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[abrightboy]

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[abrightboy]

Malcolm nods, his eyes large and trusting, but also… longing.

“I want… I want to just…. be part of it. I guess… I mean everyone makes it look so natural that I thought when I changed, it would be part of my nature.” He puts a hand on Will’s chest. Lets himself just feel Will’s heartbeat for a moment. “When I was thinking it over… Neal and Raylan suggested that maybe I wanted it for the wrong reasons. After the moose, Lark disappeared, and I thought… what if he made a mistake? What if they were right and I made a mistake? But then you were going to turn and…. it was exciting. Going down a new path with you that isn’t yours or mine. But I wanted to do it. I wanted to. And I wanted to say something even up to the moment it happened, but I didn’t want to ruin your day by being selfish because I knew how much it meant to you, but all of it… it won’t go away.” He looks up from his hand to Will’s face. “How do I let the reins loose?” he asks earnestly. “How do I… let something happen? I want to feel something… that isn’t this. I’m always a square peg in a round hole and I want to feel something else.”

[empathicfault]

"Oh...Malcolm..." Will hugs him close, hugs him tightly even. "You have conditioned yourself to not get your hopes up, so you don't believe it when you do fit. I did the same, but you've...you're still trying, so it just means you get disappointed over and over. I gave up and isolated myself, as much as that did." People still found him.

"I didn't know how much turning me meant to you. I'm sorry. We could've talked about it." He kisses the top of his head. "I'm usually good at figuring out those things, but I'm...too close to you now, I think. I miss things sometimes. Our feelings are too in sync," he explains, and that part (at least) is completely unapologetic.

"There's no mistake, though. Not on your or Lark's side. Raylan and Neal, they care about you, but...they don't know how it is. To be so alone that even your thoughts are unique and considered inappropriate...to be considered a monster by people close to you." He leans his forehead against Malcolm's for a moment, closing his eyes. "Having a group that accepts you after that, it's valuable. And maybe it'll take a while to sink in, but you have it now." It wasn't an unattainable dream.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm breathes him in, lets himself actually notice how it’s different now, since he turned. And moreso again since Will turned.

“I could have talked to you. But I was trying to… be a good… wolf. Follow the hierarchy. It’s not my… natural way to be. But I was trying to be part of it by doing it the right way. I could have said something.” He pauses. “I keep battling myself to be ‘good’ and I just feel worse after. And it doesn’t help my case with anyone. I want to try what you said. But. With you watching. Just in case. To stop me.”

He lifts his head to look up at Will. “Sweeney likes me now,” he says grimly. “Because I’m a wolf. And Maggie came to see me. She’s going to have Iris turn her, just like that. She doesn’t even want to be in the pack, she just wants to be a wolf and then go home to her world. I asked why she doesn’t just ask the Admiral for that, if she doesn’t want to be in the pack, but apparently she’s close with Iris and Iris will do it. What even is that?”

[empathicfault]

So many of their conversations are held like this, with them sprawled across or holding each other. Maybe someday, one or the both of them would be less touch-starved, but Will suspected they still had years to catch up on.

"Sweeney has been trying to do better with you for months," Will concedes. "Because of me. And he recently got news that undid at least one of the knots in his stomach. He got some grass and some people at the station. He was already in a better space to accept you. Although I'm sure you getting turned helped him realize he could connect with you, so there was definitely some influence."

He's not going to argue how Malcolm felt about it, but he does want him to have full context. "Maggie...I talked to her, too. I understand that less. Probably because she has a whole pack of people already. But she hasn't decided for sure yet, either. There's a lot of apocalypse habits she'd have to get past."

He shakes his head. "Ultimately, I don't think that matters. You just need to know what you want out of this change, and we can work on it together. You don't have to be 'good' to anyone else's standard but your own. I do think Lark's pack has less...structure than you might've assumed, but there's nothing saying we can't add to it some ourselves."

[abrightboy]

"Sweeney was trying before for you but he was weird about it. Now he's just relaxed and nice. ...Do you think that's really the grass?" He considers that.

"I don't... I don't have anything against Maggie or against people who prefer canines to humans..." He trails off and looks up at Will's face. "Obviously," he concedes and there's a hint of a smile there for the first time in all of this. "But.... being chosen to be part of the pack felt special. Being part of the pack is part of the point of getting turned. So... I guess I feel like it cheapens everything about it if you can just walk up and be like 'hey I want dog powers, hook me up and then goodbye forever'. That's not what it's about. And it's not special if it's handed out like flyers in front of a pizza joint to anyone who wants it but doesn't want to be part of it." He looks at Will uncertainly. "Is that stupid? Is it unfair?"

[empathicfault]

"It's a lot," Will responds to the question about Sweeney. "But the grass helps. Nature's more important to him than humans, I think." And they're not talking about Sweeney right now, but he'll get into more detail later...and try to skirt any secrets. Suffice it to say, weights have been lifted off his chest, at least to some degree.

He smirks when Malcolm mentions not minding people who like dogs, but listens quietly to the rest of it. And he shakes his head at the end. "It's not. Although I think my sense of 'fairness' has been irrevocably skewed for a long while now." He lets out a small sigh and looks down. "Maggie seems the sort that decides what she wants and then just does it, and it works for her. Maybe that's a new development for her, here on the Barge. I can't say I've had that skill in anything that's not murder...and not even that, here." Probably a good development, honestly. "But it does take the shine off of it a bit, doesn't it?"

He looks at Malcolm with a small, thoughtful frown. "Hey, uh...should I have waited on this wolf change? Let you get settled with it more, not stuck my nose in? I didn't want to make it...less, for you, either."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm is shaking his head before Will even finishes the question, his hands grasping at the front of Will’s shirt.

“No, no, no,” he protests once it’s out. “No. I wanted to do this with you. I just… I thought we would have to wait. Until I’d be allowed to change someone. And it didn’t occur to me that it would happen and it wouldn’t be me. And then suddenly it was happening, like, now and I wasn’t doing it and it was a lot. And I didn’t want to ruin it. And I thought I’d get over it, and I don’t know why I thought that; I never get over anything,” he admits, looking down at Will’s chest again. He fidgets with a button there. “And I still wish I did it, but I don’t wish you didn’t go through with it yet. I wanted it for you. I knew… I knew it would be easier for you. Sweeney told me to ask you about dog behaviour before I even did it. Everyone knew, if they thought about it.”

[empathicfault]

Will contemplates telling Malcolm that he knows and it's okay. He was just making sure. But Malcolm continues and- not only does Malcolm clearly need to get this out, but it does help specify just what part of this Malcolm has the problem with. So Will listens, giving Malcolm a kiss on his head when it dips down.

"Everyone knew but Lark. He knew it should be you. Because you needed what he was going to offer, as part of the pack. A place to belong. To become more confident. And then- he got tugged away," Will adds before pulling Malcolm close and hugging him again.

"It'd be nice if things just went our way sometimes. Although us being together certainly qualifies. Malcolm..." He pulls away a bit. "I'm sorry you didn't get to do it, and that it all happened too quickly. I'm glad you don't mind me...being a werewolf too. I...I just wanted to make sure. We should ask Iris about the glow, maybe get your feelings out into the open? So she knows where you're coming from, and you aren't holding it in."

[abrightboy]

He nods along faintly, in agreement with what Will is saying, right up to and including asking Iris about the glow, but then he suggests bringing his feelings about it all out into the open and his eyes go wide and he shakes his head in an almost panicked way.

"No. No. I don't want her to know that I can't handle it," Malcolm says firmly. "No." He's already the black sheep of the wolf pack.

[empathicfault]

Will stares at Malcolm for a long moment, then nods. "Okay. I'm not going to force anything. I'm not sure what you mean about 'can't handle it', though. You're allowed to have feelings, sweetheart."

The use of the endearment might be a little tactical, for as honest as it is.

[abrightboy]

“I know that,” Malcolm says quietly. He’s allowed to have them. Of course he is. Showing them, though? That’s never worked out well. Except for with Will. His feelings via his mouth damaged the bonds he has with Neal and with Raylan. Iris barely knows him. “But the time for telling her about them was before she turned you. Telling her now will just… mess things up. With the leader of the pack. And won’t change anything.”

[empathicfault]

"I don't think it would mess things up," Will replies, matching Malcolm's quiet tone. "I know you don't know her well, but Iris is used to dealing with big feelings and strong responses. Still..." He takes in a deep breath and lets it out. "I can understand why you're worried about the timing. Sorry...I didn't mean to worry you."

[abrightboy]

“You didn’t worry me,” Malcolm tells him. “I’m just awkward.” He leans up to hug him tightly. “And I don’t have a single ounce of regret or resentment about you becoming a wolf. I’m glad about that. I want you to be part of the things I’m part of. That’s important to me. That’s more important to me than anything.”

[empathicfault]

Will smiles in response, looking about ten years younger with the utter genuineness of it. "Well, I don't know what it'd be like being awkward," he mentions mildly, then chuckles. "That's the most important part to me, too. I never thought there would be someone I could share all the parts of my life with. Even this..."

He hugs Malcolm back, taking a deep inhale in. And then realizing what he's doing, he chuckles again. "You tell me if...smelling you gets too creepy. I'm still getting used to all the extra information."

[abrightboy]

“No. It’s fine,” he says, finally actually laughing, but still kind of holding on for dear life. “I’ll… figure it out. My… nonsense. I’ll get my head sorted. Don’t worry.”

[empathicfault]

"We both have plenty to sort out," Will notes. He is the inmate here, after all. "We'll work things out together, help each other where we can. Right?" Will sounds fairly confident about that, at least.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nods, then kisses him, then buries his face in his shoulder again.

“You really think we’re still the same?” comes a muffled question. Still the same thing as each other since his change. He can live with not being the same kind of wolf as everyone in the pack or the pack being cobbled together. But he wanted to be joined, specifically, to Will by sharing this. “We’re… the same thing?”

[empathicfault]

"I do," he says seriously, quietly. "We come from the same originator, we're Pack. We're the same. There's been no deviation from each other- in fact, I think we're tied closer together than ever. In an immutable bond."

He lets his cheek rest against Malcolm's head, his mouth close to Malcolm's ear. He might look sleepy to an outside observer, but he's just lost in the sensations of being here with Malcolm. The outside world might as well not exist. "You know, I've sometimes wondered if we're too similar. If people might wonder what's wrong with me psychologically, to fall for someone so much like myself." Malcolm might hear the warmth enter his voice as he smiles. "And then I laugh."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm’s fingers, always restless, fidget absently at the collar of Will’s shirt as he listens, rapt, until that last makes him smile. He lifts his head so he can look up into Will’s eyes.

“We’re like… two separated halves, then. And when we’re together, we’re whole.”

[empathicfault]

Will loves Malcolm's fidgeting. It makes him feel fussed over, something he realized recently that he appreciates. So he's still smiling easily as Malcolm looks at him.

"Mmmhmmm. We both came here with large chunks taken out of us. Where we can't mend ourselves, the other can fill in," he replies. His eyes shut briefly in a look of bliss. "And then we're whole. It works for us. Damn well, too, I might add."

[abrightboy]

“Like… a really romantic and yet sometimes horrifying jigsaw puzzle,” Malcolm muses with a grin. “I’ve never felt better. Like. In my life,” he realizes. Not that he remembers what he felt like Before. He doesn’t even count that time, before he ate from the tree of knowledge of what his father was by opening a travel trunk in the basement of their home. “I really never have.” He pauses, his brow creasing faintly. He looks up at Will again. “I really did want to do it, though. I have to figure out how to let that go.”

[empathicfault]

Will chuckles at the example of a horrifying jigsaw puzzle. He feels like it's fairly accurate, if he's honest. But he also knows how beautiful horrifying things can be. He knows and accepts.

The last bit makes Will smile, even if slightly apologetically. "I know you did. I am sorry about that, Malcolm. That I let it happen so fast, and I didn't follow your wishes...even if we know why. If there's anything I can do to help make you feel any better about it, I'll do my best." He knows how tough it is for Malcolm to let things go, but he also doesn't think Malcolm should feel like he always has to.

[abrightboy]

“You just… being makes me feel better about everything,” Malcolm concedes. Maybe it’ll still creep around the corners of his mind, but… at the end of each day, he’ll still have Will, and it will be okay.