Chapter Two
Some days later, post-V-day
The Valentine's day massacre was over. This news was cause for celebration for some, and mourning for others. But the main nugget of knowledge anyone had to take away from the outcome was this: the bad guy had been stopped and the world, fundamentally, continued to spin on its axis.
That was what Eggsy tried to tell himself as he left the Kingsman medical bay, glancing down at his discharge form. But if he were being honest with himself, he was glad to be seeing anything other than those four walls.
Merlin had insisted he remain there for a three whole days, enough time to treat all the cuts and scrapes he'd acquired in his boss fight with Valentine and Gazelle when he'd saved the world.
Merlin had also offered him therapeutic counselling, for the 'trauma', as he so kindly put it, that he'd suffered from his experiences. Eggsy had smiled shallowly at the offer but gently declined it. The very last thing he wanted to do about his 'experiences' was talk about them.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he momentarily took his attentions away from the discharge form and plucked it from his jeans. It was a text from an unknown number that simply read:
you are required in the dining room
Eggsy rolled his eyes as he put his phone back into his pocket, wondering if he had any privacy left.
As he made his way to the 'dining room', I.e the conference room, stiff and sore and depressed, his mind unwillingly wandered to the events of the last few days.
He remembered, with regret, the high he'd ridden after he killed Valentine and saved the world. The adrenaline had pumped uncontrollably through his body and made him gleeful. And that Princess...He shuddered at the thought.
But then, invariably, the adrenaline had worn off. Suddenly, all of the bruises and wounds began to sting and his bones began to creak. And he was forcefully, almost brutally reminded of all the things that had been lost.
All in all, it came down to one simple reality. He'd saved the world, yes. But Harry was gone.
And the more time he spent dwelling on it, the more time he spent alone with nothing but his thoughts in the medical bay, the less sure he became that it was an even trade.
He entered the dining room, numb, to find Roxy, a.k.a Lancelot, Merlin and Percival sat around the table along with the only two other surviving Kingsman agents, Gawain and Tristan.
Eggsy's eyebrows shot up in shock. He'd known Percival was in London but Gawain and Tristan, to his knowledge, had been on other continents on respective missions.
Though he supposed with Arthur down, and very much out, it was necessary to call in reinforcements.
"Eggsy," Merlin greeted when he saw him stood in the doorway. "Come take a seat."
A little confused, Eggsy crossed stiffly to an empty seat by Roxy. She smiled reassuringly at him as he sat and put a comforting arm on his shoulder for a moment.
"Eggsy, as I was just telling the rest of the agents," Merlin said. "Since Arthur is now deceased, and we've lost two seasoned agents very quickly, namely Galahad and Lancelot, that Percival will be standing in as a replacement Arthur until we get everything up and running again."
Eggsy sent what he hoped looked like a congratulatory nod in Percival's direction who merely nodded back.
"As the acting Arthur," Percival began, inclining his head to Eggsy slightly and apprehending him with those calculated eyes. "I want to extend my gratitude for your valiant efforts in the field, we'd be dead if it weren't for you."
"Indeed." Merlin nodded.
"Yes, congratulations, Eggsy." Gawain chipped in, smiling and patting him on the back. Tristan smiled at him and Roxy nudged him affectionately.
Eggsy knew he should have felt embarrassed, and he did to some degree, but he couldn't help being cheered by the praise. Allowing himself, only momentarily, to bask in the knowledge that he did play a big part in saving the world.
But then, he wasn't the only one who did.
"Now," Merlin continued, standing and picking up his trusty clipboard. "What we really need to begin discussing is clean-up action." There were nods around the room. "Valentine may be gone but he left some pretty nasty messes in his wake. The American prime minister..."
"Hold on." Eggsy interrupted suddenly. Merlin fell silent and regarded him quizzically. Roxy gave him a questioning look and suddenly all eyes were on him. He felt rather intimidated.
"Why are you tellin' me all this?" He asked, feeling his earlier melancholy return and cause his voice to dip. "I ain't one of you."
"Yes you are." Percival informed him, almost reverently. "You're Galahad now."
And that hurt, that really hurt on inhuman levels but Eggsy forced it deep inside of himself for later and maintained his confused, defiant expression.
"But I didn't pass." Was all he said.
"Eggsy, times are tough." Merlin told him, sounding decidedly glum. "We've lost good men, the world is in tatters and there's a fair chance that Valentine still has operatives out there without chips with instructions if anything were to happen to him. I think I speak for all of us here when I say we're not going to let go of a brilliant agent..." His voice clipped momentarily. "A hero, because of his inability to shoot a dog."
Eggsy felt the smile coming before he could stop it. He couldn't help it, Merlin's words and the agreeing nods made him glow with pride, with a sense of duty and accomplishment and honour and...
"And I can think of no better way to honour Harry's memory."
And then that hurt he'd buried so deep inside of himself resurfaced. The inside of himself was like an ocean in the middle of a storm, churning and uncontrolled, but on the outside he merely swallowed.
"Yeah." He said quietly, before standing and exiting.
The other agents watched him go. Percival, Gawain and Tristan were three flavours of confused but Merlin and Lancelot understood precisely what had just happened.
The pair shared a look, Merlin gave her a simple nod and then she was on her feet and out of the room, after her friend.
She came across Eggsy in the corridor, speeding up to catch up to him and tugging on his shoulder with one hand.
He turned instinctively to her and she was momentarily taken aback by the glazed over look in his eyes until she was overcome with an empathetic sadness for the hurt that he was going through, mainly because she knew there was nothing she could do about it.
Instead, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. He responded immediately by circling his arms around her waist and clinging on.
"I understand," she said against his neck, having to stand on her toes to accommodate his superior height. "I know you miss him, but Merlin was his friend too and..."
Eggsy suddenly pulled back and looked at her. "I wasn't his friend." He said.
Real confusion swept over Roxy for a moment as she stared at him. Wondering why he'd be so torn up about someone's death if they weren't friends.
"Oh." She said, closing her eyes momentarily before looking back at him, recoiling when she noticed a tear drip down his cheek.
"You were more than just friends, weren't you?" She asked quietly.
Eggsy shook his head, not in disagreement, but simply because he didn't want to talk. "Just leave it out, Rox." He said dejectedly before disentangling himself from her embrace and walking away.
…
Eggsy stepped out of the shuttle, passing the plane hanger as he straightened his suit jacket and adjusted his glasses.
He felt good this way, being a part of something he'd really worked for, being part of something that was better than what he'd had before but all of those feelings were mixed up with painful memories and all he could do was banish them from his mind lest he drown in them.
Instead, he forced himself to focus on the current task at hand. Namely, meeting Merlin in his computer room for his 'initiation.'
"Good morning, Eggsy." Merlin said as he entered, and Eggsy smiled shallowly in response. The other agents had taken to calling him 'Galahad' immediately but Merlin still called him by his real name. Whether it was out of habit or a sign of respect, however, he'd never know.
Eggsy followed Merlin out of the computer room, down a sterile looking corridor and into one of the many training rooms in the mansion.
Roxy was already in there, kicking all kinds of shit out of a poor human-shaped punching bag, she smiled when she saw them enter. Eggsy gave her a little wave.
"Just wait here a sec while I go get the file, I know it's here somewhere," Merlin instructed him, leaving him stood alone as he entered a side door in the training room where they kept the candidacy files.
"Hey," Roxy said breathlessly, approaching him. She had sweat on her cheeks and running the length of her throat.
"What's 'initiation'?" Eggsy asked.
"Just paperwork bullshit," she replied through quick, laboured breaths. "Key cards, , all that jazz."
Eggsy's face fell. "Oh," he began, "I thought it might be more interesin' than that."
She grinned at him. "Never a dull moment."
And there were no dull moments during his initiation, if bureaucracy was your thing. Eggsy received his I.D pass, had his prints logged, an account created, weapon issued and was finally presented with a thick brown envelope labelled 'concessions.'
"What's this?" He asked, opening the folder. The first thing he pulled out was an A4 picture of...what was unmistakably Harry's house. "What is this?" He repeated, a little slower this time as he looked at Merlin.
"You're Galahad now," Merlin reminded him, as if it were obvious. "The house belongs to you."
"This house belongs to Harry." Eggsy replied immediately, hotly. "It's Harry's house."
Roxy sent a pointed look to Merlin.
Merlin proceeded to explain, patiently yet sadly, that Harry was gone. "And you need to find a way to deal with that." He finished.
Eggsy hesitated for a moment before looking back down at the picture of Harry's home. His mind was drawn back to the blissful night they'd spent together, Harry taking his virginity and promising that no matter what happened, he'd always be there...He felt tears well in his eyes followed by a feeling of complete shock and mortification at such an abject display of emotion in front of Merlin and Roxy.
He felt his cheeks go red and swallowed, but the situation was only worsened when Roxy put a comforting hand on his shoulder and stroked, making him feel like an absolute insufferable dick for acting this way.
"This is what Harry would have wanted," she said gently, "he would want you to carry on, to make him proud."
Eggsy took a few deep breaths before he slotted the photo back into the envelope.
"Harry was never proud of me." He finally admitted.
"He was, Eggsy," Merlin began, sounding pitiful. "He truly..."
But Eggsy was already shaking his head, feeling a wave of dejection rock through him as he remembered the argument they'd had in the bloody butterfly-infested bathroom before Harry had left for America.
"He wasn't, he couldn't have been." A lump formed in his throat. "Before he died, the last thing I ever did was disappoint him." He glanced up to see them both staring precariously at him. "I have to live with that, forever, it ain't gonna be that easy to deal with it."
…
Some months later, post-V-day
The world was, precariously, in a relative state of calm.
Currently, there were ongoing elections for a new president in America, which was monopolising most of the time, the death toll of V-Day and its subsequent events turned out to be surprisingly small. But still, a day of remembrance was held and marked by Queen Elizabeth II. Princess Tilde of had personally spearheaded a global campaign on the global warming issue and, strangely, Kingsman itself was even showing some small semblance of normalcy.
Roxy walked purposefully through the Kingsman mansion until she came to the dining room, the agents were already seated inside, chatting amongst themselves as they waited for the weekly staff meeting to commence.
Roxy took a seat and looked around herself for Eggsy, frowning when he was no where to be found.
"The clean-up operation is going well," Percival told them, "so well, in fact, I think it's time we begin moving on to other things."
There was a quiet murmur of agreement around the room.
"So, the next port of call," Percival continued, "is to elect a permanent Arthur."
"Basically, it comes between electing a current agent or bringing in a new person entirely." Merlin said, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses.
"We should vote." Tristan voiced.
"Yeah, but we'd need Galahad for that." Gawain reminded him, leaning back into his chair.
"Where is he?" Roxy asked. "I thought he already got back from America."
"He did." Merlin informed her, almost gravely. "He's down in the gym, he's been down there all morning."
Roxy sighed. "This is ridiculous," she finally voiced, exasperated. " I thought if we gave him a few months, he'd be okay. Or at least more normal."
"He has been pretty reserved lately." Tristan voiced to no one in particular, even the other agents were beginning to notice Galahad's downward spiral.
"I'll let him know about the vote." Roxy sighed exasperatedly before rising.
…
Roxy stood on the sidelines, arms folded as she regarded him. Eggsy was currently stood, brow furrowed, sweat pouring down his bare torso and beating the literal stuffing out of an elevated punching back.
She arched an eyebrow as she thought back to Tristan's comment. 'Reserved'? Try fucking miserable.
Instead of braving the wounded lion, she turned on her heel and left, knowing he'd just want to be left alone anyway. She'd text him the details of the vote later.
Eggsy hit the punching bag a final time with a resounding thud, stilling his fist and then he forced himself to breathe.
This was becoming more of a frequent problem than he'd been anticipating, he'd be going about his day like a normal secret agent, or a normal son or a normal brother and then some small insignificant thing would happen and just spark all of his emotions up inside of him again.
Just when he thought he had it under control, shit like this would happen and send him straight back to square one.
He'd just come back from the American elections and was passing a bakery in the airport when he noticed a basket of bread rolls and then he was in the bathroom, locking himself in one of the cubicles with tears streaming down his face and his innards in shreds. He knew what it was, of course. It was because of the fucking breakfast.
The morning after he and Harry had had sex, Harry had made him breakfast in the dining room, followed by a few etiquette lessons interjected by several rounds of snogging. Now Eggsy couldn't look at a damn bread roll without losing his shit.
He'd also learned that anger seemed to help, or rather, channelling into anger. With no bad guy to hit, he'd jumped into the gym the moment he got back and hit the punching bag until his hands were so numb he couldn't think anymore.
He struggled to get his breath back as he unwound the white bandages from his knuckles and dumped them on one of the training benches. He showered quickly, so his thoughts didn't have time to linger, before changing back into his suit and heading home.
'Home' at this point was a well-kept town house resplendent with modern furnishings and very fit for a mother raising a young baby.
Eggsy stopped in the hallway, leaning against the wall, gathering the strength needed to force the grin on his face as his sister, only very recently discovering walking, charged to him and threw herself into his arms.
"Hey, sweetheart." Eggsy cooed, hefting her into his arms before walking them both into the living room where his mother was sat, perusing a magazine. She smiled as she saw him.
The one good thing about all of this was that at least his mother and his sister had a better life now. One of the very first things Eggsy had done after joining Kingsman was giving his step-dad a good old wallop. (Well, perhaps more than a wallop, but he'd had it coming).
After that, his mother had conceded, very happily, to moving in with him to his Kingsman issue home.
Living with his mother and his sister had some downsides, privacy wasn't necessarily an issue but it did make keeping his line of work a secret that much harder but he got by. He realised that was all he really did nowadays, get by.
"How was your day?" Michelle asked, kissing him on the cheek and taking Daisy from him.
"Fine." He replied, but in all honesty, he was fairly sore from his day of working out.
"You want something to eat?" His mother asked, and Eggsy smiled and shook his head.
"Nah, s'all right. I'll make somethin' later, wanna get a shower in." He lied, knowing fully well he'd had one not twenty minutes ago. But he kissed his sister on the cheek before leaving the room.
He went out the back way this time, trying to be as quiet as a mouse so his mother wouldn't notice him leaving.
He sighed as he stepped out into the cold air, a crescent moon shining down on him from above.
He watched the steam from his breath curl in the air for a moment, took off his glasses and then he went to Harry's.
He let himself in through the front door with the only set of keys in existence. He turned on the hallway light and smiled to himself when he was greeted with the pictures on the walls and the butterfly diagrams littering the wallpaper. This was becoming a little ritual of his now, around once every week he would let himself into Harry's house and, generally, have a bit of a clean.
He made sure the pressed butterfly cases were smudge-free and the silverware was polished and the carpets hoovered. He supposed he was keeping the place spick and span for Harry's return.
He always took his glasses off when he did this, as well, because he didn't need Merlin knowing what he was doing. The Scotsman would just corner him and tell him what he was doing wasn't healthy.
Eggsy wasn't a fucking idiot, he knew what he was doing wasn't healthy, but he had to do something. It was better than spending his days crying in a ball and letting the world go to shit around him.
He wondered what Harry would say if he could see him coping as badly as he was, but that was kind of the point. Harry couldn't see him. If Harry were any kind of decent, he wouldn't have let himself get shot in the head.
Blinking away the memory, Eggsy went to the kitchen where he kept the cream cleaner and went to work.
It took him around an hour and a half to do the bottom half of the house, and he amused himself by imaging what his mother would make of such dedication to housekeeping when she had to bribe him just to do the dishes.
He moved upstairs, tackling Harry's office before his bedroom. He hated going into Harry's bedroom, being swarmed with all the memories of everything he'd felt there. But then his office wasn't much better. They had shared their first, most perfect kiss there.
He wiped down Harry's desk before letting out a breath of exhaustion and taking a quick sit down across the room. His eyes roamed the walls and reread the news headlines he'd practically memorised by now for the millionth time.
Sat there, staring at all the shit that got more publicity than Harry ever did, it occurred to Eggsy that no one knew that he had died, and no one had known that he'd died saving the world. They'd just let Harry go like he'd meant nothing, he had no legacy. Just the one that lived on through Eggsy, the one that lived on through Galahad.
But it wasn't enough, Eggsy knew that, and that was why he felt moisture gathering in the corner of his eyes and quickly rubbed them, refusing to cry twice in the same day. If he started to get puffy eyes, people might notice.
He was distracted by his phone going off in his pocket, he quickly pulled it out and read the text from Roxy.
Hey babe, want to meet for a drink? Got business stuff to talk about x
Eggsy frowned momentarily, wondering what 'business stuff' she needed to tell him that she couldn't have told him at Kingsman before he shrugged to himself.
He left Harry's once he'd finished and headed straight home, sneaking in quietly before changing out of his bespoke suit and into some tight jeans, black polo, white snapback. As he checked himself out in the mirror, he suddenly felt much more like his old self again and found himself smiling to himself as he jogged down the stairs, sticking his head in the doorway of the kitchen and letting his mum know he was heading out and would be late back.
He met Roxy in an upbeat club in London, hugging her as they made their way to the bar. As she leant over the bar to order drinks, he took a moment to admire the sleek black dress she was wearing, and the pointed stilettos on her feet as she stuck one out to elevate her height.
"You look great." He told her when she presented him with some odd coloured vodka drink.
"Thanks." She said, grinning. "Needed to get away."
Eggsy could tell she was pretending to be happier than she was, more than likely in an effort to cheer him up.
"So, what business stuff?" Eggsy asked, making a show of looking around himself. "You sure we're safe to talk here?"
She nodded her head and rolled her eyes simultaneously. "It's not launch codes, Eggsy. They want a vote on whether or not we should promote someone to Arthur, or whether we should bring someone else in." She nudged him. "We can't decide without Galahad."
Roxy realised immediately that that was the wrong choice of words. The light in Eggsy's eyes seemed to visibly die and he nodded before looking down, fingering his glass but not drinking from it.
She closed her eyes and berated herself. She hated this, she hated the way he tried to hide that he'd been winded so no one would think anything was wrong. Because that meant that he was alone.
"Look..." She said gently, ready to finally bring it up and put an end to this, to help her friend, but before she could say anything, her phone pinged and Eggsy's phone vibrated within seconds of each other.
Eggsy gave her a weird look as he pulled his phone from his pocket, watching as she fished hers from her clutch.
Eggsy looked down at the text he'd just received.
Emergency. Come in immediately – Gawain dead. M
Eggsy, wide eyed, immediately looked up to Roxy and the look she gave him clearly suggested she'd just received exactly the same message.
They only looked at each other for a brief moment before they were on their feet and out of the club, drinks abandoned on the bar.