Chapter Text
Dawn found Harry Hart – freelance ‘Paranormal Watchdog’ investigator and renowned sceptic – scratching the day old stubble dusting his jawline as he stretched with a groan to fumble for his phone when the vibrations clattered it closer and closer to the edge of the bedside table.
He swore the bloody thing was broken, but Merlin insisted there was nothing wrong with it.
The first rays of sunlight in the East that spilled through the cracks in his office blinds found him pouring over another barrage of letters sent from desperate families conned out of time and money by phony psychics and their false promises.
They took £100 deposit for the reading and never came back and-
-they stayed the night and insisted I needed to pay for the next day, but-
-their team distracted me and my husband’s laptop was stolen-
-the contact details were fake and the police said they’d put out a warning but what about-
-the emotional damage my mother has suffered because of this-
-fake psychic and their-
-phony ghost. It’s obviously a-
-hoax-
One by one the letters began to blur before Harry’s eyes, blue and black ink merging into one underlying problem, the same he had yesterday, and the same the day before. The simple fact of the matter was that there were too many con artists making a mint from duping recently widowed pensioners and vulnerable families, or business owners inventing intricate paranormal hoaxes to attract attention to their hotels and pubs and restaurants and, on one occasion, a bookshop.
Harry would never admit it, but he was beginning to tire of proving each and every case a hoax. In his own space, as he lounged on his sofa drifting off to the sound of the News at Ten, or lay in his bed at night, dreading a return to his desk and his letters, Harry began to wish that once, just once, he could find something more.
Something more than misdirected cameras and hidden persons knocking on walls and tables. Instead of cleverly researched clients and guesswork, Harry wondered what it would be like to find a psychic who just knew.
“I’m not saying I’m ready to abandon everything I’ve ever believed to be true,” Harry confessed one night, as he swirled the amber liquid over the ice in his glass. He’d turned to offer another the man reclining in the armchair behind him, rolling his eyes to the ceiling as his friend levelled him with a knowing look, and clutched the offered glass to his cable knit cardigan.
The drops of cooling water coating the glass clung to the soft wool as Merlin lifted it to his lips, and for a long moment the ice clinking in their glasses was the only sound that interrupted the thoughtful silence.
“So what are you saying?”
“I don’t know,” Harry admitted, as he dropped into the chair opposite his friend. He studied the concaving cubes of ice as they melted in on themselves, tracking the flow of brandy as one collapsed entirely and upset the cluster. “I’d just- for once, Merlin, I’d like to find something inexplicable.”
“I thought you liked finding explanations for the obscure?”
“I do, but I think its human nature to want to be questioned. It’s not enough to believe in something, Merlin, we need to be given a chance to test the strength of that belief.”
His mind drifted back from that far away conversation, and Harry grit his teeth against his frustration. Sweeping a pile of letters at random into his briefcase – his Tried And True method for selecting case files – Harry Hart began his day as he began every other day before it – skin prickling and nerves on edge at the thought of finally finding his something more.
By noon Harry was slouched in his Greater London office chair turning over a letter in his hand. His assistant had passed it to him as he unlocked his door that morning, and – thanking her gruffly with a dismissing wave as she tried to tell him about a client on hold – he tossed it onto the chair in the corner of his office without much thought until he tore himself from his laptop at lunch.
His fingers hovered over his trackpad as he glanced between the clock – 12.20 – and his screen, the greyscale image of a hallway interrupted by static. He’d strained to see the supposed figure moving from one door into another, and after ten minutes of going through the footage frame by frame, Harry still couldn’t see it.
He’d pass it on to one of the interns to keep them out of his hair for the afternoon.
His attention turned to the letter in the corner, and with a heavy sigh he heaved himself from his chair to pluck it between his fingers and drop it onto his desk. For twenty minutes he sat, staring at the crisp white envelope. It taunted him, plainly marked with a handwritten address, the hallmark of one Chester King – relentlessly persistent producer of BBC Breakfast’s entertainment segment.
King had been pestering him to appear on the programme for years, and had so far been pacified with handwritten reports of Harry’s more famous cases. Harry often found himself nursing a cup of coffee early in the morning, grinning into three slices of thick, buttered toast as he watched Naga Munchetty regale the sleepy public with a far more dramatic tale of his most recent case than he’d haphazardly penned the night before.
There was never a doubt in his mind that King had revised Harry’s words himself, and the younger man relished in making the elder’s work harder by providing as little detail in his reports as possible, picturing King’s tightly pursed lips and white-knuckled grip as he tried to decipher Harry’s drunken chicken scratch and turn it into something that would draw the public imagination in – hook, line, and sinker.
He returned King’s invitation with a promise to consider the offer, hopeful that it would be enough to distract the man for a couple of days.
Dusk found him humming cheerfully into the folds of his coat as he searched for his keys. He’d rushed from the house in such a hurry that morning that he’d left the porch light on, and as he stood in the flickering yellow light his addled tune trailed into nothing as Harry allowed himself a deep breath before turning the key in the lock and swinging the door open into his dimly lit hall – the glow of another lamp he’d forgotten to turn off struggling to fill the vaulted space.
He toed his shoes off and kicked them under the bottom section of his staircase, reaching to turn the matching lamp on where it sat on his sideboard, and thumbing it back into place after noticing the base jutted out from the lip of the table.
He fished the take-out menus from the drawer, sighing as it stuck again and wondering if he shouldn’t have bothered to repaint it in the first place, the varnish only seemed to make the problem worse.
Harry was wrestling with the sideboard when he felt his phone vibrate.
Merlin 20.31: On my way.
Harry grinned victoriously as the wood gave and he elbowed the drawer into place, making his way through the dark house, flicking lamps on in every room and pausing to bask in the warmth of the living room radiator as the heating gurgled to life.
When Harry reached his top landing he pulled his office door shut – a physical barrier between himself and the desk that strained under the weight of the paper pleas – and snorted at a second message winking at him from his phone screen.
Merlin 20.45: Got a surprise for you ;)
Tradition dictated that it was time for his comfy take out cardigan – an old present from a long dead, obscure relation – that he didn’t mind getting sticky. It had proven to wash faithfully even after the most explosive masala incidents.
He’d just uncorked the first bottle of wine when he heard the door creaking open, and as he dropped into the supple leather of his sofa, Harry craned his head across the back to find the figure draping his coat over the bannister. Merlin plodded into view with a wave, and pocketed his phone.
“Shoes,” Harry reminded him – out of habit more than any real belief that the other man would ever listen to him. Sure enough, as soon as Merlin kicked them off, he pointedly left them on the floor by his preferred chair, gratefully accepting an empty glass and the bottle of wine from the older man.
Harry began leafing through the menus as Merlin poured their drinks, snorting at his friend’s affronted accusation.
“Terrible host, Harry, making a guest pour their own wine.”
“I thought you had a surprise for me?” murmured Harry over the rim of a menu, peering at the younger man over the tortoiseshell rim that framed his world.
“After dinner,” came the reply, the ghost of a smirk pulling at the corner of Merlin’s lips.
Midnight found them lounging at their respective ends of Harry’s long leather sofa, the TV blinking merrily in the background as Merlin abandoned channel hopping in favour of scrolling past texts, assuring Harry that he was finding the ‘surprise.’
Harry accepted the phone and was, naturally, unimpressed by the plea of Merlin’s producer he found staring back at him.
“They told me to ask you, since you’d never come otherwise.”
“Really,” drawled Harry, rolling his tongue around the ‘R’ and drawing out the ending syllable with a wide grin and a pointed look.
When Merlin remained silent – grinning at him from across the rug like a feral cat stalking an alley rat – Harry placed his glass on the table and leant forwards to brace both elbows atop his knees. “Look,” he began, “I love you, I really do, but I’ll never wrap my head around the fact you made a career out of televising paranormal fallacy.”
“So did you,” the other man pointed out with an accusatory finger.
Harry scoffed, shaking his head and brushing back the curls that fell from that morning’s rigid hold onto his forehead. “I disprove it, I don’t lock myself in a dark house and pass very shift of wood off as a sign from the deceased.”
Merlin tilted his head to one side, regarding Harry over his own, much emptier wine glass. “Neither do I.”
“No, I’ll admit you’re one of the better ones.”
Merlin accepted the compliment graciously, topping up his glass before flicking his gaze to Harry and settling back into his chair with something wicked in his sharp eyes. He pulled a scrap of dry skin on his lips between his teeth, before taking a long, slow sip of wine and cracking the first two knuckles of his other hand.
“What about the new lad? And don’t pretend you don’t watch it, Harry, because I know you do.”
Harry sniffed, tugging at a loose thread pulled from the hem of his cardigan. “Only for a laugh, James screeching like a child whenever someone taps him on the shoulder never loses its entertainment value. I’d watch an entire hour of that alone,” he grinned.
Merlin’s brow climbed into his wrinkling forehead as he stared, unblinking at harry, awaiting his answer. Sensing that he had already lost the battle long before it began, Harry relented and drained his glass.
“Well, the new boy’s a lot better than that last one. If I had to listen to the phrase ‘residual astral field’ one more time I was going to order you to fire him myself.”
“He was alright in the beginning,” Merlin conceded, shrugging one shoulder as he stretched out his leg and knocked his heel against the coffee table. He considered his empty glass before continuing, heavily, “But once he knew people were paying attention, he began to lay it on a bit thick for my taste…got us a bit of a reputation, in the end.”
Harry nodded sagely, remembering the fallout from the gruesome contract disputes Merlin’s last psychic had with the show. His friend’s good name had all but been dragged through the mud, and Merlin hadn’t missed a beat before forbidding Harry to defend him against the accusations of faking evidence, so protective was the man of Harry’s reputation within the paranormal community.
Harry was pulled from his own thoughts by the audible leer in merlin’s voice.
“So,” the bald man purred, “Eggsy?”
“Ridiculous name,” Harry deadpanned, considering whether or not he was feeling up to playing along with Merlin’s games. He grinned into the flat of the palm that cupped his face as the other man waggled his brows twice into his non-existent hair line.
“He’s a sweet lad, really livens up the place.”
Unbidden, the image of a wide, bright smile – the earnest kind that dimpled freckled cheeks and reflected in hazel eyes - came to the forefront of Harry’s mind. The young man seemed laugh, uninhibited, for most of the time he spent on camera, and – although Harry would deny it with everything he had – the older man often wondered if the blonde was the reason he’d started recording Merlin’s show.
He told himself he was reviewing evidence, scrutinising a new kind of psychic, but that thought didn’t sit too well with the queer feeling in his gut that seemed to prickle every time he heard the blonde laugh.
Which was complete nonsense, of course. The man – boy – was far too young for Harry’s taste, and all that rough bluster that underlay every move he made and every word he said that screamed ‘tenement upbringing’ in bright, neon letters was terribly off-putting. It wasn’t that Harry thought himself a snob, but the idea that he could be seen as anything else compared to this ‘Eggsy’ – or by Eggsy – was enough to dismiss any stirring thought of attraction out of hand.
And his diction really was appalling – Harry often found himself having to rewind the show just to figure out what on earth the boy was saying, however charming he found the butchered syllables and street-honed accent.
So why did it feel as though he were trying too hard to justify his staring at the young man?
“Harry?”
Shit.
Before Harry could say anything in his defence Merlin snorted and shifted in his chair, drawing his feet underneath himself and rocking forward. He was all but quivering with devilment as he spoke.
“Lost you for a bit there, I think.”
“Shut up.”
Merlin left shortly after one, waving off the offer of a taxi and turning his collar against the chill that had settled in the darkness while they had been wrapped up indoors. He pulled Harry in for a quick hug, bumping his cheek against the other man’s and making him promise to at least think about what he’d said.
“If anything, Harry,” he called, as he reached the end of the cul-de-sac and pivoted to raise his arm in another wave, “free holiday!”
Harry did think about it. He thought about it that night while he cleared up the leftover cartons of cold rice and beef. He thought about it while he swept the carpet clean of stray grains and shaves of onion. He thought about it as he considered his reflection in the mirror, razor in hand and wondering if he could get up early enough to leave shaving until the morning. He thought about it most carefully as he turned onto his preferred side and buried his face in his favourite pillow, making sure his phone was on the opposite nightstand so he’d be forced to roll over in the morning to save it from crashing to the floor.
In fact, he was still mulling it over four days later when he sat – suit neatly pressed and Oxfords freshly polished – in front of four cameras and a team full of curious onlookers, smiling pleasantly at Charlie Styat while he introduced him to Britain’s early risers.
He was still preoccupied by Merlin’s offer as Styat asked him if he was planning on doing anything new, and for the life of him, Harry couldn’t explain why he hadn’t hesitated as he said -
“Yes, actually – I’ll be travelling to Florida at the end of next week to investigate a very special case. A friend of mine has his own investigation team, and they were asked for by name by the clients.”
Which is why, he supposed, he now found himself staring down into the face of the young man that had been plaguing his thoughts for weeks, as Merlin huffed and shuffled around them trying to sort cameras into bags and tags onto knapsacks while straining to be heard over the customs and immigration P.A announcements.
The young man before him was wearing the most hostile expression Harry’d ever seen in his life, barely flinching as the only camera operator Harry recognised – a dedicated young woman he was introduced to as Roxy – shouldered past him to hand their declaration forms to a man in a stark blue uniform, while another floated around them, guiding a dog on a leash.
Sharp hazel eyes – illuminated by the glare of the neat, parallel rows of fluorescent lights above them - clenched in anger as the blonde dug his hands deep into the pockets of his garish jacket, and he shrugged off Merlin’s hand on his shoulder when the older man absently implored him to be polite.
Harry - with an uncomfortable feeling settling in his gut that had nothing to do with the stifling heat of the airport and everything to do with how long the younger man had been staring at him - cleared his throat and tried to smile. Judging by the blonde’s narrowing eyes, Harry knew it looked more like a grimace.
“You’re the psychic then?”
“Yeah - name’s Eggsy” huffed the blonde, thrusting out his hand in a manner that told Harry the gesture was one that had simply been drummed into him, rather than one of genuine politeness.
Harry took it all the same, slipping his fingers into the blonde’s tightening grip and reminding himself to keep a civil tongue in his head. He was the intruder here, after all.
“Harry Hart.”
Eggsy refused to release his hand, and if possible, his grip became firmer. “Didn’t see you in Heathrow, when’d you get on the plane?”
Harry, valiantly keeping his smile in place as he subtly tried to disentangle his fingers from the blonde’s almost bruising handshake, jerked his head towards the frazzled investigator trying to account for the twelve heads they’d left with. “I was running late, got there just before the gate closed.”
Satisfied, Eggsy dropped Harry’s hand with a frown, as though he’d only just realised he was still holding it. Harry tracked the clenched muscle in the younger man’s jaw and the aborted fidget in his wrist, and knew the blonde was fighting the urge to wipe his hand on his jeans. Harry silently thanked whichever parent or guardian had painstakingly ensured such politeness in Eggsy.
They stood off to the side as the crew filtered through customs and joined them at the other end of arrival security in complete, uncomfortable silence. Harry was relieved to find he’d be sharing a taxi cab with Roxy and two of the sound engineers.
By the time the equipment and its operators were bundled into five waiting cars, then unbundled and lugged up one flight of stairs and divided between three hotel rooms, Harry had barely managed to catch another glimpse of the aggressive little blonde – only spotting him when he’d come to drop off a bag left in his own room by mistake.
Roxy opened the door with a grin and thanked him for taking the trouble. Harry was beginning to enjoy the sight of her honest smile, and just as he turned to leave he caught a flash of white from the corner of his eye. Eggsy, still in the nauseating gold and black jacket, had found an equally garish cap to match the pair bright, white trainers he now wore on his feet. Harry pointedly refused to think about the wings stitched to the sides.
His disgusted surprise must have shown through his expression before he could catch it. Roxy tried to stifle a tinkling laugh behind her hand, as Eggsy firmly planted both feet in front of the door and crossed his arms over his chest. His jaw, clenched and square and distractingly sharp in Harry’s opinion, set against the tick in his left eye as he silently dared Harry to comment.
The older backed down with his hands raised in surrender, and wasn’t at all surprised when Eggsy’s hands shot out to slam the door shut in Harry’s face.
Harry stood in the hallway, a grin spreading across his face as he realised he was looking forward to that night’s investigation.