Mystrade Oneshots

26) Language Barriers

Now Mycroft Holmes is a very clever man, and Greg Lestrade however smart he is, will never be as smart as Mycroft.

Which he's ok with.

Greg's always thought that there are different kinds of smart anyway. Mycroft might be able to do algebraic equations in three seconds flat but he can understand emotion. Both equally as useful skills if you ask him.

There's one thing that does bother him though. The fact that Mycroft, and all the very smart people around him, can talk in what Greg likes to call "half-sentences." Which often leaves him trying to fill in the blanks and connect all the dots whenever he's listening to a conversation between Mycroft and anyone he works with.

So Greg decided he'd had enough. There was a language he remembered from his younger days that he was sure Mycroft would never even had heard of.

Time to get some of his own back.

"Hello Gregory." Mycroft called as he walked onto the crime scene that Greg was currently working on.

Greg looked up and a smile imediantly found his lips. "Hey, what are you doing here?"

"My meeting finished early and I wanted to see you." Mycrofts tone suggested he may have had something to do with the meeting ending early.

"Wait, did it end early and you wanted to see me or did it end early because you wanted to see me?"

Mycroft had something that might be mistaken for a grin on his lips. "Does it matter?"

"Not really, I think I know the answer anyway." Greg finally stood up from what he was examining on the ground and gave Mycroft a kiss on the cheek.

Ok, Mycroft was definietly grinning. "Dinner?"

"God yes."

"Are you that hungry?"

"Hank Marvin."

Mycroft stopped. Had he heard that wrong? No, his hearing was impecible. "Excuse me, Gregory?"

"You're excused." It was Gregs turn to grin now.

"Who is Hank Marvin? And what relevance does he hold to this conversation?"

"No Myc, I'm Hank Marvin."

Mycroft tilted his head to the side. "You're Gregory Lestrade."

"I know that silly. So where are we eating?" Greg asked, wanting to change the conversation so he had more chances to introduce Mycroft to this new language.

Mycroft made a quick mental note to run a background check on this Hank Marvin bloke as soon as he could, before answering the question. "Our usual restaurant."

"Not too far then, fancy a ball of chalk?" Greg was trying to ask this in the most casual way possible.

Mycroft just looked at him blankly for a good ten seconds before replying. "No? Not particularly."

"Well then how are we gonna get there? Do you have a jam-jar waiting around here somewhere?" Greg took an innocent look around, pretending to look for Mycroft's car.

"Why would I have-? Gregory are you alright?"

Greg refocused on Mycroft and gave a bemused smile. "Yeah, are you alright?"

"Fine." Mycroft quickly scanned over the other man to make sure he was really all right. "Lets just walk slowly..."

Dinner was over and done with after a few hours and after Mycroft had made sure Gregory was safely back at his flat, he made his own way home. He decided to run that check on 'Hank Marvin' and discovered it was, in fact, just a phrase used to describe being hungry. It came from cockney rhyming slang, just like the other phrases Gregory had used.

The next time Greg tried to talk with cockney rhyming slang, Mycroft was prepared and countered his: "I like your whistle and flute." With, "Thank you, but it was quite a lot of bees and honey."

Greg only got to outsmart Mycroft the once, but he didn't mind. It was once more than he thought he would anyway.