#roillsh

Author: @weusedtotalktilmidnight

For: @invcnio-patcr

Pairings/Characters: L, Watari, Roger, Roillsh (Roger Ruvie x Quillsh Wammy)

Rating/Warnings: Mostly G, like one sentence towards the end of T

Author’s Note: Editing credit to @kiranatrix because otherwise this piece would be in unenviable shape.

Ooh, nice rare pairNicknames? & if so, how did they originate?

Watari’s nicknames for Roger:

When they were young men in university together, they were on the same rowing team (Roger wasn’t actually into sports, but he joined the team because he had a big crush on Watari). Watari called Roger “Starboard” for nearly two years straight instead of his actual name because of where he sat in the boat. Roger just loathed it.

“My Sweet Little Rhubarb Pie” (when he’s feeling especially amorous and playful, because “Ruvie” lolol. It makes Roger incredibly flustered, and it’s only happened like, 3 times total in their forty years together, and very much in private!)

Roger’s nicknames for Watari:

Roger finds it very hard to be verbally affectionate at all. Still, he refuses to call Watari by his alias, ever. He only ever addresses him by his first name “Quillsh,” and refers to him as “Mr. Wammy” whenever talking to the students about him. 

Roger addressed Watari as “My Dearest Quillsh” in the letters they wrote during their several years apart after university. He agonized over this decision a lot, thinking it might reveal too much of his amorous feelings, and scratched the greeting out on three different letters before finally deciding to just send it. Quillsh signed off his return letter “Yours Most Fondly,” and Roger’s cheeks flamed when he read it (and re-read it).

Roger kept checking the phone, waiting for the numbers to disappear or Quillsh to call, waiting for the countdown to suddenly stop and a text confirming that the founder of the Wammy’s house was alive replace it, he even glanced out of the windows to see familiar figures of the elder and the detective standing behind the gate, or perhaps walking closer, or maybe the black car stopping in front of the house – but whenever he did, Roger was met with dread. The numbers kept ticking, no call came, and no figure of the elderly inventor with snow white hair accompanied by the crouching detective came, except in Roger’s dreams – and what dreams they were. The most vivid one, the one Roger dreaded the most, was the one where he was in a church, standing in front of two coffins, one of the black as ebony, full of white flowers that looked like freshly fallen snow, Quillsh resting on them, as if he was asleep, eyes closed and face calm. Roger always woke up, tears in his eyes, hands trembling and desperate plea to whatever god existed – that when he’d look at the phone, the numbers would stop changing, that there would be a call from Quillsh, or perhaps even Quillsh would be next to him, asleep, but breathing and alive, his arms around Roger.

But Quillsh was never there, and the numbers never stopped.

10 days passed, and one of Roger’s plants died. As always, in the evening, after the dinner, Roger carried it into the small forest behind the orphanage and buried it, holding a small, private ritual. Usually he shed a few tears, or just felt a slight heartache when one of his plants died – but this time, for the first time he remembered since his childhood, Roger wept, kneeling next to the small, freshly dug grave – he wept for Quillsh, for L, because he knew that they won’t come back, that it was hopeless, that Quillsh was never going to accept the sapphire ring in his pocket that Roger had wanted to propose with – that it was all for nothing. But still, he refused to accept this, because there was still a chance that they would be alive, that it was nothing but false alarm, right?

Roger clung to that hope, like a human that is about to die from falling clings to a rope, even if the said rope is about to give up, even if there is just one single thread holding it together.

And when 20 days passed, Roger still waited for Quillsh, still waited to kiss these lips that tasted like metal, salt and Earl Grey, still longed for these warm, comforting hands around him, still looked forward to the nights they were going to spend sitting in front of the fireplace, after the children had gone to sleep, Roger’s head resting on Quillsh’s chest or shoulder, still wrote letters… but he never sent them. The letters full of love and longing stayed in his bottom drawer, locked into a separate box, never sent out. And Roger waited, glanced out of the windows and kept watch on the numbers mercilessly going down.

And on the evening of 29th day, as he was about to go to bed, in a fit of rage and hopelessness, Roger threw the phone to the other side of the room and wept for hours, as the realization hit him like a fist – Quillsh was never going to hold him again, he was never going to wake up Quillsh from nightmares anymore, he was never going to play the piano for Quillsh again, he was never going to taste the lips that were like metal and salt, reminding of machines and sea, he was never going to rest his head on Quillsh and feel completely at home again, and there was nothing, nothing he could do about it.

On some nights, Roger couldn’t fall asleep, no matter how tired he was. So, he thought, facing the ceiling, eyes aimlessly wandering on the ceiling.

Most often, these thoughts were of fear – Roger was usually afraid of needles and small, closed places, but one thing that sometimes seemed to float into his thoughts, what scared him the most, made him constantly glance around the room, almost paranoid, was the fear of the people finding out who he truly loved, who was the reason he never dreamed of a woman, the one who made his heart jump with joy, the one whose lips he had tasted hundreds of times, but still couldn’t get enough of the combined tastes of salty metal and vanilla, the one whose arms made him feel safer and more at home than anything, the man with eyes that were the tone of glimmering silver in rain, into which Roger sometimes caught himself dreamily staring, the inventor who had unknowingly introduced him to the feeling of love – Roger was afraid of people finding out he loved a man, Quillsh Wammy.

They had met as a children, and for years, they had been like brothers – but by the time Roger turned 25, it had developed into something much more, because just very good friends didn’t sleep next to each other every night, very good friends didn’t constantly kiss each other or have sexual intercourses, and most importantly, very good friends surely didn’t have such feelings towards each other – the feeling of warmth and joy every time they saw each other, the yearning of more and more of each other, like an addiction – but who was Roger to speak? Quillsh had been his first friend – first really close friend, and for years he had convinced himself that he didn’t love Quillsh romantically. They were just friends, friends that kissed and had sex, but still… friends. Nothing more, because Roger was not homosexual. Homosexuals were subhuman, abominations, flawed and wrong humans, and Roger was, not by any means, any of these.

It had taken him years to bring himself to admit it and throw away the truths hammered into him since he was young, it had taken endless evenings when he’d empty bottles of vodka, distance himself from Quillsh, and silently cry himself to sleep, trying to stop himself from missing his lover’s warm body beside him. He remembered how it had made Quillsh suffer as well – after a month or few, Quillsh had thrown out all of the bottles he had found, and Roger hadn’t reacted well. It had taken what felt like ages to become clean, and after that, even longer to accept it, to accept that he wasn’t subhuman for loving Quillsh.

After these painful weeks, when he was alone, Roger would sometimes find himself humming, “Shall I stay, would it be a sin, if I can’t help falling in love with you?”. One single time, Quillsh had heard him – when Roger had thought the older was asleep, he was suddenly surprised by a kiss, and that one time, salty metal mixed with vanilla tasted better than the most heavenly meal.

He couldn’t help it – denying it was useless, Roger loved Quillsh with all of his soul, and he was quite sure that Quillsh loved him back – what else could the kisses and affectionate gestures mean? Even though there were times Roger thought he wasn’t worthy of this man, Quillsh was stubborn, and never left by his side.