Hi Bored, I'm Dad. [Lukas]

[Clement Evans]

As one of the kids at Hammel of a fosterable situation, Clement Evans had been on the list ever since his arrival in Vermont. He needed more supervision than a dorm could provide, with health issues, emotional and psychological problems, and that matter of being three grades below where he ought to be and still struggling. But after a few false starts (that Clement was never aware of), his social worker finally interviewed a couple, fostering veterans, who wanted to take on another child.

The Miles family had had a great deal of success, particularly in fostering boys. The fact they had so many at the moment might be an issue; Clement was very good at fading into the woodwork when he tried and had a number of habits his recruiter and trainer had noted that would require close observance. The boy had been in a number of fights since his arrival, but nothing as horrendous as the one from his first day that had put him in the burn ward. He was close-lipped and rather sullen when he wasn't actively irritated. Still, he'd managed to make friends - Jesse Adams, his roommate, Lyra Caruso, and Mia Bell in particular, and he'd been working for Lahja Morgan since last November.

Today, he sat in Mr. Miles' classroom. He didn't have the man for history. His social worker, Aaron Fowler, sat in the room too, but off to one side to provide any information neither party had, or to redirect conversation if it lagged, which he could see happening. Clement wasn't exactly talkative.

At fifteen years old, the boy was small, skinny, and had short brown hair that stuck up every which way. He slouched on his chair, in jeans, sneakers, a t-shirt, suspenders, and a zipped red hoodie. His left shoelaces had gotten sort of messed up, so he'd cut them off and tied his shoe two holes down.

He didn't look up when a man walked into the room.

[Lukas Miles]

Lukas was staring at the mirror in one of Hammel's bathroom, coming to the stark realization that he was not Alyssa. She would be able to handle talking one-on-one with one of their potential foster cases. She'd probably even be able to charm her way into the boy's heart within the first ten minutes. Or at least she'd be a lot closer to it than he would probably be able to get. Usually he tended to make a child close lipped and nervous until his wife intervened. By pinching him or something equally childish.

The older history teacher tugged nervously at his tie, wanting to make sure it was set perfectly around his neck. Really, there should be no reason he should be nervous. This wasn't the first, second, or even the tenth time he'd met with a child. Nor would it be his last. But it was one of the few times (third, to be exact) that Lukas was having an informal (slightly formal) meeting with a child with Alyssa not being present. Which meant he would probably get no end of trouble if he returned home and said that it went poorly. Or, god forbid, he said something Alyssa deemed "inappropriate". Which wasn't likely to happen, but god knows how she could find something he could have said better. She would probably find fault with him being dressed to formally.

But still, he could do this. He'd done it more than once before Clement. So if he just put aside his nerves, something that was easy for the tracker to do so long as he was nervous inside, everything would go along swimmingly. So he finished adjusting his tie and begun his rather short walk to the classroom. It had seemed the easiest place to meet the boy at the time, even though he had still expected Alyssa to go with him. The tracker paused outside the door, once again wondering why he couldn't have his wife's knack for words, before pushing it open and walking inside.

What greeted the teacher was a sight he wasn't all too unfamiliar with. A small boy slouching in a chair with the 'I don't care' posture perfected to a T. Lukas saw it many times in his classroom, and even more when he went home. The boy, Clement, might create some problems later on but Lukas was sure whatever he had up his sleeves was nothing they hadn't seen before and nothing they couldn't handle. He walked around slowly to sit across from Clement, nodding briefly to Fowler off to the side.

"I'm Lukas Miles... It's just me today as my wife has other business to attend to. She asked me to tell you she says hello and she's excited to meet you." His voice was deep, but not unreasonably so and after a few moments of debating he offered Clement a very small smile.

[Clement Evans]

The only thing he had to be thankful for was that he'd heard Dr. N had fostered and he wasn't the one coming to the meeting. The man terrified him, and seeing him in subsequent meetings after the initial one had not done anything to change that. Clement didn't know much about the history teacher past his name and that he seemed to be a teacher kids didn't talk bad about. Not that he'd heard wonderful things either, but no constant complaints, like some others, who assigned too much homework or gave long assignments over weekends or vacations. His English teacher was one of the latter, but he was also behind and not showing a marked improvement.

Though he didn't look over when the door opened, the man still presented himself to him. Dressed kind of like Dr. N, with a tie and a dress shirt. Clement thought it was sort of stupid trying to dress that nice in a school full of kids who set fire to shit or sweat acid or did other things that made having nice things around rather risky. The man moved slowly, carefully, almost like he was performing. Through his bleary eyesight, Clement thought he looked a little... stiff.

Something... he had no idea what it was (but was probably fear) was making him angry. Made him want to walk out, tell the guy to fuck off, or whatever else was in his power to do. Now that fostering, having new "parents" was staring him in the face, Clement felt uneasy about it. Afraid. Mr. Fowler had already told him that if he spoke any Korean he'd call up Mr. Dietrich.

Clement felt no need to introduce himself, since Mr. Miles probably knew more about him than really fair anyway, so he sat, silently, glaring at the man's rather unfocused shoes.

After a moment of that, Fowler cleared his throat rather pointedly at his charge. Clement considered answering in Korean. Just once.

He couldn't see the smile on Miles' face.

Finally he said, "Don't you have enough kids?"

Fowler sighed.

[Lukas Miles]

Lukas probably was stiff in his movements, though he wouldn't go so far as to say he looked like he was performing. It was just the way he'd been taught to hold himself when in the company of people not directly related to you. So he continued doing it long into his older years. The teacher didn't miss the way Clement's eyes had trouble focusing on him, an observation that had the older man frowning slightly. Was the boy blind? No one had mentioned anything like that. Granted Alyssa had rushed them into this more than usual so they hadn't taken the time to ask their usual string of questions before meeting the child.

Once he had said his part in the way for greetings, Lukas sat straight in the chair. He hadn't really expected Clement to speak first but he didn't really know what there was to say past introductions. Alyssa always took the lead in the meetings, which Lukas was content with, but without her here he was at a loss. Did he discuss Clement's current situation? That didn't seem it would end well. He could talk about the whole arrangement, but he'd rather get to know the kid first.

Thankfully the teacher was spared trying to come up with small talk when Fowler cleared his throat. Which spurred the younger man into speaking. Granted the words coming out weren't the nicest Lukas had come across but he'd seen a lot as his years as a foster parent. So it didn't faze him, nor did it seem all that bad. There wasn't any cussing, so he'd count it as good.

"Actually, right now we don't have any foster kids. Miles and Spencer are our sons and we're adopting Thomas." He paused, thinking over his words before continuing, "Granted in a week I'm going to pick up Samuel, but we're used to having multiple fosters at a time. So as long as you'd be comfortable living with us we'd take you in. You'd even have your own room."

He smiled once more before nodding his head briefly. "I'm ashamed to admit Alyssa, my wife, was rather excited for the meeting so neither of us got much information about you.. Do you play any sports or participate in any after school activities?"

[Clement Evans]

"I didn't mean fosters. Just kids," he murmured, looking at his sneaker toes. Four seemed like a lot, and all were boys unless someone had liked non-gender conforming names. That made him uncomfortable. Not that girls would've made him feel better, but he knew how ugly boys could be. Girls could be nasty too, but their brand centered more on saying things. Boys that troublesome just moved right into physical confrontation.

Having his own room made him look up, squinting, skeptical. What kind of guy had a house with that many bedrooms? "You live in a dorm?"

Tone notwithstanding, Fowler felt things were going reasonably well. Somewhere, someone was gentling the kid. Clement hadn't refused to speak, dropped any four-letter words, and hey, he'd even shown up. Three things that six months ago Fowler would not have expected.

"No." Even if he'd had the money and transportation for extracurriculars, Clement was not much of a joiner. "I got a job."

[Lukas Miles]

"Ah, I can understand then." He spoke gently before sitting straighter in the chair, eyes regarding the murmuring boy. A vague thought that the boy should be looking at him but he shoved it aside. They had too fosters to worry about all of them displaying even minute amounts of manners. So the fact Clement wasn't cussing at him was making the older man happier than he'd care to admit to. "Well all the boys are fairly kind, we've only had a few problems when they were younger. And don't worry about being bullied or the like, the boys are far too used to other kids to cause problems." He offered this amiably and another smile graced his lips.

The next words out of the boy's mouth had Lukas struggling against the urge not to laugh. Not that what the boy asked was extremely, but more that he could picture his wife's face. She'd probably find it as amusing as he did. "No. But we live in a very large house..." He paused once before letting the laughter fade away and his face became a little more of his usual "teacher" face, "...We have eight bedrooms, Clement. So I'd actually rather say yes, we live in a dorm." And an extremely large house. With a large yard. And an apartment thing over their garage.

The teacher nodded once with Clement's words, keeping the surge of worry carefully buried. It wouldn't be the first time they had a boy with no activities but Lukas couldn't help but wonder if it meant his usual attempt to bond would prove fruitless. If the boy had no interest in archery then... Lukas didn't really know what else he would use to get to know the kid aside from the usual everyday stuff. Maybe the boy would accept him as tutor? "Oh? A job? Where do you work at, and do you enjoy it?" Maybe he could find some common ground here.

[Clement Evans]

Even if Clement knew exactly where the teacher's eyes were, it was likely he'd either still be ignoring them out of personal discomfort or boring into them with his own to try figuring out what was happening. He really did need glasses something fierce. But neither his schoolwork or his job truly necessitated them, and he slid by as well as he knew how.

The bit about the bullying rankled him. Here was someone who had likely not been confronted by peers in quite some time, and likely not the way Clement had. His eyes squinted (without improving his vision much, sadly) and his mouth twisted. "Kids pick o-on each other. It's what they do," he murmured, expression further darkening at the brief verbal stumble. Dammit, he could not do that here. Not now.

All disagreeable things disappeared from his face at the mention of the house, smoothing out into blankness. The only sign of the shock were his wide eyes. "Eight fucking bedrooms?"

Along with a kitchen and bathroom... well, two bathrooms, probably three, maybe even more... and a living room and wherever the hell they did laundry, and probably at least four more rooms Clement had no name for but that rich people had... that was... past a mansion. Not quite to castle, but Clement's vocabulary didn't stretch far enough to include words like 'manor' or 'villa' or 'estate'. He also felt that a giant house like that would stand out more in Pilot Ridge, but he'd never heard a word. Jesus.

Clement heard Fowler clear his throat, a comment on his swearword. He didn't pay it any mind, or even acknowledge he heard it. His lips just pressed together briefly.

"I work for Mrs. Morgan. She has horses. I do stable stuff." And he'd been squirreling his pay away like a miser, save that case of Korean ramyeon back last winter. He still had most of it. For a fifteen year old kid, he'd put away a sizable stash, but to his too-old eyes it wasn't enough. Clement could have a million dollars in his bank account and he'd think it wasn't enough. Not because he wanted to be rich, but because he was that paranoid about being dirt poor again.

Fidgeting in his seat, Clement looked at the floor in front of Fowler and asked, hesitantly, "What if... I don't want t-to go?"

Dammit.

[Lukas Miles]

Lukas was well aware kids picked on one another, but he had a tendency to make sure there was nothing similar in his house. There was the occasional roughhousing and teasing as there would always be with boys. However, Lukas and Alyssa kept a sharp eye on their new fosters to make sure their household's peace was kept. Not to say that they were completely without problems - like Spencer pushing the limits when he first showed up - but Lukas liked to think that they were isolated cases. After all they never let too many problem children (or at least those who would incurable) into their home. Was it wrong of them? Maybe, but Lukas knew it was best for keeping the peace when dealing with so many children in one place.

His lips twitched lightly at the sight of Clement's wide eyes. Surprise was definitely nothing new to Lukas when it came to someone knowing how large their house was. The 'fuck' slipping out of the young boy's mouth once again failed to effect the older man as he settled into his chair. He was more comfortable now that he thought he had a slight idea what Clement was like. Lukas was certain he wouldn't muck this up and earn his wife's disapproval.

Hazel eyes flicked over to Fowler at the throat clearing, but Lukas didn't speak up against reprimanding the boy for cussing. "I see. Do you also ride them or is it only a job? Or... Well, I haven't been around a horse since I was younger than you so I'm not entirely sure what else there is to do but ride them and care for them." Okay, so he wasn't a conversationalist. But he was trying and - in his mind - he had yet to shove his foot in his mouth. So Lukas was just going to mentally pat himself on the back for being able to say anything even remotely positive.

Well. He thought he hadn't put his foot in his mouth, but when he heard Clement's hesitant voice he mentally went over the past few minutes. Where was it he went wrong? Not that it mattered really. Lukas knew as well as any that some kids just didn't like certain people but he couldn't really see how Clement might form an opinion so easily. "Are you not wanting to live with us, or be fostered at all?" He spoke up in the same tone as before, his voice not giving away the fact he might have been a bit hesitant himself. "If it is the former then it could be arranged you come and spend the weekends with us, the rest of the week in your dorm unless its a break from school. Maybe spend a week at our home in the beginning just so you are used to it."

Lukas once again ignored the fact Clement stuttered some. Why would he bring it up anyway? He wanted the kid to like him, not hate his guts.

[Clement Evans]

"She gives me lessons, sometimes," he admitted. "She said I was a good size for training. The horses. Not me." He shrugged. "She has them pull carriages."

There wasn't too much more he could say about his job, unless Mr. Miles wanted to hear about how much crap a horse could put out and what they did with it.

Technically, the man had not done a single thing wrong, except exist. Clement was wary of all adults, and his suspicion meter could not go any higher for one he might end up living with. Mr. Miles also seemed... smart. Book smart. Like the kind of guy who read for fun or didn't mind watching documentaries outside of school. Anyone who fostered kids had to be smart, of course, but it wasn't a kind of intelligence Clement could relate to, and it was the kind he recognized that he often butted heads with.

Most kids like him (stereotypically, anyway, 'angry young men') did not want new people telling them what to do. Clement certainly didn't, though he had to admit that being entirely rudderless and without guidance wasn't exactly doing him any good either. Besides, the point was moot. Fowler spoke up again from his side of the room. "It's non-negotiable, Clement. If an available foster family is willing to take you, and they're a good fit, the state, and I, want you there." His voice softened a bit. "You're still young, kiddo. You don't have to shoulder everything yourself."

"Jal jinaeyo," he replied sharply, throwing an annoyed glance to his social worker. Even not knowing Korean, Fowler could guess what he'd said. But after a raised eyebrow, Clement translated for him. "I do fine."

"You do," Fowler agreed. "But you could do better. A two week trial isn't a bad idea, Lukas."

One week wasn't quite long enough for Clement's hackles to lower, but a month might seem oppressive to him.

Clement stared at the floor. He didn't know how he felt about this, just that his stomach was becoming upset.

"How about pickup tomorrow morning? So you can pack," Fowler suggested.

Clement shrugged. He didn't have much.


*jal jinaeyo - I am doing fine.