The room feels hollow in the wake of Eggsy's exit. Harry presses the knuckles of each hand firmly into the table and bows his head, and regret is a living, breathing thing inside him. "Damn," he mutters. He sinks into his chair and buries his fingers in the thick waves of his hair. "Fucking shit bugger, damn, damn, damn!"
Merlin heaves a sigh and his clipboard hits the table with a loud clatter when he throws it, dropping his body into the chair on Harry's left. "I told you," he reminds Harry, but there's little victory to be found in the sentiment. "I bloody told you he should have been made aware from the beginning." He pulls his glasses off and tosses them onto the table, too, pinching at the bridge of his nose with his two forefingers.
"Well, hindsight is twenty-fucking-twenty," Harry says bitterly, scrubbing his hand across his forehead. The scar on the side of his head throbs tenderly as a headache pools inside of his skull, and shutting his eyes against the grey sunlight is of no use, because behind his eyelids all he can see is the tremble of Eggsy's mouth even as he'd held Harry at gunpoint.
The echo of his accusations, the bitter bite in the way he'd spat Harry's code name, ring themselves around in Harry's ears.
"He'll never forgive me, will he," he says into the quiet of the room, and it isn't a question.
"Of course he will," Merlin says firmly, laying a hand on the slope of Harry's shoulder. "You're completely blind when it comes to that boy, or wilfully ignorant, but the lad adores you, Harry. Why neither of you can see how much you mean to the other is a fucking mystery. You haven't been able to bear witness to everything these past few months, how he was affected when he thought you were dead. It's only understandable that he needs time."
"Time," Harry informs with a roll of his neck, attempting to loosen the insurmountable strain held there, "doesn't necessarily heal all wounds, Merlin."
"Explain it to the boy," Merlin urges, not allowing Harry to wallow any deeper in his upset. "Make him listen. Emotions are volatile, but he will come around eventually. Fuck's sake, it's not as if you tried to kill him. Probably for the best, as well, since that didn't work out too well for Chester."
The usual swell of anger that accompanies any mention of Chester King is increased tenfold by the reminder that the bastard had tried to betray Harry twice over by slipping poison into Eggsy's brandy glass. His only reassurance is knowing Eggsy got the best of Chester, utilizing his sleight of hand the elderly man had so sneered at to give him a dose of his own medicine—quite literally, in fact.
Harry shakes his head, face shrouded by the expanse of his hands. The misery he feels is apparent in the shaking of his shoulders, the waver in his voice. "I'm not sure of a way I can possibly make amends," he admits to Merlin, finally dropping his hands to the table only to begin worrying at his signet ring. "Our last conversation didn't end amicably. For God's sake, Merlin, I saw your transmission feeds when he told you I was never, and would never be, proud of him."
"Are you?" Merlin asks calmly, and doesn't flinch under the hard, withered glare that Harry levels at him. "It's a valid question. I, for one, never heard you indicate anything of the sort. God knows the boy tried his best to get you to say it."
"Of course I'm proud of him!" Harry snaps, standing from his chair in one fluid movement and using the momentum to carry him to the window that overlooks the back grounds. "How could I not be?" he bites out, and the way his head is moving slightly indicates to Merlin that he's watching someone cross the lawn. Eggsy, if he had to wager. "He is..." Harry pauses, struggling for words.
Merlin waits.
"Extraordinary," Harry finishes, and watches with his good eye as Eggsy disappear from view.
ooo
Roxy and Gawain catch up to him when he's ten metres past the forest line of the manor's grounds, viciously punching the trunk of a tree with a fist that's long since split open and covered in blood.
"Eggsy!" Roxy calls out sharply, ducking under his swinging arm and slipping herself in between him and his makeshift punching bag. Gawain grabs onto Eggsy's upper body, arms winding around and locking his hands together across his sternum, effectively trapping his arms to his sides no matter how wildly they swing.
Eggsy is wild for a moment, the anger and unfounded grief making him want to break something. "FUCK!" he cries out, drawing the word out into a scream. His fingernails bite into the palms of his hands, slicing in and contributing to the already bloody mess at the end of each arm. He shouts again, this time an inarticulate, wordless cry that breaks into a harsh sob, his knees giving way. He sags into Gawain's grip, and together they fall to the decaying leaves and damp soil.
Roxy hits her knees not long after, paying no heed to the dirt, cupping at Eggsy's face and forcing him to meet her gaze. "I'm sorry," she whispers to him, brown eyes glinting with angry tears. "I am so sorry, Eggsy, I wanted to warn you but they said that I couldn't, and—oh, I can't believe they would do this to you! I could believe they would do something like this, but—you, Eggsy, not to you."
Eggsy struggles in Gawain's arms, tries to wrench his face out of Roxy's grasp. He feels wrecked, like the world has swallowed him whole and there's nothing left but the scorching, black heat of ruin. The pain in his chest and the throbbing in his head is nothing compared to the ache he feels down to his bones, down to his very soul. How could they have done this to him? Two of the most trusted people in his life, leaving him to fester in guilt and despair for almost half a year for no good fucking reason.
Underneath the agony is a song, a celebration, telling him that Harry's alive! He's alive, he's here, he's alright!
The thunderous sound of his own resentment drowns it out, exploding out of him in another twisted yell. The fight leaves him just as quickly as it overcame him, his chin falling to his chest as the air in his lungs punches out, quick and shallow. Gawain's grip on him becomes less of a chokehold and more of a careful embrace, and Eggsy makes a few weak attempts at controlling his breathing while the wetness gathered in his eyes spills over. He clenches his fingers around Gawain's wrists so tightly that they're sure to bruise.
The three of them kneel there in the deadened grey expanse of the woods, until the hitching sobs quiet into sniffles and the only sound around them is the rustle of the wind in the leaves. Eggsy's unable to stop the trembling, though at least it's not the violent, uncontrollable tremors of before, and he feels shame begin to lick hotly on the heels of his outburst.
"What do you need?" Gawain asks him, voice rough and tight. "Tell us. What do you need?"
Eggsy's breath rattles loose on an exhale.
"To forget."
ooo
For the first time in nearly a year, Eggsy enters a club with a purpose. The churning, gut-thumping bass blasting out of the speakers sounds like a siren's call, inviting him into the foggy anonymity of the dance floor. He's already spotted three different girls and at least two blokes looking at him with interest, boosting his determination.
Roxy's by his side, clad in a slinky purple number that draws more than a few eyes to her, but she assures him with her thrown back shoulders and the purse of her lips that tonight, she's going to concentrate on giving him what he asked for.
Well, technically what he'd asked for was an amnesia dart straight to the carotid artery, but a random fuck with a stranger works just as well. He supposes he can't fault her for choosing to interpret his request this way.
They shoulder their way through the crowd and the sea of bodies parts around them and swallows them whole again, drawing them quickly towards the bar. There's a small sign, lamination flaking apart, that tells them it's three trebles for five quid, and Roxy is quick to pull out a tenner and slide it across the bench. "Three rum and coke and three vodka-lemonades, please!" she shouts to the bartender as his eyes are drawn to her cleavage. She gives him a terribly sweet smile and dips her head, glancing at him from under strands of hair, and when she turns back around to Eggsy, she's holding a platter of drinks as well as four extra colourful shots.
"Cheers," Eggsy says gratefully, and slams back his two. He shudders dramatically and sticks out his tongue when the flavour hits and burns the back of his throat. "Is this fucking peach schnapps?" he demands, swigging heartily at his rum and coke. "Fuckin' hell, Rox."
"It's delicious," Roxy says primly, seating herself on a plush chair and crossing her legs demurely at the ankles. She throws back her shots like a champ, two at a time, then carefully stacks the discarded glasses. "And free, might I add, so stop whingeing." The first of her vodka-lemonades disappears quickly as she brings the straw to her mouth, sharp eyes surveying the population of drunk twenty-somethings around them. "Now, onto business. What do you want to do tonight?"
Eggsy takes another gulp of his drink and twists on his seat, not even bothering to disguise his searching gaze. There's a guy standing about twenty paces away from them, leaning in to the girl curled into his side and speaking into his ear, but his eyes meet Eggsy's almost immediately and hold. "What about 'im?"
"No," Roxy says, tone sharp. "Look at the body language. His hand on her hip, hers on his neck, standing intimately close even for a club. If they're not dating, she thinks they are. He's certainly giving you a look, but it's too messy."
Eggsy tosses back the remainder of his drink, the ice clacking against his teeth. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and gestures over Roxy's shoulder with the empty glass. "What about her?"
Roxy's head barely turns over her shoulder before whipping back around. "She's looking at me, not you, most likely because I shagged her three months ago and she never returned any of my texts despite her giving me her number. Sloppy kisser, anyway. I'd avoid it."
He can't help but snort softly into the fizz of his second—fourth, if he's counting the schnapps—drink. He's starting to feel the lightness behind his eyes that comes with imbibing alcohol too quickly, and it feels bloody amazing, like the weight of Harry and Merlin's deceit has starting to lift from his shoulders, and the second glass doesn't stand a chance.
He and Roxy continue their game of 'What About Them' for the length of three more songs, during which Eggsy polishes off the last of his triple rum-and-cokes and snags one of Roxy's vodka-lemonades for himself, since she's still nursing at her first. He's happily on his way to being well and truly mortal when he registers a presence to his right. Glancing up sharply proves to be a mistake when the world swims a bit out of focus, but the bloke standing over him, face flushed but determined, is well fit.
"Sorry to interrupt, mate," he shouts, leaning into Eggsy's space. His eyes are sparkling and electric blue, hair a mess of riotous black curls, and when he leans in even closer to brush his lips against the shell of Eggsy's ear, he smells of Hugo Boss' cologne. "Couldn't help but overhear and thought I'd save you the trouble. Wanna dance?"
Roxy has a sour, startled look on her face when Eggsy glances over at her. She avoids his eyes, seeming instead to be trying to will away his newest friend with the heat of her glare. It clicks, somewhere in the back of his mind, that she never intended to help him pull tonight; she just meant to get him plastered to the point of oblivion. His stomach turns.
"I'll meet you out there in a second, yeah?" he says to the stranger, lifting his drink and rattling the last dregs of alcohol around through the ice. "Just gonna finish me drink first."
The guy leaves with a pleased, even grin, and once he's out of earshot Eggsy rounds on Roxy. "The fuck was that about?"
Her cheeks pink up ever so slightly. "I don't know what you mean."
"Come off it," he bites out. "I seen the way you were lookin' at him, tryn'ta scare 'im off. I thought you was here to help me get fucked."
"I never said that," snaps Roxy, slamming her drink onto the table. The dramatic clatter of it is lost in the deafening roll of bass from the speakers, but the glass splinters. "I said I would be a mate and help you forget, Eggsy, so I'm here to supervise you while you get utterly arsed."
"I don't need no fuckin' babysitter!"
"You wanted me to give you amnesia!" she cries out. It's like a dam bursts, and he watches the wreckage of words flow from her mouth, stomach sinking like a stone with every bitter truth. "What Merlin and Harry did wasn't fair to you, Eggsy, but it's the nature of things in our line of work! Our kind of people make a career out of lying, and our kind of people go to churches in Kentucky and got shot in the head and don't die, because none of this is normal! You and I, we're exceptional, Eggsy, and you should do better than put your ankles 'round your ears for the first fit bloke that looks your way."
Her face softens. "I know how you feel about Harry." Eggsy bites down hard on the inside of his cheek and turns his face away. "Everyone knows how you felt—how you still feel about him. Of all Kingsman, you've got the most right to be hurt by what he's done." She reaches out and only manages to brush her fingers against the back of his hand before he yanks it away and stuffs it into his pocket. She sighs loudly, frustrated. The swirling neon lights of the club highlight the exhaustion on her face, and Eggsy feels drunk and dizzy and miserable. "This isn't going to make you feel better, despite what you think."
Eggsy rocks unsteadily to his feet. He digs his wallet out and tosses a fiver onto the table between them. "You don't know fuck all," he snarls. He turns his back and stalks towards where the stranger is waiting on the edge of the dance floor, ignoring Roxy's exasperated shout of his name.
He marches up to the man and hooks a hand around the nape of his neck; walks backwards onto the floor, pulling his partner along and forcing himself to make and maintain eye contact even as they're jostled around in the pulsing mass of people. "What's your name?" he shouts as they come to a stop in the middle of the throng.
"I'm Liam," he says directly into Eggsy's eardrum.
"Eggsy," he slurs in turn.
The room tilts. Liam's lips brush down Eggsy's ear, down his neck. His hands curl over Eggsy's waist and draw him in, pressing their hips together. Eggsy's stomach twists. It's the alcohol, he tells himself, tilting his head back and allowing the slide of Liam's mouth across the sensitive spot beneath the cut of his jaw.
The cologne that was a teasing, tempting smell not ten minutes before is now cloying and acidic in Eggsy's nose, on his tongue. Liam knocks their foreheads together, turns their hips against each other, and Eggsy feels sick.
He pushes through it, jaw locked. His teeth grind and ache, but the body against his feels warm and real, and he loses himself in sensation as much as he can while his internal organs are revolting against the unfamiliar touch.
He presses their cheeks together and stares off somewhere over Liam's left shoulder, and forces himself to blink away the ghost of Harry that appears in the darkest corner of the room, face drawn tight with disappointment and his ruined eye stark and apparent in the dim light.
He disappears between one twitch of his eyes and the next, lost in the shadows and Eggsy's imagination.
Eggsy spins around and pushes his arse against Liam's cock, barely registering the pleased groan the movement awards him. An electric synth beat pours out of the speakers, melting from one song into the next, and he concentrates on the rhythm, the words pouring over him and the body behind his almost an afterthought.
'Don't want to have to lose all that I've compromised to feel another high, I've got to keep it down tonight' croons the voice, echoing around in Eggsy's skull. There are wet, full lips and sharp teeth sucking and biting into the spot where his neck and shoulder meet, and it's wrong. The wrong mouth, the wrong man, and Eggsy can't breathe for the bile climbing in his throat.
'I was a king under your control—'
He ducks his head to the left, forcing Liam's mouth to disconnect from his neck. A trail of spittle strings between them and drips back onto his collar. 'Fuck me, that's disgusting,' he thinks foggily, wiping a hand against the skin as he wrenches away without explanation. A confused protest and an irritated curse follow his stumbling feet, but he doesn't turn back. With barely a foot off the main floor, he feels more than sees when Roxy's hand circles around his wrist, and then she's tugging him towards the exit, snapping at the bleary drunks that stand in their way.
They pour out into the street together and the fresh air is a blessing, though the wet spot on his neck stings in the cool night air.
"Fuck me," he groans, falling against the door with a thump. "Fuck me, Rox, I'm in love with him."
"I know," Roxy says, quiet and firm in that steadfast way of hers that makes Eggsy adore her. "It's going to be alright, Eggsy."
"He's alive," he reminds her, bitter. "He's alive, he didn't tell me, and I'm in love with him. Shit."
"He's alive," she confirms, reaching up to brush the damp strands off hair off of his sweaty forehead. "You can be happy about it, you know, and still be furious." She pulls him off and away from the door and drags him to sit on a low wall, rubbing at his shoulder blades when he ducks his head between his knees. "I just don't want you to do something you'll regret," she tells him softly, running her fingertips across his back, nails catching on the fabric of his jacket.
"You're a mate, you are," he tells her weakly, grasping at her hips and pulling her forward until the top of his head presses against her stomach. "What would I do without you?"
Her hands, small and smooth and lethal, cup his jaw and tilt his face up. "You'd be fucked," she tells him bluntly, the tone rife with affection and tainted with an edge of sadness. Eggsy frowns up at her, blinking heavily when her face duplicates and blurs. "Let's get you home."
She pours him into a taxi and then slips in beside him, keeping a soothing hand nestled on the nape of his neck as he buries his face in his hands and tries not to vomit with every bump and bend in the road.
"What do I do, Rox?" mumbles Eggsy, phosphorescent lights blooming behind his eyelids whenever he digs his fingers into the sockets. "What do I fuckin' do?"
For a moment, there's nothing but the rumble of the cab's engine and the general, constant murmur of London. Eggsy breathes in and out.
"I don't know," Roxy admits, sounding sorry. "I can't tell you what to do, or how to feel. That's up to you, I'm afraid."
Eggsy barks out a single 'ha!' "That's me fucked, then."
Their cab ride continues in silence.
Pulling up to the front of his house feels like finishing a marathon for all that Eggsy senses a tidal wave of relief and exhaustion settle deeply into his limbs. The pleasant buzz of alcohol has officially slid into a sharp headache in his temples, and the sight of his front door nearly makes him weep.
"Are you sure you'll be alright by yourself?" Roxy asks him when he's standing on the pavement, bracing his hands on the roof of the cab and looking down at her through the window.
"Yeah," Eggsy says, though in truth he doesn't know if he will. "You're aces, you know that? Go home and get some shut eye; you deserve some time away from my sorry arse."
He waves her off and watches the cab crawl to the end of his street and indicate to the left before disappearing around the corner, Roxy's head turned and watching him through the rear window until the last moment.
His hand drops to his side. He steels himself for the really, truly awful decision he's about to make.
His feet carry him, one step at a time, to Harry Hart's door. It's nearly quarter to one in the morning, but time means nothing when he's drunk and miserable, so he raps his knuckles loudly against the front door.
A light flickers on in the hall, followed by the gentle sound of feet falling across hardwood floors.
There's a beat and then the sound of a chain being undone, clattering heavily against the door frame. Another quiet click of a lock sliding out of place, the gentle twist and rattle of the doorknob turning.
Harry stands with his usual poise between the dim orange glow of the street lamp and the comfort of his own home, and says nothing. His eyes flicker over Eggsy, assessing and concerned even through the milky scarring of the left, but his mouth doesn't lose its relaxed down-turn.
"I'm angry."
The words are an explosion in the silence of the street.
"I am so fucking pissed with you," Eggsy continues, unable to stop the avalanche of words brought tumbling down by that first confession, "for not tellin' me. How—how could you not tell me, huh? All the shit we been through, you an' me, how—because I didn't shoot JB, zat it? Too much of a fucking disappointment to spare a fucking phone call."
Harry's eyebrows furrow together and he takes a small step forward. Eggsy lurches back.
Neither of them makes another move.
"Why would you do that to me?" Eggsy shatters. "How could you—"
The words shrivel and die between them.
Harry's chest hitches on an indrawn breath. The contours of his face are cast dramatically in the fiery hues of the street at night, highlighting the wrinkle in his forehead and the soft slope of his chin and the silvery pink of his scar.
He's beautiful, and Eggsy loves him.
"I miss you." The confession falls. It lands heavily onto the pavement, cracking into the asphalt. "You're alive, you're right in fucking front of me, and I still miss you."
His face feels hot and swollen, lips trembling and wet, and it's only when he wipes at his eyes does he realize that he's crying. He stumbles back, embarrassed, suddenly wanting to be back in the safety of his own home.
Harry's eyes close like he's in pain, hands shaking into fists by his sides. His lips part. "Eggsy—"
The slamming of a door three houses down is the only answer Eggsy gives him.
ooo
In the wake of Eggsy's emotional admission, the weeks that follow are an exercise in Harry's patience.
Since taking up the mantle of 'Arthur,' he's been practically drowning in paperwork; has spent hours upon hours pouring over contracts and incident reports, digging through years and years of records in an attempt to uncover any other times Chester King may have found himself swayed by heady influence.
He loses sleep—to paperwork, to nightmares, and to searing headaches. He loses sleep to the echo of Eggsy shouting under the street light, to the angry twist of his mouth as he pulled a gun on Harry.
He dreams of Chester slipping poison into Eggsy's glass, his own voice saying, 'I've had a lot of fun with this' even as Eggsy convulses, frothing at the mouth, and collapses onto the table, eyes blank and unseeing. A gun that's warm and heavy in his hand, still smoking at the barrel, and Eggsy's body on the ground as bits of his skull and brain create a macabre halo around his head, organ music piping eerily in the background.
Exhaustion becomes him, aching deep within his bones.
Eggsy's stark and unwavering professionalism only serves to make things worse.
Since their emotional, one-sided confrontation in the dead of night, Eggsy's accent has been painfully proper, never missing a consonant and never letting a single swear word nestle itself into every sentence. His shoulders never slouch, his posture never bends, and his Oxfords are never anything but polished to perfection. He's courteous to a fault, respectful of Harry's position as King, and maintains the appropriate distance between employer and employee at all times.
His lips press together in a straight line instead of lilting up and into a smirk at the edges, and the eyes behind the lenses of his glasses never glint with mischief.
He never calls Harry by anything but 'Arthur,' and it's driving Harry round the fucking bend.
He would be able to tolerate the glaring, gaping thing between them—would be willing to let time heal the wound—if it were for the fact that the only area where his careful façade begins to show its cracks is in the field.
Eggsy's fighting style is...lethal in its effortlessness. A force to be reckoned with. His body never stops moving, never fails to twist and bend to fit its environment, and he's truly magnificent to watch. The pride that festers inside of Harry, yearning to express itself, is a real and writhing thing within him, burning him up with its fervent glow.
But he's taking chances that he shouldn't be; risking odds either just to savour the thrill of close combat or send Harry into a cardiac arrest, throwing himself into the line of fire (sometimes literally), and gambling with his own life as if he has more than just the one.
Leaving a solid position of cover while under a siege of bullets in Berlin, running forward into the spray and opening up his body with little to no hesitation, only to wrap his hands around a lamppost and deliver a brutal kick to the gunman's face.
Storming a human trafficker's hideout with only his signet ring and ten bullets left in his magazine, disobeying direct orders to wait for backup, and winding up in medical with thirteen stitches above his left hip and a bite mark on his hand that becomes infected.
Attempting to stand on top of a bloody moving train as though he's re-enacting a James Bond film, and nearly getting blown away into the Italian countryside for his efforts by the strength of the wind that quickly knocks him flat. Still, he digs his fingers into the metal rivets on top of the train and drags his body, inch by agonizing inch, until he can drop into the space between cars and fire a bullet into the window, risking civilian life in order to eliminate his target.
His latest pique of reckless behaviour involves him standing far too close to a live grenade, and when he's brought to the infirmary on a stretcher, looking disoriented, ever so slightly charred, and like tinnitus is going to make him vomit, he looks so much like Lee that Harry finds he needs to excuse himself to his office, just to steady his shaking hands.
It takes nearly an hour to stop the tremors.
He moves slowly through the halls of the manor when he makes his way towards Merlin's office later that evening, eyes lingering on the portraits that line the walls and tracing the intricate pattern of the arches that cross in the vaulted ceilings. The agents have all been dismissed from the premises for the remainder of the day, five o'clock having long since come and gone, and Harry's in desperate need of a finger or two of the hundred and fifty year old scotch that Merlin keeps tucked away behind a series of hollow encyclopaedias.
In an uncharacteristic moment of absent-mindedness, and a true testament to his fatigue, he doesn't even hear the raised voices until he's standing directly outside of the doors to Merlin's office.
"—trying to get yourself bloody killed!"
Harry pauses, fingers hovering over the doorknob, taken aback by the volume of Merlin's voice. He rarely raises it, preferring instead to resort to quiet intimidation, so for him to become irate enough to begin properly shouting is...unsettling. Harry's hand drops back to his side as he tilts his ear closer to the door.
There's the gentle exhalation of a sigh, and then a weighty silence that winds its tendrils underneath the door and around Harry's heart like a vice.
"For Christ's sake, Eggsy," Merlin says after a moment of quiet goes undisturbed. He sounds frustrated and exhausted, two sentiments Harry whole-heartedly identifies with as of late. "Display a bit of fucking professional decorum and get over it. We operate a secret intelligence agency, or has the secrecy aspect eluded you?"
Another pregnant pause trails along after the jibe.
Then, Merlin's voice, infinitely more sombre: "I want you to understand something, Eggsy, so listen and listen closely. Harry almost died. Do you understand that? The statistical probability that Valentine's shot would land in the only two inches of Harry's face covered by bulletproof glass was astronomically small. Nigh on impossible. The fact that he survived even with the glasses is nothing short of a miracle."
"If it was so miraculous," comes Eggsy's voice at last, and oh, how Harry has missed that impudent tone. "Then why th' fuck wasn't I told? Hmm? Ye'd think that of all the people who knew 'im, that maybe I would—"
"It hardly seemed worth placing the extra stress upon your shoulders when we didn't know if Harry was going to make it out of hospital alive," Merlin interjects, a bite to his voice. "A fortnight to wake up, another for the swelling in his brain to go down enough to barely allow moving him home. No guarantee he would survive the transfer back to England. Would you rather we had given you hope only to have it ripped away?"
Eggsy, for lack of a better term, implodes.
"Yes!" he bellows, and there's the sound of two quick footsteps on the hardwood floors. "Of course I would have fucking preferred it, are you mental?"
"There were more important—"
"Not to me!" His voice cracks, and it's worse than any gunshot Harry's ever heard. Worse than the sound of breaking bones, of structural failings. "You—do you even know what it did to me? To watch 'im get shot, knowing the last thing I ever did was—he said he was going to come back, 'e told me to stay, but he never came back. Do you know what that's like? He never fucking came back."
"Yes." Merlin's voice is firm but not unkind. "He did, Eggsy. And the sooner you stop treating him like he's from Invasion of the bloody Body Snatchers, the better off we'll all be."
The tension is unbearable, for all that Harry isn't even in the room, so he raps his knuckles against the door at last. A pause, and then Merlin calls for him to enter. The door opens with a loud creak of ancient hinges, and Harry's left feeling abruptly as though he's walked into a duel. Eggsy's back is to him, but the clench of his fists is visible where they curl by his hips. The line of his back is so straight it makes Harry's vertebrae ache. His head doesn't turn.
Merlin's body is similarly tensed, though he seems substantially happier to see Harry on his doorstep. "Arthur," he greets with a brisk nod.
"Merlin," Harry responds in kind, eyes still locked onto the nape of Eggsy's neck, the tight expanse of his shoulders. "Terribly sorry to impose, but would you mind excusing us for a moment? I fear I need a word alone with Galahad."
The crook of Merlin's jaw is contemplative even as he acquiesces with a dip of his head. He takes three long strides forward, stopping to lay a hand on Eggsy's shoulder. Harry can see his fingers squeeze inwards from where he stands, two metres away, and feels the stirrings of envy deep within his gut at not being the one to take such a liberty. He yearns sharply to feel the compact strength of Eggsy's trapezius muscle for himself, cloaked discreetly beneath layers of bespoke bulletproof fabric.
He wonders if the longing is visible in his eyes, given the startled little blinks that escape Merlin before he can contain them. The Scot's hand falls from Eggsy's shoulder, and he disappears from the room with a loping gait and the heavy doors clicking shut behind him.
The sight of the back of Eggsy's head is becoming horribly familiar. Harry clears his throat.
"You must know," begins Harry softly, "that it was never my intent to hurt you. You know I—I care for you a great deal, Eggsy."
A noise escapes Eggsy and it's disbelief packed into the single, punching exhalation of breath. His head turns to the side, shaking.
"It may seem excessive," Harry continues, clasping his hands behind his back. "But there are protocols in place for a reason. I hope one day you'll forgive me enough to allow me to explain them to you."
Nothing. Not even a twitch of the hand.
Irritation swells within him. His left temple throbs with a sharp, ringing headache.
"That being said." Harry takes it upon himself to move forward, the sounds of his footfalls loud and abrasive in the strained atmosphere. Around Eggsy, around Merlin's lush leather chair, and he braces all ten of his fingertips against the massive touch screen inserted into the top of the desk. "You are a Kingsman, Galahad, and I am Arthur. And if you continue on with these little...jaunts into unnecessary danger and risk, I will be forced to suspend you without pay."
It's a low blow, one that he doesn't enjoy taking; he knows how Eggsy's mother and sister depend on his income, and to take it away (even for a short period of time) would be devastating. It's a threat that hits its mark if the way Eggsy's eyes go wide with defiance and fear is any indication. "You can't do that!"
"I think you'll find that I can," Harry informs him, keeping his tone dangerously mild. "And I will, if you don't stop keeping your head so firmly up your arse that you can't see the consequences of your bull-headed actions."
A clench of the jaw is Eggsy's only response, eyes flicking away from Harry to stare resolutely out of the window. The cut of his bone structure is sharp, the mossy green of his eyes bright with frustration and the dimming sunlight. Even now, his body is tensed and ready for battle, and he looks so perfectly, exquisitely lethal that Harry's breath catches in his throat.
Eggsy is apparently refusing to rise to the bait, won't let Harry goad him into having it out, and weeks of emotional tension takes its hold on Harry and wrings him dry.
The chasm deepens between them, and he fears they'll never cross it.
"For fuck's sake," Harry snaps, banging a fist down onto the table, finally drawing Eggsy's gaze back towards him. "This bloody silence is getting us nowhere. Say something."
"How am I supposed to trust you?"
The questions lands with Harry as sharply as if it had been delivered by a blade.
Never before has a whisper held such a chord of ruin. It pulls taut and sharp between them, anchoring itself somewhere behind Harry's ribcage and ripping at the muscle and sinew that it finds. Heartbreak , Harry hears distantly in the back of his mind. That's what this is.
Words click and die against the soft pallet of his mouth.
"You and me, we ain't friends," Eggsy says, and it's so much worse to hear without any sort of sting behind the words. He sounds tired and resigned, as if giving life to a truth long since hidden. "How can we be, when you couldn't even be fucked to tell me you wasn't dead? When I had to sit there and watch you die, thinkin' I'd never see you again and all I'd have left would be that fuckin' look on your face when we was in the toilet." He drops his gaze to his feet and shakes his head once, twice. When he lifts his face, the misery there is apparent to Harry, even through the dark and blurred degeneration of his left eye. "Knowin' how much you hated me at the end for humiliatin' you."
The chord latched onto Harry's ribs snakes back to grip at his spine, crawls up his esophagus to keep him from taking a breath, slithers into the Broca's area of his brain and wipes clean the knowledge of any words he could use to refute such a terrible, horrible claim.
Hate Eggsy? It's so ludicrously far from the truth, so completely on the opposite end of the spectrum of Harry's regard for him, that Harry finds he can't even attempt to formulate a sentence, no matter how desperately he wishes to refute the claim.
"Did you even want me to know at all?"
Of course I wanted you to know! Harry shouts, striding forward and shaking Eggsy by the shoulders. If you think I didn't spare a thought for you from the moment I woke up in the hospital, from the instant I set foot back in England, then you're a greater fool than I could have ever imagined for myself. Don't for one moment think I didn't damn the necessary protocols, that I didn't miss seeing your insolent face and your bloody baggy trousers and ridiculous hats every day. He runs a thumb down the heavy bags beneath Eggsy's eyes, then softly tells him, Of course I wanted you to know.
Only, none of that ever happens.
Harry is struck utterly dumb, face locked up tight and no muscle in his body betraying a single twitch despite the desperate yelling of his own mind. The vision in his left eye grows fractionally darker because he's barely breathing, can't even get enough oxygen into his lungs to reassure Eggsy in the way that he desperately wishes to.
He sees the moment that his silence becomes a perceived rejection by the way Eggsy's body crumbles inwards, the stretch of a sickly and miserable grin across his mouth, and how his eyes are bloodshot and bright as he looks up toward the ceiling.
The space between them becomes a canyon.
"Wow," Eggsy breathes out into a strained laugh. "Fuckin' amazing." Inexplicably, he pulls a folded up handkerchief out of his trouser pocket, then pulls his glasses off of his face in order to wipe at his cheeks where (Harry is horrified to realize) tears have left their tracks. The specs find their way back to their perch on the bridge of his nose, and Eggsy takes a moment to visibly compose himself.
Eggsy fiddles with his cuff links, pulls at the lapels of his jacket, and with one last assessing look at Harry's impassive stare, takes his leave.
Harry's entire body wilts as Eggsy exits and he fumbles behind himself to ensure there's a chair ready for his collapsing limbs. He's seated with a heavy thump, staring through the open door, silently willing Eggsy to turn around and come into Merlin's office again, to yell and rant and rave so that they can have air out their grievances and stop living in the disastrous wake of Harry's deceit.
He runs a hand across his mouth and lets air shudder through his lungs at last.
He doesn't know how to begin to fix this mess he's made.
ooo
Eggsy's birthday falls on a Wednesday, as smack dab in the middle of April as ever. He's just got home from a mission in Brazil and is enjoying his mandatory twenty four hour rest, even if that means his mum comes bursting into his room at exactly 7:28 in the morning, holding a small stack of cards in one hand and Daisy perched on her hip in the other. Eggsy allows himself to be handed the cards and then the baby, in that order, nestling his younger sister onto his lap and kissing at the top of her head. He blinks sleepily into the wisps of her hair, grinning when she babbles excitedly at him and starts tearing into his birthday cards for herself.
"I can't believe you're twenty-five," his mum mists, pressing a hand over her heart. "My lil' Easter Egg, you've grown so quick."
"Easter was a week and a half ago, mum," he reminds her, grinning down at the lewd card that Ryan and Jamal left through the post slot. There's a fit, half naked bloke on the front, holding a birthday cake in front of his crotch, the words I've Got Something For You To Blow scrawled in cursive print on the frosting. The inside reads Make A Wish, Birthday Boy ;), followed by his friends' messy chicken scratch writing. He shields Daisy's eyes when she tries to peek over at the front of the card, winces when his mum gets a look for herself and shoots him a set of raised eyebrows. She tries to purse her mouth disapprovingly, but it gets lost in a smile.
"It don't matter when Easter was this year, babe," she tells him, tapping him on the head with Ryan and Jamal's card. "All that matters is that you was born on Easter twenty-five years ago today, and you'll always be my little Eggsy." She leans over and presses a kiss to his forehead, and he closes his eyes and tilts into her embrace.
The next card is in a garishly blue envelope, and he nearly tears up when he reads it. There's a long, rhyming sentiment typed onto the front and both halves of the inside, declaring him to be special and beloved and unlike any other, the best son a mum could ask for. His mum's beautiful curling script tells him ,It's all true, and more. You've made me so proud, babe, you've no idea. Your father would be amazed at the man that you've become, and I see him in you more and more every day. I love you, my little Egg. Happy Birthday xx Mum.
He hugs her, tight and close, for a long while.
Daisy's card is handmade, featuring a scribbly figure clearly meant to be Eggsy, though he's barely more than a colourful series of ovals and scratching lines. There's a figure next to him, hardly any smaller than the first, that's got his hand in hers, and he coos over the drawing like it's a Monet. "This is amazing," he tells his sister, letting her paw at the card and open it for him. "Did you do this all on your own, my love?" She pats at the inside and he pretends to read the nonsensical scribbles like they're a legible sentiment. He's absolutely going to frame this and put it on his wall. "Oh, my Daiz," he whispers, playing on the old saying like he's done since his sister was brought into the world and he held her in his arms for the first time, "It's brilliant. Totally gorgeous." He presses loud, smacking kisses on her chubby cheek until she ducks away from him, giggling like a loon.
There are two more envelopes in his lap, one a dusky grey and one pearl white, his name scrawled across the front in messy calligraphy. A wave of cold comes over him as he examines Harry's handwriting, familiar and dear, and though he taps his thumbs against its seal, he can't bring himself to open it. Instead, he picks up the grey envelope, the Kingsman seal embossed into the expensive paper. He snorts softly. Even their bloody postal supplies cost more than most of Eggsy's clothes.
There's a wax seal keeping the letter shut, so he breaks it gently, feeling strangely as if he needs to be gentle with such high quality stationary. There's a single piece of card stock tucked inside, along with another small envelope, approximately the size of a bank card.
To Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, it reads in an elegantly simple font. A valued employee of Kingsman Tailors. We extend to you the fondest of wishes on your birthday, and thank you for your services and dedication to Kingsman. As a token of thanks and celebration, please find enclosed a cheque which you are free to use in any manner you desire. May your twenty-fifth year be a happy one.
His fingers are shaking when he hands the card over to his mum to read, staring down at the small silver envelope clutched in his other hand. He opens it slowly, slips out the cheque and unfolds it, almost afraid of its contents despite the promise of them.
"Fuck me," he gasps.
His mum swipes at his head. "Oi," she tells him, plucking the cheque out of his hand. "Language." She looks down at the number and her eyes go wide, a startled, "Fuck me!" slipping out. She claps a hand over her mouth.
"Language," mimics Eggsy with distraction, tilting the cheque back towards himself so he can make sure he's read it right. "Five thousand quid," he wonders, "What do I even do with it?"
His mum recovers faster than he does, pushing his hair off of his forehead and patting down the spots where it's tufted up from his pillow. "Whatever you want, babe," she reiterates, handing him the Kingsman stationary. "I think that's the point, innit?"
He twists his mouth and stares down at the numbers. There's a large part of him that wants to tear up the cheque, because such a hefty sum of money just for a birthday seems mental, especially when Kingsman has given him so much already. Though he supposes he could place it into an account for his mum and sister, let the interest collect should anything ever happen to him—
"Whatchu thinkin' about?" his mum asks, still running her fingers through his hair. "You've got that look in your eyes."
"Just thinkin' I could put this away for you and Daisy," he tells her honestly, shutting his eyes when her nails scrape against his scalp.
"Don't you dare," she threatens, gentle and exasperated. "God's sake, Eggsy, you've got us a new home. You spoil your sister something rotten, and me even worse. You take that money, love, and you use it for yourself. Don't have to use it all at once, mind, but at least you'll have it for a rainy day, hmm?"
He hums his acquiescence, eyes still closed, and lets the soothing scrape of her fingers lull him back to sleep.
When he wakes, Daisy and his mum aren't in the room, though he can hear them moving about on the first floor. Blinking away the sleep still weighing down on his eyelids, he glances at the clock. It's closer to noon, now, so he scrubs a hand over his face with a jaw cracking yawn and throws the covers off, wincing when the slight chill of the air hits his bare skin.
He quickly works himself into a pair of jeans and tugs his favourite jumper over the white tee he's already got on, then pulls a pair of Adidas onto his feet. He finds the cheque from Kingsman folded up on his bedside table, and when he goes to grab it, his eyes linger on the single unopened envelope that's propped up against an old picture of his mum and dad. Harry's handwriting is spiked and mocking, so he grabs the card and shoves it into the small drawer of the table, then slams it shut hard enough that the various knick-knacks sitting atop of it rattle dangerously.
Eggsy shoves his wallet and his phone into his back pocket as he trots down the stairs, peeking into the front room quickly. Daisy's enthralled by the episode of 'Kipper' that's playing on the telly and clutching at a snoring JB, and his mum peeks up from her iPad when she notices that Eggsy's standing there.
"I'm off out," he tells her, leaning a shoulder into the doorframe. "Gonna wander 'round, see if there's anything worth splurgin' on. Need anything while I'm out?"
"If you wouldn't mind picking up some milk," she says, "It'd spare me a trip to the shop."
He winks. "You got it. See you's later!"
He leaves the house and steps onto the pavement, breathing in the crisp spring air, and shoves his hands in his pockets as he manoeuvres down the street. His first stop is to the bank to deposit his cheque, which he hands over with some reluctance. He's never had that amount of money to use as disposable income, before; never had any sort of job where he didn't have to worry about scrounging up enough money from his pay to tide Dean over and keep them in house and home.
The bank teller doesn't even blink when she deposits the cheque. He figures she's seen larger sums of money pass through her hand.
He wanders his way through central London, weaving around tourists and irate businessmen, occasionally popping into shops to have a deek around, but finds nothing he truly wants other than an absolutely mint leather jacket that costs him over three hundred pound. He waves off the clerk's offer of a bag and slips it on instead, the temperature outside cooler than he'd anticipated when he'd first set out this morning.
He walks around for nearly an hour before he finds himself standing outside of Wunjo Guitars, unable to tear his eyes away from a truly gorgeous 1967 Epiphone Bard 12 string that's on display, barely scratched up at all for a guitar that's edging on fifty years old.
When he was fifteen, he'd scrounged up enough cash to make it to a pawn shop and buy himself a beautiful Gibson that was lightweight and well-loved. He'd spend hours plucking at the strings and teaching himself chords and riffs and songs. Recorded grainy audio of his attempts at song writing with the shitty little microphone on his mobile. He'd loved that damn guitar, tuned it carefully, and always had extra strings on hand for when another snapped, biting wire into the skin of his wrist.
He'd come home from the Marines to find that Dean had sold it for a fraction of what Eggsy had bought it for, like he wanted to twist the knife that much deeper.
Eggsy's hand connects with the door before he's even registered his feet moving again.
There are dozens of guitars lining the walls, strung up and sparkling and brand new. Decently priced, as well, and he lets his fingers walk across the neck of a particularly gorgeous turquoise bodied electric number. He can see from where he stands that the shop stretches far back, giving him a hall of mirrors effect of endless guitars.
Someone approaches him from the side after a few minutes and offers him a quick smile, arms folding across their chest. "Got your eye on anything in particular?" he asks, turning to survey the guitars hooked up against the wall.
It takes him a few seconds to make a decision. "Yeah, actually," he says, and turns his body towards the window. "How much for the Epiphone in the window?"
The shopkeeper blinks in surprise and drops his arms. "The '67 vintage?" Eggsy nods. "That's nearly 1300 quid, mate."
Eggsy thinks about the heft of a guitar in his hands, the twanging chords and the callouses he'll have to redevelop on his fingertips. Thinks about the thousands of pounds stewing in his bank account with nowhere important to go. "Yeah, good," he nods, and digs around in his Levi's for his wallet. "I'll take it."
ooo
He hitches a taxi back to his house after making a quick stop to a corner shop to pick up some milk, his purchase nestled grandly into the seat beside him. The shop had given him a free case, as well, since he'd spent so much money on the guitar without blinking, but Eggsy can't resist cracking it open every few minutes to gaze proudly down at his gift to himself.
He tips the cabbie extra, just because he can, and hauls the guitar into his house and up to his room. His mum patters along behind him once she knows he's in, jogging lightly up the stairs and leaning into the doorway when he proudly lays out the case on the bed and unzips, throwing the top off with relish.
"Oh, babe," she whispers, coming forward and running a hand down the neck of the guitar. Her nails catch and pull on the strings, letting out the soft ring of notes and a metallic zip as she does. Eggsy's grin falters when he looks at her and sees the wetness to her eyes, the delicate tremble of her mouth. She's no doubt thinking of Dean, and how Eggsy's last guitar was just another good thing in their life that he took away and squandered selfishly. "It's lovely," she sniffs.
"Mum," he groans, drawing her into a hug. She lets out a single sob into his collarbone, so he runs the flat of his palm down the back of her head. "It's alright, yeah? You and me, and Daiz, we's good now. Ain't no need for tears," admonishes Eggsy, pushing his mother back enough that he can wipe at her cheek with one knuckle. "Don't want you staining the goods, after all."
She huffs out a laugh, swatting at him, and pulls away with a watery smile. "Shut it," she tells him, voice warm. "Now, then, what are we doing about tea tonight? Anywhere special?"
He shrugs even as he lifts the guitar gently from its case. "I'm fine with a bit of Chinese takeaway in the front room." He runs his hands reverently along the neck, strokes down the body, holding it to him like a lover.
His mum rolls her eyes at him. "I'll leave you two alone," she teases him, and shuts the door behind her when she goes.
Eggsy spends the next two hours dicking around on the internet with his guitar in his lap, looking up the music for all the songs he's ached to learn in the past four years. His fingers fumble over the chords, smarting at the tips from disuse, but he plays on. He makes his way onto YouTube after forty minutes of skulking around on music websites, and it only takes him two views of a song for his fingers to find their way to the proper spots on the strings and on the neck, and a third for him to get through the entire song without fumbling once.
Roxy told him once that he had an eidetic memory—he hadn't known there was a name for it, just figured he was real good at keeping things locked up and stored away for future use, but she'd put a label on the skill the first time he ever flipped through a dossier and had the entire thing memorized after one glance. She'd sounded right peeved about it, too, like she was jealous.
He supposes it's neat, yeah, to be able to pull things up from ages ago with almost perfect recall, but—but. He still knows every insult Dean's ever given him, still sees every punch flying at his face, can still recall the nasty grunts and swears that accompanied the cock in his mouth, and the smells of piss-soaked alleys and dank pub toilets.
Can still hear with perfect clarity the way a gun sounds when it's fired, point blank, at Harry Hart.
Good for some stuff, he reckons about his memory, and not so good for others.
Now, though, it's definitely come in handy, because he's listening to the soothing twang of his guitar as he picks over the notes for 'Budapest,' and his mind empties itself of everything except the notes that dance between the phosphenes of his closed eyes. He goes over the song once, twice, five times, humming to himself as he goes.
"Eggsy!" calls his mother from downstairs, startling him badly enough that his fingers trip, ugly and harsh, into the music. "Could you do me a favour, love, and watch the baby while I run out to pick up the takeaway?" There's the muted thud of slow and heavy footsteps on the stairs, an audible shift of weight between one step and the next; his mum is already carrying Daisy up the stairs, he figures, and the assumption gives way to probability when he hears the murmur of his sister's happy chirping. His girls appear in his doorway, two grins aimed his way though one is with significantly less teeth. "You're gonna sit and stew with big bruv for a while," Mum says, bouncing Daisy in her arms. "Don't that sound like fun?"
Daisy gives a loud and cheerful shout of his name, reaching out both arms to Eggsy so quickly that her entire body tilts over in their mum's arms. His guitar is lifted carefully from his lap and replaced by a squirming 15 month old, who reaches for the instrument with sticky fingers. "Ah, ah!" he admonishes, tucking her into his body and grabbing onto her chubby palms. He brings them to his mouth for a kiss and tastes the faint traces of Cheerio dust. His mum smiles at the two of them once more before turning and leaving, keys jingling in her palm.
Eggsy waits until he hears the click of the front door opening and closing before he stands, Daisy on one hip. "Now, then." She strains her body towards his guitar, endlessly curious, and he buries a smile into the sparse curling of her hair. He reaches back behind him and grasps the knob that opens the doors to the small terrace balcony outside of his bedroom. Twists and pushes, and steps out into the tepid spring air. "What say," he asks her, setting her down into one of the cushioned chairs, making sure that she's secure before darting back inside and grabbing his guitar. "You and me have a little bit of a jam, yeah?" He strums his fingers over the strings, beaming at her when she claps and wiggles around.
Eggsy closes his eyes and sees the sheet music, sees the places his fingers should land and pluck, and begins playing the last song he'd had up on YouTube.
"My house in Budapest, my hidden treasure chest," he sings along, doing his best not to feel self-consciously about his singing voice, though it isn't difficult to sing louder and with an audible smile when he hears Daisy attempting to sing along.
He opens his eyes halfway through the song, confident in the movement of his hands and the pitch and rumble of his voice. "Give me one good reason why I should never make a change," and Daisy is dancing in her chair, laughing uproariously when he starts nodding along with greatly exaggerated dips of his head. Eventually he can't help himself, propping his guitar up against the wall and rushing towards her, still singing at the top of his lungs. He sweeps his little sister up into his arms and twirls her about, relishing in the happy shrieks that sound directly into his ear canal.
"Baby, if you hold me, then all of this will go away," he croons, spinning on his heel, then stops dead.
By some twist of cruel fate, Harry's standing in the small balcony outside of his bedroom, the French windows standing open behind him, curtains gauzy and drifting around his lithe form. The way their houses are positioned, he and Harry have a perfect view of one another, and when their eyes catch together, they hold.
Eggsy swallows around the dry, painful lump in his throat, tightening his grip on his sister as if she can shield him from the devastating look Harry's levelling their way. For the first time in weeks, Eggsy allows himself to look—really look, and feels his stomach burn.
Harry's mouth is the same gentle line as ever, but there's a twist to it—a divot between his bottom lip and chin—that blurs, that holds a shadow of sadness. His head tilts slightly forward, and his eyes—fuck, his eyes.
Even with that mismatched gaze, one eye milky and distorted, Eggsy finds himself pinned under the force of Harry's longing stare. Fondness creases the skin at the corners and draws his brows together, but the heaviness to his eyelids is unmistakable. He watches Eggsy and his sister and his shoulders slump in defeat, like it's all he wishes to be able to join them, to cross over the air between their homes and settle into one of the chairs beside them and simply be.
Eggsy's lips compress together, the briefly forgotten ball of misery in his chest thrumming with life once more. The tension strings between them on the quiet street, humming with potency. Eggsy drowns in the impossibility of Harry.
Daisy lets out a plaintive cry of Eggsy's name and tugs on his ear, breaking the moment into a thousand pieces. He turns his head and soothes a whisper against her brow, feels her dart up and place a sloppy kiss against his chin
When Eggsy turns his eyes back to Harry's window, he's gone.
The doors are shut, curtains shifting into place.