A/N: Here's something that's semi Roach centric because everybody loves him. Alice is in here too.
Roach listened at night; it's just what he did.
When he was really little, before his family lived in an actual house, he'd lie awake at night and listen to the symphony of the twenty-four seven bowling alley his family lived above. The sound was dulled through the walls and floors of their tiny apartment but the noise that made it through wove it's self with the snores of his sister's next to him and the murmuring of his parents in the other bed. He liked the way the sounds all went together like music.
Those were the best times of his life. Sure his parents fought but they never hit each other or him and his sisters. This was before Morgan. Sometimes, in his worst moments, he blamed Morgan for what happened to him. If Morgan wasn't growing inside of his mother they wouldn't have had to move in with his father's parents. Sure they had stayed in the attic when Trysta was a baby but never permanently. If they hadn't moved…if he hadn't wanted to go to the park that day…
When he was five Mommy stole him. She was trying to steal Trysta and Donna but they had left to find their real mother. He should have been listening during the day time. On those nights he'd hear the screams from the cellar, the fighting, moaning, and groaning of Mommy and Daddy, and the crying of Alice. Alice was the little girl in the house before him. She was his only friend.
He was still called David when he heard Daddy coming into his room at night. Mommy had told Daddy to stay away from Alice so Daddy went to him. After a while he could stop feeling what was happening to him but he still heard it. He heard the bedsprings creaking, the headboard hitting the wall, and something moving behind the walls. He hates nighttime more than anything else.
When he was thirteen he heard Daddy pacing outside of Alice's room. He knew what would happen to Alice and he knew she'd be put under the stairs. They needed to get out. Alice was scared so he stayed but now he needed to save her. He knew the world outside wasn't all bad because he could remember his real family. He also remembered his real address. One day he tried calling out for help when Daddy had someone, a business person or something, over. The man was killed and he had his tongue cut out. He became Roach.
There was a harmony to the nighttime sounds when he was still in the cellar. Sometimes people would be doing the bad thing, sometimes they'd cry, and often times they'd just snore. He slept alone on a rag at first when it happened. He didn't hear the older boy coming, skinny people walked lightly, and it happened. The ground was hard. People were laughing. He cried. Messenger threw a blanket over him when it was over. Messenger was the leader and his friend.
He had been just Roach before he was The Thing Between The Walls. He had taken up the position when the old person under the stairs with the title, Bites, had died. Bites was thirty years old, maybe even Messenger's brother, and was tired of living. Roach heard what happened that night. Bites had taken a liking to him and decided to do a final good deed before he died. He killed the older boy and the older boy killed him back. Roach was forever grateful.
He was the Thing Between The Walls when he realized he was in love with Alice. He spent his nights listening to her sleep, but not in a creepy way. It was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. She was so peaceful and perfect when she slept. Sometimes he'd crawl into her room just to be near her. One night she was in the middle of a nightmare, she was tossing and turning. Before he knew what he was doing he laid down next to her and pulled her close. She was so soft and she smelled so good and he knew then, as he held her through this, that he loved her. He'd do anything for her. He'd die for her…not that he wanted to die anytime soon.
He was fourteen when it almost happened to Alice. Daddy was in her room, holding her down on the bed. He stabbed Daddy. Repeatedly. Daddy stabbed him back. He stabbed Daddy some more. Daddy threw him. Daddy got a gun. A bullet grazed Roach. Roach got the gun from him and shot Daddy. Roach went back to the cellar so Daddy couldn't find him. Messenger's wife, Headbanger otherwise known as Anita, patched him up. He earned their respect and Daddy's fear.
When he was fifteen he almost died. Daddy clipped him in the side. He had no idea he could lose that much blood and still be standing. He knew, then, that he had to get Alice out of there before something happened to her as well. Broken and bleeding he managed to get the gun away from Daddy. He shot Daddy, not fatally, and shot at Mommy. He took Fool and Alice with him into the walls, up to the attic, out the window, into the garden pond, and then he passed out. He woke up listening. He initially assumed it was heaven. He listened to the beeps of something in the distance, the mutterings above him, and he was at peace. Then he heard Alice. Her voice was angelic as always.
The hospital at night had its own sort of a harmony. There was his TV, all his! He left it on during the day and turned it off before bedtime. Roach didn't sleep much at bedtime but he listened to the symphony of the hospital. He could hear the nurses and doctors outside of his room going about their nighttime business. Sometimes he even heard his mother, she worked there, coming into his room and telling him things. She told him fairytales like when he was five, stories about what happened in the world between when he was stolen, stories about his real family and what had happened in his ten year absence. The stories about his family made him cry after she left. He didn't know if those were happy tears or sad tears.
Now he was laying in his old bed in his old room in his old house. The house was old but the people in it were new. They were different, more grown up, than he remembered. Well, it had been ten years and two new kids so of course they'd be different. He supposed he was different too. His real house had a different sort of symphony to it. He could hear his little brother breathing deeply and soundly. There was a creaking coming from his parents' room and his mother was making happy noises, like Anita and Molly did when they were with their husbands, he assumed that girls liked it with their husbands. Did mothers count as girls? From his sisters' room he could hear the sounds of a Gameboy being played, by Dot most likely since it was Trysta and Donna telling her to turn it off.
Listening was something he did at night. He'd fall asleep sometime near dawn and wake up four or five hours later; lulled to sleep by the sounds of his family. It was like he was five years old again laying between six year old Donna and three year old Trysta in a twin bed with his parents arguing above them in the attic. It comforted him, this peace, but there was something he missed about his old life. Alice was missing from this nighttime symphony.