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[rehandle]

WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK

USERNAME: itsakindofmagic

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[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. ]