AN: Hastily uploaded and likely has errors. But it's early! Enjoy guys :)

The guard awoke with a shake, his alarm blaring into his eardrums. Conner quickly slammed his hand onto the snooze button and sat up. His other hand combed through his messy hair, and acknowledged that he should get it cut soon. Then he realized he had slept to his third alarm, meaning he had only twenty minutes before work. Rushing out of bed, he took the quickest shower of his life and left the house with his tie undone and only a granola bar in hand for breakfast.

The trip to work was quick thanks to the speed of the trams, but horribly slow with how boring the duration was. Without having a book or paper to read Conner simply stood and thought about nothing as the tram moved onward. His hand gripped one of the support poles tightly, making that gross scent of metal smear onto his warm hand, but Conner couldn't care less. At least it smelled better than his workplace.

After roughly seven minutes the tram halted at Conner's stop where he had to run to the gates of the asylum. He had hoped that no one would see him during the ridiculous race to beat the clock, but unfortunately he was picked on as the new guy more so than usual. He fixed his shirt in front of one of the bathroom mirrors and adjusted his tie. A cold handful of water helped him wake up, and soon he was down the hall towards his assigned cell. Conner went over Wally's file in his head as the prisoners started begrudgingly waking up. Wallace Rudolph West. Parents deceased. All relatives loyal to the Council. Gender: Male. Age: 27. Height: 5' 10". Weight at Start: 155lbs. Graduated from the Academy of Sciences in the capital city. Graduated as the top 6 student of his class. Criminal of the highest offense. That was the extent of what Conner could remember from reading through the file while shocked to his core. As an employee of only a year, they had assigned him one of the most wanted and dangerous criminals in the county.

The scariest part to Conner was that he kind of liked the guy. He was handsome, immensely intelligent, relatively kind to Conner, and overall human. From what he knew he had suspected this guy would be totally vacant of human emotions. But the redhead's been struggling to keep his emotions in check it seemed. Conner felt bad for the guy, but wasn't sure what to do about it. He supposed he could smuggle in some extra food for him. He took a glance at his watch. He'd grab a bit of bread at the end of lunch to "eat at his post" but he'd place it on Wally's plate when dinner came around. This idea made Conner wonder what the price for being caught would be. He probably wouldn't get fired, but he would likely get demoted. Or moved to a different prison. If he hide the bread well (which would be easy) he'd be fine. He clenched his fist in confirmation, he'd follow through the plan. It wasn't much but it was the best he could do.

The morning went slowly, no one came to the cell to nab Wally, and the ginger himself was relatively quiet. He sung some unfamiliar song softly so Conner only caught a couple words like "mama" and "we all go to hell". He wasn't sure what to make of it so the taller man didn't think anything of it. Once lunch came around his replacement arrived; a short man with oily black hair. No one Conner knew. He gave the man an offhand greeting and walked the winding hallways to the lunchroom. In the room there were two 4-seat tables and then a bar for 6 people to sit at. At one table there was an open seat, and one of his fellow guards, Kaldur, motioned him to sit at said table. There was that blonde interrogator there as well, but Conner didn't let it bother him as he grabbed his food from the tray line and then sat down with his friend.

Kaldur greeted Conner warmly, his usual soft smile adorning his face as he spoke. "You look a bit tired today. Another late wake up?"

"It's hard to wake up before the sun when you only get one day a week off and even then I've got tons of work to do," muttered Conner in response, shifting his "beef stew" around with his utensil before taking a sporkful. It didn't taste as awful as he had expected but could definitely be better. Especially since it was basically tough tasteless "beef" with some grungy gravy from a can.

"Ah, well I'm sending another inquiry to the Council to see if I can get an extra day off this weekend. Got something planned that I'd like to actually do this time."

Conner paused in the middle of lifting the spork to his face to ask the obvious question, "is it another date? You know how little time you're going to have to spend with her."

The other man chuckled, correcting Conner softly, "she has about as much time as I do these days. But she's tough. If we have one fantastic weekend every couple months then we're both happy. And everything got easier once she moved into my apartment."

Conner nodded, not having much to say about that. He wasn't really knowledgeable about relationships and hadn't tried to date anyone since his old girlfriend Megan dumped him. It wasn't completely one sided, but it was definitely her gain and his lose. She found a guy that she liked more and had more time for her, while Conner was all looks and little time to her. Thinking about it all made Conner lose his appetite actually, and he shoveled it all away into his stomach without tasting it. The grub was all he was going to get for a while and he couldn't get more food if he didn't finish what was on his tray. Kaldur and Conner had some more small talk and then Conner left early, grabbing some bread on the way out. Once he was in the hallways alone he slipped it into his inner jacket pocket where he had his hidden gun (in case a prisoner tries to swipe his holster gun and kill him with one blow). The bread fit in snugly but wasn't obvious, and thus hidden successfully.

During the middle of the afternoon Wally was taken away again for interrogation. The guards pushed him around, purposefully trying to make Wally bang his arm against one of them. But the redhead just acted a bit like a dead weight, moving with their force and holding a vacant, dead expression on his face. Conner felt a sort of concern well up inside him but squelched the flames since he knew he could do nothing for the prisoner. He wasn't a man; he was a monster who had killed hundreds of people. Nothing but another madman.

But he couldn't help but feel something for the ginger, like a pull from some invisible cord. There was a brief moment where their eyes connected and Wally smiled just a tiny bit, enough for Conner to notice. Inside he calmed down a bit, knowing Wally was still there and not just a mass of half-dead flesh and bones. Once the redhead had been taken away Conner was to remain at the cell and wait for the eventual return of his prisoner.

During the time he reflected on all that Wally had said to him, and couldn't keep curiosity from his mind. Could all that he had said about the Council and the nation be true? Wally didn't seem like some fool that would start a rebellion with only the meaning to commit mass murder. For what seemed to be hours he just ran the ideas through his mind and realized there was likely no way for him to find if the information was true. He'd have to trust the redhead. However, some of the ideas made sense. In school when children were formally taught to recognize the differences between bias and fact, now all details were from one undeniable source; the Council. History was told the way they wanted it to be told. Other stories connected and his eyes widened. It could be true. It could all be real. Then he was called from his thoughts by another guard, one of the men who was bringing Wally back to his cell. A dark red mark formed a misshapen palm on the side of the ginger's face, but he was smiling so the taller man wasn't too worried. Just angry. Angry that he hadn't realized the breach of regulations that have been allowed by all. The false walls that were placed before the eyes of citizens. The lack of care that some had for this fact. His left fist clenched and unclenched repeatedly, and after a couple minutes he walked off to grab Wally's food just so he wouldn't do something foolish with the interrogators still in view. The whole time he was visibly upset, but Conner didn't stop to answer of the questions his co-workers threw at him. He just brought the food to the cell, pulled the slightly squashed bread out of his coat and placed it onto the tray and slid it through.

Later in the night, Wally went up to the bars in the door and whispered something that comforted Conner more than he ever thought such few words could.

"I'll explain more later. Don't worry over it now."

After a quickly muttered thanks from Conner, Wally replied with a few more soft words.

"Be patient. Goodnight."

For a good long moment the taller man didn't respond. Then he spoke very clearly his goodnight to Wally, looking at him through the grate. His eyes likely showed more than he could ever put into words. The ginger had a quick intake in breath, and then smirked and rested his body on the mattress for the night.

The rest of the night was a blur to Conner. All he could think about was that smirk, those words. Everything about Wally was a confusing and captivating mystery. He decided to take the words very seriously. He calmed down and knew he would have to wait before the redhead told him more. Got the thoughts of corruption out of his head.

It wasn't till much later that Conner realized those decisions saved him from the government realizing he had suspicions, and thus likely saved his life.