Maurice ran downstairs as soon as he got back from school. He'd started letting Roger roam the basement while he was at school sometimes – the only problem with this was that the basement didn't actually have a lockable door, so Maurice was forced to chain him to his door like some sort of wild animal.

But he was sort of a wild animal, only he was a person, too, most of the time. Maurice figured that he had enough things down in the basement to keep Roger busy and, besides, with the chain hooked on to his arm, he could always tell where Roger was.

And right now, he was under Maurice's bed for some reason. Maurice dropped his things on the floor and bounded over the bed, flopping down on top of it and reaching down to give the chain a yank. Roger squirmed into view. He was very dusty. "What are you doing?" Maurice asked, grinning a little. Roger shrugged.

"Looking around. Unlock me."

Maurice thought about it and decided that he could probably let Roger have totally free reign while he was there, because he was still bigger than Roger and could lock him up again if he needed to. So, after digging around frantically for the key, he unlocked Roger. He'd put the key in his shoe, for some reason. Well, at least he would never lose it if it was in his shoe.

"So, Roger, what do you want to do today?" Maurice asked. Roger shrugged and crawled up to sit beside Maurice on the bed.

Someone knocked on the door. Maurice shoved Roger off of the bed and jumped off himself, grabbing Roger by the hand and dragging him to his room. "What are you-"

"Shut up! You have to get in there," Maurice said. Roger sighed and complied, letting Maurice shove him into his room and lock the door. "Coming!"

Unlike the previous times that someone had knocked at the door while Roger was out, it wasn't just someone looking for his father. It was his girlfriend – well, he hadn't really done much more than smile at her during chance meetings for the past few months, so maybe not girlfriend anymore – Gwendolyn. "Oh! Hello!" Maurice said, grinning.

"Can we talk?" she asked. Maurice glanced at the basement door nervously, then nodded.

"Uh, yeah, I guess," he said. "What do you want to talk about?"

She shivered. Oh, it was a little cold, wasn't it? He should probably invite her in… but he didn't want her here that long, he had to deal with Roger. But common courtesy…

"Well… I wanted to know…" she shifted from foot to foot, looking awkward. "If you still like me. We haven't gone out in forever, and…"

"I'm sorry," Maurice said. "I've just been busy." With a psychotic insane asylum escapee.

"Well…" Gwendolyn trailed off, then jumped when a loud crash! was heard from the basement.

"Talk to you later!" Maurice said, slamming the door, locking it for good measure, and heading back down to Roger. "Damn it Roger!"

He opened Roger's door to come face-to-face with a desk. Roger lowered the desk, and Maurice glanced at the door. Yep. Roger had tried breaking down the door with the desk. "You could be patient, you know," Maurice said. Roger put the desk back and shook his head. "What do you need?"

"Your father is going to be gone for the next few days, correct?" Roger asked. Maurice nodded.

"Yeah. Why?"

"Can I sleep with you?"


Maurice finished homework at around eleven-thirty. Roger had been watching him, occasionally making suggestions and correcting his math. Maurice was generally quite good with math, but he was distracted. If he wouldn't have been distracted, he would've realized that Roger was, in fact, correcting him incorrectly, and his original answers were correct.

But math homework didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, did it?

As soon as Maurice shut off the lights and got into bed, Roger spoke.

"I want to kill them."

"Uh," Maurice said, forcing a grin even though he knew Roger wouldn't be able to see it in the lack of light. "Who?"

"Oh, all of them," Roger said. Maurice could almost hear him smirk. "Ralph, mostly. And the others. Jack-"

"I thought you liked Jack?" Maurice interrupted. "I mean, you always did what he told you to."

"I did like Jack," Roger replied. "And then we got back here and he didn't even get in trouble. Just because I'm…" He trailed off, and Maurice shifted, closing the rest of the space between them.

"Easier to blame?" he offered.

"Yes," Roger said. "It doesn't mean that everyone else should just go home free just because I'm the most obviously insane. I mean, all of us came away insane."

"I don't think I'm insane," Maurice said. "I mean-"

Roger laughed. It was that insane laugh again – of course, did Roger have any other laugh? – the high-pitched, too loud to sound like Roger, laugh. "Maurice. Think about your choices. Think about this. Nobody who wasn't seriously fucked up would break me out of an asylum. For everyone's health, I should be locked up. I suppose I am; you're doing a good enough job for being you. But still. One day you're going to end up like that kitten."

"No, Roger," Maurice said, wrapping his arms around Roger and pulling him even close, if that was possible. He was a bit scared – he hoped that the chill in the room would disguise his shivering as from the cold, not what Roger was making him feel – but that didn't matter. "I… I'll be fine. I tru-"

"Don't say you trust me, because you shouldn't," Roger said. "It's stupid. I'm not going to push you away, because, well… why would I? But don't fucking trust me. I'm going to snap and kill you one day. Be ready for it."

Maurice sighed. "I don't think you will."

"Maurice, one day you're going to die and it's going to be all my fau-"

Maurice cut him off by kissing him, tightening his grip on the smaller boy and keeping the two of them pressed together. After the initial shock of the kiss, Roger put his hands on Maurice's chest as if to push him away, but he didn't. Maurice broke the kiss if only to breathe, and Roger's hands moved from Maurice's chest to his face, tracing his nose and mouth and eyes. "You know how easily I could hurt you right now? You're too fucking trusting."

"Shut up," Maurice said. He brushed Roger's hair away from his face – not so that he could see, just to keep his hands busy – and moved his face closer to the other boy's. "You talk too much."

"I don't talk very – mmph!"

Maurice had kissed him again. There was again the initial shock, and this time Roger tangled his hands in Maurice's hair, pulling at it and messing with it. "Too much talking," Maurice said. "Not enough of the fun stuff."

It seemed that Roger was back to his completely insane, angry alley cat stage, because his only answer was a growl and a bite on Maurice's jaw. A shiver went up Maurice's spine and he gripped Roger's face tighter. Roger wriggled free and nearly ripped Maurice's shirt from his body, letting it get lost in the blankets.

"Yours too, then," Maurice said, but Roger beat him to it, taking off the shirt and throwing it aside, just a minor inconvenience.

"Maurice!"

Hold on, that wasn't Roger. That sounded like… like his father.

"Under the bed!" Maurice hissed, shoving Roger away from him and off of the bed. Roger rolled out of sight, and Maurice pulled the blankets tightly around him as his father walked down the stairs. "Hi!"

"Did I wake you up?" his father asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed. Maurice shrugged.

"Kind of. I mean, I wasn't all the way asleep," he lied. "But close."

"Oh. I'll let you get back to sleep, then. Just wanted to tell you that the conference has been cut short and I'll be home," his father said. Maurice swallowed and nodded.

"Great."


And here we go. :)

Next chapter we begin Jack's POV.