calmyourshit (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
calmyourshit) wrote2013-09-08 02:10 am
calmyourshit) wrote2013-09-08 02:10 am
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"I wasn't in the room when it started," Noah said, gesturing to Adrian. "He has the story."
"Okay," Adrian said, shifting in his chair and looking serious. "I want to tell you up front that I broke a pretty big rule. But I had no other choice other than to let Joy hurt me, herself, or one of the other kids, and I obviously couldn't do that. I didn't harm her physically in any way."
"And she could seriously hurt the other kids or even Adrian," Noah cut in. "You know how big Joy is for her age, and she's strong, she'll go running outside or do pushups if she gets bored. That's on top of werewolf strength. I can only just handle her and I'm both way stronger than him and trained to physically restrain people." Adrian was nodding as Noah spoke.
"Okay," the social worker said, nodding. "I'll have to hear the story before I can say anything more."
Adrian exhaled and rubbed his hands over his thighs. "Okay. Well, I had asked her to do the dishes, and she was resistant. She didn't want to do them when they were going to get dirty again in a few hours, but we needed dishes to eat off of, we were basically arguing about that. She was getting really angry, so I asked if she wanted to make some stars -- the origami stars, you remember, right? One of our other wards, Jared, doesn't like loud fighting -- Joy was yelling a lot by this point -- so he ran by the door to go hide in the laundry room, and Joy looked like she might go after and attack him. So I got in the doorway, between her and Jared, and she hit me. You can see the bruise here," he said, with a gesture to his jaw.
Noah quietly reached over and took Adrian's hand, holding it firmly. Being hit was a little more serious for Adrian than for most people, and he knew it, wanting to protect Adrian from it. Adrian squeezed back a little, grateful, and kept going. "I told her we don't hit, but she hit me again and started trying to push me down the stairs. So I pushed her against the wall of the kitchen with wind, careful to keep anything in the kitchen from flying and hitting her. She fought it and tried to come after me, but she couldn't get traction in socks on a tile floor in hurricane-force winds. She wasn't calming down, but Noah got home a couple of minutes later."
"I'd been out with our other two foster kids, the twins, taking them for ice cream as a reward for good behavior. I heard Adrian call for my help, so I went upstairs. He let go of her and she ran at us, but I caught her and safely physically restrained her. She was starting to shift at this point, involuntarily, so I hauled her into the basement, where there was less she could damage. I got her in front of a mirror so she could see herself shifting and that seemed to wake her up enough to calm down. She locked herself in the bathroom and stayed there most of the evening, came out and went to bed after everyone else was asleep."
The social worker nodded, seeming to mull this over. "So...what you're telling me is this." She looked at them, eyes wide and serious. "Noah was outside with the twins when Joy started to yell and hit. Adrian called for Noah's help, who came in and restrained Joy until she calmed down." She looked at one, then the other, leaning forward slightly over her desk.
Adrian frowned. "No," he said. "You forgot-"
Noah stepped on Adrian's foot behind the desk. "Yes, ma'am," he said. "That's what happened."
It clicked and Adrian frowned unhappily, but nodded when the woman looked at him. "Yes, ma'am."
The social worker relaxed minutely and nodded, looking to her computer screen as she typed. "I'll type that up now and have you both sign it before you leave," she said. "A copy will go in your foster file, and a copy into Joy's, as the precipitating incident for bouncing her to therapeutic care."
Noah blinked in shock, but Adrian was nodding. "Okay. That's probably the best thing for her," he was saying. "She's just so angry. She has every right and reason to be, of course, but it's very hard to handle, especially with three abuse survivors in the house. We didn't go through this with Jared, and the twins are doing really well with some extracurriculars to help vent their emotions."
Noah felt cold. "I'm not too familiar with your other cases," the woman said. "I'm Joy's social worker, so I only know a little. But I do know there's four abuse survivors, not three," she said, giving Adrian a pointed but not-unsympathetic look.
"Wait," Noah said, finally finding his voice. "What?"
Adrian looked at him, frowning. "What?"
"Bouncing her?"
There was quiet in the room for a minute as Adrian and the social worker exchanged a look. Adrian shifted in his chair, turning toward Noah and taking his hand again. "Baby-"
"Don't." Noah sent him a warning look and pulled his hand away, shifting in his own chair. He'd been slouching down like a kid, but he sat up and leaned forward now. "Look, she's hard to handle, yeah, but hard don't mean impossible," he drawled. His accent was emerging, a signal of how distressed he was." This is the first time she's done anything like this, can't we get some kinda three strikes thing goin' here?"
"It's the first of this exact incident, but it is not the first time she's done 'anything like this,' Mr. Miller," the social worker said firmly. "In the three months you've had her, she's been in four fights with her foster sister, two of which came to blows, and those are just the ones you've reported. The real number is four times that, isn't it?"
Noah rubbed both hands over his face. "Look, we'll get Melinda out of her room, that'll solve a lot of the problems. I mean, we got two pre-teens sharin' a twelve-by-twelve room, of course they're gonna fight. We'll put Marek and Melinda in the basement, they'll love that, so Joy has her own room. We can-"
"Noah," the social worker cut across. "I understand your apprehension. But Joy obviously needs to be in therapeutic care. She doesn't just need your love, she needs that and a lot more."
"Can't we get licensed for therapeutic care? I'll take whatever class there is to take."
"Therapeutic care usually involves parents who currently or formerly work in psychology, education, social work, things like that. It's not just a class to take."
Noah rubbed the back of his neck, clsoing his eyes for a minute. "Look," he said, face turned to the ground. "The thing Joy needs more than anything is stability. She's basically spent the last two years getting rocked in ways that most adults can't even try to handle." He looked up now, almost pleading. "Do you know what the suicide rates look like for new werewolves? It's fucking scary, and the vast majority of those are consensual. You know how insanely illegal it is to bite a child or anyone who hasn't consented, and almost half of new werewolves still decide to fuckin' quit within six months."
"I can see you've done your homework, but-"
"But nothin'," Noah snapped, voice cold. "She needs to stay in one place for awhile with people who love her. And we do." Noah studiously kept himself from looking over at Adrian. He wasn't sure if he could handle it if his husband looked anything less than utterly convinced of his own love for their problem child. "It's gonna take a little extra work and that's fine. We can do that. Just give her one more chance with us, okay? Please."
There was silence for a moment. "I'm sorry, Noah," the social worker said, shaking her head a little. "But with an incident like this, assaulting a foster parent, I don't have a choice. The rules are firm." Noah imagined he could see pity in her eyes.
He sat back in his chair, a lump in his throat. "Let's be fuckin' honest, how many foster parents in this state are there who've worked in psychology or education or whatever bullshit?"
"Noah," Adrian said quietly.
"No, I'm serious. What are the chances she's actually gettin' another family? She's goin' right into a group home, isn't she, and she ain't never comin' out, right?"
"There are no therapeutic homes currently open, so yes, temporarily, she-"
"Yeah, that's what I fuckin' thought."
"Temporarily-"
"I'll be outside," Noah said, standing abruptly and storming out of the room. Fortunately, the door was constructed such that it didn't slam against the wall even with a grown, angry man shoving it with all his strength.
Noah made a fist and considered punching the concrete wall, but there were people near enough to notice if he did that, and he didn't want to lose their foster license for something like that. So he sat down on a bench nearby, pressing that fist to his mouth and nose and closing his eyes. They were uncomfortably wet and he forced himself to take a breath. It wasn't very deep, but he forced another, and soon he was sucking in big gasps, letting the oxygen smoothe everything out. He imagined he could hear air talking to him, calming him down where fire wanted him riled up. He was air's son-in-law now, after all, why shouldn't he speak to Noah? This irrelevant train of thought helped him to calm down, helped him to forget about Joy's face and what it was going to look like through the back window of a car, and how it was going to feel like ripping a piece out of his soul.
Eventually, Adrian emerged, and Noah stood up, feeling oddly hollow.
"Hey," Adrian said quietly. "She's gonna come get Joy tomorrow. We've got some time to tell her." His hand came up, rubbing at Noah's shoulder, but he knocked it away more roughly than necessary.
"Don't fuckin' touch me." Noah turned without waiting to see Adrian's face, heading toward the car. If Adrian touched him, he was going to cry.
"Okay," Adrian said, shifting in his chair and looking serious. "I want to tell you up front that I broke a pretty big rule. But I had no other choice other than to let Joy hurt me, herself, or one of the other kids, and I obviously couldn't do that. I didn't harm her physically in any way."
"And she could seriously hurt the other kids or even Adrian," Noah cut in. "You know how big Joy is for her age, and she's strong, she'll go running outside or do pushups if she gets bored. That's on top of werewolf strength. I can only just handle her and I'm both way stronger than him and trained to physically restrain people." Adrian was nodding as Noah spoke.
"Okay," the social worker said, nodding. "I'll have to hear the story before I can say anything more."
Adrian exhaled and rubbed his hands over his thighs. "Okay. Well, I had asked her to do the dishes, and she was resistant. She didn't want to do them when they were going to get dirty again in a few hours, but we needed dishes to eat off of, we were basically arguing about that. She was getting really angry, so I asked if she wanted to make some stars -- the origami stars, you remember, right? One of our other wards, Jared, doesn't like loud fighting -- Joy was yelling a lot by this point -- so he ran by the door to go hide in the laundry room, and Joy looked like she might go after and attack him. So I got in the doorway, between her and Jared, and she hit me. You can see the bruise here," he said, with a gesture to his jaw.
Noah quietly reached over and took Adrian's hand, holding it firmly. Being hit was a little more serious for Adrian than for most people, and he knew it, wanting to protect Adrian from it. Adrian squeezed back a little, grateful, and kept going. "I told her we don't hit, but she hit me again and started trying to push me down the stairs. So I pushed her against the wall of the kitchen with wind, careful to keep anything in the kitchen from flying and hitting her. She fought it and tried to come after me, but she couldn't get traction in socks on a tile floor in hurricane-force winds. She wasn't calming down, but Noah got home a couple of minutes later."
"I'd been out with our other two foster kids, the twins, taking them for ice cream as a reward for good behavior. I heard Adrian call for my help, so I went upstairs. He let go of her and she ran at us, but I caught her and safely physically restrained her. She was starting to shift at this point, involuntarily, so I hauled her into the basement, where there was less she could damage. I got her in front of a mirror so she could see herself shifting and that seemed to wake her up enough to calm down. She locked herself in the bathroom and stayed there most of the evening, came out and went to bed after everyone else was asleep."
The social worker nodded, seeming to mull this over. "So...what you're telling me is this." She looked at them, eyes wide and serious. "Noah was outside with the twins when Joy started to yell and hit. Adrian called for Noah's help, who came in and restrained Joy until she calmed down." She looked at one, then the other, leaning forward slightly over her desk.
Adrian frowned. "No," he said. "You forgot-"
Noah stepped on Adrian's foot behind the desk. "Yes, ma'am," he said. "That's what happened."
It clicked and Adrian frowned unhappily, but nodded when the woman looked at him. "Yes, ma'am."
The social worker relaxed minutely and nodded, looking to her computer screen as she typed. "I'll type that up now and have you both sign it before you leave," she said. "A copy will go in your foster file, and a copy into Joy's, as the precipitating incident for bouncing her to therapeutic care."
Noah blinked in shock, but Adrian was nodding. "Okay. That's probably the best thing for her," he was saying. "She's just so angry. She has every right and reason to be, of course, but it's very hard to handle, especially with three abuse survivors in the house. We didn't go through this with Jared, and the twins are doing really well with some extracurriculars to help vent their emotions."
Noah felt cold. "I'm not too familiar with your other cases," the woman said. "I'm Joy's social worker, so I only know a little. But I do know there's four abuse survivors, not three," she said, giving Adrian a pointed but not-unsympathetic look.
"Wait," Noah said, finally finding his voice. "What?"
Adrian looked at him, frowning. "What?"
"Bouncing her?"
There was quiet in the room for a minute as Adrian and the social worker exchanged a look. Adrian shifted in his chair, turning toward Noah and taking his hand again. "Baby-"
"Don't." Noah sent him a warning look and pulled his hand away, shifting in his own chair. He'd been slouching down like a kid, but he sat up and leaned forward now. "Look, she's hard to handle, yeah, but hard don't mean impossible," he drawled. His accent was emerging, a signal of how distressed he was." This is the first time she's done anything like this, can't we get some kinda three strikes thing goin' here?"
"It's the first of this exact incident, but it is not the first time she's done 'anything like this,' Mr. Miller," the social worker said firmly. "In the three months you've had her, she's been in four fights with her foster sister, two of which came to blows, and those are just the ones you've reported. The real number is four times that, isn't it?"
Noah rubbed both hands over his face. "Look, we'll get Melinda out of her room, that'll solve a lot of the problems. I mean, we got two pre-teens sharin' a twelve-by-twelve room, of course they're gonna fight. We'll put Marek and Melinda in the basement, they'll love that, so Joy has her own room. We can-"
"Noah," the social worker cut across. "I understand your apprehension. But Joy obviously needs to be in therapeutic care. She doesn't just need your love, she needs that and a lot more."
"Can't we get licensed for therapeutic care? I'll take whatever class there is to take."
"Therapeutic care usually involves parents who currently or formerly work in psychology, education, social work, things like that. It's not just a class to take."
Noah rubbed the back of his neck, clsoing his eyes for a minute. "Look," he said, face turned to the ground. "The thing Joy needs more than anything is stability. She's basically spent the last two years getting rocked in ways that most adults can't even try to handle." He looked up now, almost pleading. "Do you know what the suicide rates look like for new werewolves? It's fucking scary, and the vast majority of those are consensual. You know how insanely illegal it is to bite a child or anyone who hasn't consented, and almost half of new werewolves still decide to fuckin' quit within six months."
"I can see you've done your homework, but-"
"But nothin'," Noah snapped, voice cold. "She needs to stay in one place for awhile with people who love her. And we do." Noah studiously kept himself from looking over at Adrian. He wasn't sure if he could handle it if his husband looked anything less than utterly convinced of his own love for their problem child. "It's gonna take a little extra work and that's fine. We can do that. Just give her one more chance with us, okay? Please."
There was silence for a moment. "I'm sorry, Noah," the social worker said, shaking her head a little. "But with an incident like this, assaulting a foster parent, I don't have a choice. The rules are firm." Noah imagined he could see pity in her eyes.
He sat back in his chair, a lump in his throat. "Let's be fuckin' honest, how many foster parents in this state are there who've worked in psychology or education or whatever bullshit?"
"Noah," Adrian said quietly.
"No, I'm serious. What are the chances she's actually gettin' another family? She's goin' right into a group home, isn't she, and she ain't never comin' out, right?"
"There are no therapeutic homes currently open, so yes, temporarily, she-"
"Yeah, that's what I fuckin' thought."
"Temporarily-"
"I'll be outside," Noah said, standing abruptly and storming out of the room. Fortunately, the door was constructed such that it didn't slam against the wall even with a grown, angry man shoving it with all his strength.
Noah made a fist and considered punching the concrete wall, but there were people near enough to notice if he did that, and he didn't want to lose their foster license for something like that. So he sat down on a bench nearby, pressing that fist to his mouth and nose and closing his eyes. They were uncomfortably wet and he forced himself to take a breath. It wasn't very deep, but he forced another, and soon he was sucking in big gasps, letting the oxygen smoothe everything out. He imagined he could hear air talking to him, calming him down where fire wanted him riled up. He was air's son-in-law now, after all, why shouldn't he speak to Noah? This irrelevant train of thought helped him to calm down, helped him to forget about Joy's face and what it was going to look like through the back window of a car, and how it was going to feel like ripping a piece out of his soul.
Eventually, Adrian emerged, and Noah stood up, feeling oddly hollow.
"Hey," Adrian said quietly. "She's gonna come get Joy tomorrow. We've got some time to tell her." His hand came up, rubbing at Noah's shoulder, but he knocked it away more roughly than necessary.
"Don't fuckin' touch me." Noah turned without waiting to see Adrian's face, heading toward the car. If Adrian touched him, he was going to cry.