Author Notes:

Hi folks,
This is going to be a roughly 10 chapter fic. I've got up through chapter 8 done. There will be eventual smut, and there is some character drama and minor character death in later chapters. This is my first longer fic, I would love feedback! I hope you enjoy the first cute and fluffy chapter! This is also crossposted to AO3.

Chapter 1:

The First Time they Kissed was an Accident

It was Christmas time and the G5 were celebrating it at sea, on duty. The crew had taken to decorating the ship with wreaths and tinsel, which was fine, until someone found some mistletoe. The idiots had seen it as a hilarious prank, so they had placed it in a bunch of strange places as some kind of contest. It was aggravating, and Tashigi had spent the morning of Christmas Eve finding the damn things and taking them down.

She was pretty sure the one in the Mess Hall was the last one. As she was about to cut it down, one of her men said, very loudly, "Tashigi-chan, it's just a kiss. Are you scared?" which made her pause to reprimand him when the whole crowd in the hall started ribbing her about it. Tashigi sighed heavily, adjusting her glasses and hesitating. On one hand, it was a harmless festive joke, on the other, every time she walked under one of the damn things, one of her men immediately stepped forward to try to convince her to follow the tradition. She'd been late to a meeting with Vice Admiral Smoker by 10 whole minutes over this!

She glared at the entire hall, a slight pink rising on her cheeks. "Tashigi-chan, have you never been kissed, is that why you're so worried?" called someone, followed by "Don't worry Captain-chan, we'll defend you from kissing!" the whole hall was laughing now. She flushed darkly. This rankled her pride. Of course she'd been kissed before! She wasn't afraid, just irritated! However, this was the happiest her crew had been in weeks, since learning they'd be on duty for the holidays. She didn't really want to mess with morale, especially since it was pretty harmless. If her idiot men wanted to prank each other into kissing one another, then was it really worth putting up such a fuss about it?

Tashigi glared at them all and said loudly, "Alright, I'll leave this one up," pointing at the one above the Mess Hall doors. "Does that mean you want a kiss, Captain-chan?!" A few men stood up from their seats, meal forgotten. "No!" she cried, cheeks turning even redder. "Maybe she's worried she'll fall for one of us!" and the ribbing started up again. She rolled her eyes. Was this one of those situations where she needed to be seen as one of them to get their respect? "Fine, the next person who walks through that door gets a kiss, will that be enough to get you to shut up?" she growled, a tic forming on her forehead. The hall cheered and one of them started a betting pool. She made a disgusted face, and settled against the wall by the door. She'd keep her word.

It wasn't long before she heard footsteps. Tashigi placed her glasses on top of her head, preparing to move. She didn't want to know who it was, she didn't want to lose her nerve by seeing their face. Her hands started sweating a little bit, and she curled them into fists. It was just a silly kiss! She was a Marine dammit!

The moment she saw movement out of the corner of her eye, she went into motion. Tashigi grabbed onto his jacket, yanking whoever it was' face towards hers and she planted one right on his lips.

There was absolute silence, broken by the sound of someone dropping their cup onto the floor. It was over quickly (she noted that his lips were very soft in the back of her mind) and then she stepped past him, her eyes glued to the deck, stomping away from the Mess Hall, back ramrod straight, pink coat swirling around her ankles. She got maybe two or three steps before "Tashigi! What the hell?!" in a familiar gruff voice. Her throat dropped into her stomach. She turned around slowly in horror, her glasses falling back onto the bridge of her nose.

Vice Admiral Smoker stood in the doorway of the Mess Hall. Ah yes, this was Hell. Her whole face turned an impossible shade of red. But she couldn't not answer him! She raised a shaking hand and pointed above his head, then turned and fled to the other side of the ship.