On Hand

by fideliant

Summary:

Or, Five Things A Gentleman Should Never Do Without

“In my defence,” Eggsy says, “It could have happened to anyone.”

Notes:

Sequel to Class Of Conduct, but can be read as a standalone.

 

1. Umbrella

“In my defence,” Eggsy says, because no half-arsed attempt to shirk responsibility would be complete without those three words, “It could have happened to anyone.”

Behind him, Harry sighs exasperatedly, and come the fuck on, what is up with that? “I’m aware,” he says, closing his front door. “But of course, it had to happen to you, didn’t it?”

Rolling his eyes, Eggsy hangs up his umbrella in the foyer and doesn’t even bother to take off his shoes as he clomps down the hallway to Harry’s living room, where he dumps himself on the couch and slaps a hand over his face and winces into a groan; glasses, he forgot about those, but whatever, it's already a crapfest, might as well add greasy fingerprints on bulletproof lenses into the mix.

He hears Harry coming in not a minute later, and the tsking noises he’s making could be at just about half a dozen different things right now, but Eggsy’s willing to bet good money on the scuff marks he knows he left all over Harry’s lacquered wood floor on his way in. “There are other ways of throwing a tantrum that don’t include adding another fifty pounds to my housekeeping bill, Eggsy,” Harry admonishes.

Eggsy uncovers his face to scowl up at the ceiling. “Who the fuck cleans your house? Prince Charles?”

“The same contractor who cleans yours, as I’m sure you know,” Harry answers with absolutely no sting in his words, and fuck his whole entire life, Eggsy does know that, but he’d just as soon swallow a bottle of floor cleaner as concede the point, so he folds his arms and keeps glaring at the ceiling, like if he does so long enough then it’ll come crashing down and put him out of his misery.

“If you’re gonna give me another round, just get it over and done with,” Eggsy says, because last things to give shits about aside, he’s used up all his shits to give in the half-hour long debrief they’ve just come back from, which Merlin spent twenty-nine minutes of chewing Eggsy the absolute fuck out about protocol and procedural integrity, and god fucking save them all, bomb safety, which Eggsy swears is now tattooed across his arse cheeks from the number of times he’s been walloped with it.

“I think everything that needs to be said has been said already,” Harry says, looking down and tracing one of the faint black smudges on his floor with the tip of his umbrella. “Arthur made things explicitly clear, did he not?”

“Arthur can suck my balls,” Eggsy growls. Head of Kingsman or no, it takes a special brand of twattery to pile in when a man’s down and being kicked across the highway to hell and back with steel-toed boots — Merlin’s arse-fucking had been excoriating enough without anyone else contributing their own shitty two pence’s worth, let alone the second Arthur whom Eggsy’s decided for the life of him that he also just cannot stand. Man, being an unlikeable wankstain must be part of the job requirement, or something. It makes Eggsy thankful to the powers that be for not screwing them both over and elevating Harry to the post when the prospect cropped up; he doesn’t know what either of them would be doing with that now.

“I’d rather not he have that privilege,” Harry says, and Eggsy can’t suppress a grudging grin. “Nonetheless, we should consider the merits of his… feedback on an individual basis.”

“I’ve a better idea — let’s not do that, Arthur’s a cunt, Merlin needs to calm his tits, and Bob’s your uncle, yeah?” Eggsy says as he sits up, swinging his legs over the edge of the couch.

Harry looks mildly vexed at this. “Eggsy, I want you to take this seriously.”

“I am! It’s not like I meant to, y’know,” Eggsy says, waving his hands above his head.

“Dispose of a micro-IED by flushing it down a toilet,” Harry fills in for him, raising an eyebrow. Eggsy usually loves that eyebrow of his, just like how he loves every other part of Harry, but now he wants nothing more than to shave it off, straight razor, no cream. “And now we have an exploded septic tank to show for it.”

“I was thinking on my feet!” Eggsy insists. “It was that or have people blown up, Harry.”

“And what about the fifteen whole minutes between the time of bomb-flushing and septic tank implosion?” Harry asks conversationally. “Truly, you must have been starved for time to await instructions on how to properly disarm it.”

“How was I supposed to know I had that long before it went off? It didn’t have a timer, I’m not a fucking bomb expert.”

“No, that’s why we were wiring Tristan in,” Harry says. “Which you should have waited for, rather than deciding on a course of action yourself and executing it without approval.”

Eggsy balks at Harry. This is sounding all too familiar to him, less the poshed-up swearing and angry Scottish syllables and scarily elaborate fantasies about sneaking into the shop at three in the morning to take a dump on Arthur’s desk.

“Fuck, Harry. Not you too,” he grumbles.

“Yes, me too,” Harry says, eyebrows furrowed, which feasibly means that shagging this incident into old history isn’t very viable anymore. Pity — Eggsy had been looking forward to trying that all afternoon, his last hope at finally treating this like the nothing everyone’s been making hay of as if they were attempting to feed every last sheep in Wales that it is. “I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to act independent of mission control, Eggsy. Eventually it’ll be expected of you to do nothing less. In any case, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t exercise reasonable caution whenever you can, even with anything as time-sensitive as dealing with ordnances. Probably more so.”

“This from the guy who pissed on a bomb once,” Eggsy mutters, flicking at a bit of lint on one of the couch cushions.

“A perfectly valid course of action when you’re dealing with a detonator that deactivates upon exposure to salt water, which Tristan had very kindly informed me of,” Harry says smoothly, damn him and his ability to fashion aggravatingly on-the-ball comebacks out of thin air. “I imagine he might have been able to dream up a way to assist you similarly, if he had been allowed the chance to apply his expertise, of course.”

“I’m done,” Eggsy announces, standing up and brushing his suit off before raising his hands in front of him, palms turned outward in capitulation. He is more than done — he is at least four hundred percent finished and through with Merlin and Arthur and Kingsman and Harry, because with everyone having had a go at gnawing his arse off, nobody’s gotten down to commending him on working around a bomb on his own and costing them no lives in the process, just a lousy septic tank that was probably due for replacing anyway. Seriously, they’re all supposed to be gentlemen, would it kill anyone to be infinitesimally decent enough to talk about that for one fucking second?

Harry’s eyebrow tells Eggsy that he isn’t quite favouring that option either. “I’m not.”

“Too fucking bad,” Eggsy grunts sullenly and makes for an exit, digging around in his suit jacket for the lighter and packet of Mayfairs he keeps in there somewhere. He needs a smoke, and then a drink, the two things he knows that Harry doesn’t like smelling on his breath together when they kiss, but fuck that, and fuck Harry too; he can’t ever remember holding this sentiment in his mind before, but Eggsy isn’t up for kissing, nor is he in the mood to be level-headed about his life choices at the moment, and quite possibly for a long time to come.

He is almost at the entrance to the hallway when something hooks into his collar and holds him back, cold wood pressing to the nape of his neck; the handle of Harry’s umbrella, Eggsy surmises.

“What,” Eggsy says, biting as much grit into that single word as he can, fingers curling around the box of fags in his jacket, almost tight enough to crush it.

“I said I wasn’t done with you yet,” Harry says sternly, and pulls, hard.

Eggsy’s not expecting it, which is why he stumbles back, and the gymnast in him uses his momentum to twist around to regain his bearings, only his foot whacks the corner of Harry’s coffee table and he stumbles even more, flopping into Harry’s arms with the grace of a newborn foal learning to walk. There, he blinks dumbly up at Harry, who looks back at him neutrally, conspicuously unfazed by this turn of events, as if he’d planned for this to happen all along.

Refusing to let himself be embarrassed on the off-chance he’s genuinely being wound up, Eggsy smirks with his hands flat against Harry’s chest, says, “Hi,” and leans up to kiss him. Oh, Harry might be playing him, but Eggsy can play this game just as easily, and he’ll be damned if he lets Harry claim the upper hand without a fight. He drops his tongue into Harry’s mouth the way he knows he likes, slow and deep, and gladly accepts Harry’s own. For being painfully upright about everything, Harry’s the wet sort of kisser, which Eggsy has never been a huge fan of, but shitting shit, Harry always makes it so hot when he’s the one playing hockey with Eggsy’s tonsils, and Eggsy groans unabashedly to let him know exactly how many goals Harry’s scoring with each broad sweep of his soft, loving tongue.

“I’m only concerned for your safety, Eggsy, darling,” Harry murmurs, and kisses Eggsy’s nose, brief but tender. He hoists Eggsy back up before settling his hands on Eggsy’s hips with a look so fond that Eggsy has to remind himself that he was wholly ticked off at this man not two minutes ago. He’s really got to put some work into that, staying angry with Harry. Eggsy’s life would be that much more sorted if he wasn’t tripping over his own two feet for him, both figuratively and literally.

“You worry too much about me, you know,” Eggsy tells Harry, and smiles at him. It’s funny — Harry worries and Eggsy worries that he worries, and worries some more about Harry getting wind of him worrying, which is just, yikes. Talk about a vicious cycle waiting to happen.

“I don’t think I could ever worry enough about you,” Harry sighs, shaking his head.

That’s so, so… Harry, and Eggsy doesn’t even care about how fucking saccharine it sounds; it’s sweet but in the nicest way imaginable, which makes Eggsy giggle, and he’s not the giggling sort but he can’t bloody help himself. Harry actually looks a little alarmed, and there could only ever be one response that evokes: Eggsy giggles some more.

It’s a freaky thing, being in honest-to-goodness love. Still, ten out of ten, would most certainly recommend. Eleven out of ten when it comes to Harry Hart, even though it’s too late for anyone else, now.

Sucks to be the rest of humanity, Eggsy thinks.

“I promise to be more careful, if that helps,” he says.

Harry tilts his head, looking unconvinced. “You always say that.”

“Well, yeah. But I do mean it now. Promise promise.”

“Such an inspirer of confidence, you are.”

“Oi, you’re not allowed to be smart, that’s my bit,” Eggsy complains, reaching for Harry again and leaning forward. “Now come on, I wanna ‘nother kiss. Gimme a kiss.”

Harry gives him a disapproving frown, but it’s betrayed by the overly fond look in his eyes and the lift to the corner of his mouth. “Say ‘please’, Eggsy.”

“Please, Eggsy,” Eggsy simpers, and when he gets his whole mouth bitten as obvious punishment, he grins stupidly into it.

 

***

 

2. Tie

Anyone who tells you that Eggsy spends all his time dreaming up new ways to shag Harry Hart is a fucking liar.

It’s like, okay. On the whole he’s done it and does it a lot, before they were fucking and even now that they are. That’s what happens when you’re forced to work around gorgeous people for extended periods of time, isn’t it? Say what you will about the weirdness that is Eggsy’s life as he knows it, but at the end of the day he’s pretty much your regular bisexual bloke with very regular bisexual needs, and like everyone else with a functioning libido, he does what he can to meet them.

For the spot of dung it’s worth, Eggsy doesn’t really mean to. But when you’re shagging a gent like Harry, who goes about sex like it’s another of those situations where decorum matters and says stuff like ‘will you let me touch you, please’ and ‘thank you, it was a pleasure’, a guy gets curious. Curious about what it would take to strip those fine manners away, to cut through decades of conditioned civility, to turn pleases and thank-yous into fucks and Jesus Christs and all other sorts of things that gentlemen clubs would probably excommunicate members for. And yes, it’s not something he thinks of all the time, but when it does come to mind, that’s his attention for anything else shot.

So, it really is only a little bit Eggsy’s fault that he still has no idea how to tie an Eldredge knot after Harry’s just showed him for the umpteenth time, having gone through it step by step at an eighth of the usual speed. For their sartorial lesson today they’ve been allocated the confines of fitting room two, which is identical to fitting room three apart concealing a massive walk-in wardrobe in the back instead of a weapons cache. Shirt racks and suit carriers hang where guns and hand grenades usually do, and the shelves stock folded trousers and bottles of cologne with too many foreign letters in their names for Eggsy to pronounce.

But none of those fit into their objective for the day; objectives, anyway, Harry’s being teaching Eggsy five different knots you can make with a tie, and Eggsy’s being getting through the next hour without putting his own brain into one. It’s not so much the boredom that’s doing it for him, it’s more that Harry’s currently sans suit jacket, which Eggsy understands is necessary when demonstrating the correct way about wearing a necktie. All the same, it’s impossible to focus on where the short end goes and how many loops you need to make with the long end when Eggsy can see the outline of Harry’s pecs through his shirt, his biceps in his sleeves, the lovely curves of his pert arse in the seat of his pinstripe trousers whenever Harry turns to swap ties from the collection he’s laid out on the instructor’s desk.

It’s a desk that reminds Eggsy of Harry’s own, back in the newspaper room where they’d had their first fuck, Eggsy sucking Harry off in his chair and receiving what was probably the best handie of his life in return. A desk Eggsy suddenly pictures having Harry bent over on, helpless and vulnerable and ready for the taking, and it’s that thought which does it — when Harry next turns around, Eggsy moves behind him, manoeuvres him down with a hand against his back and secures Harry’s wrists at the base of his spine.

He doesn’t misunderstand how Harry goes very still at having a tie wrapped around his wrists and knotted together, inexpert but tight. It’s the dangerous calm of a man who could effortlessly turn the tables if he so wished; Eggsy’s fully aware that Harry’s more than capable of reversing this situation in an instant, and this is only happening at Harry's behest. The knowledge of that is warm in his chest, arouses and excites him as he leans down to press his nose into Harry’s neck, where he smells of aftershave and fabric softener.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Harry asks, turning to look at him over his shoulder.

Like he hasn’t already figured it out. Eggsy presses the tent in his trousers to Harry’s arse, reaches around Harry to give him a cheeky touch and rub, and exhales hotly against his ear. “Need you now, Harry,” he murmurs, rubbing his cheek into the collar of Harry’s shirt and kissing his jaw.

“Our lesson isn’t over yet,” Harry says mildly, though there’s no mistaking the slight hardness bulging into Eggsy’s palm. “Need I remind you that I am required to grade you at the end of this session?”

Oh, yeah. Eggsy’d forgotten about that. “I’d better make this a good one, then,” he says, sliding his hand up the front of Harry’s trousers to undo his belt, tugging at the buckle until it clinks and gives way. Leather slithers over expensive cotton as Eggsy yanks Harry’s belt free, allowing him access to the top button of Harry’s trousers and his fly, which he does away at speed.

“Do you believe me so easily bribed, Eggsy?”

Eggsy holds Harry’s bound wrists in place with a hand and pulls his trousers down from his waist with his other, mapping the firm swell of Harry’s bottom through his briefs. “Guess I’ll find out soon enough.”

“My dear boy, I’m astounded that you would even try,” Harry sighs, pulling experimentally at his bindings, “Insulted, even, that you would think me corruptible. But do go on. At any rate, it would give me some peace of mind if you’ll have learnt something from all this, at least.”

Harry Hart, Eggsy thinks, deserves to be Fucked as nobody ever has been in the history of time. There are things people shouldn’t be allowed to say at any point during sex — before, during, or after — and Harry’s virtually filled encyclopaedias with them. Things that should be patently unsexy in and of themselves but Eggsy can’t help but find so bloody hot for reasons he’s not sure he wants to fathom, that make him want to strip off all of Harry’s clothes and tie him up and do the dirtiest things to him until he’s a begging, ungentlemanly mess. Maybe that’s why he says them, come to think of it. All the more reason to screw his brains out and then some, not that Eggsy needed any extra motivation.

“And you’re gonna teach me, yeah?” The coarse hairs lining Harry’s arse crack scritch Eggsy’s index finger as he rubs his way in and presses the pad against Harry’s hole. “Whether I like it or not?”

“I have no doubt that you will like it, dearest. Which is more than I can foresee for myself.”

Just as Eggsy said. Fucked, with a capital F.

Getting one spit-slick finger inside Harry is no problem. Two is a snug fit, though Eggsy can feel the tight ring of muscle expanding slowly around his fingers as he sinks them into Harry’s body. Doing it with proper lube gets him nice and open much quicker than this, but that’s fine; it’s not Eggsy’s intention to prepare Harry for a good old-fashioned buggering. No, he has something else in mind, perfect for the occasion of Harry unable to move about or protest too violently.

“Might you still confidently lay claim to making this interesting for me, Eggsy?” Harry’s tone is placid, though there’s a set to his jaw that Eggsy can see from behind him. “Or would I not be incorrect in assuming it’s an endeavour in progress?”

“Endeavour this,” Eggsy says thickly, and ducks down to sink his teeth into Harry’s bum. He doesn’t bite to draw blood or hurt him, just nips hard enough to leave a mark and twists his fingers deeper, grinning at Harry’s choked-off gasp of surprise.

“Oh, you horrid little brute, I ought to —”

“This little brute’s about to eat you all the way out,” Eggsy says sweetly, then parts Harry’s cheeks, pulls out his fingers, and slides his tongue in to go to town on Harry’s arsehole.

Knowing that Harry has impeccable hygiene makes Eggsy all the more unconcerned about lapping his way in without hesitation, thrusting with his tongue and sucking at the wrinkled pucker of Harry’s arsehole until he’s so turned out he can barely see straight. Fuck, the sounds his tongue makes when he slides it in and out — it’s filthy and debasing and nasty, and Eggsy wants it more than he’s wanted anything in his life, wants to piston his tongue into Harry as far as it will go and lick his orgasm right out of him.

“Eggsy, Christ,” Harry pants, and there we go, that’s the sort of thing Eggsy wants to hear, but they’re not quite there yet, so he draws a thumb along his lower lip and scrubs it against Harry’s perineum, punctuating it with a gob of spit over Harry’s opening and working it in into hot, tender flesh with his tongue, and, “Fuck! Eggsy, oh, Eggsy, fuck, ahh…!”

They still can do better than that, Eggsy knows. He takes Harry’s throbbing erection in hand and jerks the skin back, swirling his thumb into the glossy, leaking slit and giving him a firm tug, spreading precome over his length. Harry goes, “Hunnh,” and spreads his legs wider, his tied hands clenching into fists, his body squirming and undeniably demanding friction. He’s bucking into Eggsy’s hand and the front of the desk, but Eggsy holds him back, preventing him from rutting fully.

“Gonna make you come for me,” Eggsy tells him, and doesn’t wait for a snappy comeback before slurping a kiss to Harry’s arsehole and spearing his tongue in again, burying his nose into the bottom of Harry’s sacrum, below his hands and inhaling the sweat-musk scent of him there, where all is damp and lovely and perfectly Harry, whose thighs are shaking as he grinds curse words into the desk Eggsy has him pinned down on.

Harry comes on a particularly vigorous wriggle of Eggsy’s tongue, spilling most of it over Eggsy’s fingers as he clenches and moans, but also gets some on the wood of the desk and a gob or two on the carpet beneath them. Eggsy strokes it out of him, keeps on stroking even after Harry’s clenching on dry. He hums into Harry, remaining in him for the time being, if just to feel the remnants of Harry’s milked-out orgasm fluttering around his tongue. Fucking gorgeous is what it is, and Eggsy brings his gooey fingers around to have the taste of Harry he’s earned; that’s fucking gorgeous too, a sharp stroke of bitter-salt inside his mouth, and Eggsy extricates his tongue from Harry’s hole, replacing it with the two fingers he hasn’t licked clean and marking Harry with his own release.

“Love you so much,” Eggsy murmurs, rubbing Harry’s come deeper in with his fingertips. “You’re amazing, y’know that, Harry?”

“I do try, Eggsy,” Harry replies muzzily. “I do try. Now, if you would be so kind?” He flexes his fingers, and Eggsy stands up and tugs at the tie binding Harry's wrists, but Harry shakes his head, says, “No, dear boy. Not what I meant,” and clarifies with a blind, clumsy grope that finds Eggsy’s junk and holds on to him there.

“Does this mean you’re passing me?” Eggsy jokes as he unzips.

“I don’t recall making any promises to that effect,” Harry says. He curls his fingers around Eggsy’s cock, framing him with his palms in a light and assessing touch.

“Aw, don’t be like that,” Eggsy says, and swoops down to kiss Harry’s neck, pressing the head of his cock to the back of Harry’s bare thigh. The contact sends a tremble up his spine, as does the sliding of hands and fingers lengthwise along his cock.

“Rules are rules, Eggsy.” His hands pick up the rhythm, slippery with sweat and precome. It’s a terrible position to effectively wank Eggsy off from, but Eggsy can still fuck his fist with impunity, rub the shaft of his cock against Harry’s arse as he pleases, and with Harry stroking and pulling it’s all the stimulation Eggsy needs. He keeps thrusting and pants with it, arms around Harry and face against his sweat-damp shirt, and screws his eyes shut as he pulses out sticky over Harry's fingers, full-body tension rolling through him like a tide.

“Now you may release me,” Harry instructs, and Eggsy’s too dumb with the post-coital crash to do anything but obey. When his thoughts have returned to some semblance of order, Harry’s wrinkling his nose at his come-covered hands and looking about for something to wipe them on. Eggsy looks down dumbly at the tie in his own hands and after a few seconds, shrugs and starts swabbing at his fingers with it.

"That's Charmeuse silk you're ruining," Harry says, his voice tight.

"Is it?" Eggsy tosses the soiled tie over, and Harry balks and looks like he changes his mind about catching it roughly six times before snatching it out of the air by the large end. "I'm never using tissues ever again, that stuff's brilliant."

Harry groans, folding the tie up and lifting it in both hands as if mourning a fallen comrade. "Remind me to keep you far away from my Turnbull and Asser's. Far, far away."

When he's done with buttoning and zipping up, Eggsy moves to re-dress Harry as well, giving his cock a cheeky kiss before pulling Harry's pants back on. "Don't want no Turnbull, Harry. Just want you."

"You're a menace, you are," Harry tells him, setting the tie on the corner of the desk, far from the others.

"Thought I was a brute."

"You're a bit of both, I suppose," Harry says, and strangely, Eggsy's fine with that.

 

***

 

3. Handkerchief

Eggsy’s first tangle with the honeypot does not go at all like he’d expected.

See, funnily enough, it’s a scenario they’ve talked through at length — him having to fuck his way through an assignment with Harry standing close by or on mission control. This was after Roxy had been given her first assignment to get into the pants and bedroom safe of a trading magnate dealing in phony bearer bonds, and it occurred to Eggsy that something similar might not be that far off for him. Remarkably, Harry had been the one to bring it up, had sat Eggsy down and explained to him that yes, honeypot missions were a thing, and no, he didn’t have that big of a problem with Eggsy taking to someone else’s bed in the name of Kingsman and the greater good, and Eggsy had been too relieved at the time to consider the possibility of having to cross that bridge from the other direction.

Which leads them to a night in Macau, a country Eggsy thinks he heard about once on the telly — one of those David Attenborough programmes, which means he’s probably got it wrong — and will never, ever return to when this is all over. It’s a nice place with lovely people, don’t get him wrong, but it’s difficult to be reasonable when you’re half drunk and all jealous and about one bad decision away from cocking up weeks and months of intense data-mining by the Kingsman tech department.

The thing about joint missions is that agents are assigned to them based on operational requirement and little else, which means that once dossiers have been printed and handed out, nobody has very much say regarding who gets paired with whom. Except for Arthur, obviously, and so it is his head that Eggsy decides to envision mounted on a spike as he sits in the cocktail lounge of a disgustingly posh hotel with an empty martini glass in front of him. The biggest turd, really, is that the fucker’s done this on fucking purpose. In all objectivity, Eggsy has no reason to be here; it’s not a mission that calls for even half the competence of one Kingsman, but Arthur had insisted on Eggsy going along. Let the fresh blood see how it’s done, he had said during the briefing, and Eggsy regrets it more than ever that he didn’t tell Arthur to shove a cactus into his pisshole when he had the chance as Harry stands at the bar, across the room from where he is, and continues chatting up the bloke there.

Said bloke — Claude Carson, their target for the evening and a name Eggsy now wants to chisel into one of his bullets with an icepick — grins at Harry and leans closer to him. Carson is lean with neatly-kept blond hair, and is wearing a suit that looks just as expensive as Harry’s, and is very, very English. He has a dazzling white smile that can’t be anything but chemical-wrought, baby-blue eyes, and his face is too youthful for someone supposed to be just short of thirty, a milestone Eggsy won’t let him make it to at the rate this is going.

It’s not that Eggsy’s the wildly jealous sort. If it had occurred to him back when they were talking about it, if he had broached it and Harry had asked for the same understanding from him, Eggsy would have said yes in a heartbeat. Still would, in fact, even accounting for the statistical likelihood of both of them necessarily having to sex up the shittiest of people, because if Harry could rise to the occasion and set his petty feelings aside, then it was only fair that Eggsy should give it his best effort and try, too.

Except there’s shitty people, and then there’s vermin like Claude Carson.

In the past fifteen minutes Eggsy has been here, Carson’s inhaled two full pints of the most expensive lager they serve in the place, eye-banged every other man with a single grey hair within twenty metres of him, and has molested three waiters unfortunate enough to walk within range of a bum pinch. It’s fucking gross to watch, but surveillance is surveillance, no matter how queasy it makes Eggsy feel. He’s toughed it out through more stomach-turning sights, like the first time he watched a human head explode in glorious 1080p, and it made sense to Eggsy that all else considered, this would be nothing in the grand scheme of things, that he’d have to experience much worse in time to come.

Turns out he was right about that. He just wasn’t counting on having to cash that check this soon, soon being five minutes ago when Harry had arrived on-site to engage Carson, who hasn’t looked at any other man since, whose hand is dangerously close to Harry’s wrist on the bar counter and Eggsy’s thinking of a dozen different ways he could break. Number seven’s his favourite — under the heel of a well-placed Oxford — because it’s the only one he could feasibly carry out now for all it will invariably twat the mission over.

It doesn’t matter that Eggsy’s read the files on Carson, that he knows about the human organ trafficking rings he’s successfully kingpined for with a serving of blood diamonds and drugs to boot. It doesn’t matter that Eggsy’s aware that all Harry wants is Carson’s room number so they can both steal up there and nanochip every article of clothing he’s brought with him to Macau — trackers, bugs, the works — that Harry’s not actually going to sleep with the prick. He still almost breaks his glass when Carson smirks and curls his fingers around Harry’s wrist, and because the fucking mission calls for it, Harry smiles and lets him.

Number thirteen: Eggsy could just take his whole hand off, Jaime Lannister style. Not really breaking it, but Eggsy adds it to the list anyway.

“Rather forward, aren’t you?” Eggsy hears Harry observe over the intercom, his tone light but still polite.

“You’re the one who won’t let me buy you a drink, gramps,” Carson drawls back. “Not my fault you’re not lettin’ me ease into it.”

“I wouldn’t wish to exploit your goodwill,” Harry says, all manners and charm and unerring graciousness.

“Exploit away, I don’t mind. Just so long as you give me a little taste of that,” Carson says, and Harry’s feed at the top right hand corner of Eggsy’s glasses tells him all he needs to know about what it’s like to be undressed by eyes belonging to the literal scum of the earth. “Look at you, Jesus. The things I would do to you, mmf, could just eat you all up. I bet you’ve got a nice thick cock, don’t you, gramps? Come on, let me have a feel —”

This is when Carson reaches low to palm Harry’s crotch through his trousers, and Eggsy’s everything instantly fizzes to a roar of fierce static, his mouth falling open a little. He doesn’t even register that Harry has redirected Carson’s hand to his waist until a passing waiter asks him if everything’s fine. Still not quite breathing right, Eggsy orders another martini, both to have something to do with himself and to avoid answering that.

Really, everything in the world will be peachy keen, just as soon as he puts Claude Carson in the fucking ground, the motherfuc —

Harry runs his fingers along the pressed sleeve of Carson’s suit jacket. “I take it you’ve had experiences with older men before, then?”

“Loads, yeah.” Carson lifts Harry’s hand to his mouth and smirks a kiss against his signet ring, and fuck if Eggsy wouldn’t give a year of his life for Harry to reward Carson with fifty thousand volts, light him up like a Christmas tree there and then. “Stuffy geezers, the whole lot of them. I dunno, you gonna try and change my mind, Mr…?”

“Richardson,” Harry says, and acquiring a last name apparently translates to degenerates like Carson to shift gears into doubling up creeper mode, because he gets to planting a line of kisses across Harry’s knuckles with wet, smacking noises that kick Eggsy’s mounting anger sky-high. “Henry Richardson. And might I ask as to whom I have the serendipity of being in the company of?”

“Claude Carson. Is it okay with you if I call you Henry?”

“Of course,” Harry answers. “By all means.”

Carson smiles the evillest smile Eggsy’s seen on another human being, and then his face is near enough to Harry’s for Eggsy to almost catch a whiff of his liquor-sour breath, before Carson murmurs with his lips getting closer and closer, “Is it okay with you if I call you daddy?”

With that, Eggsy deactivates his comms link entirely, gets up, and leaves the lounge as fast as his legs will take him. He knows he’s going to get his shit pushed in by Merlin later when they’re reviewing his feed, but if he watches Harry get kissed by Carson, there will be consequences graver than a few minutes’ want of surveillance footage. Bullets-in-bodies level consequences, not necessarily Carson’s, possibly his own. Eggsy makes it to the lift lobby, their emergency rendezvous point for the night in the case of them getting separated, and tries to wait out the rage against a wall.

Fuck, Eggsy can barely think about it for a second without seeing red again — Carson smarming all over Harry, putting his mouth on him, the greasy twin syllables of daddy. The motherfucker shouldn’t even be allowed to exist on the same planet as Harry Hart, let alone breathe the same air as him. He shouldn’t be allowed to breathe, period. Eggsy pursues a host of similar thoughts for several more minutes until he sees Harry rounding the corner, and he glowers at Harry with his pulse thundering in his ears, but Harry makes no indication of recognising Eggsy, his face mild but otherwise expressionless as he presses the button for the lift. The doors slide open, and Eggsy uncrosses his arms and slips in wordlessly with him.

“Thirty-eighth floor, please,” Harry tells the lift operator, to whom Eggsy mumbles, “Me too,” when it’s his turn. When the lift stops moving, Harry tips the operator a hundred pataca before getting off; Eggsy does the same, following Harry down the corridor until they come to a halt in front of one of the rooms. They still don’t say anything to each other as Harry unclips his tie pin, sticks it against the electronic lock on the door and twists the dial on his watch until there’s the soft noise of latches whirring out of place.

“After you,” Harry says, holding the door open for Eggsy.

“Thanks,” Eggsy mutters, and goes inside.

Carson’s suite is big and lavish, with a high ceiling and gilded curtains and oil paintings hanging off the walls. Standing in the living room and looking around at it all, Eggsy’s wondering if he could get away with burning it all down when Harry calls to him from the bedroom, where he has the built-in wardrobe open and is tagging the shirts hanging inside with the contents of a seemingly-empty clear plastic packet.

“GLX-20s don’t require any priming,” Harry says, brushing his index finger under the collar of a shirt and returning it to the packet. “You can activate them remotely, but the internal power source only lasts an hour and can take up to four to recharge fully. Still, you’ll find no better tool to conduct long-term surveillance with.”

Eggsy grunts and looks out the window, at the constant blinking glare of the Macau skyline, the highways below them and city lights all around. It would be breathtaking under normal circumstances, but he can’t take in any of it. There’s a nagging buzz inside his head that has very little to do with the alcohol he’s had and his throat is dry, gritty like he’s swallowed a spoonful of sand. It only takes looking at Carson’s bed for everything to go off-kilter again, grating on Eggsy’s frazzled nerves as he fists and unfists his hands.

“And that’s done,” Harry says, sliding the wardrobe shut. “Time for us to go. Come along, Gareth.”

“Wait,” Eggsy says, and Harry looks at him.

“What is it?”

What it is — Eggsy hesitates, thinking on it, and then goes up to Harry and holds his hand, the one Carson had slobbered over. Eggsy takes out his handkerchief and wipes Harry’s knuckles and fingers with it, slowly and gently, even though they’re clearly dry and have nothing on them to rub off.

Harry sighs, “Oh, Gareth,” and it’s not the tone he uses when he’s chiding Eggsy on his dining table etiquette or coming indoors and forgetting to wipe his feet. It’s understanding, pure and simple, and fond, fonder than Eggsy deserves for almost losing his shit and cocking this up for both of them. It really is amazing, how Harry has this ability to comprehend parts of Eggsy that he himself can’t even begin to grasp or explain.

Case in point, Harry adds softly, “I’m so sorry you had to witness that.”

Eggsy meets Harry’s eyes and gnaws his lower lip at the tender look in them. “Did he,” he says, and fuck, it sounds exponentially more pathetic, not being able to ask the rest of it, and the rupture in his voice isn’t helping.

“No,” Harry says, and Eggsy knows he’s telling the truth. He’s not one for things like lying to make Eggsy feel better about his own insecurities, or the concept of lying in general. “I managed to convince him to relegate foreplay to a less public setting, such as this.” He nods to indicate where they are.

Eggsy’s heart lightens almost instantly. Even so, he brushes his fingers against Harry’s wrist, his palm, the back of his hand, and imagines eradicating all traces of Carson having touched him. It’s ridiculous because that’s a reality nothing and nobody can erase, but he still has to, it’s the only thing that presses the anger and disgust back down where wicked things crawl, keeping the riot in his head to a low blaze instead of the roaring firestorm it’s threatened to burst into all night.

“Come here,” Harry says soothingly, and pulls Eggsy into his arms. Huddled to the solid wall of Harry’s chest, Eggsy closes his eyes and breathes in, benumbed for the moment in an effacing wash of affection.

“Was it as bad for you, too?” Eggsy asks Harry’s lapel.

Harry’s hand smooths down the back of his head. “As Kingsmen, we do what we must, sometimes,” he says, and that’s not really an answer, but it’s more diplomatic than a yes or no, neither of which would make Eggsy feel any better.

“I know,” Eggsy says, and, “I just,” he shakes his head to sort out what he’s trying to mean, which is, “I thought I could, but. I couldn’t. I should’ve,” and he wills for Harry to understand this as well, that Eggsy’s better than this and wants to be better for him. That the prospect of letting Harry down angers Eggsy more than anything in the world, even Claude Carson’s hands on Harry’s body.

“You removed yourself from a situation you deemed would escalate with your continued presence,” Harry tells him, “It’s what any good agent would’ve done. Nobody can fault you for that.”

Eggsy looks up at his face. “You’re not just saying that, are you?”

Harry’s smile is all the answer Eggsy needs. “Of course not. Goodness knows what you might have done if you remained longer than you did.”

“Was gonna break his hand,” Eggsy mumbles, thinking about the cracking of bones under his heel.

“There you go. I daresay I would have been rather cross with you,” Harry chuckles.

“You would’ve liked it, don’t lie.”

The cast of Harry’s face shifts between amusement and thoughtfulness. “Possibly,” he admits. “That would depend on how you were planning to go about it, I suppose.”

“Want me to tell you?” Eggsy asks with a grin.

“On the way back, maybe,” Harry muses as he guides them to leave, his arm coming to rest around Eggsy’s hip.

 

***

 

4. Bremont

Because Harry’s a fucking romantic, he insists that they plan something special for their first Valentine’s Day as a couple. Eggsy’s not too keen at first, with it being an anniversary that shall forever be linked to the memory of exploding heads and almost dying, until he hears what Harry has in mind. A continental breakfast at the most expensive hotel in London and then a lazy morning’s boat ride down the Thames, followed by a private luncheon in St James’ Park and an afternoon matinee of Mamma Mia!, topped off with fittings for new suits for the both of them afterwards and a grooming session at a barber’s in Fitzrovia, before returning to the hotel for dinner, drinks, and what couples do best in the bedroom on Valentine’s Day night.

Eggsy was thinking along the lines of getting Harry flowers and some chocolates. Harrods chocolates, but still. At least he had the sex part down, not that either of them ever fall short in that regard.

“S’pose you’ll want a card from me, then,” Eggsy had joked, still unsure if he should be annoyed or blown away over having been outdone by Harry Hart for the hundredth time.

Harry had smiled and tipped Eggsy’s chin up with his fingers, pulling him close. “I just want to spend the day with you, my lovely boy,” he said, and proved it with a kiss.

That was a week ago. Now, it’s approaching a quarter to ten on the morning of the day itself and Eggsy’s waiting outside his house, where Harry had said he’d pick him up in their ride at half past nine. He hadn’t specified exactly what kind of transport Eggsy should be expecting, taxi or limo or horse-drawn carriage — he wouldn’t put the last one past Harry — which leaves Eggsy looking in the windows of every vehicle that drives past, wondering what’s taking Harry so long. It’s worrying mainly because Harry’s never late to anything, one of those gentlemanly principles he abides by with an unbending steadfastness. When it’s five minutes to ten, Eggsy fishes his phone out of his pocket and sends a text to Harry.

 

9:55

To: Harry Hart

Where are you? Are you okay?

 

There is no reply in the five minutes it takes for Eggsy’s watch to tick to ten a.m, and he’s seriously considering raising a missing agent alert over the Kingsman communications network when his phone buzzes again.

 

10:02

From: Harry Hart

Am terribly sorry for not being there with you, currently very ill. I will have to see you some other day. Love, Harry.

 

And, well, that cements Eggsy’s itinerary for the rest of the day.

He hops into the next available taxi he comes across and arrives outside Harry’s place shortly after. Eggsy walks into the mew and knocks on the door, calls out, “Harry? Yo, Harry, it’s Eggsy. You alright in there?”

Nothing. Eggsy presses his ear to the wood and listens for footsteps, Harry’s voice, anything that would qualify as an answer. “Harry?” he says again, pounding the door with his fist.

Still no response. Forgoing all second thoughts, Eggsy pushes a dial on his watch, detaches the disposable snap gun tucked into the body and jams it into the lock, which yields with a click. Eggsy pushes the door open and pulls his shoes off in the foyer without unlacing them, calling up to the upper floors once more, “Harry, you up there?” and meeting a similar success as his initial attempts. He climbs the stairs two steps at a time, looks in the bedroom first and finds Harry in bed, curled up and shaking under the thick duvet.

“Harry,” Eggsy says, moving swiftly to crouch down beside him. Harry’s face is pale and covered with a sheen of sweat, his mouth trembling and eyes moving restlessly beneath closed lids, hands clutching silken sheets to his chin as he shakes and quakes and shivers. The heat radiating from him is evident even for the centimetres of space separating them and there’s a distinct smell of sick clinging to his person. “Oh my god, Harry.”

Harry’s reply is a low, unintelligible sound, and he shifts his head slightly, sweat-soaked hair falling over his forehead. When Eggsy reaches out and puts his hands against Harry’s face, he swears.

“Jesus fucking Christ, you’re burning,” Eggsy gasps. Harry’s skin is damp, but it’s not unlike touching a radiator set on high, or the outside of an oven with something baking within.

Harry cracks open one eye at him, just a sliver. “Eggsy,” he murmurs, raspy with phlegm and exhaustion.

“I’m calling for help,” Eggsy says, touching two fingers to his glasses and stopping when Harry makes a vague noise and turns his head on his pillow in an approximation of refusal.

“Don’t,” Harry moans, both eyes open now, wide enough for Eggsy to see how very red they’ve gone. “D — don’t, Eggsy…”

“Like hell I won’t,” Eggsy snaps. “You look like you’re about to die.”

Harry just shakes his head harder and winces from the effort. “Please — no. Not… not for this.”

“What the hell are you on about?”

It looks like Harry wants to say something else, but then he presses his lips together and gestures weakly, frantically for Eggsy to look under his bed, where Eggsy finds a basin filled with a shallow layer of sick and brings it up in time for Harry to vomit messily into it. He doesn’t throw up very much, lasting only for a few seconds, but he spends much longer coughing and making retching sounds like his stomach is trying to turn itself inside out.

“You need to see a doctor,” Eggsy tells him once Harry’s sunk back into bed with a whimper. “I’ll get Merlin to come, he’ll be able to help.”

“I am a doctor,” Harry mumbles.

“I know that, you idiot. Doesn’t mean you don’t need one.”

“I’ll be alright,” Harry argues. “It’s… really, it’s nothing.”

Eggsy pushes the basin of sick under Harry’s bed with his foot. “Doesn’t look like nothing to me.”

“It’s just gastroenteritis,” Harry amends.

“Congrats, you know what’s got you fucked. Gastro-whatever, I’m not letting you rough it out,” Eggsy says.

“I’ll be alright,” Harry repeats, firmer this time, and then, with his eyebrows furrowed, “How did you get in?”

Watch turned outward, Eggsy lifts his wrist for Harry to see. “Picked your lock since you weren’t answering. Sorry about that.”

The dark look on Harry’s face deepens. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Eggsy blinks. “What?”

“I told you that I’d see you another day. Why did you come here?”

“Uh, because you’re sick and I wanted to check on you?” Eggsy says, taken aback by the uncharacteristic sharpness to Harry’s words. “And I think it’s well good that I did, otherwise you would’ve been sick all over yourself.”

Harry turns his face into his pillow but keeps one rueful eye trained on Eggsy. “You need to leave. Now.”

“And you need a doctor,” Eggsy counters. Has Harry ever been this much of a blockhead about anything before?

“Please leave, Eggsy.”

“No, thanks,” Eggsy says, since they’re both trying to be polite about being disagreeable now. “Not until you let me call you a doctor.”

“You will do no such thing.”

“Okay. Then I’m not going anywhere.”

“You little —”

Fuck, Eggsy thinks a short while later as he watches Harry make another small contribution to the basin. Harry doesn’t even have the strength to prop himself up on his elbows; Eggsy has to physically lift and steady him by the shoulders for him to vomit without getting any of it on his bedsheets or nightshirt. There’s a moist washcloth folded on the bedside table, and Eggsy uses it to wipe traces of sick from Harry’s mouth as he settles back down.

“Come off it, Harry,” Eggsy says, scrunching up the washcloth and setting it aside. “Look, if you don’t want a doctor, then let me stay. So I know you’re being taken care of.”

Harry mutters something about being able to take care of himself, and Eggsy’s having none of it.

“You’re out of your flipping mind if you think I’m gonna leave you alone like this,” Eggsy says.

Under normal circumstances, the glare Harry gives him would be more than enough to cow Eggsy into submission, but Harry only maintains it for a moment before his face crumples again. He groans, curling into himself, and Eggsy’s mind is made up.

“Just hang tight, yeah?” Eggsy brushes Harry’s fringe out of his squeezed-shut eyes and cups his quivering jaw. “I’ll be back in a tic.”

Harry groans again, which is as good an acknowledgement as it gets.

 

.

 

Five minutes of scrolling through an NHS web page on his phone later, Eggsy has a list of things to do.

First, he empties Harry’s designated barf bowl and rinses it out to stop it from stinking up Harry’s bedroom any further. Then, he goes downstairs to the kitchen, where he knows Harry keeps a first-aid kit and some assorted medication. Eggsy pours out a litre of filtered tap water into a jug and stirs in a tablespoon of sugar and a pinch of salt before he puts the kettle on and looks in the kit. There’s a fresh blister pack of Panadol and several sachets of Lemsip in there, all of which he commandeers for the tea tray he’s assembling to bring back up to the bedroom. When the kettle’s boiled, he fixes a serving of Lemsip and a serving of tea, and after some thought, plucks a knockout dart from his watch and disassembles it to get to the storage capsule within, and squeezes a tiny drop into each cup.

Harry’s still shivering in bed when Eggsy returns with his provisions. He hasn’t thrown up again while Eggsy was gone, thank goodness. Eggsy sets the tea tray on the bedside table and retrieves an additional thick blanket and a spare pillow from the guest bedroom. He throws the blanket over Harry and leaves the pillow on the other side of the bed, extra support on hand for when Harry wants to sit up. When that’s done, Eggsy nudges Harry by the shoulder until he rouses to consciousness again.

“Brought you some stuff,” Eggsy says. “You’re a doctor, yeah? So you know you need fluids.”

Harry looks at him first, then at the tea tray and the things on it. “S’all that,” he says dully, unable to work his words into the shape of a question.

Eggsy kneels down and rests his arms on the edge of Harry’s bed. “Got you some water, and tea. Thought it might make you feel better. I made you Lemsip too, if you’re more in the mood for that.”

Harry ponders it over. Then, he chooses, “Tea. Please.”

Eggsy acquiesces, heaving Harry up to a sitting position and bringing the cup to his lips, from which he sips feebly, swallows with his eyes flickering. Ingested rather than injected, the tranquiliser should begin working within the hour, which gives Eggsy ample time to get Harry as hydrated as possible before he drops off. He waits for Harry to drink most of the tea, then puts the cup back on the tray and reaches for the sugar-salted water.

“Sweet,” Harry murmurs between gulps.

“Apparently it’s good for you,” Eggsy says, shrugging. The website had advised Gatorade powder or sports drinks, neither of which he could find in the kitchen, and this was the next best thing.

Harry stops drinking and looks into the half-empty glass, his expression dour. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“This,” Harry says, and nothing more, like that’s all there is to it.

Eggsy frowns. “You’re not seriously apologising for falling sick, are you?” he says, prompting with the glass for Harry to finish the rest, but Harry doesn’t take the cue.

“I’ve ruined today, haven’t I.”

“Uh, no. Think that’s all on gastro-whatever,” Eggsy says. “You’re just the poor sod who got dragged up for twenty rounds.”

“This shouldn’t be happening,” Harry says miserably. “I’m sorry.”

Now Eggsy’s properly annoyed. “Harry, shut up. It’s not your fault you’re sick, okay? Drink your water.”

Harry does, managing another slow mouthful. Eggsy refills the glass and offers it up again, but Harry shakes his head and swallows visibly.

“I didn’t want you to see me like this,” he mumbles over the rim of the glass, his reddened eyes downcast.

“Shouldn’t have told me you were sick, then,” Eggsy says, and grimaces. “Wait, no, scratch that. Don’t get any ideas — you’re absolutely to tell me if you’re sick, got that?”

Harry doesn’t nod or look convinced. He presses a hand to his face and breathes out shakily through his fingers, mumbling more words that Eggsy barely picks up — honestly and fussing and waste of time — and gets even more annoyed over.

“I’m not fussing, Harry, and if you think I think looking after you’s a waste of time, you’ve got another thing coming,” Eggsy snaps.

“Have you considered that I’d rather you wouldn’t?” Harry returns, sounding as angry as he did when he told Eggsy to leave him. “Darling boy, surely you have infinitely better things to do with yourself than cleaning up after me.”

“You can’t possibly think that,” Eggsy says, torn between astonishment and outrage. “I can’t even — of all the — how the fuck can you think that, Harry? You tell me you’re sick and expect me to do, what, fuck-all knowing you’re stacked deep in shit? Like, I’m supposed to go about like everything’s fucking coming up roses when you’re here vomming your guts out? Jesus god, what kind of a person d’you think I am?”

Harry shudders and lowers his gaze, shoulders sagging even further, looking more subdued than Eggsy has ever seen him before. It’s awful, and Eggsy feels a twinge of guilt at laying it on a little thick. He breathes in and sighs it out, then takes Harry by the shoulders and holds him steady.

“Look,” Eggsy begins, pausing to check his words, “Remember when you got hurt way back? The thing with Professor Arnold?”

Harry doesn’t reply, but there’s a bitter turn to his mouth and Eggsy figures that’ll do.

“I saw you when they first brought you in, y’know,” Eggsy recalls, drifting through the memory of Harry comatose and tethered to machines, still and grey as death. “You were super fucked up, like. Super, super fucked up, no kidding. And I was thinking, ‘this is bollocks, what if he doesn’t wake up? I never thanked him for pulling my sorry arse out of prison, and that makes me a right tosser, innit, and I never told him I loved him either.’ Which was crap, but that wasn’t the worst part. I think it was more me watching you lie there and not being able to help you, or do anything about it, and. Then you were okay, and I said to myself, I don’t ever wanna be useless like that again. You get what I mean?”

Lips fused into a thin line, Harry flicks his eyes up at Eggsy and down again in his lap, where he’s pinching the buttoned edge of the duvet with his fingers.

Eggsy presses on, “You don’t want me to be here with you? Fine. I’ll go, if that’s what you really want. But I’m telling you that my day’s going to be a hundred times as shit when I’m wondering every five minutes whether or not you’ve vommed yourself and why I’m not taking care of you when I know I could be doing that. You’re right — I’ve got something better to do than manning your puke bucket and cleaning up your shit. It’s being with you, Harry. You said you wanted me for all of today, didn’t you? Well, here I am, all yours, so what’s it gonna be?”

Harry is quiet for a long while. He sniffs, expression twisting up into something steely that Eggsy can’t decipher, then purses his lips as his face softens.

He says, rueful but meek, “I would like some Lemsip now, please.”

Eggsy interprets that for the concession he knows it is. He smiles, says, “Sure thing,” and retrieves the cup to blow on its steaming surface, mentally readjusting for when Harry will get some much-needed rest. After Harry’s sipped that cup empty too, Eggsy tries to kiss his face and Harry shies away from him.

“Don’t,” Harry protests, coughing weakly as Eggsy eases him back into bed. The shivers start anew once he’s tucked in again, and he mumbles, “Sick — you’ll be sick, too.”

He has a point there, but Eggsy shrugs it off like he does hollow points and bomb blasts and thinks that for Harry, gastro-whatever is among the lesser of bullets he’d be more than willing to bite. “I’ll take my chances,” he decides out loud, and leans down to press his lips to Harry’s flushed brow.

 

.

 

Over the next two days, Eggsy amasses a very specific set of skills that neither Kingsman nor real life warranted of him before. He’s had to take care of his baby sister when she used to have frequent colic, but surprise surprise, it’s a little harder to lift a fifty-something year old grown man into your arms and burp him and comfort him with cooing kisses until the hurt goes away. Not that Eggsy wouldn’t try if there was a chance of it actually working.

Instead, he makes Harry Cup-a-Soup and helps him to and from the bathroom when he needs it for whatever reason, and spends an afternoon sponging him with tepid water to try and bring his temperature down. It works somewhat at first, but at the end of the second day Harry’s fever spikes to thirty-nine degrees and brings Eggsy to the verge of radioing in the calvary despite his repeated promises not to. There’s only so much he can accomplish on his own, and even if Harry hates him for it afterwards, it’s preferable to standing by and watching Harry suffer at Eggsy’s inept hands, an exercise in sheer helplessness.

But on the third morning, Harry’s sitting up in bed on his own and helping himself to the water jug, and he smiles when Eggsy brings in the replenished tea tray for the day. He has his tea and knocks back two paracetamol without Eggsy needing to crush the pills into powder for him, and by noon they’re in the living room downstairs and watching Pretty Woman from the couch, Harry leaning against Eggsy with the duvet over them both as Julia Roberts goes off on a tangent about knights on white horses and fairytale endings.

That Harry has Pretty Woman on blu-ray should be grounds for merciless ribbing, but it’s not the most surprising thing in the world. Besides, Eggsy has to admit it — he thinks it’s a pretty good movie.

When Eggsy tells him this, Harry sniffs, “Indeed. They don’t make them like they used to, I’m afraid.”

“Didn’t you like The Avengers?” Eggsy asks, looking away from the telly and at Harry. “I think that more or less revokes all of your movie snob privileges, mate.”

“I found it tolerable,” Harry grunts, and Eggsy grins, kissing his temple. He knows that Harry likes Black Widow the best, even if he'll forever disavow the fact of having a favourite Avenger.

They remain on the couch for the rest of the day, cycling through Harry’s repertoire of 90’s movies and spy flicks, and Harry dozes off at the hour mark of The Bourne Identity. It’s only eight in the evening and Eggsy isn’t tired, but he can’t leave the couch without disturbing Harry, so he stays where he is with his arms around Harry and his nose half-buried in Harry’s hair, not moving even after the movie has ended and the credits have long finished rolling. He doesn’t put another one on, just holds Harry and periodically checks his ebbing fever, and he can’t remember falling asleep but when he wakes next there’s morning sunlight streaming through the windows and Harry’s still curved against him, colour in his cheeks again.

When Eggsy touches Harry’s forehead, finds it pleasantly warm and not at all feverish, Harry opens his eyes and looks up at him, says with a smile, “Good morning, love.”

“Hey, gorgeous,” Eggsy says, pulling the duvet up from where it’s slipped off Harry’s chest and patting it down. “All better, now?”

Harry nods. “Very much so, thank you.”

“That’s good. Was starting to think you were gonna be sick forever.”

“Were you tiring of me, Eggsy?” 

“A little,” Eggsy lies. “I mean, you’re not supposed to be bellyachin’ all over me until you’re like, eighty.”

“That’s not too far off,” Harry says as he sits up. “You could spare yourself the agony of that quite easily, mind.”

“Yeah. Too bad I’m stuck with you, huh?” Eggsy says, and grins as Harry laughs. "You hungry?”

“Quite.”

“Good. Me too, you can make us breakfast.”

Harry’s smile widens. “I would be delighted to."

“Don’t think that makes up for us missing Valentine’s Day,” Eggsy says, trying to look severe and failing spectacularly. “I’ll still want that boat ride, and that suit you promised. I’ve been needing a new one for ages.”

“Of course.”

“And that breakfast and luncheon sounded well fancy,” Eggsy adds, “Really wouldn’t mind having those too.”

Harry arches an eyebrow at him. “Very well.”

“Plus, I’ve worked really hard these past four days,” Eggsy says in mock earnest, teasing the front of Harry’s dressing robe with his finger and thumb. “I think I deserve a special treat, don’t you?”

Harry sighs, reaching up to stroke his thumb against Eggsy’s cheek. “I wish I knew how to quit spoiling you rotten,” he laments and shakes his head, but there’s a world of endearment contained in his eyes.

That’s a yes if Eggsy’s ever heard one. He leans in and hugs Harry, smiling into Harry’s sternum. “You’re the guv’nor, Harry.”

Harry kisses his ear and hums and says, “For you, always,” before hauling Eggsy up and descending on him with a kiss that leaves Eggsy breathless and spinning, stupid with love.

 

***

 

 5. Gun

The special treat, as it turns out, is a pair of train tickets to Belgium that Eggsy receives in the post the following Saturday. They fall out of a brochure that’s inexplicably mailed to him in a large brown envelope, first-class, and when Eggsy’s picked them up from his doormat and skimmed through the brochure, which is printed with pictures of a stunningly lavish hotel in Brussels and the surrounding district, he connects the dots.

“You could’ve just told me,” he says over the phone later. “That’s easily ten quid you’ve blown on postage, Harry.”

“Money well-spent, I’d say. Only the best for my boy,” Harry says cheerfully, and Eggsy thinks it’s rich that he gets complaints about being spoilt when Harry’s the one who has no qualms about pampering him like this.

The return date on the tickets gives them a total of five days in Brussels, which Eggsy doesn’t know how he wants to spend. He hasn’t gone on a holiday in ages and the most touristy thing he’s done in recent memory was Instagramming a picture of Buckingham Palace while out on a run, so coming up with ideas apart from staying in their hotel room and fucking all day is a little beyond him.

They agree to reserve that activity for day four. Eggsy resigns himself to trusting Harry’s foolproof vacationing instincts and being as obnoxious a PDA fiend as he can for days one to three, and five if he can scrape it.

When they’re both packed and ready, Harry picks him up in a Kingsman taxi on Wednesday morning and they get to King’s Cross an hour before their train is due to depart. It’s ample time to polish off high tea in a little shop just outside their platform and for Harry to give a short lecture on Brussels’ best opera houses and most famous museums, only a fraction of which Eggsy absorbs over buttered scones and English Breakfast.

“One of the world’s most famous surrealists lived and trained in Brussels,” Harry says, stirring his tea as Eggsy wolfs down another fairy cake. “Magritte, you might have heard of him?”

“Is that the guy who did the melting clocks?” Eggsy asks, breaking a scone in two and handing the larger half to Harry.

“That’s Dali, dear,” Harry says, reaching over and stealing the smaller piece instead. “Same art form, different artist. Though I must say it’s very commendable you’ve gotten that much correct, you’re normally not as erudite.”

“Thanks.” Eggsy smiles happily, then frowns. “Wait, eru-what?”

“Custard puff?” Harry offers.

Two hours later, the Eurostar they’re on is zooming through the Channel Tunnel and Eggsy’s enjoying how very soft the seats are in the very, very plush cabin Harry’s scored them, lazing and listening to Harry drone on about fine Belgian beers and chocolates when he learns two things from an announcement over the public address system:

 

1. By some stroke of sheer coincidence, the train happens to be ferrying one Chancellor of Germany on her way back to Berlin, and
   
   
2. He will never be able to have nice things with Harry, because in addition to Madame Chancellor, there’s also an armed band of neo-Nazi terrorists on board.

 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Eggsy grumbles.

Harry’s gotten up and is unbuttoning his suit jacket, drawing both of his guns from their holsters fucking Rambo-style. The sight makes Eggsy’s face heat, then the rest of him follows suit when Harry asks him, “Have you got your firearm with you?” and Eggsy shakes his head because who the fuck brings a gun along on a holiday — well, Harry does, apparently, and two of them, just because — before catching the one that’s tossed over to him. He checks the clip in it and chambers the first round at the same time Harry does, looks up just as Harry offers him a hand and helps Eggsy to his feet.

“Have you got my back, Gareth?” Harry asks him, so invariably calm and sure of what he’ll get in return that Eggsy’s heart thumps so loud he’s certain Harry hears. That’d be wicked, wouldn’t it? There’s something terminally intimate about that thought, and it’s all Eggsy can do not to jump Harry right there and then.

Instead, Eggsy inclines his head and smiles, feeling as splendidly cocksure as he did the day he saw himself clad in Bespoke for the very first time. He answers without hesitation nor misgiving, “You know it, Galahad,” and it’s saying that name and seeing the pride on Harry’s face that warms him to his bones as they thumb their safeties off and move out.

 

.

 

The next twenty minutes are the most amazing ones of Eggsy’s life.

It’s saying something because there are a lot of other moments that contend for that top spot — freerunning over moving traffic on the Ontario 401, abseiling off the Burj Khalifa, V-Day in the French Alps — and yet if he had to choose, it would be Harry leading their two-man assault and doling out one-shot kills, ducking under Eggsy’s own shots and covering his flank as they clear first class of all hostiles. When they run low on ammunition, their fights only get more spectacular with them using any and all conceivable weapons they come across, and resorting to close combat where called for.

Too much time has passed since he last saw Harry fight, Eggsy thinks. The man is elegance and lethal grace defined, a living coup de grace in Oxfords and a three piece suit. It’s mesmerising to watch, the mastery he has over his hands and feet and the way he moves from enemy to enemy, going for blood and vitals and deflecting any and all blows like it doesn’t take any effort, untouchable in the heat of battle. It’s brilliant, Harry’s brilliant, and it’s more than multiple times that Eggsy realises he’s staring before he remembers the matter at hand, and has to shake his head to reassert himself, his focus lasting up until Harry snaps someone else’s neck and Eggsy’s enthralled all over again.

By the end of it they’re standing outside the German Chancellor’s private cabin, surrounded by their fallen foes and panting, high on action and the adrenaline rush that accompanies it. Eggsy’s ribs are aching where bullets and fists have landed, but he thinks as he shoves Harry’s empty gun in his trousers that he’s never felt this alive in years, and Harry — god, Harry’s breathing heavily, his poise picture-perfect, not looking half as tired as Eggsy feels, and he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and nods approvingly, like they haven’t just blitzed through a life-and-death situation, situations, and says, immaculately posh as ever, “We should go before the proper security detail arrives. Merlin’ll have more to clear up if we’re found like this.”

Eggsy doesn’t nod or say anything. He can’t tear his eyes away from Harry and the dark red smear across his cheek and the twisted pellet of metal Harry hasn’t brushed off his bulletproof collar, the lock of hair that threatens to fall into his eyes and Harry really should tuck behind his ear lest Eggsy does something drastic he knows he’ll regret. Every detail about Harry rivets him, possesses him, and it’s all Eggsy can think about.

He cannot believe how he’s ever come to deserve this man.

He’s closed his hand around Harry’s wrist before he knows what he’s doing, pulling him along and saying, “Let’s go,” walking through the train double-time and ignoring Harry’s protests of, “Slow down, Eggsy; what’s the hurry?” until they’re back in their carriage and cabin, where Eggsy slides the door shut with his foot and locks the door and draws the privacy curtains across every window.

“Eggsy, what —”

“I love you,” Eggsy blurts, and Harry’s confused expression warms to a kind understanding.

“I know that, love. But I don’t see why —”

“No, I mean,” Eggsy says, shaking his head, “I really, really love you, Harry. I fucking love you so much.”

The confusion is back, and now it’s tinged with a hint of concern. “Eggsy, darling, I’m very grateful that you’re saying all this, but I’m afraid I might not be following.”

Christ, the things Eggsy would give to have an articulate bone in his body. There are so many different ways of saying this and it feels like he’s going to cut himself to shreds on all the wrong ones trying to get to what needs to be said. He’s always been awful with this kind of thing, and there’s every chance that he’s going to fuck this up if he goes ahead with what he’s about to do, but this is what being loved without expectation has done to him, the last nail in the ‘act-first, think-later’ coffin he’s been constructing for years.

“I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you,” Eggsy says, and it’s a decent start, an oldie but a goodie and also true, through and through. “Everything about you is fantastic. You blow my mind, Harry. I think you’re bloody incredible and perfect and. You make me so happy, you know that?”

“I. Yes, well. Thank you, Eggsy,” Harry says, his forehead wrinkling. “I’m glad to hear that you think that.”

It’s not something that Eggsy thinks, it’s what he lives, like all facets of his consciousness gets crossed out and replaced with how much he’s in love when it comes to Harry Hart, truly madly deeply. His heart pounds with the fullness of it, the enormity of what he feels. It thrills and terrifies him and fills him up like a rapture. Nothing could compare to this, and nothing ever will.

But he doesn’t know how to translate that into spoken words without sounding like a twunt, so Eggsy breathes in and says, “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you. I’d say I’d kill for you but that’s like, a bit redundant now, innit?”

“I can appreciate the sentiment.”

“Yeah? Um, okay.” Eggsy pauses, at a loss where to go on from where they are.

Harry moves close to him, reaching up to stroke his thumb against Eggsy’s cheek. “Dearest,” he says, “Look at me. What’s the matter? Is there something troubling you?”

This near to him, Harry’s locking scrutiny all but stops Eggsy’s breath. God, he’s a mess for Harry, isn’t he — first his heart and then his breathing, and now his whole body’s frozen up, aching to just melt into Harry and belong to him — flesh and bone, mind and soul. Perhaps that’s what’s really troubling Eggsy, the physical impossibilities of that, but he tries anyway, cupping Harry’s face in his hands and kissing him like he’s giving mouth-to-mouth, or receiving it, rather. Yes, that sounds about right. He remembers all the times this man has saved him and gladly turns that metaphor onto its head.

"The way you looked back there," Eggsy murmurs, "Fucking illegal is what it is. You should be illegal."

"Hm." Harry grunts as he beckons Eggsy's tongue deeper. "Would it matter to you if I were?"

"Nope."

"Just as I thought."

"You calling me a criminal?"

Harry shrugs. "Your words, not mine."

"You've got no clue what you do to me, don't you?"

"I know what I want to do to you. Will that be adequate?"

"Fuck adequate," Eggsy gasps, and drags Harry's mouth to his again.

They kiss and keep kissing, teeth clacking, tongues brushing, and Harry’s hands are fisting in Eggsy’s suit and he smells of dirt and gunpowder, tastes like high tea, and for fuck’s sake they need to be closer, that and for the sake of fucking, which Eggsy tries to convey to Harry without the use of words as he unbuttons Harry’s jacket and pushes it off his shoulders. Loosening and removing Harry’s tie provokes a low growl from him, and Harry bustles them both back with his mouth sealed over Eggsy’s, their hips pressing together, until they reach the seats and he gets to ripping at Eggsy’s clothes.

“Tell me I’m yours,” Eggsy begs, taking too long with Harry’s belt and trousers because his hands are shaking and he’s in shambles, desperate to have Harry touch him and keep him forever. He will never be bereft again so long as this is allowed to happen, carved into stone as a rule of the universe. “Say I’m yours. Please, Harry.”

Harry sucks a mark against Eggsy’s neck as he pulls down Eggsy’s trousers with one hand, the other coming up to the side of his throat. “You’re mine,” he rumbles under Eggsy’s ear. He slopes his nose up Eggsy’s cheek and bites at the junction of ear and jaw, tongue traversing the stubbly skin and short hairs there. “You’re all mine.”

“Yes, oh, fuck yes —”

Something heavy thuds against the floor, on top of their shed shirts and jackets — Harry’s gun, the one he loaned to Eggsy. A quick kick sends it sliding under the seats, and Eggsy groans, “That wasn’t on the packing list.”

“It never is.” The hand that was on Eggsy’s throat is now searching in the carry-on Harry brought with them; there’s something being unzipped, and the clatter of bottles. “It’s only what you should have on hand at all times,” Harry says, producing a thin tube of lubricant and leaving it on a seat to attend to Eggsy’s underwear first.

“Fair,” Eggsy says, all he has time for before Harry shuts him up with another burning kiss and shoves him back onto the seats, before Harry reaches for the lube and squelches what looks like half the tube over his fingers; fuck. Eggsy wants to, he doesn’t know what he wants to, but he leans forward and seizes Harry’s cock and crams it in his mouth, simply craving for it, and he wants that, it’s all he always wants — lapping at Harry’s slit and tonguing his foreskin and sucking him from root to tip, and Eggsy leans his head against Harry’s belly with a moan, could die happy like this, Harry’s sweat on his skin and his precome smearing the roof of his mouth, and it’s ambrosia as far as Eggsy’s concerned, it’s a fucking privilege to have the essence of this man leaking out over and inside of him.

“Lovely,” Harry sighs, rolling his hips to thrust into Eggsy’s throat. He palms Eggsy’s cheek with his lube-free hand and brushes the corner of Eggsy’s mouth with his thumb. “My beautiful, beautiful boy.”

Eggsy whines, a desperate little sound that escapes him and is his own undoing. He’s never thought of himself as beautiful with anyone before Harry, has never been so sure of his place with them in the world, that he could even be of it, and this is being plugged back into that, his love for Harry boiling up like a geyser, crowding out his thoughts and everything that has ever mattered up to this point.

“Lie down for me, please,” Harry tells him, and it’s this alone that gets Eggsy pulling off Harry’s cock; he would be incapable for any other reason. He shifts back on his elbows, hooking his legs over Harry’s shoulders as Harry ducks down, trousers still around his ankles as he tucks them against Harry’s back. Then, Harry pushes two fingers into him immediately and Eggsy gasps, throwing his head back and thunking the top of his skull into the seat.

“Harry, shit, fuck.” Eggsy squirms, the sensation of being occupied there lighting a fuse somewhere low in his abdomen, and he grinds his arse onto Harry’s invading digits, panting out his arousal. “Harry, more, give me more, I can, I can —”

“Shhh,” Harry hushes him. He twists his fingers inside Eggsy purposefully, curving them up to find Eggsy’s prostate and massaging at it until Eggsy’s biting his knuckles to keep himself from screaming. “Patience, Eggsy. We’ll be there very soon.”

Soon isn’t enough. A third finger stretches Eggsy even further, probing him soft and open, and Harry’s knuckles are also kneading into the skin between his balls and hole, the press of firm bone sending jolts into him, that skitter up his spine and drop back down into his dribbling cock. His knees and arms are putty by the time Harry’s withdrawing his fingers and lubing himself up, and it’s a fucking relief when Eggsy feels Harry’s long, silky cock sliding into him in one blinding stab of pressure.

“Breathe, Eggsy,” Harry soothes, and Eggsy finally remembers to, winded to within an inch of his life, and even then it’s only brief snatches of air that tumble out of him almost as soon as he manages to reel them in. He swallows and there are tears pricking his eyes and he keens Harry’s name, surrendering all to the exquisite burn of Harry’s cock breaching him, and it’s so good, so visceral that he wants to cry, or combust, or some happy mixture of both.

He attains the middle ground with bleating cries of, “Fuck me, god, Harry, come on, fuck me,” and Harry does, thrusting in and rocking out of Eggsy, gripping Eggsy’s torso for purchase and leaning down to lick a broad stripe across Eggsy’s nipple, where he uses a thumb to swirl saliva into his skin. Eggsy’s mind goes starry white, his mouth falling open and stomach muscles spasming, his whole body one large constriction of bliss. He’s not losing it, he’s lost it and there’s no getting it back, whatever it is, not while he's all conked out on rippling pleasure and raw nerve endings that go off like lightning strikes whenever Harry’s cock catches and works at the sensitive flesh inside him, coaxing his orgasm to the brink of overload.

Eggsy comes with a yell, longer and harder than he ever has, streaking Harry’s chest and then his own, some of it hitting the underside of his jaw. He feels his hole clench frantically around Harry, every scrap of control lost in that singular instant of climax. He’s past speaking, past anything to do with himself, and when it’s over he can only lie whimpering and breathing through gritted teeth. Harry smiles indolently down at him, swiping his tongue under Eggsy’s chin to glean a fat pearly globule and passing it deep into Eggsy’s mouth.

He purrs, “You ravishing thing,” and Eggsy doesn’t have it in him to argue with that. He drags his nails up Harry’s body, over the grey hairs of his chest and through the belts of come on it, tightening his hands on Harry’s shoulders and trying his best not to tense so Harry can fuck him as he pleases. More than that, it’s for the precious moment of having Harry’s viscous heat pulsed into him, to ride through every second of it, beginning from when Harry whispers, “I’m coming, Eggsy,” and ending with Harry’s weight on top of him, Harry’s sultry mouth sipping delicately at his as he slowly twitches to softness inside Eggsy.

Kissing him back, Eggsy puts his arms around Harry and grips the nape of his neck, returning to the smothering crush of Harry’s body and his own musky taste on his tongue. A draught raises gooseflesh on his thigh and he steers Harry against him, moving them both onto the seats where they can lie side by side. Harry slips out from inside him as they move but draws Eggsy in again, aligning their bodies together, and Eggsy snuggles close, listening to the shared cadences of their breathing.

“We should get married,” Eggsy mumbles.

Petting his hair, Harry chuckles. “Are you proposing to me, Eggsy?”

Eggsy shrugs. “It was just a thought. We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Should I take that as a yes?”

“I dunno.” Eggsy looks meaningfully up at Harry, at his handsome, smiling face. “Should I?”

The fleeting glimmer in Harry’s eye carries the amused look of the reluctantly outfoxed, and he laughs again, “It would be very nice to see our names together in the papers, I must say.”

“Yes or no, Harry?”

Harry sighs, expression and tone adoring, “Of course, darling. How could I possibly say no?”

Head spinning with dizzy delight, mouth curled into a grin, Eggsy beams, pressing kisses to Harry’s nose and his mouth, and can’t stop kissing him, even as Harry grunts and pleads for mercy. Eggsy kisses Harry through the train puttering back to life, the announcement over the personal address system dispensing advice and instructions to passengers, and he only lays off after a good minute or so of being allowed to suck on Harry’s tongue.

“I do believe that’s day four of our vacation freed up,” Harry groans after Eggsy’s relinquished him.

“You wish.” Eggsy smiles and paws at Harry’s face, and thinks, singsong in his mind: day four, day four, day four.

Notes:

There's an entire village to thank for the trainwreck that is and was the process of writing this fic, and this is me just listing those whom I know by name: Freya, Nausicaa, Lui, Autumn, Rebecca, Maz, and every single anon who sent me unbelievably kind messages over the past week. I've never had any piece of work fight back as hard and as viciously as this one did, and I've no doubt none of this would even be possible if it weren't for their support. Most of all, to Or, whose many fanmails got my head together and set me straight with thought-provoking insight and advice, and Jenny, the now-designated keeper of all my personal insecurities, who was an endless source of encouragement, put up with more griping than I'd ever wish on another person, and I will forever be indebted to and sorry for blowing off on Skype. All of these people, like Harry and Eggsy, deserve all the nice things in the world, but will just have to settle for this fic. :/ Sorry, guys!

As always, you can find me on Tumblr!