#the blue suit

Here’s a Maurice fanfiction, my first! 
It’s only a little scrap of a thing, written some time ago around the possible fate of Alec’s blue suit after the ending of the book/film, but I liked how it turned out and finally decided to share it here.

Maurice stirred gently from sleep; the sunlight had sifted little by little into his dreaming until he was aware it was time to wake, and he opened his eyes with a slow smile. It had been a very long time, he thought, since he’d had one of his nightmares, the dreadful dreams which startled him awake in a sweat in the middle of the night, now he couldn’t remember the last time his sleeping mind had tormented and tortured him the way it used to.
The only bad dream since coming here had been losing Alec in a crowd, struggling to find his hand, to catch sight of him between people pushing and pressing in their hurry to be places which mattered only to them, while the only man alive who mattered to him was lost. He’d woken himself, then, and found Alec awake at his side, holding him tight and close, whispering warm under his breath “Here I am, I’m right here”. And he’d wondered afterwards, whether he’d called out, or whether perhaps Alec just knew.

This morning there was no warm shape in the bed beside him, no familiar touch of tender rough fingers catching him for a good morning kiss; Alec was up and abroad early, his yesterday’s clothes all tidied from the floor, most given a shake down and put back on, just his socks left behind in favour of a clean dry pair.

Maurice pulled the sheet from the bed with him, and wrapped in it stopped to look through the window, always left open at night since Alec had told him of a dislike for feeling stifled, ‘all old air what’s been breathed already’ he’d said.
And Maurice understood, oh how he understood, his whole life had felt stifled, an endless sequence of being shut indoors in airless rooms, until Alec came along and they’d found their freedom together.
He looked out on a damp, softly green morning, but one which would clear from this early mist to a brilliant bright day by the time of a civilised breakfast.
He thought he heard a voice, a deeper note between all the twittering chirps and fluting songs of the birds which were their only near neighbours, and listening again he smiled; Alec was out there, not too far away, talking to the eager hungry hens as he dealt out their feed.

Washed, dressed, the hole in his jumper noted and then wilfully ignored, Maurice was just about to leave the room when he noticed the wardrobe wasn’t quite shut. He frowned, swung the door on its hinges, and tried again. Still, something stopped it, a fold of fabric caught in the gap, something blue. The blue suit. Maurice’s heart fluttered for just a moment, and he laughed, a low chuckle at himself, for having such a strong reaction to such a hideous suit of clothes.
'Maybe that’s what it means when novels claim a heart skipped a beat’ he thought, taking hold of the sleeve and firmly pushing it back where it would interfere with the door no more. His hand lingered, and fingertips stroked down the material.
Such vivid memories attached to that ugly, cheap suit it was somehow transformed to a thing both precious and beautiful. Because, of course, his own dear Alec had been wearing it when the tide had turned in their fragile, fraught relationship; from anger and fear, his recognising, almost without realising it, that there was real love in this, that something deep down was changing, and once changed would stay so.
And it didn’t just bring tender feeling to mind, but a flush to his cheeks as he remembered later that same day, in vivid intimate detail how they’d taken off the suit, his own hands undoing the many waistcoat buttons, one by one. 

And the blue suit had been the reason they’d argued before they’d even moved in.

That day, seeming so long ago now, after a whole set of seasons weathered, a whole year to settle in, to make the place a home. It had been the last time either of them had been back, the collection of things they wanted to bring to their new lives. Maurice had brought any clothes which seemed practical and hardwearing from his wardrobe, which wasn’t much - aside from his tweed shooting things just shirts, his overcoat, a thick knitted jumper which had already seen better days. He’d brought his riding clothes, just in case - he’d thought the boots at least might come in handy; his idea proved ill-planned, for they leaked something terrible, and rubbed his heels, soon to be discarded in favour of a laced pair of hobnail work boots. Pens, paper, a few household things from his bedroom which all fitted into a single suitcase. Everything else, they’d just buy, or do without.

Alec, then, had met him at the station with several bags, and more bundles made up with old sheeting, tied with rope to hold everything tight and clean inside. He’d silently picked up two of the bags and slung them over his shoulder, not wanting to suggest Alec couldn’t manage, yet not wanting to leave him to struggle.
“Long walk from here” he’d said a few minutes along the road “Mightn’t be a bad idea to get ourselves a bicycle.”
Alec had laughed, the single throaty chuckle which answered any suggestion of Maurice’s which he found to be ridiculously impractical.
“Can’t carry this much on a bicycle” he’d said “One bag, I reckon : any more an’ you’d be fallin’ off into the first hedge you come past.”
“How DO you have so much to bring?” Maurice had said “You have more here than when you were off for the Argentine!”
“Well I was wearin’ my suit that day, weren’t I!” Alec had answered emphatically, and if he hadn’t been so weighed down with bags, he’d have jostled Maurice’s arm in his usual teasing way. But Maurice had stopped, and he’d looked round to see why.
“You mean to tell me you’ve brought that awful suit?”
Alec swung round on him, the snap in his voice quite the fiercest thing as he answered back with “That suit cos me a bloody lot of money, I in’t leavin’ that behind!”
“Alec…” but it was no use, he’d dropped all his bags and stood determined, immovable, a force to be reckoned with in any mood but perhaps most of all when angered, his face a picture of dark-eyed stubborn defiance.
“S'alright for you, you never had to earn your suits, you got no idea how many long days work I spent on that. How many Yes Sirs, how many times I got woke up early or kept out late and do this, do that, never bein’ allowed to say I din’t like bein’ treated like it.”
“Alec, I just meant…”
“What’d you mean? Sounds like you mean my things don’t matter to you.”
“Alec, listen.” Maurice had put his hands on Alec’s hands now, catching him still, making him meet his eye. “I mean you shan’t need a suit again. I didn’t bring any of mine. We agreed, only what weneed.”
And all in an instant Alec’s fury was gone, and he’d found himself speaking aloud before he’d even realised he’d thought the words, “All I need’s you” and he’d thrown himself into Maurice’s arms; ever impulsive, uninhibited in his emotions in a way which made Maurice both jealous and joyful - how he wished he could be like this, how long might it take him to learn how?
“I’llburn that ol’ suit, if it’d make you happy” Alec had practically growled against his chest “Don’t want it anyway. Don’t know why I brung it. I’ll burn it, if you say so.”
Maurice had shushed him, kissed him, laughed into his hair as he’d hugged him again. What a thing to fight over. “No-one’s burning anything” he’d said, and the blue suit had come with them.

Yes, it had been the reason they’d argued before they’d even moved in. But he loved it all the same.
He took his hand from where it’d come to rest on the blue shoulder of the jacket, closed the wardrobe door with a click, and went out into the morning, to find Alec, and decide what they would do with their day.