Phat Cats and Traveling Pigs (BBC Sherlock and Gensomaden Saiyuki)
Title: Phat Cats and Traveling Pigs
Author: lady_ganesh
Prompt: DI Lestrade walks into a bar and meets... Cho Hakkai!
Fandoms: BBC Sherlock/Saiyuki
Word count: 2043
Rating/Contents: PG-13 for language. The Saiyuki end of things became something of a modern AU. Thank you to tiggymalvern for betaing.
The bartender was tall and lean, around Sherlock's height. He wore glasses and a general air of polite disinterest. "What'll you have?"
Lestrade shook his head. "What do you have for a stout?"
"Tsingtao and Boxing Cat. I prefer the Boxing Cat, but of course the choice is yours."
He'd never had either. When in doubt, trust your bartender. "Boxing Cat's fine."
It wasn't a bad bar; it was quiet and clean, a step up from most of the places he'd been today. Most of the patrons were men in business suits, though he saw a few women and what looked like a monk in the corner reading the paper. It was certainly the best place he'd been in since he landed. Following Sherlock Holmes around was never a job for the squeamish, but this day had been especially demanding.
The man pushed a glass over to him. It looked satisfyingly dark. "Long day?"
Lestrade shook his head. "You have no idea." The bartender was obviously a native Chinese speaker, but his English was very clear, which was a relief. Lestrade's knowledge of Chinese was limited to 'yes,' 'no,' and 'thank you,' and only in Mandarin at that. He was running out of energy to navigate Hong Kong. If he was lucky, things would all shake out here, anyway.
If he was lucky. What a laugh. Luck and dealing with the Holmes brothers never went together. Maybe he'd at least be spared shooting at a dog that didn't exist this time round.
He took a deep pull of the beer; it was excellent. "Good choice," he said, hoping he didn't look too surprised. "Thanks."
"My pleasure," the bartender said mildly, and Lestrade looked up into his eyes for a moment. The smile didn't really reach up that far; the man's gaze was calculating, chillingly cool. For some reason, Lestrade was reminded of Sherlock.
Lestrade turned his attention back to his stout. He wasn't sure he wanted to get to the bottom of that resemblance.
He was halfway through the glass when someone burst through the back door; a lanky redhead with a build and height that matched the bartender's, his eyes wide and excited. He walked back behind the bar, his hands describing something Lestrade could only guess at, talking in rapid-fire Chinese.
The bartender answered him, his voice deliberately calm even as he scanned the windows with his eyes. "Mr. Interpol," he said calmly, and it took Lestrade a moment to realize the man was talking about him.
"I--"
"We don't have time for you to play dumb," he said.
"I don't play dumb," he said. "I'm not Interpol. I'm a copper, back home, but--"
"Things may get a bit...uncertain. But I believe your associates and ours are searching for the same lost antiquities."
Lestrade frowned; this had a familiar set of fingerprints on it. "And how do you know who I am?"
"I believe you know a Mr. M.H.?" The letters were carefully pronounced.
Lestrade lifted the pint to his lips and nodded. God only knew what the look was on his face.
The bartender smiled politely. "I see," he said. "At any rate, I have a request. One professional to another."
Lestrade swallowed and put his glass back on the bar. "You can ask."
"Do try to stay out of our way."
Lestrade opened his mouth to answer, but the door crashed open again, this time with four men, already in the middle of some kind of fistfight. There was a good deal of shouting.
Lestrade and the men behind the bar stared for a moment.
There was a large white man -- large like the size of a house -- a smaller Asian man, and -- of course -- John and Sherlock. John was grappling with the smaller man.
"Don't bloody try to--" he said, and felled his opponent with one final punch. Then he turned his attention back to the house-sized man, who had Sherlock hoisted over one shoulder.
Lestrade dared a glance at the men behind the bar. Neither of them had moved. "What," Lestrade said. "You told me to stay out of the way, but--"
Then he heard a hammer being pulled back.
When he looked back, the monk who'd been in the corner was holding a gun to the big man's head. "I think," he said, in beautifully posh English that had only the slightest undercurrent of Chinese, "we've played enough games for today."
The big man said something in Chinese. The monk rolled his eyes and snapped something back. The big man shut his mouth, looking alarmed, and carefully lowered Sherlock to the floor.
Sherlock, meanwhile, had already collected his composure. "This man," he said, with affronted dignity, as if he'd been doing beautifully and just needed another moment to deliver the knockout blow, "masterminded the theft of--"
The monk turned his attention to Sherlock. "Several cultural treasures of Xi'an," he said, "relics from Xingjiao Temple, and a jade sculpture of a lotus flower that is rumored to have belonged to Qin Shi Huang himself, along with a few fiscally irrelevant but culturally valuable pieces of ephemera." He was shorter than Sherlock - a bit taller than John - but Lestrade guessed this was one case in which Sherlock wouldn't be able to use his physical presence for intimidation. "Let me know if there's anything I missed."
Sherlock took it in stride. "He's also suspected of stealing several Russian antiquities."
The monk shrugged. "Do I fucking look Russian?"
Lestrade reached into his jacket and pulled out a handful of zip ties. "I suppose these might be useful."
The bartender raised an eyebrow at him. "Interesting choice."
"I told you," he said. "Not Interpol. And you can't very well take handcuffs through Customs without earning yourself some funny looks."
"At any rate," Sherlock said, as the redhead slunk out from behind the bar and began restraining the suspects with Lestrade’s zip ties, "I believe the location of the items we seek can be found at Mr. Menshov's hotel room, at which point they can be returned to their owner in Alston."
The monk shook his head. "Our items will be returned to the temples they were originally stolen from. Your ‘owner in Alston’ is as much a thief as Menshov."
"The temple at X'ian is no longer standing," Sherlock said, "and Xingjiao is threatened. I believe--"
"I believe," the monk said sharply, "that that is none of your concern."
Ah. This was Lestrade's cue. His shirt pocket held the letter. "Sherlock," he said, extending it while keeping an elbow firmly on the bar. "You might want to see this."
Sherlock snatched the paper from Lestrade's hand and frowned at it as though it had insulted him personally. "My brother," he said.
"And the Ambassador," Lestrade added. "Both Ambassadors, technically."
John had been watching the conversation with that expression he got when he knew what was going on but didn't want anyone else to know. Now his eyes narrowed. "So wait, we're going to hand this back to the Chinese government to do God knows what with it?"
"You're suggesting we should instead hand our cultural treasures back to an English thief?" The bartender had raised an eyebrow. The redhead had finished his task and was standing next to Lestrade; Lestrade could feel the tension he was holding in his body, ready for an objection or a fight.
John and the bartender stared at one another for a few fraught moments, and then John sighed. "I suppose that is a consideration."
The redhead relaxed a little and gestured to the bartender.
"Your thief can have his Russian antiquities back," the monk said. "The rest goes to the temples." The gun had disappeared, but he still carried an air of general menace.
"And that's what Mycroft wants, is it?" Sherlock said archly.
The monk was pulling a notebook and a pair of reading glasses out of the deep folds of his robe. "Mycroft Holmes can kiss my ass."
John snorted, and Lestrade couldn't hide his smile. Apparently they did have some feelings in common with these Chinese operatives.
"I have been in contact with Mr. Holmes," the bartender said, sounding like a schoolteacher tired of teaching the same lessons to the same group of unruly children. "We have agreed that the Chinese artifacts will remain here, and the Russian items will be dealt with upon their return to the United Kingdom."
"Confiscated, you mean," John said, not without a certain wry amusement.
The bartender shrugged and slid a fresh pint toward the redhead.
Edward Martin could hire whomever he damn well pleased, but it didn't make him any less of a thief. And Lestrade had no interest in getting in the middle of an international incident, especially one involving the bloody Holmes brothers.
He felt a bit bad for John, though. "How much did he promise you?" he asked him sympathetically.
"Well, more was promised once the job was done," John said, walking over to Lestrade. "But we'll make rent this month. Suppose I'm glad he paid for round trip tickets now." He looked at Lestrade's glass. "Any good?"
"Excellent." Lestrade turned to the bartender. "Could you--"
The man was already drawing a pint. "I suspect you've earned this," he said, pushing the glass at John.
"Ta," John said, a bit disconcerted, but not confused enough to refuse the drink. "It's been a long day. When did you get here, Greg?"
"Six am."
John shook his head. "Bloody hell."
"On the bright side, I get three weeks' leave after this and my divorce will be final."
John sat down. "Certain advantages to having the British government owe one a favor."
Lestrade nodded in agreement.
The redhead put his empty glass down and walked toward the back of the bar. "Guess I should untie the bartender, huh?"
Lestrade almost choked on his pint.
"He part of this?" the monk called over his shoulder. He'd been going over something in the notebook with Sherlock, who seemed to have calmed down a bit.
"I don't believe so, but he refused to cooperate," the not-bartender said, with the same mild tone he'd had for most of the time Lestrade had been there. "Would you like something, Sanzo?"
The monk frowned. "Any decent whiskey?"
The not-bartender took down a bottle from the top shelf and sniffed at it. "I think it might have been, before they added all the water."
At this point, the real bartender emerged, not quite screaming in Chinese. The monk strode up to the bar and wordlessly slapped a badge down. It didn't really look like a Hong Kong police badge, but Lestrade wasn't that familiar with them, so he kept his mouth shut.
The bartender fell silent.
"Come on," the monk said, scooping up his badge. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
The not-bartender said something sympathetic-sounding in Chinese to the real bartender (Lestrade noted that the sympathy did not reach his eyes). He then looked over at John and Lestrade. "Enjoy the rest of the day," he said. "It was a pleasure to meet you both."
"Likewise," Lestrade said, and stuck his hand over the bar. He knew it wasn't the custom, but it wasn't like you could mistake him for a local, now could you?
The man smiled, a bit more sincerely than he had previously, and shook it. Then he and his red-haired companion walked out from behind the bar and joined the monk in marching the thieves out the door.
"Well," John said. "That was...something, anyway." He fished a few notes out of his pocket and offered them to the bartender, who just shook his head, clearly wanting nothing to do with the situation. "Eh, well, if you're sure."
"Let's just get out of here," Lestrade said.
"It wasn't a total loss," Sherlock said, as they walked out of the bar. "When we examined the list in more detail, we discovered one of the stolen artifacts is from Taiwan." He smirked. "The corner shops of England will be out of Lemon Puffs by the time Mycroft finishes solving that puzzle."
"Not a total loss indeed," John said, smiling.
Phat Cat was a limited run stout brewed by Boxing Cat, a real brewery in Shanghai.
Author: lady_ganesh
Prompt: DI Lestrade walks into a bar and meets... Cho Hakkai!
Fandoms: BBC Sherlock/Saiyuki
Word count: 2043
Rating/Contents: PG-13 for language. The Saiyuki end of things became something of a modern AU. Thank you to tiggymalvern for betaing.
The bartender was tall and lean, around Sherlock's height. He wore glasses and a general air of polite disinterest. "What'll you have?"
Lestrade shook his head. "What do you have for a stout?"
"Tsingtao and Boxing Cat. I prefer the Boxing Cat, but of course the choice is yours."
He'd never had either. When in doubt, trust your bartender. "Boxing Cat's fine."
It wasn't a bad bar; it was quiet and clean, a step up from most of the places he'd been today. Most of the patrons were men in business suits, though he saw a few women and what looked like a monk in the corner reading the paper. It was certainly the best place he'd been in since he landed. Following Sherlock Holmes around was never a job for the squeamish, but this day had been especially demanding.
The man pushed a glass over to him. It looked satisfyingly dark. "Long day?"
Lestrade shook his head. "You have no idea." The bartender was obviously a native Chinese speaker, but his English was very clear, which was a relief. Lestrade's knowledge of Chinese was limited to 'yes,' 'no,' and 'thank you,' and only in Mandarin at that. He was running out of energy to navigate Hong Kong. If he was lucky, things would all shake out here, anyway.
If he was lucky. What a laugh. Luck and dealing with the Holmes brothers never went together. Maybe he'd at least be spared shooting at a dog that didn't exist this time round.
He took a deep pull of the beer; it was excellent. "Good choice," he said, hoping he didn't look too surprised. "Thanks."
"My pleasure," the bartender said mildly, and Lestrade looked up into his eyes for a moment. The smile didn't really reach up that far; the man's gaze was calculating, chillingly cool. For some reason, Lestrade was reminded of Sherlock.
Lestrade turned his attention back to his stout. He wasn't sure he wanted to get to the bottom of that resemblance.
He was halfway through the glass when someone burst through the back door; a lanky redhead with a build and height that matched the bartender's, his eyes wide and excited. He walked back behind the bar, his hands describing something Lestrade could only guess at, talking in rapid-fire Chinese.
The bartender answered him, his voice deliberately calm even as he scanned the windows with his eyes. "Mr. Interpol," he said calmly, and it took Lestrade a moment to realize the man was talking about him.
"I--"
"We don't have time for you to play dumb," he said.
"I don't play dumb," he said. "I'm not Interpol. I'm a copper, back home, but--"
"Things may get a bit...uncertain. But I believe your associates and ours are searching for the same lost antiquities."
Lestrade frowned; this had a familiar set of fingerprints on it. "And how do you know who I am?"
"I believe you know a Mr. M.H.?" The letters were carefully pronounced.
Lestrade lifted the pint to his lips and nodded. God only knew what the look was on his face.
The bartender smiled politely. "I see," he said. "At any rate, I have a request. One professional to another."
Lestrade swallowed and put his glass back on the bar. "You can ask."
"Do try to stay out of our way."
Lestrade opened his mouth to answer, but the door crashed open again, this time with four men, already in the middle of some kind of fistfight. There was a good deal of shouting.
Lestrade and the men behind the bar stared for a moment.
There was a large white man -- large like the size of a house -- a smaller Asian man, and -- of course -- John and Sherlock. John was grappling with the smaller man.
"Don't bloody try to--" he said, and felled his opponent with one final punch. Then he turned his attention back to the house-sized man, who had Sherlock hoisted over one shoulder.
Lestrade dared a glance at the men behind the bar. Neither of them had moved. "What," Lestrade said. "You told me to stay out of the way, but--"
Then he heard a hammer being pulled back.
When he looked back, the monk who'd been in the corner was holding a gun to the big man's head. "I think," he said, in beautifully posh English that had only the slightest undercurrent of Chinese, "we've played enough games for today."
The big man said something in Chinese. The monk rolled his eyes and snapped something back. The big man shut his mouth, looking alarmed, and carefully lowered Sherlock to the floor.
Sherlock, meanwhile, had already collected his composure. "This man," he said, with affronted dignity, as if he'd been doing beautifully and just needed another moment to deliver the knockout blow, "masterminded the theft of--"
The monk turned his attention to Sherlock. "Several cultural treasures of Xi'an," he said, "relics from Xingjiao Temple, and a jade sculpture of a lotus flower that is rumored to have belonged to Qin Shi Huang himself, along with a few fiscally irrelevant but culturally valuable pieces of ephemera." He was shorter than Sherlock - a bit taller than John - but Lestrade guessed this was one case in which Sherlock wouldn't be able to use his physical presence for intimidation. "Let me know if there's anything I missed."
Sherlock took it in stride. "He's also suspected of stealing several Russian antiquities."
The monk shrugged. "Do I fucking look Russian?"
Lestrade reached into his jacket and pulled out a handful of zip ties. "I suppose these might be useful."
The bartender raised an eyebrow at him. "Interesting choice."
"I told you," he said. "Not Interpol. And you can't very well take handcuffs through Customs without earning yourself some funny looks."
"At any rate," Sherlock said, as the redhead slunk out from behind the bar and began restraining the suspects with Lestrade’s zip ties, "I believe the location of the items we seek can be found at Mr. Menshov's hotel room, at which point they can be returned to their owner in Alston."
The monk shook his head. "Our items will be returned to the temples they were originally stolen from. Your ‘owner in Alston’ is as much a thief as Menshov."
"The temple at X'ian is no longer standing," Sherlock said, "and Xingjiao is threatened. I believe--"
"I believe," the monk said sharply, "that that is none of your concern."
Ah. This was Lestrade's cue. His shirt pocket held the letter. "Sherlock," he said, extending it while keeping an elbow firmly on the bar. "You might want to see this."
Sherlock snatched the paper from Lestrade's hand and frowned at it as though it had insulted him personally. "My brother," he said.
"And the Ambassador," Lestrade added. "Both Ambassadors, technically."
John had been watching the conversation with that expression he got when he knew what was going on but didn't want anyone else to know. Now his eyes narrowed. "So wait, we're going to hand this back to the Chinese government to do God knows what with it?"
"You're suggesting we should instead hand our cultural treasures back to an English thief?" The bartender had raised an eyebrow. The redhead had finished his task and was standing next to Lestrade; Lestrade could feel the tension he was holding in his body, ready for an objection or a fight.
John and the bartender stared at one another for a few fraught moments, and then John sighed. "I suppose that is a consideration."
The redhead relaxed a little and gestured to the bartender.
"Your thief can have his Russian antiquities back," the monk said. "The rest goes to the temples." The gun had disappeared, but he still carried an air of general menace.
"And that's what Mycroft wants, is it?" Sherlock said archly.
The monk was pulling a notebook and a pair of reading glasses out of the deep folds of his robe. "Mycroft Holmes can kiss my ass."
John snorted, and Lestrade couldn't hide his smile. Apparently they did have some feelings in common with these Chinese operatives.
"I have been in contact with Mr. Holmes," the bartender said, sounding like a schoolteacher tired of teaching the same lessons to the same group of unruly children. "We have agreed that the Chinese artifacts will remain here, and the Russian items will be dealt with upon their return to the United Kingdom."
"Confiscated, you mean," John said, not without a certain wry amusement.
The bartender shrugged and slid a fresh pint toward the redhead.
Edward Martin could hire whomever he damn well pleased, but it didn't make him any less of a thief. And Lestrade had no interest in getting in the middle of an international incident, especially one involving the bloody Holmes brothers.
He felt a bit bad for John, though. "How much did he promise you?" he asked him sympathetically.
"Well, more was promised once the job was done," John said, walking over to Lestrade. "But we'll make rent this month. Suppose I'm glad he paid for round trip tickets now." He looked at Lestrade's glass. "Any good?"
"Excellent." Lestrade turned to the bartender. "Could you--"
The man was already drawing a pint. "I suspect you've earned this," he said, pushing the glass at John.
"Ta," John said, a bit disconcerted, but not confused enough to refuse the drink. "It's been a long day. When did you get here, Greg?"
"Six am."
John shook his head. "Bloody hell."
"On the bright side, I get three weeks' leave after this and my divorce will be final."
John sat down. "Certain advantages to having the British government owe one a favor."
Lestrade nodded in agreement.
The redhead put his empty glass down and walked toward the back of the bar. "Guess I should untie the bartender, huh?"
Lestrade almost choked on his pint.
"He part of this?" the monk called over his shoulder. He'd been going over something in the notebook with Sherlock, who seemed to have calmed down a bit.
"I don't believe so, but he refused to cooperate," the not-bartender said, with the same mild tone he'd had for most of the time Lestrade had been there. "Would you like something, Sanzo?"
The monk frowned. "Any decent whiskey?"
The not-bartender took down a bottle from the top shelf and sniffed at it. "I think it might have been, before they added all the water."
At this point, the real bartender emerged, not quite screaming in Chinese. The monk strode up to the bar and wordlessly slapped a badge down. It didn't really look like a Hong Kong police badge, but Lestrade wasn't that familiar with them, so he kept his mouth shut.
The bartender fell silent.
"Come on," the monk said, scooping up his badge. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
The not-bartender said something sympathetic-sounding in Chinese to the real bartender (Lestrade noted that the sympathy did not reach his eyes). He then looked over at John and Lestrade. "Enjoy the rest of the day," he said. "It was a pleasure to meet you both."
"Likewise," Lestrade said, and stuck his hand over the bar. He knew it wasn't the custom, but it wasn't like you could mistake him for a local, now could you?
The man smiled, a bit more sincerely than he had previously, and shook it. Then he and his red-haired companion walked out from behind the bar and joined the monk in marching the thieves out the door.
"Well," John said. "That was...something, anyway." He fished a few notes out of his pocket and offered them to the bartender, who just shook his head, clearly wanting nothing to do with the situation. "Eh, well, if you're sure."
"Let's just get out of here," Lestrade said.
"It wasn't a total loss," Sherlock said, as they walked out of the bar. "When we examined the list in more detail, we discovered one of the stolen artifacts is from Taiwan." He smirked. "The corner shops of England will be out of Lemon Puffs by the time Mycroft finishes solving that puzzle."
"Not a total loss indeed," John said, smiling.
Phat Cat was a limited run stout brewed by Boxing Cat, a real brewery in Shanghai.