A/N: You never really appreciate good writing in cannon until you try to make a transformative work with *bad* writing in cannon. Which isn't to say I'm not happy we got a sequel! But man is it hard to work with. Lots of the details in this are fudged, I.E. the science and reasoning behind alpha waves. All the tests are from from the novel/extras/interviews. Anyway moving on, this was not supposed to be long! It was just a tiny little concept I wanted to explore T_T so here's one of, oh, about 10 soulmate AUs I have planned.
Eggsy blubbered the whole miserable tale out into a bottle of gin when they got back from Valentine's compound, staring at the green bottle that should damn well have been grey without considering why it wasn't.
He got his colors, he told Roxy's warped, sympathetic expression through the tinted glass, at six.
"Thought they was a superpower. Mum didn't have 'em after all, right? So they must be. You know what they tell you to do with superpowers? Keep 'em a secret. So that's what I did."
Eggsy drank from the bottle and almost tipped off the floor.
"Took 'em a while to catch on. They sit me down and run me through a bunch of tests, seein' if I'm actually trichrome. Then the guy, I still fuckin' remember him, looked like a cherub, or a dumpling with blonde hair. He looks at me and says, 'Eggsy, you've met the love of your life. Can you remember them?' By then it's been three years so of fuckin' course I don't, which is just great. Suddenly I'm not a superhero, I'm a sad story. Did you hear about that poor boy down the road? Met his soulmate at six, can't remember who it is."
The bottle was emptier than he remembered it being, and Roxy had teleported a bit, which was weird.
"Then one day there's Harry fuckin' Hart, all perfect and deadly two meters of him dropped out of the fuckin' sky into my life like a goddamn comet, and there's me smashed into the pavement by the cosmos. My colors go bright like it's the first day again and I'm hearin' angels sing, thinkin' it was well worth the wait."
Roxy said - something, he thought he might have acknowledged it. Usually he'd be a better mate, but Harry was dead so he gave himself a pass and barreled on.
"And then, of fucking course, he don't want me. Says - fuck, who cares. Anyway, I understood, you know? This color bullshit don't guarantee nothin'. He's been married to his work this long, what'd he want with me? But now this," he made a violent gesture intended to encompass the universe, empty and ugly and out of order without Harry Hart to revolve around, and banged his knuckles against the wall for his trouble. "A perfect end to a tragedy."
At the time, with Harry logically assumed dead and both of them hammered, it did seem a tragedy.
So the bright yellow sunlight was that much more jarring come morning.
He went to Kentucky while the world was still being scraped up off the pavement. The church massacre was hours before the main event, but no one gave much of a shit about the people inside so the carnage had gone undiscovered until afterwards and remained low on the cleanup list.
So it didn't make sense that Harry's body was gone.
Eggsy, insistent upon going as the search party no matter how much Merlin wanted him on damage control, stood in the boiling heat on the blood-stained tar and puzzled over the wilting greenery.
"There's a chance they've started by cleaning up the streets. Indoor bodies won't spread disease as quickly as corpses on the roads," Merlin said in his ear.
Eggsy frowned. "What's the weather been like here?"
"It's Kentucky. They don't have weather."
"Humor me. Wind? Rain?"
"None. Just heat upwards of forty degrees and sunshine enough to melt your eyes."
"So why's everything blown around then?" The rhythmic taps of Merlin's typing paused. "Merlin, if you was gonna go about uncovering Kingsman, how would you do it?"
And so they met the Statesman.
Harry didn't remember him. Harry didn't remember anyone or anything, actually, but that didn't lessen the sting of Harry swatting him away, his one remaining eye wide and confused.
"Retrograde amnesia," Ginger supplied after they'd run in and learned it the hard way. "It's a side effect of the alpha gel," after loads of other technobabble Eggsy didn't understand, Merlin turned back to Harry.
"We're your friends, Harry."
"I'm afraid I don't remember you. Were we very close?"
Merlin flinched. "We've known each other for thirty years."
Harry brightened. "Ah, wonderful! Then I must have told you who my soulmate is."
"What?" Eggsy croaked.
Harry's attention flicked to him so his mild, unrecognizing smile shot directly at Eggsy's twice-broken heart. "My soulmate. Everything is so very beautiful in color, but I can't seem to remember who gave it to me."
Heaven help him, Harry sounded hopeful and just a little dreamy at the prospect. Eggsy might have even called him excited, if the shot to his head hadn't made him too docile for such a radiant emotion.
"It might be best to wait until you've remembered yourself," Merlin said carefully while Eggsy struggled to breathe. He looked to Ginger for confirmation, or maybe help, and Eggsy abruptly felt very exposed. Ginger wasn't abundantly helpful in saving either of them.
"A soulmate might be able to trigger his memory. It's worked for some of ours."
"I would dearly like to meet them," Harry chimed.
With a deep breath and a studious lack of eye contact with Eggsy, Merlin nodded, gesturing for them to leave the room.
Which left Eggsy alone with the shattered pieces of his soulmate. His soulmate, who blinked after Merlin and Ginger in bewildered disappointment at not being told who he was tied to.
Hyperaware of the one-way glass making a movie of his misery, Eggsy took a careful step closer. He fished his medal from where it always hung, under his suit and over his heart, once a memento of his father and still the potential future memento of his friend and soulmate. He slipped the chain over his head and held it out for Harry to see.
"Do you remember this?" Harry looked between him and it a few times, discomfort palpable. Eggsy forged on anyway. "You gave it to me, 'n you said to call if I ever needed anything. That was when-" the words got stuck in his throat, backed up and made breathing difficult. When we saw color. For half a second Eggsy expected him to remember. Recognition would dawn in his gaze and then be replaced by pity.
Then Harry looked up, past him, to the door. "Where did everyone go? Is my soulmate nearby?" He ran a nervous hand down the front of his grey sweater, as if smoothing away imaginary wrinkles.
Harry's incomprehension drove under Eggsy's skin, made the room too hot. He strung the chain back on just as Ginger returned and left without another word. He could hear the pieces of his heart crunching under his own feet when he fled the room.
Merlin was outside waiting while Ginger tried something else, something with paper and more incomprehension on Harry's part. Eggsy pasted on a smile and deliberately didn't flinch when he heard Harry ask 'who was that?'
It wasn't exactly a shock that he couldn't get Harry to remember the way whoever Statesman had in their ranks did with their soulmates. Not when Harry had let him down easy with sweet words like 'you're a lovely young man,' and 'perhaps, in another life,' most of which he missed over the pounding of his heart and the quaking of his universe.
Eggsy hadn't ever got the guts to ask, more to demand, the real reason, to force Harry Hart to come right out and say why he was turning down his soulmate. Not then, and not later, and he might never be able to now.
"That really what he was like when he was young?" Eggsy asked. He aimed for light and if he missed, well, Merlin wasn't exactly unshaken himself.
"No. Not exactly, anyway. The elements are there, but he's a bit...scrambled, on top of it all. He did want to be a lepidopterist, and he was once enthusiastic about meeting his soulmate. The ah...vacancy, and complacency, those have never been Harry."
Thankfully, Merlin didn't try to comfort him.
Eggsy vehemently resisted leaving, and since he wasn't technically a knight yet he got his way. That, and Merlin suddenly had a whole new roster to help with cleaning up Valentine's mess.
Tequila showed him around the compound, bragged a good deal and made him feel a little less raw, a bit like Harry was in good hands. That was, until he came in the next day to find they'd strapped Harry to a mechanical bull.
It wasn't, like, a giant surprise when he opened the barn doors, since Harry was screaming bloody murder and Eggsy'd been half afraid he'd find a small army or Harry himself in multiple pieces, but still, what the fuck, a sentiment he intended to share with Merlin and Ginger. Merlin and Ginger, who were looking on like a pair of evil scientists out of a bad sci-fi film.
"What the fuck are you doing?!"
Merlin may have been surprisingly powerful, but he wasn't built for speed. Eggsy managed to slip past him quick as a whip before he got out more than: "Eggsy wait-"
But then when he got to Harry he couldn't find an off switch. The power cord snaked out the barn door to points unknown and Harry was about to break his wrist right fucking then, so with a curse Eggsy pulled the gun from his waistband, pointed it at what looked like the control-y bits, and emptied the clip.
The bull ground to a sad-sounding halt, over which Merlin cursed enthusiastically. Through instinct he'd swapped his gun for a knife, one kept sharp enough to saw through the ropes on Harry's wrist like butter. Harry dropped to the dirt floor in an ungainly heap and Eggsy dropped with him.
"Harry, Harry look at me, are you-"
"Don't touch me!"
Eggsy recoiled like he'd been slapped. Harry's wide, wet gaze fell to his knees as he curled in on himself, cradling the hand they'd tied to the bull close to his chest. Hiding from Ginger and Merlin, and hiding from Eggsy by association. Eggsy's hands hovered uselessly in the air before balling into tight fists. He whirled on Merlin just as he stepped within punching distance.
"Merlin what the fuck is this?!" The barn rang with the force of his words. Merlin's tight posture coiled tighter.
"What did I tell you about complaints?"
"Didn't look like Harry had much of a chance to say nothin' into your ear."
Merlin, for once, hesitated on his reply, which told Eggsy he wasn't sure about what they were doing either, and wasn't that comforting. Ginger stepped up between them before they could say any more, her hand raised as if to soothe him. "It's part of the process to get his memory back. We're only trying to help."
Eggsy swallowed his first biting response and tried to channel Harry's trademark calm demeanor. He mostly succeeded. "Maybe the movies lied, but I thought you was supposed to use familiar things to jog someone's memory. I'd bet my dog Harry ain't never ridden an animatronic bull in his life."
"You shouldn't make assumptions like that about a spy." Merlin said in clipped tones.
"Am I wrong?" Merlin made a face that told Eggsy he'd still have his dog if that were a real bet. "You got records of his missions, yeah? Why not pull something from those? Hell, we're just ten miles from the church he died in front of."
"The memory has to be traumatic," Ginger chimed. "Something that might trigger a moment of panic or hesitation. From what Merlin tells me, Harry's never had that kind of reaction to his missions."
"Aye, he's the best we've got because he's completely untouchable. He's practically a psychopath."
Eggsy glanced at the man huddled on the floor behind him, trying to see an untouchable psychopath through big brown eyes and trembling hands. He raised his eyebrows at Merlin pointedly. Merlin's lips thinned, and Ginger made all the appropriate facial movements of sympathy, but they held their ground.
"Direct reminders are easiest, but pain and fear can remind someone of other instances of the same intense emotions," Ginger explained.
"So you built torture into your headshot treatment plan." The words were maybe a little harsher than she deserved, being responsible for Harry's continued existence as she was, but god damn it Harry was possibly crying and that was just not on.
Twin looks of sympathetic disappointment were all the response he got. Now that the adrenaline and fear were draining away, Eggsy felt foolish. Not as much as those looks suggested he should, because Harry was still in the fetal position behind him, but enough that he deflated with a defeated sigh.
"Look, just," Eggsy raked a hand through his hair. "You've scared the daylights out of him enough for now - let him rest for a bit, alright?"
For the first time in their conversation Merlin looked at Harry, and there was a glimmer of a man looking at one of his oldest friends brought low. With a very deep frown, he flipped his tablet down to his side.
"Fine. We'll take him back to his room to recuperate and try again tomorrow."
"Thanks," Eggsy said, and was proud of how little sarcasm shined through in his voice. Merlin still gave him a warning look before stepping forward.
"Maybe," he held up his hands to stall Merlin's advance. "I should take him instead. He's probably not real happy with you."
Ginger hovered where she was, assessing Harry from a distance. "I should at least make sure he's not hurt. He's a bit clumsier than I anticipated."
"I think he's had enough of you two's doctoring for now, no offence. I've got this," the last he added at her skeptical frown.
"You're hardly qualified," Merlin began, and Eggsy cut him right off.
"To shepherd him to his rooms and make sure he's not dying? I think I can handle that." He put on his best charming smile, and that, at least, he managed at full wattage. "Come on, gov, give me something to do."
After another tense, considering moment, Merlin relented. "Fine. But you're never to call me 'gov' again."
"You got it, Merlin."
Eggsy's smile faded as they moved off to discuss something or other, probably whatever they intended to do to Harry 'in the morning.' His smile faded because his stupid instinct to Defend Harry At All Cost had left him alone with Harry, who at present had no reason to like him any more than he liked Merlin or Ginger, and who could damage Eggsy considerably more for his disregard.
But he wasn't keen to call them back either, so he turned, held out his hand, and hoped for the best.
"Come on, Harry, let's get out of here."
Eggsy figured it was the words more than anything that got him up, but finally Harry pulled himself off the floor and let Eggsy lead him back into the compound. Harry was shaking, covered in dust and damp with sweat. It made Eggsy long for some quiet, comfortable place to hide him until he felt better, but all they had was the sparse white room that was never completely dark.
There was another set of stale grey clothing folded neatly on the bed. Ginger or whoever made the clothes must not have met their soulmate yet. Harry fingered them with distaste. Eggsy was about to say he'd make sure there was no one in the other room, but then he spotted the open shower and thought of the days Harry'd spent under observation already and didn't.
Harry had been distressingly quiet the whole way back and he was no different in the room, but he also hadn't stopped cradling his wrist. Eggsy hovered by the door, more awkward than he'd felt since he was in his teens.
"Are you alright?" He eventually asked.
Harry jumped. He whirled on Eggsy, his shock apparently gone but the adrenaline still there and in need of an outlet.
"No I'm not alright!" He snapped. "I was tied to a mechanical bull and left to tear apart!"
"I meant-" Eggsy gestured to Harry's gingerly held arm somewhat uselessly. "'S just a sprain. A break would be the size of a house by now. If you want I can wrap it for you."
"Fixing me up for the next round? How very kind of you." Harry muttered resentfully, perching on his bed.
Well, it wasn't a no.
"I'm a regular bleedin' heart." Eggsy replied in kind. The observation room turned up a medicine kit with an elastic bandage, and when he returned Eggsy found Harry exactly where he left him, brooding and irritated.
Eggsy settled on the bed beside him, hesitant and unsure possibly more than Harry himself. Harry regarded him with one displeased eye before sighing and holding out his hand. For a man who shook off a hug less than twenty-four hours before, it was a remarkably trusting move.
Eggsy winced for him at the red burn from the rope and silently got to work.
He could feel Harry watching him, silent and far less agitated. Eggsy was trained in a plethora of interrogation techniques, and it was obvious how easy Harry would be to play in this situation. Merlin and Ginger would be bad cop, he'd be good, and Harry would be wrapped around his finger in a matter of days.
It made him want to run for the hills.
Harry wasn't built to be so impossibly vulnerable. Harry Hart as Eggsy knew him was more guarded than Fort Knox, always elusive and just out of reach, and while he'd wish all his life for a little bit of give, guarded was better than this.
But there was a reason Harry was warming putty in his hands. As far as he knew, he'd woken up trapped in a foreign country where a bunch of strangers had decided to torment him until he remembered them, which was out of his control. He needed the support, and as much as Eggsy was loathe to do so, he could be a safe haven for this Harry - provided the other one came back.
"Done." Eggsy smoothed out the wrapping one last time, carefully brushing down the edges so his fingertips just touched Harry's skin. "Go easy on it and you should be all better in a couple days."
Eggsy looked up - and saw Harry. His Harry, staring hard into Eggsy's soul like it belonged to him. Eggsy's breath hitched - and then it was gone as quick as it came. Harry drew his hand back and projected a puzzled incomprehension of the world.
Dizzy from dashed hopes, Eggsy shoved himself to his feet and stuffed his hands into his pockets.
"Guess I'll see you," he mumbled.
Harry's voice stopped him before he closed the door.
"Eggsy, was it?" He asked, surprisingly uncombative. Eggsy waited and eventually Harry took his silence as agreement.
"Thank you."
Eggsy could not, in fact, bring himself to see Harry again while they were trying to get his memories back, but he ended up seeing Harry anyway two days later because Harry was wandering the halls of Statesman looking like the ghost of a drowned puppy.
"Harry?!" Harry started at the sound of his own name, blinking owlishly as Eggsy swooped over.
"You're soaked. Where's Merlin?"
"What on Earth are you wearing?" Harry replied.
Eggsy blinked, then fought back a laugh. Harry's gaze was glued to Eggsy's Adidas jacket, his expression a mask of bewilderment.
"Dry clothes. Merlin?"
"I might have...slipped him."
"You slipped him?"
Harry puffed up at Eggsy's tone, lips thinning and shoulders squaring. "It's not as though I can actually leave."
Eggsy was suddenly and vividly reminded of when Charlie poured water on him and J.B and the little pup had been sopping wet and raving mad. He was reaching out before he thought about it to sooth Harry the same way. He barely managed to disguise the movement as a leading press against his shoulder, guiding him towards the door to Eggsy's temporary room. Eggsy only noticed after the fact that Harry didn't flinch away this time.
"I'm not mad, Harry, I'm impressed. And you're freezing."
The room they'd put Eggsy up in was the southern equivalent of posh, but it was also only a lounge. The ceilings were high and framed with cherry-stained wood, the walls decorated with bits of deer and whatever other monsters still prowled the deep south, and the furniture had the particular charm of unglamorous but fine craftsmanship. He had a fireplace and a very comfortable sofa, and the shower was down the hall in an unoccupied cell.
"Have a seat while I get you some clothes. Do I want to know what happened?"
"They tried to drown me in my cell." Harry replied like it was particularly bad service at a restaurant. Still, he'd run off shivering and found Eggsy three floors and half a compound away, so his level of distress might have been higher than he let on.
"Pretty rude of them."
"Indeed."
Eggsy tapped his glasses while he fished out a spare towel and the biggest set of clothes he'd packed, because Harry was unfairly tall and unfairly broad.
"I'm a bit busy just now, Eggsy."
"Missin' something?" Eggsy asked, quiet so Harry wouldn't hear.
"You found him."
"He's drippin' on the floor of my suite as we speak."
Merlin sighed heavily. "I'm on my way."
"Take your time." Eggsy closed the line and hung his glasses off the arm of the sofa.
"Here you go, there's a bathroom through there."
Eggsy turned the gas up in the fireplace and set about making tea, so he had two cups and a nice, warm blaze going when Harry returned.
Eggsy stopped thinking so he could put his full effort behind not bursting at the sight of him. Harry's drying hair was a mess of chestnut fluff, so different from his perfectly styled coif or the slicked clean look he used when it was too long. The dying sunlight got mired in it so he looked half comical and half angelic under its odd glow. The shirt, it turned out, fit him somewhat less poorly than the lounge pants, which would have fit but ended above his ankle because his legs were stupidly long. None of it should have had him aching for Harry to remember and be his, but there he was anyway.
Harry seemed oblivious to Eggsy's distraction and bee-lined for the sofa in front of the fire, where he tucked himself in just a little too tightly not to notice.
"Cold?" Eggsy asked, lifting a blanket from where he'd folded it that morning over a chair.
"I firmly believe they piped the water in directly from the arctic circle-?" Harry's statement ended on a lilt when Eggsy dropped the blanket over his shoulders.
"That should help," Eggsy said, picking up the two teacups and leaning over the back of the sofa to hand Harry one. "And this."
Harry tucked the blanket around himself with a muttered "Thank you," once again looking somewhat puzzled. He sipped his tea in silence for a moment, trying and failing to look at Eggsy furtively.
"Somethin' on my face?"
"Ah, my apologies." Harry ducked his head, only to glance up a moment later. "What color is that?" he asked, soft like it was a secret he intended to keep.
Eggsy could barely remember a life without color, which had made it that much more jarring when it faded with the sound of the gunshot. Color was a part of his world as much as breathing and shitty daytime programming. But, he realized belatedly, Harry must have lived decades without it and now, regressed to a young age, he was only just getting to see things as they really were. That was almost enough to make the reminder of their situation less painful.
"It's yellow." Eggsy answered at last, leaning his elbows on the back of the sofa and letting Harry stare at the bright colors of his clothes.
"I like it."
The tenuous sadness in Eggsy's chest gave way to mirth. He grinned wickedly. "You're going to regret saying that when you get your memories back."
"Why?"
"You hate this jacket."
Harry looked mildly appalled. "If I've said that then I assure you I regret my behavior."
"Not in so many words. Anyway, I like hearin' what you think of things." Eggsy swept around and plopped onto the sofa beside him, mindful of his tea. "If I had to guess, your favorite is probably blue."
"Which one is that?"
"Um," Eggsy said intelligently. Leave it to the southerners to decorate without a hint of blue in their aesthetic. Just outside the oversized windows, however, stretched the bluest sky Eggsy had ever laid eyes on, deep with the twilight and dotted with early stars. "That," Eggsy pointed, and Harry drank it in in contemplative silence.
"You're kinder than the others," he said eventually.
"You're bias because I can't help with your memory."
"I don't think you're capable of cruelty, however anyone justifies it," Harry replied primly.
"I can get done what needs doin'," Eggsy contested, and did his best to sound vaguely dangerous.
Harry observed him, his remaining big dark eye skeptical as he looked down into Eggsy's.
"I don't believe you," Harry stated, and took a long, confident sip of his tea.
Thinking back on J.B.'s inquisitive little face, Eggsy couldn't really argue. He was saved from having to try by a knock at the door.
Harry's fragile security abruptly vanished, slinking away in the overwhelming presence of a surly sort of apprehension.
"Sit tight," Eggsy pushed himself to his feet and headed out into the hallway.
Merlin's brow had two creases in it that day, worry evident but stuffed down behind duty and irritation. He towered over Eggsy as he towered over everyone no matter their relative height and did his level best to look scolding.
"You want me to talk into your ear, or is this good?" Eggsy asked.
Merlin's jaw clenched for a moment before he spoke. "He wandered off while I was getting him a change of clothes."
"Pull the other one."
Merlin's expression hardened further, adopting the sternness he'd used with the Lancelot candidates. "Watch your tone, Eggsy."
"We're not in trainin' anymore." Eggsy replied. "And I know you don't like this any more than I do."
Merlin sighed. "Let me take him back. We'll try again and hopefully have better luck."
"No. You drove a civilian to a point that he figured out how to escape you. For fucks sake, ease up."
"I would love to, Eggsy, but Ginger tells me she's only ever had success up to the end of a month. This technology is volatile and untested, and every day our chances of getting him back get lower."
"Well you're not gonna get 'im back if he flings himself off the roof either." Eggsy said stubbornly. "I know firsthand what starts to look like a good out from a hopeless situation, and this is about as hopeless as it gets."
A deep groove dug itself beside Merlin's lips, a heavy mark of concern he couldn't hide. "Harry's not there yet."
"It's the yet I'm worried about. You can't let him wander off alone. What if I hadn't found him?"
"That won't happen again. Eggsy, this is about pushing him to his limits, limits he won't reach if you keep him feeling like he's never in real danger."
"You're not working with a spy, you're working with a teenage butterfly doctor." Eggsy scoffed. He held his hand out palm-down between them for reference. "His limits are here, and this," Eggsy raised his hand to eye-level "is where you're at."
"You're hardly impartial."
"And you are?"
"No but I have years more experience separating my personal feelings from what needs to be done."
"This isn't a mission, it's Harry."
Merlin paused. Eggsy tried to look imploring, but he'd already shown his hand. It wasn't like Merlin didn't know how thoroughly compromised he was when it came to Harry.
"I'll take your concerns under advisement," he allowed at last.
"Thanks." Eggsy said, and meant it this time.
"Eggsy," Merlin's big hand settled on his shoulder as he reached for the doorknob, uncharacteristically comforting. "If you need to go until he remembers, no one would hold it against you."
No way, was Eggsy's first thought, but under Merlin's surprisingly kind gaze he revised it to maybe.
Harry was on the sofa sipping his tea nonchalantly when Eggsy stepped inside. Eggsy might even have been convinced, if not for the fact that he'd been picking his cup up at the speed of light when Eggsy opened the door. He didn't comment on Harry's very poor espionage and instead reclaimed his spot on the sofa.
"So why are you here?" Harry asked.
"Hm?"
"You said I'm bias because you can't help with the torture."
"They're not trying to hurt you, Harry."
Harry made a face and continued as if Eggsy hadn't spoken. "So, if you can't help, why are you here?"
"We're friends."
"How did we meet?"
Eggsy weighed his words carefully. He was pretty sure they hadn't told him the whole spy bit of his missing memory, and without Kingsman he doubted they ever would have run into each other. "You helped me out of a tough spot and got me a job."
This was, apparently, the wrong thing to say. Harry visibly bristled, which meant he drew the blanket up around his ears and somehow managed to look less like a retreating turtle and more like an offended king, then drawled a barbed and sarcastic reply from within his mighty fleece robe.
"How nice of our anonymous employer to give you an undetermined amount of time off to help a friend of no relation to you recover from a mysterious head injury."
Somehow Harry's natural regality made the whole thing hilarious. Eggsy picked up his tea and crossed his legs under him. "I've got a funny feeling there's something on your mind."
"No one will tell me anything - not where I am, or what year it is, or what it is I do, or what they do, or their real names. Not a single bloody piece of basic information. They won't even tell me who my soulmate is!" Harry's attempt at aloof disapproval evaporated under irritation. He took an angry sip of his tea, staring at the fire so the bright flames reflected in his eye.
"I was arrested," Eggsy said into the thick quiet. "Nicked a car and spun it out right in front of the guy who owned it. Took it for a joyride after, got caught." He shrugged. Harry turned fractionally toward him, away from the flames. "They was gonna give me eighteen months. You've got friends in high places I guess, and my dad did you a favor a while back so, long story short, I gave you a ring."
"Very ethical."
"You beat up the wanker whose car I nicked right after," Eggsy grinned. "So I figured you might've understood."
"I beat him up?" Harry repeated, incredulous.
"Him and his four friends." Eggsy took a measured sip of his own tea to hide the edges of his smirk. "They was bein' real rude."
"And why did you deign to tell me this?"
Eggsy shrugged again. "I don't know why they're keepin' things from you, but that one's mine to tell. You hungry?"
"No, thank you. They at least keep me fed," Harry said faintly. Eggsy got up and retrieved a couple of muffins anyway, handing one over for Harry to contemplate.
"If I don't ever remember," he began at length.
"You will Harry,"
"But if I don't. What will be done with me?"
If Harry didn't remember, then Eggsy expected he'd fall into the yawning pit in his heart and not be around to see what Harry went on to do with himself. But, personal feelings aside, Eggsy drew in a deep breath and answered.
"I guess...we'll take you home. We might have to clean it a bit for you first," and demilitarize it, "you've been away a while now."
Harry looked at him directly, surprise and a single thread of superspy observance aimed at Eggsy. "Can you really let me go?"
"'Course," Eggsy lied.
They sat in companionable silence while night settled on the plains around Statesman. Eggsy watched the fire die down, cradling his tea, and let himself get caught up in his thoughts like he hadn't since the night he spent at Harry's house, ten days and a lifetime before. Not that he'd thought much then either, too busy drinking Harry in the only way he could. So what if Harry had turned him down after he woke up from his coma, he'd thought, Harry wasn't turning him away completely. But lying in Harry's spare bedroom, staring at the yellow street-lit outline of the window shining on the curtains, surrounded by Harry's things in Harry's house but not with Harry, he knew that wasn't really going to be enough.
And now what? Harry was a scrambled amnesiac, and whatever small chance Eggsy'd had, or imagined he had, of convincing him to give soulmates a go was slipping further away with every tick of the clock. He'd saved a good percentage of the world, but his status as a Kingsman was out of his hands and up in the air.
Eggsy barely managed not to jump when Harry's head fell onto his shoulder. He scrambled to steady his tea until he realized the cup was empty, which was too bad because he needed something to wash his heart back down his throat. A voice that sounded a little too much like Merlin's scolded him for letting his guard down. He ignored it.
He was about to ask something, or just make some vaguely questioning noise, but when he looked over the few scant inches to Harry's face he found him fast asleep.
If there was a 'how to be a good human pillow' day in training then he missed it, but Harry was a warm line against Eggsy's side in his blanket cocoon, his even breathing rhythmic and calming, and Eggsy found himself relaxing into the sofa.
Harry pre-Kingsman was a mess of a human being. He was too soft, too trusting, downright clumsy, and set his hopes so high he was bound to get hurt. It was a wonder Eggsy even recognized him. But he couldn't not recognize him, or what scattered pieces Harry'd forged into the man he would become.
Harry slept on through Eggsy's mini crisis. He looked younger, relaxed in sleep, lines from the pinched frown he'd worn for the last few days fading, leaving only faint crinkles around his eyes. Marks of a life lived happily, one Eggsy had to hope he wanted back, however traumatic some of it might have been. There wasn't any scarring around the thick leather patch Statesman had given him, his missing eye and missing memory the only marks of the gunshot that haunted Eggsy's nightmares.
Harry's lips were a soft red, parted just a bit in sleep. Eggsy found himself staring at them in idle contemplation. Eggsy could kiss him, could be careful not to wake him up and steal one second, one taste. Could pretend that Harry was his, if only for one immortal moment.
Eggsy rubbed a hand over his burning face, ashamed. Harry was two kinds of incapacitated, he had no fucking business thinking about kissing him. He picked up his glasses and fired off a message to Roxy with a speed born of desperation.
'they got you on smthn good?'
The reply was surprisingly quick, if curt.
'define'
'busy'
'great then, on about eight missions rn'
'want help?'
'y'
Harry sighed in his sleep, like being curled up on the sofa, asleep on Eggsy's shoulder, was the epitome of comfort.
'can't stay here with him like this'
There was a meaningful pause, then: 'im in cairo. sending coords'
'ur the gov rox'
"You're leaving?"
Harry's voice in the hall outside his room was as effective at scaring him as an ambush by ninjas. Harry was getting better at covert operations from proximity, it seemed. Eggsy had donned his suit and snuck out early in the hopes Harry wouldn't wake, and he'd thought Harry was still asleep. Harry stood by the door to the lounge, sleep-rumpled but very awake.
"Just for a few days," Eggsy said, turning to face him. "You're right, I'm not much use around here."
"Heading home?" Harry asked, and like hell Eggsy wouldn't notice his trademark lilting, inquisitive tone when he heard it. Harry was watching him with some growing light in his gaze, and Eggsy at once had no idea what could be causing it and was worried he might.
"Work. Gonna help out a friend."
"You've already been away from London for a long time." Harry stepped closer, smooth like a jungle cat and just as predatory. Eggsy did what any good prey species would do and prepared to run.
"I guess. The jet's waiting-"
"Eggsy," Harry caught his elbow just as he made to flee. He looked up at Harry with a great sense of foreboding. Harry lit up in triumph, his excitement palpable.
"It's you isn't it? You're my soulmate."
Eggsy grimaced. It was exactly what he was afraid of, then. How wonderful for Harry that he'd always been sharp as a tack.
"Alright. Yes, Harry."
Harry's smile was like the sun, stabbing bright, joyous rays directly into his heart.
"Well why didn't you say so? Darling, I must have told you how much I wanted to meet you." Harry took a step closer and all Eggsy could do was stare up at him, a nightmarish dream come true in his happiness, but one Eggsy knew wasn't real. "You must tell me everything. I'm so sorry I forgot-"
"Stop," Eggsy pleaded, and Harry froze, his hands raised in the process of drawing Eggsy closer.
"What's wrong?"
"We're not together, Harry." Eggsy stepped away and avoided Harry's gaze so he didn't have to see his joy crumble. Harry waited, expecting a punchline, for a painfully long moment. Then his raised hands tilted, angled themselves plyingly and pleadingly toward him.
"But why? Why not? You obviously love me," Eggsy winced but Harry kept on. "And I must love you, so what possible reason could there be-"
"I don't know!" Eggsy burst out, desperate to cut off Harry's stinging words. "I don't know, alright?! You didn't fuckin' say when you was makin' it clear this would never amount to anything."
"Wh- me? But I've always wanted a soulmate. I would never..." Harry trailed off, staring down at his unfamiliarly aged hands. He balled them into fists and straightened, fire flashing in his eye. "Well I can't think of a reason now," he declared. "To hell with my memory. If it gives me some reason not to be with you, I don't want it."
Much more of this and Eggsy thought he'd burst like a balloon, shattered to smithereens by the pressure. He huffed bitterly. "That's a real neat solution for you."
"You don't sound sincere."
"Because it ain't up to you in the long run, is it?" Eggsy snapped. "Your memory could come back at any time with or without our help, and then what? There's you back with your reasons and me out on my arse."
Harry looked ready to argue, the stubborn git.
Eggsy ruined his gelled hair raking his fingers through it. "I can live with never having you. I couldn't if I had you for any amount of time and then you woke up one day and realized you'd made a mistake."
That landed. Harry's insistence wavered, his determination cowed. "That's not fair. I have no control over my memory."
"Yeah, I know."
Harry practically vibrated in frustration. He was flushed darker than after the bull incident, angry but with who Eggsy wasn't sure.
"Fine."
"What?"
"Fine. I'll find a way to remember, and then I'll fix whatever it is keeping us apart."
Eggsy blinked and Harry was swirling off with all the visual thunder a man in too-short lounge pants could manage.
Eggsy spent the first leg of the plane ride with his head in his hands.
Harry intended to keep his promise come hell or high water, but staring down four horses ready to rip him apart he realized it would be easier said than done.
"Merlin," he asked, looking at the careless beasts as they munched on the grass, nonplussed that their day job consisted of tearing unsuspecting people apart. "Can you give me one good reason this might work?"
"We've explained the process to you."
"Yes, each time you've tried a very similar test," Harry drawled. Merlin looked like he was struggling, or trying to pick which placating words would be most effective. Harry grit his teeth. "Wonderful. You can't. Eggsy was right, these tests are just torture. They've nothing to do with my past and no chance of jogging my memory."
Harry leaned back against the wood fence of the track, sighing in frustration. Merlin came hesitantly to stand beside him, his hands wrapped tight around his tablet. "There must be someone who knows more about my life." Harry said when Merlin failed to add anything.
Merlin's reply was as careful as his behavior. Everyone was so careful with him when they weren't trying to rip him to pieces. The dissonance grated on his nerves almost as much as everything else. "I'm afraid there isn't. You rarely make friends and never keep them. Eggsy got closer to you than anyone else had in the three decades of our acquaintance, but even he doesn't know all that much about your past."
"This person you're all so keen to get back sounds like a fucking arsehole." Harry growled. "The more I hear the more I can't stand the man I've become. I've given up on my dreams, my oldest friend can't even tell me what I do on the weekends, and for some godforsaken reason I've turned my own soulmate away."
Merlin looked possibly more hurt than Harry thought he should. If they really were friends, Harry imagined he would have to be the careful and gentle of the two. "You wanted to do something more. There are four walls in your house plastered with times you saved lives, sometimes the whole world. And for the record Harry, the reason I can't tell you what you do on weekends is that you don't take weekends. For better or worse, you've barely got a life outside your job."
Harry scoffed and re-entered his one-sided stare-down with the meanest looking of the horses. It chewed threateningly. "Well, that's much better. What about Eggsy? I suppose you've some mildly placating excuse for my behavior towards him as well."
"Eggsy? You've never been anything but kind to that boy."
"Kind?" Harry breathed out a bitter laugh. "What a wonderful assessment of my relationship with my soulmate. For heaven's sake, how can anything I've done possibly be considered kind?"
Merlin swung around into his line of sight, expression pinched in confusion. "Eggsy's not your soulmate."
Harry's head abruptly began to hurt. Merlin didn't appear to be lying, and even if he was he'd picked a strange lie to tell. But Eggsy himself had said they were soulmates, and Harry was more inclined to believe the earnest young man over...whatever kind of trained professional Merlin was.
"Of course he is."
"No, Harry. Michelle Unwin is your soulmate. His mother."
His headache really was quite terrible. "That's...that can't be."
Merlin thrust his tablet into Harry's view. A blonde woman smiled up at him, hesitant but bright. She didn't look much like Eggsy.
"This is her. An accident killed his father, one you and I were involved in making. You went to see his widow, and she happened to be your soulmate." Harry raised his hands thoughtlessly to take the tablet in hand, blinking fluttering bursts of color from his vision. Merlin set a careful hand on his shoulder in what must have been an attempt at comfort. He said something about checking in with Ginger and moved off, leaving Harry alone with the image of the unknown woman.
He didn't recognize her, save as the person they showed him a picture of shortly after they arrived. But that was wrong, wasn't it? If he could feel a connection to Eggsy, then, suspending disbelief to assume what Merlin said was true, he should have felt it more with the actual object of his affection.
He touched the screen absently, tracing unfamiliar features - and was promptly thrown out of the image and into the file that contained it. His appreciation for the technological advances he'd missed was cut short when he saw everything else on the screen, and all those advances, and hundreds of covert operations using them, came crashing back into his mind at once.
With them he found decades of loneliness, of wishing and waiting all leading to regret, and then, vividly:
"Like in My Fair Lady," his eyes are tired and guarded and Harry can't wait to call him Lancelot-
Perhaps, he'd said, a shade wistfully, in another life.
"Shit," Merlin said to Eggsy's marine photo when he found his tablet balanced on a fencepost and Harry gone.
Eggsy knew before Harry spoke that he'd remembered. His posture was perfect and rock-steady, his expression carefully kind and his gaze gleaming with familiar intelligence.
What he didn't know was why Harry was waiting on the tarmac when he got off the plane, two days and half a dozen missions after Harry said he didn't want to remember if it meant not having his soulmate. Not having Eggsy.
Maybe Eggsy'd gotten lucky and Harry'd forgotten everything from when he was an amnesiac.
"Harry?" he asked, waving a very tired Lancelot towards the hangar exit ahead of him. She glanced between them, frowned, and left without a word. At the very least, Eggsy could count on her to have a bottle of something strong waiting for him later.
"Hello Eggsy."
"So you remembered, then?"
"I did."
"Well, I'm glad you're back," he said with false cheer. Harry's bottomless gaze failed to reflect it, but Eggsy kept on regardless, edging towards the hangar door. "Anyway, I haven't slept and I'm a bit of a mess-" he was, too, his suit stiff with drying blood and gritty with dirt, something Merlin would have a lot to say about, but that didn't stop Harry from clasping his spotless hands over the stains on Eggsy's arms and holding fast.
"Wait," he said, fast and sharp, then, much gentler: "Don't go."
Eggsy's fragile composure cracked right down the middle. He was wrung out and tired and Harry's solemn expression was too fucking much no matter how glad he was to find him back to himself.
"Eggsy, what you said when you were leaving-"
"Look, let's just forget it alright? You were shot in the head, I think you get a pass." He tried to tug away but Harry didn't budge.
"I can't forget," Harry said softly. "Why did you agree?"
"I didn't, you decided you was gonna remember on your own."
"No," Harry's gentle gaze fell heavy on his skin. "When I guessed you were my soulmate."
Eggsy located a bit of anger at last. He met that heavy stare head-on, white-hot rage bubbling up in his chest. "Damn it Harry, I can deal with your decision but don't you fuckin' pretend like we ain't what we are."
"Do you really believe that I could ever turn you away if we were soulmates?"
"I don't gotta believe it now do I? You did."
"But we aren't soulmates."
Eggsy flinched before he could stop himself. "Look, I get that you don't want this-"
"I never said that." Harry interrupted. Eggsy blinked, tracing back Harry's words with mounting confusion. Harry looked almost sad, not pity sad, but actual, unhappy-with-his-life sad. It was enough to keep Eggsy listening as he continued softly. "I...may have read your file, before you joined. I know your situation, and I can see how you might have come to the conclusion you have, but you aren't my soulmate."
"Come on, Harry, who else would even…" He stopped. A horrible, no-good thought sprang into his mind uninvited and made itself right at home.
"Imagine the insult of having the very man responsible for your first soulmate's death be your second. I don't blame her for her decision."
Eggsy forgot how to breathe. His skin was on fire, his heart pounding loud in his ears. He surged up into Harry's space, absurd hope giving him a burst of energy. "Before this goes any fuckin' further, I gotta know something. Pretend there's no such thing as soulmates and color and all that. What would you do?"
Harry didn't look any less sad, which made the fire in Eggsy burn all the hotter. "I don't know."
"I think you do."
His lips parted, then shut. He met Eggsy's eyes, adoring and regretful at once. "I do."
"You fuck," Eggsy slid both hands into Harry's hair and dragged him down the last few inches into a bruising kiss. Harry made a soft sound against his lips, surprised and pained, but he kissed Eggsy back just the same.
Eggsy drew away as quickly as he'd swooped in, still blazing. "It's me."
"Eggsy," Harry's voice had an admonishing tone that Eggsy associated with rejection. He barreled on before Harry had a chance to get started.
"Mum hasn't seen color since '97. I lost it the moment you were shot and didn't get it back for sixty-two minutes. It's me, Harry."
Harry's grip on his arms tightened. He hesitated like he was searching for a reason it couldn't be true, like he was afraid to hope. "You're sure?"
"Yes, you wanker."
"Oh." Harry's voice was faint and wondering. "Oh."
Harry grinned, for real, all his memories and training intact, and it was the most beautiful fucking thing Eggsy'd ever seen. Harry's arms curled around him, holding him even closer than he already was. "I thought I was being foolish," he laughed.
"I thought you were gone, Harry, and I never got to know why you didn't fuckin' want me."
"It was never an issue of wanting." One of Harry's hands came up to cradle Eggsy's jaw, warm and gun-calloused. "It seems I've caused you a lot of trouble, Eggsy," he said softly. "Can you forgive me?"
"Yes."
It was Harry who leaned down himself, this time.
"They've been a while," Roxy observed. Merlin didn't so much as look up from his tablet. "I hope they sort things. Eggsy's been sad to watch, really. Poor thing would move the Earth and sky for Harry." Still nothing. Roxy frowned. "I mean, I understand it's Harry's choice, but heaven knows I wouldn't handle it as well as Eggsy does. Harry acts like they aren't even soulmates."
She resigned herself to more silence and took a contemplative sip of her brandy. She figured she'd need it.
"They aren't."
When she lowered her glass she found she had Merlin's full attention. His hands had even stopped moving on his tablet. She felt faintly honored.
"Of course they are, Eggsy told me the whole thing when we got smashed after V-Day. He's usually such a happy drunk, but, you know," she shrugged. "He saw in trichrome for the first time since he was six." Merlin was still watching her, his brow so wrinkled she fancied he was starting to look like J.B. "Harry didn't mention it?"
"Harry has been an insufferable wallowing git for months over his, and I quote, 'highly inappropriate crush on his soulmate's son.'" He put such special emphasis on 'son' that Roxy got the feeling he'd already solved whatever mad happenstance brought the misunderstanding about.
"Son? Michelle? But she hasn't got another soulmate. Sees black and white only."
Merlin swiped a frustrated hand over his bald head. "We have had Eggsy Unwin in our employ for less than a week and already he's become just as much as a menace as Harry ever was." Merlin groused, but it was the special kind of grousing that all the agents secretly thought he enjoyed.
"Well," Roxy reasoned, "at least the feelings are mutual."