Chapter Text
Immediately after:
Maurice goes home. It's not a pleasant reniuon with his family, but there are worse. He's sort of.....untethered, just drifting through it all. It's all blood sand running through his fingers, days bleeding like Simon blending together into mush. That is, until school starts. He isn't joining choir, not if someone put a gun to his head for it. Then he sees him. Roger. It's a miracle that Maurice didn't dash away right then. And on Roger's left, blue eyes bright, is Jack. It shouldn't be calming, seeing his used to be best friend gleefully chatting with an attempted murderer. But it does. and they spot him. He's never been strong, especially against Merridew, so it's only so long he can avoid them, before they reel him back in.
To bullying.
To choir.
To before.
They at like the island never happened, or sometimes, like it was truly all fun and games. Like they weren't savage. And he starts to believe it. Batty old Simon just took a tumble during one of his faints, and who even cares about fatty? No, they aren't to blame. Why would they? They're proper british choir Boys, and always never have been.
But the night terrors stay. In his dreams, Maurice can't hide from the truth. So he hides from sleep like a true coward. It's hard, and soon the tricky beast claws at him again.
It's enough to make him double his efforts.
Soon enough, his family starts noticing. They try all different types of doctors and meds, but they don't do a thing. He can almost hear them say it when he's not there. Batty Maurice, lost his haed on Fun and Games Island. Such a traedgy. Eventually, his family moves away. The night terrors don't exactly fade, but they don't hurt as much now that he never has a lie to cling to.
Adult Life:
He goes to college. Drops out. Goes again, this time somewhere less prostigious. He gets a degree in anthropology, but no job to accompany it. For a few years, he hops between deadbeat positions, until he happens to tell a joke. It's not a very funny one. Just some remark on the weather with a little dazzle. But it gets a real laugh out of the customer, and it seems like that's the first time Maurice has smiled genuinely in years. Don't people get paid to do this? He thinks. Mabye I should do that.
And he does.
It's not a lot of money, but it's enough, and it's more fufilling than most other things he's done in the last decade. So he stays. He married, and has one child. A son, Johnathan. He loved to play hunting pirates, and every time Maurice sees it makes him sick. He leaves his wife when Johnny is 8, and goes to live alone. He never remarries or finds love again.
Death:
Maurice dies much like he lived, like a coward gentleman. It's early, but not unreasonably so, from a car accident he jumped which killed both Maurice and the driver. Johnny and Maurice's family to the funeral goes, though Johnny's mother stays at home. Jack tries to come, but he's escorted away. It's a quick service, and no one is really sure what to say. No one really knew him, just his work or his shadow or his smile. Not him. And who know's who that might be?