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PIC PROMPTS / TFLN / RANDOM SCENARIO
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Seriously?

-- but! But, on the bright side, she doesn't lock the door. Not that locking it would get her very far, because this door is half-broken and kind of awful? Breaking in would be a breeze.

Point is, he doesn't have to.

He just opens the door behind her and slides in, saying, "Actually, this is exactly what I was looking for. I have a missing person."

What the fuck?

This kid has a lot of nerve, the little shit. Jessica would be impressed if it wasn't her he's being a little shit with. Instead she turns and glares, ready to pick him up by the scruff of his neck like a kitten and set him back outside her door.

"Sure you aren't the missing person? Because breaking into people's apartments sounds like the kinda bullshit missing kids get up to when they aren't kidnapped."

Wait... There's a sudden spike of morality, a flash of conscience.

"Were you kidnapped?"

"No! No," he says, raising his hands, fingers splayed. "No, that's not it."

Well, sort of? He accidentally ran off from his mom, let go of her hand that day, and no matter how many times his social worker tells him no one ever filed a missing persons report for him, he knows she's waiting for him.

"I mean, kind of." Sympathy could play well for him, here, and he doesn't even really have to lie to get it. "I'm looking for my mom.

And I can pay you." More specifically, he can steal a wallet or two. Details. "Whatever your rate is, I can do it. "

This small child is really gonna try her patience. She's still very prepared to grab him by the scruff, though now she might drop him off with social services instead of just kicking him out of her apartment. But the glare softens, just a smidge.

"You really can't. Minors can't sign contracts, and I'm betting whoever could sign for you doesn't want you to be here."

"Who said I'm a minor?"

He is. Nothing if not persistent.

Jess just... Looks him up and down.

"My eyes, you pipsqueak."

She'd feel bad if he hadn't just waltzed into her apartment like that was an okay thing to do.

"Look."

He pulls his bookbag off one shoulder, zips it open to pull out a notebook with pages full of writing...and a lot of crossed out names.

"Her last name is Batson. We were living in Philadelphia when it happened, eight years ago. December. I know she wants to find me. It just hasn't happened yet."

Well, shit.

None of this has a good feel to it. The quick math in her head puts this boy as a toddler eight years ago. He doesn't even know the first name, doesn't have anything to go on but there's still a notebook full of work done. All of this pointing to him being in the system, and fleeing it.

Jessica reaches out and takes the book from him, and it hits her.

"I saw you before, a while back, right? Last time you ran away?"

Her expression is softer, there's not much of a threat to throw him back to social services (at least not by the neck), but she still looks dubious. This kid belongs somewhere, and whoever he's looking for probably won't be it.

She'll read a long list of names, all women named Batson of a certain (broad) age bracket, varying first names, all living in Philadelphia. Some are crossed out, some aren't, and a lot of those that aren't don't have an address or phone number listed by the name. You know, yet.

He shrugs at her question. He's run away more than once since then, but there's not much point in correcting her. "Sure. So can you do it?"

Yeah, she notices that non-answer of an answer, but she doesn't call him out on it. Instead Jess spends a moment or two flipping through the pages, looking at the names. No similarities in first names at all... He doesn't even know his mom's full name.

Shit.

"Looks like you already did most of it."

She's not the only one noticing a non-answer of an answer. And in Billy's experience, what's not a yes is a no; and if she's not going to help him, there's no point to hanging around here. The longer he stays, the more likely she's going to send him back somewhere he doesn't want to go, probably. So he reaches out to pull that notebook back, put it back into his backpack; and at the same time, packs away that brief hope he'd shown her just as quickly.

"Okay, fine. Sorry for wasting your time."

The kid reaches for the notebook, but Jessica has it up in the air above her head before he's got a chance to actually do anything.

Playing keep-away with the child that broke into your apartment to hire you to find his long lost mother is a totally reasonable and good thing to do. Probably. Maybe.

"You oughta be sorry for breaking into my apartment, but I'll let that slide if you explain what the hell happened. I can't do shit if I don't know what it is I'm actually looking for."

No, she doesn't fully realize she just cursed in front of the child.

"Hey -- "

But she's both stronger and taller than he is, so he hops on one foot impotently to get his notebook back with no luck.

Which would make him a lot angrier normally, except for what she says. The child doesn't fully realize she cursed in front of him either tbh, because he's too busy with the everything else.

"Seriously?"

As in: seriously, she's asking, seriously, she might take the case?

How does she get herself into this shit? Why is this her life?

Once he stops hopping, Jess lowers the notebook down a bit rather than making herself stand there with one arm up toward the ceiling like an idiot. Hard to have a serious conversation like that.

"I'm considering it." Then, after a beat. "Pro-bono, so I can write it off on my taxes, but you still need an adult to sign the contract."

She hopes he's serious enough about this to let her connect him back to an actual adult that ought to be responsible for him.

"Not an issue," he assures her, like he's not demonstrably willing to lie to find his mother.

But there's no helping the smile that spreads across his face at her acquiescence (such as it is)...though he does a kind of repressed bounce on his feet just once, not out of excitement but squashing down the urge to try again at swiping back his still-out-of-reach notebook.

"So what do you need to know?"

About what happened, he means.

God, what is going on with this kid?

He bounces and smiles, and Jess just frowns a little. None of this story so far is gonna be particularly pleasant, she knows it.

"The usual, but we can start with how you got separated."

It's a carefully chosen word, separated.

Look, it's been a very long time since anyone's willingly agreed to help him with this. This being the only way he's willing to let anyone help him at all; and usually he has to take what he can and try his best.

So he tells her.

About the Winter Carnival in Philadelphia, his mom taking him, the balloon darts game, how she won him a compass.

(He takes a little compass keychain out of his pocket as he talks, shows her quickly and then fiddles with it as he continues with the story.)

Then he talks about dropping it, letting go of her hand to find it, and then getting lost in the crowd. He'd found his way to the cops monitoring the fairgrounds, who'd put out an alert for a lost child, and...

...that's pretty much the whole story.

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