wwx in foster care
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"Yanli," he says, "but don't try to do the tones, white people doing tones is horrifying. She's perfect."

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Awwwwwwwwwwww. "I will endeavor not to horrify you. ...You must miss her a lot. Do you talk on the phone often?" 

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"Sometimes."

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Nod. "You're welcome to use our house phone to call her, if your phone plan doesn't cover it." 

She sips her cocoa again, choosing her words carefully. "It must be difficult being in another city from her. Do you understand why Social Services wasn't able to place the two of you together?" 

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"They think she's better off without me."

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Oh noooooo kiddo. Evelyn keeps her face calm and level but oh no

"...Listen, honey, I really doubt that's why. In an ideal world there would be a nice family with a big house who could take all three of you. But the thing is, there aren't enough foster carers, and most of them have children with them already. Finding a placement for three siblings is difficult. And Yanli was almost eighteen when you three were taken into care, so Social Services would have wanted to support her in becoming independent, rather than finding a family she could stay with for years, even though in a perfect world of course I would want to take her too. But you're only fourteen and it wouldn't have been appropriate to place you in a group living situation like her. Does that make sense?" 

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"I told them I wanted to live with her after she turned eighteen, I get that their stupid bureaucratic rules won't let her have her own apartment until her eighteenth birthday and I can't live in the group home with her but there's no reason I can't live with her afterward. And they said that she needs to start her own life without needing to take care of me because I'm just a burden on her and she doesn't want to see me."

None of this is right which is why Wei Wuxian is going to run away from foster care. With Lily. Yanli is going to love Lily.  

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Careful, Evelyn reminds herself. She still doesn't know much about the situation. Maybe Yanli is overwhelmed by the abrupt transition in her life and did express to Social Services that she couldn't cope with being responsible for her wayward brother on top of everything else she's dealing with already. 

"I don't know what other people told you," she says quietly. "And I haven't met Yanli so I can't say what she wants. In my past experience, Social Services is desperate to find relatives to place children with, and it be a relief for everyone - and save them money - if you could live with your sister. But we also have a duty to make sure that you're safe and well cared for, and having to live independently with no family support at eighteen is hard enough without also being a parent to a younger sibling. Social Services would want to make sure Yanli is coping well on her own before feeling comfortable asking her to look after you too. ...Also, I believe she's still in the group home and not her own place? She would be eligible for housing assistance but it can take a while sometimes for an apartment to be available and for everything else to be lined up." 

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"I can find her an apartment. How hard can it be to find an apartment?"

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"...Oh, love. I think it's a lot more complicated than that. And it might be a lot harder for her to get set up with an apartment that has a bedroom for you too, at least to start. But - hmm." She would not be surprised at all if the Vegas Social Services completely failed to update him on anything related to his siblings. "Once you have a social worker here, I can ask them to call the department in Vegas and find out what the next steps are for Yanli and how long it will be before she has her own place?" 

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He does not buy that for a minute. 

"...kay."

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Of course he doesn't believe her. Which is exactly why Evelyn is intending to be very on top of this, even if it requires making herself annoying at a social worker. She's pretty good at that; she has a lot of practice. 

"And I think it would be nice to call her tomorrow. It's too late tonight, but I'm sure she would want to hear from you and know how you're doing." ...Oh dear hopefully that's actually true. But Evelyn is almost certain that even if Yanli is struggling and doesn't feel able to raise her younger brother, she would be graceful about taking a call from him. 

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"It is actually never too late for Yanli to hear from me, because she loves me. And it's what, 8:30? Yanli is not in bed at 8:30. But it's the same bullshit from all of you people. Next thing it's going to be 'well, we were too busy to get to it today but I'm sure we'll get to it tomorrow' and then 'well, you can call Yanli if you do your homework...' and then it's Privileges Like Speaking To Yanli Are For People Who Haven't Stolen A Car Recently, Wei Wuxian. I don't even see what the problem was with stealing the car. I didn't damage it, it was the middle of the night so they weren't going to be using it for anything, and I refilled the gas. If I had a nice sportscar I wouldn't mind teenagers borrowing it." 

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It's closer to nine now but that's a fair point, Yanli is eighteen and probably not asleep at nine. 

"- Well, stealing a car is against the law and you could end up with a criminal record that would make it a lot harder to get jobs in the future," she says. "But you're right, it isn't that late. I don't mind if you call her, but would it be okay if I talk to her a bit too? I always like to get to know people who are important to my foster children, and I can ask her for her lotus root soup recipe." 

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That worked????

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"I don't have her current number."

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"Do you know if she has her own phone or if she uses a phone at the group home she's staying in? I can probably look up where that is and I might be able to find a phone number for it tonight. Or if she has an email address, maybe you can send her an email and ask what phone number she's using now?" 

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"She uses the one at the group home, I think. She has an email but she never checks it."

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"Right. I'll do what I can to find it tonight, but there's a good chance I won't, I'm sure you've noticed by now that sometimes the paperwork can be - problematic."

Sigh. "I'm sure there's Social Services funding for Yanli to have her own cell phone - not a fancy iPhone or anything, but a basic one - and then it would be easier to stay in touch with you. Not to mention I don't think a shared phone number is ideal for putting on job applications. I can try to get in touch with her social worker on Monday and ask about it?" 

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"... ... ...thanks."

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What does that expression mean. "- I won't if you think it would make her uncomfortable? But she may not know what she can ask for, and her social worker probably has an enormous caseload."

(Certainly Evelyn's stereotype of a Chinese girl raised by strict parents is 'polite and unassuming' - who knows if the stereotype is accurate here but Yanli might just not want to cause trouble or make a fuss - and also she has a vague sense that Asian kids, maybe especially girls, aren't necessarily expected to move out at eighteen unless they're, like, going to Stanford or something. Which Yanli is clearly not doing. The foster care system...really doesn't do right by the 16-18 age group, in Evelyn's opinion, you can say that someone is an adult at 18 and should be fine to manage their life alone with a bit of benefits money and a list of phone numbers for services, but god forbid, Evelyn wouldn't have coped, and her parents had been preparing her for independence. Just, like, the kind of independence where she went home on Sundays for a good meal and could call home anytime she had a flat tire or lost her wallet or even just had a fight with her roommate. 

...She's trying not to stereotype too hard but it would be kind of shocking if Yanli hadn't had college plans, aren't Chinese families all about academics? And that could really throw a spanner in "plan Wei Wuxian lives with his sister until he's eighteen", if she's going to spend the next four years in a dorm. But it would be even worse if the poor kid's college plans get scuppered because Social Services is used to the teenage demographic where a GED is high achieving and Yanli is too timid to advocate for herself. Evelyn is probably meddling way too hard here and it's not, in fact, her job or her business - and Wei Wuxian might actively prefer she leave the matter alone - but she can't help it.) 

 

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She is sure acting like she wants him to be able to talk to Yanli. But that's how they get your hopes up. This one is not different. None of them are different. 

"Anything else I need to know?"

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"Not that I'm thinking of right now! You're welcome to stay down here and watch television if you like, or hang out in your room if you keep the volume down so Lily can sleep." The volume on the television set is, with Jeremy's tech support advice, locked to a highest setting that Lily will sleep through. "- No food in your room but you can help yourself to anything in the kitchen as long as you clean up after yourself and write it down on the fridge if you finish a package of something so I know to get more."

That's not the rule for younger children, obviously, but she didn't get any red flags about Wei Wuxian's diet in particular, and he doesn't seem likely to have challenges with food insecurity and hoarding (unless, of course, it's a habit he's picked up to annoy foster carers, but in that case Evelyn will simply have to not rise to his bait). If it's a problem, she'll bring it up then. Her alcohol stash is down in the basement in a locked cupboard. If Wei Wuxian manages to get into that, she'll...have to relocate it to Maureen's house next door or something...and also be genuinely impressed at his ingenuity.

If Wei Wuxian seems fine, she'll go wake up the computer in her study and start poking through scanned digitized paperwork. Would Yanli's number be on the school records, maybe - no, even if she used to pick him up sometimes when they lived at home, Social Services wouldn't have considered it appropriate once the kids were in care - maybe some of the previous foster carers have it, it's a bit late to call but she'll text everyone whose number she has... 

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Wei Wuxian returns to his room and Cryptography Made Simple. 

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It is, unsurprisingly, not actually realistic to find a contact phone number for a specific group home in another (large) city under a different Social Services department, when the files she has are incomplete and also for a different child. Only one of the other foster parents replies to her text, and says she doesn't have the current number anymore, she had Wei Wuxian with her for a couple of months last year and she's pretty sure Yanli moved since then. She didn't supervise the handful of sibling calls they had, since there weren't any safeguarding concerns with Yanli specifically. She says she offered to Wei Wuxian that Yanli could come over for dinner if she wanted but either Wei Wuxian never relayed this or Yanli didn't want to or didn't get around it, so she never met her. 

Evelyn does, somewhat miraculously, manage to find the name of Yanli's social worker, though not contact info. Some determined Google detective work finds him on LinkedIn and she's able to locate which office he works from. Which is also findable on Google and has a generic office phone number and email listed. Evelyn emails the office and leaves a moderately snippy voicemail for the receptionist, saying that while it's not an emergency, sibling contact is very important for foster children and it's unacceptable that she wasn't provided with details to arrange it, and she would like direct contact info for Yanli's social worker as soon as possible. (She won't be snippy with him directly, even if she thinks he's asleep at the wheel on Yanli's case; it's more important to have a friendly working relationship.) The poor social worker who drove Wei Wuxian over probably doesn't know anything or have anything to do with this case, but unluckily his cell number was on the paperwork. He gets a (less snippy) text asking for his manager's details so that Evelyn can sort out some missing information in Wei Wuxian's file related to sibling contact. 

...Okay, that's probably a more-than-reasonable amount of annoying to make herself about this. 50/50 odds it gets her an answer by Monday. 

 

Evelyn goes upstairs and taps Wei Wuxian's door to let him know. "I'm afraid I can't find where Yanli is staying, it sounds like she's moved at least once, but her social worker is Dan Forster and I should know his contact details soon. Maybe tomorrow, definitely by Monday. I'm sorry this wasn't handled before you arrived - it's my mistake, I assumed you would have her details." 

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