Work Text:
It happened in a series of events. Like dominoes, each pushing the next into action.
First came the event.
Then well, Christopher’s nine and excited and he tells his friends about the event.
Christopher’s friend, Aleah, tells her mom of the event on the ride home, in between stories of lunch drama and kickball games.
Aleah’s mom, Tori, tells Aleah’s dad, David about the event
David (and Tori) are concerned about the event.
Tori (and David) take a drive to the school the next morning, and just after dropping Aleah off for class, they meet with Amy, the schools principal to talk about the event. (Tori also calls a few mom-friends, to express her concern, but they’re not really important here).
And Amy- Amy calls Joanne.
So, that’s the series of events that have lead Joanne here. Here being a rather homey looking building, there’s a lone basketball hanging out in an only slightly neglected plot of flowers. Before she ever even knocks on the door, Joanne can hear the faint sounds of Buzz and Woody from the Toy Story series.
The man who opens the door when she does finally knock is a tall, dark haired man dressed in a comfortable looking leisure outfit.
“Mr. Diaz?” She notes that he opens the door only enough to fit his own shoulders through, angled in a way that obscures her view of the inside of the home. “I’m Joanne Hawkins with Child Protective Services,”
Like many parents Joanne has encountered in this situation, Mr. Diaz takes a quick moment to process that information. He blinks hard once and says predictably, “What?”
“Child Protective Services,” She reiterates, hands him her card. She checks her notes again for the child’s name, “Is Christopher in the home currently?”
“What?”
Okay… so this one’s going to take a minute.
“I’m following up on a concern,” She says vaguely, then gestures to the door, “May I?” She shoulders in anyway.
”Concern… about Christopher?”
Joanne hums noncommittally, not agreeing or disagreeing. She takes less notes about the homes interior than she pretends to. She exaggerates because it throws the parents off, typically at least.
“Is Christopher here?” She rephrases.
“He’s- yeah- I’m sorry, what is this about?”
“Just some concerns have been voiced that we’d like to clear up,” She gives him a moment to finally glance down at the card she’d handed him with her information stating who she is and who she works for.
“This really should be rather quick,” Joanne lies, “If I could just speak with Christopher.”
“No,” Mr. Edmundo Diaz says far too quickly, he must realize it as Joanne’s eyebrows shoot up, because he backtracks a bit. “What-What do you want to talk with him about?”
“Hey Eds,” another male voice calls, too old to be nine year old Christopher Diaz. The man turns the corner, coming from where the sounds of Disney movies originate. “Whoa, uh, what’s this?”
Diaz hands over the card, letting the blond man look it over as well. “C-P-S?”
Now, Joanne is use to the risks of her job. Going into people’s homes, especially in the context that she does is never ideal. However much that she knows mothers can be dangerous, she’s always a bit more weary of the fathers. And now she’s starring down two clearly unhappy grown men…
It’s not her most enjoyable day at work.
“Joanne Hawkins,” She gives her name again, “And you are?”
”Uh,” He says like he has to think about it, “Evan Buckley. I-uh, work with Eddie.”
They’re both large men, not particularly threaten beyond that, but she gives a bit when Mr. Diaz says, “She said there’s ’concerns’ about Christopher,”
“Well,” Joanne decides her new route of getting what she needs, “The concern I’m looking into isn’t for Christopher specifically. I do need to ask him a few questions about the situation at hand, though.”
“I’m guessing we can’t be around for that,” Mr. Diaz says like he doesn’t believe her as far as he could throw her… which is, admittedly, a bad metaphor considering he looks like he could throw her pretty far if he wanted to.
”Hm, got it in one,” she jokes very lightly.
Mr. Uh-Buckley is tippy tapping away at his phone. He turns the screen to Diaz who takes it. “Says she’s legit,” Buckley mumbles to the other man.
Point one to the strange man. It’s rarer than Joanne likes for a parent (or, parents co-worker?) to confirm her identity. It usually means one of two things, this encounter is about to go really well, or really horribly badly.
The movie in the other room pauses as Mr. Diaz scrolls on the other man’s phone.
“Dad?” The expected young boy’s voice calls out this time. A shuffling pause and then uneven, wavering steps. “You guys are-missing the movie!”
“Christopher,” Diaz starts, but the boy rounds the corner anyway.
Joanne tries her best to smile, warm and friendly without being condescending. It doesn’t seem to help, Christopher Diaz dislikes her on sight. “Who’s that?” He asks, pulling on Buckley’s arm.
Buckley crouches down, putting himself a bit lower than Christopher’s eye-line, “That is, uh,”
He’s forgotten her name or he doesn’t know how to explain who she is. Either way, she cuts in, “I’m Joanne, you must be Christopher,”
The boy turns his glare onto his father, “Why is she here? It’s movie night. Why-why is she here?”
Interesting, however, “I’m actually here to talk to you Christopher.”
The boy blinks, “Oh,” a pause to think, “Why?”
“Is there maybe somewhere we could talk?” Joanne asks the room at large.
Christopher looks to his father, then down at Buckley and then back to his father again. “And then you leave?”
Buckley smothers a laugh, poorly.
“And then I can leave,” Joanne confirms.
“Okay, I guess,” Christopher sighs and turns back into what must be the living area.
It took a bit. First she had to convince the two men to stay in the kitchen while she spoke with the boy. Then she had to convince the boy to speak.
At first, she tried the ‘befriend’ tactic, which from earlier observation she should’ve known would not be well received. She picked up an abandoned piece of Lego, intent on asking the boy to play a bit with her.
“No!” He rather gently takes the piece from her hand before she can even make the suggestion.
“Oh, alright. Well,”
“Ask your stuff so we can have movie night again,” the boy pouts.
So, she starts with basics. She tries to never just jump into the hard stuff. He’s not very receptive to questions about school or even his interests like games. He’s very quick to shut her down when she touches on a topic he doesn’t want to talk about, which is most of them, as it turns out.
“You told a friend at school about something that happened here at home not long ago,” she starts in, a bit awkwardly, but so goes her job. “About another friend you had over?”
Christopher shrugs.
“Do you know who that friend would have been? Who’s been to your house lately?” Another shrug, “Who’s your best friend, then?”
“Buck,” Quick and easy, and Joanne has a certain feeling.
“You like ‘Buck’ a lot then, does your dad like Buck a lot too?”
Another easy nod, and then, suddenly, as if he hadn’t been icing her out this whole time, Christopher tells her, “A lot. They kiss now,”
“Christopher,” she says, that feeling getting stronger, wanting to bubble over. “How old is Buck?”
The boy scrunches his nose rather cutely, shrugs, and then answers every other question she could ask by yelling, “Buck!”
Both men practically teleport from the kitchen. Diaz and Buckley both tripping over each other to get to the kid.
They look between Christopher and Joanne quickly, “What’s up, Buddy, you okay?” Diaz sounds only slightly breathless.
“Buck,” Christopher emphasizes who he’s talking to, “How old are you,”
Mr. Uh-Buckley says, “Uh- thirty,” like it’s a question he only barely studied for.
Joanne’s feeling finally bubbles out of control and she’s laughing out loud in the poor man’s face. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, this is unprofessional,” she gets out through her giggles, “Oh, jeez, I think we’re done here.”
She gets herself up from where she’d sat on the couch to talk with Christopher, she looks back to the boy as she starts to make her way towards the door, “Thank you so much for talking with me Christopher, and I’m sorry for interrupting your movie night.”
Joanne barely stops herself giggling all the way out the door. Mr. Diaz makes the short journey to the door with her and she can’t help but advise, “You may want to speak with Christopher’s school about who he means when he’s telling people his dad likes to kiss Christopher’s best friend.”
And because she’s so professional, she doesn’t giggle again until she’s in the car and driving off.
Inside the house, Eddie slumps up against the closed door.
And then he gets his shit together and goes to join his boys on the couch.
“What just happened?” Buck says, visibly confused.
“Chris,” Eddie ignores Buck for the moment. “Have you been telling people that me and Buck kiss?”
Chris looks innocently between them. “Was I not suppose to?”
“Well-No, I guess I just didn’t know that you knew… about… that,” Eddie says rather lamely.
Chris gives him a look that says, duh, Dad.
”And you’re, you’re okay with that?” Buck takes the next question right out of Eddie’s mouth.
Chris swivels to direct his duh, Dad look to Buck in a duh, Buck expression.
“‘Cause you didn’t really like me dating last time, with Ana-“
”And it’s fine if you’re not okay with it-“
”I didn’t like you dating Ana.” Chris says like it explains everything. “It changed things. You dating Buck doesn’t change things,”
And well, isn’t that telling. Even Eddie’s nine year old is giving them the it’s about time speech.
“So, you’re not gonna date her?”
“No, bud,”
Chris looks to Buck who takes a second to realize the question and confirm, “No, buddy,”
“Oh, then I feel bad,”
”Why do you feel bad?”
“‘Cause I was mean,”
Chimney, at least gets a good laugh out of it when they’re telling the story a day later at work.
“So-So Chris tells someone you’re kissing his ‘best friend’ and they call CPS on your ass!”
“I mean, woo, four whole years, really robbing the cradle there, Diaz,”
Hen, as it were, gets a pretty good laugh too, actually.