Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the original characters and the situations all characters end up in. Everything else belongs to someone else and that's the way of it.
Sorry for the late update, I was sick and then on vacation. Enjoy!
Mated, Not Married
Young as she was, Daisy just barely made it through dinner before she started to nod off as they left the dinner table to sit in the parlor to chat. Which was probably for the best really, since it was obvious Michelle had a lot she wanted to get off her chest, but was holding it all back due to the small ears in the room. The idea that she would just keep holding it in for Eggsy's sake was a lovely thought, Harry mused, but unlike in this case. Unless she was involved with the man in question, or feared him, it wasn't in Michelle's nature to keep her thoughts and feelings to herself. Especially when she'd probably been waiting for weeks to tell her new son in law what she thought of him and her son being mating. Unless of course Eggsy had had the sense not to tell her until the last week or so. That's what he would have done in his mate's shoes, in all honesty.
But regardless, once dessert was over it was definitely time for Daisy to be put to bed before she started fussing, and it went without saying that she wanted her big brother to be the one tucking her in for the night after a week without seeing him.
Michelle was one hundred percent behind that idea, which had Eggsy shooting him some concerned looks while he cuddled Daisy in his arms, the girl already half asleep. His mate obviously didn't want to leave him alone, Harry could tell, but Eggsy also needed to see to Daisy. Passing the girl off to Michelle would just upset the toddler, they all knew, and really it would only be delaying the unavertable. Michelle would have her say.
"Go put her to bed, Eggsy. We'll be fine until you get back."
Eggsy's look said that he knew that, it was the condition the two of them would be in when he got back that worried him.
But in the end the boy gave in, as he must, and off Eggsy went with Daisy to put her in her jammies and into bed, J.B. following at his heels. That Eggsy was moving faster than necessary, well that couldn't be helped without calling him on his determination to get back as soon as possible. And since there was no point in that, they all knew about the elephant in the room, so to speak, so Harry simply waited until Eggsy was out of sight before shifting in his chair to face Michelle more fully as he waited for the first barb to be delivered.
"So you and my boy are married now, then."
"Mated. Not married. And yes, we are. I'm sorry you and Daisy couldn't attend the ceremony." One more reason for her to be irked with him, Harry knew, denying her the chance to see her son's mated ceremony.
"Might as well be married. Livin together, ain'tcha? Sharin the same bed." That she meant they were having sex and she didn't like the idea was plain.
A mother who wanted to discuss who her son was sleeping with. Had the world gone mad, Harry honestly pondered to himself for a moment, or was he the only one who thought discussing such things with someone not sharing your bed inappropriate?
Not that he was going to ask her that. "I realize I'm not who you would have chosen for him-"
"Too bloody right."
"Michelle…I know that I'm too old for him. That he deserves better than me. I will never argue with you about that. But at the end of the day this is the reality of the situation, and you know I love him. I will do whatever I can to make him happy."
Features tight, Michelle looked away from him towards the nearby mantle, where picture frames covered the majority of the surface. Family photos, Harry knew, from his previous visits. "He was made ta be a dad, ya know. If you'd seen im with Daisy when she was born… When he was a lad all the mums in the neighborhood wanted im ta babysit for them. Sprogs ave always been mad about him."
Understanding her line of thought and where she was going with this, Harry just barely resisted the instinctual urge to reach over to pat her shoulder, knowing that his touch would anger rather than soothe in this case. "We're going to adopt, Michelle. He'll have children of his own. He won't miss out on being a father."
"Not is by blood though, will they?"
"No. I can't give him that." Could never give Eggsy that, as much as it grieved him. Would always grieve him, to his dying breath.
"That's why that King bloke dumped ya, aint it? Cause ya can't ave em even though you're one of the ones that's supposed ta be able ta…lay eggs right, like a chicken?"
"So to speak. It's not like men are built to be pregnant or give birth." She'd probably meant to twist the blade a little more, bringing up the fact that he was a failure as an omega in pretty much every way, but the whole idea of comparing a dragon to a chicken, well it unexpectedly amused him. Especially given the fact that Harry was well versed in the appetite of a pregnant dragon before and after he or she laid their egg. A farm's worth of chickens could and probably was consumed in the three months omegas carried their young in their own stomachs before turning dragon, nesting, and then laying their egg.
It was a good thing that children were so highly valued by their guilds that they were provided for, Harry thought to himself absently, otherwise the bills to feed the pregnant omegas would be ghastly high for certain families.
"Are you even listening to me?"
Opps. "My apologies. I was just thinking about how much chicken a friend of mine ate while pregnant with his third child." Colin had had a different major craving for each of his children, the man permanently off lamb and meat pies as a result of his first two pregnancies. "Did you eat more than was normal for a human when you were pregnant with Eggsy?"
Michelle blinked at him in surprise, the nature of the question throwing her off her game. "I ate more than twice as much with Eggsy as I did with Daisy. Which was weird cause I was bigger with er than I was with im, though he was the bigger baby besides. Weirder still since I didn't have Lee feedin me every bloody time I blinked the second time around and..." Trailing off Michelle's hands fisted in her lap, the face which had lit up with memories returning to its harsher, more pinched expression from moments before.
"Everythin alright er?"
Looking over and up, Harry worked up a smile for his mate. "We were just talking about her pregnancies with you and Daisy. Apparently she ate quite a lot when she was pregnant with you."
"Well that's normal when you're carryin a dragon baby, innit?" Walking over Eggsy sat down on the couch beside his mother, slinging a companionable arm around her shoulders to tuck her in against him, while he held Harry's gaze. His mate was smart enough to realize that Harry generally tended to avoid discussions about babies as much as possible, and therefore Michelle must have brought it up somehow after most likely being warned by Eggsy not to do that very thing.
Which was likely why Eggsy felt obligated to throw himself on the sword, so to speak, by announcing that since he had snooped and looked through Harry's baby pictures when he was going through the house, well it was only fair that Harry got to see his own pictures, weren't it?
Immediately Harry was torn with indecision, caught between his serious desire to see the pictures in question, which he'd never been offered the opportunity to see before, and the knowledge that he'd never asked or even hinted at wanting to see them since he had thought it would pain both Eggsy and his mother to look at those pictures. At the photographs containing Lee's images and more importantly, the three of them in much happier times, before they'd lost Lee and that happiness for quite a long time.
"Sorry, Luv, don't know where they are exactly." Michelle informed them, blatantly lying through her teeth. The woman was not good at it.
"So'll right, Mum. I know where they are."
And so saying Eggsy bound off the couch again and headed over to a nearby cabinet while a cloud of tension built up in the room while Eggsy rooted around for the albums in question. Albums he found quickly enough, and then Eggsy came over to hand the first one over to Harry. It was a faded blue, the color suggesting it had lost some of its former brightness over time, with a stork carrying a bundle in its beak depicted on the front.
Perhaps trying to clear the air a little, Eggsy moved to stand behind Harry, looping his arms around his neck companionably as he spoke. "Never did get why parents would tell their sprogs they was brought by a stork or found under a cabbage leaf. I mean that's just fucked up, innit? They'd either think they was hatched from some bird's egg, and then abandoned, or just abandoned period in a garden ta survive on their own."
"And you think a proper explanation of where babies come from would confuse and traumatize them less?"
The sound of Eggsy amusement at the idea had Harry making a mental note to insure that when the time came he'd be the one giving their future children The Talk. The gods only knew what the boy would tell them.
And since he really, really had no intention of discussing sex with his mate or mother in law, Harry deliberately opened the album he held and very pointedly turned his attention to studying the first picture, which featured a very dishevelled but beaming Michelle, Lee sitting beside her on the hospital bed, with a blue bundle in his arms that could only be Eggsy.
"Handsome little bugger, wasn't I?"
"The handsomest." Harry agreed, flushing only a little when Eggsy leaned down to brush his lips over his in an upside down sort of kiss before they both turned their attention back to the next picture on the page while Michelle watched them both from her seat on the couch for a couple minutes before telling them to come over and take a seat on the couch. That way they could all see.
Which was precisely what they did, a temporary truce called for the time being.
)
Even though he'd had the entire car ride home to wrap his head around what his mate had said before they'd left Michelle's for the night, Harry still couldn't believe Eggsy had said it. Thought it, well he was willing to admit that when Michelle had made those comments his thoughts had run in the same vein as Eggsy's obviously had, but to say what he had outloud, in front of the woman…no, no Harry's mind was never going to wrap around the boy bringing up sex in his mother's presence, and something had to be said now that they were home.
"I cannot believe you said that in front of your mother!"
"There ya go. I was just thinkin that you's was gonna explode if ya didn't say something bout it soon." Amusement heavy in his voice, Eggsy turned from where he stood in front of their front door, J.B. in his arms. "Calm down, A'rry. It was just the truth."
"You told your mother we spent the week having sex!"
"We did spend the week shagging."
"Eggsy!"
"What? She was tryin take make you feel guilty, us feel guilty cause I hadn't been around ta see her and Daisy while you and I was havin our sort of honeymoon. I mean honestly, you'd have thought I hadn't visited her and the sprog in weeks, not three times the week before. I had every right ta tell her that we was doing what all newly married couples did after the weddin and no man in his right mind calls on his mum when he's supposed ta be in bed makin his new husband happy. Fuck, leavin you at home so I could go off ta chat with her or play babysitter so she could go out? You'd ave been within your rights ta divorce me for that."
"One, it's not the same thing, being married and mated, and two, I would have been completely understanding if you'd needed to spend a few hours there."
"Really? Cause if the situation was reversed, and you'd up and left me in bed ta go visiting, I'd have been bloody furious with you. Well, less some emergency had happened, which it didn't. And we're as good as married, so don't be thinkin ya can step out on me, Harry Hart, or you'll be sleepin on the couch."
The wink Eggsy aimed in his direction made it clear he was just teasing. Still…
"You know I would never cheat on you."
"Yeah, I know. Which is a good thing, since with your height you'd put your back out somethin awful sleeping on the couch. Good thing we're both the faithful type, come to that, since I don't think I'd enjoy sleepin on our couches neither."
His ire with Eggsy and his earlier behavior lessening considerably, knowing that Eggsy meant that, Harry's expression softened a little, though he was still a little peeved. How could he not be, after all. "Just don't talk about our intimate relations while your mother is present. Or with anyone else, actually."
Better to cover all bases, Harry decided, especially given the fact that Eggsy's generation seemed determined to document every aspect of their lives on their various social media outlets. He loved the boy dearly, he did, but Harry knew himself well enough to know that there would be hell to pay if the boy talked about them having sex online.
"Intimate relations?" The look on Eggsy's face suggested he was moments away from laughing at him.
"Eggsy."
"What? That's just…is that really how ya're gonna refer ta our sex life? As our intimate relations?" Laughter bubbled up, Eggsy biting down on his bottom lip doing very little to muffle the sound. Not that he was trying very hard since Eggsy literally vibrated with merriment before just giving up the pretext that he was anything but wildly entertained at the idea of Harry using what he apparently thought of as antiquated phrase.
Keeping the rather cutting responses that came to mind to himself, he didn't want to fight with Eggsy right before bed or at all, really, Harry resisted the urge to rub his temples in frustration and instead settled for framing the younger man's face between his hands. And giving Eggsy his most serious and commanding of looks, Harry very firmly demanded his mate's word that he wouldn't discuss their sex life with anyone ever again.
Face still flushed with laughter, Eggsy was visibly struggling to keep a straight face long enough to answer him. Though at least he was trying, Harry supposed.
"I wouldn't be sayin nothin bad, A'rry, but alright, I promise. Though if someone says somethin insultin bout you, since King used ta, can I at least tell the bastard you was just too much man for im ta handle and it was im that was crap in the sack, not you?"
"Since I have no intention of outliving you, no. We…we know what happens in our bed and that's…it's no one else's business. They can say what they like about me. I don't care."
"I ain't gonna stand for no one talkin shit bout my mate." Eggsy stated mulishly.
"And King will see you dead if you give him any more reason to hate you." Harry shot back bluntly. "He barely tolerates you now."
"But-"
"No buts. Turn that energy towards making our businesses as much a success as you can. The more profit we make, the more Chester will have to pay you, as you'll recall."
Their Guild Master had tried to argue that the decreased value of Harry's assets was simply a reflection of the present economy, rather than mismanagement on his part, and so according to their laws the two of them now had a year to prove otherwise. If they failed to noticeable increase their revenue King could slip by on making up at least some of the money losses, while if they could turn a noteworthy profit, the Guild Master would owe Eggsy millions.
To say they had motivation to succeed would be a massive understatement.
"I could take im." It was muttered, but Eggsy's words were still understandable.
"Eggsy, at this point I could probably take him. That's not the point. The point is we have more important things to focus on than what people think of me. Or you for that matter, since I'm sure we're going to go up against plenty of bigoted, small minded prats now that we're joining the business world. We know who we are, and that's what's important. What they think doesn't matter."
"Still not gonna let no one talk shit about you."
Sighing, Eggsy really did have one of the hardest heads he'd ever come across, Harry decided to table the argument for the time being. They could pick it up again later. After he hadn't just had a stressful day that had concluded with a visit with his mother in law. "I'm going to head upstairs now. You should take J.B. for one last walk before we turn in. Daisy was slipping him plenty of food under the table during dinner."
"Yeah, she does that."
"Hmm. And I wonder who she gets it from."
Eggsy's innocent expression didn't fool Harry in the slightest.
