ours is a service-oriented economy

[cross_and_bow]

A day passes. Jarvis is closer to booting up. Juliet is closer to control of her fire wand. Shell Bell is closer to actually needing that lightening feature on her coin bandolier.

Juliet asks, when she gets home after studying demons: [What, pray tell, are your findings, Sherlock?]

She has not put any blood in the microwave yet.

Comments

[eversomuchfun]

"How long would you like it to?"

[cross_and_bow]

"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.

[eversomuchfun]

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

[cross_and_bow]

"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.

[eversomuchfun]

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

[cross_and_bow]

"I like this plan," she says.

She adds temperature variation to the rippling of the line of fire.

[eversomuchfun]

Sherlock smiles.

[cross_and_bow]

"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.

[eversomuchfun]

"That part I'm less sure of."

[cross_and_bow]

"Science," says Juliet sagely.

[eversomuchfun]

"Ah, science."

[cross_and_bow]

Juliet starts playing with dipping the fireline under the water. She loses it several times before she can force her brain to believe that it'll go. It is magic fire, and it will in fact dip below the ocean and go right on burning there if she asks it. Bits of the sea begin to simmer quietly.

This variation on the exercise is sufficiently absorbing that it occupies the rest of her practice time before she declares herself tired. It is perhaps a credit to her discipline that she didn't hurry or make this declaration earlier than she has in the past.

She sits down in the sand and tucks her wand into her hair; she's not quite as practiced as Shell Bell at that, either, but she can do it. "Between Slayer healing and - which tattoo is it that does healing, I think it was the sun one - I probably won't have a bite mark tomorrow morning, but before we know that for sure is there some non-traditional location that's easier to hide? I don't want to have to stutter at Mr. Giles explaining myself, and I think his concern would probably trump his librarian sensibilities if I showed up with a half-healed barbecue fork wound."

[eversomuchfun]

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

[cross_and_bow]

Juliet begins considering locations. (She blushes just a little bit.)

Her shirt today has a bit of a loose neckline. She pulls it down over one shoulder, and the bra strap with it. "Slightly left of traditional?" she asks, drawing a circle above the far edge of her collarbone with the opposite finger and looking up tentatively.

[eversomuchfun]

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

[cross_and_bow]

"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.

[eversomuchfun]

He kisses her shoulder, and then bites. Not very hard. Enough to get through the skin, but only just.

It is, as promised, pleasant.

[cross_and_bow]

Her hands clench in the sand and whether she'd decided on closing her eyes or not, they squeeze shut while her mouth falls open.

"Oh - oh fuck," she gasps.

[eversomuchfun]

Yes. That is the desired response.

Sherlock hugs her and sips at the wound in her shoulder, keeping the connection going, maintaining the pleasantness.

[cross_and_bow]

"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."

[eversomuchfun]

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

[cross_and_bow]

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

[eversomuchfun]

He doesn't know exactly how it feels to be on the human side of this equation. But he knows what the variables are.

He fits his mouth more firmly over the marks made by his teeth, and sucks.

[cross_and_bow]

The shuddering is back. In force. She squeezes him hard enough to hurt, and makes a half-strangled keening noise with fragments of his name interspersed with other less meaningful noises.

Her shaking peaks and then stops and she relaxes her hold on Sherlock and the noises fall to a low mmmmmm.

[eversomuchfun]

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