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Horace let Dylon fold his arms around him, finding some small measure of solace in the way Dylon didn't seem to judge him. He'd instead quietly listened until Horace felt the words clogging up his throat. There were still things he hadn't told him, thoughts that were hard to voice. But he thought it might be okay, maybe, a bit, if it was Dylon. It was a decided change from the usually easy-going relationship they had.

His immediate response he swallowed, tried to keep it back behind sealed lips, but it still snaked out. "I did deserve it - they said so." It was odd, even now, to think how opposite America and Jan were, but they'd said the same things. Was that what drew Jan to her - probably.

"You know, Dylon," and he was proud of how his voice was steady, if low. "How close I was to forgiving him? All he had to say was 'I'm different now; I love you' and it would've been enough. I would've been enough. But-" He paused and took a deep breath, feeling a sort of calming numbness settle over him. "-but he was fond enough of me to give me the truth instead and I was too w-weak to handle it." Guilt weighed on him, a heavy mantle slung 'round his shoulders. He didn't go anything right - thought kept whirling around his mind.

If he'd tried harder, been better, been brighter, been enough.

No matter how many people told him he didn't deserve it, he did. Hadn't he wanted to be like america, in a way? Wasn't that what this was? Everything remained a confused jumble in his head and this was simply the... easiest way to think about it all. It was easiest, even with Dylon looking him earnestly in the face - because of he didn't deserve it, if he hadn't wanted it, everything was so, so much worse.

"I asked for too much," he said softly. Love? Everyone who said they had loved Horace had hurt him, in the end. But Jan had said it was not love and that ate at him, the disproportionate feeling between what Horace was and what America was. "He said he d-didn't love me, but that it was more. And I'd asked for e-everything, after all." Horace shook his head enough that he could hide behind his hair. It was an imperfect curtain.

He took several deep breaths, hoping to steady his speech, his thoughts. "What do you think the opposite of love is, Dylon? Is it hate or apathy?"

Horace sighed, the air rattling out of him hollowly. "Jan was nice; Jan was perfect until I asked the wrong thing. With him, I felt more like... more like m-myself than with anyone else. Like I didn't have to be anything but what I was, even though it felt like I had to try to be better - for him. B-because Jan deserved better than some backwards boy from nowhere who couldn't even protect him right. He's everything I ever wanted." He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, pushing his glasses up against his fingers.

"I think I just... maybe I just ain't capable of understanding enough, Dylon. You can think me stupid or anything, but if I had to do it all again - I" He swallowed and dropped his hands into his lap. Dylon was a much better friend than he deserved, Horace thought distantly. "I-if it happened all over again, I can't see it turning out any differently. Except maybe it would've been better if no one had come, after all." The fingers of his good hand twisted in the sheets over and over and he stared at them, his own breath sunding loud in his ears.

"The only person who has made me do anything is you." The memory of Jan's cool voice flickered behind his eyes. Sometimes he still felt that chain press against his throat and even in those dreams, he arched up against it, pressing it harder to his windpipe. Horace had been his own destruction. "But if I'd stayed... maybe.. maybe I'd understand. Dylon," he said in a small voice. "I don't want other guys." What he wanted was a Jan who loved him, who found him as worthwhile as a symphony. What he wanted was the impossible - but Mimsy said it was doable. That he just had to try so, so much harder.

"There... even when he was... different, when he did those things, I could still see him, see the version of him I fell in love with. It was like watching him through a clouded mirror. I loved his lies but I loved the bits of him that weren't lies either and I just I don't know anything anymore." He paused, breath shuddering in his chest. Horace pressed his thumb into the space where his ring finger had been and that dulled pain but almost enough to jolt his mind back into clarity. Almost. "I think I still love him." A hot tear dropped down on his twisting hands. Horace had never thought himself the type to cry, but another one rolled down his face. Nothing made sense and it was all of his own making. Everything was somehow awful and it was what he deserved.

"Everyone says he's a m-monster, and maybe that makes me a monster, too."

Dylon cupped both of his hands and Horace seemed to topple forward just a bit. He pressed his eyes into the other man's shoulder, glasses going askew, not caring if he got Dylon's shirt wet. Finally, after a long silence, he spoke.

"I don't know if I know how," Horace breathed out thickly, and even he wasn't sure which of Dylon's pleas he was responding to.

His stomach twisted. "Thank you, Dylon. You're a better friend than I-" -than I deserve. But Horace did not finish the sentence. He did not say anything else, just continued to lean on the moon. Horace could not make Dylon promises he was not sure he could keep, after all.