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There was a loud thump from inside Horace's room, as if someone or something had fallen over. It was followed by a shuffling noise and the door opened to reveal a visibly shaking Horace. His eyes darted out over Oliver's head, as if almost expecting someone else.

"H-hi, Oliver." The words came out in an almost surprisingly normal voice until the end syllable, where his voice dipped and wavered alarming. He took a shuddering breath. Leaving the door open, Horace wandered back to his bed and sat down, scooting his back up against the wall. His knees came up and he stared at his phone blankly. He didn't know why he'd let Oliver in, maybe it was it was simply the comforting presence of another person or maybe it was because it would stop him from going over now.

Horace nodded, taking another deep breath. He felt decidedly fragile, as if someone could touch him and he'd shatter like a cheaply-made mirror. AS thin as glass, although maybe one already covered in masking tape that tried desperately to keep pieces from falling out. Wordlessly, he handed his phone to Oliver and pressed his face into his knees.

"It's not..." he began, voice muffled, the words an odd mix of rushed and halting. "It's not enough time.. I... I don't know how I'm supposed to f-feel." He was a bundle of raw nerves with a candle on top. "And t-the reason his room is a mess is b-because of me." The leap in sentences didn't make sense, but nothing really made sense to him. Was he supposed to be happy? Afraid, apprehensive? In love, in hate, in 'I-wish-I-didn't-care'? He was everything. The time Jan had spent away had allowed Horace to push things aside instead of dealing with them, to do a lot of not-thinking. And, as a result, he was half-way into a panic attack. His fingers squeezed painfully around his own elbows and his next gasp turned into a sob.

Horace flinched slightly under the contact, but didn't shrug it off. Instead, he reached over to grab the phone and turned it back on. He couldn't think of what to say to Jan, after all. Slowly, with numb fingers, he typed out a simple question. He had to backspace so many times; his fingers still refusing to cooperate, his vision blurred. It seemed unfair, somehow. that he was sitting here, three broken eggs short of a mess and Jan was still... as composed as ever. There were things he'd wanted to ask, conversations he wanted to have, but....

He set the phone down again. But Jan was even calling him 'darlin' again and making art dates with other boys as though everything was normal, was fine. "It's- he swallowed thickly and sniffed loudly through his stuffed up nose. He was going to have an awful after-crying headache later. His arms went back around his knees, fingers clenching into his own skin because only that stopped the tremors. He didn't notice he was shaking all over. He wanted to not think; he wanted to pretend everything was okay and that he knew exactly what to do and say to make everything right again.

"It's b-because we fought there - messy. B-broke a lamp. I-it's my fault." It was something little to fixate one, something he could handle, maybe. But the sobs catching in his throat said he couldn't handle this either. "W-what am I supposed to do?"

"Can't." It was said with surprising force. He hit send on another carefully typed message and pressed his face to his knees again. With the motion, his glasses were pushed up and proceeded to fall off of his face and land on his foot. He began to mumble, strings of words, phrases, a lot of the lost in the confused sobs he was trying not to let loose. It felt like he couldn't breathe, like he couldn't stop feeling things until he was nothing but a writhing husk they rushed through.

"'m not good... enough." A breath, more mumbled words. "America's lamp.. I c-c-can't-" Can't compete. "Oliver, I'm.. afraid." Afraid of rejection, of not rejection, of seeing Jan of his own emotions, of the way his chest seemed to bubble and swell. As he spoke, one of his hands had wormed its way between his knees and chest and his fingernail dug deeply into the meticulously wrought 'o' that marred his skin. Horace had thought of covering it up with a tattoo, or adding scarring around it to obscure it, but he never had. It would, in time, become his solace. It was the hollow of an uncaring universe, it was the first note writ, it was every 'please don't lie to me' that he left unsaid.

"No!" He said clearly. "P-promise me you won't talk to America!" Horace twisted his hand in Oliver's coat. An as yet still rational corner of his mind noticed that Oliver's coat was lumpy - it always was. He'd put his phone down and the movement from the hug caused it to slide off the bed onto the floor. Horace thought it was okay to just let it lie. He really wanted to run away.

He breathed deeply. It was stupid, he was stupid, and acting like a wreck would get him nowhere. "Yeah, yeah, I d-do." Horace's voice was muffled again. "I'm s-scared. I... he always used to listen t-to me and I didn't have to b-be anyone around him and I liked the way he... leaned into me and..." And he liked the bits that no one else got to see, too. Jan was back and acting like everything was exactly the same it was before. "How am I supposed to feel?"

"I want to.... forget." He said slowly. Horace was feeling a little less panicked and a little more bone weary. "I'm so tired all the time. What do you do when you feel so tired your bones feel like they'll bend and break?" he'd said to Jan, sent him a message while he was gone. That feeling hadn't changed, it was just now coupled with a horrible ache to see him.

Horace reached up a hand to scrub at his face. "He's acting like n-nothing is changed, like he d-didn't change me. And if I could f-forget and we could go back to before maybe it'd be better." His voice was thick and wavery and later he would hate how weak he was being. "I just don't know anything and I h-hate feeling like this."

"I feel like I should just know already," he mumbled. 'Love him more than he hurts you' - that seemed like a pretty phrase to pin on the board next to 'fifteen months and sixteen days' and 'I would have burned the weakness out of you'.

His head rose at Oliver's offer and he fixed the other man with red-rimmed eyes. "I-I'd like that, I think. If we went to y-your room. I don't wanna think." It wasn't that Horace was worried Jan might come to his room - he wouldn't, he was too preoccupied with whatever one does after getting out of a pod. Cleaning, adjusting, whatever. Movies sounds like the best distraction and that is what he sorely needed. Tomorrow he'd be better, maybe. Stronger.