Title: Directionally Challenged, Pt. 4

Warnings: Random prompts create random ficlets.

Rating: PG

Continuity: Brave Police J-Decker

Characters: All of 'em

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

Motivation (Prompt): An open post where I asked for people to please drop prompts for me, and I attempted to write them as fast they appeared. This is something I intend to continue with the Brave Police, as tiny cute ficlets are so easy and fun!

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Deckerd - in need of cuddles

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Sometimes it happened. They weren't perfect. They were as human as, well, humans, and sometimes humans hit low points in their lives.

The older humans got, the more they made the association between circumstances and emotion. Not always, not reliably, but more so than their children. The younglings of the species could swing without a moment's notice and not a clue as to the reason. Figuring out themselves was part of the process of growing up.

Seeing a toddler burst into tears or a teenager lapse into depression upset many people. Seeing a giant robot crumple into an insecure little ball of fluctuating feelings could do no less. In fact, it often inspired far more helplessness in the observer. A child or a teenager could be comforted, but what could be offered to big metal mecha?

Chief Toudou had gotten used to alarmed calls from the technician on duty when a Brave Police unit showed up, broken on the inside for no discernable reason. The techs could handle actual damage. Give them a tool and a piece of machinery gone wrong, and the Chief would be content to supervise. Hand them a robot hiding a flood of overwhelming emotion behind a poor mask of composure, however, and the techs would run for the Chief's office. Nobody was quite as qualified to handle emotional injury as the Chief. Technical stuff, yeah, good, they were trained for that - but where was the spec manual for when Miss Ayako ditched Dumpson the first time to chase down a juicy tip? Or, heck, Duke being homesick? Was there an off-switch for that shit?

So the technicians ran for the Chief, because the Chief knew everything. What he didn't know, he made up on the spot. He hadn't become Chief Engineer for a project this important without learning to extrapolate from guesswork, and what he couldn't make up on his own, he imitated wholesale from Yuuta. Having an eight-year-old around the place actually gave everyone a lot of perspective on the straight-forward solutions for matters adults made far too complex. See someone in pain? Big or small, metal or flesh, Yuuta opened his heart to them. Commissioner Saejima had recognized him as the solution for when the adults got too caught up in appearances to properly react. Toudou had been skeptical at first, but witnessing the wide eyes and cluelessness of his subordinates the first time the Build Team got in a fight and stormed off in opposite directions had convinced him his old friend was right. Too many people could only see the metal exteriors. It blinded them to the young, easily-hurt hearts inside.

The Brave Police could be repaired according to the Book, but only up to a point. Which was when Chief Toudou got called in.

He was the one who dragged Shadowmaru off by one doggy ear to visit the small gravesite for Kagerou in the corner of the Tomonaga backyard. Yuuta's eldest sister had been able to handle the grieving mecha from there, but the actual ninja-wrangling had been left to the Chief. Toudou was also the one who sat down with Drill Boy every time he crept off into a corner of the maintenance bay to hide from the rest of the Build Team. It wasn't that Drill Boy didn't want Dumpson's rough comfort or McCrane's quiet support, but the youngest BP unit had never entirely gotten over distrusting the other mecha when it came to his beloved Fey. There just hadn't been time for him to swing from running away from the other BP units to trusting them with her. He tried to mourn in secret, and that layered guilt on top of the grief because he knew he should trust the others more, and then the Chief had to talk him back from the edge of hysterics. Talk him back, calm him down, and comfort the poor kid. Poor Drill Boy. Poor all of them, really, having to be robots raised among humans.

The Chief had learned how to handle his creations' emotional instability. His brother had children, and Toudou had discovered that raising four squirming pink babies was surprisingly similar to raising seven multicolored metallic kids. Well, eight now that'd he'd apparently acquired Duke, who'd latched onto the head mechanic's easy paternal air like an affection-starved orphan. It was like having a family without any of the perks of sex beforehand and a homelife afterward.

Then again, Toudou had always lived for his job. Besides, he'd heard that puberty negated pretty much all of the perks in one fell swoop. Still, between Shadowmaru's lingering sadness for Kagerou, Drill Boy's grief for Fey, and Power Joe's broken heart over a delusional love affair with Lua, Toudou figured puberty had nothing on making children into police. The BP units didn't need hormones to fuck them up; they had criminals screwing with them every which way from Sunday.

When it came to problems within the team, however, Chief Toudou tended to field the Braves back into the fray on their own. He was not going to become their crutch. Their support, of course, because that's what friends and family were for. But he'd seen what happened when one of the Braves got too attached, even if the emotional manipulation had been deliberately meant to cause crippling co-dependency. The last thing the department needed was seven more Gunmaxes and all the mecha's associated interpersonal issues. They had to learn how to deal with themselves and each other on their own. The Chief would be there to advise and comfort them, but nobody could solve all their problems. They had to step up and work it out when problems cropped up.

Like Deckerd's complete and total reliance on Yuuta. It was a strong bond of childhood friends Toudou sincerely hoped would stand the test of time, but sometimes watching the two grow up together was enough to twist something aching in his chest. And when they were apart?

It happened. Deckerd couldn't be with Yuuta 24/7. Even if the boy tried to include the Brave Police in his life that much, it just wasn't physically possible. Shadowmaru could watch over his family; Power Joe could show up outside his school on any given day of the week; Gunmax could kidnap him after school just to give the other BP units panic-attacks; Deckerd could take him home every night and recharge in the Tomonaga garage. Yet, there were still times when Yuuta simply had to be elsewhere, distracted by non-Brave things, and Deckerd's reaction was…predictable.

Take the past week, for instance. Toudou had found out what was going on after things started because he was an engineer, not a policeman, but he'd definitely noticed the increased frequency of concerned questions the other Braves asked. "How's Deckerd?" hadn't been asked so often since the blue mecha had almost died. Since BP-110 was most certainly not dead, the Chief had done some inquiring about the situation from Saejima before sternly ordering the nosy 'bots to ask Deckerd themselves.

Apparently, it'd all related to a weird but easy case. Shadowmaru had needed a human face for something, and Yuuta had of course volunteered. It'd been a harmless mission that'd sent the child into a shop asking for an item requiring the shop assistant to duck momentarily into the back room. Shadowmaru just needed that moment's diversion to complete his investigation. Simple, yes? No problem, and no danger.

What the Ninja Detective had neglected to mention before Yuuta and Deckerd agreed to the diversion was that the shop was two days travel away. The case involved illegal import smuggling in the city, but the lead Shadowmaru had followed led up through the country, nearly on the other side of Japan. Yuuta had been fine with that - roadtrip with Shadowmaru! - but Deckerd had only been able to force his smile.

"I'm fine," he told the technicians the first night Yuuta was gone. The techs nodded, blissfully able to ignore undercurrents of unhappiness in favor of purely mechanical maintenance.

They were more uncertain the next morning, standing aside warily as the blue mecha briskly disconnected himself from his rarely-used repair cradle and strode out of the bay without a word. Deckerd usually spent his nights at Yuuta's house, but he wasn't normally so stand-offish toward others.

"Woke up on the wrong side of the bed?" Power Joe hazarded.

"He drank diesel before bedtime," one of the techs joked back, and there was a good-humored argument going between techs and the Build Team about whether or not Deckerd was a morning person by the time Toudou came in that morning.

He only got suspicious by the second day. Drill Boy showed up outside his office, fingers tapping together nervously when the head engineer opened his door.

"Is Deckerd okay?" the littlest BP unit asked. Toudou raised an eyebrow, checked Deckerd's stats, and sent Drill Boy on his way reassured that the blue mecha was just fine. While it was a little odd that Drill Boy would come asking, the Braves did occasionally suffer from flashes of insecurity.

He overheard a puzzling conversation from a knot of technicians over by the maintenance bay's garage door later, however. "Think we should do something?"

"Like what? Get him a teddybear?"

"He likes food, doesn't he? My wife could pick up some miso, or maybe cakes from the shop down the street…"

That'd gotten an odd laugh, like the other techs weren't sure the suggestion had been serious. Was comfort food the answer?

The question was revealed when the Chief went outside to see what the gossip was about. A disconsolate patrol car slumped on his tires outside of Police HeadQuarters. That was the most depressed-looking machine Toudou had ever seen. No question about who it was, either; Deckerd could fool most eyes, but not when even his lightbars sagged. Deckerd had always worn his emotions openly, and no time more so than now, apparently.

Toudou sighed, patted the hood of the sad car in passing, and went to see Saejima about why exactly one of his babies was hurt today.

It turned out to be the prospect of four days without Yuuta. Four days. The Chief didn't known if he should roll his eyes at the tension filling the Decker Room, or lock himself in his office for a few days to escape it. Yuuta and Deckerd were all but joined at the hip, but the level of 'Woe is me' being projected by the patrol car was a tad ridiculous. Which…was on par with how Toudou's nephew acted when grounded from watching television, actually, and his sister-in-law often bemoaned how connected the brat and TV were. Alright, so Deckerd was a mess at the moment. Surely Yuuta was having a good time out in the country with Shadowmaru? Adventure was adventure to an eight-year-old. Toudou could make his moping nephew happy with a ride to the ice cream shop, after all.

Putting it that way, it'd seemed like a viable solution back at HQ, too. The adventure, not the ice cream. "He needs a distraction," Toudou told Gunmax when the troublemaker casually wandered into the garage to do his level best at being a jerk and a concerned teammate at the same time. "Get him involved in a case so he doesn't have time to brood."

"I - uh, I mean, we tried that," Toudou's favorite idiot complained, "but the only thing going on right now is that animal cruelty case with the miniature exotic animal breeds. He actually snapped at one of the store owners McCrane was following up on! I thought we'd have to take his pistol away, but then he disappeared. Azuki - "

"Miss Tomonaga," the Chief corrected him, because being an obnoxious son of a Harley Davidson didn't mean Gunmax was allowed to get away with poor manners in Toudou's domain. Also, Shadowmaru got his wings ruffled every time someone was too familiar with Yuuta's sisters, and Gunmax and the ninja caused enough property damage with friendly tussles.

" - Miss Kurumi called to say he was in the garage petting that damn cat of hers. He says he'll come back to work tomorrow morning." Gunmax threw up his hands in exasperation at his partner. "They're cute little animals. How can he not get involved when they're showing up mutilated?!" He saw the smirk as the Chief caught the 'cute' slip and crossed his arm in a huff. "Unbelievable."

Deckerd did indeed come back to work by day three. Unfortunately, he came back to sit resolutely at his desk and sulk.

The Chief started greeting the BP units with, "Ask him yourself."

Shadowmaru made a phone call about touring the town after the case was solved that afternoon, upping the Decker Room's Yuuta-free days from four to six. Deckerd just stared at the phone once the ninja hung up. The others stared at him. He ignored the concerned looks and started filling out reports so vigorously the papers tore under his pen.

"I don't begrudge Yuuta the chance to visit a new and exciting place," he mumbled to Toudou when one visit too many from the other Braves finally prodded the Chief into summoning the blue mecha in for a systems test. The man hummed acknowledgement and pretended to be examining something on a clipboard, giving the mecha a chance to talk. He made useless notations about nothing while Deckerd stared at the opposite wall and tried to deal with feelings. Far be it from Deckerd to even think about calling Yuuta back early! He'd never do that. Yuuta was young and obviously excited about driving around inside someone willing to break speed limits and drift around turns. But... "He's with Shadowmaru," the 'bot said miserably, unable to logic away his loneliness and guilt. "Doesn't he want to - "

He looked away from the wall before he said it out loud and sounded selfish. Those big optics clouded and begged the Chief to make it all better. "Doesn't he want to be with me?" he didn't ask. "Doesn't he miss me?"

"Deckerd…" The Chief smiled and rested a hand on the mecha's ankle. "He'd probably love it if you went out to join them."

But, being Deckerd and therefore a self-sacrificing martyr, he didn't. Of course he didn't. It might imply that Shadowmaru wasn't enough to make Yuuta happy, or maybe Deckerd was hung up on the idea that friends had to be invited in order to be welcome. Chief Toudou knew that Yuuta would have picked up on the slightest hint of the mecha's feelings and been back in an instant if the boy had heard anything in Deckerd's voice, but the big doofus never let anything slip.

Instead, days four and five passed with no Yuuta, and Deckerd stopped recharging. The other Brave Police gave up on asking the Chief for advice by the middle of the fourth day and started trying to cheer up their leader on their own. Gunmax left handcuffs all over the place. Duke bought a fishtank and tried to get Deckerd interested in setting it up with him. Dumpson brought Miss Ayako back to the Decker Room for a working date. Power Joe borrowed one of his friend's paint sets and finger-painted Drill Boy's drill bits into a rainbow. McCrane tried to get his opinion on traditional Japanese versus more 'modern' Western ceremonies of the civil nature, although what specific civil ceremony he was alluding to was never named.

Toudou kept a careful eye on them but was satisfied that they could handle it. Nothing but Yuuta's return would restore Deckerd's good spirits, but he just didn't want the whole department running to him every time there was a problem. It was bad enough that his techs did that the minute things went wonky.

By day six and the phone call about the malfunctioning ferry, the other six BP units were giving Deckerd worried looks that he wasn't even noticing. McCrane quietly asked the Chief to come to the Decker Room in order to ask him what they should do.

Toudou leaned on a corner of Yuuta's desk and looked at the Braves over the top of Deckerd's bent head. "I think you should do something about it."

The six Braves looked at him. They looked at Deckerd. Sadly, the patrol car didn't so much as register the discussion despite the fact that he was right there in the room while it happened.

"That was not very helpful," McCrane said after some thought.

"Yuuta's going to enter university eventually," the engineer shot back gruffly. "What're you going to do when that happens, ask me for help every day for four years?"

There was a short silence. A short, painful silence. Like most children their age, the concept of planning that far ahead clearly hadn't occurred to them yet. They were old enough to crush on beautiful women, but young enough to completely miss the implications of their Boss being in primary school.

Oi. It was tough being a dad to eight kids of varying maturity.

"Point taken," Gunmax got out slowly. "I'm going to go with no thank you on that one."

Power Joe twitched slightly, one optic bigger than the other. He seemed to be seeing into a time when his schoolchildren friends actually had careers. Horror was dawning over Drill Boy's face (the Boss would leave?!), and Dumpson looked like someone had popped his tires. One side of McCrane's mouth developed a tic as a whole future suddenly yawned in front of him. A future beyond a - purely hypothetical, you understand - wedding, that was.

Duke alone seemed to easily accept what the Chief had said, but then, Duke knew what it was like to be left behind. He'd matter-of-factly accepted a bleak future where they were abandoned in a junk pile at the end of their usefulness, and nothing Toudou or Yuuta said had ever shaken that future from his mind. The only one who could ever change his mind was half a world away, unaware of his thoughts. At least until Toudou convinced her to visit Japan again, anyway.

Every optic turned to Deckerd, hunched shoulders and depressed cloud compressed into one miserable mech. Four days, huh? Try four years. It's not that Yuuta wanted to leave Deckerd behind, but life sometimes separated friends and family.

The Chief didn't miss the way Gunmax's visor turned briefly toward him, suddenly taking note of the crow's feet and gray hairs, but that, too, was part of realizing the future was there and it wasn't always bright. Children did that. They grew up, they hit their highs and their lows, and…well, the lucky ones had others there to help them out of the lows and be with them during the highs.

It started with Duke trying to draw Deckerd into conversation. It was stilted, because Duke was the uncrowned king of polite small talk but not much for extended discussions outside of work-related topics. It forced Deckerd out of his thoughts for a while, and that's when the crowned - or at least helmeted - king of innuendo and horrible Engrish stepped in. Gunmax invaded his personal space, perching on the desk in front of him so every time the blue mecha tried to look down and away, he got an optic-full of something no well-mannered mecha would be caught staring at. That got Deckerd out of his own head enough to become flustered, and McCrane kept up the distraction by interrupting every few minutes to drop his hand on one blue shoulder and ask an entirely appropriate question. Gunmax immediately countered with an entirely inappropriate question, and the two passed Deckerd's attention back and forth between them until their blinking, befuddled leader didn't know what was going on anymore.

At that point, it seemed an opportune time for some physical activity. Which was fortunate, because Power Joe and Drill Boy barreled into him like a tag-team from CareBear Hell. They press-ganged him into an impromptu wrestling match. Dumpson started out supervising but was soon snagged by an ankle and sucked into the match himself. The others laughed, then yelped and tried to evade, but to no avail. Power Joe and Drill Boy were on a mission, and none could resist their cheer.

It ended with the Decker Room a complete mess: papers flung willy-nilly and desks shoved to the side, and a pile of BP units recharging on the floor, burying Deckerd but for one foot sticking out.

Yuuta and Shadowmaru did double-takes when they came in, but the pile slept on. The ninja smiled softly, and Yuuta giggled. Shadowmaru transformed and carefully picked his way into the pile, trying to find a clear spot to lie down. Various limbs shifted. Duke groaned and managed to wriggle until he got his windshield out from under Dumpson's head. The dump truck promptly slung an arm over the ambulance's midriff and used that as a substitute pillow. Power Joe's held slid off Dumpson's hip and landed with a clang on Shadowmaru's back. The ninja jumped, startled, then settled down as McCrane murmured nonsense and turned over to curl around him from the other side.

Yuuta got the camera out of his desk and took pictures, grinning widely. When it seemed the robots had subsided back into deep recharge, he jumped down off the ledge his desk was on and climbed up the nearest leg.

By the time Toudou checked in an hour later, there was a boy sound asleep in Deckerd's arms, and the future seemed very far away.

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Dumpson - getting beaten at his own game

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"Nyeh, Dumpso~on?" Ayako blinked up at the red mecha, eyes limpid pools of innocence. Yeah, innocence as done by another human who dressed in skin-tight red pants, but that human also sported horns and a tail. "Don't you like wrestling with me~?"

Like it? Like it?

Dumpson swallowed the series of disconcerted noises that were trying to get out and wondered if he could just forfeit. Because with her arms wrapped around his palm and her br - bo - ti - chest pressed to his hand, he was effectively pinned.

He'd never stood a chance, really.

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Gunmax - AnimeCon: Gunmax VS the fangirls

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So of course Drill Boy was the one who picked up the phone. "Brave Police! Soccer and emergency services!"

"...stop answering the phone like that, brat."

"Gunmax!" The soccer-mad mecha sat up so fast he nearly head-desked on accident. "How's it going?"

"Ah. Well, I suppose. The stolen goods were found at a vendor booth, and we're tracing the shipping invoice through the union now." There was a faint noise in the background of the call, like a hundred squeaking mice. The squeals only grew louder the longer Gunmax talked.

"What is that?" Drill Boy asked, cocking his head as if it would help him listen better. The noises were kind of odd. Sort of a constant 'eeeeee' sound as repeated by a hundred un-oiled door hinges.

Gunmax's tone was, as usual, brash and loud, but he had to up his volume to be heard clearly above the background noise. "Nothing."

"Sounds like you're at the zoo," Drill Boy guessed. Where had the convention been in America? Was it San Diego or Los Angelas? Didn't San Diego have a world-famous zoo? "Are you at the zoo? Oh, oh! Bring us back pictures of the pandas! And the giraffes! And the tigers, you gotta get pictures of the tigers - "

"Cram it," Gunmax snapped crankily. "I'm not at the zoo. I'm at the damn Anime Con, still."

"So...what's that sound?" With some effort, Drill Boy scraped up a detail from the case. He hadn't really been paying attention when Shadowmaru and Gunmax had left for the USA, as there'd been a really great match on TV at the time. "Electronic toys?"

Gunmax's voice was flatter than Duke's after being asked about the color of Regina's underwear. "Fangirls." The level of disgust was also eerily similar. As was the hidden embarrassment.

Embarrassment? Blood in the water to the Drill Boy-shark. "Ooo, do you have gi~i~rl problems, Gunmax?" he teased in a sing-song. Meanwhile, he was trying to figure out what was wrong with fangirls. Sometimes the Brave Police department got letters of appreciation from citizens, and everyone wrote thank-you letters back. Even Gunmax, although he complained it was a waste of time. Pfft. As if Drill Boy hadn't read over his shoulder enough times to know Gunmax loved the attention.

"You could say that." The squealing surged as the green mecha switched back to Japanese. "Remind me to strangle the Commissioner. He could have warned us that anything from Japan is like a fetish item here." The shrieking 'eeeee' peaked, and Gunmax went wholesale English instead of his usual half-assed Engrish, careful pronunciation of the odd, clipped consonants and all. "Shut. Up. I'm trying to talk, here!"

It came through as a disgruntled, muffled mutter, and Drill Boy was confused. It'd sounded like Gunmax had covered the receiver with the palm of his hand before yelling. "Gunmax?"

"Yeah, anyway," the voice on the other side of the ocean was suddenly back to being clear. As was the squealing, which hadn't seemed to calm down any. "I haven't been able to get Shadowmaru out of the rafters for days. They're hunting him or something. Maybe they've already caught him. Or maybe he's using them as his own personal information army, I don't know anymore. Look, I've gotta run. Kind of literally, because there's a flock of them headed this way, and I'm really outnumbered. I'm sending my report this evening so - get off my leg! Off, please! - process that before morning, okay? Thank you."

Drill Boy blinked as the other end of the phone hung up abruptly. He couldn't tell if that last part had been addressed to him or not.

Either way, this was one report he wasn't going to miss reading!

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[A/N: That's the last from the prompt post. Is anyone reading these? Meh. Sorry if I'm spamming. No more of these until I get more prompts, so that'll cut down on the spam.]