tiptoe39 | [fanfic] 30 First Kisses

Title: Thirty First Kisses – Kiss #21
Author:

tiptoe39
Rating: G, I suppose it could be considered PG but not reaaally.
Summary: Oh boy, did I go waaaay off on a tangent with this one. Pure silliness the likes of which we have not seen since Kiss #8. I just saw "plunder" and thought....

This is the 21st of 30 possible ways Matt and Mohinder could share their first kiss, written for the

30_kisses challenge. The theme was "pillage/plunder" (goudatsu). Previous kisses are here.

"Ninjas or pirates?"

Matt and Mohinder blinked in unison.

"What?" said Matt.
"Beg pardon?" said Mohinder at the same time.

"Ninjas or pirates?" Molly repeated.

"Where did this come from?" Mohinder rose from the table and poured another cup of tea from the kettle.

"We're doing a unit on debating in social studies," Molly explained impatiently. "So we had to choose something to debate. We voted on it and that's what won."

Matt burst out laughing. "Your social studies class is going to debate ninjas versus pirates? Man, I wish I'd gone to school in New York."

"Yeah, it's pretty cool, but I don't know which side I want to be on." Molly's brow was furrowed as though she were confronting a major moral dilemma. "So I figured I'd ask you. Ninjas or pirates?"

"Pirates," said Matt.
"Ninjas," said Mohinder at the same time.

They gaped at each other.

"What are you, crazy?" Matt burst out. "Ninjas aren't even in the same league as pirates!"

"Pirates have no class," Mohinder said calmly, sipping his tea in an infuriatingly self-righteous fashion. "Ninjas are refined and stealthy. I much prefer a warrior of the shadows to some smelly, loud old man with an eyepatch and a peg leg who doesn't shave."

"It's not about class, it's about power," Matt said, though he put a hand to his stubble uncomfortably. "Ninjas can only steal stuff and kill people. They run into a pirate, they're shot dead in two second flat."

"Well, there's the difference, isn't it?" Mohinder retorted. "You think it's how much damage you do that's important. I prefer doing as little damage as possible and coming away the richer for it."

"Ninjas weren't rich!" Matt was flailing so wildly that Molly had to duck to avoid a spoon in her eye. "Pirates had so much treasure they had to bury some of it!"

Mohinder leaned forward, grinning. "Ah, but the ninja always got the one thing he wanted most. And most of the time, its owners never knew it was gone. That's how good they were."

"Mm-hm, so why were they only in one country, then?" Matt challenged him. "There were pirates in Europe, in Africa, in Asia-- there are still pirates! You never hear them called software ninjas, do you?" He snapped his fingers. "You know what? You work for a bunch of pirates! They kidnap people, steal whatever they want, act like they own the world..."

"What about you?" Mohinder scoffed. "Your ability is all about stealing into people's minds! You are practically a ninja yourself!"

"You guys are no help," Molly said, rolling her eyes and leaving the two of them to glare at each other over the remainder of dessert.

"You're insane," said Mohinder simply. And that was the end of that.

Except it wasn't.

It became the game of the day to try to influence Molly's choice. One evening, when Mohinder went for the last of the coveted vegetable samosas, Matt grabbed it, took a bite, and said through a full mouth, "Pirates."

Another time, the phone rang, and Matt went running for it, leaping over piles of dirty laundry and nearly impaling himself on the kitchen table in his rush to make it in time. When he finally reached the counter, Mohinder suddenly popped up from the other side and put his hand decisively on the ringing phone. "Ninjas," he said with a sickly-sweet smile before answering it.

All of this fell on deaf ears, of course, as Molly had already made her choice and was now doing her best not to broach the subject again.

Mohinder was thoroughly disgusted at the very thought of pirates. What sort of uncivilized boor thought it was heroic to go around looting, pillaging, drinking a lot of rum, and sailing around like a bunch of slackers? Civilized people didn't just come in waving pistols and swords and take whatever they wanted. If that were the way things worked, Mohinder would have long since just grabbed Matt by the shoulders and...

Well, he would have done something that would surely have had repercussions.

Matt, on the other hand, found the concept of the ninja supremely distasteful. If you're going to go after something, he figured, you ought to at the very least be forthright about it. Everything that went wrong in life seemed to be due to someone lying or deceiving or sneaking around or otherwise not admitting what they wanted. Better to get it all out in the open. Then, at least, you can have your no-holds-barred battle, declare a winner, and move on with your life. That's how he'd prefer things to work. Never mind that the one thing he most wanted right now was the one thing he couldn't reach for. But he blamed that on lousy social skills. He'd never been able to approach girls, much less the beautiful, brilliant, out-of-his-league geneticist he was so fortunate (or unfortunate) to live under the same roof as. You'd have to have a reputation like Blackbeard's to believe you'd be able to score that kind of booty. Pun very much intended.

Yes, they were the veritable Pride and Prejudice of the modern world, these two. A pirate and a ninja, madly in love, but too pigheaded to admit it. But never fear--a pair of events cropped up to break the stalemate.

The first was that Matt came home from a late shift to find Mohinder asleep on the couch, where he often went to study late at night when his room became too claustrophobic. He'd been snacking on a tinful of jelly beans, and there was a crust of crystal sugar at the corner of his mouth. Matt suddenly developed a sweet tooth the size of Cleveland, and a handful of the candy didn't seem to appease it. So he bent over the sleeping form and gently pursed his lips against that delicious-looking spot, tongue flickering out to lick up the sugar. He lingered on the corner of Mohinder's lips perhaps a little longer than he should have, feeling the gentle evenness of his breathing. Jelly beans or no, his skin was sweet almost beyond comprehension. But Mohinder never stirred.

Matt pulled back and regarded the face. His brow was rumpled, as though he were still trying to solve a complex problem in his sleep. He frowned a little. His lips were slightly chapped. Matt couldn't help himself. He bent down and drank more fully from those oblivious lips. This time it was even harder to let go and straighten up. But Mohinder slept through it all.

As Matt left the room, he looked back at the sleeping man, and a wave of tenderness shot through him. He thought, Well. There may be something to this ninja business after all.

(He was, however, confronted at the breakfast table the next morning. "You stole something from me last night," Mohinder said with a scowl.

Matt gaped.

Then Mohinder continued. "You think I didn't notice half of my jelly beans were gone?")

The second thing that happened was, Molly's social studies class decided to hold a mock debate and invite the parents. It was held on a Saturday afternoon in the small auditorium; Molly was arguing for the pirate side. (Matt had crowed triumphantly at that, and Mohinder had looked appropriately petulant.) The art teacher and a few other ostensibly neutral faculty members were the judges, and they had set it up like a congressional hearing, where each side had its row of desks with stuffy-looking name cards. Mohinder noted with a grin and a pleased nudge at Matt's side that Molly's name card said "Ms. Suresh-Parkman-Walker."

The debate style of the fourth grade was hardly Supreme Court quality. Several of the boys showed off their mock ninja moves, and a few of the girls extolled the virtues of Johnny Depp. But Molly, as usual, stole the show. She took the stage, adjusted her note cards, and cleared her throat.

"I am arguing in favor of pirates today," she declared, "but I want to say one thing first. For a week now, my dads have been arguing over this." Mohinder and Matt blushed, and those parents that knew them glanced over. "So I've kind of heard the whole debate already. And this is what I want to say. I think there's room in the world for both."

At this, her teammates wailed at her. She wailed at them to be quiet. "I know, I know, shhh!"

"But here's what I think," she went on. "I think that you can be a ninja and be all sneaky and creepy, or you can be a pirate and sing a lot and sail and have pet parrots. And maybe being a ninja works for some people, but I kind of think pirates seem a lot happier. They're friends with other pirates. And you never see a ninja smile. Maybe that makes them tougher, but I bet they're really unhappy under that mask, you know?" The adults laughed. Matt was practically doubled over, he was giggling so hard.

"So that's why I say pirates are cooler. Because even when my dads were arguing about it, they seemed really happy while they were doing it. And that made me think they were more like pirates than ninjas. And I think my dads are just about the coolest people I know," she grinned, "so if they're pirates, that makes pirates cool. OK, I'm done now." With that unceremonious finish, she stomped back to her seat, and the parents applauded and laughed.

Matt's face was pink with pride, and his smile was a mile wide. Mohinder felt a great desire to just grab his hand. The sort of urge a ninja would resist. But then again, his daughter had just made a very compelling argument.

He found Matt's hand, intending to squeeze it briefly and let go. But Matt neither gasped nor winced. He just closed his fingers around Mohinder's and maintained the warm grip. Mohinder's cheeks felt hot. Perhaps there is something to this pirate business after all, he thought.

At this, Matt turned to look at him briefly, then just smiled and gazed back at the stage.

Pirates won, of course, and the winning team got a school-sponsored ice cream party (next Friday at 3:30, so the parents could pick up hyperactive children and clean up after them when they hit the ceiling at Mach 3). So Molly was jubilant. She stayed up way past her bedtime that night and eventually fell asleep, along with Matt, on the couch watching "Saturday Night Live" -- she liked what she understood of the jokes, which weren't many these days.

Mohinder came into the room, turned off the TV, picked up Molly, and deposited her in her bed. As she settled into the pillows, she murmured, "'course I like ninjas too" and fell silent again, smiling. Mohinder melted a little.

Aglow with pride, he wandered back to the living room and sat down beside snoring, drooling Matt on the couch. He really was the epitome of a boorish, unkempt pirate, Mohinder thought with a chuckle. There was absolutely no good reason to adore him as much as he did.

Well, if Matt was so into pirates, and if Molly decided she liked them too, he was damned well going to give it a try. He leaned in toward the drool-leaking mouth, wiped it with one corner of his sleeve, and whispered, "Pirate." And he kissed those soft, sleeping lips.

All at once strong arms were locked around him and he was falling down onto the couch over Matt, who was wide awake and kissing him back. "Ninja," murmured Matt into his mouth, growling and smiling against him. Mohinder whimpered helplessly and threaded his hands through Matt's hair, clinging to him. They stayed lost in the kiss for another minute, then drew back to stare at each other. Matt was grinning ear to ear. "You didn't think I was going to stop at hand-holding, did you?"

"Matt, you ass!" Mohinder burst out. "You were faking it?"

"The sleeping part, yes. The kiss was very real." Matt ran a hand across Mohinder's cheek. "God, I wish you had just told me." There was a spark in his eyes Mohinder had never seen before but very much liked.

"We ninja prefer our secrets," he replied, half-smiling.

"Less talk, more action," Matt said, pulling him down again. Mohinder tried to talk, couldn't, as his mouth was so very happily occupied. So he settled for thinking it. If you're a pirate, what does that make me?

"My treasure," Matt whispered into his mouth. And that answered that.

:end:

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

saharafic.livejournal.com

Why, why is there no MattMo ninja/pirate fan art???

Ugh, I wish I had any sort of artistic talent.

As always, lovely.

From:

the drama llama

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