Chapter Text
The little girl stared gravely at John from across the table, and the detective tried not to fidget. He found himself wishing as the seconds ticked by that Dorian would hurry the hell back with his coffee. The android was so much better with shit like this.
He squashed the thought immediately, partly because it felt downright wrong and villainous to even swear in his thoughts around kids, but mostly because he wasn't supposed to acknowledge Dorian being better at him than something. Because then the damn bot would win, somehow. He felt ridiculous even thinking it and turned his attention reluctantly to his tiny charge.
Miki Parker was all of four years old, according to Dorian's biometric scans, and she looked about two, all solemn brown eyes and olive skin in a bundle of too-large red raincoat. She sat awkwardly in the large metal chair, little booted feet hanging a good two and a half feet off the ground and her pointed chin barely clearing the edge of the table.
John tapped his fingers nervously, but stopped when she looked at him curiously. The last kid...Victor...he'd been all right. John could deal with little boy brats all day because, hell, he'd been one. Little girl brats might as well be cactus aliens from Saturn to him, especially little girl brats who had ignored every attempt to start a conversation and now stared at him critically as if waiting for him to slip up and make a moron of himself.
The door opened smoothly and Dorian stepped in, wearing a steaming cup for John and a juice box for the kid. John tried not to look as relieved as he felt as he took the coffee and drank too much of it too fast. As he spluttered and dripped ungracefully down the front of his shirt, Dorian set the juice down in front of the kid and bent down with a smile. "There you go, Miki." Miki stared at him wordlessly, then her little fist smacked the android's nose with an odd squishing sound.
Miki Parker was hard as balls, John had to grudgingly admit.
Dorian practically sulked behind John's chair for the next twenty minutes as John tried to wrangle any useful information from Miki. Where were her parents? How had she gotten to the station? Did she remember her address?
By the end of the list, John was beginning to wish they knew the name of whatever daycare Miki had sprung from, if only because he was almost certain the place could be converted into an interrogation training compound. So far the kid hadn't so much as made a sound, much less spilled her life story to them. They'd only gotten her name from the name tag haphazardly attached to the hem of her rain coat when she wandered into the station an hour and forty-two minutes ago.
Resignedly, John set down his clipboard and swiveled around to face Dorian. "Missing lists?"
"Miki Parker hasn't been reported missing, no." Dorian was clearly still brooding over the punch, giving a wounded glance at the impassive child across the table. "My guess is that the forty-eight hour requirement hasn't been met yet."
"So what the he-" John caught himself and scowled. "So what are we gonna do with her?"
"She could stay here at the station," Dorian said skeptically. "We've got out a public announcement out- someone's bound to show up eventually."
John snorted. "You're one overly optimistic bast- guy, you know? Who knows if this kid's even got parents?"
"John," Dorian said reproachfully, sounded utterly appalled, and John blinked at him quizzically. "Tact, man, it's called tact."
"I am tactful! I haven't called you an asshole yet, have I- aw, shit, no, I didn't mean- gahhrk." John slapped a hand across his mouth before he could completely bury himself. Dorian was shaking his head sadly, and Miki was-
John's head snapped around at the second quiet giggle and caught the tiny smile before it melted off the kid's face with an almost terrifying efficiency. "I saw that," he told her suspiciously, and she shook her head. Silently, but it was still a tangible response and he felt a minor kick of victory in his chest at the minor breakthrough.
"We'll take her to Maldonado," he said decisively. "She's a woman. You know, maternal instincts and all that. I'm sure she's got them somewhere."
"I don't think Miki approves of maternal figures," Dorian said musingly.
John scowled up at the android. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"She didn't take kindly to me." Dorian heaved a deep, woeful sigh. "I'm very hurt, you know, being of a naturally affectionate and doting disposition." He delivered the last line so perfectly deadpan that John squinted at him uncertainly before deciding to call his bluff.
"Maternal figure, my ass. I’ve seen more femininity in a toaster."
"Femininity's got nothing to do with it, man. It's all in the aura."
There was a brisk knock at the door, and John could make out a wavering silhouette in the frosted glass. He gestured impatiently and Dorian went to open it.
"Hello, Dorian."
"Detective Stahl," Dorian greeted, stepping back to let her in.
"Detective Kennex," Valerie said absently, nodding at John as she entered, then looked around the room blankly. "Where is she?"
John glanced back across the table, startled, and saw that the other chair was conspicuously void of twenty-five pounds of little girl. "What the-" He ducked his head beneath the table and glared exasperatedly at the set of round brown eyes in front of his feet. "Jesus, kid, the hell are you doing down there?"
"Language, John," Valerie chided, kneeling easily on the ground to peer under the table.
"She doesn't mind," John muttered, deliberately ignoring Dorian's blatant eye roll behind Valerie's back. "I think she likes it, actually."
Valerie ignored him and smiled at Miki. "Miki, you want to come out from there?" John felt a brush of short black pigtails against his shin as Miki shakes her head.
"Watch out, she's got a mean right hook," Dorian supplied helpfully from the background.
"Sweetheart, we're not going to hurt you. There's a nice lady from Social here to see you. She's just got a couple of questions to ask, all right?" When Miki stolidly refuses to respond, Valerie sat back on her heels and gave John a meaningful look.
"She doesn't like me," he said instantly, throwing his hands up. "And Dorian's too maternal."
"No," came an unmistakable voice from under the table, small and high-pitched, but firm.
"No what, sweetie?" Valerie craned her head again.
John jumped as a hand gripped the crease of his pant leg. "No," Miki repeated, a definite quiver in her voice this time.
John threw Dorian a panicked look, and the android shrugged and made a vague scooping motion with his arms.
"Hell no," John said aloud, and Valerie pinned him with a dirty glare.
“Miki,” Dorian said promptly in John’s voice. The detective shot him a horrified look as the android blithely continued in a tone John assuredly would never use, “Miki, if you come out, we’ll go out for ice cream, all right? Just you and me and my awesome partner over there. He’s not so bad, I promise, and he’s so much more handsome than I a-” He cut off abruptly and smiled at the little girl, who had cautiously poked her head from the shadows. “Hey there,” Dorian finished in his regular voice.
“Ice cream?” Miki repeated, looking at John dubiously.
Valerie jabbed John in the calf with her elbow and he scowled uncomfortably. “Yeah. Yeah, kid.”
Miki considered his proposal seriously, face scrunching in concentration, then nodded.
And that’s how John found himself sitting at the corner ice cream counter with a lapful of small girl and a beaming android on the stool beside him.
“This is fun,” Dorian stated, looking around the little shop with interest. “We should do this more often.”
“Under no circumstances,” John growled, “are we to ever do this again.” His legs were going asleep, but the kid was too short to sit on her own stool and she was going nowhere fast with her chocolate cone. “Kid, you’re dripping,” he pointed out, groping around for a napkin stand.
“I got it.” Dorian leaned forward and wiped at the drop of melted ice cream with his thumb before it could roll over the edge of the cone. He stared at the dollop consideringly, then offered it to John wordlessly.
John squinted at him incredulously. "What?"
"Do you want it?" Dorian moved his hand closer to John's face, and John pointedly looked away.
"You're not sticking that in my mouth," he muttered, snagging a napkin and patting at Miki's face preventatively. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dorian shrug and pop his thumb in his own mouth, and almost turned to ask if he should really be doing that before he caught himself. It was none of his business what sorts of things Dorian was putting in his body. John wasn't a damn babysitter, for crying out loud, no matter what the universe seemed to think about the matter.
"Kid, I've seen glaciers melt faster," he said grumpily, and Miki tilted her head up to give him an appraising look before continuing to work on her ice cream at a maddeningly slow rate.
"Is she yours?" the woman behind the counter asked with a benevolent smile, and John nearly dropped the girl on the floor.
"What? No, no, not mine," John babbled, ignoring Dorian's amused snickers from the side. "I'm on duty. This is work."
"Oh," the woman said politely, and gave Dorian a sympathetic look before bustling away.
John scowled and jostled the kid. "Are you finished?"
Miki twisted around on John's lap, offering the cone up to him with sticky fingers. John blinked down quizzically. "What."
"She thinks you want her ice cream," Dorian sighed. "Do try to not be so disagreeable, John."
"I don't want it," John told Miki. "I don't like chocolate."
She looked appropriately scandalized and continued eating. John sighed and rubbed at his face with a hand and wondered how his life had come to this.
"John," Dorian said suddenly.
"For God's sake, Dorian, I'm not buying you one of these. Rudy would have my head-"
“John, we’re being called back to the precinct.” Dorian pushed away from the counter. “Give me Miki.”
John frowned up at him. “What? Why?”
Dorian held his arms out impatiently. “I’m stronger than you, John. I can carry her.”
John circled his arms around Miki stubbornly, standing from the stool. “I can do it.”
Dorian looked intensely exasperated. “John.”
Miki wiggled around, looping her short arms around John’s neck and continuing to eat over his shoulder. John tightened his arms, startled at first, then grinned cockily at his partner. See, he mouthed, and Dorian gave him an odd look.
Then he felt the first drips of icy cold down his collar, and Miki’s very soft, very small “Oh.”