HI MATT

[wearsthecoats]

Sherlock has:

• an armchair by the fire
• an expression of unreasonable cheer
• a mug of cold-pressed coffee
• a truly impressive collection of hickeys, accented by a well-bitten lip that only recently stopped bleeding.

Comments

[wearsthecoats]

"I very definitely consider that a benefit," says Sherlock.

[semicharmed]

Matt smiles crookedly as he removes his laptop from his bag, along with a plastic bag containing sticks of sidewalk chalk.

"I should have all the sigils on my laptop," he says. "I found some I like, they'll give this thing the direction it needs. And ..."

He turns back to the bag, frowning.

"No bay, no violet ... aha, here we go. Cardamom ... aloe ... where'd I put the rosemary ..."

Eventually, he surfaces with a handful of herbs.

"So, anywhere here is fine?"

[wearsthecoats]

"Absolutely," says Sherlock, watching in mild fascination.

[semicharmed]

"Okay."

Matt sets down his paraphernalia, takes up a piece of chalk, and spends a few moments sketching out a circle that is not entirely closed.

He pops open his laptop. "Magic circles are kind of my baseline. In this case, I have all this energy, right? This circle is going to help me channel it into the self-stabilizing warm aura I described."

He starts to sketch out shapes inside the circle, most of them Sanskrit. "These are related to Agni, who's a god of fire, but there's a little fine-tuning ... I've never cast this spell exactly, but I've done other spells related to stable auras and temperature? I'm modifying a little."

[wearsthecoats]

"Experimental. How appropriate."

[semicharmed]

Matt grins at him, then turns back to his chalk sigils. He checks them against his screen, then double-checks them, and then reaches into his bag for a shallow bowl.

"... For the record, there'll be a certain amount of live fire as part of this demonstration. I promise not to burn anything down that isn't mystically necessary."

[wearsthecoats]

"Acceptable," he allows.

[semicharmed]

"Great," Matt says.

"Because the cardamom is really only gonna be effective for what we need if it's burned."

Matt separates out the aloe from his bundle of herbs, placing it carefully beside a painstaking chalk sigil. He sets his bowl down, pushes his laptop away, and steps inside the circle. With a spare stub of chalk, he closes it off.

"Closing the circle's really important," he tells Sherlock. "I'm not sure if you can see it, but closing a circle imbued with energy like this creates ... like an electrical network."

He takes a breath and closes his eyes.

"I'm going to do the incantation and light the rosemary and cardamom," he adds.

"And then ... we'll see if it worked."

[wearsthecoats]

"Yes," Sherlock agrees, watching in fascination. "Yes I can."

[semicharmed]

Curious, "What is it like, to you?"

[wearsthecoats]

"Like... watching music," he says. "Confusing and vaguely hallucinatory. I know there's a pattern there but I can't quite follow it."

[semicharmed]

He smiles.

And, because he can feel the energy beating around him like a heart, urgent along the edge of the circle and eddying off the small chalk lines, he holds up an apologetic finger for just a sec.

When he speaks again it is in another language. It's low, soft; one of the more distinct words is agni.

This is a spell for an aura that lives beside the skin and just beneath it. It's for heat, as his warmth is the variable he needs to control, and for protection, against changes to the temperature. It's not entirely a shield; it's more organic than that.

A little more breathable.

After a moment he crouches down, careful not to break the bounds of the circle, and sacrifices a very, very small amount of this warmth to turn it into flame. It jumps from the tip of one finger to the cardamom and rosemary, and the smell of them as they burn drifts through the room.

Matt drops them into his shallow bowl and straightens.

The last words of the spell fall like the last notes of a piece, and when the herbs have burned and he speaks them the chalk seems almost to blaze--

He looks different, now. The light beside his skin is darker, less gold and more umber, and there is something ... organized, to it.

[wearsthecoats]

It's like he's shifted into a lower octave. Sherlock blinks.

"That's fascinating," he says. "Is it finished? It looks finished."

[semicharmed]

"Yes," Matt says cautiously, after a moment.

He sounds almost as if he's listening to someone speaking up by the ceiling.

Then his gaze shifts down, focuses on Sherlock. He smiles.

"So ... now we get to run a field trial."

[wearsthecoats]

Sherlock steps up and reaches out to wrap a hand gently around Matt's wrist.

"Cold?" he murmurs.

[semicharmed]

This is one of those trippy magic things that Matt loves.

"I can feel the cold," he says.

"But it doesn't make me cold."

He's beginning to grin.

"Does that make any sense?"

[wearsthecoats]

"Perfectly," says Sherlock. "Tell me if this gets uncomfortable?"

He makes his hand cold, as cold as he ever went with Jim. Frost coats his fingers.

(Matt's wrist still feels warm in his hand. It's incredible.)

[semicharmed]

He sucks in a breath, staring at the frost.

"No," he breathes.

God damn this is cool.

He's so warm, he stays so warm, that the touch is soothing. Welcome, for all that the initial disparity sends a shiver through him.

"That's amazing ..."

[wearsthecoats]

"Come here," Sherlock murmurs, tugging Matt closer, because they need to be kissing immediately.

[semicharmed]

Matt is delighted to follow instructions.

He steps out of the circle, leaving the herbs to smolder in their dish. Crossing the line makes no difference in the aura now that it's in place.

He tilts his head up, thinking this is so cool and he is so tall and thank you thank you fire god Agni.

[wearsthecoats]

Sherlock kisses him roughly, passionately, so cold that his clothing crackles when he moves.

[semicharmed]

Oh.

This is different.

Matt gasps against his mouth, expecting to freeze but remaining almost dizzily warm. He bites hard at his lip.

[wearsthecoats]

After a moment, he relaxes the biting cold into something merely icy.

He also decides that Matt is too short to comfortably kiss standing up, and starts pushing him gently towards the bed.

[semicharmed]

It's hard out here for a dude under six feet.

Nevertheless, Matt acquiesces pleasantly, glancing over his shoulder to see where he's going in the unfamiliar room.

[wearsthecoats]

Bedward. Bedward is where.

There is quite a lot of bed—not enough for Sherlock to stretch right out unless he does so diagonally, but close. He sprawls onto it, pulls Matt down with him, and kisses him again.