Michael’s room was like a man-cave, but with a more...kid touch. There wasn’t anything decorating it. No fancy curtains or hot wheel cars all over the place, he’d literally created a cave. It was in the corner of the room, away from the door a bit, and it was because the room was too big for him to handle. The salary of both of his parents wasn’t necessarily enough to warrant a huge house, with a dorm-room sized bedroom. He had a small bedroom, with things everywhere, but he had a niche. This was what Michael had created himself. It was a cozy area, and he’d dragged the blanket off of his bed to wrap around himself when he went to bed.

During the day time, he spent a good ten minutes flattening the blanket again on the floor. That blanket was his designated play space. He’d carefully lay out every toy that he liked, and he’d begun to develop a bit of a habitual routine. It was a nice thing, to have a routine, because he knew what to expect, and he knew what was coming. Mixing around the leggo’s, he started to put some things together. It was mid-morning. Michael had already set his routine into motion, and Leggo was the first thing on the agenda.

The pieces were all the same that he’d come with, and still had their original stains on them as well. The pieces were small, but he’d played with them when he was hurt before. Michael had already been here at the Mansion for some time now, enough time to meet a person, and then configure his room, but he’d kept himself inside there for a while after that. Things outside of his room were scary. There were things that he didn;t understand, and that killed him a bit on the inside.

Michael put the yellow in the yellow pile, the blue in the blue pile, and the red in the red pile. So on and so forth this went until the piles were completely even. He didn’t have any leftover block colors, because he’d done this on the first day, and then threw the leftovers into the trash. As he got his green leggo board ready to build on, Michael chose a piece from each pile systematically. It wasn’t really a pattern unless someone was actually paying attention, because it would appear to be just a bunch of colors on a building.

Today, he was making a house. Houses meant special pieces, but he’d put special pieces in a different bucket. The house itself needed special pieces occasionally, but he looked at the piece and planned it out. All his special pieces were different colors anyways, so it didn’t disrupt his pattern.

Anyone who came into the room would most likely see an untouched section, and then a little piece with Michael touched, and a piece that seemed to be becoming part of his home. And then there was Michael. His body was covered with only a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt, that was all he wanted to wear, and his arms, hands, legs...it was enough to show that he’d been through an ordeal. There were still lots of healing bruises, and lots of marks that looked almost like a clasped hand had formed around.

Unfortunately, the man in charge of making those horrible bruise marks was claiming that his son was taken away from him without just cause, and he was filing charges against the school that had taken them. Mikey was unaware of it...but his father was trying to get money for taking Michael back. He didn’t care about Michael at all, his father never had, but there was also something else. There was no way that the boy could go into court in his state. He peed at the site of someone in the hallway. So, teachers were going to have to come up with some means of proving there was a right need for Michael to leave.

His brown hair fell into his face, in desperate need of a haircut. He wouldn’t let other people but himself touch it...and the doctor had tried to but Michael nearly ran away from him too. He ran away from lots of things. The doctor...people who tried to make him eat a lot of meats and high protein meals. The only way he was getting his nutrients at the moment was by mixing them into a high protein shake. He’d gotten a bit of color back now, however, and he was a bit less defined in his shape.

Jorge had heard the story from the mansion staff. One of the new students, a child, was a runaway but this boy was apparently being sought after by his father. While normally there was nothing wrong with this, lots of mutant kids runaway from parents because they think they don’t understand, this was an entirely different ballgame, though. This boy, Michael, was found with suspected evidence of abuse. That was why the detective was called in, just to listen to the boy’s side of the story, to see if he could reveal anything about what happened to him, and who did it.

Strolling down the lengths of the mansion halls, detective Jorge Cervantes sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose to release some tension. The detective tried to dress less official-like for the boy. Instead of his usual dark gray suit and coat, Jorge instead opted to wear a dark gray shirt, blue jeans, and his favorite bomber jacket over his thick frame. Around his neck his badge on a chain bounced along with every step, catching the sunlight in just the right angles to send a cascade of colors in all directions.

He sighed as he rolled is neck from side to side, now, to help further relieve some stress. Ever since hearing about this case the man had been in a sort of whirlwind. Not only was it a tragic thing to hear about this child’s possible upbringing, but it killed him because Michael was so close in age to Chase. Recently Jorge had finally started to become very close to the boy and the similarities between Chase’s background and Michael’s was just too much for him to bare. Both runaways, both with abusive parents, it was enough to make the cop wish he could just be left alone with those men for five minutes.

But, alas, he was the law; and he needed uphold it at all costs, despite his personal feelings on the matter. So, taking a calm breath and remembering that there was a lot this boy had gone through, Jorge knew that he was going to have to be both patient and friendly with the boy. If Michael decided to clam up, then there would be little that Jorge could do for him. They needed to remain on speaking terms.

Hopefully the boy would be chatty today.

Checking his watch, he saw that he was exactly on time as he arrived at the door that he was directed to. One breath, two breaths, and Jorge raised his knuckled hand and gently wrapped upon the door.

“Michael?” he asked gently through the door. “My name is Detective Jorge Cervantes? We have a meeting?”

The boy was of course told that someone was coming, but the deadline wasn’t exactly real to him. When he focused in on numbers, the other numbers seemed less important. So, the number that said what time he was coming, and perhaps the date as well had been lost to his head. When the knock came on the door, howerver, it was a rude awakening that perhaps he’d have to break his schedule.

Thoughts swum about in his head as he thought about the man that might be behind the door. He took a deep breath. This person was...was..a policeman detective. Right? Yes. He’d been told that a policeman detective was going to come to talk to him about his dad. But it was his leggo time, he didn’t want to interrupt his Leggo time. The little boy got up and looked around at his room. He had a few prized possessions in this room that were his, and his alone. .

Though he understood that the man was a police officer, he still didn’t want to have his favorite things on display. He carefully moved his backpack onto the bed and put in the precious game player he’d gotten from Koga. It was his, and no one else was allowed to have it. He also put in a small bear of his that he liked to sleep with at times, and it took away the hurt when he was at home. This was of course why it was a bit bloodstained and well worn.

He took a few deep breaths and then moved towards the door. He was about to get there when he realised that he didn’t really want a guest to see his pillow either. He made a break for the computer, which his pillow was next to, and tripped. He fell flat on his face of course, then had to quickly get up. He grabbed his pillow, and he put it over with the blanket he’d put on the floor.

The little boy looked towards the door. Okay, now his room was ready. He moved to the door, reaching up to slowly open it. He didn’t look up at the man for more than a few seconds. He wasn’t able to really look people in the eye for any length of time, and this man was no different. The room was almost as he’d left it, but it was quite obvious that he did not sleep on his bed, but over in his little corner. As soon as the door opened, the little boy looked down at his feet and mumbled. “I...I’m Michael.” He then moved to his Leggo and sat in front of them. It would be easier to talk there.

He didn’t talk to people he didn’t like, as a general rule, so hopefully this person was nice. He started to put on some more leggo, though he was still kind of nervous. The little boy’s body, covered in bruises and a few healing cuts, was quite obviously also dealing with a bit of malnutrition. Physically, there was enough evidence of starvation and abuse, but for courts nowadays, that may not completely hold up as an argument.

There was commotion behind the door. Jorge could hear the sounds of small feet as it moved back and forth. He was not sure what that meant but he did not want to panic the child by pounding on the door and asking him incessant questions. He needed to take things slow with the boy, especially after everything that he had gone through. Michael needed to view Jorge as a friend. That was the only way that they were going to make any headway in stopping the boy’s monster of a father. He had read the report, and he was not happy.

Hopefully he could confirm things with Michael, enough to accurately relate the story so that the father’s objections to the boy living here could be soundly smashed. But Jorge couldn’t do it alone. He needed Michael to cooperate.

He hoped he didn’t clam up.

But before long, he finally heard the door knob turn and looked down to see a young boy standing in front of him. He was no older than Chase but he looked like he had been through far worse punishments. Jorge sighed but looked sympathetic.

>> “I...I’m Michael.”

He turned and had walked back to his side of the bed where there were some of those lego blocks all set up. Silently the detective followed after him and closed the door behind. The room looked pretty bare, except for that one small corner that Michael occupied. His blocks had been separated by color and as Michael worked, there seemed to be pure decisiveness about which blocks he had picked out.

Carefully Jorge walked up to the boy but did not want to corner him. Instead he merely watched the boy working before he respectfully nodded to the spot on the other side of the lego house he was building, across from him.

“Michael,” Jorge asked gently. “That looks really cool. Mind if I join you?”

This police officer, to Michael, was so far not a bad person. He was more inclined to not like older, larger men just because of what happened whenever his father generally came into the room. So, Michael was a bit more jittery than he usually would, and it took him a few tries to get the leggo where he wanted it to go. The boy chose each color in succession, going throughout the line with occasional glances at the man’s feet.

There were little mannerisms about him that did really show what he truly felt, though he did look relaxed. For instance, he kept glancing just slightly at the man, and when his feet moved just that much closer to the little corner he’d made for himself, he nearly flinched, though it was more like he positioned himself a bit differently where he was. This wasn’t on schedule after all, and the man was supposed to come, but normally at this time he was spending time with his leggo by himself.

He knew that most likely he’d have to make an adjustment to this, but the fact that the man was coming in made him a little bit scared at what might come about. He realized that his fear was starting to get the best of him and looked down quickly at one of the gloves on his two hands. He took a few deep breaths. He didn’t really want that to come out...because he didn’t want his mutation to be shown or used in any way.

Michael managed to get himself calmed down again, though he put one of the gloved hands in his lap. The stick thin little boy tried to cover it, though he wasn’t sure exactly how to. He awkwardly moved this hand behind himself, and then back in his lap, where it seemed he wanted to keep it for now. Michael took another few deep breaths and then started in on his leggo again.

As soon as he did that, he started to calm down a little bit, which made things a bit better when Jorge spoke to him. Michael moved a few of his piles so that the man could sit down. However, he didn’t want to have his pattern interrupted by the man’s playing with him, so as the man got settled with where he wanted to go, Michael explained the rules in the mumbling tone he often used. “Th..there’s a pattern. You’ve got to go in the order that I go in. It’s white...then green, and then blue and other things like that. It’s all in order anyways.” He didn’t make direct eye contact with the man, but he gave a quick glance at least towards the males face. He was just checking to see that there was no evil look or anything.

Jorge was making the boy uncomfortable. Even he could see that. But this meeting was important and the only thing that Jorge could do was to tread carefully and hope that he didn’t make the boy clam up. He needed him to feel comfortable so Jorge did his best to appear as none threatening as possible. That was why Jorge asked to join the boy in playing with the legos. If he could just get Michael to lower his defenses a little, the detective might be able to get an accurate statement from him.

The burly detective sat once Michael had given him the permission to and cleared up some space. Jorge nodded appreciatively as he slowly lowered himself until he was sitting with his legs crossed on the other side of the legos.

But even as he tried to calm the boy, Jorge could not help but notice the boy’s timid nature. His flinching, his scars, the way he made himself as small as possible. It was truly a tragic thing to see such behavior in a child as young as Michael. Jorge had seen such behavior before. Many a times was he called out on suspected child abuse cases when he was working in Miami and all of them just managed to get to him at a level deeper than he would have liked. Police officers always tried to keep themselves separate, to not get personally involved. Obviously that is not always possible.

Jorge connected and he wanted to help each and every one of these victims that he came across. Michael was no different. He really hoped he would be able to help.

>> “Th..there’s a pattern. You’ve got to go in the order that I go in. It’s white...then green, and then blue and other things like that. It’s all in order anyways.”

The detective nodded as he watched Michael work. He had to admit that the boy certainly had a great sense of symmetry and color. In silence he watched, observed before he finally started his own attempt at building a structure similar to Michael’s. He tried following the color patterns but it was obvious that he was not as adapt at picking out the right colors as Michael was.

He smirked a little when the boy finally glanced up at him and Jorge showed him what he was building.

“I guess I’m just clumsy. I can’t make anything that looks nearly as good as yours, Michael,” Jorge said with a nod. “You do good work.”

Michael was actually kind of accepting the male a little bit already. He sat down, and he did try and follow the pattern. Michael didn’t generally like to have things just “tried” or “attempted” when it came to puzzles or different patters, so he moved slightly to sit nearer to the male, his stick thin arms and legs nearly tangling as he crawled a bit closer. As the man moved to grab a piece for the structure he was creating, Michael would carefully remove the last piece he’d put on his, and put the right one on.

This continued as long as he wanted to build. It was a bit fun, working with someone else. Of course, he policeman wasn’t really getting much of a chance to build his own structure. Michael really wouldn’t allow that. It was his leggo, after all, and this man was only playing with him. If it was his game, the older man would have to agree with the rules of the game. Michael added each one in succession in fact with a sort of air of importance.

It was really good for him to feel important and necessary. Most of the time, he felt in the way, or as though he was merely taking up space that could be used for another kid. The reasons for this probably stemmed from the innate need to be in small spaces, and the need to stay away from any other kind of established service of sorts that wasn’t of his own doing. It would be okay once he got used to people, but for now his classes weren’t really being even attempted.

He took up a window block and stared at the structure that this man was building. Soon, he’d decided that it needed a window. Michael carefully fit the window exactly where it would need to go, and he then continued the pattern starting from the color of the window, which was red. Or rather, he let Jorge attempt to continue the pattern, but changed every block every time that he didn’t like it.

Michael warmed to Jorge and he spoke aloud, though slightly cautiously about his experiences with leggo. As he put down a slightly red-stained green piece, Michael began his normally one sided conversation. “The...the leggo helps calm people down because patterns and numbers and colors are always good for calming things down. It’s easy to be good with Leggo.”

He hadn’t of course mentioned anything about why he was being “Good” with the leggo when he played with it, but this time he was a bit more open. Jorge was doing a few key things that allowed the opening of this conversation. The first correct thing was that he sat with Michael and did the puzzles with him. The second was the fact that he was sitting. The state of sitting meant that Jorge would be at around the same level as Michael. If he was really tall all the time, Michael would feel very intimidated. And the last thing was that Jorge wasn’t attempting to force Michael to look at him. By far that would be the worst thing to do. He couldn’t look people in the eyes without shrinking back in fear.

“Puzzles...puzzles and Leggo just take a long time to learn. It’s not easy to play leggo’s. There’s a lot of rules. Like...like that the color can’t go sideways more than once in the same row.” It didn’t make sense to many other people, but to a little boy who entertained himself alone in his room all the time, it was only natural he’d try and create entertainment for himself.

Jorge had done his best with following the pattern that Michael had laid out but for the detective, it was easy to get lost. The pattern was all nicely laid out, and while theoretically it should be easy to follow, the detective did have trouble. He kept glancing at the boy, finding an old bruise here, a healed over scar there, even leggo piece that looked at if it could possibly have had blood on it at some point (or just a spot of ketchup). All of it just proved to be a bit jarring for the detective. He had to wonder just how much pain this boy had seen.

But he was not going to force Michael to clam up by outright asking him about everything. He needed to ease into it. Though he was no child psychologist, the detective had to speak with kids like this before. And every time it broke his heart to see the scars they bore. He could only imagine how horrendous the mental ones could be.

So, he remained in silence, only regarding the boy, offering him a kindly smile or two, as he let the boy help him to make the correct pattern for his own structure. Before long it seemed more like Michael was making the piece, but Jorge let him, only added pieces when he was allowed to so that it fit the structure that Michael was making.

>> “The...the leggo helps calm people down because patterns and numbers and colors are always good for calming things down. It’s easy to be good with Leggo.”

“Really?” Jorge asked with a smile. “It does feel rather calming working with them.”

That was a hint at least. The patterns, the organization, the colors, maybe Michael used these to keep himself calm. He doubted that was just a random bit of information that the boy would suddenly drop out of the blue. But the detective said nothing on the issue. He merely nodded, still impressed by the boy’s work.

>> “Puzzles...puzzles and Leggo just take a long time to learn. It’s not easy to play leggo’s. There’s a lot of rules. Like...like that the color can’t go sideways more than once in the same row.”[/i]

Jorge nodded as he listened to the boy. He went back to playing along with the leggos, trying his best to keep up with following the patterns.

“You are very good at leggos,” Jorge said as he kept his eyes on his own leggo blocks. “Have you, you know, been playing with them for a long time?”

Michael liked Jorge. He agreed that Leggo was calming, and didn’t say that the leggo was confusing or that the patterns were a bit too hard to follow. He didn’t call Michael weird for making up these patterns either. This was a good thing for him. Though the schedule of his normal day was tainted by the appearance of the male, he was adapting just a bit to having the police officer in his room. After all, the man was keeping to his schedule by playing with Michael, and he was staying on his side of the blanket. The most important thing was that he didn’t try to touch Michael. Touching was bad, because touching really hurt.

The little boy watched him put the blocks together on his, and the male seemed to be getting the picture, understanding the pattern, so Michael let him do that and he moved to his stashed backpack. He looked at the man, and then he allowed himself to pull out his little bear. It was a worn out bear, and it seemed like he’d had it for a while. This too was blood-stained...and almost a sickening sight to many. Just the image of the little boy almost glaring at his feet as he held it, however, would hopefully keep this policeman from asking about the bear specifically.

Then Jorge’s next question came about. Michael...was a bit scared about the answer. He knew that he needed to share it though, because he had been playing for a long time, but he wasn’t really sure about the amount that he wanted to say. For a long moment, Michael stopped playing leggo and just looked down at his bear. He lifted its arms slightly and made the bear hug him around the middle. It was an anime referenced bear, but it was hard to tell now because of it’s seeming abuse over the years he’d had it...since he was six at least.

Michael swallowed and looked back at his leggo, making the bear pick up some pieces. He liked Jorge...and that was why he’d explain the Leggo usage. No one else but chase would really get a response such as the one he was going to share. “My...my leggo. I got it when...when my dad and mom decided that I should stay in my room. And...and things like my Leggo I played played with. Sometimes when things were bad I’d get more leggo, or I’d play with it under my bed sometimes. It was easy to hide under...and...and I played leggo for a long time...and found out the rules.”

It took a lot of time for him to get through that statement, and he continued making the soft fabric of the bear conform around the leggo blocks. He dropped them sometimes, but then was able to pick them back up. He did make the bear put them on now though. It was another bit of comfort. The feel of the bear’s fur was not new to him, and so he was able to keep himself settled. Well...he couldn’t really feel it too well through his gloves, but he knew what the feeling was at least. He looked at one of his gloved hands, and he itched the material slightly. It wasn’t that soft on the inside, like his older gloves had been, but he hadn’t necessarily been given much time to pack.

Michael noticed that Jorge’s pattern was a bit messed up again, so he moved slightly closer to the male, like a cautious little kitten, attempting to get used to its surroundings as it moved. He needed a little bit of time to get used to each distance he had from Jorge. Michael took a small glance at his face and then looked quickly back down at the structure. “It’s messed up again...the blue goes after this one...”

It was really breaking his heart thinking about what this young boy had gone through. Jorge hated working cases like this when he was back in Miami because it always took so much out of him. It was almost as if just listening to these kids and their horrendous experiences caused him a piece of his soul.

Maybe it did. For a child to have to go through such terrors and not come away from it without a piece of their soul taken away was simply unheard of. Maybe that is what they needed to just come out and tell their stories: maybe they needed just a piece of a the person willing to hear them in order to help them talk. It was like borrowing from one jigsaw puzzle in order to get the entire picture of another; in order to Jorge to understand what any of these kids have gone through, he needed to give away a piece of himself.

If that was what Michael needed in order to relate to Jorge, in order to open up, then so be it. He wanted to help that boy, to keep him as far away from that psychopath who could have harmed him so readily. That was why the detective did his best to not press Michael to talk, but to give him plenty of opportunities to relate his story on his own.

So far…it seemed as if it was working.

>> “My...my leggo. I got it when...when my dad and mom decided that I should stay in my room. And...and things like my Leggo I played played with. Sometimes when things were bad I’d get more leggo, or I’d play with it under my bed sometimes. It was easy to hide under...and...and I played leggo for a long time...and found out the rules.”

Jorge said nothing. Instead he kept his eyes on the leggos and kept trying to build. But it was obvious that the boy’s words had managed to have an effect on him. While concentrating on trying to stick to the pattern, it quickly became apparent that he was having trouble separating the rules from the leggo building and listening to Michael’s story. Normally he would have taken out his pad of paper and pen by now, but he didn’t need to freak the boy out by jotting down his words. Instead, Jorge memorized them as best he could until he could leave the room and jot everything down.

It was not evident to him, though, just how distracted he had gotten with Michael’s words until the boy had managed to crawl over, again and pointed out his mistakes.

>> “It’s messed up again...the blue goes after this one...”

“Oh, sorry about that, Michael,” he said with a warm and apologetic smile. Jorge did his best to undo the pattern until he could fix that one piece he messed up. He then concentrated and continued with the set pattern from there. “You’re very good at remembering the rules. Did…you know…things get ‘bad’…often?”

Jorge was smarter than Michael, by far, when it came to planning out different social interactions that would take place. Whenever Jorge did something, it was probably planned for, or he was trying hard to make Michael feel comfortable. It was all the little boy could do to keep himself from just crawling under the bed and hiding in most things where he had to talk to people, but in this case it was a little better. This time he wanted to talk to someone, or maybe tell them about things.

It was weird though, his father had such a large amount of intimidation that Michael didn’t know what he should or shouldn’t say. Obviously, though, he hadn’t had a chance to see what would happen if he told another person. He’d just been trapped in his room for a long time, and hadn’t really seen any people who weren’t visible from his upstairs window. They never had company, so Michael never had the opportunity introduced to him. That was why he was silent for a moment after Jorge’s question. He moved his teddy bear closer to himself and nibbled just slightly on the tip of the bears ear.

It wasn’t that he was hungry or anything, he just wanted to nibble on the bear because it helped him think. He thought about his father, and how his father was angry at him for just existing. The little boy managed to speak after a long pause. “Things got bad...a-a lot.” This was mostly forced out, in between the small bites he gave to the well-loved bear’s ear.

The taste wasn’t very good, so he made a slightly wrinkled face and looked down at his waist where there was a slightly concealed fanny pack. It was given to him with a few snacks inside, and he also put in a few of his other most prized possessions that he’d gotten via the mansion. He looked at the pack, opening it to look inside. He realized that he didn’t have any more food in there and frowned. He would have to ask someone to fill it again...and that was not something that he wanted to do. So, he started to nibble the bear’s ear again.

He took a small glance at Jorge again, and it seemed that he’d stopped with the leggo enough to just be worrying about telling his story. Unfortunately, he didn’t know what he should tell. It was a whole new thing to him. “D...daddy and mommy started to fight sometimes about...about keeping me in my room. And daddy blamed...he blamed it on me because I’m not supposed to be born...and then he got real angry sometimes.” He bit down a bit more on the bear, it was clear he was getting nervous again now that he’d forgotten about the leggo, and Jorge seemed to be getting the hang of it. The little boy held his bear close to him and looked above the bear at this policeman for a second, and then he looked down again. “Things...things were always bad when he came upstairs. A-and...and I was never allowed to leave my room either. But..but daddy said it was my fault.”

Jorge had asked his question and instantly he could see the look that had dawned over the boy’s face. It looked as if Jorge had struck a nerve, even in his attempts to try to be as vague as possible. For a second there he feared that maybe Michael was going to clam up. The one thing he was here for was to get Michael’s side of the story, but if the boy suddenly became too fearful to talk to him, then what was he supposed to do? He needed Michael to talk otherwise all of this would be for naught.

Thankfully, even though it looked as if Michael was going to suddenly freeze up, he began to talk. Still there was no eye contact between them but Jorge was only glad that the boy was talking.

>> “Things got bad...a-a lot.”

Jorge sighed but he said nothing. He knew this was going to hurt. The boy had escaped a traumatic experience and it was obvious that he was still having painful memories from just trying to recollect them in order to put them into words. But as much as the detective did not want to put Michael through that misery, he knew that he needed him to talk. So, with eyes still focused squarely on the legos, he listened closely and tried to not spook Michael into not talking.

>> “D...daddy and mommy started to fight sometimes about...about keeping me in my room. And daddy blamed...he blamed it on me because I’m not supposed to be born...and then he got real angry sometimes… Things...things were always bad when he came upstairs. A-and...and I was never allowed to leave my room either. But..but daddy said it was my fault.”

His mind flashed with thoughts of the boy’s possible experienced. He tried to remember every word that Michael said so that he would make sure to use them in his report. From everything that was being said, it looked indeed like Michael was the victim in all this. And if this was the case, then there was no way in hell that he was going back to his father. No judge would accept the father’s case.

Michael shifted and looked up at Jorge, for only a split second. But it was enough for Jorge to turn back to the boy and see the hurt behind his eyes. Sympathetic, Jorge sighed and tried to give him a warm and caring smile in response.

He had to choose his next words carefully.

“Michael, do you understand that…he was wrong? Your dad?” Jorge explained. He gently reached into his pocket of his coat and pulled out his wallet. Slowly he opened it so that it revealed his shiny, gold colored badge. Gently he turned it over to show Michael. “You see that? That means I can’t lie. You didn’t do anything wrong, Michael.”

Michael looked at the badge the policeman held out and then took it from him. What was there to say? What was there really to do in response to what the man had said to him. That things weren’t his fault. He knew that they were, but maybe the person didn’t understand. The policeman said that his father was the one who was wrong, but Michael still caused all the arguments that happened. He was the whole reason they were there. If he hadn’t been born, the arguments wouldn’t have started at all.

“This…the badge of a policeman. The policemen sometimes are good, unless they’re using fake ones.”

He was referring to his animated shows of course. At times, the policemen represented everything that was bad about the show, but at other times the policemen were good. He believed that perhaps Jorge was a good policeman. Michael stared at the badge, still not looking directly at the policeman as his mumbling voice once again left his lips.

“I have to tell…now I have to tell the truth. We take turns, and th…then you tell the truth next.”

He was turning it into a game, into a pattern that had a routine. It made him relax quite a lot more to know that the pattern was in place. Michael looked at the badge and traced over it with a gloved finger, holding his teddy bear to him with his upper arm and elbow. It was easier to stay near the man when he had something comforting, after all, and with his mumbling it was better that he was closer to the person he was talking with. Chewing on his lip a little bit, Michael started to make the rules in his head. He was kind of making a truth or dare game, only it was just with truth.

“Wh…when I have the policemen badge you can ask me a question and I have to say the truth…because this means that you tell the truth. So…so you…you can have the policemen badge first.”

He mumbled this into the teddy bear slightly, so it may have been hard to hear, but he was generally enjoying this actual conversation. Or rather, he hoped it was a conversation. He could never truly been sure. His skinny hand reached out to place the badge in front of the man, and a handprint-shaped bruise covered his wrist.

>> “This…the badge of a policeman. The policemen sometimes are good, unless they’re using fake ones.”

Jorge nodded. The boy had taken his badge and was looking it over carefully, methodically, regarding it as if he were trying to figure out whether Jorge’s words were true or false. To Jorge that badge always meant trust and capability, but the boy was right, there were those few people who would use the badge for bad means. His ex-partner, for one, was one of those people. He used his badge in order to steal from those people trying to protect the rest of the populace.

But Jorge was not that type of cop. When he wore the badge, when he identified himself with it, he knew that there was a trust there that he would never break. To him, the badge actually meant something. He hoped that Mikey would be able to understand that.

When the boy was done looking at the shield, he didn’t lift his gaze much higher towards Jorge. Instead he kept hugging his teddy bear. But he did seem like he was finally ready to open up a little more about his experiences. At least that is what Jorge assumed when Mikey held the badge back out to him.

Carefully, gently he took it from the boy’s hand, but he did not put it away. Instead he held it loosely as Mikey started to speak…

>> “I have to tell…now I have to tell the truth. We take turns, and th…then you tell the truth next…Wh…when I have the policemen badge you can ask me a question and I have to say the truth…because this means that you tell the truth. So…so you…you can have the policemen badge first.”

At first Jorge didn’t understand what the boy was saying but it gradually dawned on him that he was trying to turn this into some type of turn-based game. Jorge didn’t know if that is just what the boy needed to get the words out but it so, that was just fine. The detective was only glad that he was finally feeling comfortable enough to talk. Michael still was not looking at him but at least he seemed like he was trusting him more with every passing second.

Jorge nodded. He would agree to this game.

“Okay,” he said, holding the badge in his hand. “Ask me anything.”

Michael was generally a cautious little boy. He took time to care about what he knew was going on, and then carefully came up with a plan. Michael closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath. The policeman had accepted Michael’s idea of the game. He took hold of his teddy bears arm and fiddled with it for a bit. He had to ask a question now. Michael fidgeted uneasily. It was part of the game, so that meant that he had to. He looked down at the leggo for a moment and then started to carefully take apart what he made. It was due to the lack of Leggo that he actually had.

He mumbled a bit at first, then looked up slightly. The mumble was unintelligible, and he didn’t really necessarily seem to notice until he tried to mull over what he said, and he couldn’t remember it. Michael’s heart thumped in his chest as he tried to come up with a question. It had to be a good question, because he didn’t want to waste his turn. The boy nibbled a bit on his lip, and the hand that wasn’t squeezing onto the well-loved hand moved to fiddle with his hair, which was well overdue for some kind of hair-cut.

After steeling himself once more, Michael began to think of the topics. He could probably ask about anything he wanted, but that was too much. Really he should just talk about the policemans family, because the policeman wanted to know a bit about Michael’s family. Blinking a bit, Michael realized that, in fact, this was what he would do. “P..police have..have families too. And probably have kids and..” He trailed off. No...no that wasn’t really a proper question.

With a big breath he started again with his question. “Do...do you have any of me?” Was that right? He wasn’t entirely sure. It was probably going to be hard for the policeman to understand that Michael was asking him if he had any kids, so he would try once more to get his message across. “And...and I’m a son. Like...like a boy.” Yeah. That would definitely make sense. All the policeman would have to do was to connect the pieces of the puzzle, and things would be okay!

Nodding at himself, he continued to take apart the leggo house, not sorting the pieces as they came off. That wasn’t soemthing he did after the game, he did it before so that he wouldn’t have to rely on what had happened the last game. And leggo was a game, of course. So, therefore, there was every opportunity for him to be sure the pieces were together. Who started a game without all the pieces?