A reviewer, Dracomancer1, suggested I rewrite this some time several months ago. As they made several accurate points, I started to when they reviewed but got side tracked by other fics and, gasp, real life. This is still a fairly short chapter as I kind of liked most of it but hopefully the rest will be longer and, you know, better.
There'll be an edited AN or possibly 'rewrite' in the chapter title when I've uploaded the new version.
America had turned out to be just as boring as England. Yes, different people to deduce but all with the same petty motives as the idiots back home. He'd thought New York would be interesting.
The man at the desk was cheating on his wife with the one of the waiters, the woman at the table next to his had just thrown out her boyfriend and now was regretting it, god only knew why, Sherlock scouts tell by her shirt that he was an abusive alcoholic.
Bored.
The only real change was the quality of the tea.
He tried another sip in case it had miraculously got better. No such luck. This wretched excuse for a beverage was nothing compared to what John and Mrs Hudson had made.
He missed them but Moriarty's men were still around, waiting to kill him as soon as he went back to England. He couldn't even make a place for himself here. The hardcore followers his nemesis were everywhere.
Sherlock left money for the awful, unfinished tea on the table then walked out into the freezing New York morning. He tightened his scarf and wandered down the street.
Bored.
Homeless, 24 year old drug addict, finally thrown out by his parents when the rehab hadn't worked for the third time. Sherlock pushed past him before he could try and beg some money off him. The only drug habit Sherlock would ever fuel was his own because he wasn't addicted, just bored, living out here alone in such a boring city.
Sherlock carried on walking, vaguely hoping for something interesting.
There were sounds from an alley, shouting. African-American male, maybe about forty. Male, white American, quite old, smoked a lot until recently.
And another voice. A voice with a strange accent that Sherlock couldn't place, which was unusual in itself, that covered over anything that he could deduce.
Sherlock edged silently to the entrance of the alley.
His eyes widened.
What the hell was that? It was at least seven feet tall with six arms. Two of them held a pair of strange gun, pointed at both of the Americans. They both wore plain black suits and were pointing equally as peculiar weapons at the creature, whatever it was.
This was far from boring.
So far, none of them had noticed Sherlock yet. He crept closer to them. He slowly took his phone from his pocket and took some photos of the men and the creature.
So what was going on here?
The creature was yelling in a language that Sherlock couldn't identify. It wasn't like anything he'd seen or heard before. The older man was perfectly calm but his partner, obviously lower in whatever organisation from the way they were stood, was getting agitated. So whatever the creature (probably an alien, Sherlock had decided) was saying was something disagreeable. But was it disagreeable in a "you haven't paid your tab" way or more of a "I'm going to destroy your planet" way. Probably the latter by the way the alien was raving.
The alien looked away from the men for a second and saw Sherlock lurking in the opening to the alley.
Damn.
The thing charged at him but at the last second one of the men fired his weapon. Some kind of pulse flew out and the monster exploded.
There was blue stuff all over him. Thankfully it didn't feel corrosive. Just very... Blue.
"What was that?" Sherlock asked curiously, quickly recovering.
"Good question. And," the older man said, getting a pair of sunglasses and small cylinder with a red light at the top from his jacket. "If you could look into the end of this, we'll give you an answer..."
