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[rehandle]

WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK

USERNAME:
STRANGE

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[rehandle]

Have you tried?

[ghostface]

i haven't had a reason to want to try.

[rehandle]

[ He almost makes a comment here, some cold criticism. Something stops him. ]

Why?

[ghostface]

same reason you probably wouldn't have left rubilyk of your own free will.

[rehandle]

[ Because he wants to kill the bitch in charge and ensure life goes on in her absence doesn't seem like it's the answer here, and failing that... ]

Who else is here?

[ghostface]

john, house, jem. eddie, too, but he ain't ours.

[rehandle]

[ All four of them. All four of them. What the fuck. ]

And we're sure this isn't the Void?

[ It's not a question he needs an answer to. Buying time. Time to get his head around waking up in the company of so much unfinished business. ]

[ghostface]

we're not sure of anything. i think john thinks it is.

[rehandle]

John also thinks you're a special boy, so we'll keep our grain of salt handy
You all arrive together?

[ghostface]

well, if god thinks it, it must be true. (:

more or less. john already disemboweled me as my welcome present in case you've still got some axe-grinding ideas in that perfectly coifed head of yours.

[rehandle]

Oh. Thrilled to hear the family's still fully functional after relocating. How's your body count looking here so far?

[ghostface]

that's between me and god, too.
and the general public, i guess.

single digits.

[rehandle]

Well, that's something. The dead staying dead this time?

[ghostface]

you wanna find out?

[rehandle]

Why, you got a death wish? Here I was thinking you were happily settled.

[ghostface]

if i didn't have a death wish, stephen, i wouldn't be in love with john gaius. kind of a core character trait in my happy little family.

[rehandle]

Great. Try to keep it in the family then, ok? What I wanted was a yes/no answer.

[ghostface]

you're such a downer.

people don't stay dead here, just like rubilyk, just like the place i was in before rubilyk.

[rehandle]

I'm surprised you expected anything else.

Seems like a step up from both, congrats on the upgraded cell.

[ghostface]

hope springs eternal.

i'm still sleeping on the floor most nights, so i don't know how upgraded it really is, but the scorching hot showers are a bonus, sure. ( stephen strange is a man of a hundred questions. danny's saved most of his, except this one: ) you familiar with john murphy, back in rubilyk?

[rehandle]

You mean the same John Murphy under whose transformed influence I decided to come into your home and rip your daddy's heart out? [ To borrow some choice phrasing. You could say he's familiar, yeah. ] I saw him at a party recently. I'm not exactly his favorite person, but he seems to be managing as well as any of us.

[ghostface]

far as i knew, you could've only known him as daddy or master or a secret third, worse thing.

( but fair enough. )

murphy's always managing, so that don't tell me much but i guess it's good enough.

( he's alive, he's still there, exactly where danny left him five, six months ago. that's the important bit. )

[rehandle]

[ There's a delay here. News that could make things better, could make things worse hangs in wait, unsure if it's a kindness to complicate things, unsure if he cares to be kind. But he knows too how he's felt from waking until now, thinking he's left them behind. ]

You don't need to worry. He's got people.

[ghostface]

( danny notices things, like the username strange sprouting up on the network overnight, like a several-second delay between texts, space enough for an indecisive breath. )

if you ain't gonna jerk my dick, don't edge me, strange.

[rehandle]

You're back there.