing at least shoes when he came in through the floo? But now he wasn't even entirely sure he had arrived via floo; he just assumed because that was his most usual means of travel. Where had he been before...?

"What time is it?" he asked, as if that would be enough to anchor his memories of what had happened so far tonight.

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Dean felt like Dempsey's lack of shoes was the least of his problems now, "I'll get you new ones." He didn't have the patience to try and find anything when clearly Dempsey wasn't even coherent enough to coordinate movements. "Well past midnight." Dean hadn't even really realized how late he'd been working until the owl had knocked on the window.

With no more forward progress, Dean leaned down and swung Dempsey up over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. He'd never had a problem lifting Dempsey before this, in a variety of ways, but the useless weight of the other man's limbs didn't help. It was a good thing there weren't many other people around and that they were as out of it as Dempsey was, by all appearances. Dean didn't want to be attached to this sort of place, he was careful about where and when he decided to indulge in his own vices, and this wasn't it.

Making his way back to the floo, Dean realized it was going to be a really tight squeeze for the two of them and so changed his plan. He set Dempsey back down on his feet, holding him tightly to keep him upright and apparated out instead into his own sitting room. "Alright?" Apparating was disorienting normally, but Dean had no idea what it would feel like under the influence.

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Hudson had his arm under him. Don Juan leaned into it. He had always liked how strong Hudson was, after having been impressed by his muscles on their very first meeting, but he felt especially solid now when Don Juan was so loose. Like an oak tree, but warm and supple. Don Juan twined around his chest like ivy; his movements slow and cloying. If they were moving around the building Don Juan hardly noticed. His world didn't extend beyond Hudson's far shoulder at the moment.

Then Hudson shifted him and Don Juan mumbled an inarticulate protest at being made to carry his own weight again. It occurred to him to ask what they were doing, but his mouth was dry and before he'd managed the ability to form words, the world lurched.

Hudson asked if he was alright. He wasn't. The world was still moving — from his perspective, anyway; what was actually happening was that he was swaying wildly on his feet. His stomach seemed to be moving at a different velocity than the rest of him. He reached a hand towards his mouth but didn't complete the gesture before he vomited, a mix of water and yellowish stomach bile.

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It was, perhaps, not the first time he'd been vomited on, but that didn't change the fact that it was still just as gross. There was nothing to do about it now, other than to try and not get it all over the house. Pulling his wand from his pocket, Dean vanished the mess easily enough, but now he had another things to worry about. After stowing his wand, thinking he'd need it again, Dean scooped Dempsey up with one arm under his knees and one around his back, more gently than he had before, and headed up the stairs to the bathroom.

It was a quick process of stripping off the soiled clothes and washing them both up with a clean towel. Dean tossed the clothes into the bathtub to soak and be a later problem. Explaining that to the staff would be fun. Getting some clean pajamas on Dempsey wasn't worth the trouble, Dean didn't think, so he hauled him toward the bed and tucked him in. "Get some sleep." He brushed some hair back from Dempsey's face and sighed. He loathed seeing Dempsey like this, but it felt like something that he couldn't change. Maybe it was because Dean just didn't see the appeal, or understand how someone could just let go of their bodily autonomy like that, or that he worried about what could have happened if he hadn't gone to pick Dempsey up. (Not that he wouldn't have, but if Dempsey hadn't let him know...) It was all rattling around in his brain too much for him to sleep, so Dean dressed in some old, comfortable clothes and padded back down the stairs to his office.

Once there he poured himself a stiff drink and lit a cigarette, leaning back in the high leatherback chair behind the large oak desk. It was going to require a lot of thinking before he was ready to have a conversation about this, if at all.

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For the next thirty minutes Don Juan was little more than a collection of feelings. He was mortified. He had trouble focusing his eyes long enough to follow what Hudson was doing about the mess. He was starting to sink towards the floor, gradually losing his balance, when Hudson scooped him up. Hudson was warm. Don Juan tucked his head in towards his chest and tried to stabilize himself, with Hudson as a center of gravity. He was terribly worried about vomiting again. Hudson was efficient in stripping him — Don Juan barely had time to realize what was happening before it was done, much less help with any given piece of clothing — but his hands were gentle.

The bed was soft. The sheets were clean and crisp. Hudson brushed his hair back. Don Juan was overcome. His eyelids fluttered. He moved his tongue in his mouth, trying to work up enough saliva to form words. "Hudson," he said, but he forced his eyes open and discovered Hudson was already gone.

He lay his head on the pillow and waited for feeling to come back to his extremities. His mouth was painfully dry. After some minutes, he worked up the wherewithal to crawl out of the bed. He slipped something on over his bottom half — something from Hudson's dirty laundry, because he couldn't focus on drawers or wardrobes at the moment. They didn't quite fit, but they didn't really need to. He stumbled slowly towards the bathroom, then back towards the room with the light under the door.

"Hey," he said, leaning on the doorway without coming inside. "I needed water. And I wanted you."

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The half an hour of quiet and an entire heavy pour of whiskey later left Dean feeling at least less frustrated. He could feel the booze in his veins, but was still barely buzzed, the perfect sort of relaxed after everything that had transpired in the last hour. He'd been sitting with his head in his hands for a few minutes trying to work through the myriad of emotions running through his brain, but none of them would stop and settle so he could figure out exactly what it was he was feeling at the moment. Dean pressed the heels of his hands into his temples and tried to unscramble his brain, but it wasn't working.

The voice from the doorway was unexpected and he looked up slowly, steeling himself. If Dean didn't know the reason behind the dishevelment, Dempsey standing in the doorway wearing a pair of his too-big pajamas would have been amusing. Instead, he was sort of disgruntled his quiet brooding had been disrupted. Still, he had a hard time saying no to Dempsey. Every time he had, it had caused problems, and even though he'd felt justified, there was no reason to now, even if he wanted to sit and think some more. He could just as easily do that in bed if it would get Dempsey to sleep off whatever it was he'd taken.

"Yeah, I'm coming." He sighed heavily, and pushed off his desk toward the door.

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Don Juan hadn't meant it as a demand; if Hudson had something else to do, Don Juan would have gladly curled up on the floor next to his desk chair and fallen asleep with his head on Hudson's lap. He would have even stayed here in the doorway, or sat crookedly on a piece of furniture that wasn't designed to be sat on. Anything that kept them in the same room. He missed Hudson when he was gone — missed Hudson more than it was reasonable to miss anyone who still had their own entirely independent life to lead. The only time it ebbed was when he was high; now that he was coming down he knew it was going to rise like the tide again.

He put his hand out to catch Hudson's sleeve as he approached, fretful that it he didn't physically halt him he might walk straight by Don Juan and continue towards the bedroom instead of walking together.

"You came to get me," he said, tone warm. Obviously Hudson did not need this pointed out to him, but Don Juan felt it was worth remarking upon now that they were out of the opium den and out of the moment. It was an incredible thing, that Hudson had cared enough to come and save him from himself — particularly when the only reward he got for his troubles was having to deal with Don Juan when he was at his least attractive.

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He'd slowed by the door way, expecting Dempsey to go ahead of him, but the hand on his sleeve halted him altogether. "Of course I did," he just wished he didn't have to. Dean would have much rather just started the night this way, finishing up work before crawling into bed beside Dempsey for the night. He knew it wasn't normal to want this, knew it wasn't really all that possible, but it didn't stop him from wanting it anyway. This was the longest relationship he'd ever had and it was unconventional, often messy, and unexpected, but it was what he wanted. Or rather, with who he wanted.

The second part of his thought had bubbled up, sat on the tip of his tongue, but he thought better of actually saying it. They had never been very good at the emotional side of things, much beyond determining they were equally fond of one another. Dean had easily slid into putting Dempsey before anyone else, and tonight had been before work, which was a first for him. He wouldn't up and leave in a panic over just anyone. That all felt like too much to say however, so he just passed Dempsey a lopsided smile and a shrug.

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Of course, like it wasn't even a consideration, as though it were not a miraculous series of events. Dean's lopsided smile. Don Juan's mouth fluttered in response, a smile with the motion of a butterfly's wings. The opium had left him shaky, now that it was gradually releasing him from lethargy.

"You're my favorite person," he announced. He attempted a steadier smile; if he was drunk instead of high he would have beamed. "Favorite living person. If we include the dead ones there're a few writers who might nudge you out."

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"Sure," Dean had to chuckle. He'd heard plenty about Dempsey's favorite authors over their time together. "You're my favorite, too." It might have even bled into more than that by now. Which was why it was so hard to see him like this. Maybe that needed to be said, but Dean needed a minute to figure out just how to say what he wanted to and so he took Dempsey's hand and tugged him toward the bedroom.

The whiskey had made him tired, which was good; he'd been too wired earlier to sleep, but now at least if he laid down, he could maybe get some rest. By the time he'd dispatched with clothes and crawled into bed, he was second-guessing himself again. In the quiet darkness of the room, Dean didn't want to let the insecurities leak out, but if he was being honest with himself, he was feeling too jarred by the picture of what he'd seen in the opium den to let it go. He knew he would be anxious now, every time he knew Dempsey was going to be out without him. What would happen if he couldn't get there fast enough?

Dean waited a moment, still trying to gather the right words, but he wasn't going to know until he said something. "I hate seeing you like that." He whispered, voice strained and small.

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Hudson replied too easily, again like it was nothing. Don Juan wondered if Hudson knew how serious he was. This was more than just enjoying each other's company, or finding each other witty and clever. There was legitimately no one else Don Juan ever wanted to be around, if he had the option to be around Hudson instead. Everyone felt tedious by comparison. His whole life had become chasing highs and killing time until their next night together.

He followed Hudson to the bedroom, feet clumsy. His eyes watched Hudson's every move as he undressed, and longing crept out across him from a fire stoked deep inside his belly. He curled his arms around himself while he waited on the bed to curb the impulse to reach for him. By now he knew quite well that there were lines around this sort of thing — if he was high and reached a step too far, Hudson's mood could sour in an instant. He also knew that he'd never really made sense of where those lines were, and was a bad judge of Hudson's baseline when he was high. So he waited for Hudson to touch him, and then curled himself around Hudson in response, burrowing in close beside him. He was quite content there — blissful, one could say — and was very nearly back to sleep when Hudson spoke again.

He frowned faintly. "I don't usually throw up," he said, tone apologetic. "Apparition, I guess."

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Dean should have known better. Dempsey was too high to take this seriously; had missed the point entirely. It wasn't a surprise, but it was frustrating. Maybe he was frustrated with himself for trying anyway, despite knowing it wouldn't go well. He was losing his nerve to keep going so all he managed was a, "Yeah, sorry." He hadn't know what else to do at the moment and looking back, he'd been more anxious about the whole thing that he'd recognized in the moment. Between Dempsey's listless form and the surroundings themselves, Dean had been almost out of his depth. There had been no way they would have both gone through the floo easily and so it had been the only choice really.

Curled up in bed together now, it felt like a bad dream, even though it hadn't happened that long ago, and the drowsiness Dean had been feeling a moment ago had worn off as he stared into the darkness around them. It didn't seem worth it to keep the conversation going, so he sighed and rolled over to his side, away from Dempsey, hoping that he would just fall asleep and Dean could work through his thoughts some more.

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Don Juan didn't like Hudson rolling away from him. They slept like this often enough, so it wasn't necessarily concerning on its face, but it reduced the number of contact areas they had. Don Juan couldn't weave himself through Dean's limbs if he had rolled away. He made a valiant effort of it anyway, wrapping his arm over Hudson's chest and pushing his knee through the space between his legs. Something seemed off about Hudson's body, but he couldn't immediately place what it was. Annoyed? But if Don Juan knew him well, Hudson was more likely to be annoyed at himself than at anyone else. He took everything so seriously. He extended Don Juan a seemingly endless amount of grace and forgiveness, but ran short for himself.

"You took care of me," Don Juan murmured, in case Hudson's sorry meant that he was blaming himself and his side-along apparition for the messy scene downstairs. "You take such good care of me. All the time."

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It was no surprise that Dempsey wound himself around Dean and he naturally accommodated, one hand going to the arm around him gently, resting there as they'd done countless times now. They were always touching, even just during sleep, it was comforting and Dean missed it when he was alone at home. He found himself reaching out in his sleep, vexed when he found no purchase on a body next to him. It was almost worse when it was the wrong body. Not that Dean let anyone else sleep in his bed anymore. That felt like crossing a line, nor did he really want to. Dean got the impression, reading between the lines of their conversation, that while not monogamous, they were serious and certain things should remain between them.

Dean could only hum out an agreement, squeezing the arm under his hand in reassurance. He was worried that if he opened his mouth, it would all come tumbling out; it's because I think I love you and seeing you like that terrifies me. It makes me anxious and I can't stand it. But that was too much and so he hoped that maybe Dempsey would take it for him being half-asleep and that would be that.

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