Chapter Text
At university, Eggsy usually sits alone in the canteen, preferably somewhere where people can’t see him. After settling down, he takes out his brick of a phone first and checks the plethora of messages banging it up. Routine.
He eats some of his fries but picks at the burger, not feeling as hungry as before. Eggsy checks his messages a few more times before leaving the table. He puts his phone away and leaves the table, with his hands gripping the food tray until his knuckles whiten.
Eggsy spots the bin a few steps away from the door, close enough to him. Close enough for him to almost sprint out of the room full of what feels like snivelling, judging eyes.
Until he knocks into fucking Charlie and drops the tray, which clatters over the linoleum floor and splatters food onto Eggsy’s front. It seems like time stopped. Just in that one moment, Eggsy feels absolutely, completely bothered.
“Oi.”
Eggsy looks up to see Charlie staring him down, the corner of his mouth pulled up into a right sinister sneer, and Eggsy doesn’t want anything more than to punch his fucking teeth out.
“Watch where you’re going or you’re going to get a pounding, mate.” Charlie laughs at his smart comment and then whispers to Eggsy, “Oh right, isn’t that what you’re into, Eggy?”
“Wanker.”
“What now?”
“I said,” Eggsy inhales, “Wan-”
“All right, that is enough.”
Eggsy and Charlie look to their right to find a sharply-dressed young woman, no younger than Eggsy or Charlie, that is, and find her hands pushing them away from each other. Charlie looks baffled, eyes widened and mouth gaped instead of carrying that snide, disgusting smirk on his face, and straightens up, brushing off the non-existent lint on his front and shoulders. He shoots Eggsy a look.
“I’d punch the cheek out of you, Unwin, but,” then he peers at their offender “Wouldn’t want to piss off your bodyguard, now, would I?”
Charlie walks off and his band of boys trails behind him, all scuttling and laughing and praising his ‘sick jabs’ at Eggsy. The young woman sighs, exasperated. She turns over to Eggsy with a stern, but pitying look.
“I’m sorry that he said that; I really didn’t mean to make you look so, well, weak… Are you all right?”
Eggsy looks the girl up and down.
“Yeah ‘m fine, what’s it to you?”
“Nothing. I just really didn’t like how rude he was being to you.” The girl says, shrugging her shoulders. “Accidents happen.”
Eggsy stays quiet and nods. He looks at himself and then at his surroundings. People seem to have taken an interest to Eggsy and Charlie’s little disagreement and have gathered around him. Eggsy cowers under the judgemental stares and mumbles his thanks to the girl before trying to escape the circle of people.
“Actually, wait.”
Eggsy turns around.
“If you don’t mind, would you like to have some tea with me?” She asks, her fingers fiddling in front of her chest, “My friend isn’t here today and I’m feeling quite lonely…”
Eggsy looks at her. She doesn’t seem to be hostile or suspicious. In fact, she’s probably one of the nicer kids that Eggsy has ever talked to.
“All right, jus’… don’t do anythin’ weird, ‘kay?”
“Promise.”
---
They’re in the university’s garden now, one that Eggsy didn’t even know existed, sitting at a table on top of some wooden platform. Across from him is Roxy, as she introduced herself to Eggsy. Well, Roxanne, but everyone calls her Roxy. She’s his age, but is taking an honours year in Engineering, so that makes her his senior in university. Apparently, she has seen him on school grounds before, maybe once or twice, since he’s always caught in a circle of people, having a row with some other people.
“Not with Charlie, of course. If it was him I’d seen, then I would have already stopped the fight,” Roxy stops and takes a sip of her tea, “I’m not quite sure if those boys you had the row with were from our university, actually.”
Eggsy purses his lips.
“Yeah, no, sometimes the chavs ‘round my area like to ‘give me a visit,’ ya know?” He snorts. “They can’t stand the fact that ‘m studyin’ ‘ere.”
Roxy puts down her teacup. The clink echoes between them. There’s a slight tension now, but it’s coming from Roxy and Eggsy doesn’t know if he should continue. After a moment, she speaks.
“I’m sorry if this is rude, but,” She pauses and bits her bottom lip before continuing, “Are they the ones who spread the rumour about you? Are they your friends?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call them my ‘friends’ since they’ve been tryin’ so hard to be the farthest thing from it.” Eggsy says, looking down into his lap and curling his hands into fists. “They’re actually my stepfather’s boys, always lookin’ to bother me.”
“Oh…”
“It’s a’right. S’not tha’ bad; most of them’s all bark and no bite. Can’ do nothin’ withou’ my stepfather’s permission.”
“And the rumour?”
Eggsy quiets. The rumour. The whole reason why Eggsy sits alone in the canteen, why people look at him funny even when all he does is eat and keep to himself, why they circle him and Charlie. The reason why Charlie’s sneer shakes him from the top of his head to the tip of his toes.
The one thing Eggsy hates about ‘the rumour’, is that if it’s true, why is it still called a rumour?
“Yeah, wha’ about it?” Eggsy says quickly, his head looking down onto the table.
“Is it true…?” She asks him, her voice nearly a whisper. She probably picked up on his soured mood at the gossip that fuels the student body with nothing more than disgust, curiosity, and humour.
He balls one of his fists tighter and lays his other hand flat on the table, face up. He’s avoiding eye contact with Roxy now, his eyes zeroing in on the spot next to his hand. The air doesn’t feel any less tense between them.
Eggsy can’t believe he’s going to do this.
“It is. Do you want somethin’?” He looks up at her. She certainly doesn’t seem hostile or suspicious, but Eggsy should have guessed that people never want him for his company. No, they only want him for his “services.”
“Eggsy.”
“You asked, Rox. I don’t accept or give out verbal invitations, but you seemed nice enough, askin’ me to spend lunch wit’ you an’ all, but next time, text me, yeah?”
Roxy looks taken aback, and Eggsy ignores the pang in his chest. His brows furrow together and he crosses his arms. Roxy looks at him. Eggsy swears that she frowns for a second before giving him a rather neutral look, as if she’s holding herself back from giving him a piece of her mind.
Before Roxy can start, Eggsy butts in.
“If you pay me enough, I’ll do wha’ever you want, and I mean it. There hasn’t been a thing that I’ve denied my customers. However, I choose how I like to be paid, so if you’re lookin’ at doin’ somefin’ extreme, then it’s likely tha’ I can ask fo’ more.
“No permanent marking. No scarring. I don’t mind blood, either, but if you scar me, then it means money. I take payment in cash and check, befo’ we start. If I faint or somethin’ like tha’, then leave me at the hotel or the hospital, don’ take me ‘ome; you’re gonna do a lot more harm than good if you do. Any questions?”
When Eggsy finishes, Roxy’s neutral look has twisted into a concerned and upset expression, as if she feels every ounce of immoral deed Eggsy has done in the past. Her legs are still crossed, but from the way her knee-high boots are squeaking, Eggsy assumes that she’s tightening them together.
It’s rare for him to see his female customers get upset at his list of demands, assuming that they actually pick up on why he has them. Some of them had actually cancelled their request of meeting with him, apologized to him for wasting his time, and then paid him some small amount to compensate for those mere minutes of just standing in the hotel room.
They had muttered about it "being too much" and that they hoped that he would "find some solace in this cruel world" and they kept apologizing, over and over and over and over again.
After that. After that are the moments that Eggsy dreads the most. The utter silence after a slew of apologies, words, and the door shutting. He would be left all alone in the hotel room, with only the sound of car horns outside the window, the dim light of the hotel room highlighting his shirtless form - what once had been deemed "eye-candy" to the clien that left, and the emptiness of his own mind, echoing nothing but the apologies back at him.
It’s normal for him to be rejected, for people to take back their request, but when they apologize for wasting his time, it’s almost as if they think that they’ve somehow contributed to Eggsy’s miserable state.
Eggsy hates it. Hates that he has to face this moment every time a particularly “adventurous” woman urges him on and then cries at nothing but their realization of Eggsy's list of demands.
Maybe Roxy will be one of those women. Maybe she’ll pay him for spending time with her at lunch and put down a stack of maybe ten’s or twenty’s, and leaves after giving him a pitiful look. Maybe she’ll slap him instead, for assuming that she needs him for his services.
He’s a fucking rentboy. How dare he offer his services to her?
“You didn’t mention anything about a short-term service.” Roxy finally says, cutting through Eggsy’s train of self-demeaning thoughts.
“One night is pretty short-term, Rox.”
“I’m actually asking for a few weeks, maybe a month.” She retorts immediately, giving him a hard look. She seems more determined now.
“…Why?”
“I need you to be my boyfriend.”
It's the middle of May. Roxy has asked Eggsy to have lunch with her and they've been sitting outside, in the university garden, for almost an hour now. The trees cascade shades down onto them. the light breezes turns into a strong wind, signalling the remains of the April showers. The grey clouds pull together, looming over their heads.
The spring of Eggsy’s life has been forecasted with a storm, one that Eggsy hasn’t been expecting.
The first drop of rain falls along with the second, third, fourth, and fifth, and before much can be done, it’s pouring onto Eggsy and Roxy. Eggsy gathers up Roxy’s tea set into his arms and waves for her to find shelter underneath a balcony before bolting under it.
Eggsy can feel his soaked jersey absorbing all of his body heat, leaving only behind the wet and coldness of the rain. He pushes the tea set into Roxy’s arms and takes off his jersey, then sits down and carefully places each cup into it and ties the jersey up, keeping the set safe. He rubs a hand over his face and takes the snapback off his head.
“Your set should be fine now. You can keep it in the jersey and give it back to me late’ when we reach inside, yeah?”
“Eggsy.”
“Yeah, and about your request,” Eggsy sighs, crossing his arms once again, “was you serious?”
“Deadly.”
“An’ how much exactly are you gonna give me?”
Roxy removes her handbag and unzips it before giving it to him. Eggsy takes the bag, glances at Roxy sceptically and then looks inside the bag.
"Holy. Fuck."
“And if you need more, just tell me.”