Chapter Text
A message notified on Maurice's cracked phone screen just as Sam nudged him with his elbow.
"You coming or what?" Sam grinned, already halfway out the door.
His bike leaning against the fence, blue paint peeling from years of use. God knows how Sam could still ride that bike after so long.
Maurice hesitated, his thumb hovered over the keyboard. He could see Roger's name in the group chat, inactive for the last ten minutes. That was normal. That was fine.
"Yeah.. Yeah, gimme a sec," He stared for a second more, like a dog yearning for a ball just out of reach, then pocketed his phone. The air smelled of wet pavement after the rain and Sam's bike tires left faint tracks on the driveway. Maurice picked up his black bicycle and hopped on without a struggle. He doesn't ride often, he was fortunate enough to still remember how to.
Maurice wanted to check his phone again, for no reason, but instead, he pushed off his pedals and followed right after Sam.
Inside Ralph's house, Piggy was already arranging snacks in careful, symmetrical rows on the coffee table. There was no use, it'd be destroyed by the end of the night, but it pleased Piggy to have some order.
A loud knock sounded, a certain tone in it that anyone in the group could decipher who exactly showed up. The front door creaked open, the guests letting themselves in. Jack and Simon were shoulder-to-shoulder, damp from the drizzle outside. Simon shivered faintly and looked like he was close to fainting. He wasn't. They all knew he'd tell Jack if he did and Jack would have a terrifying grip on his arm by now. Jack, however, smirked, before shaking rainwater from his hair like a dog, directly onto Piggy’s thoroughly arranged snack grid.
"Oi, pig feet, you gonna ration those crisps like it's wartime or what's the plan?" Jack snorted as he strutted over, completely abandoning Simon the second he could.
Piggy adjusted his glasses with deliberate calm, but his mouth twitched like he was composing himself. He often did that and Jack often provoked a beast within him that he'd rather keep at bay.
"I think you'll find crisps go stale faster when they're tossed about like confetti," he muttered, nudging the bowl back into alignment.
"Muh muh muh, right. Sprout lies, my little akuma."
The door slammed again. Seriously, what is it with people slamming doors? It was Eric this time, his hair plastered to his forehead, Roger trailing behind him with casualness as though he practiced it in the mirror. It was the casualness that always made Maurice’s stomach twist. Roger didn’t spare a glance towars him, just dumped his jacket on the floor and headed straight for the kitchen.
"Maur, you good?"
Maurice blinked over at the identical blond. Sam. He hadn’t realized he’d been staring. It seems he never does.
Clearing his throat, he nearly whispers, "Yeah. just zoned."
The kitchen faucet hissed when Roger turned it on, a sharp, pressurized sound like a gasping snake. He watched the water spiral down the drain, fingers gripping the edge of the sink. The baggie in his pocket felt heavier than it should have. He just had it with him, that's all.
The soft voice of Simon appeared, "Hey, Roger, you planning to drown the tap or just staring at it for fun?" It wasn't malicious, it was all in good humor.
Roger didn’t turn around, yet his shoulders tensed. "Shove off," he said, but there was no bite to it. Just exhaustion. Outside the kitchen window, the forest was a black smear against the sky barely lit by a crescent moon. He could disappear into it. He wanted to.
The faucet’s screech cut off abruptly as Roger twisted it too hard. Unnecessary. His reflection in the kitchen window flickered, distorted by the rain-streaked glass, until it wasn’t his face anymore, just a shadow paired with hollow eyes. Sometimes he was overjoyed to the point it was too much. He wasn't there yet. Roger exhaled sharply through his nose and reluctantly followed the boys to the living room.
Jack flopped right down onto the sofa, not caring if he nearly bounced off the moment he opened his mouth, "Right, who’s picking the film? If it’s another zombie shite, I’m setting fire to the DVD."
"It's streaming, Jack," Simon muttered, scrolling through Ralph's Netflix account. "No DVDs to burn." He grinned at Jack lightly, who was just staring at him with narrowed blues.
Roger sat in the corner of the sofa, uneasy. He couldn't keep his eyes off of Maurice. The brown haired boy was laughing at something Sam whispered into his ear. It was definitely stupid. The chatter around him was deafening and his nails dug into his thighs.
The screen flickered to life with the opening credits of some generic horror movie, cheap jump scares and a synth soundtrack already grating on Roger’s nerves. He hadn’t even heard what they’d picked. It looked like some dumb Tubi film. His fingers twitched toward his pocket again, then stopped.
No. He wasn't doing this.
"Uh, anyone got drinks? My throat’s dry as Jack's messages half the time," Sam snickered before locking in, as he would say. "But genuinely."
Oh. But he was.
Roger blinked out of his daze and stood abruptly. His movements were off. No one noticed. "I’ll get them."
He didn’t wait for a response, though he could hear the mocking coos of Jack as he stalked towards the kitchen.
His head was burning, his heart throbbing. These weren't normal sensations. As if he were poisoned... Hah. Poison. Why was that so funny again?
Roger pulled the heavy duty gloves from his right pocket and slipped them on. The right thing to do. The opposite pocket sat the bag, in which he pulled it out of the left, since it sure as hell wasn't right.
The nightshade berries were tiny, almost innocuous-looking in his palm. He crushed one between his secured fingers, the juice dark as ink.
Roger's breath came too fast, too slow, too wrong. His fingers trembled as he finally tipped the juice of the crushed berries into Sam’s glass. The liquid swirled, dissolving into the water like a secret. His throat tightened, his eyes unblinking and trained solely on the cup.
Roger stared at the glass, the dark tendrils of dissolved belladonna curling like smoke in the water. His chest felt too tight, like his ribs were pressing inward, crushing his lungs. He should’ve felt something, triumph, guilt, anything, but there was just static. The kitchen light buzzed overhead, flickering once, casting his shadow long and jagged against the wall. A beast.
The back door was right there.
He could leave.
He should leave—
The kitchen door swung shut behind Roger with a click that sounded too final. Cold air hit his face as he stumbled off the hard steps, the weight in his own feet dropping shooting slight aches up his legs. He didn’t stop, just kept walking, faster now, until the trees swallowed him whole. Brambles snagged his sleeves, but he barely felt them. His pulse roared in his ears, drowning out the distant laughter from the house. He shouldn't be able to hear that. Was he hearing things?
Inside, Maurice frowned at his phone, Sam’s latest message left unanswered. Something nagged at him, a prickle between his shoulder blades. He stood abruptly, knocking his knee against the coffee table. There was no need for him to react.
"Where’s Roger?" he muttered, more to himself than anyone.
Piggy adjusted his spectacles, squinting at the empty kitchen doorway. "He said he was getting drinks. That was... approximately five minutes ago?"
Simon exchanged a glance with Jack, who shrugged but didn’t look away from the screen. "Probably pissed off again," Jack said, though his voice lacked its usual edge. He felt something was off, too.
Maurice’s fingers twitched toward his phone again, but instead of texting, he shoved it deeper into his pocket and walked toward the kitchen. The floorboards groaned under his steps, the sound too loud in the sudden quiet of the room. Behind him, the movie’s soundtrack swelled with false tension, a cheap jumpscare that make Simon squeak and Jack fall silent. The humor of it all felt distant, as though it was coming from another world.
The kitchen was empty. The faucet dripped, a slow, repetitive plink into the sink. Sam’s glass sat on the counter, half-full. It was easy to tell who's it was, Sam insisted on the funky designed one.
All alone with no Roger in sight.
The water inside still swirled faintly where Roger must’ve stirred it. That wasn't normal. Maurice padded over, eyebrows furrowing gradually as he stood above the drink.
His stomach lurched. He reached for the cup, hesitant, then froze. A dark speck clung to the rim, barely visible. Only an idiot wouldn't know what it was. One breath hitch and suddenly, he could not breathe.
Maurice’s fingers hovered over the glass, his pulse thudding in his ears. It wasn’t just dirt, it was a fragment of something purplish-black, crushed and smeared. His mind flashed to Roger’s weird herbology obsession back in Year 6, the way he’d linger by the school’s overgrown greenhouse, plucking leaves with deliberate precision. Deadly nightshade. Belladonna. Whatever you want to call it. The realization hit like a punch to the gut.
Maurice's fingers curled away from the glass as if burned. His breath came shallow and uneven like his lungs had forgotten how to fully expand. The kitchen light buzzed louder, flickered again, and casted jagged shadows across the countertop. Outside, the wind rattled the back door in its frame. It was an insistent, almost mocking rhythm, like something was trying to get in.
He should pour the drink out. Smash the glass. Burn the evidence. But his hands stayed frozen at his sides.
Roger tried to—
The thought splintered before he could finish it. His phone buzzed in his pocket, startling him so badly he nearly knocked the glass over.
A text from Sam asking about the drinks.
Once it had delivered, it was followed by a chorus of laughter from the living room. Maurice swallowed hard, his throat dry. He immediately placed the glass in the sink, yanking his hand away before the water could splash anything up. He pushed an unearthly amount of dish soap onto the glass and just watched the dark swirl vanish down the drain.
Maybe he was being too frantic as he finished sanitizing the every bit of it. Maurice refilled it from the tap, spilling water across the counter he knew he would not clean.
Maurice stared at the freshly overflowed glass, his disheveled reflection warped in its surface. The water was clear now, innocent, but his hands wouldn’t stop trembling. He sucked in a sharp breath through his nose, the scent of stale crisps and damp fabric thick in the air. It was supposed to smell carefree and childish. It felt more like entering the house of a dead person.
Maurice's squeezed the glass till his knuckles whitened. The laughter from the living room felt like nails against a chalkboard, it was loud and oblivious. He inhaled again, but this time the air tasted like copper at the back of his throat. He was going to be sick.
Tell them. You have to tell them.
It was all his fault. He almost got Sam killed. But he chose to replace Roger. He shouldn't feel as bad for Roger as he does Sam. No. Maurice feels worse for him.
His phone buzzed again, Sam, probably. He wish it would just shut up. Maurice ignored it, gripping the edge of the counter instead. The laminate was cool under his palms, but sticky from spilled soda. Grounding. It was working.
Too worried, he discarded the original cup and grabbed a fresh glass, filling it again with tap water. One last sigh, he made his way back to the living room. The movie was paused while the screen frozen on some gnarled creature mid-screech. Ironically enough, Jack was mid-bite into a crisp, crumbs dusting his shirt like a toddler, when Maurice choked on his words.
"Roger tried to poison Sam."
The words landed like a rock to the head. Simon’s head snapped up, his wide eyes growing wider. Piggy’s fingers froze while adjusting the framed of his glasses. Jack choked on his crisp, coughing violently into his elbow while Simon instinctively clapped him on the back.
Sam blinked, slow and deliberate, then snorted. "Huh, like.. with what? Rat poison?"
Maurice’s fingers dug into his palms, "Belladona." He took a second to swallow, "Nightshade. I saw it in your cup." His voice sounded hollowed out, even to himself. The glass wavered in his grip, water sloshing dangerously close to the edge.
Sam’s sun bright grin faltered. He glanced down at the glass Maurice just shoved into his hands before his eyes made their way back up. "You’re for real." It wasn’t a question. The room’s atmosphere thickened, the movie’s frozen scream on TV suddenly grotesque for quite a situation.
Horror is all about death. Irony.
Jack's first to recover, swiping crumbs off his shirt with jerky movements. "Fucking hell, Roger." There was no real surprise in his voice, just a tone similar to that of a tired father, like he’d been waiting for this shoe to drop.
Simon stood abruptly when Jack did, "Where is he now?" His gaze darted to the kitchen doorway, obviously no one was there.
Maurice's phone was in his hand after he'd registered the question. Without a response, his thumb jabbed at Roger's contact, the call button glowing under his fingertip. The phone rang once—twice— how many more times?— before the line clicked.
Voicemail.
Not a voice though.
A wall of noise: distorted guitars screeching like animals near death, drums hammering in erratic bursts, a guttural gasp that didn't sound entirely human. The audio quality was jagged, as if recorded in a tin can and then left to be set on fire.
Maurice yanked the phone away from his ear, wincing. "What the fuck," he muttered, staring at the screen like it bit him. Roger was a weird one, entirely too off-putting, but this wasn't his usual voicemail. Then again, he hasn't called Roger in. . . how long again?
Too long.
The noise continued to bleed through the speaker even at arm's length. Relentless. An analog horror.
What the fuck is wrong with Roger?