JE, Like Gyoza and Grog

Title: Like Gyoza and Grog [Yamapi/Jin]
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for it never being Yamapi’s fault.
Summary: Yamapi is the worst ninja leader ever, but Jin is a pretty good pirate.
AN: For swtjemz‘s birthday, because she wanted the epic epic pin ninja/pirate love story. I dunno about epic, but I tried for all the rest.

Like Gyoza and Grog

The first time it happens definitely isn’t Yamapi’s fault.

It’s those damn pirates and their wiles, he tries to explain to the rest of his squad the next day, after he shows up at their secret ninja meeting place, hours late and wearing his headband around his neck to try and hide at least a few of the bite marks.

“I mean come on,” Yamapi goes on, waving his hands, “with their swaggers and their scarves and their dangly earrings and their tattoos! But mostly it was the wiles!”

“You’re the worst ninja leader ever,” Ryo says, not looking up from where he’s cleaning his nails with a kunai.

“They were very sexy pirates, ne,” Tegoshi says in solidarity, patting Yamapi’s shoulder, and Yamapi beams at the squad’s youngest member for understanding the true nature of their opponents. “No wonder you didn’t show up until now.”

“They probably drugged you!” Koyama insists, fulfilling his role as their squad’s medic by poking and feeling Yamapi all over to check his chakra. “Are you nauseous? Dizzy? Light-headed?”

“I wasn’t drugged!” Yamapi snaps, trying to fend off Koyama with little success. “We were at the bar, I had a few drinks, Ji—I mean, Akanishi wanted to show me his new tattoo, and then…” Yamapi swallows as he realizes that Tegoshi is staring at him with wide, young eyes. “…I don’t remember what happened after that.”

“See?!” Koyama wails, poking Yamapi harder. “Drugged!”

“What I want to know is why the pirates are here anyway,” Shige speaks up, adjusting his glasses. “You don’t think they’re after the same thing as us, do you?”

“Gyoza?” Massu tilts his head, and then blinks when Ryo’s kunai is suddenly buried in the tree next to his head.

“Oi!” a loud voice interrupts, and all six of them look up to find Akanishi looming over them, scarves and dangly earrings at all. He squints down at them, looking ruffled and not terribly pleased about the amount of daylight. “Do any of you happen to have any grog? My head’s killing me!”

“You brought him to our secret meeting spot?!” Shige demands.

“Secret meeting spot?” Akanishi looks around. “You guys know you’re sitting behind a bush like two minutes out of town, right?”

“Che, let’s just go,” Ryo growls, standing up, and Tegoshi hops up too, dragging Massu up with him and reminding Ryo that it’s his turn to treat for lunch.

Before Yamapi knows it, his whole team has vanished, as ninjas do, and it’s only him and Akanishi left.

“Ninjas.” Akanishi clicks his tongue.

The second time it happens, it isn’t Yamapi’s fault either.

*****

The third time, Yamapi has prepared himself thoroughly for the pirate wiles, and thus is completely unaffected when his stakeout with Shige is interrupted by Akanishi’s arrival on-scene.

As a result of intensive, extensive ninja training, Yamapi can remain perfectly motionless for thirteen hours and eighteen minutes, but that doesn’t mean that stakeouts aren’t boring, so it’s completely understandable that he perks up when he catches sight of Akanishi’s unmistakable red coat and black hat with the huge, swooshy feather. From his vantage point on the roof, practically all Yamapi can see is the hat, in fact.

Akanishi isn’t alone this time, flanked by one pirate with a shaved head and an eye patch, and another pirate with a ponytail and a look of tortured tolerance. They’re obviously casing the place as well, just less stealthily than Yamapi’s crack ninja team had done hours earlier, their fancy pirate boots clattering on the cobblestones. The eye-patch pirate tells a dirty joke that makes their other companion look even more tortured, and Akanishi throws his head back to laugh.

Yamapi’s breath catches at sudden sight of Akanishi’s face, cheeks flushed and throat bare.

“Did you just breathe?” Shige hisses. He’s watching off the other side of the roof, pressed against Yamapi’s back, but now he turns and curses as he catches sight of the pirates as well.

His reproval for Yamapi’s lack of ninja oxygenation is interrupted by the return of Tegoshi and Masuda. Tegoshi alights on the roof on silent feet and palms, like a cat; Masuda’s landing is more like that of a rabbit dropped from a small height, quiet but not without some scrambling. The pirates don’t seem to notice, still laughing at their joke.

“The pirates are here,” Shige reports tersely. Tegoshi makes a Very Concerned Face. “They must be after the same thing as us.”

“I don’t think pirates like gyoza, Shige,” Masuda says. “It doesn’t go with grog so well.”

“We aren’t here for gyoza, you moron,” Shige hisses. “We should send somebody down there as a distraction while the rest of us go tell Ryo and Koyama what’s happening.”

Shige has barely finished speaking before Yamapi is at the edge of the roof. He dangles off the edge of it by his fingertips just long enough to hear the slap of Shige’s palm against his forehead, and Masuda whisper to Tegoshi that he’s here for the gyoza, and then Yamapi lets go and drops to the dirt of the road.

“Fancy meeting you here!” Yamapi says loudly, making all three pirates whirl in a swoosh of coats and scarves and hat feathers. The other two pirates frown, but Akanishi grins.

He’s even more breath-taking close up, Yamapi realizes, Akanishi’s eyes glittering with trouble and grog, a tantalizing glimmer of gold in his mouth, and somehow Yamapi finds himself backed up against a well, Akanishi leaning in close to ask him if he comes here often.

At least his team has time to get away while the pirates are distracted, Yamapi thinks dimly.

“Would you like to?” Akanishi follows up his previous question, just before his mouth crushes over Yamapi’s.

Not his fault at all.

*****

The sixth time, Yamapi calls special circumstances.

“Ever done it on a boat?” Akanishi wants to know.

“No?” Yamapi answers, sensing with his amazing ninja senses an opportunity to do some reconnaissance in enemy territory.

“It’s like doing it on a water bed,” Akanishi announces, leaning in closer to whisper in Yamapi’s ear, “only better.”

*****

By the time Ryo mounts the intervention, Yamapi has completely lost count and has long given up on trying to hide anything with his headband.

“This is a mutiny,” Ryo says flatly, crossing his arms. “I’m taking over as Leader, and you’re getting sent back to the village for debriefing.”

“That’s nice, Ryo-tan,” Yamapi slaps Ryo on the shoulders, “but I’ve already been debriefed twice today. Everyone, I have an exciting announcement!”

Everyone stares expectantly at Yamapi; Yamapi points at the entrance to their secret meeting place as Akanishi and five other pirates step out.

“Dammit, stop bringing people here!” Shige shouts.

“You guys know this is a bush two minutes out of town, right?” the pirate who looks the most normal asks.

“Jin and I have decided,” Yamapi grins at all of them, slinging an arm around Akanishi’s shoulders, “that since we’re all after the same thing, we should work together!”

Masuda opens his mouth, but Koyama slaps a hand over it before Ryo actually does kill somebody.

“Fine,” Shige sighs, defeated. “You guys have a map too?” The pirate whose outfit inexplicably involves shorts like a school boy’s nods and pulls a piece of parchment out of one of his pockets. Shige pulls out a similar piece out of one of his own pockets. “Show us yours and we’ll show you ours.”

“Sounds familiar, ne?” Akanishi purrs, and Yamapi scowls at the shiver that works its way down his spine.

“It’s the same map!” Koyama says, peering over Shige’s shoulder as he and the schoolboy pirate compare. “That’s strange, ne.”

“Hey, but yours has the corner that’s torn off ours!” the tortured pirate looks marginally less tortured.

“And yours has the part that Koyama accidentally burned off of ours,” Shige nods.

“I’m not allowed to smoke anymore,” Koyama ruefully explains to the pirate with the completely unnecessary blond ponytail, who comments that Koyama must be too hot to handle.

“See?” Yamapi says triumphantly, if a bit breathlessly because Akanishi’s sneaky pirate fingers are working their way under his shirt. “Working together is always best. Let’s go!”

With a now completed map, the group strolls back into town, half of them silent and stealthy, the other half jangling like a reindeer at a jingle bell expo.

“Here we are!” Shige pulls to a halt, face buried in the map, and the eleven pirates and ninjas behind him all nearly slam into his back.

Everyone looks up to see that they are in fact standing in front of a ramenya called “X Marks the Spot.”

“Don’t even say it,” Shige sighs, and Masuda just grins and shoves him towards the door.

Inside, a serving girl dressed like a pirate wench greets them, then elbows another girl in similar attire.

“See?” she says, beaming proudly. “I told you those treasure map flyers would bring in more customers!”

*****

“This can’t be healthy,” the normal-looking pirate grumbles, poking at a gyoza, and Masuda laughs and shoves the last bite of his own gyoza in his new friend’s mouth. He nearly chokes to death on it a second later when a red-faced Koyama tells the joke about the ninja and the banana-shaped nunchucks.

Yamapi grins happily at the rest of his squad, mixed with Akanishi’s pirates, from his position reclining on the bench with his head in Akanishi’s lap. “Working together is definitely best, yo.”

Akanishi hums noncommittally and feeds Yamapi another bite of food while he calls for another round of drinks.

“You’re still the worst ninja leader ever,” Ryo says, although it doesn’t have much heat to it since Tegoshi is leaning on him, cheeks pink and eyes bright from grog, using Ryo’s kunai to pick at Ryo’s food. “Give me one good reason ninjas and pirates should ever hang out?”

“Well,” Yamapi grins up at Akanishi, with his scarves and his dangly earrings and his wiles, “you ever done it on a boat?”