Shawn followed Michael upstairs, past the dark, wood-grain bannister and across the light-blue, plush rug that adorned the floor. There were three rooms with white doors adorned with crown moulding, clustered together, a door to a bathroom adjacent to the stairs. Michael walked into the center room and Shawn followed.

Inside was a surprisingly furnished room.  A large bean bag was in the corner next to a lamp. The furnture was a cherry oak color, the small fan hanging from the ceiling above also had a light in the center, that Shawn noticed when Michael flipped the switch.  A dresser sat on the side next to Michael's twin bed, blankets and sheets a blue, cooling color.

Michael sat next to a short bookcase, three feet high and stacked with the promised transformers. Above the bookcase, there were several awards and certificates. One proudly displayed a younger Michael in a purple-colored soccer uniform, kneeling on one knee and holding a soccer ball while smiling. The frame read 'MVP.' In the center, a large frame contained a certificate that read 'Graduate of Willow Grove Juvenile Facility.'  Next to that, there was a smaller, offset certificate that read 'Trumpet - First Chair, Mr. Babcock's class.'

Michael was moving the parts of one of the  transformers with one hand. He took it off the shelf and presented the yellow object to Shawn

"Bumblebee." He said, face expressionless, brown eyes glinting with a deadpan glare.

Shawn took Bumblebee gently, and then waved him in the air making car noises. He turned to Michael and smiled. "This is one Bumblebee. He has two arms, two legs, and four wheels."

OOC: Shawn Rolls Wits + Empathy

Michael nodded his head. "Two and two is four. Four and Four is eight."

He took another toy off of the shelf. "This is Optimus Prime." He noted.

Then he turned to Shawn and handed it to him. Michael's expression had softened somewhat.

OOC: 21:48, Today: Shawn Cramer rolled 1 success using 3d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s with rolls of 5,7,8.  Wits + Empathy.

To say that Michael was at ease would be bit too much, since he hadn't really said anything light-hearted and that dead-pan face hadn't changed. Still, he was talking, and Shawn assumed that in his own way, Michael might be happy to have Shawn around. At least that was the way it seemed when he started to deepen the topic of conversation.

"I put the rocks in the little kids mouth, because fire was all around. I lost the count." Michael said, fiddling with one of the wheels on Optimus Prime. "Have you ever lost the count? I can't think when I lose the count."

Since Michael was handling the Optimus Prime, Shawn concentrated his attentions on Bumblebee. "I'm not sure - I don't count as much as you do. But I think I understand; I like to make other people happy, but when I don't know what they want, it's scary. I'm afraid I'll say the wrong thing and they'll hate me or hurt me or think I'm awful...it's like you're on a balance beam and you don't know which way is forward...I just don't know what happens next, and it's frightening." Michael's deadpan non-judgement aroused a certain emotional honesty in Shawn. Messed up as it seemed, they'd both killed kids (indirectly or not), and he felt that led to a certain commonality.

Michael didn't react right away. He handed the Optimus Prime to Shawn this time for good. Then his hand drifted to one of the shelves. His lips moved as he counted: 1, 2, 3. His hand selected Autobot Blaster. It had a similar, but not the same transformation as Soundwave. It was yellow and red with a color, and Shawn could see that a cassette tape could easily be placed inside of it.

"This is Autobot Blaster." Michael said in a neutral tone. "It's like Soundwave, but it isn't."


There was a pause as Michael touched the inside area of the cassette case, opening it with a satisfying 'click' sound.

"When I count out the things, I know where they are and that I don't have to worry or be scared or afraid of things. So that way I have the count. Because numbers don't lie. They're always the same. They aren't like adults or other kids." He explained to Shawn.

Shawn gave Michael a smile. "That must be nice. I wish more things were like numbers."

Michael paused a moment, just staring blankly at the book shelf. Then he turned to Shawn with a confuses look that never seemed to touch his eyes. "If you don't count, how do you make sense of it all? How do you get through the things that scare you, when you don't have the numbers? What do you use?"

Shawn considered the problem, and one solution immediately popped into his head. "I try to look at people to make sense of things. If it's the answer they want, even if you're wrong, they might like you enough to help you."

Michael shook his head in disagreement. "In Safety, you had rules and everyone knew where anyone was. There were rules for getting up. Rules for sitting down. Rules for bed time. There were rules for what time to eat and what you could wear."

"There were also rules if those rules...if those rules we couldn't work. So if they couldn't have rules, there were rules between the kids. So if a kid didn't like you, and  you looked and..."

"...and it wasn't the answer they wanted and they got angry at you and the rules weren't around, then you could just smash them. It would be against the rules of Willow Grove, but it was something every kid understood in our rules. Do you know what I am talking about and saying?"

Shawn considered Michael's answer carefully. He had an odd way of thinking, but he was sort of figuring it out as they went along. "I hadn't look at it like that, but I see what you mean. There's more than one kind of rules, and there's different times they matter. And sometimes kids will come after you and be mean..."

"Yes." Michael said, the word a short burst of sound from his mouth, followed by the now-familiar silence.

He moved around and then started to transform the toy into a cassette player once again.

"In Safety, you could tell a lot by just looking at kids. So you could know the looks that meant they wanted to hurt each other. And so a lot was said without anything. So not all of it is words."

"So I keep an eye out for certain things to count. I know there are three locked cabinets downstairs that I can't get into."

"Also, I have three pencils in this room. Two of them have very blunt points and I think my Mom doesn't want me to have a pencil sharpener. That's why I have crayons instead of colored pencils."

"So Three pencils. Two with blunt points. Three minus two is one. I have one pencil that is good for stabbing. So if I need to stab, I have one pencil. So I won't use that pencil. Because if I write with that pencil, then it will be three minus three."

Shawn continued to play with Bumblebee, trying to figure out how to transform him back into a car. "Who do you think you'll have to stab?"

Michael stared about the room and then settled on Shawn. The Bumblebee was now halfway between a car and a vehicle.

"So. I think. It's just that you need to have some room to do something like that in case they are planning to do something to you. Or in case they make it so you can't count. Or they give you a look like they are going to do something like the look they gave in Safety. Do you know what I am trying to say?" Michael asked.

"So, you're not planning on stabbing anyone right now, but you want to be ready in case you have to?" Shawn's tone was non-judgemental. He'd never stabbed anyone, but he'd certainly been in situations where it would've been justified to at least try.

"Yes."

"But I was waiting for the right person to tell me who I should stab and when I need to stab. So I have counted all of the tools that I need to use. So I am prepared. Because everyone says its better to be prepared." He informed Shawn

"Who do you think would be the right person?" Shawn had a very specific candidate in mind, namely himself, if only because it would probably cut down on the odds of being the stab-ee.

"I don't know." Michael said. "In Willow Grove, you didn't need to have a person because everything had rules. So you knew when you would have to do it. But here, there are no rules." Shawn detected a bit of anxiety in Michael's voice, his low droll pitching for just a moment before returning to a board monotone.

"It's like everyone does whatever they want to do." Michael protested. "It's terrible. I wish I was back at Willow Grove."

"I could do it if you want. You seem to be okay with me, right?" Shawn gave Michael a smile, hoping they'd built up enough of a relationship that it was okay.

"OK." Michael said flatly. His face remained expressionless. And he turned back to the bookshelf, hand moving through the standing transformers.

"Yes." he said, nodding.

Then he turned to Shawn. "Who is it?"

"Who is who?" Shawn finally figured out how to make Bumblebee into a car again as he considered what Michael said.

"Who is the person you want me to stab?" Michael asked, flatly.

"Oh, I don't have a person in mind yet. It was just about being prepared, right? We'll both be prepared, you to stab, me to find a person that needs to be stabbed?" Shawn was getting awfully cavalier about the idea of stabbing someone at this point, though ultimately his goal was preventing it more than anything.

"OK." Michael said, going back to playing with one of the transformers. "What are the rules?" Michael asked.

"Hmm." Shawn tried to consider what might sound reasonable to Michael and actually be reasonable in the larger world. He had a feeling Michael wouldn't accept a blanket 'don't stab anyone'. "For now, you should only stab someone if you really think they're going to kill you. And when you stab someone, you should try to run away as fast as you can, and find a friendly adult. Or me."

Michael considered this for a moment and then nodded his head. "OK." He said. Then, without missing a beat he said:

"What should I use to stab them? A pencil will go in once or twice but is not the best thing for stabbing because it will break after that. Also, it probably won't kill. I could get a knife from the kitchen, but Mom is always watching them since I came back from Willow Grove. Maybe you can get me something better than a pencil?" He suggested, words coming out like a typewriter in a dull affect.

"That's why the pencil's a good idea - you stab them in the legs before you run away. Then if they have friends, they don't know whether to chase you or help their friend. A knife just makes people want to stop you, and you get in trouble for having it even if you don't stab people." Shawn tried to sound authoritative, like he had experience with this kind of stuff.

Michael nodded. He put down the transformer and shifted his body towards Shawn. He was fully facing him now. Scrawny legs, arms that led up to bony shoulders.

"OK." Michael said. He stared blankly at Shawn. The blank, vacant stare of a computer or robot waiting for the next part of the dialogue to initiate its program. Except his eyes. There was something deep in those wells of brown that spoke of an inner awareness perhaps. A constant, rhythmic calculation. An active mind, so far as Shawn could see, even if Michael's verbal responses were anything but.

Shawn returned the look with a chipper expression. What a lot of people didn't realize is that the majority of acting is quiet; you were looking at things, reacting to what other people say, emoting. The important thing he'd been taught was to resist the urge to fill a silence - just be patient if something didn't call for comment.

The silence lasted for a while, but Shawn was well trained in such an experience. It was just like being on a set. Waiting to draw the emotions out or waiting for the natural ebb and flow of a particular, verbal tidal-basin.

"Before I went to Willow Grove, I didn't think that I was too different. But now I know something is wrong with me." Michael advised. It wasn't a sad sense, or even that Michael cared. Rather, it seemed more like a mathematical equation. Michael didn't seemed bothered or excited by his self-assessment.

"Most people do not like me because when I say things they aren't like the things that other people say. And, I don't say many things." Again, Shawn noticed there wasn't a hint of regret or displeasure that Michael felt about this predicament, rather, it came out like a dot matrix printer - information for the user to consume.

"Is there something wrong with you? Are you a wrong person?" Michael asked, the question dropped into the conversation with all the wait of a large stone, Michael's deep voice adding weight to the question, his eyes dark and blank like the black screen of an MS-dos prompt.

"I don't know, I never went to Willow Grove." Shawn had occasionally wondered that exact question - other kids seemed to just be themselves. They were more honest; not all the time, of course, but they acted mean or foolish or selfish and didn't seem to care what other people would think of them. They didn't just tell people what they wanted to hear. They had wants and likes and dislikes, and they told people.

Shawn didn't. Shawn told people what he thought they wanted to hear, Shawn's stomach would drop at the thought of people thinking less of him, people disappointed in him. Conversations, even with people he genuinely cared about, were artificial, cynically calculated to get what he wanted without actually asking for it. Because asking for things was greedy, but manipulating them into giving them to you wasn't. Even now, when he was being halfway honest with Michael, it was because he thought he could get away with it - that Michael wouldn't judge or care, and that he wouldn't be believed if he told others. Maybe that wasn't normal, maybe that meant he was a wrong person? "I guess I might be..."
This message was last edited by the player at 15:13, Mon 07 Aug 2017.

"OK." Michael said with all the nonchalance of someone putting dishes into a dishwasher, not a care of expression on his face.

"I know that there's something wrong with me. Whenever I talk to people in groups, I end up saying things that they don't like. So, unless I have to, I don't say anything." Michael advised.

"And I like to count things." He added.

"If you're a person with something wrong with you, are you going to change? They tried to change me at Willow Grove. I went to two hundred and forty seven hours of special counseling and one thousand three hundred and twenty seven hours of group counseling. But I don't think I've changed. I don't think that I can change, no matter how many people tell me that I'm wrong."
Michael said this without concern about changing or change. He spoke as if whether he changed or not was not something that was important to him.

"I don't know. I think maybe there's some things you can change, and some things you can't change. And if there's something wrong with me, maybe it's a thing I can't change." Shawn shrugged. Even if it was a problem, he didn't really see a way to just suddenly be different.

Michael's lips moved again, as Shawn spoke, the sign of counting as his eyes remained fixed on Shawn's lips.

"You said 'I' three times." He told Shawn, the sentence coming out almost automatically, like the indentation of a paragraph before a practiced writer starts an essay. Then, he responded to Shawn with another question.

"I don't like change." Michael announced. "Everything should just stay the same as always. Everything should be just like it was at Willow Creek, where the rules are understood and if you break the rules or do something that is outside of the rules, everyone knows what will happen." He explained.

"You said that there could be something wrong with you. But at Willow Grove they have a rule that says that to have something wrong, you have to do bad things. 'Things' means more that one thing. So, I put exactly eight rocks in the little kid's mouth. I did eight things wrong, even if it was just one little kid. It didn't feel wrong. Eight is just a number. It isn't different than any other number, and it isn't special. But it is more than five and less than ten." Michael explained.

"What bad things did you do." Michael asked. "If you only did one bad thing, there might not be anything wrong with you." He reasoned.

"I think...I've done more than one bad thing." Shawn wasn't going to elaborate further, and with Michael's literal-mindedness, there was probably a 50/50 chance he'd accept that answer without further explanation.

"More than one means that it could be two, or three, or even more. If it was just the numbers on a die, it could be between two and six bad things that you did. If you did more than six really bad things, then you wouldn't be able to roll a die, because it only goes up to six dots."

"You should try counting the number of bad things you did with marks on a wall if it was a lot. Each mark should be as long as your finger. Once you reach four marks, the very next mark should go across the four lines you made, to make five. Then, each five things you did bad could be counted easily: Five, ten, twenty--and however many extra marks you have." Michael recommended.

"That's a good idea, I'll have to try it when I get home!" Shawn really  didn't want to think about all the bad things he'd done, but he wanted to humour Michael. He was weird, but not in a really bad way.

Michael nodded without saying anything. It was like the conversation had been resolved in his mind. He did not turn his attention to his toys, the transformers around him now neatly arranged in rows of three just like they had been on the shelf.

He stared at Shawn, his eyes dark, expression a mask of rock. He sat there, oblivious to, or indifferent to the silence that seemed to encompass the room, clearing out the peripheral vision of the boys. It was like the silence between Shawn and Michael was suddenly put under a microscope, a bridge of heavy tension, the type Shawn was familiar with because he had been on stage or in front of a camera so many, many times.

And so Michael just sat there staring at Shawn, waiting.

Shawn carefully set down Bumblebee on the floor with the other transformers, lined up to match where it would have been on the shelf. He embraced the quiet, letting Michael decide whether he wanted to fill it on his own time.

It was a long time before anything was spoken. Longer than the longest scene without lines or practiced words that Shawn had filmed. Then again, this wasn't a movie.

Michael's mouth started to move, lips clearly counting as he looked down at the transformers, eyes darting across the rows back and forth like a typewriter as he counted all the toys.

"Transformers." He finally stated in a flat tone, deep voice. "More than meets the eye."


It didn't sound like the cartoon. More like a boring monotone.

"Robots in disguise!" Shawn tried to match his delivery to the cartoon theme song's diction and pitch.

Michael blinked. After a while, he started to speak again. This time, about a different topic. Or rather, a different question.

"Do you want to go back now?" He asked. "This is the longest I have sat with a person close to my age in years and months for a very long time. Usually this would be too much time for one person to sit in the same place with me. We have been in this room for over twenty minutes. At Willow Grove, we were allowed to have play time. But two kids in the protective ward were usually monitored closely by at least two adults. There are no adults in this room right now. And it has been longer than the amount of time that two kids from the protective ward would have been able to play together without supervision."

"I've played with friends longer before, but if you're not used to it, we can go back downstairs. I don't mind." Shawn gave Michael a cheerful smile.

"We have to go back downstairs" Michael said, clearly not comfortable with the situation and the ill-defined rules of play.

He got up and organized all of the transformers.  "Want me to show you something? Some place cool?"

Shawn watched Michael move the transformers around, trying to see if he could understand the pattern of organisation so maybe he could give him a hand. "Sure, I like cool things."

OOC: Shawn Joins Thread

Shawn: It's Not Allowed