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For AU shenanigans

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In the semicircle of rooms that surrounded the sparse common area, the one at the top, or directly opposite the door outside has one person within who has systematically gone through every last fragment of an inch of his room upon waking. It hadn't been an issue of trying to find out who he was, after all, his existence at this point, was singular. But each discovery put together a world that was his. So clearly, he should know it.

It wasn't even the intrusion of other sounds that pulled him out. Though he heard and acknowledged them, they would be dealt with on their own time. But a simple satisfaction that anything that he could do, was not only done, but done to every extent he could think of.

Which is why, when he leaves his room to find someone, anyone else, a rather staid looking man gives a rather simple, imperious demand. "Explain yourself."

And perhaps, you have to do so.

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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."

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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.

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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?"

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?"

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"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."

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"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."

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"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."

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

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"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."

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And then there's this one: ascetically thin, a tangle of grey-streaked hair half-hiding his scarred face. The sudden command from the man catches him off guard: he jerks his head, like a horse flinching from the bit feeling that yank on his thoughts. Not knowing anything about himself at all he knows he doesn't like that; he sets his jaw and draws himself up to his full height (not very high).

"Explain what?" He snarls in return, his voice sharp enough to draw blood - or truth, in this case.

1/2

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It's ruthlessly powerful, slicing through inhibitions and pushing along a truth-

(A confession of ignorance, of fishing, of trying to find roots to dig in and understand)

-that he swallows just before it bursts from his throat.

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In a way, everything he had experienced since his eyelids had opened had been new, unfamiliar, even as his mind supplied words for the names of things, processes and order for his thought.

But this... Why did this man's voice feel so different than the other?

"Do that again." His own tone laden with silk and steel.

[end_recording]

His eyes narrow,; his head tips lightly, as if shifting to better regard this man with one of his senses. Which one isn't clear. Irritation yields to interest, so Jon's tone is only imperious, dipped in acid.

"Why." And it feels like a lighter touch, this time - but it pulls as naturally as a needle pulls a thread.

Editted because IDEA

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"Because your voice is..." How would he describe it? This freeing tug, this urge to pour out himself in a violation of any hope or want of privacy.

And to say... no. "Pleasant." Yes, that's the word.

The feral blank's sight remains as it always has, happily interpreting visible spectrum radiation in overlaps of colors. Painting pictures of data. But something in the way he turns his head gives a depth that it hadn't had before.

The smug man seems to ... blur about the edges, as if there was something a bit.. plural about him. A bit distant. But before he can make out anything, an Eye opens on his skin. The skin surrounding the man's adam apple widens like a smile and then splits, revealing a terrible green iris and pupil bulging out, turned to regard him.

Then the cheekbone, the knuckle, the forehead.. every patch of exposed skin seems to watch him back in that other, deeper sight.

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He makes a face as if this other man has said something moderately vulgar. He's about to go for another question, cutting himself off to better focus on... on....?

At that first unfurling of lids, Jon freezes in a flinch - and then, takes a step forward, not even seeming to know he's doing it. Eyes wide and lips slightly parted.

"What..."

What does this other, watching eye see? Hunger.

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One at a time, the eyes slowly slide closed, like a contented cat, until only the image of perfectly normal human giving him a rather professionally paternal look of concern is left.

"Are you all right? Maybe you should have a sit."

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"Y-you, you - d-don't pretend you didn't notice that!"

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The confusion on his face seems... honest enough, actually. Either he's unaware or doesn't find it remarkable at all.

"You'll have to be a bit more clear."

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His expression is transparently bewildered, wary. Searching. Obviously it was remarkable, so maybe this man really hadn't noticed?

"I... thought I saw someone watching us." The scarred man's a very poor liar; it stumbles out with the hesitancy of someone picking their words very carefully.

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An extremely poor liar. But, well, the wall did say he could trust those here, why give a little ... faith. See how this spooled out.

"Well, I suppose anything is possible. We hardly know anything at all."

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He makes a disgusted face. "Quite. No point in stating the obvious."

His eyes slide off the man restlessly, looking for a next target. He spots the open door of the other man's room and and brushes past to him to take a look.