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[abrightboy]

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[abrightboy]

"Most people can't lie to me anyway," Malcolm says plainly. No point in being modest with Lark.

[ukan]

"Now you've got even more tools in your belt, then." A way to be even more sure.

[abrightboy]

"Okay, well maybe we should meet once a week or something. I have an inmate and Neal's been in a coma in my cabin and I still do a bit of counselling and I want to go see Will now, so regularly scheduling something might be best," Malcolm suggests.

[ukan]

He nods. He trains up his pups at home more rigorously but, like he said, the Barge pack is different. "I'm going to try to get home on the weekends to see Alec, but any day other than that should work fine."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm is still uneasy about that, but he shifts his weight and doesn't say anything this time.

"Okay, well we can try Thursday mornings for now and if it's not enough we could do two or even three days a week," he suggests.

[ukan]

Lark grins at him. Three days is more like it. "Now we're talking. What are your hours like in the counseling office? Maybe we can work together an hour or two after you get off; might help you unwind."

[abrightboy]

"I work strictly by appointment now," Malcolm tells him. "I was having problems w... I was having some problems and had to take a break and now I assess people before I take an appointment with them. So I don't get walk-ins that don't understand what I do."

[ukan]

"That's how I did it, before we had wardens assigned to the positions." It's less stressful that way anyway, in his experience.

[abrightboy]

"It feels like I failed somehow. When Kiryu asked me to work there, I really thought it was a place where I could do good. It was so exciting. And it just... mostly didn't work out because I'm not really cut out for... talking to people. I guess. I still want to do it, but it just feels... diminished now. Because I wanted counselling to be a thing that could help anyone who needs it and everyone who wants it and I can't offer that to them because I'm not... fit for it," Malcolm explains.

[ukan]

"Malcolm, you will never find a group of people more resistant to therapy than the Barge citizens. You're in a job where you're fighting a half dozen currents at any given time. It's a thankless job. It doesn't mean you don't help; it just means you may not reach people as readily as you will off this ship." Lark has faith in him, enough faith to bring him to Los Angeles--something he rarely does. "Reaching one person here is like reaching five people at home, in terms of difficulty."

[abrightboy]

"But the people I had problems with were people who came to me to get counseling," Malcolm says.

[ukan]

He shrugs. "That honestly doesn't mean they're ready to hear what a therapist has to say. What were your problems with them, though?"

[abrightboy]

“Being understood. Like. Semantically. I say things and people consistently take it in a way other than how I mean it. I don’t know what to do about that,” Malcolm admits. “But it’s clearly me that’s the problem.”

[ukan]

"I have that problem, too." Lark can usually make himself understood if someone sticks through the conversation but he's stepped on plenty of toes, sometimes without meaning to. Sometimes he does.

[abrightboy]

"But people still like you," Malcolm points out.

[ukan]

A faint chuckle. "Opinions on me are mixed at best, Malcolm. A lot of people here hate me."

[abrightboy]

“What? Who?” Neal, probably, but Malcolm doesn’t know that. He hasn’t heard a word against Lark save for a couple friends concerned about him.

[ukan]

"Zack, Jedao, Eiffel, Neal, Iris sometimes. Sweeney." To name but a few.

[abrightboy]

“…How can Iris and Sweeney not like you? They’re in the pack,” Malcolm asks.

[ukan]

"Sweeney's not," he shakes his head slightly. "He's just an ally. And Iris doesn't like how I do things sometimes. Like the fact I have rules."

[abrightboy]

“I guess… since she said Sweeney is in the pack. Plus he came to the turnings. They were, like, big party do’s,” Malcolm muses.

[ukan]

Something dark crosses his expression. "Really." A faint twitch of his lip. "Then you're the only one who had the real ritual. It's a private matter."

[abrightboy]

“I preferred it with just me and Will. I don’t really like getting undressed in front of everyone. Or eating red meat,” Malcolm says making a bit of a face.

He’d gone along with it, though. He really wants to feel like Pack.

[ukan]

"I normally wouldn't have even allowed Will to be there, but I knew he'd want to take the change, too." You adapt or you die. That's the way of things. "Iris didn't know better. I didn't turn her the way I turned you, it was an experiment with her, test tubes.... But no, Sweeney isn't Pack, and I wouldn't have let him be there. It would have been a smaller affair."

[abrightboy]

“I think he enjoyed the… spectacle of it, though. Iris has a really cool hat that she saves for it,” Malcolm tells him.