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.