Welcome to Gaia! ::

After retreating gracefully from the make-shift infirmary - he refused to think of it as running away, even though that, too, was an apt description - Horace found himself feeling strange. It was similar to the kind of shakiness he felt after a spike in adrenaline, a huge spike in adrenaline, or maybe during an endorphin crash. But he hadn't felt anything like a high when talking to Jan. Could it be residual fear? There were nightmares, still, though fewer. His hands shook as he stared at them. He didn't even understand himself and he was tired of his brain jumping around in circles.

So, he decided to medically treat it. With alcohol.

Horace hauled himself up to the roof with a bottle of cheap, toilet-cleaner vodka. Luckily for him, he rarely drank for the taste of the drink. After a few shots, he simply laid down and stared upwards at the darkening sky. Nothing really made sense.

Horace heard the approach and didn't move, except to loll his head to the side briefly. Ah, Jordan. That was alright.

"'Lo, Jordan. What're you doing?"

"Recovering," he said. Horace hoisted himself into a sitting position and poured himself another shot. Or he would have, but he decided a drink of the bottle would be easier. "Tastes like s**t," he muttered.

"Planning a layout for what? Are you...getting a house?" He assumed optimistically that this house, if it was a house, would include Rep and Harrison. Horace hadn't heard much from Jordan on the subject - he'd left the man alone while he figured out the Queen business and not-Queen and.... well, everything else in that relationship. He didn't even know if anything was working out.

He paused, debating asking. "How's Rep?"

"Nah, I purchased this last booze run. Right now, its a medical supplement." He sniffed it. "But I bet it could take sharpie off. I wonder how clean people would get if I tossed this on them." He sighed.

"Gonna be living with others in that house, then?" Jordan didn't look particularly sad, but Horace figured things might still be difficult. And that difficult might be an understatement.

He carefully took another drink - it would b far too easy to splash it all over himself. "Strange how?"

"Did you mention the house to anyone yet?" Horace decided to finally haul himself upright, sitting up and then slumping over. In his mind there was no point in having a house if you were living in it alone. That was one of the reasons he thought he'd have his small room in the basement forever. No windows, no space, nobody. He shook his head in a foolish attempt to clear his thoughts.

The idea of Rep as a Queen was interesting, and even more interesting once he'd divorced the gender role from it. His slightly muddled brain couldn't think too much about it; Horace had drunk enough to stop clear, observant lines of thought from happening. It put him at a disadvantage with Jordan.

"Does it make you want to protect him?" He rubbed his wrist thoughtfully. "An' no, not physical medicine. We're built too good for that."

"I wonder if-" he said slowly, uncertain if he was crossing boundaries. He hesitated and started over. "Does it need a more concrete thing than 'I want you near'? Rather than present a finished space, design together, Or something. I don't know; don't listen to me." He exhaled noisily. The thought of living together with someone was frightening, but someone he always thought he'd have in the end. Now, though. He shrugged.

Another drink, although it wasn't the gulps he'd been taking before. "Ultimately, it might be his choice. It's hard, I think. If all the bad's gone, so is all the good. Remind him of the good and ... I wonder if the island will break him in a new shape." It wasn't something Horace particularly wanted to think about. The organization took in those who were already cracked or broken and put stress on them. The cracks turned into wounds for too many, he thought.

He paused for a moment, weighing if he wanted to talk about things and, if were anyone else, he would have stayed silent. "I guess I was... asking for it, as usual. He summoned on me in the infirmary." Horace rubbed a hand under his glasses, knocking them askew.

"I hope it's not permanent," he said, twisting his loose hair into a ponytail. It was incredibly sloppily and his speech was beginning to slur. "You gonna try to jog it?"

He made a disgruntled noise as the mention of Lawr getting into trouble. "He can't get n' trouble, because I was provokin' him with some explicit Swedish. I guess...." He chewed on his bottom lip. "I wanted a reaction."

"Protect him or have him able to protect himself," Horace mused. They were different kinds of protection, but the juxtaposition was interesting. "Does Tracey want him back?" That was a question Horace wasn't sure he wanted the answer to. If his own weapon preferred him like this... There were times he wanted to forget, but forgetting meant becoming someone entirely different.

<>

Even though it had been some time since he heard her dusty voice, Horace ignored Jannisari. It was not a question he wanted to answer. "Reciprocation, maybe. An equivalence." He took another sip. "Have you ever been afraid long enough that you forget what anything else actually feels like?" He didn't even know if this was what being afraid felt like - the way his breath caught in his throat, his hands shook. But if it wasn't fear, what was it? If it was fear, why did he keep coming back? He stared down as his interlaced hands.