December, 1892 — Lough Corrib, Ireland

The choice of location was unforgivably gothic, but Don Juan had decided the indulgence was merited. If one couldn't be gothic upon the death of one's estranged wife, well, then what was the time? He was sure anyone in his family would have agreed, except that he couldn't ask them, because no one in the family knew that he had an estranged wife in the first place, much less that she was dead. The letter he'd received had only called her Adriana, not Mrs. Dempsey and not your wife — occasionally my sister, since it was penned by her brother, a man Don Juan had never met. It made no mention of the time they had been together or any feelings they had once shared. Her brother's narrative began with her illness, which Don Juan had obviously been unaware of, and ended with the somber pronouncement that he had taken the girl into his care. Don Juan felt — he didn't know how he felt. Was he mourning Adriana? He didn't think so — but it was a good time to be gothic, at any rate.

It was early evening, but owing to the time of year the sun was already a faint memory. There were lights around the edges of the lake here and there that stretched out across the water, but a thick fog blocked most of them. He had curled himself into the gap in the center of a tree that had its base joined but split into two trunks a few feet off the ground, and he had bottles of liquor nestled in the roots. He was drinking steadily, but slowly; he'd been here for over an hour and had already felt the chill from the lake settle deep in his limbs, but had no intention of going home yet. He gazed out at the lake with its winter-dead trees protruding from the surface at intervals, stretched like skeletal hands towards the sky, and wondered if he could write poetry, given enough time in the December night and enough of the alcohol consumed. He hadn't brought a quill.

A figure appeared in the fog near the edge of the lake. Don Juan waved to get his attention. "Dean Hudson!" he called, tone pleasantly surprised, as though he had not asked Hudson to come here. Which he supposed technically he hadn't; the parchment he'd owled contained a floo address in Galway and a hand-drawn map, and nothing else. Not even a salutation or a signature. He hadn't known what to say, but he'd known that if he wanted to talk to Dean he would have to lure him out to neutral ground — he couldn't go to Hudson's house. Not with years between their last conversation of any real significance and now.

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MJ made this <3

The letter had caught him on his way out the door. Dean was to attend a work function tonight and act as a translator at large around the room. He'd been specifically chosen for the evening and not going was really not an option.

He was going to be in a veritable heap of shit when he got back to the office next.

After hastily scribbling a note to a colleague, begging to take his place and to his boss about some made up emergency, Dean flooed to the given address, just remembering his overcoat an afterthought of the winter air. The handwriting was too familiar and he had nothing to go on, which wasn't good. Dean however, had a historically bad track record saying no to Dempsey. It set his teeth on edge and left a queasy feeling in his stomach and he would never have been able to get rid of it had he not gone.

The floo landed him in some unfamiliar pub, in Galway, he recognized the town at least. The map was terrible and he had to wonder just what state of mind it was he would find Don Juan in when he managed to decipher it. It took longer than anticipated, but by the edge of the lake, he hadn't quite expected to find Dempsey wedged into a tree, drinking his way through several bottles of liquor. "Dempsey?" He questioned, cursing his dress shoes on the rough terrain. If he'd known he was going on a scavenger hunt, he might have thought to change.

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"Indubitably," Don Juan returned with a smile that was contained to his mouth, not that Hudson would have noticed, from that distance and in the dark. Whom had he been expecting to find on the shores of a lake in Ireland? It was possible he hadn't been certain who had sent the letter, since Don Juan hadn't signed it, but he had to have at least made a few educated guesses. He wouldn't have been out here by accident, and Don Juan didn't think he was likely to go trouncing around the countryside on unspecified errands if he had no idea who was on the other side of them.

"Would you like a drink?" he asked, waving Hudson over. The gesture was probably needless; he didn't expect Hudson was keen to go swimming, dressed as he was, so the only reasonable direction to go was away from the lake. He was probably getting his shoes muddy down there. Don Juan had take his shoes off and left them in the tall weeds somewhere around the base of the tree, to get the feel of the bark beneath his socks. "I have a variety, if you don't mind drinking from bottles."

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MJ made this <3

This might have been worst than he thought. Dempsey drunk and impersonating a forest sprite in freezing weather was not all that out of character. That he had thought to write to him while doing it was a cry for help that Dean had not been expected to deal with. It had been quite a while since they'd spoken even this much and Dean was still curious as to what it could be that spurred Dempsey to break the silence now.

"Sure," he approached cautiously, looking at Dempsey in his perch curiously. "Something you want to tell me?" He asked, reaching for one of the bottles at the base of the tree. He could use a drink, if only to stave off the cold and damp of their surroundings. And placating this mood of Don Juan's might help him to get him out of here.

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Something he wanted to tell him? Of course — it was the only logical reason for him to have written Hudson in the first place. He'd lured him out here purposefully after having chosen a spot where they could be alone enough to talk but in which any degree of intercourse seemed unlikely. He'd sent the letter and then waited in the damp to see whether he would take the bait. So yes, there was something to tell him — but faced with the idea of having to actually say it, he suddenly panicked.

"You'd like this one better," he said, reaching a leg down from the tree and nudging one of the other bottles with his toe. "Not exactly what you usually drink, but closer than that one."

He blushed slightly, as though embarrassed to have been caught remembering Hudson's liquor preferences, and glanced the opposite direction. A rather transparent avoidance tactic, since the only thing behind his makeshift perch between the tree trunks were a collection of scraggly bushes and some more winter-hardened tree trunks.

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MJ made this <3

Dean plucked the suggested bottle from the ground and took a swig. Nothing was any clearer than it had been when he'd gotten here. "Dempsey what am I doing here?" He wanted to exude patience in spades, but he had finally picked himself up off the floor here and he couldn't go sinking down again without a good reason.

In the meantime, Dean settled himself against the side of the tree, leaning back and taking another pull of the bourbon. He pulled his overcoat tighter around him. At least this was desolate enough that nobody was around to see them.

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Don Juan sucked his teeth. He knew he had to get to the point, because asking Hudson here was an utterly inexplicable thing to do, but he'd expected the bourbon to buy him another few seconds. He looked at the liquor bottle wedged in his lap. It was too dark to read the small print on the label, or he might have distracted himself with that for a moment.

"Once I told you something I hadn't told anyone else," he said, hesitating over every other word. "I don't know if you remember."

Wouldn't that be his luck, if Hudson had forgotten? They'd only talked about it the once, years and years ago, so Don Juan supposed he couldn't be blamed if he had. But that was the reason Hudson was here and not anyone else — with Hudson, at least, he thought he'd only have to say half of it. If that turned out not to be the case — well, maybe he'd make something up, because he didn't know if he had the nerve to say it all.

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MJ made this <3

"I remember." Dean could hardly forget. It had been a long while ago, but Dean rarely forgot anything that mattered. It had mattered enough to Don Juan to tell him, and so Dean had hardly let it go, even in the years between now and then. He seemed to collect little memories that made up the pieces of something that would never be truly whole, but he h eld onto them anyway, hoping if he did, some day he might have all of the pieces.

He took another contemplative sip of the bourbon and looked up at Dempsey out of the corner of his eye, waiting for him to continue.

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Hudson remembered. Don Juan had known he would, but still wondered if it was appropriate to feel fond about it.

"She died," he announced, not looking at Dean, and took a pull from his bottle.

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MJ made this <3

Dean had been mid-sip when Dempsey came out with it and it left Dean sputtering onto the forest floor. "Jesus fuck." He muttered after wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Turning to face Dempsey fully, Dean slid over and settled in front of his knees. "Are you alright?" That would certainly be enough for Dempsey to pull this, to pull Dean out of his house, halfway around the isles to the middle of nowhere. Losing somebody you loved, either now or before, had to be hard. "I'm sorry." He added belatedly.

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In one dimension, Hudson was reacting more strongly to this than Don Juan had. Don Juan hadn't sworn once since reading the letter. Hudson had turned to face him with a sincere expression. He was saying I'm sorry. Don Juan, meanwhile, had reached in to the hollow in his chest where he supposed feelings like grief were meant to be kept and had come up with fistfuls of air. Gaps where things might have once been, hollows that retained the shape of things that didn't live there any more. On the other hand, Don Juan had sent cryptic mail and started drinking in the Irish countryside, so. Maybe there was something.

In any case, Hudson's reaction had strengthened Don Juan's impression that he was doing this wrong. Feeling this wrong.

"Yeah, I'm..." he began, tone noncommittal. After struggling for a word for a second he gestured with the liquor bottle and continued, "Not even drunk yet, so."

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MJ made this <3

Not yet. In the middle of nowhere Galway. Of all the things Dean had expected, this hadn't been in and now he felt a whole holt of buried emotions piling up inside and he wasn't better prepared to deal with any of them than Dempsey was. "Stupid question, sorry." The stupid again, always. Dean set the bottle in his hands down.

It wasn't hard to pinpoint when his house had no longer been a space Dempsey felt comfortable in, but in this case, it had to be better than here. Dean leaned in, hands on the tree on either side of Dempsey, eyes intent on Dempsey's. He wanted to invite him home, to do this anywhere but here, but he didn't know exactly how that would go. "Must be hard," Dean could scarcely imagine it. Nobody he'd ever truly cared about had passed away suddenly. "I know you cared about her." However it had ended, it had meant something.

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Hudson leaning over him like this surprised him, and it showed in his face as his eyes met Dean's. He hadn't known what he'd been looking for from Hudson, particularly, when he'd decided to write him. He'd just had an itch in the back of his brain that he had to tell someone, and Hudson was the only person he could tell because Hudson was the only one who had ever known about Adriana in the first place. But he hadn't expected — he didn't know what he'd expected. He didn't think he deserved this, though. This degree of attention, this amount of care. Hudson had always thought him better than he was. A practical, realistic person wouldn't have given him so many chances, and wouldn't have tried to take him back.

He looked at Dean's eyes, close and intense even in the fading light. Then he confessed, without knowing why, "I saw her again. When I was in Spain."

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MJ made this <3

If he'd seen her in Spain and she'd been well, this must have been a real shock. Dean still didn't know exactly what he was doing here or what to say, but he knew he couldn't be anywhere else. "Let's go home, and you can tell me about it." He suggested lightly. He was still floundering for what to do, but at least it would be better than a cold, dark forest.

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Don Juan hesitated. The way Hudson said home, like it belonged to both of them. Not back to my place, not to my house. Home. It had been four years and some months since Don Juan had seen the inside of it.

He could invite Hudson to his house instead. There were dozens of rooms standing empty at any point in time. Don Juan could ensure no one saw him there, or could reasonably defend his presence if he was spotted. He opened his mouth, planning to suggest this, but the words stalled out. He looked at Hudson a second with his mouth hanging open, then said suddenly, "I'm never going to be the person you want me to be."

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MJ made this <3

Passing Dempsey a soft smile, he leaned back a little bit. "That's not why I'm here." Whatever had happened between them wasn't the point of this moment. Dempsey had written because he needed something, someone, anyone and Dean knew the story already. He wasn't trying to do anything other than be supportive. "And you're missing your shoes again." A bizarre coincidence, but Dean hadn't forgotten that either.

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