Solitary Seventeen
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Adult +
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6
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2,762
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Category:
+. to F › Appleseed
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
6
Views:
2,762
Reviews:
0
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Appleseed, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
chapter 2
Solitary Seventeen part2
-----------------------
Manga-verse Appleseed fiction (Pre-Briareos cyberization, LAPD era)
All characters are property of Masamune Shirow. This is a fan work written purely for the fun of it! Go buy the manga!
The Friday before her birthday Deunan spent working her intern-shift at the big dispatch office on campus. It provided a modest break from the monotony of training to act as step-and-fetch-it for the detectives and officers working cases. When not pulling and pushing files, she and her classmates assisted the dispatchers with general switchboard nonsense. She’d perfected the trick of studying and answering the phone at the same time, book of legal precedents pinned open with her coffee mug as she deftly transferred a harried sounding sergeant to the necessary ‘special operations’ desk.
Glancing over at her fellow intern, she saw that Terri was blushing as she was flirted with by a hot looking guy in a lab-coat. The forensics’ trainee had stopped by to chat _her_ up at least once a shift for her first three months of desk duty. If not for Briareos she’d have probably taken him up on the flirting, he seemed like he’d be a fun date. Eventually she managed to unload him on her classmate instead, ruthlessly pairing them off before she could be tempted to break her promise.
Two years, they had agreed, and given how hard she had to push to get that commitment from the sharpshooter, she wasn’t about to be the one to mess it up. Bri had gotten over the age-difference-thing after far too many months worth of initial dithering, but she wouldn’t put it past the idiot to backpedal after his long stint away. If he thought for a second she was interested in someone ‘more appropriate’ he’d probably use it as an excuse to step back from their deal. The very thought of it annoyed her. Routing another call through with perfunctory politeness, she dropped the handset back in its cradle and took a gulp of coffee.
Why such a smart guy was so stupid sometimes was a mystery. She had told Briareos a year ago that he was the one for her, and did he believe it? Even now she wasn’t sure he was completely convinced. What did she have to do, get his name tattooed across her ass? She almost choked on her coffee at the idea. He liked her. That much had always been obvious. That he found her sexy? Well that was a more recent development, she grinned to herself. Still, she was confident that she had accrued enough evidence to back that claim definitively in the past nine months. Stoic and hard-nosed the SWAT officer might be to strangers, but she’d always known that was only the surface. Not that he was a soft and cuddly teddy bear underneath, but he was… definitely intimate.
Deunan found that even her proudly-flaunted cynicism gave way to a blush when she remembered some of the things they had got up to, especially right before he’d shipped out. They were good together. They were _really_ good together. She didn’t think it was overly naive to assume that she’d probably never find better. As good? Maybe – someday- if she was really lucky. But better? Than Bri? It was a tall order.
For whatever reason however, Briareos refused to really accept that fact. Like somehow next year they’d shake hands and split-up when the deal was over, and never look back. It wasn’t so much a relationship to him as a long-term contract with some serious fringe benefits. Deunan frowned. She didn’t delude herself. He _had_ been on the market a decade longer than her, at least. It was entirely possible that somewhere in his shadowy past was the love-of-his-life that he was secretly pining for? If so, the guy sure hid it well. Deunan sighed, concluding that they might date another five years, and she still would only ever be able to guess her man’s motivations.
She idly flipped ahead a few pages, trying to absorb the dry-as-dust material, her heart not really in it. The whole two-year dating thing had been a crazy idea in the first place. Her way of trying to convince him she was serious about _them_, not just enamored with the idea of dating in general. Two years was short enough that he wouldn’t feel trapped by a lunatic teenager with the mother-of-all-crushes, and long enough that she didn’t have to rush to convince him she was serious. It hadn’t been a bad plan at all, at least as it was first laid out. It provided the right mix of holidays and vacations for them to do all the traditional ‘couple’ things, and despite their mutually erratic schedules, and the annoyance of being clandestine on campus so as to avoid _some_ of the gossip, they’d managed to find time in an average week to see each other.
Even with all their early successes, he still hedged and hesitated when she dared nudge him about the future. She was baffled by his stubbornness. It wasn’t as if she was asking him to donate a friggin’ kidney, or father and support her first twelve children. Deunan just wanted him to acknowledge that what they had was… workable. She’d only get sexier in a year or two. And once she was a graduate and a real policewoman, well, it was paying job! She’d be able to contribute to their bottom-line, rather than just being a tag-along.
Another year or two of hard work after that, and she’d qualify for a transfer to full-time SWAT, with the appropriate pay raise and bragging rights… He’d have a girl who understood what he did for a living without bitching all the time about him taking risks, because she’d be right there with him, watching his back. He wouldn’t have to wonder if she was sleeping around while he was on mission, because _he’d_ be right there watching hers!
Deunan leaned back in her chair and blew a puff of air at her bangs in frustration. If she didn’t have a problem with sleeping with a guy nine years older than her, what the hell was his damage? He ought to have been dancing for joy! At forty he’d have the hot young wife all his friends were jealous of! But no, he had to go waste the first month of their agreed-upon timetable with freaking-out about what they would or wouldn’t do, all because of her age. Deunan shook her head, leaning forward and glaring at the text in front of her with stubborn determination, mulling her stubborn boyfriend’s motivations over. It wasn’t even like she’d demanded he not see other people when she bargained with him about how their relationship would work. In retaliation, he’d pretty much forced her to concede the same. They’d squabbled for weeks over seeing each other at all, and in the end had promised to not stop seeing other people at the same time? Never had two people dickered so hard to form such an open partnership, she sighed.
Open in theory, at any rate. She really hadn’t been interested in seeing other guys in the first place. Especially after Bri had _finally_ relaxed enough to kiss her properly for a change. As for him? Deunan tapped her pen to her lips and watched the busy march of people in the lobby around her. To the best of her knowledge he hadn’t started seeing anyone new after dumping his last ‘steady’ in the fall. By that point she had already convinced him that second base wasn’t “too far” for a precocious cadet with a serious thing for her boyfriend to go. Hell, girls her age had kids already. Deunan saw them all the time when riding on training patrols. Not that she was volunteering to be another statistic, but still! It wasn’t like waiting for a year would change her mind.
Deunan smirked, remembering the effort she’d put into convincing the officer that she knew what she wanted. With one thing and then another, by winter they’d pretty much given up waiting. From that point on? He wouldn’t have had the _time_ to see someone else on the side. They’d been spending almost all their idle hours together for the months leading up to his training assignment in Algiers.
At least the sex had been worth the wait. She grinned to herself. Even telling herself to not have crazy romance-novel inspired fantasies about Briareos hadn’t entirely quelled her hope that he was competent in the sack. It wasn’t like she had brought much to the table there. She needed all the help she could get. After experiencing the real thing, she promptly shredded most of her so-called expert magazines into the trash. Her guy had been exactly as she had hoped he would be, patient and funny, and very, very satisfying. Deunan wondered if the sex was half as good from his perspective. Certainly he hadn’t been complaining. Then again, she grimaced, he wasn’t really the sort to complain. Still, Deunan hoped she’d have noticed if he was just going through the motions to please her.
The phrase ‘going through the motions,’ had taken on a surprisingly vulgar connotation to her perverse sub-conscious over the past half year. She shook her head and closed up the book, resolved to study later, when she didn’t have men, or rather a particular man, on the brain. Luckily a distraction presented itself just as she glanced around at the busy office.
“Cadet Knute. Cadet Sanders.” The under-captain called to them while crossing the room, talking on his cell-phone and gesturing to get their attention at the same time.
“Shuttle duty.” He folded the tiny phone and tucked it in his pocket. “We have visitors arriving at the airport that need a pickup in an hour. Out and back! No shenanigans! Got it?” Deunan firmly squelched the urge to call the stodgy man on his use of ‘shenanigans’. Even thinking the word made her want to giggle. Instead she stood and saluted as she had been taught, her partner copying her after a moment’s hesitation. “Yes sir. What terminal is the arrival at?”
“International.” The officer scribbled his signature on the sign-out board, authorizing them to take one of the vans from the parking garage. Deunan claimed the necessary keys off the peg-board behind her and glanced at her watch. It was late enough that traffic wouldn’t be impossible, but there was no such thing as ‘down time’ on the freeways surrounding the metropolis. If they left soon, they’d arrive in good time for the pickup. If it was an international flight, it was probably some regional officers coming or going to some UN conference, the upper-ups got fussy when kept waiting. “We’ll leave now, sir, if that’s alright with you.”
“Go on. I wasn’t told who exactly was coming in, just that there was an inbound group for us. Bring’em back here if they want to lodge at the guest-house, or drop’em off wherever they need to go.” Waiving that they could do as they pleased, the tired manager stalked back to his office. “I want that van back in 2 hours.”
“Shenanigans.” Deunan muttered under her breath as she led the way to the elevator. “What does he think we are? Kids?”
“Soft-witted females who dare to be in his dispatch office.” Terri Sanders replied cheerily, holding the door open for a pair detectives too engrossed in their esoteric conversation to even notice. “What floor, sirs?” She dared to interrupt when one paused for breath.
“Garage 2.” The first man looked over at them as if surprised to find them in the elevator. His partner muttered something that probably would have been insulting if they could have understood it.
Deunan pressed the appropriate buttons with military precision, giving the pair of jerks her best cool-and-impersonal look. Once they turned back to their conversation she couldn’t resist wiggling her eyebrows over at her classmate, who suppressed a laugh, well accustomed to the holier-than-thou attitudes of the senior agents. Terri was a full two years older than her, but the woman’s innocent face often made the instructors and other officers mistake her for either younger or stupider than she was. They got off a floor before the pair of officers and ducked around the corner before breaking out in laughter. “God what a pair.”
“Assholes.” Her partner agreed. “Bet the bunch we grab from the plane will be just as stuffy?”
“Probably.” She sighed, hauling herself into the driver-seat of the large van. It was sad to think she had fantasized about using her new driver’s license on squad cars or the sleek police cruisers a year ago. No, so far she had driven a conversion van, a K-9 kennel truck, and a bus – of all things- in the line of duty. Hardly glamorous stuff. Deunan started the ignition as her classmate buckled in, and wished she had the balls to take Briareos’ bike out for a spin while he was away. Visiting it, under its tarp in the garage, was one thing. She had promised to keep an eye on it, and her man’s sorry-looking fern, while he was away. But he’d have killed her if she dared try to drive it, she had no doubt. Deunan resolved to coerce him into teaching her how to handle the motorcycle when he got back to LA. He’d be horny and desperate after his stint in the conservative country, she was certain it wouldn’t take too much bribery to get what she wanted.
Making a note to herself to go visit the fern when she was done with her shift, Deunan steered for the highway. “Wanna stop and get take-out on the way?”
“Super Burger?” Terri looked over at her with a grin. “That’s near the airport. I want curly fries.”
“Can do.” Deunan glared at the speedometer as she all but stood on the gas pedal, finding the van’s sluggish acceleration annoying as she merged into the city-bound traffic.
*****
-----------------------
Manga-verse Appleseed fiction (Pre-Briareos cyberization, LAPD era)
All characters are property of Masamune Shirow. This is a fan work written purely for the fun of it! Go buy the manga!
The Friday before her birthday Deunan spent working her intern-shift at the big dispatch office on campus. It provided a modest break from the monotony of training to act as step-and-fetch-it for the detectives and officers working cases. When not pulling and pushing files, she and her classmates assisted the dispatchers with general switchboard nonsense. She’d perfected the trick of studying and answering the phone at the same time, book of legal precedents pinned open with her coffee mug as she deftly transferred a harried sounding sergeant to the necessary ‘special operations’ desk.
Glancing over at her fellow intern, she saw that Terri was blushing as she was flirted with by a hot looking guy in a lab-coat. The forensics’ trainee had stopped by to chat _her_ up at least once a shift for her first three months of desk duty. If not for Briareos she’d have probably taken him up on the flirting, he seemed like he’d be a fun date. Eventually she managed to unload him on her classmate instead, ruthlessly pairing them off before she could be tempted to break her promise.
Two years, they had agreed, and given how hard she had to push to get that commitment from the sharpshooter, she wasn’t about to be the one to mess it up. Bri had gotten over the age-difference-thing after far too many months worth of initial dithering, but she wouldn’t put it past the idiot to backpedal after his long stint away. If he thought for a second she was interested in someone ‘more appropriate’ he’d probably use it as an excuse to step back from their deal. The very thought of it annoyed her. Routing another call through with perfunctory politeness, she dropped the handset back in its cradle and took a gulp of coffee.
Why such a smart guy was so stupid sometimes was a mystery. She had told Briareos a year ago that he was the one for her, and did he believe it? Even now she wasn’t sure he was completely convinced. What did she have to do, get his name tattooed across her ass? She almost choked on her coffee at the idea. He liked her. That much had always been obvious. That he found her sexy? Well that was a more recent development, she grinned to herself. Still, she was confident that she had accrued enough evidence to back that claim definitively in the past nine months. Stoic and hard-nosed the SWAT officer might be to strangers, but she’d always known that was only the surface. Not that he was a soft and cuddly teddy bear underneath, but he was… definitely intimate.
Deunan found that even her proudly-flaunted cynicism gave way to a blush when she remembered some of the things they had got up to, especially right before he’d shipped out. They were good together. They were _really_ good together. She didn’t think it was overly naive to assume that she’d probably never find better. As good? Maybe – someday- if she was really lucky. But better? Than Bri? It was a tall order.
For whatever reason however, Briareos refused to really accept that fact. Like somehow next year they’d shake hands and split-up when the deal was over, and never look back. It wasn’t so much a relationship to him as a long-term contract with some serious fringe benefits. Deunan frowned. She didn’t delude herself. He _had_ been on the market a decade longer than her, at least. It was entirely possible that somewhere in his shadowy past was the love-of-his-life that he was secretly pining for? If so, the guy sure hid it well. Deunan sighed, concluding that they might date another five years, and she still would only ever be able to guess her man’s motivations.
She idly flipped ahead a few pages, trying to absorb the dry-as-dust material, her heart not really in it. The whole two-year dating thing had been a crazy idea in the first place. Her way of trying to convince him she was serious about _them_, not just enamored with the idea of dating in general. Two years was short enough that he wouldn’t feel trapped by a lunatic teenager with the mother-of-all-crushes, and long enough that she didn’t have to rush to convince him she was serious. It hadn’t been a bad plan at all, at least as it was first laid out. It provided the right mix of holidays and vacations for them to do all the traditional ‘couple’ things, and despite their mutually erratic schedules, and the annoyance of being clandestine on campus so as to avoid _some_ of the gossip, they’d managed to find time in an average week to see each other.
Even with all their early successes, he still hedged and hesitated when she dared nudge him about the future. She was baffled by his stubbornness. It wasn’t as if she was asking him to donate a friggin’ kidney, or father and support her first twelve children. Deunan just wanted him to acknowledge that what they had was… workable. She’d only get sexier in a year or two. And once she was a graduate and a real policewoman, well, it was paying job! She’d be able to contribute to their bottom-line, rather than just being a tag-along.
Another year or two of hard work after that, and she’d qualify for a transfer to full-time SWAT, with the appropriate pay raise and bragging rights… He’d have a girl who understood what he did for a living without bitching all the time about him taking risks, because she’d be right there with him, watching his back. He wouldn’t have to wonder if she was sleeping around while he was on mission, because _he’d_ be right there watching hers!
Deunan leaned back in her chair and blew a puff of air at her bangs in frustration. If she didn’t have a problem with sleeping with a guy nine years older than her, what the hell was his damage? He ought to have been dancing for joy! At forty he’d have the hot young wife all his friends were jealous of! But no, he had to go waste the first month of their agreed-upon timetable with freaking-out about what they would or wouldn’t do, all because of her age. Deunan shook her head, leaning forward and glaring at the text in front of her with stubborn determination, mulling her stubborn boyfriend’s motivations over. It wasn’t even like she’d demanded he not see other people when she bargained with him about how their relationship would work. In retaliation, he’d pretty much forced her to concede the same. They’d squabbled for weeks over seeing each other at all, and in the end had promised to not stop seeing other people at the same time? Never had two people dickered so hard to form such an open partnership, she sighed.
Open in theory, at any rate. She really hadn’t been interested in seeing other guys in the first place. Especially after Bri had _finally_ relaxed enough to kiss her properly for a change. As for him? Deunan tapped her pen to her lips and watched the busy march of people in the lobby around her. To the best of her knowledge he hadn’t started seeing anyone new after dumping his last ‘steady’ in the fall. By that point she had already convinced him that second base wasn’t “too far” for a precocious cadet with a serious thing for her boyfriend to go. Hell, girls her age had kids already. Deunan saw them all the time when riding on training patrols. Not that she was volunteering to be another statistic, but still! It wasn’t like waiting for a year would change her mind.
Deunan smirked, remembering the effort she’d put into convincing the officer that she knew what she wanted. With one thing and then another, by winter they’d pretty much given up waiting. From that point on? He wouldn’t have had the _time_ to see someone else on the side. They’d been spending almost all their idle hours together for the months leading up to his training assignment in Algiers.
At least the sex had been worth the wait. She grinned to herself. Even telling herself to not have crazy romance-novel inspired fantasies about Briareos hadn’t entirely quelled her hope that he was competent in the sack. It wasn’t like she had brought much to the table there. She needed all the help she could get. After experiencing the real thing, she promptly shredded most of her so-called expert magazines into the trash. Her guy had been exactly as she had hoped he would be, patient and funny, and very, very satisfying. Deunan wondered if the sex was half as good from his perspective. Certainly he hadn’t been complaining. Then again, she grimaced, he wasn’t really the sort to complain. Still, Deunan hoped she’d have noticed if he was just going through the motions to please her.
The phrase ‘going through the motions,’ had taken on a surprisingly vulgar connotation to her perverse sub-conscious over the past half year. She shook her head and closed up the book, resolved to study later, when she didn’t have men, or rather a particular man, on the brain. Luckily a distraction presented itself just as she glanced around at the busy office.
“Cadet Knute. Cadet Sanders.” The under-captain called to them while crossing the room, talking on his cell-phone and gesturing to get their attention at the same time.
“Shuttle duty.” He folded the tiny phone and tucked it in his pocket. “We have visitors arriving at the airport that need a pickup in an hour. Out and back! No shenanigans! Got it?” Deunan firmly squelched the urge to call the stodgy man on his use of ‘shenanigans’. Even thinking the word made her want to giggle. Instead she stood and saluted as she had been taught, her partner copying her after a moment’s hesitation. “Yes sir. What terminal is the arrival at?”
“International.” The officer scribbled his signature on the sign-out board, authorizing them to take one of the vans from the parking garage. Deunan claimed the necessary keys off the peg-board behind her and glanced at her watch. It was late enough that traffic wouldn’t be impossible, but there was no such thing as ‘down time’ on the freeways surrounding the metropolis. If they left soon, they’d arrive in good time for the pickup. If it was an international flight, it was probably some regional officers coming or going to some UN conference, the upper-ups got fussy when kept waiting. “We’ll leave now, sir, if that’s alright with you.”
“Go on. I wasn’t told who exactly was coming in, just that there was an inbound group for us. Bring’em back here if they want to lodge at the guest-house, or drop’em off wherever they need to go.” Waiving that they could do as they pleased, the tired manager stalked back to his office. “I want that van back in 2 hours.”
“Shenanigans.” Deunan muttered under her breath as she led the way to the elevator. “What does he think we are? Kids?”
“Soft-witted females who dare to be in his dispatch office.” Terri Sanders replied cheerily, holding the door open for a pair detectives too engrossed in their esoteric conversation to even notice. “What floor, sirs?” She dared to interrupt when one paused for breath.
“Garage 2.” The first man looked over at them as if surprised to find them in the elevator. His partner muttered something that probably would have been insulting if they could have understood it.
Deunan pressed the appropriate buttons with military precision, giving the pair of jerks her best cool-and-impersonal look. Once they turned back to their conversation she couldn’t resist wiggling her eyebrows over at her classmate, who suppressed a laugh, well accustomed to the holier-than-thou attitudes of the senior agents. Terri was a full two years older than her, but the woman’s innocent face often made the instructors and other officers mistake her for either younger or stupider than she was. They got off a floor before the pair of officers and ducked around the corner before breaking out in laughter. “God what a pair.”
“Assholes.” Her partner agreed. “Bet the bunch we grab from the plane will be just as stuffy?”
“Probably.” She sighed, hauling herself into the driver-seat of the large van. It was sad to think she had fantasized about using her new driver’s license on squad cars or the sleek police cruisers a year ago. No, so far she had driven a conversion van, a K-9 kennel truck, and a bus – of all things- in the line of duty. Hardly glamorous stuff. Deunan started the ignition as her classmate buckled in, and wished she had the balls to take Briareos’ bike out for a spin while he was away. Visiting it, under its tarp in the garage, was one thing. She had promised to keep an eye on it, and her man’s sorry-looking fern, while he was away. But he’d have killed her if she dared try to drive it, she had no doubt. Deunan resolved to coerce him into teaching her how to handle the motorcycle when he got back to LA. He’d be horny and desperate after his stint in the conservative country, she was certain it wouldn’t take too much bribery to get what she wanted.
Making a note to herself to go visit the fern when she was done with her shift, Deunan steered for the highway. “Wanna stop and get take-out on the way?”
“Super Burger?” Terri looked over at her with a grin. “That’s near the airport. I want curly fries.”
“Can do.” Deunan glared at the speedometer as she all but stood on the gas pedal, finding the van’s sluggish acceleration annoying as she merged into the city-bound traffic.
*****