good guesser

[lifes_sake]

Cam is taken entirely by surprise when his office door doesn't lead to his office, but instead to a bizarre sort of bar.

He has Grace and his manual - he always carries them, in a backpack sort of thing with one cross-chest strap - and not much else on him to handle this situation. It might be Iggy. It might not be Iggy. He is not sure.

He looks around, concludes only that he is confused, and closes his eyes and listens instead.

Comments

[lifes_sake]

"Nine of me. Definitely the nine of me part. Also the corresponding pronoun."

[eversomuchfun]

"I have met nine different versions of you from nine different universes. All are female. One is my girlfriend."

[lifes_sake]

"...Okay, I grant that the fact that you knew my name suggests that there is something going on here, but how in the world - worlds - would you know I was one if they're girls?"

[eversomuchfun]

"See, again, Sherlock Holmes. Your bone structure is nearly identical, you move the same way, you speak the same way, you're carrying spiral-bound notebooks, you exhibit nearly every characteristic common to the Bells except for the ones directly related to sexual dimorphism in humans."

[lifes_sake]

"How do you know about my notebooks, my backpack is zipped, have you been talking to Grace or something?"

[eversomuchfun]

"The bindings put pressure on the fabric of the backpack, distorting it in a distinctive pattern. Who is Grace?"

[lifes_sake]

Cam smirks. "Ah, something you don't know. You're Sherlock Holmes, can't you figure it out?"

[eversomuchfun]

"Grace is evidently a notebook. You're carrying two. The other is a decoy, because you'd hardly name each book individually, there's hundreds, so unless it's an inherited title you must have combined the lot of them into one, how am I doing so far?"

[lifes_sake]

Cam counts on his fingers. "Hit, B-plus, no points, hit."

[eversomuchfun]

"Mm, not a decoy? Serves some other function, then, I won't venture a guess until I know how your world's magic works beyond the obvious, would you like to meet the rest of you? They'll be terribly excited, or possibly appalled, there has after all never been a Bell who pees standing up before."

[lifes_sake]

"I'm kind of appalled. Why am I girls?" Cam says, shaking his head. "I dunno, start me with one first, then I'll meet the onslaught of - what's the term? Sisters, cousins?"

[eversomuchfun]

"Alts. And I believe the specific collective noun is 'peal of Bells'."

[lifes_sake]

"At least if you're one's boyfriend I don't have to expect a torrent of Jellybeans too, I think that might be a bit much and you're definitely not a Jellybean," snorts Cam. "Peal of Bells. Cute. Way too cute, why am I girls..."

[eversomuchfun]

"Tell me more of this Jellybean," says Minus, turning toward the door. "There's only one Bell with a unique significant other, and Sherlocks are in the minority, I'm one of two."

[lifes_sake]

"...Oh. Jellybean's my boyfriend. He dresses up like Sailor Moon and he and Tilly saved my life when Iggy was trying to kill me and he's good at improvisational spells," says Cam. "We starting with your girlfriend?"

[eversomuchfun]

"Is he by any chance about six feet tall, curly brown hair, strong jaw...? Yes, I was planning to introduce you to her first, unless you object to that for some reason."

[lifes_sake]

"I have no basis on which to prefer any other order. So you think there is a torrent of Jellybeans, huh? Well - to be sure -" Cam pulls out Grace, turns her to a blank page, and murmurs softly in Speech, "Hey, you wanna draw me a picture of Jellybean? I bet you do, c'mon."

And lo, a picture of Jellybean in full mahou shoujo garb. "There lots of these running around?"

[eversomuchfun]

"Ah, you have hit upon the Bells' most common companion. The individuals are Jokers; the collective is a deck. Handy fellows to have around. I believe there were eight at last count, not all connected to Bells."

[lifes_sake]

"Wow. Okay. And I am the only boy Bell. They're going to be all over me. I'm not sure if it's Christmas or Armageddon."

[eversomuchfun]

"Can it not be both?" he inquires.

[lifes_sake]

"Perhaps it can. And there's more of you too, huh? I'm going to need to see a list at some point." He tucks Grace away into his bag. "Get everything written down."

[eversomuchfun]

"There is such a list, as it happens. Fair warning, I am the only Sherlock who is likely to flirt with you. Shall we go find my girlfriend?"

[lifes_sake]

"Others only like girls or something?" asks Cam. "I think I'll have enough to deal with if there's eight more Jellybeans. And yeah, let's go meet your girlfriend. What's her name? Belinda, Arabella, Isabelle, something like that?"

[eversomuchfun]

"Isabella, goes by Bella, I call her Juliet and to avoid redundancy so do most other people if there's more than one of her cluttering up the conversation."

He opens the door.

[lifes_sake]

"I guess if I'm the only boy I can just carry on going by Cam," says Cam.