Work Text:
July 28th 1967
Warm light poured like molten butter through the living room door, casting rays across the floor, the curve of the coffee table, singular sofa; thready with use. There were no intricately designed delicate ornaments, placed purposefully round the space, nor was it capacious enough to house much anyhow. Borrowed souvenirs from the forest littered each windowsill and scarce empty space on each surface; gnarled roots knotted into almost beating hearts, a serpentine twist of a branch, wizard’s staffs leaned up against a corner of cream wall; the texture of the stones used to construct it apparent over the thick paint, a chip of wood who’s now musting fragrance still lingered, and teardrops of crystallised sap. A poor man’s treasures, kept from their many years working in the thick woods- where many could be found. A few plants littered the small room, but most of the nature deposited there was a relic, fossilised in dust, yet still living and breathing as if it had been plucked from the forest floor just yesterday, all collated into a mosaic of life's most natural form, each piece unique in its own.
In this room, Maurice sat atop the thread bare sofa, his whittling frame almost swallowed by the myriad of cushions, some more well loved than others, sipping his tea contently. The tender rays of the sun beamed through his gossamer white hair, like soft cobwebs, illuminating the dappled skin of his scalp. Casting over his tranquil face, worn and sagging with years of utility; kissed by gravity and the passionate sun. Each carved wrinkle told of his life: wave lines of worry lapped on the shore of his forehead, the high tide dictated by years of worry and tumult; three small indignant grooves dug between his eyebrows. Crows feet crinkled at the corners of his eyes like a labyrinth of rivers, where springs bubbled freely with laughter, forever creased in a content crescent smile. He seemed wise, and yet, a impish glint still shone from behind his eyes, catching the light like a magnifying glass angled against the sun, which gave a sense of youth to this old man. Two lines guarded his creased lips, where many grins and frowns had taken place, that were now puckered around the rim of the teacup.
The warmth from the tea bled from the ceramic into his slightly tremored hands, seeping into his worn joints. The scalding hot liquid lounged in his stomach, the heat spreading through his body; much needed on an English morning where the mists still hovered over cobbled streets, and dew still clung to the window panes.
In the pleasant silence of his reverie, a curt childlike knock awakened his senses. Smiling as he set down the now lukewarm teacup, he rose slowly joints creaky as a wicker chair, with a small grunt, stretching out slightly before retracting inwards like a spring. His body didn’t work as well as it used to. It was now used to the habitual hunching of limbs, cradling himself inwards. Almost like he was returning to a foetus, curling up into himself, readying to be planted into the soil and born anew.
Musing on his elderly features with a slight chuckle to himself about his youth, Maurice half shuffled half walked to the front door, picking up a tuppence from the small pile of coins on the drawers near the entrance which housed the hardly used landline.
He opened the door widely, a grin on his face as he looked upon the small boy. His bike lay haphazardly across the small path leading to where they stood, newspapers spilling from the panniers attached to the sides. Crumbs still stuck to the hairs around his boisterously smiling mouth from a rushed breakfast. His paperboy cap was shoved onto his youthful rounded head, at a slight wrong angle, his blonde curls spilling out from under the brim, sticking at strange angles.
His unruly hair fondly reminded Maurice of Alec, how he must've looked when he was a boy, his chubby face housing a cheeky grin, small boyish hands grubby with dirt and grass stains. Alas, he had never seen any pictures, all he had was his imagination.
“Hullo Johnny,” Maurice greeted the young boy of about 7 (and a half he’d tell you grumpily).
“Hullo, here’s ya paper Mr Hall,” He said, shoving the newspaper forward awkwardly.
“Ta Johnny,” Maurice smiled, handling it in his vein threaded hands, then handing the tuppence to the excitedly expectant boy, who clutched the coin like it was a diamond.
“For your troubles,” Maurice said politely, like he was tipping a steward boy at the ritz, inclining his head slightly.
“Fank you sir!” He grinned, pocketing it in his knee length shorts, kept up by beige suspenders, before scurrying off back to his abandoned bike, shoving the newspapers back into the carriers roughly, definitely crumpling them in the process.
Maurice chuckled almost nostalgically, like he was a grandfather who only saw his grandkids once every year, perpetually lost reminiscing in memories as old as the tall wide apple tree planted in the back of the garden. Yet he had no children of his own to visit his cottage.
He watched the small boy pedal away with vigour reserved only by youth, always frantically looking ahead to the future; unlike the sentimental old man, lost in his saccharine spots of life, where it was continuously summer.
The boy hurtled wrinkled newspapers like they were grenades, until he turned the corner of the street, vanishing behind the creamy cobbled wall of their distant neighbors house.
Pulling the door shut with a softly lingering smile, he made his way back to his fashioned dent in the old sofa that felt like a hug, pushed on his reading glasses and smoothed out the paper: his usual routine.
He closed his fingers around the handle of his mug while his eyes adjusted, but paused mid sip.
Putting the cup down blindly precariously close to the edge, he leaned closer, squinting as if his subconscious had made the letters dance into the formation that he had fantasized about in his hopelessly desperate moments.
The large black characters seemed to be arranged in an order that was only attainable to him in dreams, where he was always 24 roaming the greenwood with Alec by his side.
His breath became uneven, fast at points and then held, as his eyes darted over the words repeatedly, his hands gripping the paper like it was going to fold itself into a crane and fly away.
It seemed too good to be true, his old deceptively wise mind told him, and yet, the 24 year old part of him begged to feel the unabashed euphoria of freedom, to feel the raw emotion flooding through his body, to laugh and cry without shame. The old man who had lost all hope over the years, and was cynical in the guise of logic, finally rescinded, a tired smile on his lips, cracked from years of suppression.
This was real.
His eyes misted, blurring the underwater world in front of him, quiet tears slid down his cheeks, elderly tears. Ones that only come from an intense arduous life, from facing all the trials of life, and knowing that they would soon be over. For once, he let the rain fall, didn’t bottle these salty droplets into their cage, oppress them till he couldn’t find the strength to. He let them free.
“Morrie?” Alec's gravelly voice laced with empathy brought him back to his body, his shaking, unsteady eyes flickering to his frame. Sleep had roughened his appearance; mussed off-white curls and bleary eyes, looking at him from the doorway to their bedroom, head leant against the doorframe like a lover. Maurice looked into his eyes, and felt tears come anew, bubbling happily from his chest. A small wobbly smile stretched across his wrinkled lips.
“Look Alec,” Maurice’s disembodied shaky voice sounded as he looked back down at the title.
Alec silently padded over to the sofa, taking his usual spot cuddled to Maurice’s frame, craning his neck towards the paper.
“Sexual offences act: homosexuals now legalised,” Alec read, his voice cracking slightly as he tailed off, glancing up at his partner, who was already watching with glassy eyes, instinctual disbelief already creeping into Alec’s mind.
They gazed into each other’s eyes, love and affirmation pouring from every pore, so that whenever any doubts sprung up, they were discounted, until tears began to pool in Alec’s waterline and he too was sobbing.
“Oh, Morrie,” He sighed, voice on unsteady foundations, wrapping his arms delicately around the man and resting his head on a boney shoulder.
“Alec,” Maurice whispered back smiling through the tears, tilting his head into the still thick curls he’d managed to maintain. He felt it tickle his cheek, wiping the salt from his face tenderly.
They held the other’s skeleton close, gently, not unlike the rough squeezing that used to be their hugs, but caressing to the bone, embracing to the smooth marrow beneath.
“Alec,” He whispered again a lapse of indefinite time later, in some type of warm rapture, enjoying how the letters shaped his mouth.
The tuft of curls raised, facing Maurice, eyes flickering over and appraising his deep wrinkles, wisps of hair, and now bloodshot eyes, still as endearing as when he first saw him, head stuck out of the window into the pouring rain in a hilarious protest. He pressed a soft smile to his lips with Maurice reciprocated reverently.
“Maurice,” Alec hummed back, a charming grin stretched over his time-worn face. Contentment rose to his throat, the impudent young lad who clambered through his window had mellowed, but the glint still lay behind his eyes, daring him to look. And look he did.
“I love you Alec,” He whispered with an ardent husk, rough with wear.
Maurice stamped the shape of his lips to Alec’s amatorily, moulding the musk of his love into supple flesh.
“I love ya too Maurice,” Alec responded adoringly, his eyes creasing.
For many years after, a yellowing cutout of a newspaper stayed perpetually hung, in a mottled wood frame, over the sacred sofa:
Sexual offences act: homosexuals now legalised
The Labour have government proposed a new law, disclosing that homosexual acts are now legalised on the condition that they are consensual, in private, and between two men who have attained the age of 21. This bill was passed on the 4th of July through the house of commons by a vote of 99 to 14, and in the house of Lords on 13th of July by a vote of 111 to 48, and received royal assent yesterday.