Solitary Seventeen

Solitary Seventeen part3
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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 last of their snack’s wrappings was balled and into the trash as they walked into the arrivals lounge at the massive airport. One of the many perks of driving an official vehicle was being able to leave it almost at the door without getting harassed. She smirked as she watched the security guards shooing regular cars away from the curb as people tried to get around the rules and wait for their friends to walk out and meet them. It didn’t matter how many car bombs went off over the last decade, the average stooge would rather drive the perimeter road in circles for three hours rather than leave their vehicle in the short-term lot and walk into the terminal.

Glancing at the flight-board, she wondered which plane would be her lucky ride. At least the office could have called her with a flight number while en route? Of course not. Deunan sighed. With their luck they’d be cooling their heels in the lobby for the next hour, waiting for a likely bunch of official looking guys to come down the escalator. Hopefully whoever she was picking up was expecting a police escort. Otherwise they’d just go catch a cab and leave her standing here like a chump. She discretely checked over her uniform, making sure it was all in order. With nothing left to do she leaned against the back of one of the lounge chairs and waited.

Terri was on her personal phone, a modest faux pas while still on duty, but Deunan wasn’t going to call her on it. From the sound, she was organizing a date for her weekend. Deunan sighed, feeling absurdly jealous of the pretty woman for a moment. Somebody ought to have a good time, she figured. Her own plans were still pretty vague. If all else failed, she supposed she could just spend her birthday keeping Briareos’ plant company.

The guys living at the academy didn’t even blink when she invited herself into their dorm building anymore. She had been a fixture there for most of her childhood. If anyone noticed her spending _more_ time there than usual since last summer, they had apparently gotten over it pretty quick. Knowing Briareos’ love of privacy? Anyone who dared jibe him about their item-hood probably got chewed out thoroughly. So long as they didn’t flaunt it in training, she didn’t see how it was anyone’s business that they were dating. It wasn’t like the bastard cut her any slack the classes he oversaw. If anything he kept her under microscope twice as much as the other cadets. As if determined to prove to her and the world at large that he didn’t play favorites for _anyone_. Annoying as it was, she conceded she wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Deunan wasn’t sure exactly what it was that drew her attention back to the escalator. One minute she was watching a kid throw a tantrum as his parents tried to get him through security, the next, she was blinking in surprise at a small crowd of beefcake all jammed together and chatting as they rode down to the concourse. Being accustomed to the postures and cadences of the SWAT team after being practically raised by them, her instinct told her that the men were special ops even before she could make out their faces. The lack of formal uniforms ruled out any conventional armed services. She was just beginning to speculate on which city squad they likely belonged to, when she realized she recognized the man closest to the front.

“Jim!” She called out across the general buzz of the terminal, knowing her voice would carry. The officer looked over at her and did a double-take, grinning widely as he waved. The rest of the team looked as well, and Deunan blinked, realizing she knew all of them. At least half of the officers that had accompanied Briareos and her father on their goodwill training mission were back in town. She waved energetically to the bunch of SWAT maniacs as they slouched down the escalator and over to where she and Terri were waiting.

“Why hello there, little woman.” Steve Marshal tweaked her uniform’s cap off her head and set it rakishly atop his own. “You miss us?”

“As if I could miss a bunch of ugly bastards like you lot?” Deunan laughed. She was pleased to see they were well - other than the usual assortment of scrapes and bruises. “What are you doing here? I didn’t think the training classes were going so great! Weren’t you supposed to be stuck out in the desert for another four weeks with the noobs?”

“Half of us are.” Big Jim shrugged. “The high-ups didn’t see much use in the whole team sticking around, so we drew straws. Well, Steve didn’t. But he’s got a baby at home so we decided to cut his wife a break.”

Deunan accepted the mock-punches and rough hugs from her foster-family as they piled around her in a loose mob. Terri hung back, glad to just watch the casual battery, not comfortable enough with the SWAT team to want to join in. Deunan stole her hat back from the sheepish officer and gave him a stern look. “You better not go out drinking with these reprobates for at least a week, mister. Your wife stopped by the campus the other day to show off ‘junior,’ and she looked like a raccoon with the rings under her eyes. You’re going straight home to do your duty and feed the sprat tonight so that she can sleep!”

“Don’t remind me.” The gentle giant of a policeman pulled a face. “Sure we can’t stop for a beer on the way? They don’t really do the alcohol thing, where we’ve been. I need some fortification before heading home to a house full of baby.”

“No drinking? For two months? Not even in the US enclave?” She asked, surprised.

“No this time. The embassy was trying to butter up some of the local fire-breathers by going ‘dry’ for the foreseeable future. No booze anywhere in the complex except for what’s been smuggled in.” The answer, from the back of the crowd, made her heart jump painfully in her chest.

“Bri?” She callously wrenched Big Jim out of the way to get at the man hiding behind him. “Bri?! You’re here!”

“Hi.” Hands in his pockets, perfectly at ease, he was large as life in front of her. She blinked at his casual greeting; half of her desperate to throw herself at him, the saner half knowing he’d probably hate being made spectacle of like that in public. Frozen in place, she could only stand and gape. Briareos raised an eyebrow at her indecisiveness, dropping his carryall off his shoulder to the floor and reaching out to ruffle her hair as if she was still a kid. “Miss me?”

“Y-Yes!” She blurted, overcoming the shock. He wasn’t helping matters any, acting as though he had just stepped out for a quart of milk, instead of like a man who’d been gone two months straight. The rest of the gang simply smirked at her upset, knowing full well that she and Briareos were an item. Probably they were waiting for the fireworks. She clenched her hat in her fist, not sure whether she wanted to kiss him or hit him. “What are you _doing_ here? You said last week-”

“Someone had to make sure these jokers got back to the US without mishap, besides, your father wanted some dispatches carried state-side… He’s fine, by the way.”

“Who cares about him! You-” Deunan couldn’t help but sputter, “Why didn’t you _tell_ me?!”

“I didn’t know I was coming until an hour or so before we took off.” He shrugged, as if his miraculous appearance was just another chore completed. “We landed in Brussels at around 2AM California time, and I didn’t think you’d appreciate the wake-up. So I waited until touch-down.” The dark man held up his phone and shook it ruefully. “You didn’t answer your cell. I just left a message at your room. Figured you were out partying without me. Didn’t think you’d be _here_.”

“Cadets aren’t supposed to have their personal phones on while on official duties.” She pointed out meticulously.

“Hanging around an airport is official?” He asked, lips twitching with hidden humor.

“Cadet Sanders and I are here to provide transportation for some last-minute arrivals from- oh… Crap! It was you guys all along, wasn’t it!” She threw her hands up in the air. “Figures! The captain was probably in on the joke when he ordered us out in the van. Did you bastards call the office earlier and ask for a pickup?”

The group looked at each other in a moment of confusion, and then finally over at Briareos. The sharpshooter shrugged as well. “Not that I know of. The chief could have. Maybe there’s someone else coming?”

Deunan shot her classmate a baffled look. The pretty cadet shrugged as well, pulling out her phone and dialing the office to see if anything else about their mystery arrivals could be determined. Deunan shook her head. “What a Mickey Mouse operation we have.”

“Does this mean we don’t get a ride?” Big Jim and the others looked at her with puppy eyes.

She blew air expressively as she considered the arrival screens on the wall next to her. There were no other promising flights due in the next twenty minutes, or already on the ground. Despite the niggling sensation that someone, somewhere, had been teasing her with this sudden influx of friends, she couldn’t just peel out with the van full of SWAT guys and leave some surly desk-jockey from the EU stranded at the airport when he had been expecting a pickup. “Let’s see what the dispatcher knows.” She smoothed down her hair and restored her hat to its proper place. “If they don’t have a name -or at least a flight number- for me, I might as well run you lot back to the garage. They can always send the next intern down here later. My shift will be over by the time we get back.”

“Deunan,” Terri frowned as she closed her phone and stuffed it into her pocket. “Dispatch said to tell you, ‘happy birthday’? Does that mean we’re done?”

“Who was on shift?” She pressed her palm to her forehead to forestall the urge to kill someone. Practically growing up at the training academy meant that her personal life was pretty much the public property of the force, but of all the shitty things to prank her about! If she had known the crew was coming back – that Briareos was coming back – she could have planned her day accordingly. At least picked up her room a little; bribed Terri into doing her nails while the phones were quiet. Instead she had been caught completely flat-footed by the surprise, and was standing like a chump in regulation blues with nothing but a ‘hi’ to show for it. Bastards!

Just standing near him was enough to make her skin tingle. Deunan resolutely refused to glance Briareos’ direction. She wasn’t a kid in need of reassurance. If she looked, she’d just end up blushing, and if he could play cool-customer after two months away, Deunan wasn’t above giving him a bit of his cold-shoulder right back to him. Her subconscious happy shoved bits of implausible daydream at her, none of which would every likely happen. The urge to pull her sexy beast off behind a pillar and nibble his neck was the last thing she needed right now.

Pinching her nose, she forced the fantasy of his mouth against her skin aside in favor of plotting revenge on the jokers at the switchboard who had likely orchestrated her embarrassment. “It was Sgt. Grimes, I bet you anything. He probably got the call this morning and carefully dumb-ed down the message for the evening shift so that we’d be sent here like chumps.”

“Um, I guess so?” Teri shrugged, looking nervously at her to see if she was genuinely mad. “It was Lin-Kai on the phone just now, so if they pranked us, it’s probably gotten through the whole department by now. She sounded pretty entertained.”

“Great.” Deunan propped her fists on her waist, both peeved and absurdly happy at the same time. Even looking like an idiot was alright, so long as it was in front of friends.

She gave up on being mad for the moment in favor of flashing a wicked grin at the bunch of hopeful-looking bruisers. “Well alright, boys! Your red-carpet awaits! And by red carpet, I mean conversion van. It’s right outside. Hop to it! Any extra bags the cadet and I can carry?” Stooping, she picked up Big Jim’s bag for him, rolling her eyes when it felt as though the man had packed a body in it. Tossing the keys to Terri, she decided the older girl might as well drive back. Her nerves were frazzled by the sudden appearance of her good-for-nothing-boyfriend. “Sacks in the back, bodies in the front. Officer Gao gets shotgun because he’s a walking telephone pole. You all know the drill.”

“The girl’s gotten bossy with her new found responsibilities!” Jim joked, stealing his bag back and easily hoisting it over his shoulder. “Oh where did our sweet little Deunan go?”

“Little? Perhaps. Sweet? Never.” Briareos smirked openly as he followed the group out.

Deunan pulled the van’s back doors open and turned to stick her tongue out at him before taking the duffel bags off the crew and jamming them one after another into the narrow space. The van shook and rocked as the SWAT members crowded into the tight rows of seats. Briareos passed his bag to her after all the others were packed in, choosing to stand back and watch as she very carefully _didn’t_ manhandle it into the last remaining corner of the luggage space. She didn’t have to look at him to know he was _loving_ being waited on hand and foot by her. The urge to drop his bag on the pavement and make him get a cab was high, but she was a big girl and still on duty besides. Slamming the doors closed and checking that they’d locked, she turned to glower at him, expecting another teasing comment.

Before she could even challenge the man about what was so funny, she found his hands on her arms, pushing her back against the door panels as he stooped to kiss her fiercely. The busy pick-up lane in front of the terminal was anything but private. But with most of the guys busy jockeying for seats in the van and Terri fiddling with the radio, the rest of the world was just random strangers who didn’t matter. Deunan responded instinctively to the hungry kiss, twisting her arms free to wrap around his neck. His hands slid down and settled on her waist. For a perfect moment the universe contracted, leaving only the sexy slide of his tongue against hers, the smell of his sweat, the scratchy texture of stubble forming on his cheeks from the hours since his last shave. He pulled back to catch his breath. She couldn’t help but huff with amusement as she did the same. Just like him, to run both hot and cold at the same time.

*****