Author: Regency

Title: Cutthroat Kingsman

Rating: Gen for Everyone

Pairing: Harry Hart/Eggsy Unwin UST

Contains: food, flirting, flirting, also some flirting, a smidge of cursing, and Merlin skulking.

Summary: AU. Eggsy, an upstart sous chef, and Harry, a semi-famous chef de cuisine, face-off on a competitive cooking show where sabotage is the name of the game. What neither of them realizes at first is that the other is the real prize. - Cutthroat Kingsman, where sabotage isn't only on the menu, it's for sale.

Author's Notes: Based on the Food Network series Cutthroat Kitchen hosted by Alton Brown. If you're not familiar with the show this may be a bit confusing. I'll try to edit it for clarity soon. I always forget that everyone doesn't watch this show. Written for blackmakethme on Tumblr. Haven't written anything for a few months so forgive me? And also take pity.

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015). I don't own any plot elements recognizable as being from Cutthroat Kitchen. They are the property of their actors, participants, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.

"I have £100,000 of cold, hard cash. Four chefs get £25,000 each. If they want to leave this kitchen with any of the cash, they have to survive three culinary challenges-and each other. It's a game we like to call...Cutthroat Kingsman. Where sabotage isn't only on the menu, it's for sale."

~!~

Once they'd finished their mad dash to the pantry, all the contestants returned to their stations to take stock of their haul. Eggsy had everything he needed. From Roxy's self-satisfied grin he figured she was the same. Charlie was smirking-no need to guess there. The older chef beside him, the only contestant Eggsy hadn't met before, was inscrutable. He must be all right, too. From host Merlin's devious smirk Eggsy figured none of them would be all right for long.

Merlin rubbed his hands together in anticipatory glee. "Chefs, you have thirty minutes to make me a savory, mouth-watering fruit-based soup. Don't disappoint me. Your time starts now!"

They all began. Eggsy rinsed his tomatoes and stone fruit lovingly, taking special care not to bruise the skin of his cherries or scrape his peaches' velvet flesh. He was still deciding on garnish and didn't want to waste any of it with carelessness.

"Look at them go," Merlin narrated for the cameras. "Such busy bees. You can positively see them hopping with excitement." The emphasis he put on the word was terrifying. "Speaking of hopping, it's time for our first auction item to come to the pass."

They all groaned. Eggsy swore without stopping. Whatever the sabotage was going to be he figured he'd need every minute he could get to make up for it. He sliced his tomatoes into quarters with one ear out for the Scottish menace.

"If you win this item, you can force one of your opponents to complete all their prep while leaping yea-high on this trampoline. Bobs!" Merlin's minions in headsets, known by all as the Bobs, skittered into the kitchen carrying a single-person workout trampoline. They set it far to the side of the pantry next to Merlin. Merlin took this as his cue to cackle like a bad Bond villain. "We'll start the bidding at 500."

Eggsy bid without thinking,"700."

"800," countered Charlie distractedly, still busy unpacking his basket.

Chef Roxy, one of Eggsy's old mates from culinary school, eyed the trampoline like an onion she'd like to mince with a hacksaw. "1000."

"1100." Charlie again, sounding a lot more panicked. Charlie hadn't gone to school with them, but he'd had the misfortune to lose to Roxy in other culinary competitions. He knew Roxy was a beast in the kitchen.

Eggsy smirked and bid, "1300."

The oldest among them, and the best dressed Eggsy acknowledged, seemed completely unfazed by the quickfire auction happening around him. Chef Harry Hart was already laying out the ingredients for his ajo blanco-style white gazpacho, bringing a pan to a boil to blanch his almonds, chopping his garlic, and slicing his bread into cubes. He'd set his apples and grapes aside to deal with next. He had mise en place down to a science. Eggsy's old instructors would have been proud.

"Going once for 2300..."

Eggsy looked up sharply.

"Going twice..."

"Shit! 2400."

"Too late. The trampoline goes to Chef Roxy for 2300. Bring me my money and collect your prize. Choose your victim carefully."

Roxy grinned-smirked more like, in Charlie's general direction as she sauntered to the front of the kitchen to hand Merlin her cash. Not one for dramatic displays, Roxy wasted no time making her selection. She pointed at Charlie and then at the trampoline.

"Your station awaits you, darling."

Charlie groaned and the Bobs hurried to make room for Charlie to hop to his heart's content behind a special chopping block. Couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke.

Eggsy washed his beefsteak tomatoes and sliced them into quarters before tossing them into the blender on pulse. While they were worked down to a fine dice he peeled and seeded his hothouse cucumbers and minced his cloves of garlic. Three minutes down.

"You're a master a multitasking," Harry murmured admiringly in his direction without taking his eyes from his own work of peeling, coring, and slicing his apples into neat segments. The almonds were quietly bubbling away on the hob. Everything about Chef Harry Hart was neat right down to his vowels and consonants, and the dimple in his cheek.

"Thanks. You're not so bad yourself."

The older chef paused a moment to regard his orderly station with something like ruefulness. "Experience," he said finally, of himself, and then nodded toward Eggsy. "Talent."

Eggsy would blame the heat of the kitchen for the heat in his cheeks if the tomato and stone fruit soup he'd decided on wasn't going straight in the blast chiller. The closest working heat source was Harry's boiling water. Instead he shrugged as if he hadn't heard a compliment like that before (and certainly not in a voice as smooth as Harry's). "Thanks, mate."

Then, too aware of the ticking clock, he put his head down and setting to pitting and halving peaches as if his life depended on it. Since, knowing the host of this show as he did, it probably would.

Merlin paced from station to station to peek over each chef's shoulder. "What a lovely twist on a classic, Chef Roxy" here and "Ay lad, apricots would go beautifully with that butternut squash-but remember this is fruit soup you're making, not butternut squash puree" there. Each word got Eggsy's back up. It was time for another sabotage, he could feel it coming. Or that might have just been the vibrations from Charlie bounding up on and down like a first year who'd taken too much speed before a final exam.

"On that soaring note..." They all grunted in grudging humor. "Now for your second item up for auction. Your stunning dishes in progress, the beautiful, bountiful, fruitful harvest you've acquired from the pantry, wouldn't it be a shame if...you lost it."

Eggsy leaned back to look around Harry and Charlie's empty station to share a look with Roxy. He's fucking with us, yeah? Her expression wasn't reassuring.

"If you win this auction, you can force two of your lovely opponents to substitute their fresh and flavorful fruit for these less...attractive options." He flipped up the door on the dumbwaiter set back in the wall to reveal a collection of colorful jars without labels. Some of the colors weren't easily found in nature. Eggsy winced; some reminded him of infection and rot, and he wasn't one for being picky.

"That is rank."

"Not happening," Charlie muttered from his trampoline as Roxy and Harry regarded the fetid jars and their murky contents with silent disdain.

The bidding went much faster this time, with Harry getting in on it till he demurred when they reached 5600, and Eggsy getting out around 6300. Roxy held up till Charlie pushed seven large. They all balked at what seemed a flawed but effective gambit. Charlie won.

Merlin gestured in grand fashion toward the glass menagerie. "Take your pick."

Charlie picked a small mason jar of what seemed to be some kind of fruit preserves and a larger jar of something thick and redder than blood. Please, don't let it be prunes. Eggsy prayed.

"Chef Charlie, it's time for you to decide who gets the pickled beets and who gets the pineapple marmalade to replace their fresh fruit selections."

Eggsy kept on his game face and refused to make eye contact with the Calvin Klein model passing for a chef who was out to ruin his day. Like hell he was sticking Eggsy with fucking pineapple marmalade. Where'd somebody even get pineapple marmalade? Eggsy risked a quick look to his left to see Chef Harry standing stock still staring Charlie down as if daring him to replace his dazzling green apples with either abomination. Charlie's Adam's apple bobbed; Eggsy could just about see him break out into a cold sweat. Better you than me, bruv. Better you than me. Harry didn't seem like a fun one to cross.

"Well, lad, who's it gonna be?"

Charlie darted toward Harry, just close enough to steal his bag of apples and drop the jar of yellow unction at his station before dashing off, lest the older man go for his throat. Harry's transformation from furious to forlorn puppy did something funny to Eggsy's heart. Or his stomach, definitely his stomach. He gulped, self-conscious, when the chef in question turned his way.

"Tough luck, bruv."

"Quite," Harry sighed, poking half-heartedly at his cruel sabotage. Eggsy didn't have time to commiserate further as while he was enjoying the sight of Harry's slumped shoulders (they were nice shoulders, okay?) Charlie stole into Eggsy's own basket of ingredients to replace his gorgeous, ripe stone fruit with fucking pickled beets.

"You fucking asshole. What the hell'd you do that for?"

Merlin raised his eyebrows high over his glasses. "That is definitely getting censored in post."

"You kiddin' me?"

Charlie just laughed and scampered back to his station where his ingredients sat gleaming, fresh and unmolested. Fuck that guy.

"I am getting rid of that one first," Chef Harry hissed under his breath. Eggsy wasn't sure if the man knew he was talking out loud, but he still agreed wholeheartedly.

Now his tomato and stone fruit soup was going to be a tomato and beet soup. Beet soup with tomatoes. He could handle this. Probably. "Fuck me."

"Not that sort of network, I'm afraid," rebutted Merlin passing behind him.

Harry sampled a spoonful of marmalade and frowned. "Not yet, anyway."

Eggsy did not have time to figure out what he meant by that. He had beets to boil and sweeten and less than 25 minutes to make them tender as could be. He sauteed shallots in olive oil in a separate saucepan for around four minutes and then tossed in the chopped tomatoes from his planned dish, giving them a couple of minutes to cook and then leaving them to simmer on low heat.

Roxy was muttering all manner of threats in Charlie's direction. Harry was simmering with tension over a gazpacho that was nowhere near white. Eggsy was remembering how much he'd hated beets growing up. He gagged at the pan of beets boiling away on the range. It smelled disgusting. All he could do was make sure it tasted better than it smelled. Sixteen minutes left, he took the beets off heat to cool. That was another five minutes before he could touch them. Shit. He threw the beet tops into yet another saute pan for a side dish.

"May I borrow your tongue a moment?" It was Chef Harry, looking more than a bit disheveled, his neat grey chef's coat stained with red wine vinegar, salt-and-pepper hair falling into his eyes. Saying no didn't cross Eggsy's mind.

"Yeah, anything you want."

Eyes on Eggsy, Harry slipped the silver spoon into Eggsy's mouth. He did it carefully, as if he were afraid of hurting him. Eggsy sucked the spoon clean, sliding the creamy concoction back and forth across his palate. It was sweet and tart, a little chunky. Surprisingly not the most disgusting thing he'd ever tasted. Fresh pineapple would probably make it even better.

"Texture's off, but it tastes good. Needs something, though."

"Mint?"

"I was just thinking that, yeah." He smiled and got a small, sincere smile in return.

"Beautiful and brilliant, isn't there anything you can't do, Eggsy?"

Eggsy bit his lip to keep from grinning like a loon. "Not yet. You should stick around and find out." He winked. He loved a good flirt now and then, and from a man like Harry? It was a real pleasure.

"I plan to, thank you." Harry inclined his chin subtly towards Eggsy's stove top. "I think you'd better check your shallots."

"Shit, thanks." Eggsy quickly stirred his tomatoes and shallots to keep them from sticking to the bottom of the pan. On finding his beets sufficiently cool, he peeled them and chopped them, and then combined them with his tomatoes and shallots, with some vegetable stock and tomato paste. Twelve minutes left. He flipped his greens, topped them with a bit more olive oil, and covered them. The next five minutes was simply more stirring and seasoning to taste as the tomatoes liquefied and the beets further softened.

"Ay, Harry."

Harry hummed his acknowledgement.

"Can I borrow your tongue a mo'?"

"You can borrow more than that any time you like." Harry gave a guileless blink at Eggsy's raised eyebrows. "How may I be of assistance, Chef Eggsy?"

"Mouth, open." Harry complied and just like before, he kept his eyes on Eggsy. Eggsy cleared his throat, sure the temperature in the room was rising for no reason. Chef Harry had a way of looking at him that made him squirm. And the way his mouth moved over the spoon-he knew what he was doing. Eggsy had stopped seeing cooking instruments as sexy his second month in culinary school, but it looked like his kink for oral was making a comeback. "All right?"

"More than. It's got the brightness of the tomato and the earthy sweetness of beets. Needs punch, though, to overcome the brininess of the pickling. Have you considered cumin?"

"Fuck me, knew it needed somethin'. Cumin." He hurried back to his neglected pans. "Thanks, Harry. Guess you're not just a pretty face either."

"Not just my face, no," Harry retorted, all modesty. His soup was burring softly in his food processor, all but ready to be served. He was fast.

"Seven minutes remaining. Finish your dishes! Remember, the judge won't care what you've been through, they only care what you feed them. Feed the judge. If you feed them nothing and somehow still pass to the next round, I'll be very impressed. Shocked but impressed."

Charlie, winded from his impromptu workout, complained over Harry's shoulder. "They're tasting each others' food. They can't do that, can they? That's cheating."

"That's strategic," Merlin crowed. "Better yet, it's free. Food for thought."

"Hey, Rox-"

"Not a chance."

Merlin idled a moment between their stations. "Last I checked it was a cooking competition, not a dating game. Your allies this round could be your adversaries in the next. Try not to have too much fun."

Harry looked Eggsy over from the top down. "I can't promise anything."

Eggsy looked at Harry right back, one hand ladling soup into the nearest processor. "What he said."

"On your heads be it, gentlemen. Don't come crying to me when you're boiling potatoes, blanching spinach, and riding a unicycle at the same time while your dearly beloved rides into the sunset on a tide of cold, hard cash." Merlin nodded imperiously and left them alone to bother the other contestants. "Five minutes remaining!"

"Remind me why I thought this show could possibly be a good idea?"

"A chance at £25000?" Eggsy offered.

"In exchange for my dignity?"

"Guess that's a bit cheap, yeah." He patted Harry on the shoulder in consolation. He maybe hung on a bit too long. It was a nice shoulder. Stronger than it looked even filling out his chef coat so well. Chef Harry was fit as fuck under those Egyptian cotton threads.

Harry leaned closer to him, close enough for Eggsy to feel his breath on his face. "I'm afraid I'm going to need that shoulder back, now. Plate your dish, Eggsy."

Eggsy gulped, his eyes flitting down to Harry's lips. They looked as sweet as the peaches Eggsy had lost.

"Yes, Harry." Eggsy stepped back, took a look at the clocked, and went into overdrive. He was good at what he did, very good, and he played to win. If he played smart enough and hard enough, he just might win the money and the sexy silver fox in a chef coat that came with it.