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How does one know that it's love and not simply lust? Alec knows. It's in the way butterflies flutter through his stomach when he wakes up before Maurice, the morning light caressing their skin. Maurice always looks so soft and beautiful. It makes Alec's heart ache in impossible ways.
Maurice isn't Alec's first love, but he is the one. Alec knows that this holds true for him, but when it comes to Maurice's feelings, he's not so sure. There will always be the shadow of Clive Durham laying over their relationship, he fears. Maurice doesn't talk much about him, stops recalling past stories whenever Durham's ghost enters the room with them.
One might think it would make Alec jealous – and it does, now and then – but even more than that he feels sad for the man he loves. Rejection is hard, even more so when it doesn't come from unrequited love but a lack of courage or imagination. Mr Durham could have found a way to be with Maurice. Mr Durham isn't the only man with status, money, even a wife and this inclination. Alec has worked at enough estates to know that.
Nonetheless, it's odd that he feels like this. If Mr Durham wouldn't have been so stubborn about moral superiority (or was it fear?), Maurice would have rejected him when he climbed into his room that fateful day. Mr Durham would have been the one to savour this beautiful soul and body, could have discovered the loveliness of Maurice letting go, being truly free.
Of course, Mr Durham shared other things with Maurice Alec never will. Things Alec fears might drive them apart, might let Maurice wake up one day and wonder why he gave up his life in prosperity for this: a room in one of the lesser quarters in town, a shared bathroom one flight down, meals that fill the stomach but don't feed the soul... And for what? For a man who doesn't know the difference between Plato and Plutarch. A man who reads the books his lover lends him but struggles to understand half of what he reads. Alec is smart, but next to his lover he doesn't feel like it.
No. It must be love on Maurice's part. He chose him over people and riches. Alec's skills in bed cannot be the only thing keeping him despite all their differences in upbringing and status, despite the part of Maurice's heart that still sometimes aches for a man who asks him to return and see reason, who still sends letters, pleading with him to come home.
Which home he means, Alec doesn't know. All he knows is that Maurice is morose for hours whenever he broke another seal. It pains Alec but he forgives him every time.
Maurice doesn't need to tell him how he feels about him. He shows him every day. And Alec will murmer the three words into his skin by night until, one day, he'll hear Maurice say them, too.