contractuallybinding | (no subject)

This poor young man had just been wandering around himself, hardly more than a few minutes out of his own room. Dull roan curls, tall enough to have bonked his head on the somewhat low doorframe he'd come out through, and ungodly pale, to the point where his tips of his fingers don't seem entirely there. He's already wildly nervous about this entire experience, and then -

And then some man in the same shade of purple as him gives him a command, and every single cell in his body screams at him to fulfill it. "I - I don't know anything!" he says, voice pitching up with distress. "I just - I just woke up up here, and there's this thing--" he waves the telescope, "--and then I came out here. That's all the explanation I have."

Green eyes lock onto the washed out young man, sifting through his shrill distress to find... nothing in it he didn't know.

"Nearly the same... Intriguing." His gaze slides away for a moment. There's a great deal to consider, a pattern or a coincidence? He adjusts the cuffs of his uniform, thoughtfully.

The stare is just as intense when it snaps back. "That thing, let me see it." The dreadful, inexorable command worms through the fades man's senses, crackling in his ears.

He - he really would rather not? He really, really wouldn't, and yet his hand moves anyway, offering it out to the other man in the room. "Wh - why? If it's the same, then why does it matter?"

He takes it without a single, apparent realization of what he's doing. Clearly this is just a good, obedient lad. "I really don't know. But it would be a shame to miss a detail."

And as he had with his own, holds it up to look through.

The image plays as soon as the man lifts it to his eye, and he sees a duplicate of the roan-haired fellow in front of him. Even paler somehow, in a severely desaturated grey sweater. He sits somewhere, radiating misery, hunched in on himself to minimise his large stature. He's trying to keep up a cheerful expression, but ... within a few moments it crumples into something much closer than despair.

"This is probably a terrible idea," he says, staring down at his fading hands. "But I can't see how it's any worse than the options I've got." He steels himself, clearly fighting back tears, before meeting whatever device is recording this with a surprising amount of steel in his eyes. "I - I do this willingly."

And then it's gone again, leaving just this terrified, colourless man fretting in front of him, watching him.

An expression so close to a paternal 'I told you so' oozes onto his face. "That was worth the time. Thank you for your cooperation. It's been quite useful."

Instead of any explanations, he offers the telescope back.

God. He kind of hates this man already? That's probably not a good thing, given their matching colours, but. He accepts the telescope unhappily.

"W-was it?" he says. "What did you even see? Do you know who - who the man in the tube even is?"

"He's you," the smug man declares the miserable wretch to be a perfect, if less sodden looking, match. "Which means the man in the one I woke up with is likely to be me."

"Isn't this incredible? The possibilities are endless."

"The possibilities are all terrible," this man says, wringing his hands. "We - we don't know where we are. Or how we got here. And I don't know about you, but I can't remember anything." He gulps in a breath. "This can't possibly be a good place."

"Nor can I." Though he doesn't seem put out about it, or even anxious. "The we can only trust each other is fairly dire, indeed. But, I seem to have informed myself that this will ... afford opportunities... and I can't say I disagree."

"Opportunities?" The colourless young man sputters at that, flailing his arms a bit wildly. "What - what opportunities can there possibly be here?"

"Do you know? I have no idea." He breaths in the stale, musty air. Something about this place... there was SOMETHING about this place. "It feels right though."

He looks around at the rough-hewn walls, at the scant lines written on them. Disagreement written all over his face in turn.

"I don't know where you're getting that feeling from," he says, "but I'm pretty sure it's wrong."

"Well. You're probably right. I would say, 'who am I to argue such strong intuition' but we can probably stop right at that first part of the sentence."

And about then is when the third teammate appears.

"Well I can't help you there," the colourless young man snaps back. "I hardly know myself--"

And yes, there's the feral archivist himself. He ... takes a step back for a moment, watching the other two snipe at each other. Feeling - well, very strange, all things considered. Each time they fling a compulsion at each other, he opens his mouth to answer too, caught in the current of it but not quite dragged in. And ... increasingly uncomfortable with their close quarters. He could really use some alone time? Maybe he can take a walk...

This pale young man doesn't get very far before the newcomers 'pleasant' voice goes after him, too. Having decided that the confused tangle of emotions the encounter had inspired in him is irritation, he goes after the weaker target.

"And you. What do you have to say for yourself?" With the compulsion landing like a whip-crack.

Why. Why can they both do this to him? Is he just cursed? Can everyone in this strange cave just tell him to do whatever and he's forced to comply? He's been awake for less than an hour and already hates everything.

He bends his head as the compulsion lands, trying to make himself look as small and unassuming as possible. Difficult, given the contrast between himself and the much smaller man in front of him. "I - I don't know, all right? I don't know anything more than you two do. And the - the message from myself isn't exactly cheerful." He gestures, helplessly, with the bronze tube in his hands.

"Message?" He asks, sharply, but without compulsion. Instead he snatches for the tube.

Obviously this weird scarred man just barreled out of his room without looking at anything in it.

Hm... perhaps it is time to check the other rooms while these two are busy with each other.

[Jon's room is wide open. Everything is in place; Jon went straight out.]

Well then! He is just going to go in and take a look at the message Jon just rushed on past. Shame to have information just laying out like that, unnoted, unrecorded. Isn't he such a good teammate? Picking up the slack.