Keysmith [NOT FANFICTION] ✓completed

Hopeless Situation, Check

"FRANCIS WHITE!"

"Coming, coming," Francis muttered, quickly piling the loose papers scattered around his office into something that could be classified as a stack, although it looked more like the aftermath of a volcanic eruption.

"Now, please!" Jeanette Silvers ordered, tapping her foot impatiently in front of the locked door to Francis's office.

"Well someone's moody," Francis muttered under his breath, cursing as he knocked over his coffee mug and sent the dregs of the dark liquid splattering over the cataclysm that he called paperwork.

"Francis, NOT the time. Open the door this instant!"

"I'm. Working. On. It!" Francis replied through gritted teeth, tripping over his chair and faceplanting on the floor. He closed his eyes, contemplating to just stay on the floor and ignore the rest of the world. The wooden floorboards were a bit chilly, but not much harder than the concrete floors in the downstairs cells and he'd spent a night there before — just a misunderstanding, but still — so he'd probably manage to sleep here too.

"Really?" Jeanette enquired skeptically, "because it sounds like you're trying to blow up your office. What on earth are you doing in there?"

"It's not like I'm making any more noise than I usually do," Francis grumbled, shoving the paperwork that had fallen down with him into a drawer, before walking up to the door of his office and meddling with the key in an attempt to unlock the door.

"Francis, if you don't open this door right-- oh. Thank you."

Francis gave Jeanette a steady glare, the doorknob still in his hand as he kept the door open.

"What is it?"

"You're talking to your director, Francis," Jeanette replied, "is a little bit of respect too much to ask?"

Francis blinked, leaning against the doorframe.

"You made me spill coffee over my paperwork. Yeah, it's too much to ask."

Jeanette sighed, twisting a strand of her dark hair between the fingers on her left hand.

"My apologies, I suppose we're all still a bit on edge from Lex's escape."

Francis raised both eyebrows.

"You're still using that as an excuse? He escaped more than three months ago, and he's not coming back. Get over it."

Jeanette gave him a disapproving look.

"What did I say about respect, White?"

"That I didn't have it?" Francis shrugged, "yeah, I already knew that. Did you need anything, or did you just come by to see how much coffee I would spill on my way to the door?"

Jeanette shook her head, muttering a few more incomprehensible strings of words before coming to terms with the fact that Francis and good manners were just not a likely combination. She checked her notebook -- Jeanette and her notebook were practically inseparable, and she carried a pen with her at all times -- before returning her gaze to Francis.

"I came to see if you'd had any progress on those leads."

"Those 'Lex London sightings'?" Francis asked, and he shook his head, "all false alarm. I keep telling you, he's gone. I wouldn't be surprised if he's taken a secret stash of cash that he's collected over the years and fled to Hawaii. Or the Philippines. Or someplace less exotic, perhaps."

"That's a no for progress, then," Jeanette muttered, ticking something off on her notepad, "are you busy?"

"Always."