A/N: This was written as mostly an inside joke awhile back, but I figured it'd be fun to share anyway. Here were the parameters for the story:

Challenge Criteria (so as to show that I'm not completely throwing out random plot points):

-Title had to be: Waiter! There's a hairball in my soup.

-MC'd by a Gay British Cat

-MC had to go both somewhere both somewhere the British are loved (a Beatles reunion, for example), and hated (ex. Ireland)

-There must be a national emergency caused by the combination of a hairball and a cup of tea

-At least one law enforcement agent allergic to cats must be placed on the case (the case is left up to the discretion of the author, however, this phrase must be used)

-Although we all know coming back from the dead is impossible, that doesn't mean the dead cannot function. At least one character must no longer be numbered among the living.

-Quote to be included: "Madam, your bustierre is full of lemonade!"

*******************THE UNBUCKLED SWASH****************

“Pull tighter, wench!”

Anna pulled tighter. The corset didn’t budge.

“Useless ninny! Lazy, wretched, creature!”

The corset still didn’t move.

“…madam, your bustier is full of lemonade. Perhaps it should first be removed?”

“Why I never! The Lemonάde Bustier is the height of fashion! If the Countess Warbeck had come into this….this… shop, you would not refuse her your services! You would snerk that horrible facial twist of yours and simper and cater to her whims!” A huffle snort. “Whatever happened to quality customer service, I ask! Why, I only frequent this shop due to the dear memory of your father, Jean FrauJean! Such a dear man, such a … a… Ruski. Now, there, there, was a man! I remember—”

Anna sighed, and imperceptibly repositioned her arms (which were stuttering and quivering like a half-naked Cuban in Antarctica). She didn’t understand the allure of multiple jugs of lemonade shoved into the bosoms of the nobility. Then again, maybe it facilitated the lift and separate?

It was hard, being the token anachronistic plucky girl in her town. It was more difficult than one would think, dealing with both her parents tragically, yet mysteriously, dying before she was six. And the mysterious lack of other relatives forced her to raise herself (yet again, more difficult than it sounded). She forced a carefree and feminist air for the town (she fondly recalled the time when she got up in the face of a Lady and screamed for her to show some sort of emotion… not so fondly the week she spent in prison). Even so, she cried into her pillow each night (which was horrible for her pores and quite difficult to breathe through). The other girls hated her through no fault of her own (ignoring the fact that she acted quite mannish and unlearned, as well as having no status to lean upon) and she couldn’t find a male friend for fear that they might inappropriately fall in love with her and cause a scandal (disregarding the fact that she was an undesirable match and quite plain looking). Life, quite frankly, sucked.

And business was bad as well. It wasn’t her fault that she existed outside of the market system (actually, it was, but she was a non-conformist anyway). She didn’t sell the wares necessary for membership into the Very Black, the Slightly Black, or the Gray Markets. And she was banned from being a member of the Fluffy Happy Bunny Pink and Happiness market from her stint of trying to un-brainwash children (read: corrupt them). So even though she was the finest seamstress in the land (read: mediocre), she had to put up with being on the outskirts of town and dealing with difficult and snarky customers.

She happily anticipated the arrival of her fairy godmother. Or a prince. She wasn’t picky.

*******

He needed a new name. “Swashbuckling Shep” kept getting him hired gents instead of hired wenches. At first he’d thought that it was better than his birth name, “Gerald Hughbert”, but “Swashbuckling Shep” was worse than “Imperiled Gerald”, “Horny Hugh” and “Baby Bert”.

The only person that cared about him anymore was the ship’s cat, Malky.

*****

The Annoying One had brought him food, which meant he’d let him live another day.

*****

He was a cute little kitty, with pure white fur and intelligent eyes. He was a good listener, too.

******

If the Annoying One continued to go on about HIS needs, instead of the more important MALKY’S needs, then Malky was so biting off his pink bits.

******

If only there was a girl that was half the companion the kitty was.

*****

If Malky didn’t hook up the Annoying One soon, he feared for his virtue.

*****

The ship was currently docked in a small port town in the British Colonies, which had the unique quality of randomly switching between being pro-British and anti-British. He figured a half-hearted revolution was in the horizon. Anyway, the others were all out wenching and pillaging and doing all that fun stuff that pirates got to do, and he was stuck swabbing the deck and talking to a cat. And what was up with that? Swabbing a deck? It’s not like anyone aside from the crew was on this decayed log, and the sea spray did just as good of a job as the patchwork “mop” that they used.

Oh. And then there was the excuse of “guarding the prisoner”. Granted, the prisoner was actually a lady-in-waiting from the Motherland, and was confined to—

Oh. There’s an idea.

He wanted a girl. There was a girl on the ship. She was on the ship. He was forbidden from leaving the ship. The girl was a prisoner. She had to do whatever he said.

Hmmm. This bore thinking about.

Absentmindedly picking up Malky (who squeaked), Shep plodded over to the ‘Guest Quarters’.

*****

He was a dark and stormy knight. And he was here for her.

Anna squealed.

The knight covered his ears in pain and roared, “Haud yer wheest, quine! Ouawr!”

Anna giggled. Boys were always so nonsensical.

“Sassenach, do ya ken where th’ port be?” the heartthrob knight asked, with slightly less patience.

Anna melted. Inside, she realized that he must be her soul mate—the only way an anachronistic plucky girl ever calmed down was due to true love. Oh! And high adventure! How exciting!

“I’ll go anywhere with you,” she oozed out from her puddle of mushy feelings.

“Quit yer havering, eejit. For th’ last time, do ya ken where th’ port be?”

Anna, now puddle of melty gooey chocolately fangirl, nodded.

The knight looked to the heavens and begged for patience. Or a crossbow. “In the name of the wee man, lead th’ way, lass, quickly. This be a matter of much importance.”

Anna wondered if she could lead him into a dark alleyway and make him have his wicked way with her now or later.

*****

Malky wished he was anywhere but here. Human mating habits were kinda icky.

Then again, it surprised him as to how many ways they could go about it. The couple he was being forced to watch were in Round 5, with different positions for each. He could admire such creativity.

He hopped up on the table, and began munching on the crumpets and biscuits. Crumpets were overrated, he decided. In fact, he figured that nobody would notice if he left a little present in its place. A bit for a bite, after all. They pretty much tasted the same anyway. Mealtime over, Malky started cleaning his fur, a task long overdue, to the soundtrack of Round Six. By the time Round 8 started up (poor boy had no stamina), Malky was happily hacking out the dirty hairs.

Round 11 (and Malky’s nap in the lady’s discarded dress) was interrupted by the door breaking down.

****

“Doona palaver! I’ve found ye, ye bastards!” The knight thundered, as the door fell to the floor. At the sight of the pirate and the lady, in flagrante delecto, the knight pulsed in angry energy, veins bulged, muscles tightened, and a roar was released that was more leonine than human.

Malky was in awe. Malky now knew what it was like to have a hero.

Malky wanted to try Position 3, Round 7 with him.

“Erm…. Who …dares… u-uhm, enter?” Shep stuttered. The lady was taking this opportunity to get back into her clothes, which were now covered in cat hair.

“Who’s asking?” the knight rumbled.

“Um… I am Captain Spack Jarrow!” Shep yelped.

“No, yer not. I killed your Cap’n back on th’ mainland.”

While Shep slowly tried to figure out how to escape and the thoroughly shagged lady-in-waiting tried to figure out how her previously mortally-wounded bodyguard found her, Anna, huffing and obviously lagging behind the super-human knight, launched herself at the his bicep and said, “Honey, when we get back home, we will explore this.”

“Fuck no, wench. Quit blethering.” The knight began to shake his arm, as to remove the parasite from his person.

“Killing people isn’t normal, dear.” She was obviously familiar with the gimme-game.

“Normal fer YOU, ye thrawn bint.” He shook harder.

“So much hostility. Don’t worry, the power of love will cleanse it from your system.” She nodded knowingly, while practically being thrown in midair, but tenaciously holding on.

“BINT! Clean yer lugs! I’m a fecking draugr! Hatred and aggression are all yon keeping me together!”

Oh, thought the dim lady-in-waiting. So that’s why Kerr Comyn is still alive after a mortal wound. He’s a zombie.

“Hmmm…. Control issues?” pressed Anna.

“No!”

“If you don’t have control issues,” she stumbled, her speech starting to get disrupted due to the rapid shaking, “then tell me that you love me, and we can ride off into the sunset on a white pony.”

“Fuck no!”

“Control issues!”

It was at this point that not only did Kerr’s rotting arm fall off, but Shep realized he was doomed.

Malky thought the appendage was hot, and appropriately began rubbing up against it.

******

Minutes later, Shep, Anna, Kerr, and his Lady’s lady were all seated at the table, attempting to have a British stiff upper lip and resolve things over tea. Anna was stitching Kerr’s arm back onto his body. Malky was rather sad about that.

“You need to take better care of yourself, dear,” she patronized.

“Shut the bloody feck up,” he grumbled, awkwardly scratching at his arms. For some reason, they were itchy and red spots were starting to appear. He sneezed.

“Bless you,” Shep said automatically.

“I’ll fecking ‘bless yew’ t’ Canadia,” Kerr grumbled.

“That’s Canada, dear.”

With pleasantries out of the way (“Hi, how are you, this is my husband” “Not yer bloody fecking husband, wench!” and so on), conversation was stilted.

“So,” drawled the lady in waiting, “Kerr, how are you still amongst the living?”

“I’m not—I paid a Rom fer life insurance. Wasna quite what I had in mind. Forbye, couldna stay dead while you were being tupped by jags. Yer betrothed will be hashed ‘bout tha’.”

“…sorry about that,” muttered Shep. ‘A guy’s got needs!’ he internally added.

“I was on the case, but now tha’ yer safe, we kin jest get back home. Iffin yer friends do me a favor, and get rid of th’ nyaff, I ken that I’ll be forgettin’ this ever happened.”

“My love! How could you—“

“Deal.”

And so, with business concluded, the lady in waiting gathered up her things from the room, while Anna sulked and pleaded with her true love to not abandon their pure feelings for the sake of personal gain. Shep poured tea.

There is a plant, an herb, called hemlock. It is quite poisonous, and it causes stomach pains, vomiting, progressive paralysis of the central nervous system, and oftentimes death. Random fact: it was the poison that killed Socrates. Another interesting fact is that mixed with tea and tea leaves, it bears resemblance to hairballs.

Hairballs that Malky coughed up in the teapot.

“Poison! Murder most foul!” roared Kerr, upon seeing his tea. “But poison doona work on a dead man. I doona ken why ye would try to murder th’ British nobility, but this means war!”

Snarling, the Scot bodyguard grabbed his charge (who protested, seeing as she was only half-packed), punted Malky across the room (seeing as the cat had been boldly rubbing against the Scotsman’s legs), and glared at the two Colonists in the room.

It should be noted that upon leaving the ship (who, seeing as the pirate sails were down, and unmanned, but filled topside with cargo, seemed like any other merchant ship), Kerr kicked a few crates overboard.

What he didn’t know, was that a few drunk guys on the pier decided that kicking crates off of the ships looked like fun, and decided they wanted to have a go as well.

The desecration of the British tea imports, as well as the traitorous ways of the Colonists that the undead Scotsman reported back to the crown, heralded that half-hearted revolution Shep figured was coming.

And Malky? He escaped the pirate ship, and was last seen inappropriately touching Benjamin Franklin.

*MISCHIEF MANAGED