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?

"Hey my bird. Aurora's confused about how Bells do poly and we don't think I'll help much but she's asking us anyway just for completeness."

"Bird?" asks Aurora.

"When we were kids we played this game and his avatar was a bird," says Aegis. "We spent more time together in it than out of it and when I needed to work at it to let him link me I had to concentrate on him being the bird."

Sue helpfully squares up an illusion of his bird-avatar, with its candleflame wings and many-hued body.

"Pretty."

"So anyway, we were kids, and then I figured he was gay, and then I found out he wasn't, and you'd have to swallow a lot of vacuum not to think he's cute," says Aegis, wrapping her arms around his arm. "And I knew perfectly well by then that sleeping around is just a Sue thing. Asking him not to would make about as much sense as asking him to boycott, like, toast, he is not going to feel any different about me if he has toast for breakfast."

"Also I like sex more than I like toast," Sue says brightly, squeezing Aegis's hand.

"At least now that you're basically cured of Unhealthy Sue Behavior."

"Unhealthy Sue Behavior," says Aurora blankly.

"Oh, while I was at Tactical I got a little fucked up and started fucking anybody who felt like it even if I didn't really want to," he says. "But Aegis helped me fix myself and now I only fuck people I like."

"Should I worry about Brilliance doing that?"

"Far as I can tell, I'm the only Joker who did," he shrugs.

"I mean, is the setup that led to that something that might happen to Brilliance even if the others have avoided it."

"I don't think so. It wasn't the same guy or anything, he got the Earth standard version."

"That guy is a recurring template? Eugh."

"Well, how it happened for most of the Jokers s really similar, we're not sure if it was all the same guy or not," he says. "And we don't really care. Mine was really different circumstances."

"He was set up," growls Aegis, "as a psych test."

"Holy crap."

"The IF is kinda fucked up sometimes," says Sue. "I mean, they didn't pay the guy or anything, they just noticed and decided to keep the teachers off his back and see what I did."

"And they let him see how to get into rooms. Our room."

"What'd you do?" asks Aurora softly.

"I froze up, he beat up Aegis, I unfroze, he beat me up for a bit, then I killed him."

"Damn."

"And then the psychologists kept squabbling with each other, like, why they even set this up if they didn't have an idea about what it'd mean any way it could've gone down I do not know."

"Because they're assholes," Sue suggests.

"It sure sounds like it, yeah."

"And they raised us from age six!" says Aegis chirpily. "Which is why I'm so well adjusted."

Sue snorts and hugs Aegis.

Hugs!

"Well," says Aurora, "apart from the metaphor regarding toast - which might actually help - this has been about as productive as I expected, but thanks anyway."

"You're welcome!" says Sue.

"Anytime," laughs Aegis.

Aurora wanders into the throng of party guests, at a bit of a loose end.