Malcolm smiles softly at that last part. The most enchanting thing about this is being seen and still accepted. More than accepted. Seen and still sought. He thinks maybe people can understand that much but they can't understand how far into their cores it goes in their case.

"Well... we still have our own friends that we still spend time with. See? This is the safest place to gauge that, because we have friends to use as a metric."

He scratches Winston's head absently.

"I don't mind Shaw being nosy in the interest of her duty to you. It's just... she was doing the thing that Sweeney's been doing where she had a meltdown every time I disagreed with her or misunderstood her. That's the part I want them to stop. I talked to both of them before I even met you. I just want them to be normal about it."

He takes Will hand and presses a kiss inside his wrist.

"I told her you were staying over more because she implied she wanted me to be more... wardeny in my thinking and I thought she would appreciate a heads up about where you'd be spending a lot of time. And then I thought... she seems the type to maybe help herself to your space if she wants to check in, so I added that she should knock, though. She asked if I was bragging. You know. About having all the sex all the time. I was like... you just asked me to be Wardeny about this; why can't you see the context?"