damned_institute | Day 55: Intercom, Evening

Snow doubled in number as the day transitioned into the evening hours. Unfortunately, none of the patients were allowed the time to enjoy the weather changes. They were instead greeted by the telltale jingle of the intercom, signaling their cue to return indoors.

Once again, they heard the voice of a familiar female. She sounded unchanged from her previous announcements, her intonation as clear and as flat as ever.

"Attention all subjects and personnel. All subjects are to return to their assigned rooms for their evening meal. Lights Out will commence shortly after."

The woman paused, seemingly for effect.

"All personnel: you are to report to your stations. Thank you."

The intercom clicked off.

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Wally winced at the display and the soldier's reaction - his had been generally nicer, though he had to wonder if it was linked to the same stupid rank thing that had to do with the meals as well - and wasn't that surprised to see that Woody had a bowl of pink gunk to call his very own.

"At least they're not doing that as well," he offered hopefully, since he'd been kinda counting on the privacy for this conversation. His own meal had already been reduced by roughly half, and it was more difficult than he cared to admit to push it aside and direct a lopsided smile at his roommate.

"Want some of mine instead? I know that pink stuff doesn't taste all that great, so I don't mind sharing."

While Wally's stomach raged at the decision, he was perfectly prepared to talk Woody into accepting the offer if need be. The guy looked like he'd had a rough day and he could probably do with the pick-me-up.

Especially with what Wally was still planning to reveal tonight.

Yeah, Woody guessed it was at least something, but that was still about as much consolation as telling someone who'd gotten punched in the face that they should be grateful they hadn't been kicked in the stomach too. He wasn't going to hold that against Wally, though. The soldiers were the ones he was really angry with right now. He was actually starting to miss the nurses, for crying out loud!

When his roommate offered some food, Woody paused a moment, glancing from his own pink gruel to Wally's normal-looking meal. To be honest, he had no idea what to expect from what the soldiers had given him, but he'd half-wished they'd just started him off with this slop in the first place. That way he wouldn't have known the difference between their food and good food, and then he could have kept living in ignorant bliss. But, noooo, Landel had to get himself thrown out of power by some stupid military coup a few days after Woody showed up.

"Uh, you sure about that?" he asked after a moment with a raised brow. "I mean, it's not like they give you a whole lot to start with."

"Nah, it's totally fine," Wally lied easily. "And besides, I had an extra helping at lunch, so that helped a lot."

A lot more than nothing at all, anyway. But he wasn't about to let Woody feel bad for accepting the offer of food, not when all he'd been given was the pink gunk Edward had shared with him. Wally had gotten to 'enjoy' that experience himself, so he didn't imagine Woody was looking forward to it for dinner as well.

"If it bothers you that much, you can give me some of yours in exchange? 50-50 share of both meals seems fair, doesn't it?" He smiled hopefully and reached out to offer the plate to Woody.

Regardless of Woody's reaction, there was still that other thing Wally wanted to talk about, and the more he put it off, the more likely he was to panic and chicken out, so he may as well leap in head first now, while he still had the chance.

"By the way, I don't think I've been exactly honest with you," he began carefully, but the next part came out in a jumbled rush as he tried to get the words out before he had the chance to take them back. "I super red costume!"

...wait, that was wrong.

Woody felt weird accepting that sort of help from Wally. He hadn't gotten a full handle on this whole food thing yet, and interacting with people like this still struck him as unnatural. But he had to admit that it beat getting that awful sludge down his throat. He hadn't even tried any yet (sort of hard to eat with soldiers making you do jumping jacks and yelling), but even he knew it didn't look fit for consumption.

"I, uh...I guess so, yeah," he slowly said before extending his own plate out to Wally. As he did so, though, he couldn't mask the faint cringe on his face. "Thanks." Despite the look on his face, his expression of gratitude was completely sincere.

When his roommate mentioned not being completely honest, though, he sat up straighter in his seat, confused by what he meant. Was he hiding something about the Institute? Maybe he really did know of a way out of here, and Woody had just stumbled across his and Buzz's ticket to freedom. Or maybe--

Maybe he just super red costume. There was that, too.

"You what," Woody deadpanned. A knot of dread flared up in the pit of his stomach. Oh, no. Ohhh, no. Incoherent sentences were not a good indicator of sanity, yet that was what Wally spit out just now.

Wally thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand in the vague hope that if he did it hard enough, he could knock out whatever it was that was making him even more of an idiot than usual tonight. Hopefully it wasn't catching because Woody didn't deserve anything like that.

"Sorry," he continued, his voice rising to just a little higher and faster than it really should have been despite his attempts to control it. "I'm freaking out a little and I got tangled up because I haven't exactly told many people this about myself so... yeah."

He swallowed nervously, just barely managing to keep himself from babbling out something else nonsensical out of desperation to get this over with already and make Woody stop looking at him like that.

"Okay, so. What I meant to say was that... I have superspeed. Because I'm a superhero." He thought about that for a moment. "Actually it's more like I'm a superhero because I have superspeed but... yeah. Um. And the costume part was to do with that but I got mixed up. Sorry."

Day 55: Intercom, Evening

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