empathicfault | IC Inbox

"You think of yourself as a murderer," Will says softly. "As someone who has committed pre-meditated murder. You haven't. Everything that's happened has been accidents, or you pulled back before you stepped over that line. I was inched over it, but I still crossed it myself. That's...that's why I'm an inmate and you aren't."

He touches Malcolm's face delicately, as if appreciating fine china. "You've come close, and you know you're capable of it. You feel wholly responsible for some deaths. But that doesn't make it so."

And Will opens it almost immediately. He looks just about as tired as usual, other than the concern he's trying to cover up by paying slightly closer attention to the dogs. Said dogs are happy to have Sweeney's company, Buster running up and bouncing on his hind legs with happy barks, and Winston wagging his tail.

"Hey, come on in," Will says. The place is as comfortable as ever- it's become clear that Will keeps it surprisingly clean, even if it's cluttered. There are always dog beds shifting around and blankets already draped over the couch. A bottle of alcohol and two glasses sit on the coffee table.

Will surreptitiously looks over Harkin as they sit, trying to figure out just how bad things were. Magic healing was mentioned, so maybe he's at least okay physically?

Okay. That sounds doable.

Bearing up his theory about the signs being obnoxious, hers cycles over to "Has cut out the eyes of two enemies. Once with a knife, once by eating them with bugs," while he's watching the beetles.

"'Abandoned his family to have a murder-date with his best cannibal,'" she recites, glad she still has the whispers and doesn't have to actually sound out the words. "There are a lot of ways I can interpret that."

There's nothing visible, by way of injury; the stitches up his arm are concealed by his shirt and jacket. Sweeney offers a small smile and heads inside before promptly crouching to greet everybody else. After a moment, he glances up at Will.

"You doin' ok? Any lingerin'..." He looks for the word, but shakes his head when he abandons the search in favor of 'close enough'. "...bullshit?" His fingers gesture towards his brother in illustration. "Visions, torments, injuries?" Just running down the checklist.

“I planned and executed a whole murder,” Malcolm tells him softly. “I did that.”

Okay. Then that'll be step one.

A couple people have said this wasn't my fault, which it obviously wasn't, but that's not the point. As far as I'm concerned, fault doesn't even enter into it. It's still my responsibility to keep my shit together enough to do my job, and I failed spectacularly at that. You deserve better. I want to give you better than a crazy warden who sits down in Zero when the going gets tough.

"You planned one," Will concedes. "You didn't go all the way through with it. I did. I set up circumstances to bait one serial killer with another- including a violent escape- and then I murdered both of them. That was the plan as designed. You-"

He smiles a little, proud and sad at the same time. "You didn't even kill your target. You stopped it, saved him, no matter what happened at that point. Trust me, I know what it is to feel guilty. But even though you've danced in the same space I have, you are not stained the same." Will's eyes search Malcolm's face, hoping he's getting through on some level. "I won't venture a guess as to why, although I imagine it has something to do with the strength of your convictions."

I don't know how you're supposed to do your job, when the person who gave you the job is actively keeping you from knowing what's even real. There were plenty of other wardens who were seeing things, actively a danger, or too sick to get involved.

I do appreciate the sentiment. And I'm glad to have someone working with me, who's so committed to their task. But I'm not sure what you should've done better when your mind was changed for you, here.

Other people pushed through it. Other people realized there was something funky going on instead of spiraling.

I'm gonna do better; that's what I want to make clear.

Malcolm’s gaze falls to Will’s chin.

“Maybe I was just afraid that if I let Nicky die, I’d be like him.” His eyes lift to Will’s hesitantly. “What if I liked it?”

In his memory, Martin’s voice: Maybe you’re all torn up inside because getting away with murder didn’t feel bad at all. No. It felt gooooood.

Will is still watching Malcolm's face. His own expression is gentle and accepting, in a way only a few people ever get the opportunity to see. Not only is he not judging, he's been here. He knows the push and pull of that fear inside the gut.

"What if you do? What exactly are you afraid of?" It's an honest question, although Will does venture a guess so they can hopefully get more specific. "That you'll hurt someone the way your father hurt you? That you'll enjoy that?"

Everyone had something different going on. Some people weren't as affected.

But...okay. [ 'Doing better' is never a bad goal, as far as he's concerned. ] Thank you.

Is there anything I can do to help you reorient yourself, now?

"I think if I liked it, I might tell myself I'd... do helpful things with it, get rid of bad guys, but I can see myself sliding down the slippery slope of justification so easily. I don't want to be someone who hurts people for fun. Revenge, first, for those that have hurt me, then punishment for those that have hurt others, then, when those run out at any point... what, vague annoyance starts to call for a death sentence? Rudeness? Disagreement? Where does it stop?" he asks. His expression becomes a little grim, because here is the heart of his fear: "I don't know that I could stop. He couldn't stop."

Will presses a palm to Malcolm's cheek. "You are not your father. You would not paint with the same brush, much less paint similar pictures. You're not a sadist, Malcolm. You genuinely want to help people. None of that is going to disappear."

He's not sure Malcolm will believe that, no matter how much he wants to. "Do you think I've slipped down that slope?" he asks quietly. "Do you think I'm in danger of slipping further?"

"No," he admits. "But you're... stronger than I am. You don't have the... the genetic weakness." His brow creases faintly. "They were all watching me for it. When I was a kid. After he was arrested. ...Maybe I don't have it, but finding out will be too late. The only way to be sure is to just... not test it."

Will's brow knits at being called stronger, and the expression sticks around even after the explanation. He can't easily refute it- Hannibal's words that Will knew better than to breed still sting.

But that's not something to hang an entire life on. Not something to bear when you're already there.

"So you're planning on living in fear about what you could become, for the rest of your life? You've...set up your walls, to try and weather whatever type of storm it turns into?"

"I don't... really know," Malcolm admits. He meets Will's eyes. "Until you, I never really thought of 'the rest of my life' beyond the next case I could cajole someone into letting me work on. I didn't... design anything around anything. The future... just seemed inevitably to be more of the present, marching on and on...." His fingers still a moment and he searches Will's eyes like the answer is in there somewhere. "What do you think I should do?"

Ah. Will knows that march, too. Just 'get through the day' until you get to the next one. Or the next case, the next...attempt on your life. Anything that keeps you distracted.

"I think...you should at least know that it doesn't work. Keeping it locked away and in the dark. All that does is make it more unknown, larger. Scarier. And eventually it'll break through, when you can't control it. And you'll think it's just a...confirmation of everything you feared," he says, pausing to lick his lips.

"Which is why I think it'd be good to let yourself go through some thought experiments. Take down a wall and walk through the space of what entices you and what repulses you. Talk it through with me, even. Test how you feel. See if you need to keep those walls up. See what's you and what's...the specter of your father. And once you know what you've chosen for yourself, we can work together to make sure that happens, with full knowledge."

It's strange to speak so bluntly about something like enjoying violence and murder, but it's freeing, too. He hopes it's the same for Malcolm. "You are so much stronger than you think, you know. You downplay your good, your effort. Even as a child, you saved Gil's life. You did the right thing against all odds."

“I always tell people that I’m not my father. But I think, mostly… I want it to be true.” He finds Will’s eyes with his own again. “Do you think it’s really true?” Sometimes he knows it is, but sometimes he’s not sure. He gets less sure the closer he gets to that edge. But Will’s sharp and he knows killers and he sees people. He’ll know.

Will stares back at him with a small, genuine smile on his face. "It's really true. You aren't your father, not at the core, not even in outside impressions. What you've been through as a child was a great injustice- not just your dad, but the way you were treated after you caught him. But you are not condemned from birth for being your father's son."

He leans forward and kisses Malcolm's forehead gently. It gives him a moment to close his own eyes and hope against hope that Malcolm believes him here, too. "You have had to fight other people's hopes, their fears, their misconceptions almost your whole life. You deserve to know for a fact what actually composes you, how strong you've really been, and how much I love all of it. All of you."

He believes Will. He believes in Will's skill at Seeing People. And it's always easier to see others than it is yourself.

Knowing for a fact what composes him. He... doesn't know what that will be like. What it will look like. He remembers asking Dani what if he makes me who I am? and he was really asking but she didn't have the tools to know the answer to that.

Ultimately, what Will is offering him are the tools to find out himself.

"Okay... how... do we do it? The Enclosure?"

Will groans, but it's rather dramatic. "Jesus Christ," he mutters. "Out of all the ways to put it..."

He shakes his head, then looks back at Taylor to explain- and immediately catches at least part of the new sign. His eyes widen a bit, too- apparently it's hard to not do when reading 'cut the eyes out'. But that's as far as he gets before he's focused on his explanation again.

"So that's...I can just tell you what happened. I was in an FBI profiling job that was...let's put it charitably and say 'extremely bad' for my mental health. My fellow consultant and friend made things worse by being the most prolific of the serial killers we were hunting. That's Hannibal Lecter."

Will runs his tongue over his teeth as he thinks about how to continue. "I quit it all when Lecter was finally caught. Moved across country, met a wonderful woman, married her. And three years later, my old boss comes sniffing around, wanting me to do 'one last job.' It ended up with a serial killer targeting my wife and stepson, pointed there by Lecter." He swallows. "They almost died. And it wasn't going to stop unless I stopped it."

"I'm- going to assume that FBI profiling isn't the office job that it is in my world." She glances at him, and while her expression is interested, there's something handcrafted about it. Intentional.

"So you went to kill the serial killer? And Lecter?"

Will hasn't been thinking that far. He'd just wanted Malcolm to consider the idea, so hearing an 'okay' gets a surprised grin out of Will.

"Oh- ...yes, that'd work. Don't even have to go that far to start, if you'd rather not have anything so visceral. I could describe scenarios and you could tell me what you think."

He knows he'd start with revenge scenarios, then trolley problems, then...less obvious choices, until they got to some spaces that were downright murky- and probably past that and into things Will suspects wouldn't interest Malcolm at all. It'd help to have the whole spectrum, so Malcolm knows where he's genuinely not interested.

"But the Enclosure could help add some realism. We'll go at whatever pace you want to.
And I'll be with you the whole way." Because Will knows how scary it is to face this alone.

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