saltburnt inbox 2.0

[rehandle]

WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK

USERNAME: itsakindofmagic

text ❖ audio ❖ video

Comments

[rehandle]

[ His eyes open now, fix on Armand, blinking away the thickness of sleep as he pushes himself up against the headboard and tempers a yawn. ]

Astral projection. [ He offered him an exchange once. If he's going to wander in while Stephen's sleeping either way, there's no real harm in telling him where he's gone when he's away. His voice is rough with sleep, but he powers through with coherent sentences in spite of it. ] Left my body sleeping and went on a tour of the house. Do you do this often? Wondering if I should set up an alert.

[nishtha]

I sensed the disconnection. The body, still alive, but left behind. The roaming soul as it departed. So I decided to investigate and witness the miracle. [ He tilts his head a little, the faint light in the room reflecting off the back of his pupils. ] Or the magic trick.

[ He frowns thoughtfully, drawing a circle over the embossed cover of a book with the tip of his fingernail. ]

You have protections over your body when you leave it. I assume you do not simply abandon it to.. all that could happen.

[rehandle]

[ A pinch of his brow at the mention of a miracle, bemusement ready in the twitch of his smirk, but Armand corrects himself - nods, at least, to magic - and he keeps his ego in line.

A huff with the rest, dragging thumb and forefinger over his eyes to help wake himself up and sweeping sleep-mussed hair out of his face. ]

I take precautions, yeah.

[ Except he doesn't. Or hasn't. He'll start now, but today his body was abandoned with an old carelessness, used to being as safe as any sorcerer can be in the place he rests his head at night. ]

For future reference, this is one superstition I'd appreciate it if you adhered to.

[nishtha]

[ As if eager to be helpful -- in reality, just showing off -- Armand raises a hand in a gesture and a candle nearby flares to life with a small flame. ]

Duly noted. Please forgive my rudeness tonight.

[ He turns to leave, then pauses, glancing back over his shoulder. ]

You don't remember me, do you? [ More accurately, a small but important distinction: ] You have no memories of me.

[rehandle]

[ The shift from fully conscious spirit to fully unconscious physical being is an odd one to reconcile. He's not as awake as he imagines he would be had he not had the benefit of some small forewarning of finding this specific man at the foot of his bed. Awake enough though to start to register those little flexes of power: the candle, the description of his felt separation from his body.

He isn't quite certain whether or not he's relieved for the shift in light. Those eyes no longer being the only glint in the dark. ]

Should I?

[ The answer is obvious: it's an invitation to elaborate more than it is a question. ]

[nishtha]

[ It's the response Armand was aiming for, of course. He turns back again to look at Stephen, fingers of one hand absently fidgeting, dragging his nails back and forth over the pad of his thumb as if counting them. ]

We have met before. We shared.. [ A brief flutter of eyelashes. ] A moment. It is not just your body you should be worried about, Doctor Strange. This place.. they can change us, from the inside out. The house remembers you, even if you do not.

[rehandle]

[ It's not the news it could be - Barnes had mentioned something about a prior visit - but it's certainly still news. Explains some things, doesn't explain enough the buttery tension in the journey from shared to moment, that flutter of lashes. The fold of his brow is soft. It takes him a moment to catch up with the rest.

In spite of all he knows, something about the way he says it carries the gravity of all he still doesn't. ]

There are a lot of me in the multiverse.

[ Who's he persuading, Armand or himself? ]

[nishtha]

[ Multiverse means nothing to Armand initially, but he notes the lack of surprise. He ventures a little way across the rumpled bed of Stephen's thoughts, lifting the edges of the blankets, investigating the shadows that slumber beneath. A glimpse of vast, unknowable powers and New York skyscrapers melting like candles. Other worlds strung out like beads on a necklace.

He understands a little, perhaps. For the rest, he makes a face, disaffected, turning away again. ]

And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. I hope the multiverse is adequately prepared. I'll let you go back to your roaming. Do let me know if you discover anything interesting.

[rehandle]

[ It's as swift and strange an exit as it was an entrance, though he can't claim his own was any less off-kilter. Stephen's fault for luring a vampire by the paring away of his own living soul. Armand's fault for being a vampire and being so lured. ... And for having no sense of boundaries or reasonable behaviour.

He makes no move to stop him. Awake and candlelit at some odd hour, adrenaline kicking in late to hitch his heartrate higher, he tries to hold onto the ridiculousness of waking to a vampire at the foot of his bed or the danger of a visitor in the night but succeeds really only in mulling over the conversation, pondering his history here, the memories Armand has that he does not.

Still. Once Armand exits to the bathroom, there comes the pointed little click of the lock to Stephen's bedroom door. He'll always make time to be petty. ]