The mansion was definitely growing on him, if a little bit at a time, but there were so many things that he had to do. He had to wake up and eat breakfast, which alone was a bit of an adjustment, and the breakfast wasn’t the only amount of food during the day. Though the little boy loved food and being treated to it, he had to be told to eat sometimes, because when he got busy it got set the back burner, and it was put out of his mind.

The fact that he didn’t eat enough food back when he lived with his adoptive parents actively affected his life in many ways. For instance, it gave him many different habits like eating only bad junk food or processed goods. A good way to get Michael to do something was to offer up some kind of food he’d never eaten that was in a very shiny container, and tasted like it was junk food. The other, largest affect of being basically malnourished was how physically scrawny the little boy was. He could barely walk without finding something to trip over, from his muscle mass being so small.

This was hard to deal with at the Mansion, because there were lots of people there who did sports, or ran around in gym class while Michael was told he had to sit out. He didn’t really mind that he didn’t have to play, not at all. Sports were never something that interested him, unless they had really cool rules, then he might watch them and be interested for a while. Michael just really was upset because he wasn’t able to make friends playing sports like the other little boys. Many bruises that were rather fresh would show that from his attempts at throwing a football the other day.

Hokee was helping him with being a friend, however. He’d met Hokee because Chase brought him to the hospital to see the teen the other day, and Hokee had been there. Michael sometimes swelled with a bit of pride near Hokee, for he also had a nickname because of that encounter. Mikey. Mikey was a good name, and it was something made especially for him.

He looked down at his silver hand as he was about to leave the room and pulled over a glove. With lots of practice in doing so, he easily tied a string around the glove so it would stay on. It wasn’t as though he couldn’t get his hand dirty or wet: it was just like his normal right hand…but he just didn’t like to show it that much.

Today, Hokee told him to go outside of the mansion on the grounds, in that big grassy area that kids played tag in, wearing clothes that could get really dirty. So, he pulled on a pair of jeans and a shirt that were already stained in lots of places, and he made his way down there, occasionally borrowing a pillar to hide behind whenever someone unfamiliar passed by who looked at him weirdly.

Being back at the mansion was not what he wanted to do, but with his car out of the question he needed to stay someplace. Unfortunately this meant back in his room at the mansion and back under the 'care' of Ms. Taylor. He might have gone back to the mansion with her, that was with a slight detour, but he was not going to have DocProf touching him, even if it meant getting better a hell of a lot quicker. He might be a mutant, but he didn't want to live as a freak. Plus healing on his own meant he didn't have to do certain things, which had its perks. Eating meals with all the other kids was still a bit rough, so he took to hobbling about for his lunch and such when numbers died down.

The worst of winter seemed to be over, an unusual thing for the area. With the temperature in the 60s, Spring teased many of the citizens. Cringing with each hop of the crutches, he was rather happy he timed this right with his medication. Hopefully by the time he got out on the grounds the pain killers would kick in. Upon reaching his destination, the teen worked his way down to the ground, where he was soon laying on his side. It wasn't comfortable, but standing felt ten times worse. It was painful whatever he did, the key was switching it up to release some of the pressure.

He might have paid off some younger and easily manipulated child to get what he needed, but there was paints on the ground near him along with a huge canvas. "Mikey. Yo." Picking up a crutch he wove it around in the air to catch the younger mutant's attention. With a bit of a wince, he put the crutch back down behind him. Fresh air will be good for me....fresh air.....paint......no Taylor.... He didn't know the kid well in the slightest, but Chase seemed to be close to him. The puzzle given to him was sitting back in his room, still not solved, but this wasn't the time to linger about it. "Mikey, over here."

Shifting his weight, the dreadhead reached down into his pockets and started to empty them into the grass. A pill bottle, car keys, old childish wallet, and other odds and ends. His car might need some fixing up, but he wasn't going to fork over his keys forever. He bought it, the car was his no matter what any adult might say. Once things got a bit easier to maneuver around again, he was totally busting out.

Hokee had always looked different from the people that he’d met, but he respected the teen for this reason. Well, alright. The fact that Hokee was hurt was really the only reason that he was willing to even talk to the male at first, and it was still a bit nerve-wracking to go up to someone who was basically still a stranger and talk. However: The fact that Hokee was temporarily disabled meant that it was okay, because Michael was still pretty strong in a situation that might require some kind of feat of strength between the two.

Michael saw Hokee raise a crutch and basically wave him over, and he attempted to move over there very quickly. Of course, Michael wasn’t a child that was meant to move quickly. Ever. So, he fell quite a few times before he actually got to the canvas, Hokee, and the paints. He looked at the canvas, blinking a bit. Hokee was on the ground sitting up now, so wouldn’t need his crutches at the moment, and Michael took one of them, prodding the canvas to be sure that nothing would jump out of it and scare him or anything.

He found it not to be a trick of any kind, being careful because of the pranksters that were popping up in the building, so he set down the crutch. Michael drew lots, but he used regular paper and pencils, or regular paper and paints. No one wanted the nine year old avid drawer to paint on a canvas. He was too young! Just wasting canvas, right? So he’d never actually been able to work with something like this. The boy looked at Hokee, tilting his head. “Are we gonna draw?”

Micheal in a rush was a sight for sore eyes. The kid had no grace. On his crutches he could hobble in circles with more ease then Micheal could just walking. This was...odd. Still, the kid was there and he was willing to do something with him. Not being able to stand on his own feet for the time, he couldn't exactly go back to the shop class and learn more mechanics, sitting in chairs was to uncomfortable for periods of time, so he was just going without. He had to keep alert though, in case that creeper of a healer decided to do a steal healing of him. Longer he was on crutches, longer he didn't have to do school. There was method to the madness.

The squinted eyes watched carefully as one of his crutches was confiscated. Hobbling back into the mansion on one crutch was not going to work, but with the lack of skills the kid had walking, there shouldn't be much threat in loosing anything. Poking the canvas with the crutch was an interesting way to get ready to paint, but hey the kid was strange to begin with, why should he be surprised by this. With one glove on his hand, he was starting to wonder if Michael Jackson had a forth child the media didn't know about. The late Prince with a mutant for a kid, epic.

"Paint." Rolling over to his stomach, his face twitched a bit. "You can paint with whatever..." Laying on his stomach, this was not comfortable. He'd have to deal with it, this was life; painful and annoying. "Hands, knees, butt...brushes...whatever." Reaching with his arms, he pulled a cap off of a bottle of spray paint. "If you use this stuff, just point the opening towards the painting and not your face. Burns like crazy and tastes like dog crap." No clue knowing how old he was, he shouldn't have left the option there, but who cared. It was paint, he was going to paint with Mikey and that was that.

Paint. He’d done fingerpainting before. The little boy actually let a small, rare smile show on his face, but of course he made it quickly go away with an embarrassed tinge to his pale face. Biting onto his lip, he looked at the paints. He noticed the spray bottle and started with that. The boy’s small hands were used to pull him across the ground, as he’d decided to crawl over to where the paints were, and he picked up a can, then looked at the canvas.

He took the cap off, mimicking Hokee when he shook it, and then pointed the little hole at the canvas. He pressed the little nozzle down and jumped in alarm at the sound it made. He let the can drop to the ground, letting go of the spray. Now there was just a splotch of red on the canvas. Shaking his head he looked at the other kinds of paints and opened one big one of blue.

The boy didn’t have any cups or containers to put the paint in, so he swallowed and looked at Hokee out of the corner of his eye, then started to smother himself in the blue. Paint dripped all the way down the boy, and filled his hair, though he wiped it from his eyes. With a second thought, he added a bit of red and white to the mix. Of course, not because of the flag, but because of the fact that he thought the colors were cool.

This was one of the first times Michael was allowed to be a little boy who couldn’t do sports, and who wanted to be creative. He wasn’t threatened by Hokee, so he let himself have some fun. He smiled as he jumped onto the canvas that lay down on the ground. He just started to cover it with Michael shaped paint.

The kid didn't speak a word, brilliant. There was nothing wrong with a quiet kid, in fact he was a lot quieter then Chase. The times that he spent with Chase often were long moments of silence filled in with words here and there. That was unless he was pulling him out of freezing pool water, or laying around in a hospital bed. Unfortunately, his experiences with Michael revolved solely on his hospitalization and now his 'crippling' situation. Sure both of them should be spending time with those that were their own ages, but for Hokee that would require school, something he didn't want to do. After school hours he could spend time with people slightly closer to his age, but with him on crutches he didn't want to give anyone an edge.

Holding back a snicker, he found the reaction to the spray paint bottle worth a good giggle, but since guys didn't giggle he had to settle for a smirk. Though things got more interesting and definitely worth the emptying of his wallet a bit. The kid was not just getting his hands in the paint, but the whole body. This was priceless. How often in his life would he be able to admit seeing something like this. He had to envy the kid, going and doing exactly what he was doing. If his own body didn't feel like a human pin cushion, he might have rolled himself up in paint as well. A swell of mischief tingled his toes. It might just be worth it to make a bit of a mess, he couldn't let Micheal have all the fun.

Pulling one of the crutches back to himself, he popped open some black paint. With one of the strangest brushes to be used, he dipped the rubber tip end of the crutch into the paint and pulled it out. Instead of rubbing the crutch on the canvas, he went with another method, splattering. Hopefully Micheal wouldn't freak out on him for joining, after all it was his own genius that came up with the idea. Now if he was lucky Ms Taylor wasn't watching the two of them, he didn't need her thinking he was some sort of babysitting kind of guy, he had an image to up hold.

The little boy was smiling as he rolled along the canvas, getting the colors all across it. He looked at the other colors. Pink. He liked pink. Opening the bucket, Michael leaned over and dipped his head into it. For a moment, he held his hands by his eyes so they wouldn’t get all dirty, and then he noticed what Hokee was doing. Hokee was splattering the canvas.

This caused him to take a little bit of a pause, and just watch. Then he looked at the canvas again as the pink dripped down his clothes. This gave him an idea. He poured a bunch of different colors in his hair, all of them on different parts and he faced the canvas, knowing what he was going to do. He did see that Hokee had brought a pair of goggles with him. Michael put those on, and then moved his hands and he bobbed his head forward quickly.

Not only did pain splatter everywhere onto the canvas, but he actually fell almost onto his own two feet in his attempts at head-bobbing. However, this wasn’t to say Michael wasn’t having any fun. He was, in fact, having an extreme amount of fun. The little boy got up, his hair completely wild with colors and definitely needing a trim. He bobbed it forwards again in excitement, his clothes practically falling off with the added weight of the paint holding him down. He had a field day with doing this, however, and continued to bob his head, goggles protecting his eyes.

For a brief moment, he wasn't sure if he should embrace himself for a twiggy boy to come crashing on him or not. He seemed to be watching him very carefully, which was different. He couldn't put his finger on it exactly, but he was sure this reminded him of something. Since Michael didn't freak out on him, he continued to flick paint about on the canvas. His selections of colors were not as wide, but this was by choice. Shockingly though, the style he was using seemed to have caught the attention of Michael. Instead of using just his hands to flick the paint, or even his feet, Mikey went for a method he didn't expect.

Headbanging painting. He personally didn't do a lot of that particular dance style, big key factor in that was some of the beads in his hair smacking him in the face. Giving oneself a conclusion from dancing was not one could boast about...or it could be. Cleaning dreadlocks took great care, he didn't plan on using his hair. Now if he was back in the hospital, that would be a different story. Get one of them hot nurses to give him a sponge bath. Sizzle, nothing but sizzle.

"Nice." The more Mikey flipped his hair, the more he found himself watching. With all the paint drizzling off the kid, he was starting to wonder if he ever ate. There was nothing to Michael, just nothing. Most of his weight had to be in the hair on the top of his head. As the kid teetered on his feet, his own breath seemed to slow and pause. There was no way on earth he would be able to carry him if he fell and got hurt, well he might be able to but it would hurt himself more then it was worth. Now if it pissed of Taylor, then he would have to do it.

The goggles soon were strapped over the very small face. Paint in the eyes couldn't be a good thing, though he never tried that one himself. He had a few negative experiences, but hey life was like that. Nothing wrong with learning the hard way, it just sunk in quicker that way, once you realized something was aloof. Hitting a brick wall had a way of slamming the truth hard and fast. With any luck, this kid wouldn't do anything with the paint requiring another hospital visit, they had horrid food there.

Painting was something where no one expected anything of him. Perhaps once people realized how well the little boy drew, that would change, but for now, he drew and painted whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted to. If there was a pretty looking piece of paper. He might actually draw the piece of paper on another piece of paper. It was this thing that Michael had begun to really like which was freedom to do his own thing.

Yes, he had to stay in the school grounds and all, but he got to do a lot of fun things, and since he did sometimes hide when people knocked on the door, he’d not yet gone to any classes. Therefore, it was like a giant play-palace, with some people that might be just a little bit scary to him. So, he really did have a lot of fun with this particular thing. It was healthy for a boy to get bruises, though not as healthy for Michael, so he stayed away from things that would bruise him up.

In this scenario, the bruises he got were hardly of any concern to him. For once, he didn’t notice what the bruises were covering, or how many he had, he was just focused on the truly creative art of painting on a canvas. He stopped his head-banging after two attempts to stay upright and do it, and he just kind of started to fingerpaint. All of his movements were seemingly random, but a really cool picture was popping up…actually…a bunch of cool pictures.

In one corner of the canvas there was an image of some kind of rainbow, with fireworks, and another corner had Hokee’s black and some whites, blues, and reds, for a storm. Just recently his head-banging made a colorful splash in the middle, but he couldn’t reach the top too well, so it was mostly empty but for a few splatters. The largest miracle, however, was the little boy’s face. He looked at Hokee, almost full on in the face, and he was grinning. Not ear to ear, perhaps, but he hadn’t done that once since the little boy had been rescued from his prison of being at home. Smiling at him like he hadn’t a care in the world.

Mikey seemed happy. He wasn't saying anything still, but from the look in his face he could tell exactly what was going on. Words weren't needed and he was fine with not having to talk. Personally this was new stuff for him, doing stuff with kids but hey it could be worse. This was really all Chase's fault in the long run. If that kid didn't go and take a premature swim during the winter, he would never be out there in the grass with paint. Weird how one little kid could change the course of his life. If Chase wasn't in the car, would he have gone ahead and go head on against Ms Taylor with his car?

Shifting his weight, Hokee rotated his body to change how he was laying down. He certainly wasn't going to be as wild as Michael was right now, but he could still do something. Pulling the crutch back a bit, he took the lid of one of the paint cans and started to pour some paint on top of it. Grabbing the edges of the lid, he gave a twist spinning the paint covered top on the canvas. The paint swished and shot about making some interesting patterns. It wasn't as impressive as what Michael was doing, but he was just trying to entertain himself more then create anything. Mikey on the other hand seemed to be a little Davinci.

The can lid continued to spin as the youth smiled at the dreadhead. No one would believe this ever happening unless they were there. Hokee didn't get along with people for the most part and here he was in a quiet agreement with a kid, a little kid. He seemed to attract the shy kids, how and why he didn't know but it just happened. If he could spice up their lives and create his own little army, it just might be worth his time. Mikey must be a mutant, wasn't everyone around the school? The one glove on also seemed to be a clue of sorts. Maybe he had some golden touch or something.

"Ever paint in a room, the walls and stuff?"

He loved being here with Hokee, with all the other kids still inside and all. There wasn’t anything better that was going on for him at the moment, so he was happy to let Hokee pitch in, even if he wouldn’t normally paint like that. Some of the paint started to dry, and his hair would probably feel the effects of it at some point. The paint probably wouldn’t come out of his clothes though. The look on his face definitely didn’t show that he cared at all.

He sighed a little bit, and then he sat down on the ground, letting out the sigh as an appearance of how tired he was. Getting so much energy out was good for him, but he still was tired. The boy curled his feet in, sitting criss-crossed. He painted rather well, and it often did show off a bit of his home life. He looked at some of the images and frowned once again, then returned to his normal expression. He smiled up at Hokee though.

Not sure what to say, he did wait for Hokee to talk to him before he spoke again. The boy now using some of the paint on him to draw on the ground. “I drew a lot in my room. After a few years though it was full.” He stretched a little bit and looked at his gloved hand for a moment. It was really covered in paint now, and he wanted to take the glove off. He didn’t meet Hokee’s eyes as he looked under the glove, to check that his hand was okay. Maybe since the rest of him was covered with paint, this wouldn’t be apparent as much.

It took a bit of time, but eventually he got the kid to talk. There wasn't to much said, but in another way it was quite a bit. Getting Michael to talk was like pulling teeth. Enough yanking, and well it would pop out sooner or later. Seemed like it took a bit of painting to do this. Could have been worse, the kid could have a higher expense requirement before conversation could start. Like cars or other stuff Hokee was really into.

"Wanna draw on walls inside?" He knew a few good rooms that should be fairly empty right now. Taylor couldn't flip out on the kid, he was young and didn't really talk. If she dared to even yell at him, oh she'd get an earful for sure. Kids should do what they wanted, and this kid looked so thin and pathetic right now. Even in the hospital bed, he was sure he was in better shape then Mikey. That was very sad.

"There's lots of rooms needing stuff." Shifting his weight about, Hokee pulled his body up so he was sitting on just his butt. "I painted a room black once, all black." Leaning back, his eyes shifted up to the sky. It was nice being outside, the fresh air. Summer needed to hurry up and get there. Winter was nice, but being stuck with crutches right now, it be better for the weather to be like summer and not teetering on winter chill.

He looked at Hokee, wondering if it really was going to be okay to draw on the walls. Everything in the mansion was so big, so pretty, so…perfect. Michael was not big, he was not pretty, and he was no perfect. What would give him the right to actually put some of himself onto the mansion. Michael looked down at the ground, fiddling with some of the grass. He switched to third person. “Michael shouldn’t draw on the walls because they’re already drawn.”

He wasn’t too sure of how his words would work in this context, or how they could be used to convey his feelings. He fiddled with his glove for a moment, and he started to pick off some of the paint. There was a bit of silver shown beneath it as it slightly lifted. He quickly smoothed the cloth down again, however, so that Hokee wouldn’t see.

“I draw lots though...and I’m gonna get paper when I have to get more clothes. Mine have blood on them.” He said this with a straight face. Even if he was a bit upset about the fact that he either had to get new clothes, or that he wasn’t allowed to wear his blood-stained clothes around too often, Michael didn’t show it. He was mumbling still, and dripping onto the grass. “The paper is always really small though.”

Third person. Different, but nothing new for his ears. Though the context of the speech was highly different then what he was used to hearing when someone talked about themselves in third person. A nice change in pace or not, he couldn't give an answer for that. The gloating and bribing rights did give you the perfect opportunity to talk about yourself like that. Things were different here, different with various people. It couldn't ever be safe to say things were just one way, it fluctuated to much around here.

"What about closets. Give some color to a broom closet." Okay, it wasn't as impressive as maybe painting a whole room, but it was an option. no one could freak out about a closet getting a bit of life into it. Why would they. For the most part, you couldn't see the backs of the walls unless it was spring cleaning. That would be brilliant though, paint up a closet and a few months later it being found. Oh, he so had to do that.

Shifting about more, he was soon laying on his stomach again. Taking a can of spray paint, he started to cover his crutch with color. From the looks of it Michael seemed to be done with painting. Not wanting to ruin the painting, he decided to just bid his time waiting for it to dry a bit. He most certainly wasn't going to put the kid in a bathtub to clean up all the paint and such, not his style.

"My dad was a drunk, real ***. You're lucky...here at your age. Bet you wont get bloody clothes here." There were things that didn't need to be said, blood on his clothes, how pathetically scrawny this kid was....there had to be something really wrong with his home life. In comparison to his own, he didn't know. But it was messed up either way. Living in the mansion for himself was suffocating, but for a kid like Mikey, this was what he needed.

He ignored Hokee’s idea of drawing the closet. At the moment, things in the Mansion were too perfect to mess up. Even if there was conflict at the Mansion, or maybe something was a bit ugly, a window cracked through or something along those lines, Michael viewed it as untouchable and pure. He looked at Hokee with wide eyes, however, when he heard about Hokee’s dad. He knew about bad fathers.

A memory flashed through him. Drinking and violence, words that Hokee used left his mothers lips. The day mommy left. His daddy was yelling at mommy, and there were bad words making him yell even more. Mommy couldn’t take it anymore. Was daddy drinking then? His eyes looked down towards his feet and he started to fiddle more. It was quite obvious that he was taking slow breaths to calm himself down. Anger, sadness, all of that would affect him if he didn’t calm the emotions in him.

He lay down and curled up a little bit. He was going into a shell. He didn’t want to remember his father. All the hurts that happened, and all the times his father just walked past his room and caused a miniature panic attack. Many of his items destroyed just because he’d had a panic attack. Everything was too difficult for him to deal with right now. If only someone would reach out…tell him everything was okay. He needed that right now. Nothing was okay. Bloody clothes. He had them too. They were what made up all of his clothes. The bruises that he had were not the consequence of chance.