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 Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 8:17 am
He didn't go back to Jan's that night, certain it would either be empty or he'd find the other man fawning over a pair of shoes. He hoped they had been stained with grass. Horace held onto the anger, the absurdity of it, so that he wouldn't collapse. He wondered if Jan had lied, again, or if his reaction to the shoes was simply because he hadn't been stalking america, and could no longer keep his obsession in check. Horace put his head in his hands and made no move to cleanhis room. In a rare fit of anger, he'd knocked things over, swept the books out of the bookcase, dragged the sheets half-off the bed where he'd eventually sat inside some sort of destructive nest. He had only stopped halfway through because what was the point. Destruction was not cathartic, not productive. Melvin was coming over because he'd said 'you never tell me anything', because he'd seemed worried, betrayed even, but a lack of anything to tell. But now, Horace needed someone, someone to say he wasn't crazy, that something was wrong, someone to tell him how to fix it. The door was unlocked and he sat on the bed, back against the wall, and stared at nothing while he waited.
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 8:32 am
There was a steady knock at the door and a silence. Another set of knocks and then a call out. An unsure "Horace?" Testing the door, Melvin nudged it open. "Horace.... I'm coming in. You okay in he..re?" Melvin paused as he looked about the door. The place was a mess and in the far room was Horace sitting in the floor.
"Horace?! What happened?!" He shut he door quickly behind him and rushed over, nearly tripling over a lamp, before kneeling in front if the man. "You look horrible? What happened to you?"
And, because he only saw Horace hurt badly once on the island and the room was messy as Jan's had been, his stomach twisted right as he whispered. "Is this... Jan?"
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 8:55 am
He had heard Melvin calling, knew he should get up and answer the door, yet... Horace still sat there. The more he put things off, the better it would be, right? He already regretted calling the other man here. He didn't acknowledge any of Melvin's questions, instead just looked at him. His face was bruised, eye puffy, a cut across his eyebrow, lip scabbed over from where he'd bit it as his head snapped back. "No, Melvin. This-" he waved an arm weakly at the room. "-was me. I've found I don't see wanton destruction as particularly calming, at least." His hand moved and he poked at his rbuises, wincing. They would be gone soon enough, Jannisari already healing them, although he sensed her displeasure. "The face is America's fault, though. Jan's too, maybe, if you count indirectly." He sighed and stretched his legs out, leaning back. "Did you know-" Defeat beat a tired cadence into his voice. "-that Jan used to stalk America?"
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 9:40 am
Reaching up, he gently lifted up Horace's long hair to the side to better look at his face and cursed that he wasn't like Harrison, equipped with bandages at all times. As he inspected, his gaze dropped down to hear America's name mentioned again. "Again?" He whispered. "Wasn't she the reason you two fought before?"
What was this with America? He didn't know the history and details that could make 3 people he had seen as calm and kind hurt each other to this extent.
The last part had him confused? He wanted to know and for a moment, that kept him from seeking some bandages.
"No. I didn't. I don't know anything about you three. About what America is to you two."
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 10:24 am
"Yes," he said shortly. -she was. We fought because he had lied to me about the things he did to her. It all read like terrible, horrible breakup stories at first. It had been months and months before I even came to the island, so I thought he changed, was changing. I couldn't accept the lies. I wanted to give up, I wanted to die, I wanted to understand why every 'I love you' had been a lie." It was now, when he was already feeling numb, when everything felt a little unreal, that he was able to talk about things. Almost absently, he rubbed the scar on his chest, trying not to think too hard about the word sthat came out of his mouth. "He told me things, Melvin, about how there was a symphony in her, that she was something close to divine and I... was not. But I thought it had changed." There was a hitch in his voice there. And he paused, breathing deeply. It was so hard to push everything away when his own body bore reminders.
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 10:34 am
Hirace was rambling, and while Melvin was hungry to dive deeper in who Jan and Horace were and their history, to find out about the mystery that was America, he needed to focus the details to make sense of it.
"Horace, what lies? What things did he do to America? What did he lie to you about? Is America just... An ex girlfriend? Did he dump her for you or did she dump him or what?" He had no idea how the relationships started and ended - if this thing with America even had ended.
"Does... Does Jan love her? Did he say that? That he wants to be with her and end the relationship between you?" Is that why they fought and Horace looked like this? Had he been dumped?
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 11:12 am
He waved his hand dismissively. "America and Jan ended long before I even came here." Did it really ******** matter if they were exes or ******** buddies or whatever it was before? The before didn't matter. "He doesn't love anything or anyone. He told me that he d-didn't love me, but he was willing to try. Maybe this ... with America, m-maybe it's as close to love as he gets, Melvin." He took his glasses off and set them on the bed. The blurriness, the sudden identifiability of everything felt comforting, oddly enough. "America came to visit Jan, I was there. It was unpleassant. s**t, I should've kicked her out right when she came in - she comes by and everything I've been trying to d-do ******** falls apart!" It was so much easier to blame America, even if he knew Jan was at fault too. Jan said he would ]try They were probably ******** now. Horace bit his lip hard enough to reopen the wound.
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 11:30 am
"Jesus! Don't!" Melvin reached into his back pocket for his handkerchief, pressing it to Horace's lip. "I only found out that Jan used to be married. It's startling to find out about stuff lime that. About histories. It didn't seem to end well either. So maybe he just - has this sort of bad time with women." He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure how his time with the mother of Mik had ended, but he knew it hadn't been a kind breakup. Had he stalked this woman tok after?
"He said he would try. That means he is willing to try for you. But America is being a problem with you guys to keep trying. If she shows up like this, if she is fighting you, hurting you for no reason because you are with Jan, then it seems like she wants him back. You're.... with Jan." He swallowed his win guilt, feeling like a hypocrite consoling Hitace when he was just another obstacle for the man's wishes to be happy with Jan.
It was just one time.
"Have you talked to Jan about this? Does he... want her back?" And he found himself hoping that wasn't the case - and not just for Horace's sake. "Is he still stalking her?"
Was Jan worse off than Melvin had thought? Did Jan want America too?
Horace. Him. America.
He started to feel twisted up inside and the stomach acid started to turn.
"Here. Let's get off the floor." He reached out to help Horace up and onto the bed.
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 11:59 am
He raised a hand and pressed the cloth to his lip - he hadn't even noticed it was bleeding. "He's been married at least twice," he muttered, but said no more on the subject. Jan was still (mostly) private, and he didn't want to tell his whole history to the world, not even to Melvin. Without resistance, he sat on the bed. The floor, the bed - it was all the same anyway. "America hates... hated him, but now she's decided she wants to ******** him. I... I when she came over, she blatently invited him to do just that and I don't think..." He took a deep breath, steadying himself. "Jan had told me he wasn't stalking her anymore, that he doesn't love her. But what if he's lying to me again? W-when America left, she left behind her shoes and Jan wouldn't like me return them. We fought about it; he said they were his now and Melvin, he's keeping her goddamn shoes!" The shoes sounded so innocent, but there was aa weight attached to them that Horace didn't fully comprehend even if he knew it was there. It was like the lamp. He began rubbing his forehead, as if rubbing out the upset wrinkles there could change his mood. "A-after we fought, I went to talk to America. To... to tell her not to ******** him. B-because I think he will and I don't know how to ask him not to. She... said some horrible things; I slapped her, she punched me and it... went from there. She said she would take him b-because she could. She's probably right." He voice had taken on a sort of hollow desperation. Jan would go to america, Horace had seen the way he'd acted over her shoes, how he'd bowed to her pushy ways. "They're probably ******** right now."
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 12:23 pm
Melvin sat there, taking a wet wipe packet from his jacket and now wiping blood and bruises clean slowly as Horace talked and held the hankeecheif to his lip. His hand stilled when he heard Jan had been married twice, and he wanted to ask if he had more kids. He wanted to know his both of them ended. Horace continued and he slowly cleaned him again, holding the man's bangs back with one hand.
The story was not a good one. They fought over something small, as fights that grew usually went when something else needed to be talked about.
Then he frowned as Horace painted a bad picture of himself. Sighing, he combed back Horace's bangs a few times before going back to dab at his swollen noise. "You told her not to ******** a guy. That is the opposite of what you tell a girl to do. They do it out of spite then. You shouldn't have followed her." He dabbed at his brow. "Though it sounds like you started the fight."
He Stopped to look at Horace. "He said he didn't love her so he wouldn't ******** her. She is just making trouble and you are taking the bait. She made you fight with Jan. She wants you to break up is what it sounds like."
He couldn't believe Jan would just ******** America. He was with Horace. He was... Had been with him. What did that mean?
"She got you two in trouble before. He probably hates her too for being podded." He gripped the wipe toghtly, brow creased as he stared hard at where he was wiping.
Jan wasn't like that. He wasn't someone who ******** around.
He reached up to move Horace's hand to look at his lip but also to just look at him. "You need to take better care of yourself. Focus on you and Jan. Don't let her win. She sounds like she just wants to be a home wrecker. You aren't like that."
"How is your face?"
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 12:48 pm
He crumpled up the handkerchief and set it down. "What else was I supposed to do? I went to her because Jan.... I knew he wouldn't listen to me. He would say 'stop this domineering behavior, Horace, it's uncouth'. He doesn't think about how things hurt me or even think about me at all... America used to hate him, I thought she still did and was maybe using Jan to 'punish' herself, but.. but it's not..." If she had, he might've been able to convince her not to. Slowly, he pulled the sheets back up on the bed, wrapping them around his hips. "He's going to ******** her, sure as sugar." The colloquiallism dripped out of mouth, bitter and angry. "You don't know, because you haven't seen. It's not letting her win, she's already ******** won and she won before I was even out of the pod." He knocked Melvin's hand away to rub at his face, hissing as he pressed into bruises and sensitive teeth. "He says he hates her, but he doesn't - America is always going to be his most important person. I tried, I tried to be more important, and that's how I ended up in that cave. You don't ******** get it." The last word ended on a harsh sob, quickly gulped down. He would not cry.
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 1:04 pm
He dropped his hands and got up. Then, he started to pick up the room, placing things on shelves and his desk. "How am I supposed to get it, Horace?" He asked, rising up with several books in his arms to look over at him. "I want to get it. I really do. I do t like finding out you get nearly killed and Jan is in a pod without any idea what is happening. I don't like seeing you like this. I don't like seeing you angry at Jan and loving him, but saying he is going to try for you and then saying he is lying. I don't know what side you want me on or what point you are making. How am I supposed to get anything when all I have to go on is what you tell me?"
He put the books on the shelf as he spoke before he picked up a chair and set it standing up. He gripped the back, looking at Horace. "I don't want to see you sad and hurt. I do t want someone who doesn't care taking Jan from you. You two deserve better than that. I just... You have to get that I haven't been there or have seen what you say you saw. I don't know - but I really want to."
"And I want to believe that Jan is trying enough that he wouldn't ******** America."
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 1:26 pm
"I just... I'm sorry, Melvin, I don't know how to explain it. I just-" He buried his face in his hands. "I just love him so ******** much but he doesn't care about me. Or maybe he does, but only if America's not there." A huge, gulping breath. "I wish you could've seen the way he followed her lead - like he was a puppet and she held all the strings. Like I wasn't even there. And the shoes - he said if I returned them, we were over. I... I..." It was quite clear that Horace was sobbing now, though he tried to hide it with shakey breaths that caught on the ends of his words and filtered out trough his cupped hands. "Melvin, I just wanna b-be important to him. I wanna be more important than a pair of shoes, or a ******** lamp, or a girl with red hair and a phoenix tattoo. Why can't I want that? I l-love him, so much it makes me shake, even through everything and sometimes, I t-think I might hate myself for it."
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 1:41 pm
"He said he would TRY Horace. He said he couldn't and he'd try. You have to chalk that up to something. He didn't say he hated you. He didn't say he didn't love you outright. He said he would try. He isn't dating America. He isn't WITH America. He isn't ******** America. If she is important to him, he would have said it. If he wanted her above you, then why would he bother dating you and not stalking her?"
He moved over, picking up the covers to place them over Horace to complete the nest he was starting. If he wanted to cry, the man at least deserved some blankets to fall into.
Sitting back down, Melvin looked out to the destroyed room, feeling as if he made any less of a dent to the mess as he had with this conversation.
"You can want that. Just don't force it."
Looking at Horace, he reached to flip his bangs back. "Maybe....we just have to distract America? If she's not interested, she won't be causing you problems. Maybe if you think Jan does see her as important, maybe there is a way to make her seem less important. Ugly even. Something you wouldn't want to touch with a 10 foot pole."
He was spitballing, but the more Horace was left crying, the more he said Jan was with her, the more Jan and Horace got into fights and someone wound up bleeding, he wanted America out of the picture too.
"Maybe I can help?"
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 2:09 pm
"He d-di, though. He did say he didn't love me. He said he didn't, he couldn't. I don't have the answers! I don't know why he's dating me if he wants her so much - probably because before she wouldn't g-give him the ******** time of day." He hiccuped pitifully and pressed his face into a blanket. "I shouldn't have to ever ******** worry about being more important than a pair of goddamn shoes, Melvin. How would you feel if Rin said a pair of... of Rep's boots next to her bed were more important than your entire relationship!" He stopped, breathed deeply, suddenly ******** wished for a piece of wire and a lighter because that pain at least, the burn of flesh, the raised blisters and ugly scabs would jar him out of this miserable spiral. "I don't know how I could make her less appealing. She's America ******** Jones, righteous fury and everyone loves her. So, how? How?" He couldn't win against something he couldn't fight.
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