Author's note: The other night Windscryer was having a bad time of it, and to top it off, one of her pet mice was sick. Buzz wormed his way into my head and told me that he wanted to try and make her feel better. The resulting drabble took maybe fifteen minutes. She told me to publish it, and so here we are.
"McNabb, what are you...what are those?"
"Well, this one chewing on the sunflower seed is Rodney, and this poor little guy is John." Buzz grinned and stuck his fingers through the cage playfully until he remembered it was the Chief he was speaking to and stood up straight.
The Chief dropped a folder on Detective Lassiter's desk. "I see...Why are John and Rodney on Detective Lassiter's desk?"
Buzz carefully nudged John onto his hand so he could enjoy his own sunflower seed away from Rodney. "Well, one of Shawn's friends has been looking for a job, but John here is sick so she didn't want to leave him alone with Rodney, so she left them at Shawn's office. But Gus didn't want them there." Buzz frowned slightly. "Something about not wanting the mice near his drug samples, but I'd always heard that they use mice to test--"
"McNabb."
"Sorry. Anyway, Shawn came by with the cage, saying that he sensed that Little Boy Cat wouldn't bother them if I kept the cage on the top shelf of our bookcase in our bedroom. Though I didn't mention that to Francie. I don't think she'd like Shawn knowing what our bedroom looked like. But anyway, Francie doesn't like mice that much, so I figured I'd keep them here for a while, since I'm leaving soon and it's been a slow day. And Johnny boy here is sick, and it looks like Rodney keeps stealing his food, so I thought I'd give John a hand so he could eat something without worrying about Rodney."
The Chief pursed her lips a little. "Well, you were a big help showing Detective Lassiter how to use Facebook, even if he won't admit it. I'll let it go for now. But please keep in mind, and please advise Mr. Spencer, and any friends that he has, that from now on I'll only permit service dogs or the occasional bloodhound in my station."