Work Text:
It had been a challenge, building a life together. Maurice’s social status would never be what it had before, and although he hadn’t been arrested, there were all sorts of rumours flying around about him. Some of them were frankly just ridiculous. Alec too, had lost a lot, his family, and his career, and in the early days of the new life they’d began to build together, there’d been a lot of moping around and topics they would skirt around in fear of upsetting the other.
All wasn’t lost, though. They’d gained something new, something uncertain and fragile, something together. Maurice had Alec and Alec had Maurice.
They’d both had doubts, in the beginning, of course. Would this last long term? How were they going to survive? What would they do for work? What if someone found out? But now, here they were, in the modest house they’d been fixing up, Maurice cosied up on the settee with some book, with Alec resting his head on his lover’s chest. The fire roared next to them, and there was the smell of dinner cooking on the stove from the other room.
Every now and then, Maurice sent a letter to Clive. About how his life was. They’d only seen each other a few times since Maurice had told him about him and Alec, and their friendship had become awkward and distant. Clive of course knew about his and Alec’s relationship, and Maurice wasn’t ashamed to bring it up. He wasn’t ashamed about the man he loved.
By some miracle, they’d found friends who knew about them, and since they hadn’t been blackmailed or thrown in prison yet, they were both grateful that there were people unbothered by their homosexuality. And that they could be just ordinary people.
All in all, they were comfortable, and although Maurice had initially struggled to adjust to a more frugal lifestyle and working a manual labour job, he wouldn’t trade it for the world. Not when he got to share it with Alec, his lover, the handsome and intelligent and witty man that he was. Every morning he woke up in Alec’s arms, in their marriage bed (if they could’ve got married, of course), and they made breakfast and spent the day together, just getting to live, and not having to worry about all the upper class snobbery and drama they’d both been so used to.
Maurice closed his book shut, putting it aside and pressing a gentle kiss to Alec’s wild curls.
“I’m glad to have you.”
Alec smiled. Everything was perfect. This was where they belonged, this was home.