Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note.

A/N: I really like WammyxRoger for some reason. I don't know why. It think it's because they have the auto-angst of being old men who have potentially been together for a very long time. But I also like stories about them when they were young... hm...

It was four o'clock in the morning and, as usual, I couldn't sleep.

As usual when I don't have anything to do (okay, fine, as usual period), I sat down in front of my most recent game system to drown myself in pixilated oblivion, muting it immediately so that I didn't wake Mello. He wouldn't be happy with me if I woke him up, yet again, with video-game music. This didn't really make sense to me. If I could wake up to video game music every morning, I'd take the opportunity in a moment. I loved him, but he was a bit of a mystery at times.

Wammy's is never quiet. I mean, it's an orphanage, so... well, there's always someone crying or having nightmares. I've been here so long, came here so young, that I don't really have any angst about it. I don't remember my parents, so I can't miss them except in theory. I'm an aberration, however; most of us can remember. A lot of them wish they couldn't. It's pretty easy to tell, really- the ones who have nightmares had parents they would rather forget, and the ones who cry have parents they wish they could have back. I'm always awake when everyone else is asleep, so I probably know this stuff better than anyone here. I can even identify the owner by the sound.

But tonight was silent. It hadn't been this quiet in a few months, maybe a year, and it was throwing me off a little. I think I liked that there was always sound; silence lets you think too much, and plus, if there were lots of people making sound it meant for sure that I wasn't alone. Not left behind.

I peered at the lump that was Mello under his sheets and bedspread, his form made shadowy by the glare from the intro screen of the game, the rapidly shifting colors breaking into something like a prism on the gentle rise and fall of his chest.

Yes, he was breathing. I had the overactive imagination of a guy who plays far too many video games- part of me had suspected that the place had been gassed and that only I was immune for some terrible reason. But Mello was breathing, and as long as Mello was alive I didn't really care who else was dead.

It was just a quiet night, and the quiet was starting to press into me in ways that I would never admit out loud.

And then, suddenly, it wasn't silent anymore.

I paused the game to remove the distraction, frowning and straining to hear. I didn't recognize that particular strain of crying. I could tell it was male, and it didn't take my extensive eavesdropping experience to know that he was crying very hard, but I couldn't identify who it was coming from. Patient zero, if you will. Thank you, zombie games.

I tried to ignore it, turning back towards my game but still not resuming play.

It was probably just Samson from way down the hall. His skills were largely focused on music and sounds, and imitating them, so it wasn't inconceivable that he might sound like a new person one night. While unconscious. Maybe he had been working on a new impersonation and it had just, like... stuck? That happened to actors sometimes, right?

The argument was weak to my own ears and it was already driving me crazy not knowing who the sound belonged to. I didn't like the idea of not knowing something related to my world- the one where everyone else is asleep and I can rule with only the occasional sleepless or late-studying student as visitor.

Annoyed at my own lack of self-control, I turned off the game and got up to go in search of the sound.

Creeping out of my room, silent the way Mello taught me to be so as not to get in trouble/cause the sound I was looking for to stop, I picked the direction I thought it was coming from and followed it. The floorboards were creaky (and left that way for exactly this reason, of course), but I knew the way around the trouble spots. It was common knowledge at Wammy's which boards would give you away and which wouldn't. There was one that went off like a gunshot if you stepped on it just right. While that could be useful in certain situations, I'm sure, it was annoying in significantly more. Like when I was sleeping while everyone used that hallway to get to the cafeteria. Freaking gunshot every few minutes.

Anyway.

I was getting closer to the source and, to my confusion, I still didn't know who it was. To my even greater confusion, I found that I was getting further and further away from the main dormitory area... and now I was out of it, and the sound was still coming from elsewhere.

I stopped for a moment to use the thing called 'logic' that everyone had tried so hard to drill into my head over the years. Okay, the facts. I heard a sound. It was definitely someone crying, I was sure of that. They were crying hard, and they were definitely male. I was no longer in the dormitory area, and I was heading towards the rest of the House.

I then asked myself the questions I was trained to ask. Was I doing something stupid? Not really. Was I doing something that would make Roger yell at me? Possibly. Was I doing something that was likely to have me raped, beaten, killed, and/or otherwise maimed? No, there was really good security here so it wouldn't be an intruder.

That decided, I proceeded until, as I passed by the teacher offices, I abruptly found that the sound was now getting softer. I had passed it.

I backtracked until I stood in front of a door, but for a long time I could only stand there and stare at the nameplate on the old wood, because there was no way the sound was truly coming from Roger's office.

It just didn't make sense. Grumpy old Roger, annoying, old and lonely and desperately in need of a girlfriend, Roger? Was crying?

My brain wouldn't accept it. There had to be someone else in the room with him and they had to be the one making all the noise. Maybe we were getting a new student. No matter the reason, though, I knew I would never be able to forgive myself if I didn't at least stick my head in there before going back to my room. Imagine having to explain to Mello that I backed out at the last minute.

So, silently as possible, I cracked the door and peeked inside.

What I saw made my guts drop to my pelvis.

Roger was standing in the middle of his office, openly sobbing, a cell phone at his feet on the floor where it had clearly been dropped. The old man's face was in his hands and he was taking little steps in one direction, then stopping, then walking back, then going in another direction, then turning around, in a terrible little loop that made it clear he couldn't decide where to go- to his chair, to the door, or maybe to just collapse on the floor and bury his face in the carpet.

I wasn't terribly fond of him, but he had always been fair to me and I was pretty sure he looked the other way on purpose after some of Mello's more victimless pranks, so I knew with great reluctance that I was going to have to make my presence known and not just leave him like this.

Carefully, quietly, I approached him. He didn't notice me immediately, even though I was standing right in front of him.

I reached out and put a hand gently on his arm. "Roger?"

He jumped about a mile and yelped, grabbing me roughly by the upper arm, his old, bony fingers digging into me painfully. His chest heaved and he was still sobbing, and he stared at me for a long time before he recognized me. When he did, he let go immediately and cast his eyes to the floor, opening his mouth to apologize, but then he caught sight of his cell phone and dissolved into tears before he could get the words out.

He unwillingly sank to his knees and then his butt, sitting in the least dignified way possible and clearly not giving a crap. He didn't even have the energy anymore to raise his hands to cover his face, or to wipe the snot from his nose where it was dripping, mixing with tears.

I couldn't even believe this was happening. Roger hardly ever broke a sweat, let alone collapsed to the floor. I had once seen him step right into a fight between A and B in the prime of their lives. A was strong, B was sadistic, and that was a fight I wasn't going anywhere near. Yet Roger hadn't even hesitated. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

Well, obviously.

I carefully sat down next to him. "What's wrong?" I asked quietly.

He weakly gestured at the phone where it lay, still open, and I understood that I was to look at it.

I collected it and read the message.

L is dead.

The information shot through me like a kick in the gut (which, as a nerdy gamer, I had received before). Mello would be destroyed. Damn it, how was I gonna tell him? Shit, it was going to be my job, I just knew it and I really didn't want him associating that information with me and-

It occurred to me that I was missing some vital piece of information, because it simply didn't make sense that Roger would cry that hard for L. He liked L well enough, but, looking at him, this was beyond sadness. This was... like... devastation.

Seeming to sense my confusion (he wasn't that smart, but maybe being in the presence of geniuses all the time had allowed him to pick up a sort of empathy), he looked up at me, eyes rimmed with red and so blurry I was sure he couldn't see.

"The- the only way I can get that text... is if Qui- Mr. Wammy is dead," he mumbled.

His eyes spilled over with tears again, and suddenly the situation made a whole lot more sense.

It would explain everything. Why Wammy had trusted Roger with the House in his absence. Why Roger never complained about the hellions he was in charge of (including, of course, myself). Why he would always seem so content when he announced that Wammy and L were coming to visit. And why- shit, was I dense?- his eyes would always go soft when he saw him, or why he would always seem aloof and sad for a week or so after they left.

It explained everything. Nodding, I put the phone back down. "I see," I said quietly.

He picked up the phone and read the message again. He closed the phone, reopened it, and looked at the text again. No, it was still there. It wasn't going away.

Coughing a little, hiccupping, he said, "We grew up together."

He squeezed his eyes shut, sending out a new cascade of tears. He was clutching his phone, as if, by holding on, he could somehow keep Wammy alive. "Matt... how are you supposed to go on without the person you've loved since you were thirteen? I'm sixty-five. I-" He choked and couldn't continue.

I couldn't answer that. All I could do was watch him, stunned by the up-close and personal show of emotion more intense than anything I personally had ever felt.

He was looking at me desperately, now, searching my face to see if I understood at any level, if it registered at all for me...

So I said, softly, "I can't imagine it."

He nodded, squeezing his eyes shut. "I hope you never have to. Pray, Matt, that you die with Mello."

I opened my mouth to ask how he knew about me and Mello, but I supposed that it was as obvious as his relationship with Wammy would have been if I had paid attention. Instead of asking, I said, "Tell me a story or something about Wammy." That was a good thing to say to grieving people, right?

Roger looked up at me with wet eyes and for a moment I thought I had said the absolute wrong thing. Then I realized that he was just thinking.

"How did you meet him?" I suggested.

He half-smiled, letting out a sound that could almost be a chuckle but wasn't. "I don't remember."

"You don't remember meeting him?"

"No. I have just always known him. I was left at Meadow Brooks- it's a retirement home, now, but at the time it was an orphanage- as an infant. My first memory of life is playing with him on the floor of our room, with what I believe to be wooden blocks."

"Oh."

I sat there, staring at him, trying to imagine losing someone that you had known for so long, and loved almost as long. Trying to imagine what it was like for someone to lose, well, their spouse after a lifetime together, when they should have had a good fifteen more years. I guessed I'd find out someday, and the thought made my guts twist up inside me. Although, I realized, it was likely that Mello would outlive me if I didn't stop smoking and sitting around. But then he would have to feel that...

"He saved my life when I was fourteen," Roger said matter-of-factly, thankfully interrupting my thoughts.

"Oh?" I needed a new word. I was supposed to be third smartest here.

"He did. We had a holiday from school and all the children from Meadow Brooks went downtown. Quillsh and I had planned to sneak off together and... well, you can imagine... but he was ill and we stayed at the orphanage. He had a terrible fever and someone had to take care of him, so of course I volunteered. Well, there was a shooting and a fire downtown that day. Not many of the other orphans made it home."

"Wow."

"Did you know, he and I were both in the war?"

"No."

"We had to lie about our ages- neither of us were eighteen yet. But the standards weren't very strict at the time and we badly wanted to go, and somehow we convinced them. We ended up in the same company, incidentally. Two weeks in, he was shot in the shoulder and they sent him home. I, naturally, asked to leave as well, but of course they didn't let me." He frowned for a moment, then laughed. "I went back and shot myself in the foot that very same day. Quillsh was very surprised to see me, but he couldn't hug me because he couldn't move his left side... it was terribly funny. Well, as funny as a gunshot wound can be."

I laughed a little, mostly to be polite, because I was still too busy feeling sorry for the man I only rarely got along with. From what I knew, it had always been about Quillsh. Everything Roger had ever done. All of his memories were with him or because of him.

"Do you know why he started Wammy's?" he asked me.

"Does it have something to do with Meadow Brooks?"

"Yes," he said approvingly. "It was always his dream, growing up, to build an orphanage that treated its children better than Meadow Brooks treated us. Do you know, Quillsh didn't even know he was a genius until I pointed it out, when he was ten? He was always drawing blueprints. They were so perfect. And when I eventually managed to convince him that he was, in fact, brilliant, he invented this... well, it has always been over my head. But he invented it, and he patented it, and today everyone has them in their house. The day they granted him the rights was the first day he kissed me. He called me 'his inspiration.' He used the money to build Wammy's. I was the one who suggested it be for genius children, because I knew there had to be more cases like Quillsh. He liked the idea, and now... well, Matt, here you are."

"You hate kids," I pointed out. He shrugged. When he didn't elaborate, I asked, "So, why do you run an orphanage?"

He gave me a look as if I were missing something very obvious. When I shrugged back at him, he said, "Quillsh asked me to. I love him more than I hate children. Originally I was just in charge of the administrative duties, but when he found L... he said I was the only one he trusted enough to leave this place to. So I said yes. All my life, whatever Quillsh asked, I would do. ...If he had told me to die for him, I would have, you know. I wouldn't even have thought about it."

His face crumpled but no tears came out and I understood, then, that I should leave him alone. I had done my part, and it was time to go, and as socially awkward as I sometimes was I could read this social cue loud and clear.

So I stood up, nodded at him once, and walked away.

I stood for a long time in the doorway of the room I shared with Mello, watching him as he slept. Somehow, I was captivated by the vital rise and fall of his chest, by the tiny sounds that he made with each exhale that were too soft to be considered snores. I was fascinated by the way the moonlight leaked into the room and touched him, turning his skin to porcelain and making him as perfect outside as I personally believed him to be inside.

And, despite my best efforts, I thought of Roger. How Roger would never again stand in his doorway and watch Wammy sleep, and something twinged in my guts that necessitated me walked over there, taking off my goggles, and slipping in next to him, curling up against him and wrapping my arms around his warm body. I couldn't hear the old man anymore. He must have been out of tears.

I buried my face in Mello's back, inhaling the familiar scent of him- chocolate and general raving, beautiful insanity.

One of those actions- I don't know which- woke up him, sort of. "Ngh?" he asked.

"Nothing, my dear one, go back to sleep."

Normally he would have objected to being called 'my dear one,' or at least have noticed, but today he was only awake enough to be open to suggestion, so he took my command immediately. That might have been the first time that had ever happened.

His breathing evened out almost immediately, but I didn't want to sleep. I didn't want to miss a moment of him, and I was really scared that I'd wake up and he'd be dead next to me. Still. Stone cold.

I shivered and got even closer to him, pressing out bodies together and holding him tighter.

I could assume that it was Kira who had killed L. And if that was true, then Mello would want revenge, guaranteed. If L couldn't take Kira down, then Mello didn't have a chance.

I nudged him, leaning over to see if his eyes opened. One opened partially, and I supposed that would have to be good enough.

"Mello?"

"Mmmf?"

"Will you promise me something."

"Whaer."

"Promise me you won't try to go after Kira?"

"Mmmm."

Knowing perfectly well that he didn't really hear me and wouldn't remember in the morning, I let myself down next to him, pulling him close to me again.

He would get the news tomorrow that L was dead, and he would immediately want to get revenge for the man he barely even liked as a person.

He would not succeed; I knew that as well as I knew him. Kira was going to kill him. And Roger was, for once, right:

If Mello was going to die, then I pretty much had to make sure there was a way for me to die with him.