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Nov. 11th, 2011 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
michalsIn the Wake of News
Fandom: Maurice
Pairing: Alec/Maurice
Rating: PG
He finds Maurice outside. Bundled up in nothing but his shirtsleeves and an old jacket with patched elbows.
Alec approaches him slowly, though all the good it does, as the snow crunches underfoot. He's much more mindful of the cold, wool blanket from their bed around his shoulders, thick winter coat on underneath.
The moon lends just enough light to catch the look on Maurice's face. Wistful, perhaps, sad mostly. Alec can't think up smarter words than that, books were always more Maurice's area.
He doesn't hesitate in wrapping his arms, and the blanket, around Maurice's shoulders, pulling the cold body back against his. Maurice lets out a little sigh and turns his head, so Alec can his face as he closes his eyes and lets his lips twitch further down in despair.
They stand like that for untold minutes. Alec takes the time - lets Maurice decide when he's ready to talk, the man says about a quarter of what Alec does on a good day - to revel in the warmth that's slowly overtaking his lover's frozen form, the absolute stillness the dead of winter brings to such a lonely, isolated area such as the woods where they've made their home.
No rustle of animals as they scamper across the ground. No winds whistling through trees. No shift of waves across the frozen river. No falling leaves.
"Conscription." Maurice finally spits out, "Ugly word."
Ah. Alec guessed as much when he woke up to find himself alone in the bed.
Finally it comes to find them, the war they've spent two years hiding from. The terror that's ravaging their country, all the countries, and threatening their idyllic little lives in the forest.
There have been times where they've talked about it. About going to fight for their country like they know all good English boys should do. Alec knows deep down he should fight, knows he loves his homeland enough for that.
Maurice has proven less patriotic. Alec hardly blames him when he speaks so strongly about them being outlaws in their own country for something they can hardly help. Alec finds he can't blame Maurice about a lot of things.
Almost funny now, how little all of that mattered when it ends up the decision's going to be made for them.
Alec tightens his arms around Maurice, presses his face into his shoulder. Times like these even he finds it difficult to find the words.
"We'll stick together," Is what he says when the words finally come, "gotten this far, haven't we?"
In the cold January air the words hang, strange and small in light of the truth of the matter. Maurice makes another small noise and reaches up to hold Alec's hands in his.
"God, everything...everything wasted. Everything we've gone through." His voice breaks as he speaks, his hands ice cold in Alec's.
A hundred nights like this, where instead they sit in front of the fire, tasteless tea in inelegant chipped cups, Alec telling tall tales, Maurice listening happily, locked inside their calm, safe haven.
A hundred days where Alec looks up from his wood chopping, sweat drenched and sun burnt, to seek out Maurice as he leans against a tree, in an equal state, pushing back sweaty blonde curls from his glowing face.
Days where rain keeps them inside, Maurice reading aloud from some beaten up book, Alec half paying attention, fingers combing through his hair, muttering dirty jokes about the text, Maurice laughing lightly in return.
Twilight hours he finds Maurice awake, in the depths of some strange insomnia which he waves away with a long fingered hand and pushes Alec back into bed and settles down next to him, both aware it may be hours yet before Maurice finds sleep.
Strained moments where their past returns to them in the form of some person or other in the market looking too familiar, some offhanded comment by the other or the simple knowledge that their world now is so different from the one they've left behind.
News of the war trying so desperately to beat down the door of their cottage, hours spent in each other's arms, each other's warm, reminding themselves that they left it behind and all those things hardly matter now.
Alec sees why Maurice is so forlorn, sees all these things for the tenuous and stolen moments they are and how easily they could be taken away. How they are being taken. Can't imagine it's an easy feat kissing your lover so blatantly and happily in the wide open on the battlefield as it has been here in their secluded retreat, away from prying, judging eyes.
But, and Alec may be a man for storytelling, he knows better than to lie to himself (and thus far this trait has served him well, as the presence of the gorgeous man in his arms can attest to) and he knows that not being able to steal a kiss is hardly the least of their worries.
Maurice turns in his arms sharply and suddenly, his eyes earnest and fearful, the same thought has come to him as well.
"Alec I can't, I can't lose you. I don't know what I'd do, who I'd be." His hands are too frozen to clutch Alec's face too hard but the tension in his body speaks pages of the kind of terror that has taken him out into the cold on this night.
Alec shushes him the way he usually does, by pressing his lips to Maurice's pink ones, his arms a vice around his middle.
>Maurice sighs into the kiss, tension easing slowly and reluctantly. His hands become gentler on the sides of Alec's neck, deft fingers stroking the exposed skin above the coat.
Alec pulls away only when he's certain Maurice has calmed down some. Looks up at him with as sincere a look as he can, arms still tight around him.
One would think that all they've been through already, all they have to do just to be would have earned them some pardon of even more dire fates. Alec thinks that God, or whomever, would at least give them this.
But that's not to be. They have left their homes, they have left their families, their past...others (Clive Durham's name still leaves a dirty taste in his mouth, and those nights when Maurice can't sleep always make Alec think of Maurice's confession about his plan for the gun...). They hide away from the rest of the world, they pretend to be brothers or cousins or just two lads working together when in public.
Alec will often go to the market alone because Maurice still holds a touch of his high-class accent and they can't afford the questions. They don't have many friends, and those that are are seen only rarely and never invited over.
That night in the russet room room, at Pendersleigh, where he snuck into Maurice's room, Alec had felt like they were the only two people in the world. Utterly wrapped up in each other, wholly apart and distant from anyone that may have dared imposed.
It has been like that for the last two years. They are alone in their own world.
It sounds lonely, Alec realizes, but when times come to him where he wonders if perhaps he should have gotten on that ship, he never thinks twice that he would give it all up again, just to have Maurice in his arms at night.
He says this now, staring into Maurice's watery gray eyes, his breath puffing out between them in the cold night air, alone and away they stand together, and Alec says, "After everything I did to get you, I ain't letting you get away if I can help it."
And Maurice smiles and it is light among all the darkness.
Fandom: Maurice
Pairing: Alec/Maurice
Rating: PG
He finds Maurice outside. Bundled up in nothing but his shirtsleeves and an old jacket with patched elbows.
Alec approaches him slowly, though all the good it does, as the snow crunches underfoot. He's much more mindful of the cold, wool blanket from their bed around his shoulders, thick winter coat on underneath.
The moon lends just enough light to catch the look on Maurice's face. Wistful, perhaps, sad mostly. Alec can't think up smarter words than that, books were always more Maurice's area.
He doesn't hesitate in wrapping his arms, and the blanket, around Maurice's shoulders, pulling the cold body back against his. Maurice lets out a little sigh and turns his head, so Alec can his face as he closes his eyes and lets his lips twitch further down in despair.
They stand like that for untold minutes. Alec takes the time - lets Maurice decide when he's ready to talk, the man says about a quarter of what Alec does on a good day - to revel in the warmth that's slowly overtaking his lover's frozen form, the absolute stillness the dead of winter brings to such a lonely, isolated area such as the woods where they've made their home.
No rustle of animals as they scamper across the ground. No winds whistling through trees. No shift of waves across the frozen river. No falling leaves.
"Conscription." Maurice finally spits out, "Ugly word."
Ah. Alec guessed as much when he woke up to find himself alone in the bed.
Finally it comes to find them, the war they've spent two years hiding from. The terror that's ravaging their country, all the countries, and threatening their idyllic little lives in the forest.
There have been times where they've talked about it. About going to fight for their country like they know all good English boys should do. Alec knows deep down he should fight, knows he loves his homeland enough for that.
Maurice has proven less patriotic. Alec hardly blames him when he speaks so strongly about them being outlaws in their own country for something they can hardly help. Alec finds he can't blame Maurice about a lot of things.
Almost funny now, how little all of that mattered when it ends up the decision's going to be made for them.
Alec tightens his arms around Maurice, presses his face into his shoulder. Times like these even he finds it difficult to find the words.
"We'll stick together," Is what he says when the words finally come, "gotten this far, haven't we?"
In the cold January air the words hang, strange and small in light of the truth of the matter. Maurice makes another small noise and reaches up to hold Alec's hands in his.
"God, everything...everything wasted. Everything we've gone through." His voice breaks as he speaks, his hands ice cold in Alec's.
A hundred nights like this, where instead they sit in front of the fire, tasteless tea in inelegant chipped cups, Alec telling tall tales, Maurice listening happily, locked inside their calm, safe haven.
A hundred days where Alec looks up from his wood chopping, sweat drenched and sun burnt, to seek out Maurice as he leans against a tree, in an equal state, pushing back sweaty blonde curls from his glowing face.
Days where rain keeps them inside, Maurice reading aloud from some beaten up book, Alec half paying attention, fingers combing through his hair, muttering dirty jokes about the text, Maurice laughing lightly in return.
Twilight hours he finds Maurice awake, in the depths of some strange insomnia which he waves away with a long fingered hand and pushes Alec back into bed and settles down next to him, both aware it may be hours yet before Maurice finds sleep.
Strained moments where their past returns to them in the form of some person or other in the market looking too familiar, some offhanded comment by the other or the simple knowledge that their world now is so different from the one they've left behind.
News of the war trying so desperately to beat down the door of their cottage, hours spent in each other's arms, each other's warm, reminding themselves that they left it behind and all those things hardly matter now.
Alec sees why Maurice is so forlorn, sees all these things for the tenuous and stolen moments they are and how easily they could be taken away. How they are being taken. Can't imagine it's an easy feat kissing your lover so blatantly and happily in the wide open on the battlefield as it has been here in their secluded retreat, away from prying, judging eyes.
But, and Alec may be a man for storytelling, he knows better than to lie to himself (and thus far this trait has served him well, as the presence of the gorgeous man in his arms can attest to) and he knows that not being able to steal a kiss is hardly the least of their worries.
Maurice turns in his arms sharply and suddenly, his eyes earnest and fearful, the same thought has come to him as well.
"Alec I can't, I can't lose you. I don't know what I'd do, who I'd be." His hands are too frozen to clutch Alec's face too hard but the tension in his body speaks pages of the kind of terror that has taken him out into the cold on this night.
Alec shushes him the way he usually does, by pressing his lips to Maurice's pink ones, his arms a vice around his middle.
>Maurice sighs into the kiss, tension easing slowly and reluctantly. His hands become gentler on the sides of Alec's neck, deft fingers stroking the exposed skin above the coat.
Alec pulls away only when he's certain Maurice has calmed down some. Looks up at him with as sincere a look as he can, arms still tight around him.
One would think that all they've been through already, all they have to do just to be would have earned them some pardon of even more dire fates. Alec thinks that God, or whomever, would at least give them this.
But that's not to be. They have left their homes, they have left their families, their past...others (Clive Durham's name still leaves a dirty taste in his mouth, and those nights when Maurice can't sleep always make Alec think of Maurice's confession about his plan for the gun...). They hide away from the rest of the world, they pretend to be brothers or cousins or just two lads working together when in public.
Alec will often go to the market alone because Maurice still holds a touch of his high-class accent and they can't afford the questions. They don't have many friends, and those that are are seen only rarely and never invited over.
That night in the russet room room, at Pendersleigh, where he snuck into Maurice's room, Alec had felt like they were the only two people in the world. Utterly wrapped up in each other, wholly apart and distant from anyone that may have dared imposed.
It has been like that for the last two years. They are alone in their own world.
It sounds lonely, Alec realizes, but when times come to him where he wonders if perhaps he should have gotten on that ship, he never thinks twice that he would give it all up again, just to have Maurice in his arms at night.
He says this now, staring into Maurice's watery gray eyes, his breath puffing out between them in the cold night air, alone and away they stand together, and Alec says, "After everything I did to get you, I ain't letting you get away if I can help it."
And Maurice smiles and it is light among all the darkness.
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no subject
Date: 2011-11-12 05:26 am (UTC)This is so beautiful, and poetic, and really true to the characters. I definitely see Maurice as taciturn and Alec as the talker. This makes a very believable coda to the book. Thanks for posting!
no subject
Date: 2011-11-13 03:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-12 01:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-13 03:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-12 01:28 pm (UTC)Sad, but lovely. Of course, I'm utterly convinced they both survived the war and found a way to live happily ever after. *g* Thanks for posting!
no subject
Date: 2011-11-13 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-14 01:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-18 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 06:49 pm (UTC)"I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows."
So they may be separated by the war and who knows what else, but in the end....:-)
no subject
Date: 2011-11-18 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-29 08:14 am (UTC)You've done a lovely job with this. I can feel their uncertainty, that all they've done to be together could be ended by just a trick of fate. It isn't fair, it isn't right, but there's nothing to be done about it except to try and see it through.
You've got the voices just right, and they both react the way I thought they would in a situation like this.
Great job!