empathicfault | IC Inbox

Will is currently tucked into his armchair with Winston on his lap. He looks up from his book (Theories of Transmutation and Chemical Alterations) and blinks. He stares at Malcolm for a long moment, seemingly reaching back into something in his mind, then sets the book down on a nearby table.

"Did she say those words?" he asks, tone neutral other than a vague curiosity.

Malcolm considers it. The words were in there, but not just like that. Then he blows out a breath.

"I don't even know anymore." He pulls out his phone and unlocks it and opens the conversation, tossing it over to Will without getting up, but careful not to hit the dog. Then he drapes his arm across his eyes. "I hate putting you in the middle, but... help."

Will catches the phone and looks at it, then scrolls up...and up...and finally just starts with the first audio part of the conversation. He plays it on speaker, since it might not hurt to have Malcolm re-listen to what was said. His eyebrows raise as they start talking about sexual subjects, then furrow as they continue back and forth and Shaw starts sounding exactly the same as she does in her talks with Will.

By the time they start talking in circles, his eyes are wide again and he's running his tongue over his teeth. Malcolm hones in on one point, Shaw avoids it, and Malcolm wrestles with it like a dog with a bone. They get deeper into their own experiences- Will winces slightly at the mention of Neal- but somehow keep slipping past each other. Will looks a little shell-shocked by the end of it.

He groans a bit, setting the phone down carefully on top of his book, and notes the obvious. "That was rough."

Edited 2023-09-08 16:26 (UTC)

Malcolm sits up.

"Okay. I have a question. Were we talking about me and her or me and everybody. Because it just... zigged and zagged. Like. Like... I told her that she could just... accept that the words I'm using are what I'm saying and she says the world doesn't work like that and I have to improve so I don't piss off all these people but then they're hypothetical people and I have to do it for her, but if it's me and her, then why can't we meet in the middle? It just felt like I never knew what we were actually talking about. But it kind of started that way, because I thought we were joking around, you know? Some good-natured ribbing. But then I thought she wanted to talk and I just thought... well, that should have been a clue, right?"

He flops back down.

"Do you think it's better if she doesn't want to talk to me anymore? I didn't want a lifecoach; I wanted to be friends."

Will listens, licking his lips. He sighs slightly, thoughtful, before he tries to answer.

"So I'm...actually not sure if she was trying to talk about you and her or you and everyone, either. She clearly thought you were trying to divert the discussion when you first brought it up. I didn't expect her to be lecturing you so much, either, but I don't have context for your previous conversations. Did you ask her for advice in the past? Either on trying to be friends with her or trying to get along better with other people?"

He'll get to the last question, but he wants to clear this up first.

"I don't... think so? But then when I say things, I don't really know what she gets from it until she tells me. But remember that time I came over because she told me she wanted to Try? This conversation had different topics but it was exactly the same feel, where she was like... we have to learn to understand each other so listen to me tell you why you fail at life."

He sighs.

"She reminds me of someone back home. A cop I worked with. We kind of... almost seemed like we might... have a thing? Sometimes. And I think I recognized something similar in Shaw when she arrived, and I thought.... Well. That's why I kind of thought that maybe we could be... something. Eventually. If I just gave her time to get used to me. But. I'm not even interested in anything that complicated now - just being friends - and I'm thinking... she isn't ever going to like me." He shifts to tilt his head half off the couch so he can look at Will. "She isn't, is she?"

Will frowns thoughtfully- it only deepens when he hears that Shaw's attempt to Try was much the same. Malcolm continues on, telling him about one of the cops he worked with that...maybe dating happened? And that clears up another mystery, but doesn't help much with this one.

Will looks up at Malcolm, meeting his gaze. "Honestly, Malcolm...I don't know. Shaw's harder for me to read than most people. And I can give you a little advice here, but-" He shifts in his chair, sitting up further without disturbing Winston too much. "Listen. What you need to ask yourself is if she- if all of this-" He gestures towards the phone. "-is worth the trouble for you."

He lets that settle for just a moment before continuing. "Things with her blow up almost every time you talk. It sounds like she's lecturing you and giving you unwanted advice. You both sounded like you were talking at each other rather than to each other, or like you were speaking a different language. I could tell you were both trying hard, and maybe you'll eventually break through. But if it's going to...hurt you regularly in the process, it's not worth it."

Malcolm sits up again.

"I don't want to have that conversation every time!" he explains, gesturing at the phone. "But it's like we can't talk about anything else until I fix myself and... I don't know. I tend to assume I'm the problem, but... there are people here who like me the way I am. Why do I have to... why do I have to be different? I'm not saying I'm perfect or even rejecting the idea of working on some things, but I can question it, right? Is there a compelling reason to be different? Well, one reason is to appease her, but I don't even know if that's possible, no matter what I do. So. I don't know if it is, actually. Worth it. Except she's your Warden and if she hates me she can make things kind of difficult for us and.... you're worth.... anything," Malcolm concludes.

Something in Will relaxes when Malcolm seems to agree. He'd been worried at how willing Malcolm was to contort himself into all sorts of shapes to appease people. The last part surprises him a little, because it's not really something he'd considered as a problem.

His brow furrows as he speaks. "If she makes things difficult for us, I'll make it difficult for her right back."

He looks back up at Malcolm, giving him a too-wide smile. "And I can be very difficult to work with. So seriously, don't worry about me. You don't have to be friends to be coworkers. And I think you're still feeling out how you want to be you before complicating it with how other people want you to be." It hadn't been that long since he got out of masking to try and fit in at the FBI, after all.

He slumps forward in a sort of relief at the observation.

“It was going mostly well. At home. Before I came here. Being on a team as me. I… I do want to… to connect with people and I want to be part of things, but… there are at least seven people here who like me pretty well just… how I am. Seven. I have a best friend and a boyfriend. This is the most successful I’ve ever been at developing connections with people that I’ve ever been.” He presses his lips together. “Sometimes I forget that. Sometimes the chorus of negativity beats me down so badly that I can’t see it. But you’re always there when that happens.” He pauses. “I made up with Neal. Oh! And want to hear something weird? I was in the library and Laura was there and she asked me questions. About mental health. Pretty sure she punched me for sticking my nose in people’s mental health but…” he shrugs expansively. “Sometimes I take some getting used to.”

Will grins to hear that Malcolm has so many friends- or at least generally-positive acquaintances. He has more here than he ever had at home, too. He's about to reinforce the positivity when Malcolm brings up things with Neal...and Laura.

"Or maybe she re-evaluated her reasons for hitting you or her recent feelings and knew you were someone who knew about these things," Will adds gently. "It's not always about something you do, right or wrong or different. I'm so glad, though. Both that she talked to you and about Neal. I knew things would turn out okay with him."

He finally (gently) pushes Winston off his lap and walks over to the couch to find a space next to Malcolm on it, so he can give his partner a hug. "You're doing good," he assures Malcolm. "And if you want to try little tweaks here and there to...I don't know, feel more comfortable, I can help with some of that. But I love who you are. You don't have to change anything about yourself. Not a thing."

Malcolm smiles back at him, leaning against him, wrapping his arms around him. Practically radiating affection.

“I love you so much,” he murmurs. “I’m… I think I do want to figure myself out before I… tweak things. I can do that without it meaning that I think I’m perfect, right?”

And Will basks in the glow of that affection. That and the lean, the warmth at his side- it's all perfect.

"Of course you can. Other people might say you can't- or you shouldn't- but you always, always can. And I think it's a good idea. This is a good place to learn how to get comfortable with yourself."

“I like who I am when I’m with you,” Malcolm admits. “It’s a weird new feeling.”

"A good one, I hope," he half-jokes. He reaches up, smoothing his thumb lightly over Malcolm's eyebrow and down his cheek. He's just enjoying being able to touch, appreciating and being appreciated. "I'm so glad. I hope you get used to liking who you are. You've worked so hard for it."

Malcolm melts a little at the touch, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment.

“I tried to explain… about that. About how far I’ve come and how hard I had to work. It’s… hearing that dismissed as an excuse not to put in more effort was the worst part.”

His eyes open.

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

"I know it wasn't," Will says, hugging him close. "I got that. The things you've both had to work on and through are entirely different, and I- I don't know if she understood that?" He shakes his head. "But it's not on you to explain it any further, either."

"You know what was the weirdest part, though? When she said something about me being taught to communicate by manipulative people, like we talked about. Except... we've never talked about that. I don't know where that even came from," Malcolm muses.

He shifts to curl up against Will's chest, so he can hear his heartbeat.

"But she seemed to think I should know how to overcome it."

"Ah...that's my fault," Will admits. "A hypothesis I had. It came up while she was talking to me about both of your troubles communicating, and it shifted into my relationship issues and more...wardening-type things."

And he'd sort of avoided going into it with Malcolm because he was fairly sure Malcolm had plenty of people armchair-diagnosing him in his life. Unfortunately, that meant he was hearing about it this way. "I'm sorry," Will says, quietly. "I should've brought this up with you directly after."

"You don't have to apologize for thinking about me," Malcolm tells him. "Did you talk about that because you were trying to smooth things out? Because I literally asked you to," he points out, drawing patterns on Will's knee absently with one finger.

"Oh," Will breathes out, somewhat surprised. He's so used to people hating his insight, no matter how much they said they were ready. In a situation like this? He thought even Malcolm would feel betrayed. "Right. Yeah, it was...then. I still feel like I should've told you. Do you want to hear about it, or...should we leave it for the moment?"

He doesn't want to be shoving advice onto Malcolm after all that.

Malcolm snuggles in. "I'm interested," he tells him.

"Okay."

He likes the snuggling, and does what he can to accommodate it. It definitely makes him feel like he's about to tell a bedtime story, rather than go into a psychological profile of his significant other.

"So the part I told Shaw about- I hypothesized about you and her having to learn different social cues and to rely on them when communicating. Because you learned different cues, you really are speaking a different language with each other. I know Shaw had a supportive family that was understanding of her mental condition. And I know you had...not that, so much. Your father was obviously manipulative, but I believe he fostered a certain amount of manipulativeness in the rest of your family. And you had to learn your social cues from them, because you were fairly isolated from other people."

It didn't sound like he had much support anywhere else, from what Will has heard. Just his psychiatrist, and Gil.

"I also brought up that I think you might have arrested emotional development. It would be consistent with the trauma you've experienced, both physical and mental. Intellectually, you're amazing. But your difficulties with emotional regulation are, I think, from the fact that you've never had a real chance to grow up. You had too many things you had to work past first."

He considers that.

“My therapist said that would probably happen. Not to me. I overheard her telling my mother. But we’ve never talked about it or… how it might impact me. I guess… bigger fish to fry. Like you said. …I have been called immature. But ‘weird’ and ‘intense’ tend to get thrown around a lot more. And Gabrielle seemed to think a lot of the emotional regulation issues came down to the. Um. Secret diagnosis plus my mood disorders.”

Will can't help it- a bit of an amused rumble permeates out of him. "You can say autism. I'm on the spectrum, even if they can't figure out exactly where. And the ad hominem attack of 'immature' is a little different to not having had the chance to develop your emotions."

Will squeezes him close for a moment before he continues. "It might be the mood disorders, I know. But I wouldn't be surprised if some arrested development is at play, too. We could do some research on it, see if there's anything more about impact or treatment in the library?"

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