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He was tired beyond belief. The sleepless nights, the missions, the daily drudge had taken it out of him in a way they never had before. But, Horace was back on the island, for better or worse, he thought. All he wanted to do was sleep for ten or twelve hours, but he kept dreaming he was back in that ******** forest. It felt like his brain had too many things to pick from and just decided to regularly cycle through his worst experiences. It was great. He rubbed a hand over his face as he walked.

Horace had dropped his things off in his room, surprised that no one had stolen anything from it. It had been left unlocked all this time because he didn't care enough to lock it. Three months was a long time, but even he knew he had nothing of worth on the island. Or off of it, for that matter.

But now, now he stood in front of a door, both hoping someone was home and hoping someone wasn't. Horace crackled his knuckles and knocked.

The click of the door opening made him tense, uncertain who might open the door. It was Melvin, and all the words Horace had prepared melted away. He'd spent so long formulating things to say, ways to phrase eloquently how Melvin had hurt him, how their friendship had been shattered. Instead, his tongue tied. Horace stared blankly at Melvin for a moment.

And then he punched Melvin in the face, aiming for his nose.

"No," he said, stalking after Melvin. "Stand up." And because Melvin wasn't moving fast enough for Horace (if he intended to stand at all), Horace grabbed him by his shirt, hauling him out of the chair. Holding him up with one hand, which was as awkward a position as it sounds, Horace aimed another punch at Melvin's jaw. Then he let go of Melvin's shirt.

"Fight back," he hissed, hands curling into balls at his sides. Horace looked down at the bloodied face of the person who used to be his friend. Though, he doubted and would always doubt that Melvin had ever been his friend in the first place. He felt used and as though he were of no more important than a buzzing fly. Nothing he ever did, nothing he ever felt meant anything.

His mouth curled into a sad line. "You're still a piece of s**t, Melvin." But he did not hit him again.

He snorted derisively. Horace didn't have time for Melvin's usual threads of conversation. Well, he had time, but he didn't want to hear it. He'd heard it all before and none of it ever made sense.

"At least I know," he repeated, almost incredulously. "Hah. Knowing was a matter of time. You told me only because you knew I'd be upset. Like telling me makes it somehow a better thing to do. No, you knew I'd be upset and you ******** did it anyway, Melvin." This was the sort of thing he had never foreseen happening, mainly because it was something he himself would have never done. He would not have had sex with 'Rin', because that body belonged to Jan and Jan had been romantically involved.

Even in his own mind, he snorted as his use of 'romantically'. Beyond that, he still would not have begun shacking up with a friend's ex the day after they broke up. "Stand up, Melvin. Fight back, you ******** idiot." He had to be angry or he was going to cry again.

"You just... you're never going to understand why I'm upset. You're never going to understand and you don't care enough to even try. I'm ******** tired of people pretending to listen to me, pretending to care, but they don't. They never do." He hated the way his voice wavered. Horace was tired of how everyone glossed over him: Horace the inconvenience. He thought, for a moment, that maybe it would have been better to stay in the wood, to never come back. There, he could have had an illusion, for a while. Maybe it would have been enough in the ways he was not.

It came down to this, though. He just didn't matter enough. "I can't fight an idiot if they refuse to fight back. Even if you're a son of a b***h, I don't have to be." Bitterness coated his words. "It doesn't ******** matter what goes on between me and Jan, now does it?"

Horace stifled a bitter laugh and rubbed his hand over his face, knuckles stinging. "I can count the people I hate on one hand, Melvin. But if you wanna paint me as some devil in this, go the ******** ahead. How long did you wait?" He leaned against a wall. Horace wasn't going to sit down, not here. Melvin could say he cared all he wanted, but until he showed that he cared, Horace wouldn't buy any of it, not anymore.

"Did you ******** the day we broke up or did you wait until the day after, when I was off the island?"

Horace froze for a second. He couldn't believe that Melvin, of all people, one of the people who had known best about how he felt, would make an oblique joke about that. "Yes, it ******** matters. Because as it stands right now you didn't even think of me, you thought of your poor d**k. And yeah, I care about his feelings, what he has of them. His reactions and his part in this are ******** separate from the way I feel about you." But it was clear that Melvin didn't ******** get it and probably never would. Timing was everything and in this manner, Melvin had breached their friendship. He wanted to paint it in similes, allegories that Melvin would understand, but he knew it wouldn't work. He just... Horace couldn't explain it any more times than he had about how this was the most a*****e thing Melvin could do. It was like his whole life had turned into a "Watch Horace Get Duped/Watch Horace Fail" double feature comedy.

"You know what, Melvin, I may not have as many fingers left on this hand, but there's still one just for you, you b*****d." Horace's hand was shaking as he lifted it, displaying one finger rather prominently. Melvin was deliberately hitting below the belt, using information he had learned when he was Horace's friend against him. He was still not to the stage where jokes about his hand didn't bother him. And now, perhaps, they bothered him even more. Horace paused, debating hitting Melvin again (what good would it do - Melvin would just take it). His mouth twisting, he spat on Melvin's floor and spun around to leave.