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Don't Mind Me

What the Hell had William said to Eggsy? That was the question at the forefront of Harry mind as he watched the two men in question spar in their wolf forms. It was also most likely the same question running through Taron's mind like the Tasmanian Devil, and had been for quite some time at this point. Also how the hell did he and Taron fit in to William's scheme? They obviously played some part as several times during the conversation between the two, then before spar, and now at every break between bouts Eggsy looked over at the two of them. Stared at them with the sort of intensity that suggested that he was trying to etch pictures of them onto his brain. Hell, Eggsy was staring at them so intently it was really a wonder the boy hadn't strained his eyes or something. And what was up with that?

And why did Eggsy scent carry so many notes of fear when he did it? Was William training the boy to fear them? That couldn't be it. Even if William were to try that it wouldn't work. Eggsy was-well they were courting and Taron was family. Plus that wasn't the vibe Harry was getting and...and...

Fuck. What was going on?

He was improving though. It was astonishing really, how much Eggsy's wolf had apparently learned from sparring with Taron but apparently had chosen, until now, not to demonstrate. Was it because Taron was a maternal? Did Eggsy's wolf rebel that strongly against the idea of possibly causing Taron harm, even knowing that Taron was stronger? When in the human mindset Eggsy had made it clear that he considered both Harry and Taron to be stronger and more lethal than him but a wolf's way of seeing things could be quite different than their human half, too.

Glancing over in Taron's direction Harry wasn't surprised to see that the older man was considerably irked by this turn of events. He certainly hadn't liked the insinuation that Willam could train Eggsy better than he could-which now appeared to be the case.

Harry thought about giving Taron's shoulder a pat but then thought better of it. Taron wouldn't appreciate it, not when William would possibly see it and comment on it later.

So Harry kept quiet, the two watching silently for another seven or eight minutes before a beeping sounded, both men turning their head in the direction the sound had come from. Aka the pile of clothes William had neatly set aside earlier.

Looking back in the direction of the sparring Harry wasn't surprised to see that the two wolves were no longer engaging with each other, Willam padding over to the pile while Eggsy came over to them, stopping in front of them before transforming back into himself.

"Ow'd I do?"

Thinking to give Taron a moment to think about how to respond to that diplomatically Harry smiled and reached out to ruffle his man's hair, telling Eggsy that he'd done much better.

A beaming smile, though it dimmed a little at Eggsy sheepishly looked in Taron's direction.

"Couldn't have done so well if not for the stuff ya taught me already. My wolf just had ta get his head on straight and out my arse."

Taron lifted an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yeah. Uncle Will pointed out that he-my wolf-was probably real mad at me cause of the way I'd been treatin im all these years. That he was probably handicappin me cause of it in fights cause he wants me ta hurt too."

"That's..." Harry trailed off, losing himself in thought because fuck, how had that not occurred to them previously?

Judging by the creative swearing Taron was doing the man was thinking along the same lines. They both should have known better and felt like idiots for not seeing it. They'd been so impressed by how well Eggsy's human side had controlled his wolf side that they hadn't stopped to think about what that meant from the boy's more animal side. Harry felt like a total prat.

Also a little worried about just how twin like they were behaving. He liked Taron very much...but did not want to be him. Ever. The drama of it all would exhaust him within a week.

Taron didn't seem worried about it of course, he was too busy gnawing on the situation. "And you were looking at us so often because...your wolf needs to protect us. William used us to motivate your wolf to behave himself."

That made perfect sense to Harry, Eggsy nodding in confirmation of Taron's theory.

"Yeah. Exactly. Before every spar and when I'm a wolf I gotta remind im that if we fuck this up you two could get hurt cause of me. Seems ta be workin so far."

Harry frowned, stating that that was a lot of pressure for Eggsy to be putting on himself. And he and Taron were certainly not defenseless by any means.

"No, but he needs to learn in a month what others learn through years of training. He won't break under the pressure. He's an Egerton." William pointed out dryly, the other man now dressed from the waist down. "I'll be back the same time tomorrow to continue his training. I'm working to free up a lot more of my schedule in the future for this."

"I can take over his training."

"No. You can't. His wolf is too damaged right now. Asking his wolf to attack one of the few allies and family members he has is too much for him to handle currently. I might be family, but I'm family he won't trust because of my divided loyalties. I'm the better option."

While Taron mulled that over Harry silently agreed that that too made a lot of sense. And even if it wasn't the case it did seem that William could get through to Eggsy in a way they couldn't, which was the main thing. As William had pointed out, there was still a lot for Eggsy to learn and very limited time for that to happen. William was their best bet...unless he wanted to learn all of Eggsy's tells so that if they met in battle later William would come out the victor.

But no, even if Eggsy improved by leaps and bounds in the month they had he still wouldn't be a match for William. It would take years of training and experience before Eggsy could hope to stand on the same level as his father's cousin. William didn't need to fight dirty. But still...

"Your father won't like you training him."

Fingers still in the act of brushing aside a few stray bits of debris that clung to the wool of his jumper William continued to look down at what he was doing, rather than at them as he answered. A sure sign that he didn't want them reading into anything his face might give away.

"He sees it as gathered intelligence about the boy. As long as he thinks that's all it is it should be fine."

"Is that what you're doing?" Taron drawled out, his skepticism clear.

"No. I won't help him hurt the boy. Whether you believe that or not."

Looking back up again William held Taron's gaze for one long, telling moment before he turned to look at Eggsy. "You did well. I expect better tomorrow."

"Yeah, that don't surprise me. Thanks, Uncle Will."

Taking the hand Eggsy offered him William shook it, then said goodbye to them all with his usual stiff formality before striding off in the direction he'd come from earlier without looking back, leaving the three of them to watch him go.

And appreciate the fine figure he cut doing so, not that Harry would ever say so outloud. But Eggsy did have some very attractive family members, William's father withstanding. And Addison of course, though the man would probably be considered good looking if he were to smile more. Or at least stop looking at people like he thought they were wastes of space and his time.

"Well that went better than we thought it would." Harry ventured to point out once William was out of sight.

"Yeah. I hardly lost any blood at all."

"Just scratches, right?" Taron immediately went into mothering mode, William temporarily forgotten in favor of looking Eggsy over carefully.

"Yup. I'm fine, really. Hey, do ya ever spar much with Uncle Addy?"

Still looking Eggsy over Taron stated that they did, occasionally. Why?

"Cause I can't really fight with ya, but I figured I could watch ya two and get tips that way? I'm pretty good at absorbing stuff that way. Just a thought, since I got ta wait till Uncle Will comes back."

"We could do that." Taron agreed, looking towards the house. As far as they knew Addison was still lurking around in there somewhere. "But first let's head inside and get you hydrated, all right? And maybe a snack since you didn't eat that much at breakfast."

Always happy to eat, Eggsy declared that that sounded good to him.

)

After lunch and some playtime with Daisy before her nap Eggsy found himself working out with his eldest uncle in the family gym. Harry was planning to join them once he finally got off the phone with his mum. Apparently she was currently out of the country, visiting some friends in Rome, and had only just heard the news about him and Harry. She had a lot to say about the subject and Harry had shooed them off so that he didn't have an audience while his mother embarrassed the hell out of him. Well, no more than she already had since she'd shrieked at her son as soon as he'd picked up the phone, her excited monologue loud enough humans would have heard some of it.

Eggsy could totally relate to wanting to be mortified in private, even if what he'd overheard had him thinking he was really going to like Harry's mum once he met her. Especially since part of Harry's mom's opening monologue had been a statement about how was it true that Eggsy looked as good naked as Taron had in his youth, and wasn't a young man's stamina so invigorating?

Mortifying...but also amusing as fuck.

Anyway...after some stretching to warm up and such Uncle Taron had headed over to lift something with his legs while Eggsy fell into his normal routine of falling back on his military training to further loosen up and push himself. Aka he started doing the standard push-ups and sit-ups to get extra warmed up before he attempted to use any of the fancy equipment that surrounded him.

Many of which resembled torture devices.

Amused at himself Eggsy's thoughts turned to the fact that this-the way he was living currently-sorta reminded him of being in the army. In a good way. Well mostly a good way. His nights and early mornings would be a lot better if he didn't feel like he'd been worked over hard all day. He was jonesing for Harry like crazy, fun as sleeping and cuddling with him was. And who could fucking blame him?

Sigh. He remembered the whole being too tired to do anything but sleep from the early days of boot camp too.

But he'd bounced back from that pretty damn fast once he'd gotten the hang of things, especially since for the first time he'd been looking at three square meals a day and a structured environment. One with a clear-cut hierarchy, set goals, and a sense of 'pack'. Of belonging. Of being around people who were all trying to better themselves and become the best that they could be. Not common goals in his neighborhood. Not for long, anyway.

So yeah, he might not have had as much food as his young wolf would have liked, and the constantly being ordered around by humans hadn't always sat well with his wolf, much less him, but overall Eggsy had good memories associated with him military days. Had been sorry when they'd had to end.

And now he was thinking about why it had ended, which was depressing and not where his head needed to be right now. Still...he wondered how his mum was doing...

"Tired already?"

Looking over, realizing that he'd probably stopped moving a while ago judging from the look his uncle gave him as soon as their eyes met, Eggsy flushed and shook his head. "No. Mind wandered."

Taron inclined his head, leaving it at that.

Which was most definitely not how one of his military instructors would have handled that, Eggsy thought with a grin. So yay for not being in the military currently.

They worked out together without comment for another ten minutes or so before his uncle spoke again, asking Eggsy if he'd thought of his next gesture where Harry was concerned.

"I've got some ideas." Which was to say Eggsy had come to the conclusion that maybe he shouldn't have made such a grand gesture already, instead building up to it. Topping his first one was not going to be easy.

"You know, despite the fact that a number of dominants will claim to have courted Harry...that's really an over exaggeration. It's more fair to say Harry let dominants try and court him when he was younger. In my books if the motive for courting isn't pure-scratch that. Wrong word given the sex usually involved. What I mean is...they didn't want Harry. They wanted who they thought he was and is. And that's why they failed before they'd even begun. But you see him. That put you ahead of most of them already."

Intrigued, Eggsy asked why Taron thought so. It wasn't like he'd known Harry that long, technically.

"Trust me. I know how dominants look at those they see as a prize to be won."

The way his uncle said that, combined with what he knew of the older man's 'dating/courting' history, had Eggsy heart hurting for him.

"Did any of the ones who tried to court you see you?"

A rueful smile. "Well to be a little fair I'm not in the habit of letting people see 'me'. But yes, a couple of them did. Vasic...it would have never worked. We'd have killed each other. And there was a very sweet dominant I met in Austria about a decade ago who-well he was genuine in his courtship. Just not for me."

Given what others had had to say about this Vasic guy Eggsy figured it was for the best that that courtship hadn't worked out. But still...

"I kinda want ta meet this Vasic bloke."

Uncle Taron laughed. "He wants to meet you, too."

"Yeah?"

"Oh, yes. I figured to wait on that unless things heat up, so to speak, with King. Vasic's 'support' would be useful then."

Eggsy's mind translated that to mean that Chester King might be a pompous, arrogant arse, but he was smart enough not to want to be on the bad side of a feral wolf who was unarguably one of the most dangerous men in the world.

Made sense.

"Has Uncle Will ever fought Vasic?"

"No."

Okay...that was very definitive. "Why not?"

Dark amusement came into Taron's eyes and quirked his lips. "William's father would never risk his heir that way. Or allow William to risk his life so needlessly. And to be fair one of them would likely end up dead or permanently injured if they were to fight each other. Vasic would rather die than submit or admit defeat. William has more sense than that...but Vasic isn't known for letting his prey walk away. A lot of wolves have ended up in the ground for challenging him."

"Right." Lovely mental images, those. "But if they were ta face off, seriously, who do ya figure would come out on top?"

"Most would say Vasic. Me? I honestly don't know. It could go either way."

Sensing Harry's nearing presence Eggsy's brain tossed aside all his Vasic related questions like Daisy when presented with kiwi. She fucking hated that fruit. Instead he immediately leapt to his feet, his head turned to watch Harry descend the stairs and come into view.

He was probably smiling like a total idiot too.

"My money, if you're interested, would be on Vasic." Harry stated with a smile as he walked towards him. "William fights with too much honor. And doesn't love it the way Vasic does."

"True." Taron agreed, getting up from the torture advice to sit down on another machine that Eggsy didn't know the name of. "But William never gets lost in bloodlust. He's always in control."

"Valid point. Though my money would still be on Vasic."

Having reached Eggsy Harry lowered his head, Eggsy already going up on his toes to meet the kiss. Which didn't last nearly as long as he would have liked, but Uncle Taron was in the room.

"So is your mum comin home straight away ta check me out?" Uncle Taron had mentioned that that was a distinct possibility.

"Not yet. She has a new beau. But if the gossip about us gets juicier she might cut her vacation short."

Laughing at the look on Harry's face Eggsy gave him another kiss for it.

"Also I looked in on Daisy before coming down. She seems quite enamored with the fox stuffie Taron bought her."

"Of course she is. As if there was any doubt."

Eggsy joined Harry in smirking over that response. Typical Taron.