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It starts when they’re on a mission, Harry running too fast down a succession of ever-narrowing flagstone corridors with excellent acoustics, which he is in a position to appreciate thanks to the heavily armed thugs following him and shouting epithets in Russian. He can make out at least half of it, but his Russian is a little rusty – perhaps Eggsy –
‘Are you having a fucking laugh,’ Eggsy says, still managing to sound flat over the comms despite the gunfire accompanying him.
‘You never can tell,’ Harry says mildly. ‘You do enjoy surprising me.’
‘That I do, Harry, that I do, but I reckon I like to save it for when we’re not in the middle of a fucking mission, yeah,’ Eggsy grunts over a peal of strangled yelps.
‘That,’ Harry says, ducking into an alcove and tripping up four of his followers before shooting them in the head, ‘is a blatant fabrication. Have you forgotten about Nicaragua?’
‘That was different and you know it, doesn’t count if I don’t fucking know what the bomb is gonna fucking look like either –’
‘Galahad, Gawain,’ Merlin says in that comfortably murderous tone he likes to adopt when he thinks they’re taking too long. ‘Can you shelve the lovers’ tiff for later and deal with the bloody bio-terrorists, please?’
‘Oi,’ squawks Eggsy, which Harry would have found dearly amusing were he not currently being tackled to the ground by a thug that managed to sneak up on him. Which is almost like Merlin getting one over on him from hundreds of miles away, and therefore patently unacceptable. Far be it for him to cede to encroaching old age, especially after he’d steadfastly rejected the position of Arthur so recently, but perhaps it would have been wise to hand this one over to Lancelot. She’d clearly been itching to go and there was no reason not to give it to her, God knows he had enough overdue paperwork to occupy the Merlin department for months, but – it was something about the way Eggsy had turned to Harry expectantly, eyes happy and wide, already smiling, and Harry had let his mouth fall shut and accepted the file from Merlin without another word. He’d even ignored Merlin’s raised eyebrow.
‘Still with us, Galahad?’ Merlin murmurs in his ear now, and Harry rolls his eyes as he flips his assailant and knocks him out against the flagstones.
‘Where’s this junction you was talking about, Merlin, I can’t see anything up ahead –’ Eggsy is busy bellowing, and Harry is just about to chastise him that gentlemen don’t raise their voices unless in moments of dire need, of which this is not, when he nearly runs headlong into the boy as they both round the corner at the same moment. Harry has the presence of mind to rest his gun on Eggsy’s shoulder in order to shoot the man behind him before he can accomplish his no doubt nefarious aims, then lowers his gun and raises an eyebrow at Eggsy, who is barely out of breath but grinning widely, a loose strand of hair falling over his forehead, a smudge of dirt high on his right cheekbone. Dust motes linger in the air between them, drifting in the light. Eggsy’s gaze drifts down to his mouth.
A moment of vertigo overtakes Harry; how easy it would be to put out a hand and cup Eggsy’s cheek, follow the sharp cut of his cheekbone with his thumb, draw him in – how easy it would be, to kiss him. The vision of it springs to mind with suspicious clarity; Eggsy’s mouth would fall open in a gasp, his hand reaching up to weave through Harry’s hair, tugging impatiently. The lush spectacle he would make pressed up against the cold flagstone wall, his legs falling open for Harry to fit between, Harry grabbing his wrists and pressing them to the hard stone above his head, Eggsy moaning while Harry sucked a deep red mark into his neck –
It takes a physical effort to stop himself. He clears his throat, forcing his eyes to focus on the torn lapel of Eggsy’s suit jacket instead of the inviting triangle of skin exposed by his open collar, and smiles vaguely in Eggsy’s direction. Eggsy’s brow creases in confusion, the wretched lovely boy, but Harry just moves away under the pretence of adjusting his shoulder holster and taps on his glasses, praying for patience. This is neither the time nor the place. There will never be a time and a place for that. ‘I suppose you’re not entirely without merit,’ he says to Merlin and talks over the scoffing he hears in reply, ‘now where exactly is this safe you promised me?’
---
It doesn’t get any better and it doesn’t get any worse when they come back from the mission. They didn’t talk much on the plane; Harry was tired and Eggsy accepted his request for some rest with an uncharacteristic lack of fuss, even if he did it with a lot of shifty glances when he thought Harry wasn’t looking. Nothing has changed. That’s what happens, Harry is firm with himself, when there is never any kind of – when the situation isn’t a situation in the first place. When there’s nothing to get better or worse. Nothing at all.
‘Well, it’s obviously not nothing,’ Merlin says, sipping his coffee and keeping a beady eye on Harry over the top of the cup. Harry stares at the mission report on his tablet and wonders how many times he’s read the same sentence. How can this possibly be happening? Merlin cannot be counselling him about his ridiculous, non-existent feelings for his protégé, a boy literally less than half his age, who has never shown any actual sign of interest – because no matter what Harry’s hindbrain might be busy insisting, fleeting glances and one tense moment in a Russian castle do not add up to romantic advances, this is not a Jane Austen novel – and for God’s sake, why would he? Harry knew his father. Harry was actually older than Eggsy’s father when he had interviewed for Kingsman. This is not only ridiculous, but potentially genuinely morally troubling.
‘So much for aging gracefully, eh,’ Merlin smirks into his cup. Harry frowns.
‘Oh, I’m joking. For God’s sake, man, you can’t seriously think this is one-sided? You did have eyes and an IQ higher than ten the last time I checked –’
‘The boy has all the respect for me that his position requires,’ Harry interrupts, rubbing the bridge of his nose. ‘If anything he sees me as a paternal figure. I am old enough to be his father, after all.’
‘Bollocks does he see you as a paternal figure, Harry –’
‘I don’t recall asking for your advice, actually, Merlin,’ Harry says, in as close as he allows himself to get to a petulant tone. He mentally accepts culpability for not having picked up on his feelings for Eggsy earlier, but he doesn’t have to let Merlin mother him about it. ‘We have work to do.’
Merlin rolls his eyes and turns back to the mission report when Harry refuses to look up from his tablet again. After Merlin leaves, citing a new group of recruits to torture with a smile Harry does find genuinely alarming, Harry finally gives up on the report. Taking off his glasses and checking he’s not within range of any of the cameras in the office (although undoubtedly there are a couple Merlin just hasn’t told him about), he pulls up the video footage of Eggsy’s first solo mission after V-Day, when Harry hadn’t yet been discovered with his memory and face half in tatters in a Kentucky hospital. Eggsy cutting a fearless swathe through a group of armed combatants, Eggsy dodging a bullet to the head with less than an inch to spare, Eggsy running out of ammunition, Eggsy diving so gracefully off a fifteen story building, slowly closing eyes reflected in the glass on his way down as he pulls the parachute cord.
He switches to his own footage of the Russian mission quickly. The change is so remarkable he forgets the exact moment he wanted to skip to and just watches Eggsy’s expression mellow and relax, half-smiling even as they shield themselves from a grenade Harry had thrown before they’d been separated. He looks up straight at Harry, only for a second, and Harry reaches forward and pauses it, shrugging off the guilty, panicked beating of his heart. He’s only looking, there’s no harm in that, and maybe if he does, it’ll be easier not to touch.
He stares at the frozen image of Eggsy, who is so beautiful it almost hurts, looking up at Harry trustingly, like he’s some kind of safe harbour, as if they’re not in the middle of a warzone, and says ‘Oh, shit.’
---
‘No, not like that,’ Harry says impatiently. ‘You have to cross the longer end over the shorter and then pass it up through the loop – no, the other longer end, Eggsy – oh, for God’s sake, let me.’
Eggsy glares at him in the mirror, not even trying to follow Harry’s movements as he ties the bow tie. He’s apparently too busy glaring to notice how close together they’re standing now, which Harry chooses to count as a blessing. Eggsy had discarded his suit jacket sometime around his third bow tying attempt and so was now standing in shirt sleeves, providing Harry with the torturous knowledge of how Eggsy looked when he was frustrated, his hair just a little ruffled, the muscles flexing in his forearms as he crossed them moodily across his chest. Harry’s arms are looped around Eggsy’s neck, the not inconsiderable height difference working to his advantage as he can better reach the tie at Eggsy’s neck. Eggsy runs hot enough that Harry can feel the promise of it through their clothes whenever Eggsy shifts, the yielding line of his body pressing back against Harry. He gives it about twenty seconds before Eggsy shakes off his sulk and starts smirking or flirting or doing something equally incorrigible, like leaning backwards and grabbing Harry’s hand and meeting his eyes in the mirror, making Harry drop the tie just to get Harry’s hand on Eggsy’s neck, skin shivering at Harry’s touch –
‘This is stupid,’ Eggsy says, tilting his head slightly to address Harry like it’s perfectly natural for Harry to be looming behind him, every exhale raising goosebumps on the back of Eggsy’s neck. Harry stares at the material in his hands, wondering what he did in a past life to deserve this. ‘Why do I need to wear a fucking bow tie anyway? I look like a prick.’
‘You did ask me to direct you in this particular instance, if I recall correctly,’ Harry says mildly, trying not to linger over Eggsy’s bared skin. ‘Besides, it’s a valuable skill that you may one day need as a Kingsman, Eggsy.’ He lays the tie flat and starts again.
‘Have you noticed you only ever say that when it’s something shite I don’t want to do?’ Eggsy catches his eye in the mirror, a slow grin stretching across his mouth. Ah, right on time.
‘That should do it.’ Harry hastily finishes the bow tie and steps away as far as he can within the confines of fitting room three, hoping Eggsy doesn’t notice how he clenches his fists. His gaze keeps snagging on the back of Eggsy’s neck, the palms of his hands aching to slide into place around Eggsy’s hips. He feels ridiculous.
‘I didn’t get it, can you show me again?’
Harry raises an eyebrow.
Eggsy smiles innocently, straightening his shirt cuffs. Harry tries not to stare like a voyeur at the soft scattering of hair on his forearms.
‘D’you remember the first time we came in here together?’ Eggsy asks with a glint in his eye.
‘Of course,’ Harry says, wondering if this can be going in a more inappropriate direction than the last twenty minutes had been.
‘I was gonna ask then but got a bit distracted by the poison and grenades and shit – who put you forward for it?’
‘You mean who was my sponsor?’
‘Yeah,’ Eggsy turns around to face him, still fiddling with his shirt sleeves, something off about the guileless look on his face. If Harry didn’t know better, he’d think Eggsy was nervous about asking something like this, as if Harry were capable of refusing him.
‘We kept it in the family. My aunt was an agent, you see – Lamorak, in fact. One of the finest service records Kingsman has ever seen. Julia, her name was.’ He smiles, remembering her face the day he’d made it through the final test, her grip tight on his arm, promising ‘I’ve never had to actually shoot a dog, Harry, do please calm down.’ She’d waited for his hands to stop shaking before she took him in to see Arthur.
‘But you don’t need to know all that.’ What interest can Eggsy have in an old man’s recollections, after all? Things have changed so much since then.
‘I want to, though,’ Eggsy says, his voice softer. ‘You should tell me all that stuff. I didn’t know much about you before – before everything with Valentine, but we’ve got time now, so you should tell me.’ He’s stopped messing with his sleeves, his hands lying still against his sides as he meets Harry’s eyes with quiet sincerity. Harry can’t look away for a moment, startled out of a flippant response. He forgets sometimes, thanks to Eggsy’s natural talent for distraction, that there is always more going on under the surface than Eggsy lets anyone see. Whatever reasons he may have, he wants to share in Harry’s history.
Harry can’t stop his smile as he props himself up against the wall. ‘Well, if you insist. What do you want to know?’
Eggsy smiles expectantly. ‘All of it.’
---
‘Ah, Lancelot, you don’t happen to have seen that file on the –’
Harry’s voice cuts off abruptly when he sees Eggsy hastily detaching himself from Roxy’s arms, adjusting his glasses and already opening his mouth to say something which will no doubt be well meant but crushing.
‘I apologise. I didn’t mean to interrupt.’
‘Not at all, Galahad,’ Roxy says, recovering much quicker than Eggsy, who is still staring at Harry with his mouth hanging open. His hair looks suspiciously messy. Harry clenches his fists around the folder he’s carrying, holding it in front of him like a weapon. ‘We were just –’
‘Roxy was helpin me out with something,’ Eggsy blurts, then closes his eyes as if in pain. In any other situation, Harry realises, he would be finding this funny. For such a skilled liar, Eggsy has almost no ability to dissemble when it comes to Harry.
‘You’ve no need to explain yourself to me,’ Harry says, hearing his own voice going cold and distant. He hasn’t spoken to Eggsy like this since that awful moment in his bathroom after Eggsy had failed the last test, when he had inadvertently reduced their entire relationship to a simple obligation to Eggsy’s father. Harry tries not to remember the look on Eggsy’s face when he’d done that, but he imagines it’s something like the expression the boy is wearing now.
He’s got absolutely no right at all to be hurt or angry, he reminds himself, his gut twisting horribly, no right at all, but he can’t make himself stop.
‘Did you need something, Galahad?’ Roxy asks, her eyes darting between him and Eggsy with more amusement than Harry thinks is truly warranted.
‘Actually, I was on my way to Merlin, just happened to run into you on the way there,’ Harry says, not even processing the words until they’re out of his mouth. Glorious, the gold standard ability to bullshit that comes along with having been a gentleman spy for nearly three decades.
‘If you’ll excuse me,’ he says, unsmiling, and departs without another word, ignoring Eggsy’s raised voice behind him. If they’re going to have a lovers’ tiff, they could have the decency to do it off Kingsman grounds.
---
It’s not even three days later when Eggsy knocks on his door near midnight, soaked to the bone still in his pinstripe suit, heavy-eyed and carrying JB, who is shivering. Harry half-convinces himself that’s the only reason he opens the door wider without a word to let both of them in.
‘Aren’t you supposed to be in Japan?’ he asks half an hour later when they’re sat in the kitchen with mugs of tea, Eggsy still towelling his hair dry from the shower. He’s wearing a t shirt and pair of pajama bottoms of Harry’s long since worn soft with age, the trousers much too long for Eggsy, who has rolled them up so he doesn’t trip. Harry ruthlessly tamps down on the urge to find this adorable. Eggsy isn’t his to adore – never had been, he reminds himself for what feels like the tenth time today. For someone so committed to abstaining from Eggsy and his affections, Harry is having a difficult time convincing himself there wasn’t anything between them for Eggsy to betray.
‘It went bad,’ Eggsy replies, cradling his mug with both hands. He looks so small suddenly, hunching his shoulders, his hair half dried and fluffy, dark circles under his eyes. He won’t meet Harry’s gaze.
‘It happens to all of us every now and then,’ Harry says, voice gentling. He wonders how badly it went. There are always degrees of atrocity; some tragedies are easier to face in the morning with a clean conscience than others.
‘I know, it’s just. Civilians,’ Eggsy mumbles in explanation. Harry takes a sip of his tea and casts around for something to say. Usually he wouldn’t filter himself so carefully for Eggsy’s benefit – Eggsy isn’t a child, after all – but as was perhaps oddly foreshadowed by his refusal to shoot JB, Eggsy has always found it harder to accept civilian casualties than almost any other aspect of the job. Harry suspects it has something to do with the memories of being caught in the crossfire between his detestable stepfather and his mother, trying to intervene and falling under fire as a consequence. Harry knows Eggsy would never take it back, his refusal to shoot the dog. He wouldn’t have him any other way.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Harry tries to gauge Eggsy’s willingness to be teased out of his mood. ‘Merlin has quite the selection of skilled psychiatrists on hand, if you’d like me to give him a ring.’
‘Piss off,’ Eggsy says, but he’s smiling now, so Harry smiles back and counts it as a victory.
They drink their tea in silence for a comfortable moment.
‘Rox really was only helpin me out, Harry,’ Eggsy says, watching Harry calmly from over his mug. Harry shifts in his chair, repressing his sudden flush of anger. It’s not fair to either of them for Eggsy to bring this up now in the hope that Harry will forgive him out of sympathy. Eggsy rolls his eyes. ‘Don’t be like that. She really was just givin me some advice, you know? There’s nothing going on with us.’ He raises one eyebrow meaningfully. ‘Rox doesn’t even like men.’
‘Oh,’ Harry says, the weight on his chest suddenly lifting. He tries not to let that show on his face but judging by Eggsy’s grin, he’s not exactly successful. ‘Well, no. I didn’t know that. Oh, do shut up,’ he says when Eggsy starts snickering most unattractively, ‘or I’ll make you sleep in the kitchen with JB.’
---
‘D’you fancy going out to dinner tonight?’
Harry looks up with a frown to find an expression that doesn’t match Eggsy’s casual tone. This is the third time today Eggsy has come by his office on the pretence of some minor task, and apparently this time he’s finally located the balls to ask for what he wants. And he does want it, Harry can see that from a mile away. Eggsy’s shifting around the room nonchalantly, squirming to get away from the words still lingering in the air between them, playing with Harry’s office trinkets with the kind of studied casual air that makes Harry wonder if they did both actually attended the same spy training or if Eggsy managed to trick them all into thinking he knew what subtlety was. Underneath the forced indifference Eggsy is watching too closely, half-smirking, daring Harry to say yes.
Harry tries not to sigh. He has been wondering, half-anticipation half-dread, whether Eggsy was ever planning to outright ask him out, but he hadn’t yet decided exactly how to turn Eggsy down if he did. It’s not that Harry’s never been in this position before, but never with another Kingsman. Relationships within the agency are prohibited for a lot of very obvious reasons, although that doesn’t usually stop anyone idiotic enough to fall for someone else in the service, but Harry has never slept with a colleague purely on the basis that Kingsman controls quite enough of his life already, and some things should be kept private. Also, he doesn’t trust Merlin not to use it as blackmail.
But this, with Eggsy, would be entirely different in any case, definitely not some kind of casual liaison, and the thought leaves him feeling uncomfortably fragile in a way he doesn’t want to examine too closely. Eggsy isn’t just a colleague and he never has been, no matter how much Harry might argue otherwise. He’s flourished so exquisitely under Harry’s guidance and regard, and he looks at Harry with a casual devotion completely out of proportion with the small kindnesses Harry has done him. Harry could crush Eggsy with so few words, break him back into the shape of that bleaker, harder boy he first met, who never would have flushed with pleasure under Harry’s praise.
Eggsy, who is now loosening his tie with calculated slowness, baring more of his neck as he perches on the front of Harry’s desk. He smiles at Harry with something that is probably supposed to be innocence.
Harry leans backward into his chair and tries to snap out of it, looking anywhere but Eggsy. He’s going to put a stop to this. Eggsy can’t be permitted to go around thinking there’s anything going on between them; it would be not only unprofessional but also morally reprehensible. The sentiment sounds so damning inside his head he almost forgets to actually say it, gaze drawn back to Eggsy’s bared skin like a magnet. He opens his mouth, meeting Eggsy’s eyes. Eggsy’s smile falters at the expression on Harry’s face.
‘I’d love to.’ Closes his mouth. Opens it to try again.
‘Great, I’ll come round about seven, alright?’ Eggsy smiles, wide and pleased again, already halfway to the door and definitely not about to give Harry a chance to change his mind. Maybe they did complete the same spy training after all.
---
Harry stares at himself in the mirror. Eggsy will be picking him up in twenty minutes, he doesn’t have time for an existential crisis. It appears to be happening anyway though, entirely without his permission.
He examines the laughter lines around his mouth, for once looking past the star-shaped scar Valentine’s bullet left in order to stare unhappily at his crows’ feet. Not as noticeable as they might be, perhaps, but still noticeable enough. Eggsy won’t develop wrinkles like this until he’s lived another lifetime, if he lives that long at all.
The thought makes Harry grind his teeth. He holds his own gaze in the mirror, listening to the tick of the clock, feeling sick. His mind unwillingly slides for a moment into thoughts of what he might do if he were twenty years younger. When Eggsy rings at the door, he might open it with a smile full of casual intimacy, surprise Eggsy with how easily he gives it away. He might take Eggsy’s hand when they are settled inside the car, open the door of the restaurant for him. Take his hand again when they sit across from each other at table, and bring up his hand to kiss his knuckles delicately. He can imagine now, a delicious heat pooling in his gut, of how Eggsy would look at him, with that beautiful awed glance only for Harry. He imagines, not meeting his own gaze in the mirror anymore, how that night might end.
He blinks. His own aged reflection stares back at him again. He’s not twenty years younger, and Eggsy will not come home with him tonight. Everyone in that restaurant would stare to see him act so with Eggsy, and he won’t do that to the poor boy. In any case, he has no concrete proof that Eggsy feels anything other for him than simple gratitude for a well-timed opportunity. What could Eggsy possibly want with an old man like Harry? Eggsy flirts as naturally as he breathes; Harry can’t draw any conclusions from that. Eggsy probably thinks of him more as the father he lost, a convenient sticking place for seventeen years’ worth of leftover affection, and Harry would be worse than pathetic to try and take that away from him, to trap him in a relationship with an old man. And worse again, the most creeping, guilty fear – that Eggsy would go along with it, compromise and consent to let Harry have him, so that he might finally have the paternal figure he wished for in his life, albeit a sick parody of one. Harry shivers. Not to mention everyone who would make assumptions from the other side; that Harry was only with Eggsy for his youth or his looks. No, he’s made enough mistakes for Eggsy in this lifetime; he can stop himself from making another.
The doorbell rings just as he’s checking his watch. He steps back from the mirror, straightening his suit jacket and sliding on his glasses. He moulds his expression into one of mild interest before he opens the door, hoping to God Eggsy doesn’t see right through it.
---
‘So it was only when I opened the box that I realised it wasn’t even a watermelon,’ Eggsy finishes, and Harry nearly spits out his water. Eggsy grins at him wickedly and Harry just knows he did that on purpose, cheeky brat. He’ll have to get him back for that later, maybe when he’s just taken a mouthful of wine.
‘But how did they – surely that must have interfered with the tenor of the performance, my dear boy?’ Harry manages after a moment.
‘I can ring Jamal up if you like, get him to explain it proper for you,’ Eggsy winks, and Harry rolls his eyes but he has a suspicion it looks much too fond. He’s having altogether too much fun with Eggsy, having worried himself into a state before Eggsy came to his door, and Eggsy has been nothing but friendly and gentlemanly all night. Well, of course, he’s flirted with Harry incorrigibly, but he hasn’t yet reached across the table and attempted to extract some sort of promise from him, which is beginning to make Harry wonder whether he misread the entire situation.
‘I don’t think that will be quite necessary, do you?’ Harry replies, and he’s still smiling at Eggsy when the waiter returns to collect their plates and says ‘Will you and your son be taking dessert tonight, sir?’ and ice runs cold down Harry’s back, smile slipping from his face.
Eggsy abruptly stops smirking and glares at the waiter.
‘We’re not father and son, and no we won’t be, thanks very much,’ he snaps. He straightens his shirt cuffs without seeming to realise he’s doing it while the waiter stutters out an apology and leaves. How this must look to him, to everyone who could have overheard. How foolish Harry has been.
They pay the bill and leave, Harry smiling politely at Eggsy, bidding him goodnight, and firmly heads off in the direction of his own home. He wouldn’t normally be so discourteous as not to offer Eggsy a lift, but tonight he feels the point must be made. Their lives cannot be permitted to overlap and entangle any more than they already have.
‘Is that it then?’ Eggsy calls out as he walks away. Harry stops and sighs. ‘You’re just gonna go back home like nothing happened in there?’
‘Nothing did happen in there, Eggsy,’ Harry says. If he doesn’t turn around, he will probably still be able to leave without having this conversation.
‘Bollocks,’ Eggsy says. Harry can hear him coming closer. ‘You wouldn’t be actin’ like this if you weren’t pissed about that waiter – ’
‘Alright, yes, enough of this,’ Harry snaps, turning around abruptly. ‘I’ve had enough of playing games, I think.’
Eggsy stops on the steps and watches him warily, one hand slightly raised as if Harry needs to be soothed. He walks up to Eggsy and bats it away impatiently.
‘I’m not a child, Eggsy.’
‘I know that,’ Eggsy rolls his eyes, his voice softer now they stand closer together, tilting his head to meet Harry’s gaze. ‘Harry. What that twat said in there – you have to know it doesn’t bother me, yeah? You’re not exactly thick.’ He places a hand on Harry’s arm. Harry stares down at it. He can smell Eggsy’s cologne, feel the warmth and pressure of his hand. He’s never wanted to touch someone so badly; it’s like an ache living inside him. He could lean down right now and kiss Eggsy, and the boy’s eyelids would flutter closed as he took in a sharp, surprised breath before he threw his arms around Harry’s neck. Harry feels the familiar turning over of his stomach that always accompanies the thought as he wants and wants and wants, with no end in sight except for the one he is about to bring about himself.
‘Eggsy,’ he begins slowly, turning to look at the boy. ‘I’m quite sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
It’s the wrong thing to say. He knows it as soon as the words are out of his mouth. It’ll get the job done but it’s entirely too cruel a tack to take.
Eggsy’s mouth hardens into a thin line and he takes his hand off Harry’s arm. ‘Like that, is it? Thought you didn’t want to play any more games, hmm?’ He doesn’t let Harry answer. ‘It’s always you being ashamed of me, Harry, have you noticed that? I couldn’t give a fuck what they think of us, what anyone thinks about you or me, but you do.’ Harry opens his mouth to try and defend himself against this insupportable argument, but Eggsy speaks over him again, his eyes shining. ‘What’s the point wasting my time with someone who doesn’t even want to be seen with me, huh?’ He shrugs it off when Harry makes an abortive attempt to grab his shoulder and walks off, straightening his glasses as he goes.
It’s for the best, Harry tells himself as he watches Eggsy go. Better that Eggsy thinks Harry doesn’t truly want him exactly as he is, rather than allowing him to dig up the real reason, which Harry is sure he would fight tooth and nail. It’s for the best, he thinks as he lies in bed that night, wishing for the first time in thirty years that he wasn’t sleeping alone.
---
Eggsy doesn’t call.
He doesn’t text, or leave obnoxious voicemails when he knows Harry is trying to get work done. He doesn’t come to Harry’s office, he’s mysteriously absent from meetings. Harry has taken to visiting Merlin at regular intervals in the underground complex in the thinly veiled hope that he might run into Eggsy, but he never catches so much as a glimpse of him. He hasn’t seen Eggsy for two weeks. He didn’t realise how much time they spent together, how much attention Eggsy was giving him, until it stops.
He shouldn’t really be surprised, he tells himself as he swills his glass of scotch, staring at the door in the vain hope that Eggsy might walk through it. Eggsy thinks Harry is ashamed of him – a ridiculous notion, but he can hardly blame the boy for forming it – and is keeping away in accordance with what he believes Harry wants.
Harry has never felt so uncompromisingly alone in his empty office, staring at the door. He raises his glass to his lips and realises it’s empty. He also hasn’t drunk as much scotch at work since the previous Arthur had first been appointed.
He sets the glass down with a sigh.
There’s a knock at the door. Harry’s head snaps up, already barking, ‘Come in,’ before he’s had time to survey his desk and realise it’s covered with a messy sprawl of folders and used tea cups. And that his tie is loosened.
Merlin walks in and stops with his hand still on the doorknob.
‘Harry,’ he says reproachfully.
‘I know,’ Harry says. ‘You don’t have to say anything, I’m fully aware –’
‘Harry.’
‘Yes, alright,’ Harry says testily. ‘What do you want?’ He eyes Merlin’s clipboard warily; he’s come to approach it with the appropriate amount of fear since V-Day practically buried Kingsman in paperwork, and in Merlin’s own words, ‘put my retirement back three decades.’
‘I want you to make it up with Eggsy,’ Merlin says flatly. ‘Whatever you did, undo it. He’s fucking intolerable, Harry. He’s following the mission brief only so long as it doesn’t get in the way of him throwing his toys out of the pram. Did you know he drove one of the Lamborghinis into the ocean last week? On the pretence that he “had to put the fire out somehow.”'
The corner of Harry’s mouth twitches.
‘It’s not fucking funny, Harry.’
‘Oh, come on,’ Harry says, ‘It is rather resourceful, you must admit.’
‘I must admit bugger all. He could have died.’
‘It’s a little late to start chastising anyone on that score. Kingsman was still a spy agency, last time I checked.’
‘You know what I mean,’ Merlin shoots him a glare and Harry sighs.
‘Alright, I take your point. If he is acting –’
‘Like a tosser.’
‘– as you say, in a manner unbefitting to his station, surely it falls to Arthur to reprimand him appropriately.’ Harry blinks in benevolent calm at Merlin, who has a somewhat manic gleam in his eye.
‘And I’m sure you’d love to explain to Arthur exactly why it is that Eggsy is behaving like this, would you?’
Harry grits his teeth and gets up to pour himself more scotch. He struggles with himself for a moment, then resignedly pours one for Merlin too.
‘You are an incorrigible prick sometimes, you do know that, don’t you?’
‘The Lamborghini, Harry,’ Merlin barks.
‘I’ve tried talking to him,’ Harry lies. ‘What else would you have me do?’
Merlin smiles and sips his scotch.
---
‘I’m not fucking happy about this, alright,’ Eggsy says after half an hour of tense silence. ‘Just so’s you know.’
‘How could I fail to notice,’ Harry says as drily as he can.
Eggsy’s sat with one hand drumming out an anxious rhythm on his knee in the back of the cab, staring out the window. He hasn’t looked at Harry at all. Harry, on the other hand, has struggled to look away. He feels like he hasn’t seen Eggsy in months, and is finding it accordingly difficult to acclimatise to his presence. He can’t seem to take in the sight of Eggsy full on so he steals glances at the moss green of Eggsy’s eyes, the shine of his perfectly combed hair, the stubborn line of his mouth; a kaleidoscope of dizzying images. Harry turns his head sharply to look out the window, eyes following the tarmac stretching out ahead of them.
‘Did you read the mission brief?’ he asks. Eggsy shifts in his seat and finally looks at Harry.
‘Of course I read the fucking mission brief, Harry. I’m not the unprofessional one out of the two of us.’
‘Unprofessional?’ Harry turns to meet Eggsy’s gaze. ‘If anyone deserves that label, Eggsy, I can assure you it isn’t me –’
‘Oh, here we go,’ Eggsy says, sneering, and Harry hates that look on his face, like he’s laughing at himself for expecting any better from someone like Harry. He takes a deep breath. He’s been on worse missions, he repeats to himself mentally. That time he and Bors were stranded in a Siberian train car for six days and had to cuddle for warmth (which Bors still refuses to acknowledge, stuffy git). And of course there was that one particular time in Brazil with the tapeworms that still doesn’t really bear thinking about. A few days with Eggsy cannot possibly be as bad as all that. They’re both adults, after all.
‘We just have to be civil with one another,’ he says.
Eggsy snorts. ‘Yeah, right.’
Harry sighs, drinking in the sight of Eggsy’s taut jawline before turning back to the window. ‘If you can’t be civil, be quiet. It’s a long way to Venice and I don’t think Merlin would appreciate scrubbing bloodstains out of the jet, not after last time.’
Eggsy doesn’t say anything but when Harry glances over he looks like he’s fighting with himself, one corner of his mouth turned up, trying not to acknowledge the joke.
---
The mission is simple enough. So simple in fact that Harry is fairly sure that Merlin only sent the two of them in order to get them into a confined space together for a protracted period of time. Stealing blueprints from one of Italy’s most hospitable megalomaniacs should be a one man job considering how easy it was to get an invite to his annual gala; Eggsy’s going to be left holding Harry’s coat at this rate.
He eyes Eggsy from across the room while he makes idle chitchat with a nuclear physicist from Rome. Giovanni Rizzo does know how to throw a good party, Harry has to give him that. The ice sculptures glitter in the crystal light thrown by the chandeliers, the frescoes on the ceiling lit up in all their actually quite startling realism. He keeps a beady eye on the cherub in the right hand corner of the hall ceiling, having never really appreciated paintings that look like they’re following you around the room.
Eggsy strolls over to him under the pretence of introducing himself to the physicist with a slightly sharper grin than is really necessary. She leaves after a moment with an awkward smile, glancing between the two of them. Harry raises an eyebrow at Eggsy, who just blinks back innocently.
‘A few too many teeth, I think, my dear boy.’
‘Yeah right,’ Eggsy sniffs, knocking back his glass of champagne like lemonade. He winces. ‘Ugh. I still don’t get why this stuff is so expensive.’
Harry stares idiotically while Eggsy surveys the room. He should be watching too, he knows; just because there’s two of them doesn’t mean he’s allowed to get complacent. But Eggsy looks so lovely it’s difficult to look away now that Harry’s gaze has snagged on the flush in his cheeks from the heat and the champagne. He wonders how far down Eggsy’s chest that flush goes.
Eggsy glances at him and Harry’s eyes flicker to the clock behind the bar.
‘About time to make our exit, don’t you think,’ he murmurs, and Eggsy smiles, taking Harry’s empty glass with a light brush of his fingertips and setting them both down on the counter before he takes off in the direction of Rizzo’s private suite, leaving Harry staring after him.
---
In hindsight, Harry regrets his hubris in expecting the mission to run smoothly. He’s not a superstitious man, but with each passing year he’s coming round to the idea that the easier one expects a mission to be, the more likely it is to go tits up.
It’s not completely unsalvageable; they managed to secure the blueprints on a flash drive before security caught on and forced them to get creative with their escape route, dodging through winding corridors and down flights of stairs, Eggsy taking point and Harry picking off any stragglers. Harry’s running so fast he nearly sends both of them flying when Eggsy’s hand unexpectedly shoots out from an almost invisible alcove tucked neatly behind a pillar made of solid marble.
Eggsy pulls him into a cupboard that seems like it could hold perhaps a mop and bucket at once if one were to perform some careful manoeuvres beforehand. They’re both breathing hard but Eggsy pushes one finger to his lips urgently and wiggles around Harry until he’s pressed to the closed door, listening intently for the sounds of security passing by the door. They’re pressed so close together it’s impossible not to feel Eggsy’s body relaxing minutely after a moment; Harry taps him on the arm and he nods, breathing still slightly laboured, and presses his finger to his lips once more.
The silence is deafening, the sounds of the party long faded behind them in the thrill of the chase. In their current position, Eggsy pressed to the door with his back to Harry’s chest and barely an inch between them, the hard line of Eggsy’s body one long sinuous curve in front of him with absolutely nowhere else to hide, Harry can foresee an awkward situation quickly arising. He can smell the pomade Eggsy used on his hair before they left the hotel, faint traces of his cologne, the tang of clean sweat from their impromptu chase. The heat of the enclosed space and the scents are almost dizzying in their intensity. It wouldn’t be the first time agents have been forced into such close quarters together, he tells himself as he braces his arm against the wall in front in an attempt not to fall into Eggsy and bring their bodies into even closer alignment. He hears Eggsy’s sharp intake of breath and swallows.
‘Reckon they’re gone but we should probably wait a bit just to make sure,’ Eggsy says, and Harry wonders if he’s imagining the way Eggsy’s voice sounds slightly hoarse. Harry hums in agreement and tries not to shift his hips and brush his rapidly hardening cock against the swell of Eggsy’s arse. There’s no way the boy hasn’t noticed by now, especially if his hitching breathing is anything to go by. Harry feels every excruciating shift of Eggsy’s hips as if they’re hotwired to his dick, which at this point they might as well be.
‘Bet this happens to you all the time, innit, being a secret agent and everything,’ Eggsy says. He shifts from one foot to the other and Harry swallows a small sound as it brings the crease of his arse into alignment with Harry’s cock. He wonders wildly if Eggsy is as hard as Harry in his suit trousers, if he were to reach round now with the hand not braced against the wall, would he find Eggsy hard and silky for him, already wet with precome, already so worked up Harry would hardly have to do anything at all, just take him in hand and stroke him hard and fast to make him moan and pulse into Harry’s hand. He could shove two fingers into Eggsy’s mouth to give him something to moan around, make him suck hard until Harry’s fingers were good and wet and Eggsy was gasping around them.
‘Perhaps a little less than you’d think,’ Harry says after an inexcusable pause.
Eggsy swallows. ‘Hey, Harry.’
‘Mmm,’ Harry murmurs, trying not to linger on the image of Eggsy’s red mouth open and moaning as Harry touches him. It’s insane to be allowing himself to get so distracted, he knows, but it’s as if he can feel every cell in Eggsy’s body straining toward him, craving, needy. Eggsy’s breath is coming fast, on the edge of whining, every hitching sound gunshot loud in the quiet of the cupboard. Harry’s hand curls up tight against the wall with the struggle not to touch.
‘Harry,’ Eggsy says, barely even a whisper. Despite the need in his voice, he holds himself taut, every muscle in his body a question begging to be answered.
‘I apologise for the ah, cosiness of the quarters,’ Harry says, hoping his voice doesn’t sound as uneven as he thinks it does. He doesn’t entirely know why he said that. He feels only the barest of connections between his brain and his mouth right now, synapses blown by the scent and sound and feel of Eggsy enveloping him.
‘Was gonna ask,’ Eggsy says, hint of a grin in his voice and Harry’s cock jerks at the thought of Eggsy’s smug smile, ‘Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just –’
‘Oh, Eggsy, no,’ Harry interrupts, his voice finally cracking a little.
‘Just sayin,’ Eggsy says, deliberately pressing back into Harry’s erection, the little shit, ‘I know you wear a shoulder holster.’
A pause.
‘Fuck. The light’s gone out under the door,’ Eggsy says, sounding startled into focus.
‘Excellent,’ Harry says, ‘they mustn’t have come back this way. If you can just –’
Eggsy makes a noise of assent and turns the doorknob carefully, checking the corridor before he opens the door fully and they step out into cool air. Harry carefully avoids looking at Eggsy while they adjust themselves discreetly and with only a nod of assent, steal back the way they came.
---
Harry wakes the next morning positively edgy with anticipation over what Eggsy might come up with to occupy them until their flight leaves the next morning. His dreams had been soft and heady, a mess of sensations borrowed from memory and fantasy, leaving him itching under the skin, his cock hard and dripping in his boxers.
Eggsy hasn’t yet stirred. The slightly parted curtains let a thin beam of sunlight but otherwise the room is still fairly dim, furnishings still shrouded in the hush of sleep. Harry can only just see to read the clock and find to his amazement that they’ve slept through to ten o’clock. He hasn’t woken up after seven for years. Then again, they had been exhausted enough the night before after taking an excessively circuitous route back to the hotel in order to avoid any particularly diligent members of Rizzo’s security. Harry hadn’t even had time to agonise over their twin room – rather than the separate but adjoining rooms he’d requested; he made a mental note to augment his vendetta against Merlin – before they’d both been collapsing into their separate beds.
He turns to look at Eggsy now, who is still lying on his front in bed, breathing soft and regular, his hand curled up near his mouth. The thin sheet that covered him has slipped down during the night and now just barely covers his arse, leaving his back exposed to view, the elegant curve rising and falling slowly with every breath. Harry wants to chart every one of Eggsy’s moles and freckles with his mouth as he slides his hands over the boy’s shoulder blades, kiss down every notch in his spine. He imagines pressing his thumbs into the dimples above his arse before drawing back the sheet and palming his arse with both hands, pushing gently until the boy spreads his legs wider before Harry he licks slowly and gently over his hole, making Eggsy whine into his pillow with frustration before eating him out in earnest, licking and thrusting, getting him gorgeous and wet until Eggsy’s grinding back against him, pressing his face into the bed, begging for Harry’s cock.
Eggsy’s eyes snap open, catching Harry staring directly at his arse with God only knows what kind of rapturous expression. Their eyes meet for a moment before Harry clears his throat.
‘Would you mind terribly if I took the first shower?’
---
After a rushed, heady shower that involves fucking into his own hand as if he were nearer twenty than fifty, Harry finds himself dragged off on a tour of the city by a restless Eggsy, who now that they’re actually out of the hotel room has clammed up, walking with his hands in his pockets and stretching the fabric of his suit trousers out terribly. He’s dressed only in a tight-fitting shirt and trousers, his golden hair loose and gleaming in the sunlight. Harry can’t stop watching the muscles in his shoulders shift subtly under his shirt whenever he lifts a hand to block out the sun. He meanly doesn’t suggest Eggsy invest in a pair of sunglasses.
‘Well then,’ he says as they stroll down the cobblestones, ‘is there anything in particular you’d like to do?’ He looks over at Eggsy, who is now staring moodily into the long stretch of the canal as if it has personally offended him. Harry has thought often before about offering to take him somewhere, a destination of Eggsy’s choice, or for Eggsy and a friend if he’d prefer. He hadn’t really been able to kid himself that it was about broadening Eggsy’s mind, which was already so open you could drive a truck through it. In all honesty he just wants Eggsy to have all the things he’d never been able to have after Lee had died, the holidays and gifts and lifestyle to which he had never been able to become accustomed. Which at this point adds up to a not inconsiderable number of life experiences, Harry does recognise that. Nevertheless, he wants to be the one to even that score – if they can actually find something Eggsy wanted to do.
Eggsy’s expression brightens suddenly. It’s like the sun coming out, Harry thinks, and then immediately wants to hit himself over the head.
‘Can we go on a gondola?’ Eggsy says in a rush, swinging round to look at Harry. ‘They do it in all the films, don’t they? Come on, Harry, please. We can do whatever you want, after, we can even go to some boring gallery or something if you want. Check out some rival tailors.’ He throws Harry a cheeky wink and Harry rolls his eyes.
‘Oh, go on then. But I’m not bloody rowing, I can tell you that much.’
‘Scared you’ll fall in?’
‘Scared you’d push me, more like.’
Eggsy laughs delightedly and Harry struggles not to smile, shading his eyes from the sun and flagging down a nearby gondolier.
---
Neither of them fall into the canal although it’s a close thing, Eggsy reaching out to skim his fingertips along the surface of the water and rocking the boat until Harry tutted enough to catch his attention. Eggsy had just grinned and asked Harry to recite him some poetry, at which point Harry started listing the foulest Italian curse words he knew until the gondolier threatened to stop rowing, scandalised.
They wander through the city now in the low light of evening, vaguely on the lookout for somewhere to eat. This whole situation is starting to feel rather bizarrely like a romantic getaway for two, enough that Harry has to keep reminding himself not to be ridiculous and that they’re only filling unavoidable downtime until their plane leaves tomorrow. He sees Eggsy’s eyes catching on a man selling roses to beleaguered tourists and hesitates for a moment, wondering if this situation is about to become even more of a cliché trap than it already is.
‘Eggsy?’ he asks.
‘Hmm? Nothing, just – look, it’s stupid.’ He scuffs his shoe against a cobblestone and Harry fights the urge to chide him for it. The moment feels uncomfortably delicate, like Eggsy is showing him one of those marvellous glimpses of the vulnerability under the winks and sarcasm, the parts of himself he doesn’t let anyone else see.
‘No one’s ever given me flowers before, have they,’ Eggsy mumbles, blushing, and Harry nearly walks into a lamp post. Does Eggsy know how he sounds when he says things like that? The boy must know, he’s not stupid. It almost doesn’t matter whether or not he intends to manipulate Harry; after all, Harry would rather buy a rose for Eggsy than he would for anyone else on earth, whatever the reason Eggsy wants it. Whatever Harry can bring himself to give him, Eggsy shall have.
He does feel a sense of embarrassment so acute that it becomes almost an out of body experience when he actually hands over the money to the salesman and gives Eggsy the rose, however. He fervently thanks any and all deities that may be listening that they both have their glasses firmly tucked into their shirt pockets out of the sight of Merlin’s prying surveillance.
Eggsy’s small smile, looking up at Harry beneath his lashes, makes up for it. Harry hastens them inside a restaurant before he can also be persuaded to buy Eggsy fake designer sunglasses or a charming celebrity caricature.
---
Dinner is easy, and lovely, and sweet. Harry gets so wrapped up in talking to Eggsy that he forgets himself, leaning forward almost as if he’s about to take Eggsy’s hand across the table and has to turn the movement into reaching for his water glass, hoping Eggsy doesn’t notice the way his eyes widen. He quietens after that, suddenly aware of how far he’s slipped into this fantasy of time with Eggsy, performing the rituals of a relationship he can’t let himself have.
‘Can I ask you something,’ Eggsy says when they’re back in the hotel room, in a sort of rush, as if he’s had to talk himself into saying it. When Harry looks at him he’s got that determined expression on, the one that makes Harry uncharitably mentally compare him to JB.
‘That depends on what it is,’ he says with a faint smile, putting the room key down with exaggerated care. Does he want to have this conversation sitting down, so he feels even more like an old man with weak knees, or standing up, where he can tower over Eggsy like the authority figure he wishes he wasn’t? Both choices are tempting, obviously.
‘Why don’t you want to be with me?’ Eggsy asks, and all the breath goes out of Harry. He sits down on the edge of his bed and resists the urge to rub his temples.
‘Eggsy,’ he says quietly. But Eggsy isn’t done.
‘At first I thought you was just ashamed of me, but that’s not it, is it? We been out everywhere today and you’ve never once looked like you didn’t want to be seen with me. So it can’t be that.’ He stares at Harry searchingly. He’s clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides. Harry wants to take hold of his hands and unbend the fingers gently one by one, soothe any marks Eggsy’s fingernails left behind.
‘Eggsy, we’ve discussed this before –’
‘No we bloody haven’t, you just clammed up on me like you do all the time, like you’re doing now! I’ve tried keepin my trap shut about it but then yesterday in that fucking cupboard and today at dinner and – I see how you look at me, Harry, I know what it means.’ Eggsy’s eyes have turned glittering and hard now, daring Harry to argue with him.
‘Eggsy, you must understand – it’s inappropriate, not only am I twice your age, but also your immediate superior within Kingsman, and I cannot in good conscience –’
‘Do it in bad conscience then!’ Eggsy interrupts, too loud. They both fall silent for a moment, staring at each other. ‘What does that even mean anyway – no one in Kingsman’s gonna give a shit, Merlin’s practically leading us up the aisle as it is – there’s no real rules against it, Harry – ’
‘You’re not listening to me, Eggsy –’
‘– if it’s just that you don’t want me enough to bother, you should just say,’ Eggsy finishes, finally looking away, his jaw tightening. ‘I know you been alone for a long time.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Harry says without thinking, can’t stop his mouth opening, ‘of course I – of course it’s not that.’
‘Then why can’t we,’ Eggsy’s voice soft now, stubborn and raw.
‘When your father saved my life all those years ago, Eggsy,’ Harry begins, not sure himself how he means to end the sentence, but Eggsy snorts before he can do any such thing, glaring at him.
‘Is that it? You’re rejecting me because you knew my dad? Because of something that happened years ago that I can’t even do anything about?’
‘It’s because of me that he’s dead, Eggsy,’ Harry snaps, standing up sharply off the bed. ‘I’ve already taken that from you, how can I possibly saddle you with a relationship with an old man?’
Eggsy just stares at him.
‘That’s fucking stupid, Harry, and you know it,’ he says finally. ‘I don’t care if you’re older than me.’
Harry sighs. ‘No, Eggsy. But I do.’
Eggsy seems to sag a little at that, his remarkable ability to argue with a brick wall seeping out of him. He scratches the back of his neck and Harry winces at the nervous tic months of training haven’t been able to train out of him.
‘We’d better get some sleep,’ Eggsy says after a few moments, voice flat. He doesn’t wait for Harry to answer before he slips into the en suite, shutting the door with a soft click. Harry gives in to the urge to put his head in his hands, sighing.
Eggsy doesn’t look at him when he emerges and turns out the lights. Harry should be pleased that Eggsy is acquiescing but he lies in bed awake for a long time, staring up at the ceiling. It’s not as if he’s really won anything, after all.
---
It’s worse this time after they get back to London. Eggsy isn’t crashing any more expensive sports cars, but he still isn’t talking to Harry, and Merlin can barely get him back in London long enough to accept the next mission briefing.
‘I think if he had his way, he’d be country-hopping and not have to come back here at all. What the fuck did you say to him, Harry? How can you possibly have made it any worse?’
‘In hindsight, I probably should have left out that bit about how I’d rather go back in time and shag Thatcher,’ Harry says wonderingly, tapping his fingers on the desk.
Merlin rolls his eyes. ‘Alright, don’t tell me, I’ll just check whether he’s carved ‘Harry Hart is a heartless bastard’ or ‘withholding twat’ into the wall of the gents next time he comes back, shall I?’
‘Keep on the lookout for ‘sanctimonious prick’, he’s very fond of that one.’
It’s not as funny when Eggsy leaves for Costa Rica on a Tuesday and goes dark on them two days later, on what should have been a simple surveillance mission. It’s not funny at all.
---
It could still be alright. There could be a perfectly serviceable explanation for why Eggsy still hasn’t contacted them, two days three hours and seventeen minutes after he was supposed to check in. Merlin keeps reminding Harry that there could be any number of reasons – stressing any number, as if this helps at all. There only needs to be one reason why not.
He’s sat in his office alone. He’s been here for hours. At some point it had got dark but he didn’t get up to turn on the lights. Every other thought or consideration, no matter how small, is paling and falling away into the kaleidoscope of horrifying images of what could be happening to Eggsy now, what could have been happening to him two days ago that he never answered Merlin’s call, and hasn’t answered any of them since.
Harry’s hand shakes as he lifts his glass of scotch to his mouth. He checks his phone again pointlessly, the motions stiff and unfamiliar after having reverted almost entirely to communicating via glasses and earpieces in the last year. But he can’t check his glasses now. Merlin confiscated them, along with Harry’s entire arsenal, around the same time as he froze Harry’s access.
‘Harry, you can’t – it won’t do any good now, even if it might have done. I’ve got Lamorak and Percival on it, they’re only an hour away so, so – if anyone can help Eggsy now then it’s them,’ Merlin had tried to plead with him.
It had been like hearing someone shouting through deep dark water. Harry had barely even processed the words over the pounding in his head, still trying to barge his way past Merlin, get to a jet, fly it to where Eggsy is, and kill anyone who’s touched him.
‘Harry, you can’t go after him.’ This time Merlin had put a hand to Harry’s chest and made himself immovable in the way he only ever does for lack of any other options. Harry had finally met his eyes.
He stares sightlessly at the closed door, cursing his own temper. He knows in a small, still rational corner of his mind that he can’t blame Merlin for putting him on lockdown. Harry had made him do it, punching him like that. He has the feeling he only got away with it because of Eggsy, and nothing other would have made Merlin refrain from hitting him back. Harry’s sure Merlin will make swift recompense if – when Eggsy is back. When Eggsy is back safe.
Harry takes out his phone and puts it on the desk in case it goes off and he doesn’t notice. Lamorak and Percival should be there by now. An hour away, Merlin had said. They should be hosing themselves down to get clean of the blood by now. Something must have gone wrong. Anything could have happened – they had no idea what they were walking into, no information whatsoever to go off. Nothing in Eggsy’s last transmission had suggested that he had been discovered.
All they knew was where the gang did most of its shadiest business, and that was where they were heading. Of course it was likely that the organised crime syndicate Eggsy had been observing were the ones that had taken him, but they weren’t the only risk. The world was a veritable goldmine of death traps once Harry got started down that mental path. Eggsy could have walked into traffic. He could have been abducted. He could have contracted some new incredibly virulent disease that Kingsman hadn’t had the chance to make a vaccine for yet. He could have been murdered in an alley for his watch and his wallet. Any and all possibilities roam Harry’s mind like waking nightmares, along with the one torturous and unavoidable truth that keeps hitting him right between the eyes: that none of this would be happening at all if Eggsy hadn’t been trying so hard to avoid him. Eggsy might be here right now, sharing a quiet drink with Harry, laughing over some new departmental gossip, if Harry hadn’t pushed him away with quite such ruthless determination.
His phone vibrates and Harry scrambles forward, knocking over his glass in his haste.
They have him
He calls Merlin.
‘He’s alive,’ Merlin says tersely before Harry can get the words out. All the breath in Harry’s body departs and he nearly collapses, bracing himself with one shaking hand against the desk.
‘Is he –’ Harry doesn’t know how to finish the question, or whether Merlin can give him the answer he needs without Harry asking.
‘He’s still unconscious,’ Merlin says, ‘I’ve still got to get them out – I’ll call when I get the chance.’ He hangs up.
Harry sits there for a moment with the phone still held to his ear, replaying Merlin’s words in his head, willing his heart to stop hammering.
---
It’s half an hour before Merlin calls again.
‘Are they out?’ Harry asks in a rush before Merlin can say anything.
‘They’re out,’ Merlin confirms, and Harry sinks back into his chair, rubbing his temples. He should have poured a drink. He should have poured ten drinks.
‘What’s Eggsy’s condition? Is he still unconscious? Where were they keeping him? Did they –’
‘Kindly shut up, Harry, and I’ll tell you,’ Merlin says pleasantly, but there’s an undercurrent of something uneasy in his voice. ‘He’s still unconscious, yes, but Lamorak reckons that’s more to do with the beatings than anything they’ve given him.’
‘The beatings,’ Harry repeats.
‘Yes,’ Merlin says cautiously.
‘What kind of beatings?’
‘The kind that comes with a free manicure and a happy ending, bloody hell Harry, what kind do you think?’
There’s a pause while Harry tries to process what Merlin is telling him without bursting a blood vessel.
‘How badly is he hurt?’
‘He’ll heal, Harry.’
‘How badly?’
There’s a tsk. ‘Mostly torso damage – three broken ribs, punctured lung, dislocated shoulder. He had a dislocated kneecap but he seems to have popped it back in himself alright, so that must have been a day ago at least. A lot of bruises, split lip. The usual. He’ll walk, he’ll talk, he just needs to rest, Harry.’
‘You’re sure?’ Harry is far past shame at needing this much reassurance. He’ll have time enough to wince over it later, when Eggsy is safe and whole in front of him.
‘As sure as I can be without actually having him bodily present in front of me, yes,’ Merlin says, a hint of impatience creeping into his voice for the first time. ‘Now are you going to get a bit of kip before they get here or what?’
‘Obviously not.’
‘I didn’t think so,’ Merlin sighs. ‘Well, come back down then. We can wait it out together. I’ll even let you have your shoes back if you promise not to punch me again.’
‘It’s been a very trying day, if you recall,’ Harry says before he hangs up.
---
Harry paces in front of the landing pad.
‘They should be back by now,’ he mutters.
‘They’re fine, Harry, you saw the tracking data,’ Merlin says, not looking up from his tablet and kindly not mentioning how often Harry had made him pull up the data on his laptop until eventually Merlin has acquiesced to unfreezing his access and giving him back his own bloody laptop. He’d watched the green dot of the helicopter carrying Eggsy beeping across a world map, closer to headquarters every second. A medical team were standing by now ready to receive the walking wounded and treat Eggsy, who is still unconscious but appears to be ‘resting peacefully’ according to Lamorak, which is a bloody laugh and a half. If Eggsy did anything stupid to endanger himself and lead to his being captured, Harry is going to ensure he never rests peacefully again. This has been the longest night of Harry’s life, bar none.
Harry is about to say something irritable that is at least seventy percent sleep deprivation when the unmistakable whirring of helicopter blades cuts through the early morning quiet and his head snaps around as the medical team spring to attention, wheeling a gurney closer to the pad. Merlin clasps Harry on the shoulder and Harry can’t even turn his head for a second to smile in thanks.
He tries to prepare himself for how Eggsy might look, a last surge of adrenaline hammering through him as the helicopter lands and the doors open. He knows there is not inconsiderable bruising, that the boys have bandaged him up as best they could with a first aid kit but they couldn’t fix everything – they won’t have been able to erase the evidence of days of confinement in a few hours in the cramped confines of a helicopter. More than anything, Harry dreads that they haven’t got it quite right; that it wasn’t just beatings, that some deeper cut may have been inflicted on his dear boy. He swallows convulsively, squeezing his hands into fists.
And then there Eggsy is, carried out of the helicopter by Lamorak, whose mouth is fixed in a grim line, and set on the gurney carefully, his limp body immediately swarmed by medics.
Harry’s at his side before he can realise he’s even moving, getting in everyone’s way and ignoring the commands of the nurses to step back. Eggsy is here. He’s bruised and battered but Harry can see the fine spiderweb veins in his eyelids, hear him take in a breath. He’s alive. Harry grabs his hand and presses his fingers into the pulse point of Eggsy’s wrist, his heart clenching when he registers the thumping rhythm.
Still his Eggsy, still his love, heart beating strong and true.
He drops Eggsy’s hand and watches him get rushed off to hospital bay, his gaze unwavering until the gurney is long out of sight.
---
It takes Eggsy three days to wake up.
Harry does leave his bedside briefly on the second day, when Merlin drops by, realises Harry hasn’t been home in two days, and borderline terrorises him into showering and sleeping somewhere that isn’t the chair next to Eggsy’s bed. Harry comes back half an hour later with his hair still wet, having showered in the gym and changed into the spare suit he keeps in his office. Merlin is gone, but a pallet has been placed in Eggsy’s room, with a one-word note pinned to the bedsheet: idiot.
Harry is busy marking up the paperwork for Bors’ latest catastrophe. He’s gotten into the habit of talking aloud as he works, waiting for Eggsy to wake up, half-expecting him to join in the conversation.
‘You’d think after a decade in the service Anthony might have learned how to deploy the grenades with a degree of panache,’ he mutters, ‘but no, still lobbing them around like they grow on bloody trees, and every time Merlin blows a gasket and hisses at anyone who tries to requisition anything more expensive than one of the laser fountain pens –’
‘That’s Bors for you,’ Eggsy says. ‘Mad bastard.’
‘Mmm,’ Harry agrees absently, then drops the paper in his hand and stares at Eggsy, who is awake, his eyes blinking open sleepily, smiling at Harry.
‘Eggsy,’ he says, not daring to look away, scrambling to put his papers aside and bolt out of his chair. ‘My God, you had us all worried, my dear boy.’
‘Gotta keep you on your toes,’ Eggsy smiles then winces, tongue poking out to feel at his still healing split lip.
‘Yes, well you did rather give us a scare,’ Harry says, trying to process the living, breathing, talking fact of Eggsy Unwin in front of him. He leans forward quickly and takes hold of Eggsy’s hand, careful not to jostle the IV drip.
‘Eggsy,’ he says, ‘my dear boy,’ and kisses Eggsy’s hand slowly, closing his eyes and just holding on for a moment.
When he opens them again, Eggsy is staring at him, looking thoroughly unnerved.
‘Are you alright bruv?’
Harry laughs, sounding only a little delirious, and tries not to cling too tightly to Eggsy’s hand.
‘We thought you were dead, Eggsy,’ he says gently. ‘For hours, we thought – you gave us quite the scare.’ He tries to smile but Eggsy doesn’t smile back.
‘Yeah,’ he says, watching Harry, ‘reckon I know a bit about that.’
Harry swallows but he doesn’t look away. He owes Eggsy that; he can’t ever give back the time Eggsy spent thinking Harry had bled out on the tarmac in Kentucky, but he can try to make up for it in other ways.
Roxy bursts through the door before Harry can think anymore in that direction, her eyes shooting straight to the bed.
‘Gary Unwin,’ she says slowly, as if she’s about to give Eggsy the chastising of his life, but then her expression falters and she flings herself forward, throwing her arms around Eggsy.
‘Hey, hey,’ Eggsy says, rubbing a hand over Roxy’s shaking back, making scared eye contact with Harry. ‘What the fuck is up with everyone, I was only gone a few days – ow!’ He jumps back when Roxy smacks him on the arm, although Harry notes she managed to aim for unbruised skin.
‘You deserve a lot worse,’ Roxy says severely, pulling back and wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘God, Eggsy. You’re such a fucking idiot. If you ever do that again –’
‘I know, I know, I got it, you were all cryin into your pillows at night,’ Eggsy says, grinning, and Harry has to restrain the urge to smack him too. It’s probably fortunate that that’s the point when the word seems to have finally gotten all the way round to surgeon in charge of Eggsy’s recovery, as he comes through the door shooting a disgruntled look at Roxy.
‘How did you find out before I did?’ he asks. ‘I mean, it’s actually my job to know before you do.’
Roxy winks and turns back to Eggsy. ‘I’d best go tell Merlin. He’ll be so pleased to hear you’re awake, I think he wants to shoot you and have you stuffed,’ she says cheerfully before pecking Eggsy on the cheek and leaving with threats to come back later with a balloon and a teddy bear the size of a small child. The surgeon sighs and starts examining Eggsy.
After the doctor reassures them there should be no lasting damage and leaves, Harry drags his chair as close as he can get to Eggsy’s bedside and settles in. Eggsy holds his hand out and Harry takes it, leaning forward so Eggsy doesn’t have to stretch to reach him. They smile at each other for a moment.
‘Obviously it can wait for debrief if you’d like to get some rest but honestly, Eggsy,’ Harry says, ‘I would love to know what the fuck happened.’
Eggsy laughs then coughs, his voice hoarse from disuse. He’s rubbing slow circles into Harry’s skin with his thumb. Harry doesn’t want to stop touching him, ever. He’s trying not to think about it too much. One thing at a time.
‘They knew I was gonna be there, Harry,’ he says eventually, half-smiling as if laughing at himself for walking into the trap. ‘They must have got a heads up from someone, I dunno – anyway they knew about Kingsman but they didn’t know any names so they decided to rattle me until some fell out.’ His smile cracks down the middle, his eyes meeting Harry’s imploringly. ‘I didn’t tell them anything, Harry, I swear –’
‘My boy, it didn’t even occur to me to ask,’ Harry says, covering their linked hands with his other hand until Eggsy stops giving him that painfully earnest look, as if Harry could question the loyalty of a man who wouldn’t give him even up in the face of an oncoming train.
‘Lamorak and Percival mentioned something about a video camera, when they brought you in,’ Harry says watching Eggsy closely, the words sticking in his throat. He’d been so busy worrying about Eggsy actually waking up that he’d pushed this to the back of his head – Lamorak’s uneasy frown as he told Harry how they’d found Eggsy already unconscious, strapped to a chair with a white sheet behind him and a rolling video camera in front.
Eggsy lets out a slow breath and lets his head fall back on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. Harry’s stomach lurches.
‘I think they was gonna send it to you. They were filming it and they wanted … they said they were gonna find Kingsman and show them what happens when you send someone after them.’ He crooks a smile at Harry. ‘But I wouldn’t tell them anything, and they didn’t get to kill me anyway, so you can get that look off your face for starters.’
When Harry doesn’t do anything but clench his free hand tightly in the bedsheets, wishing those men weren’t already dead so he could kill them again with his bare hands, Eggsy tsks in the back of his throat. Harry looks at him, trying to keep the anger out of his eyes. Eggsy shouldn’t have to be strong for him right now – Eggsy should be able to feel exactly as he wishes about this, without the burden of knowing it will keep Harry awake at night too.
‘It wasn’t anything, Harry, nothing I can’t handle,’ Eggsy says, so gently.
Harry remembers Eggsy’s words when Harry offered him the opportunity to train as a Kingsman. You think I’ve got anything to lose? It’s not as if Eggsy didn’t already know how it felt to be held over someone else’s head as leverage.
Harry’s breath catches in his throat. ‘It’s hardly nothing, Eggsy. You nearly died.’ He sighs. ‘I am so sorry, my dear boy.’
Eggsy shrugs, suddenly brisk, frowning a little at the sheets covering halfway up his chest. ‘Not your fault. Go on then, anything important happened while I been out?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Harry smiles, ‘I’ve been here.’
---
Harry stares at himself in the mirror. He takes off his tie and unbuttons his shirt collar, then sighs impatiently and buttons the collar again, puts the tie back on. It’s a deep dark red colour, more Eggsy’s style in all honesty – could that possibly be too suggestive? He rolls his eyes at the idea. Eggsy’s shown no sign of understanding what Harry has invited him over here to say. Ever since he woke up Harry has stuck to his side like a limpet (having been informed by several different parties that it was actually becoming difficult and/or sickening to watch), but even after two weeks out of the medical bay, Eggsy still hasn’t made any moves toward acknowledging a shift in their relationship. Harry has offered to give him a lift home every night this week, and actually put his hand on Eggsy’s arm when they said goodnight yesterday, and all Eggsy has done is bear it with a wistful expression. Harry doesn’t know how to be more obvious without grabbing Eggsy by the arm and making him stand still while Harry kisses him.
He checks his watch and the movement abruptly dislodges the memory of the last time he’d stood in front of the mirror waiting for Eggsy to arrive, trying to make himself sure that turning Eggsy down was the right thing to do. None of the reasons he’d given himself back then had really changed, of course; only the certainty that they would better off apart than together.
His doorbell rings. Harry looks at himself one last time, smoothing down his tie, taking off his glasses then putting them back on again. He takes a deep breath and opens the door.
Eggsy is standing there, already smiling. He’s wearing the pinstripe suit with the tie Harry picked out for him before Kentucky, and it makes Harry’s heart stop briefly. He forgets to say hello.
‘What’s for tea then?’ Eggsy asks, stepping inside, brushing past Harry without any hesitation to go and hang up his coat.
Harry takes off his glasses and polishes them just for something to do with his hands. Eggsy hasn’t made any kind of advances on him in months. He hasn’t tried to push Harry into anything since Venice, hasn’t done anything to make Harry uncomfortable. He isn’t asking for anything except Harry’s friendship, because he doesn’t think Harry can give him more.
Harry watches as Eggsy sits down on the bottom stair to unlace his shoes while complaining profusely about Merlin making everyone go through a new patch of training for the Kingsman issue headsets just because of a stupid software glitch, and realises that Eggsy would do this every day of his life and never ask him for more, just to be near Harry.
And after he thinks about that for a moment, he can’t do anything but kneel down until he’s on his knees on the floor in front of Eggsy, who has stopped talking and is staring at Harry warily, and cup Eggsy’s face.
‘My darling boy,’ he sighs, ‘I have been such a fool.’
‘Well, yeah,’ Eggsy says, clearly bewildered, ‘I could have told you that, Harry.’ He pauses, his eyes comically rolling to the side as he tries to peer at Harry’s hand on him. ‘About what in particular, though?’
‘I know you were angry with me before you left for Costa Rica,’ Harry starts, persevering when Eggsy opens his mouth to interrupt, ‘no, I know why, Eggsy. It wasn’t fair of me to act the way I did with you, and then refuse to contemplate following through. All I can say in my own defence is that I thought you would be better off without me.’ He smiles when Eggsy scoffs. ‘It’s been brought to my attention by your recent mishap that I am at heart a selfish man, and would rather have you and be bad for you than not have you at all.’ He rubs his thumb along Eggsy’s cheekbone, marvelling at being allowed to touch. ‘What do you say, dear boy?’
Eggsy doesn’t say anything, just looks at him for a moment, eyes darting between Harry’s eyes and his mouth before he leans forward, giving Harry all the time in the world to pull away before he touches their mouths together. It’s only a soft brush of lips at first before Eggsy pulls away for an instant, glancing at Harry, his cheeks flushed.
‘Okay?’ he says, his pupils already blown. He looks like he’ll do anything Harry asks him, and Harry would be lying like a dog if he said he hadn’t held out hope for this but it still makes his heart thud with elation.
Harry reels him back in with one palm wrapped around the back of Eggsy’s neck. The warmth of Eggsy’s lips on his skin makes him shiver as Eggsy’s mouth opens to him with a whine, his hands sliding up over Harry’s back. He hovers between pressing Eggsy down against the staircase and worshipping him with his mouth until he’s crying, and making him stand up so they can take this upstairs and he can finally see Eggsy spread out over his bedsheets, panting, waiting for Harry to wreck him.
A shudder runs through his whole body at the thought, blood rushing to his cock, and he pulls away slightly, smiling at Eggsy’s sound of annoyance.
‘I think we’d better take this upstairs, don’t you,’ he murmurs into Eggsy’s brow, one hand running down the length of Eggsy’s chest to his belt. Eggsy shivers at his touch and Harry wonders if his nipples are peaking under his shirt, red and puffy, and he can’t help himself, he has to brush his thumb against the sensitive skin through the material. Eggsy breathes in harshly, his hips jerking a little, looking up startled at Harry with his mouth open, God, like he’s squirming where he sits just waiting for Harry to tell him what do.
Harry forces himself to stand up and gestures impatiently when Eggsy’s gaze catches on the bulge in Harry’s trousers and doesn’t shift. He actually licks his lips again, which is immensely gratifying but also not going to get anyone fucked fast enough for Harry’s liking.
‘Up,’ he growls, and Eggsy snaps out of it, standing and grabbing hold of Harry’s belt buckle, drawing him in close with a slow grin until they’re only a breath apart, Harry’s hands settling over Eggsy’s waist.
‘You gonna boss me around?’ he asks, sliding his hand down further to cup Harry’s cock through his trousers, sending a jolt of heat through Harry’s gut. Eggsy runs a fingertip down the length of him, watching Harry all the while with glittering eyes.
‘Incorrigible,’ Harry mutters and takes Eggsy’s mouth again, harder this time, forcing his mouth to open wider for his tongue, swallowing the harsh sounds Eggsy makes as their bodies crush together, his leg sliding in between Eggsy’s thighs almost without his permission. He lets Eggsy grind against him for a moment, his mouth opening wider at the pressure, making tiny ‘ah, ah, ah’ gasps as he works into a rhythm, before Harry comes back to himself and starts dragging him up the stairs by the hand, still attached at the mouth.
They get to the top of the stairs still fumbling at each other, Eggsy trying to get Harry’s shirt untucked and Harry nearly garrotting himself trying to get the stupid red tie off. Eggsy falls back against the door of the bedroom pulling Harry with him, mouth curving in a smirk meant only for Harry before he ducks his head and bites down into the skin of Harry’s neck. Harry takes it for a second, dizzy with need, before flipping the boy and yanking at his jacket until it catches on his elbows, forcing his arms behind his back, held in place.
‘Harry, fuck,’ Eggsy says, bitten out hard, like he can’t stop himself. Harry savours the sound of Eggsy’s voice rough with want as he untucks the boy’s shirt and spreads his hands over the hot smooth skin of Eggsy’s waist, nuzzling into Eggsy’s hairline, so greedy for contact he can’t make a sentence.
What a picture he makes, his gorgeous boy, grinding his arse back into the hard line of Harry’s cock, his skin flushing so beautifully as Harry starts to suck a red wet mark into the back of his neck. He’s still twisting in the jacket, his face pressed against the door, gasping like he can’t get enough air. Harry’s heart is racing, cock aching with the need to be touched.
‘God,’ Eggsy moans, ‘I knew you’d be filthy Harry, I knew it, been wantin you to touch me for so long, just –’
‘Just what, tell me what you want,’ Harry says, hoping his voice doesn’t sound as breathless as he thinks it does. He wants to hear every fantasy Eggsy’s ever had about him, wants them running behind his eyelids until he’s committed them to memory and had time to perform each one. He runs a hand down the back of Eggsy’s trousers to palm his arse, squeezing, fingers fleeting along his crease. Eggsy jolts against him.
‘Fuck,’ Eggsy says again, louder.
‘Tell me what you want me to do to you, Eggsy,’ Harry says, ghosting his lips along the string of red marks on the back of Eggsy’s neck, his fingers prying apart Eggsy’s crease so he can tease gently at his hole, circling a fingertip over his rim just to feel him shudder and whine. He feels addicted to those noises already, could live the rest of his life on a diet of Eggsy moaning in his ear at the feeling of Harry playing with him.
‘Harry,’ Eggsy says, nearly panting, ‘please –’
‘Please what,’ Harry murmurs, letting his fingers drift further down, stroking over his taint, the faintest suggestion of a touch.
‘Fuck me,’ Eggsy begs, and Harry flips him over again and unceremoniously licks into his open mouth, Eggsy’s breath hitching as he tries to get some friction, grinding his erection fretfully against Harry’s stomach. Harry fumbles with the doorknob until the door opens behind them, tumbling them into the room. Eggsy takes the opportunity to rid himself of his jacket, nearly tearing it in two in his haste to get it off, then launches himself at Harry, who settles his hands back on Eggsy’s arse and presses their bodies together until they’re one seamless line, both gasping.
‘I can’t fuck you like this, Eggsy,’ Harry pants in between deep, filthy kisses, ‘Much as I’d love to try.’
Eggsy laughs a little breathlessly against his mouth but doesn’t step back, sneaking a hand down between them to stroke the length of Harry’s cock through his trousers, looking up at Harry through his eyelashes. Harry fists a hand in Eggsy’s hair, ready to flip him again, but before he can, Eggsy gets a challenging look in his eye and strokes down Harry’s body until he’s on his knees.
‘Actually, I was thinkin I might let you fuck my face first, if you wouldn’t mind,’ he says, staring up beatifically.
‘Eggsy,’ Harry says, then trails off with no idea of where the sentence is heading. The thought of Eggsy on his knees, mouth already red and sensitive from kissing, letting Harry fuck into the back of his throat while he fists a hand Eggsy’s hair, is almost too blindingly sexy for him to look at directly. He makes some kind of token protesting noise in the back of his throat and Eggsy sighs.
‘Look,’ he says, glaring at Harry, clear-eyed despite the lust roughening his voice, ‘I am going to suck your dick like I have been literally gagging to do since day one, Harry, and you’re gonna like it, alright?’
‘Jesus Christ, Eggsy,’ Harry manages with a level of patience and calm that he absolutely does not feel, and that’s all the warning he gets before Eggsy’s undoing his fly and taking out his cock.
Eggsy just stares for a moment like a drowning man sighting dry land, grip firm around the base, before he slowly pulls back the foreskin to expose the taut, shiny head, precome pooling at the tip. His mouth hovers so close that Harry feels him exhale and he shivers, trying to calm himself so he doesn’t abruptly come all over Eggsy’s face as soon as the boy puts his mouth to work.
‘Would you two like a moment alone?’ Harry enquires, involuntarily clenching his fist in Eggsy’s hair when the boy licks his lips. Eggsy jolts and stares up at Harry, his eyelids heavy, then opens his mouth and licks delicately across the head of Harry’s cock, using his hand to jerk the base. Harry bites down on a groan and can’t control the shudder of his hips, thrusting lowly into hot wet heat of Eggsy’s mouth, forcing the boy’s head forward with the hand still clenched in his hair. Eggsy moans around it, closing his eyes, so Harry does it again, stares down wonderingly at how much Eggsy seems to love it, rocking his whole body forwards onto his knees, his hands rubbing restlessly at his thighs in an apparent effort not to touch himself. His tongue caresses the underside of Harry’s cock as he sucks, getting everything wetter as Harry settles into a rhythm, fucking into his mouth in short, jerking thrusts, edging further inside every time.
Harry can’t resist bringing up his other hand to palm at Eggsy’s cheek, and as soon as the boy realises what he’s doing, he leans into it, letting Harry feel himself filling up Eggsy’s mouth, thick and hard. Pleasure jolts through him as he slides his thumb over the wet plushness of Eggsy’s lower lip, stretched wide around his cock. He pulls Eggsy harder onto his cock, every nerve in his body lighting up.
He realises through a haze of lust that Eggsy must be hard as nails by now if his choked off whines are anything to go by, but he’s still not touching himself, only rolling his hips in tiny mindless thrusts, trying to get some relief.
‘So beautiful on your knees for me, Eggsy,’ Harry says experimentally, watching Eggsy with heavy-lidded eyes, tugging a little harder on his hair on an inward thrust. The boy’s hands clench tighter into the meat of his thighs, legs spreading wider at the words, material of his trousers stretched tight over his the rigid line of his erection.
‘So perfect. I have no idea what I’ve done to deserve you, my love,’ he says, and Eggsy moans, the vibrations fluttering deliciously around Harry’s length, and abruptly swallows him down until Harry’s cock hits the back of his throat, nearly choking with it, hands lurching up to clench around Harry’s arse and force him further inside. Harry swears and closes his eyes, forcibly stilling his hips against Eggsy’s face as he holds himself back from the edge of orgasm by a thread.
He yanks on Eggsy’s hair to pull him off and dimly registers Eggsy’s grunt of protest.
‘My God, Eggsy, I really would still love to fuck you tonight,’ he pants, smoothing down Eggsy’s rumpled hair and pulling the boy to his feet where he sways into Harry’s body like a flower turning into the sun. ‘If you’ll let me.’
Eggsy nods, his eyes still a little dazed, tugging on Harry’s undone belt buckle, and Harry takes a moment to thoroughly appreciate the way his reddened lips have gone even puffier with use as he walks Eggsy back toward the bed, mouth going dry at the brush of his slicked cock against Eggsy’s stomach.
Eggsy bumps into the edge of the bed and sits down with a sigh, easing his thighs apart so Harry has an excellent view of his cock straining against his trousers. Harry starts unbuttoning the rest of Eggsy’s shirt with one hand while he deftly slips the other into Eggsy’s boxers, finally grabbing a handful of his gorgeous leaking cock while Eggsy tries to hold himself still at the sudden intrusion, his mouth an open gasp.
‘You haven’t touched yourself at all,’ Harry says softly, discarding Eggsy’s shirt and jerking his cock slowly, circling wetness around the head with his thumb as the boy shudders against him, ‘don’t think I haven’t noticed how good you’ve been for me, holding off all this time.’ Eggsy colours under his gaze and lifts his hips as they pull off his trousers and boxers together and he moves further up the bed, settling back against the pillows. Harry studies him, his eyes drinking in all that reddened skin and muscles held rigid, the sparse hair that trails down his muscled chest to his beautiful flushed cock, looking so sore and hard Harry aches with sympathy. He starts removing what few remnants of clothing remain to him, aware of Eggsy’s rapt eyes tracking every new centimetre of skin he uncovers but unable to go slowly, the need to feel skin against skin overwhelming him.
‘Eggsy,’ he says once he’s entirely naked, ‘would you like me to eat you out? Because I promise you I’d love nothing more.’ He watches with pleasure as Eggsy flushes bright red and squirms, his shoulders hunching in as he props himself up on both elbows to watch Harry crawl over him, predatory.
‘Fuck yes,’ Eggsy hisses, ‘I showered before I came over, I –’
‘You were hoping for this?’ Harry asks, touched, running one hand slowly up Eggsy’s bare calf, raising goosebumps that make Eggsy shiver, hair standing up wherever Harry trails his fingertips.
‘Yeah,’ Eggsy says with half a smile, and Harry can’t bear it suddenly, has to duck his head into the inside bend of Eggsy’s knee and kiss the soft skin there, make Eggsy kick with surprise, breathing out on a laugh. Harry kisses and bites his way up Eggsy’s thigh, leaving a glossy trail of slick red marks.
‘I’m gonna be so good for you, Harry,’ Eggsy says fervently when Harry makes eye contact with him again. His eyes are hungry and hot. ‘I know you must have had it from all sorts, bein a spy and everything, but I’m gonna be so good, I promise.’
‘Eggsy,’ Harry murmurs as he licks gently down the crease of Eggsy’s thigh to the base of his cock, ‘I can honestly say that I’ve never had anyone, anyone, who could possibly compare to you.’
Eggsy doesn’t say anything but he grabs Harry’s hand and squeezes it once when Harry encourages him to turn over before propping himself up on his elbows with his knees spread wide, baring his glorious arse. Harry strokes his fingertips down the deep curve of Eggsy’s back, remembering how desperately he’d wanted this with Eggsy in Venice and how difficult it had been to walk away from it. He’s not fond of owning up to past mistakes, but everything that has occurred between the two of them this evening makes him want to go back in time and push himself into the canal for being such an intolerable idiot.
He parts Eggsy’s cheeks and just stares for a moment, then presses lightly against Eggsy’s rim with the pad of his thumb, exerting just enough pressure to feel the ring of muscle clenching around him. His cock twitches.
‘Harry, come on,’ Eggsy mumbles into the pillow, sounding strained. ‘Stop being a perv and get on with it.’
Just for that, Harry is definitely going to make Eggsy fuck himself on Harry’s fingers later.
‘I’d love to,’ Harry says, and licks a wet stripe across Eggsy’s hole, making an involuntary noise at the taste of him. He’s never understood why people dismiss this particular sex act, honestly; nothing gets to him like knowing he’s tasting the deepest part of his partner, the urgency of feeling someone coming undone underneath him like Eggsy’s doing now, his hips jerking, clearly trying not to rut back against Harry’s face as Harry laps at him, letting the slick heat of his saliva pool and trickle down to Eggsy’s balls. He licks across Eggsy’s taint, the broad flat of his tongue setting off shivers Harry can feel everywhere he’s pressed against the boy, running his hands down the trembling muscles of Eggsy’s thighs, tension and desire throbbing low in his stomach.
He pulls back for a moment to stare at how puffy and pink Eggsy’s hole is getting and can’t resist dipping his thumb gently back into it at the sight, spreading the wetness over and inside, before spearing his tongue into a point and thrusting the hot wet tip inside, just barely, just enough to make Eggsy hiss and arch his back, abruptly shoving back against him. Harry clutches at his cheeks and hums into him, loving the feel of Eggsy fluttering around his tongue. He retracts his tongue and alternates slow, careful licks with tongue fucking him until Eggsy’s steadily rocking back against him.
He looks up at where Eggsy is burying his face in the pillow, clearly trying to muffle the constant stream of fucked-out noise coming out of his mouth, the muscles in his shoulders visibly trembling.
‘None of that,’ he says gently, reaching into the drawer of his bedside table and rummaging around until he finds the tube of lubricant, not wanting to look away from the taut stretch of Eggsy’s back, covered in a thin layer of sweat, for a second, ‘I want to hear how much you’re enjoying this.
Eggsy tilts his head round and glares at Harry over his shoulder, strands of hair falling in his eyes, lips slick and bitten. Harry feels the insufferable urge to keep Eggsy in his bed looking like this for him always, cross and demanding, and tries to clamp down on it. Even he has limits.
‘You are such a fucking tease,’ Eggsy says hotly, his fingers twitching restlessly in the material of the pillow. ‘Harry, c’mon –’
‘Tell me what you need,’ Harry says, slicking up a single digit and outlining Eggsy’s hole with it, sliding it around but not quite into him. Eggsy’s breath hitches and Harry takes pity, crooking his finger and slowly sliding it an inch into his hole before pulling out again, leaving the boy whining, muscles clenching around nothing.
‘I’ve never seen anyone look more gorgeous,’ Harry says, suddenly aware of how roughened his voice is after his ministrations, as he dips his tongue back into Eggsy, lapping languorously, still playing gently at the creased edges of his hole with his slicked fingers, teasing the nerves, cock leaking a steady stream of precome at the thought of getting Eggsy so wound up he can’t even talk. ‘You were made for this, Eggsy.’
‘God – fuck,’ Eggsy says around a groan, his knees spreading wider across the bed, rutting back into Harry’s mouth with an exquisite roll of his hips. Harry dips his finger in up to the first knuckle this time, opening Eggsy up to it, waiting for the tight ring of muscle to relax a little before he sinks in all the way. Eggsy makes a low, satisfied noise that goes straight to Harry’s cock, catting back into Harry’s hand. He adds another finger carefully and starts thrusting slowly in and out, concentrating on getting Eggsy prepared for him, the slick heat of Eggsy’s muscles clinging to his fingers every time he pulls out.
‘God, you feel so good,’ he murmurs, licking around where his fingers are buried inside, revelling in the musky taste of him, the wetness covering his mouth and his fingers, the slick sounds of his every movement and the way Eggsy is squirming, his fingers scrabbling against the fabric of the sheets. Harry has never had sex this sensually overwhelming before, having purposefully avoided the kind of attachments that might encourage it. He’s had a multitude of lovers over the years, but he’s never wanted to make it as good for anyone as he does for Eggsy. He wants to make up for every shag Eggsy’s had that hasn’t been with Harry, who wants to climb inside him and never leave.
He knows he must have located Eggsy’s prostate when the boy jolts back against him, hard gasp bitten out of his mouth, and drives back in at the same angle with a sense of visceral satisfaction at the reaction his touch is stimulating. When he adds a third finger and starts thrusting his tongue inside in tandem with half his hand, Eggsy lets out a sound close to a sob.
‘God, Harry, you’ve got to stop or I’m gonna come,’ he blurts, his voice muffled against the sheets where he’s burying his face in the pillow again, his body a beautiful writhing mess for Harry.
Harry crooks his fingers inside the boy and bites down lightly on Eggsy’s arse cheek.
‘That is rather what I was hoping for, Eggsy,’ he says, slightly breathless. The thought of Eggsy coming untouched while Harry fingers him tightens the knot of lust in his stomach.
‘No,’ Eggsy draws out like a moan, shivering, reaching out a hand to clamp around Harry’s wrist and stop him moving. ‘I can’t go now, Harry, I wanna come when you’re in me, yeah?’
Harry has to close his eyes and hold himself very still for a tense moment before he pulls his fingers out of Eggsy’s arse and melds himself along the line of Eggsy’s body, mouthing at the back of his neck as he slips his cock in between Eggsy’s cheeks, head catching against the greedy pucker of his hole.
‘Are you sure you’re ready?’ he murmurs in the shell of Eggsy’s ear, and Eggsy reaches around and grabs a handful of Harry’s hair.
‘You’re gonna fuck me, and you’re gonna do it now, or I’m gonna tell Roxy all about how you’re a fucking gold medal rimmer, Harry,’ he snaps, ‘and you won’t be able to look her in the eye for months.’
‘God, I do adore it when you get mouthy,’ Harry sighs, grabbing the lube and slicking himself up before lining his cock up against Eggsy’s hole. ‘And you must tell me if it gets too much.’
Eggsy’s only reply is a hurt, cut off noise when Harry finally starts pushing inside, pausing when the head of his cock slips inside the rim of Eggsy’s hole, clinging to the edge of patience instead of thrusting home in one fell stroke like every nerve in his body is begging him to.
‘Breathe, Eggsy,’ he murmurs, easing back onto his heels and stroking a hand down Eggsy’s back while he waits for the boy to adjust, muscles twitching around him.
‘More, more,’ Eggsy gasps after a moment, trying to push back onto him before Harry stills him with a hand against his shoulder, which only makes him moan more, unable to move his hips and rut against the bed like he so clearly wants to.
‘I know, I know,’ Harry soothes and Eggsy barks a half-hysterical laugh, vibrations jolting through Harry’s cock. He closes his eyes at the sensation and sinks further inside almost involuntarily, absurdly dizzy all of a sudden. He needs Eggsy to keep talking, keep making noise, keep telling him yes over and over again, or he runs the risk of relegating this to the realm of fantasy. He can barely believe he’s managed to get this lucky as it is.
‘Keep going,’ Eggsy says, reaching back to grasp at Harry’s leg and urge him on, fingertips sliding on Harry’s thighs, ‘I’m not gonna break in half, just –’
‘Fuck, Eggsy,’ Harry spits out and fucks the rest of the way in with one smooth thrust, committing the sound of Eggsy’s groan to memory through the procession of white lights going off behind his eyelids.
‘Jesus Christ, I,’ Eggsy trails off, as he arches his back, starts to prop himself up on his elbows. Harry presses down hard on his shoulder without thinking, just trying to keep the boy still so he doesn’t come quite so humiliatingly soon, and Eggsy lets out a sharp wounded noise, frantically worming his hand underneath his body to his cock, and Harry lights up with ideas about how to best exploit this new information.
He shifts his hand to the back of Eggsy’s neck and squeezes lightly, still holding him down.
‘Just fuck me Harry, god, please, please,’ Eggsy moans into the pillow, and Harry gives into the urge to rut hard and deep into his arse, cock slamming into the hilt, making Eggsy take every thrust but still not letting him move. Eggsy must be close; Harry faintly registers the boy’s hand striping his own cock with frantic movements underneath him, a litany of broken sounds spilling out of his mouth.
‘God – fuck me, God, Harry, please, I –’ Eggsy moans, and Harry pauses as he withdraws, keeping Eggsy stretched out on the thickest part of his cock as he pulls Eggsy sharply back against him, bracing his arm across Eggsy’s chest and reaching down to jerk Eggsy’s cock with his other hand, and thrusts back in hard just to hear Eggsy’s groan at the sudden change of angle, so much deeper than before. He throws his head back on Harry’s shoulder, fingers scrabbling, clinging to Harry’s arm and trying to push himself down further on Harry’s cock, trying his hardest to get deeper, his fingernails biting deep into Harry’s skin as their bodies move together in one sinuous, rutting line.
‘Harry,’ Eggsy whines, ‘I’m gonna come, Harry, God, I’m –’
‘Yes,’ Harry says over and over again in time with his strokes, and bites into Eggsy’s neck as the boy groans and spills over Harry’s hand. He keeps his hand moving until Eggsy whines at the oversensitivity, squirming against him but still taking it so well, Harry’s cock in his arse and Harry’s hand wrapped nearly around his throat, and that’s what pushes Harry over the edge until he’s coming in a blinding rush, thrusting deeply inside and holding Eggsy tight against him, mouth still open against the boy’s throat.
He spends a long moment just trying to regain his senses, breathing in and out while mindlessly clutching Eggsy to him, feeling the boy still occasionally shuddering with aftershocks. He pulls out slowly and Eggsy collapses against the pillows without the support of Harry behind him and just lies there with his eyes glazed. Harry snorts and makes a short trip to the bathroom, coming back with a warm wet cloth to clean the boy up with. Eggsy makes small sounds of contentment as Harry touches him, then makes Harry throw the cloth haphazardly on the floor by tugging on his arm insistently until Harry crawls up over Eggsy and gives him a kiss, Eggsy’s arms coming up around his neck, arching catlike against him. They kiss slowly, the slick pull of their mouths together intended to soothe rather than excite, then pull apart and settle back against the pillows together, pulling the duvet up around their bodies. Eggsy gives a bone deep sigh as he lays his head on Harry’s chest and Harry strokes his hair gently, feeling wide awake despite snatches of post-orgasm lassitude. How can he possibly fall asleep with Eggsy naked and curled up against him? He wonders with pleasure if one day they’ll have been together so long and so securely that he manages to take something this remarkable for granted.
‘Guess I’m stayin over then,’ Eggsy mumbles, clearly already half asleep, and Harry rubs a thumb against his hairline.
‘Stay as long as you like, my darling,’ he says, and means it.
---
Harry drifts out of a gorgeous floating dream next morning to find Eggsy still wound up around him, all hot naked skin plastered to his back, snoring gently in his ear.
He smiles into the pillow before he can stop himself, feeling a bump of joy in his chest he can’t control and doesn’t really want to.
Before he can deliberate over whether or not to get up and make tea to bring back to bed, since they hadn’t actually managed to eat dinner the night before, Eggsy begins to stir. He tightens his arms briefly around Harry before letting go so Harry can turn around to face him, curling a hand round Eggsy’s hip. Eggsy’s eyes are warm and sleepy as he yawns in Harry’s general direction. He has horrible morning breath. Harry doesn’t care.
‘Mornin,’ Eggsy says quietly.
‘Good morning,’ says Harry, watching Eggsy become slightly more alert with every passing second, his small smile at Harry’s attention.
They lie in silence for a few minutes, hands slowly drifting across each other.
‘You know, we didn’t actually talk about anything last night,’ Eggsy suggests finally, his eyes flickering up to look at Harry. ‘You know, like what we’re gonna do.’
Harry hums in agreement and then spends about a minute trying to decide how to phrase his next sentence before Eggsy rolls his eyes and does it for him.
‘The way I see it is we’re together now, innit? I don’t care if you say I’m your partner or your boyfriend or whatever you want, so long as you’re not backin out now.’
‘Obviously not,’ Harry says waspishly, ‘It took bloody long enough to get you, I’m not letting you go now.’
Eggsy raises an eyebrow but he’s grinning so hard it doesn’t have the full effect.
‘And whose fault is that?’ he asks.
Harry murmurs something noncommittal and kisses him, running a hand down his back.
‘We’re gonna have to lie about your age a bit when we tell my mum though,’ Eggsy says and yelps happily when Harry pinches him in the side, then laughs into another kiss.