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Horace had arrived seconds after Melvin and settled on the roof next to him, angling his body so his feet stuck out over the edge. It was a good thing he didn't mind heights, he decided. "Yeah," he said, sighing. "-Christmas is only a thing if you've got family to spend it with." With a clink, Horace set down a bottle of his own alcohol, some cheap vodka that tasted of cinnamon. It was easy to drink and that was the point, after all.

"Rep seems to have been born with a mouth that'd set fires." Horace rubbed one hand on the shaven side of his head. Ursids tonight, huh? Horace popped open his own bottle, too - he couldn't expect Melvin to share, after all. Still, concern twisted his mouth as he looked over at Melvin. "Tell me about your girl?"

Horace took the glass with a thanks, pouring his own vodka into it. After a large gulp, he exhaled slowly. The stuff was sweet and cinnamon-y, but it burned down his throat like the cheap alcohol it was. Good enough. He regretted not buying apple juice to mix in with it. "Tried Thanksgiving? If I knew people who'd be into holidays, I'd be all for that. I'm not fond of Thanksgiving, of course, but I rather like Christmas. Liked? ...maybe"[ He shrugged and took another swig, feeling a light warmth blossom on his face.

"Rin... kinda like the bird." He put his phone back into his pocket, brows furrowing in thought. interesting conversations there, but not right now. "Just asking because I was curious about the kind of lady you had. So is Rep still hurt that you got her or something else? Like he doesn't seem to give a s**t about anyone's relationships excepting him and Harrison." He drew his legs back closer to himself, crossing them. A faint breeze brought the cold scent of the ocean to him, something he was slowly getting used to.

"I ******** hate Rep, though I think, if small things changed about him, he might be an okay guy." Horace frowned and chewed on his bottom lip. "I hate asking such a question - but is Rin... you know... dead or?" His voice wasn't accusing, merely curious.

He chewed his lip thoughtfully. "Y'all are different, yeah. But you both have a sort of intensity about you, I guess. Rep seems to categorize people as 'his' or 'not worth anything', so-" Horace paused to take a drink, exhaling slowly as the liquor burned down his throat. "-so you had what had been his before, and... I don't see him taking that graciously." But they had still remained friends, Melvin had said - so why was Rep so horrible to him now?

The way people on Twitter dog-piled on Melvin reminded Horace of the same way they did that to him or to Jan. It was very mob mentality. In all honestly, it pissed Horace off. America had said 'read Jan's tweets', so he had - over six month's worth of them - and found nothing questionable, really. The fact remained that Horace would've back-read the other man's tweets with or without someone else's prompting, but that was neither here nor there. Just thinking about it made him frown heavily. He drained his glass and thought of the gifts he'd bought Jan. He still needed to drop them off.

Medea: Horace had read some about her. Of course, as a trainee, there was still knowledge he was not privy to. {and that is why you must continue to become better. do you think sitting here is furthering your aims, horace?} As usual, he left her question unanswered, feeling his gut twist in that familiar knot the Doctor always caused. "For a 'friend', Rep treats you like s**t, Melvin." He clicked his barbell against his teeth once and shot Melvin a considering look. Everything he spoke of begged the question 'what does it mean to be dead or alive'. He didn't know. And, if dying made you human - well, one of the first things he'd been told was that, as a hunter, he was no longer quite human.

"She's not like a ghost, then - over in Halloween or anything, is she? And if she, uh, doesn't have a body then... how? Do you think she can come back? Or is she like... half-dead?" Horace would be the first to admit he didn't know s**t about how being a Hunter affected death.

He blinked owlishly at Melvin for a moment, through by the change of topic, then grinned. "Yeah, it's cheap stuff." He tilted the bottle. "Cheap cinnamon vodka, but it does that job and it's not absolutely awful. I appreciate the offer, though." Taking the whiskey from the other man, he poured a little into his glass. It even looked more expensive than his own. but Horace was a new trainee with extremely limited funds.

If you say she's alive, then maybe she is. Or her soul, or whatever is left when we haven't got working bodies. I've had a lotta weird s**t dumped on my head since I came here - feels like anything at all is possible." He sniffed the whiskey tentatively before taking a sip. It was smooth, a kind of rick, oak-y flavour that sent his brows winging upwards in surprise. While he kind of liked the harsh, chemically cinnamon of his own vodka (Horace may not be the best judge of taste), this was good too. He coughed a little. "Oh, wow. I don't think I've ever had whiskey before. Tastes smokey, interesting. I like it."[ He gave the life hunter a thumbs up as he took another drink.

"You know, they were just talking on twitter about Clarice - she was researching something about bringing people back. Of course, I'm not authorized to view her stuff - probably no one is. I got the idea that it's forbidden. I dunno, Melvin. If you know this is her and she's for sure not dead - you gotta try whatever." Bringing humans back to life seemed wrong and strange, but hunters were not human after all. "Love... I think I'd do anything for someone I loved." He flushed a little, feeling warm all over, and a dreamy smile curling his lips for a moment.

"Just, you gotta be careful. My grandma said when you try that sort of-" Words failed him and Horace waved his hand about dramatically. "-thing, you could end up bringing back the wrong person." His grandma hadn't even been the superstitious sort - this tidbit of knowledge had come from a night where she'd gotten drunk enough to ramble at him.

Watching Melvin sit back up so suddenly was dizzying. He blinked. "Demonic lice is a thing?!" Horror filled his voice, but Horace dutifully pulled out his notebook and jotted that down. Later, he would look at it and find it utterly illegible, but for now, that tidbit of information seemed very important. Nevertheless, he put the notebook down and accepted the refill with less grace than usual. The whiskey was surprisingly easy to drink, which meant that Horace drank it far too quickly.

"He didn't deserve you as a friend!" Horace said staunchly, giving a wise nod. "You keep trying and it's like throwin' yourself against a wall. A Rep-wall." Horace didn't see the point of being friends with Rep - he was racist, an a*****e, and entirely undeserving of the things people offered to him. Someone could offer him the world on a platter and the man would shove it away as though it was s**t. "You can't waste your time on that a*****e. You gotta find less m-mercurial-" He stumbled over the word and took another drink of the whiskey. "-mercurial friends, Melvin." A star shot lazily across the sky. Hadn't the star doctor said something about a shower?

"I pretty much hate everyone on Twitter. They were awful right when I got here. ******** assholes." He stuck his feet back out straight in front of him. "Why is it so hard to have friends on this rock?"

"There's too many nuts in that sentence." Horace snorted and immediately thought that Rep would call this a 'faggy' conversation. d**k. "But, Melvin, you deserve more than to be be 'put up with', you know? And maybe, somewhere along the ways his nuts changed so they ain't like your kinda nuts anymore... I dunno. You don't really seem nuts to me anyway." He took a deep drink and wordlessly let his cup be topped off, shooting the lifer a bit of a tipsy grin. Though, if Melvin was a Lifer, was he a Deather? It did not have a lovely ring to it.

He took another drink. "I wish I could find the stats on how many people refused - said no and got their mem'ries erased. You think should start a club, the 'no tragic backstory club'?" Horace chuckled. "I think people here look for s**t to be angsty about - like not legit s**t, but dumb petty tings., And I'd be lying if I said I ain't stir up s**t on twitter. But, to be fair, they were all assholes to me first. Hating on me just 'cause of who I'm friends with." The last was a bitter mutter. Frowning, he followed Melvin's gaze into the distance.... at nothing.

He nudged Melvin with his leg. "I like you, and I'm sure if people actually bothered ta sit with ya, they would too!" He hmphed. Horace was more than tired of how judgmental this whole island seemed. "I thought I'd come here and be more confident than I was before and have more friends and it's hard." He rubbed a hand over his face.

Horace looked at Melvin consideringly. "Better put ya glasshes in a pocket." Horace was, unfortunately, too blind to go without. In fact, on missions, he ran elastic on the back of them to ensure their continued place on his nose. "Yeah, people expect me to jus' know stuff, too, like I've been here for years instead of a month." As he drank, Horace's accent grew stronger, letters dropping off of words and grammatical structure breaking down.

"I don't see how they think that." He frowned comically. "You've clearly feeling things, uh, deeply. I dunno about jumping out windows and s**t, though. Obviously your girl liked you enough to stick around anyway. So you'res worth comin' back to." Horace's words were slurring a bit, maybe a little more than a bit. But, tentatively, he set a hand on Melvin's shoulder and rubbed it in small circles. "Ya girlfriend'll come back n' maybe Rep'll come back. You ain'ts a bad guy, Melvin."