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[abrightboy]

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[abrightboy]

Malcolm shrugs a shoulder.

"We just... can't communicate. There is a literal wall. She thinks I can't possibly say what I mean without some kind of coded subtext and I wish she would say what she means. Neal and Will are trying to help, because they both understand both of us."

[hippie_ninja]

"Whereas you assume I have subtext when I don't," he chuckles. "Maybe you should apply some of that to her."

[abrightboy]

"I didn't assume you had subtext. I assumed you had ulterior motives. It's not the same thing," Malcolm points out.

[hippie_ninja]

"Semantics." The difference is negligible.

[abrightboy]

He finds the difference substantial.

"One is a coded language and one is just subterfuge."

[hippie_ninja]

"And you accused me of it based on nothing."

[abrightboy]

"I changed my mind to reserving judgement after that. You're the one that brought it up again." He pauses. "I can see why you get along with Shaw."

[hippie_ninja]

"She makes sense to me. She would've done really well in my world." Malcolm wouldn't. Malcolm is pre-virus emotions, pre-virus priorities. It's hard for Jesus to connect with old world people now, something he's disappointed to have learned.

[abrightboy]

"Your world is post-apocalyptic," Malcolm points out. "I'm not sure that's a compliment."

[hippie_ninja]

"It's hard for me to not see people as either survivors or the dead," he admits softly.

And that feels too much like therapy so he sits up a little more. "Anyway. That's all I came here for."

[abrightboy]

"I've been called a survivor," Malcolm tells him matter of factly.

[hippie_ninja]

"You've survived some horrible things." He's not discounting that. "But you're reactive in ways that get people killed where I'm from. We're just from different worlds. Literally and figuratively."

[abrightboy]

"We are. But your way and her way aren't the only ways," Malcolm says simply. "What, exactly, is the problem with having emotions?"

[hippie_ninja]

"Nothing. I have emotions. I feel things fully. I just don't make my big decisions based on what I'm feeling. I don't let my emotions run me."

[abrightboy]

"What if you tried it some time before you judge?" Malcolm suggests.

[hippie_ninja]

"Try letting my emotions make my decisions for me?" That's how people die, Malcolm.

[abrightboy]

"No. Just let them have a vote. Take them into consideration. It's not a post apocalyptic hellscape here. Try living in a community and not a refugee camp," Malcolm offers. "I don't make my decisions with my emotions, either, but it looks like I do to you because you think having a single emotion is going to get everyone killed. Guess what? I've been here a year and it doesn't."

[hippie_ninja]

"I'd argue it gets a lot of people here killed. It's why Will killed Avalon; it's why Avalon is obsessed with Will."

[abrightboy]

"Uh, Avalon doesn't feel anything, so no it isn't. And Will killed Avalon in a preemptive bid to protect himself, which sounds very your world, from what I've heard," Malcolm muses.

[hippie_ninja]

"Will would probably do fine in my world." But like Malcolm observed it's not a compliment.

[abrightboy]

“And yet Will feels everything,” Malcolm says. “His feelings, everyone else’s. Sometimes he can’t even tell the two apart. Maybe emotions aren’t the factor in that delineation that you think they are.”

[hippie_ninja]

"I feel everything, too. I feel things, Malcolm. I'm not afraid of my feelings, I just don't let them run my decisions. When did you talk to Avalon last?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm presses his lips together, then leans back in his chair a bit.

“I wasn’t suggesting you don’t feel things.”

He laces his fingers together, tapping one index finger against the knuckle of the opposite hand beneath it.

“Okay. I saw them the day after they attacked Will the last time. They came to this office for counselling. I told them I was willing to help them, but they couldn’t attack Will anymore. They seemed fine with that then, but then they never came back.”

[hippie_ninja]

"You only spoke to them once but you think they can't feel anything?"

[abrightboy]

“That was the last time. Not the only time. And I’m not the only person I know who’s spoken to them. But it wouldn’t really be ethical to go into details I learned in therapy, so that’s all you get,” Malcolm tells him.