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[abrightboy]

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[abrightboy]

Malcolm's downright flattered. His eyes widen slightly.

"You guys had a fight when she told you that you should see other therapists than me?"

[empathicfault]

Will looks away for a moment, as if shy, then breaks into a chuckle as he looks back up to Malcolm. "Yeah. I wasn't exactly a fan of the more therapists idea. Normal therapy doesn't work on me, for one thing. And you actually understand me, you know what I've been through and why I react to some things the way I do. Your suggestions actually helped. So if it wasn't you, I didn't want to do it."

He looks away again, rolling his eyes rather overdramatically. "I think she knew how attached I was already, even if she didn't want to put it that way. That argument was part of why I decided to talk to you, you know. Between that and you mooning over Shaw- I realized my feelings were stronger than I'd thought."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm winces faintly.

“Was I mooning? I thought I got a handle on it.” He shrugs a shoulder. “She reminds me of someone from home.”

[empathicfault]

"Well," Will says, biting his lip briefly. "I was jealous. I'm clearly not an unbiased observer. But I think that's what Shaw might've been talking about when she said you were acting weird?"

He waves away that thought, because he can't and/or doesn't want to think on it right now. And he's curious. "She reminds you of someone? Who? Someone you worked with?"

[abrightboy]

“Dani Powell. Yeah. We worked together. She said we were friends.” He gives a head-shrug of concession. “I don’t have a lot of friends.” He meets Will’s eyes. “It didn’t feel like this, though. Nothing ever has.”

[empathicfault]

Will's eyes shine as he looks back at Malcolm. His smile radiates happiness. "Is that so?" he asks, although the question is clearly rhetorical.

His expression is playfully thoughtful, as if he's ruminating on whether he should say something. Or maybe just whether he should say it first. "I have never felt so much like I was- was finding a home I never knew I had," he admits.

[abrightboy]

“Yeah!” Malcolm agrees earnestly. His fingers fidget at one of the buttons on the front of Will’s shirt.

“I think I wanted to tell you I loved you the first night we were together,” he confesses softly. “But I thought… that was way too soon and I’d only scare you away.” He pauses, looking at Will uncertainly. “It might still be too soon.”

[empathicfault]

"It's not," Will assures him. His hands slide up Malcolm's back, until they're very securely holding him close.

"...and it wasn't. I know everyone approaches this sort of thing differently, but...if I know what my feelings are, I'm going to embrace them fully. I was just worried about scaring you off," he adds with a small, breathy laugh. It all seems so silly now.

"I love you too, Malcolm." Deliberate. Playful, but clear. Intensely sappy. Will thinks it's perfect for the two of them. Will punctuates his declaration with a soft, slow kiss.

[abrightboy]

He sinks right into that kiss, grasping the front of Will's shirt for purchase.

Is his heart going to explode? It feels like it's exploding. It feels like it's going to swell right out of his chest.

[empathicfault]

This has been a very good day already, Will thinks as he deepens the kiss. He could make it more intense, but he wants to talk too. So he just lets it go on a little longer before he pulls his lips away.

Still holding Malcolm close, their faces next to each other, Will notices the look on Malcolm's face. "You okay?" he asks, and that's kind of a rhetorical question too.

[abrightboy]

He's breathless and flushed and it's only partly to do with the kiss.

He smiles and it's half a laugh and he buries it in Will's shoulder.

"Great, actually," is the somewhat muffled reply.

[empathicfault]

"Me, too," Will says, closing his eyes as he squeezes Malcolm close. "I'd been scared I was going to ruin our friendship- you too?"

He barely has to ask. He knows Malcolm is worried about losing friendships. "And we didn't have anything to worry about. I'm grateful for this flood- otherwise, it might've taken years."

[abrightboy]

"I might have caved sooner than that. The last person I went out with, I gave her a key to my apartment like a week in. And a couple weeks after that, she dumped me over voice-mail," Malcolm tells him. "No fool rushes in like I do," he jokes.

[empathicfault]

"Ah, we share that trait," Will admits. "I just learned early on to expect heartbreak, did my best to stomp on that impulse. It was just so rare that I'd meet anyone who might be interested, beyond-" He looks vaguely embarrassed. "-you know, thinking I was cute."

He has a sudden impulse to hug Malcolm tight again, and so he does. "I love that you rush in," he says. He lets go and attempts to pull Malcolm to the couch, tea forgotten. "There's so many habits I have that are ways to shut down, hide away from pain. And you never seem scared to explore that part of yourself- or if you're scared, you do it anyway."

[abrightboy]

“Most people call that being weird and making everyone uncomfortable,” Malcolm points out, but he’s also clearly pleased by the praise or, at least, the fact that it’s coming from Will. “I hid it a lot more when I was with the FBI, but not in a way where people thought I was normal and wanted to hang out with me. And it helped that being the guy that does the weird murders meant people saw me as the Weird Murder Guy and didn’t think too hard about whether ‘weird’ was modifying ‘murder’ or ‘guy’, but then a colleague found out who I am and outed me and they decided it was the latter.” He shrugs as he slides onto the couch next to Will. “When Gil asked me to help his team, I decided not to bother.”

[empathicfault]

Will rolls his eyes rather dramatically when Malcolm starts talking about the FBI being both conformist and obnoxious. It's not a surprise. Mention of Gil gets a small smile.

"Not bothering was the right call. Nothing I tried seemed to matter- I was always the Weird Guy. Took me decades and several attempts on my life before I realized that my being strange wasn't the problem, it was the spaces I was trying to occupy. And the people in those spaces."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm traces a line along Will’s sleeve with his finger.

“So we can both agree that the FBI was, like, the worst thing for our mental health.”

[empathicfault]

"Just terrible," Will agrees, leaning towards Malcolm so their shoulders touch. Then he realizes that's not enough and puts an arm around him. "It was basically emotional abuse disguised as 'important work.' I'm a little surprised that didn't turn you off to profiling entirely, but I suppose you've got the family connections pushing you forward there."

[abrightboy]

“It was never about the FBI. That’s just where the work was. It was about understanding murder and murderers. I don’t… do profiling, I am a profiler,” Malcolm explains.

[empathicfault]

"That's true," Will says, with a small nod. "Do you feel like it helped you understand, your time at the FBI?"

[abrightboy]

“Oh, for sure. I had access to their resources, I worked some great cases - mostly by myself, so the interpersonal issues weren’t a big deal - and my solve rate was over twenty percent higher than the Bureau average on violent crime, so they mostly left me alone to do it. …Until the Great Outing, at which point the solve rate meant they didn’t throw me straight out, but they did start looking for an excuse,” Malcolm admits. He snuggles closer, pulling one leg up under him so he’s half turned towards Will and can tilt his forehead against his temple. “It was only a matter of time until I gave them one. Impulsive emotions. You know.”

[empathicfault]

Ah, that's nice. This might actually be close enough to last a while. Will smiles lazily at Malcolm. "I know. But I'm also not asking about your solve rate. I mean, did it help you understand murderers in general? And your dad, specifically?"

[abrightboy]

"Yeah. I mean. More than anything else did to that point. They thought so too, without actually knowing why it mattered to me. I lectured at Quantico sometimes," Malcolm notes.

[empathicfault]

"You did, too?" Will grins suddenly. He'd been trying to get somewhere, but he's extremely easily distracted at the moment. And he didn't know Malcolm gave lectures. Just another thing they shared in common. "What on, abnormal psychology? Any specific topics?"

[abrightboy]

It always pleases him do much when he says something that makes Will light up.

"Very specifically on the psychology of murder. Even more specifically on what the difference is between someone who kills once, for some kind of tangible reason and someone who goes on to kill again and again and how the tipping point generally lies in their second murder," Malcolm explains. "Something triggers the first kill. Anyone can kill someone. But the next kill? And the next? What makes them do that?"