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[abrightboy]

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[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.

[hippie_ninja]

He has doubts that anyone on the Barge can't feel anything, but considering what Avalon did to Will it probably makes things much easier to believe they can't. That he's the sort of sick they're used to from their respective homes.

"Who's their warden now, do you know?"

[abrightboy]

“Elim Rawne. If you want to know how Avalon… perceives, ask Avalon. They went after Will because he has an abundance of emotionality and they lost theirs,” Malcolm replies.

[hippie_ninja]

"So there's a yearning in them?"

[abrightboy]

“They recognize a piece of them is missing,” Malcolm says.

[hippie_ninja]

It makes him think of Sephiroth, makes him fall quiet a moment. "That has to be hard."

[abrightboy]

“Certainly. That’s why I offered to help them. But that doesn’t justify torturing people to death. They were warned about that. But they have a weak Warden, so I don’t know if anything will change,” Malcolm observes.

[hippie_ninja]

"What would you do if you were his warden?"

[abrightboy]

“I would have talked to the rest of the Barge well before now, for one thing,” Malcolm says.

[hippie_ninja]

He shrugs. Yeah, Rawne's silence is pretty deafening. "Okay. Then what?"

[abrightboy]

“I usually love chatting about this stuff but…” He studies Jesus for a moment, then gestures between them. “What is it about this that makes me feel like you’re evaluating me?”