Aurora is now in search of Shell Bell!

Surprising exactly no one, Shell Bell is with her Sherlock!

"Hey guys," says Aurora. "I am on an increasingly futile-seeming quest to figure out how Bells learn to handle open relationships."

"I don't know how much help I'll be," says Shell Bell.

"Of course you don't. Nobody does. Humor me?"

"Well, it's just that I agreed to it on the strength of hearsay about Stella having done it, and then just - failed to have an actual issue about nonmonogamy per se after that."

Sherlock smiles brightly.

"...But Stella wound up turning Alice into a vampire for reasons that appear to be at least partly motivated by insecurity."

"...I did not know that. Um, but I still wound up doing all right, even if my original reason for suspecting I'd do all right turned out not to be so sound?"

"I did not know that either," says Sherlock. "And yet here we are, seemingly untroubled."

"Yeah, I don't especially want to turn you into a vampire, that would be really awkward whichever way the bond wound up shaking out."

"Okay, but, how did you do it, you didn't just go 'Stella did so I can too' and then leave the contents of 'can' completely blank, did you?"

"I guess the timing on my special circumstances might have contributed?" says Shell Bell. "I was already trying to get into a headspace where I could be with Sherlock, and then that turned out to be part of the deal unless I wanted to make a fuss, and I still wanted her and didn't find myself motivated to fuss, so -" She shrugs. "I didn't find out about Tony until later. The actual nonmonogamy conversation made it sound like it was much more up to me than it probably would have been if I'd registered an objection to him in particular and Sherlock didn't have him on her mind right then."

"I would not have been able to give up Tony," says Sherlock. "Though I suppose I would also have been mildly reluctant to give up other Sherlocks."

"And if you'd had to pick you would have been upset, and I didn't want you to be upset," says Shell Bell contently.

"I'm sure you hear this about thirty times every time you show up to one of these parties," says Aurora, "but you guys are really freaking cute."

"I have yet to tire of being reminded," says Sherlock, pecking her Bell on the cheek.

Shell Bell beams and kisses her Sherlock back.

"Okay. I'm planning to skip Aegis, since she grew up with Sue and if that doesn't scream special circumstances I don't know what does."

"They were just friends for almost a decade," offers Shell Bell, "you could try her anyway just for completeness."

"It is always possible you might learn something," says Sherlock, hugging her Bell. Because she feels like it.

"Aww." Aurora nods. "Okay. Thank you," she adds.

Shell Bell nuzzles her Sherlock. "You're welcome!"

And now Aurora's looking for Aegis.

Aegis listens to the spiel, agrees that she's probably not much help, but regardless birds at her Sue, Hey, want to meet Aurora?