[My findings are that you are in no danger of addiction,] he says. Smugly. [And the vampires of the bite shop are not in the habit of murder.]

[I think for tonight, I will have a full breakfast just to make sure I am not feeling peckish while we experiment.]

[Good idea.] She puts a jar in the microwave. [Not wise to grocery shop on an empty stomach. You do know how much it's safe to take? I've probably got better-than-average safety margin even without squares, because Slayer healing, but.]

[I do know.]

Sherlock laughs.

The microwave beeps. They teleport. Juliet hands over the blood.

"You knoooow," says Shell Bell, "it'd probably be safe for me to just leave you two by yourselves on the beach, and you can brainphone me to pick you up when you're done. Juliet's got a few squares tucked into her socks."

"I think that is a fine plan," says Sherlock.

"How long would you like it to?"

"I don't know what my choices are. Ballpark. Seconds, minutes, half an hour?" She thins her thread of fire where it hovers over the sea until it's just a line, and then she overdoes it and it splits; half of it fizzles and she renews it a quarter-inch thicker, then starts it to rippling.

"More than seconds. Probably less than half an hour."

"How likely am I to need to form a preference about duration beforehand due to loss of the ability to speak?" she wonders. Her fireline flickers but she recovers concentration enough that it doesn't go out completely before she reassumes control.

"Not sure," he says merrily. "We could do a short trial run and see what you think afterward."

Sherlock smiles.

"You said that it lasts till contact is broken - does that mean bitey contact or snacky contact or just any contact at all up to and including innocuous hand-holding?" She coils the line into a ring, joins up the ends and then splits it. It flickers again and she forces it back into existence.

"That part I'm less sure of."

"Science," says Juliet sagely.

"Ah, science."

"I can bite you anywhere you like," he says cheerfully.

"Sure," says Sherlock. "Shall I?"

"Mmhm." She crosses her legs and plants her hands on either side of her in the sand and can't seem to decide whether to close her eyes or not.

"Fuck, Sherlock." She's shuddering, head to toe, and one of her hands finds its way out of sand to grab at his back, shortly followed by the other. "Ohgod."

[You really are delicious,] he informs her. [Literally and metaphorically.]

"Nnnnnnng." Shuddering has turned to outright squirming, like she's trying to scratch an itch but can't reclaim her hands.

Sherlock snuggles her—gently, gently—and kisses the bite mark several times. The pleasantness fades out gradually.

"Fuck," comments Juliet breathlessly, snuggling up and tucking her head between his neck and shoulder. "'m I getting blood on my shirt...?"

"Just a little," he says affectionately, hugging her and licking his lips and kissing the top of her head.

Hugs snuggles hugs snuggles Juliet is in a very happy place right now.

A good long afterglowy snuggle ensues. Finally Juliet yawns and adjusts her shirt and says "Time to call Shell Bell?"

"Why not," he agrees.

"You're awesome," she says, sounding almost tipsy as she indulges one final nuzzle before sitting up straight, and she calls Shell Bell.

Shell Bell appears on cue, looking very amused, although apparently the need to wink has already been processed out of her system. "Triangle can take care of the stain," she says lightly.

"Oh, shut up," giggles Juliet.

Sherlock just grins.

Shell Bell snickers and teleports them all back to the brick place.

Where Sherlock, out of cheerful exuberance, scoops Juliet up and twirls her around and kisses her.

"Eeeheehee!" Juliet giggles. "Well, you're in a good mood. Either I'm contagious or full of ambrosia."

"Both," says Sherlock. "Both is also a possibility."

Kisses, kisses. "I'm only a little tired, don't take me home yet, Shell Bell," yawns Juliet. "Little tired, little dizzy..."

Kisses. Cuddly kisses.

So many of those.

Shell Bell giggles and goes to see what Tony's up to rather than be some kind of supervisory third wheel.

Tony is upstairs, installing cameras.

"How goes?" Shell Bell asks. "Also, Sherlock and Juliet are even more adorable when he's been recently bitey."

"Pretty good!" he says cheerfully. "Yeah, I don't doubt it. Why, are they getting kinky down there?"

"Just snuggling and making sappy faces at each other and kissing, now, and if they were up to anything else I'd expect not to know what it was and to be asked not to come back into the room. At this point Juliet looks pretty much at him like I look at mine, but don't hand her a mirror or anything, I couldn't stop blushing for an hour after I read the visual of me the first time. The biteyness happened on the beach without me there, and as far as I know that's all that happened."

"That is cute," he says. "I'm glad it's going so good with them."

"Me too. I was starting to feel kind of outnumbered, all those Bells with Whistles instead. I will pick Juliet for my team if there is ever a massive Bell pickup oysterball game in the backyard at Milliways."

...Tony giggles.

"I miss mine," she sighs. "And my Tony, too, him I haven't seen in longer, me and Sherlock went by ourselves to Angela's and stayed a couple of weeks, Tony was asleep when we tried to ask if he wanted to come..."

She snuggles up just about as comfortably as she does with her own Tony.

And he cuddles her just about her comfortably as her own Tony would.

"It is a consistent feature of Tonies that you are snuggly," she announces happily.

"We are!" he agrees, beaming.

"Am I distracting you excessively from installing cameras?" Shell Bell asks. And she's been forgetting to make squares for the last couple of minutes, too; she maneuvers so her hands are together and she can bend her thumb in a way it does not like.

"I can take some time off to snuggle you," he asserts.

"Okay." She makes no further objection, just snuggles and makes squares.

She can almost forget that this one isn't hers. She kisses his neck back, just a little peck.

He smiles and hugs her some more.