Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

By the time he’s looking up at the house towering above him at the address he was given, Eggsy’s resolve that he isn’t about to do something incredibly stupid (still unshakeable the night before, fast on his way to getting absolutely smashed in an attempt to drown out his mates’ concerns) is crumbling so fast he won’t have any left if he doesn’t ring the doorbell this second. Considering the ad, he doesn’t know what he expected, but he’s too hungover now to waste a trip, so he takes a deep breath, shoves all of his second thoughts into a dark corner of his mind, and pushes the button. Inside the house, the sound of the doorbell echoes from room to room until it’s too faint to hear from the porch and not like it’s hit a wall. He swallows at the thought of that: a bachelor in a too large two story townhouse at the back of a rare quiet street in London and him, alone with no one aware of his exact whereabouts or schedules. He could be walking straight into the arms of an axe murderer and for what, a few hundred quid?

The door swings open and the man behind the pseud HHeart — Harry, he introduced himself as over the phone — derails his train of thought. Bloody hell, Eggsy thinks, he definitely doesn’t look the type of bloke who needs to hire himself company.

“Sorry, I was upstairs,” he says and offers Eggsy his hand. “Harry Hart, please just call me Harry. You must be Eggsy,” he goes on and Eggsy unfreezes.

“Yeah, that’s me.” He shakes Harry’s hand (firm, warm grip), already fairly certain he isn’t a serial killer, after all.

Harry says, “Splendid, and you’re right on time as well. I’m afraid I haven’t quite finished packing myself yet — bit of work interference there. Why don’t you wait inside?”

“What, in the house?” Eggsy asks and immediately wants to kick himself.

Harry regards him with a raised eyebrow. “That is the idea, yes.”

“Yeah no, ‘course, I just meant-” he starts, but not knowing how to explain himself, lamely finishes with, “Uh, sure,” stepping over the threshold when Harry moves out of the way.

The house is as large on the inside as it appeared on the outside and Eggsy barely trusts himself to breathe, standing in the foyer ogling his surroundings. Even the kitchen is the size of their main living space and he can’t imagine how much more there is, a second doorway towards the back of both rooms connecting to the foyer, as if the house goes all the way around the back of the room Eggsy’s stood in.

“Mother is going to be livid if I’m late to luncheon again,” Harry says, bounding up the stairs.

“Luncheon?” Eggsy echoes, wondering what the hell he’s gotten himself into.

“Don’t worry about that. The less you know, the better, and we do have a two hour car ride to go over anything that is relevant,” Harry shouts from the landing at the top. “I’ll just fetch my bag and we’ll be off. I doubt I’ve left anything vital out anyhow.”

“Right.”

So it’s going to be a bizarre weekend? He’s had bigger problems. Left alone in the foyer, his eyes wander over to a display of pinned butterflies in a glass case, labeled in a shaky but loving cursive that makes him reconsider the serial killer point. Gripping the handles of his duffle bag a little tighter, Eggsy tells himself he isn’t going to die.

It’s a simple enough ruse; that’s why he agreed to it in the first place.  Five days ago he’d been lying in bed, wasting a Sunday morning waiting for the bath to clear. He’d been scrolling down a dating website (because for a kid like him a neighbourhood like his, looking for men on Tinder was too risky) when the ad caught his eye.

Ad left 10h ago in section male - male

HHeart:

Looking for someone to accompany a middle-aged man to a social outing in the country NEXT weekend. I only wish to make my homophobic mother squirm non-stop for sixty hours and nothing more. Successful applicant will be rewarded handsomely. Cash bonus on offer if you are one or several of the following: young (must be eighteen or over - no practical joke is above the law), working class, someone with extreme aversion to received pronunciation or in possession of a strong regional accent/dialect.

It wasn’t going to get him laid, but Eggsy still shot the guy a message. As far as odd jobs go, it sounded easy enough; ruffling some posh old lady’s feathers actually seemed pleasant compared to some of the gigs he’d had lately. Then Harry had phoned him back, clearly a little out of his depth but determined to go through with it anyway, and he’d sounded pleasant enough for Eggsy to agree to the scheme.

Ryan and Jamal weren’t as convinced it was going to be easy money, but the night before wasn’t really the time to back out anymore, which is why Eggsy finds himself in the passenger seat of a shining Jaguar now.

It’s the sort of nice car he doesn’t see around much even though there’s no shortage of chavs spending more on their cars than their family’s around and it only makes him more acutely aware of the slow rising nausea in his stomach, the coffee and aspirin from a few hours earlier starting to wear off.

They covered the basics early on — jobs, brief life histories sticking only to the most superficial accounts for any passage of time, immediate family, two or three names of made up friends to throw around if they get into hot water — but the car ride stretches on and Eggsy is growing more restless by the minute.

To distract himself (and possibly ease the mounting panic), he asks: “So, uh... what’s the actual plan here?”

“Well, for starters, I am bringing you along as a surprise,” Harry says, “Not on purpose; the RSVP was due two weeks ago and I had no plans to do this then, but it serves the cause just as well. This way we can insist on a shared room.” He looks over at Eggsy for a moment and adds, “Assuming that won’t be a problem for you.”

“I ain’t really got a choice, do I? You’re the one payin’ me.”

“Payment does not negate consent,” Harry says and Eggsy eyes his profile, stunned he’s managed to come across a genuinely decent bloke the one time he isn’t looking to get anything out of it. If that isn’t just his luck.

“We’re in some ridiculous mansion with rooms the size of my whole flat right?” he asks. “I really don’t mind sharing one o’ those.”

“Right, well. That should do a great deal for appearance’s sake already, which virtually only leaves meals.”

“Okay so, time to get obviously handsy under the table then. Throw in a pet name or two to make it extra appetisin'. Got it. Should I throw in a few fake stories about our lives too or nah?”

“You are highly encouraged to, even.”

Finally, they turn off the main road onto a long, tree framed gravel lane, and Eggsy’s stomach grumbles in protest. Part of him is glad they’re almost there, another wants to throw up because this hasn’t even begun yet.

“What about, ya know—” ambiguous wave of the hand— “the rest of it? Physicalities. Are we expected to shag on the front lawn or...?”

Much to Harry’s credit, he doesn’t even flinch, just slides Eggsy an amused if slightly perturbed sideways glance. “I don’t think anything quite as extreme is necessary. This is the calibre of people who would recoil in horror at an innocent peck on the cheek.”

“Do I look like a cheek kiss sorta guy to you?” Eggsy asks, not that he wouldn’t prefer to get out of this with as little forced public groping as possible.

“No,” Harry says, “I would say you resemble the paramour of a miserable, middle-aged politician’s wife discovering the illicit joys of life with much more accuracy.” Considering the way that analysis makes Eggsy sound, Harry adds: “No offence.”

“None taken, mate. Wouldn’t exactly mind cuckolding the likes of Cameron,” Eggsy says. In the distance, a building is starting to loom and Harry’s grip on the steering wheel tightens.

Eggsy glances over at him to see him grind his teeth before he forcibly relaxes his jaw and says: “I don’t think you’re quite porcine enough for David Cameron.”

“Porcine?”

“Piglike.”

“No,” Eggsy says, low and disbelieving at Harry’s deadpan tone.

He lets out an ugly snort, then bursts out laughing, which, in turn, appears to amuse Harry, the corner of his mouth twisting upwards again. Eggsy watches the uneven twitch, the way it ebbs and falls before it evens out entirely making him wonder if that muted expression is all he is going to get this weekend. Harry’s obviously got wit and a sense of humor, but it’s easy to mask under the restraint, and Eggsy wonders if everyone is going to be like that.

A bull in a china shop, that is what he’s signed up to be until Sunday evening.

“To answer your question though — about the shagging,” Harry says, pausing on the last word, “A fleeting touch here and there should be enough to sell this farce and I will leave anything more than that to your discretion, as the supposedly racy party of this liaison, you understand.” Again that sideways glance, as if Harry is seeking permission from him , and Eggsy nods.

Harry seems respectful enough that Eggsy wouldn’t mind fake snogging him in front of a crowd, but he still relishes having some modicum of control in this situation. If all he needs to do is look like a toy boy and sidle up to Harry every now and then, drawling, “Darling,” in a neglected voice, he isn’t complaining.

Harry continues, saying, “We have most of the day free anyhow and I don’t particularly care what you do during that time, so long as we join and leave the main group as a pair. Perhaps a long, ‘romantic’ stroll in the garden would be appropriate, but we can play it by ear. I do expect the vast majority of our little scheme to play out in the dining room and you can focus your efforts on that, but be opportunistic about the rest of the day. That is all I ask.”

“Duly no’ed.”

Whatever Eggsy thought of Harry’s townhouse not three hours ago, the one they’ve just pulled up to — the Estate , Harry calls it and Eggsy is going to concede it’s more befitting of the mansion in front of them than anything else — is in another league entirely. Eggsy has gone to school in smaller buildings. Harry looks up at it and lets his eyes wander from one end to the other, wary of the imposing mass of it.

“Is this where ya grew up?” Eggsy asks when they haven’t moved in a solid minute.

“For some time, yes. We eventually moved to London when my father became an MP.” At Eggsy’s impressed raise of an eyebrow, Harry adds: “He is dead, in case you were wondering. Coming on seven years now.”

“That sucks, I’m sorry.”

“It isn’t a permanent wound.”

“I don’t know ‘bout that; my dad died… gosh, must be seventeen years now, and I don’t feel any better.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” Harry says and Eggsy doesn’t know how to reply. He hasn’t mentioned his dad even in passing for years and certainly never this calmly. It only tends to come up when he’s arguing with his mum and Harry’s sympathy almost wounds him.

They sit there looking at each other in silence until someone taps on the window, startling Eggsy. The guy is tall and angular, about Harry’s age, but entirely bald and wearing glasses, his general appearance softened by a jumper.

Harry rolls the window down and the other man says, “I can’t believe you’ve actually done it.”

“Not a word to mother, please,” Harry says and the guy shakes his head.

“You’re going to give her an aneurysm, but I’m not about to spoil my own fun.” He leans further down, almost in through the window. “Introduce us, will you.”

Harry obliges, saying, “Eggsy, this is Merlin, my oldest friend. Merlin, Eggsy, my illicit lover for the weekend.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Merlin says, holding out a hand. Eggsy shakes it, fingers crushed in a grip that betrays Merlin’s unassuming polished, dull accountant look. To Harry, he says: “Everyone’s waiting for you in the garden.”

“Splendid.”

They get out of the car to unload the trunk, Harry insisting on carrying both their bags back to the house. Halfway across the front yard, he asks Merlin, “How many people are we dealing with?” and Eggsy perks up at the prospect of figuring out what exactly he’s dealing with here.

“You two included, there will be twelve of us,” Merlin says and Eggsy has to swallow a sound of surprise. “Me, your mother, obviously, which leaves eight. I suspect she has a matchmaking venture underway, because she’s invited your cousin George’s son-”

“Charlie?”

“Yes, and in his age range we have Sophie Montague-Herring, sans parents, though she brought a friend from university along with her. I should actually correct myself on the twelve; Chester King won’t be joining until luncheon tomorrow.”

Hearing that, Harry sighs longsufferingly, perhaps the most expressive display of emotion Eggsy has witnessed so far. Merlin opens the front door to let them in and Eggsy spends a good few moments looking around in bewilderment, suddenly grateful Harry has his things, because he’s almost certain he would’ve dropped the bag in his astonishment at the sheer size of the rooms opening up in every direction. He doesn’t have time to take it all in properly, scurrying to catch up to Harry and Merlin on the stairs as Harry murmurs, “I didn’t know he would be here.”

“A strategic omission, perhaps?”

“Almost certainly.”

“Excepting Chester King, the rest of the crowd is pleasant enough: James and Percival, Aunt Anne, and Rosalie. She’s punishing her husband by having come here for the weekend without telling him. No one’s got the balls to say anything, but they’re obviously on the brink of divorce, so maybe don’t mention him.”

“Unsurprising.”

“I doubt your mother feels the same way, or, I’m convinced at times, even Rosalie herself. You know how these relationships work.”

Harry nods gravely as if they’ve witnessed a number of nasty not-quite-divorces. Eggsy supposes those are common anywhere. Where he lives, people tend to not stumble into marriage straight away (or ever), but they are kept in their places by other, more invisible but equally compelling forces. Eventually, the constant back always turns into a bitter sweet addiction and Eggsy isn’t at all surprised it’s something that fills people’s lives even in places like this.

Reaching the top of the stairs, Merlin says, “Your room is the second to last to the left,” pointing down one end of a corridor that appears to span the length of the house. “I’ll leave you to get settled in.”

“Thank you,” Harry says, three fingers against the back of Eggsy’s arm to get him to signal they’re headed their separate ways.

Merlin stops a few steps down the stairs, struck by a thought, and yells back up: “Shall I wait downstairs or would you like me to break the news to your mother?”

“If you don’t mind,” Harry says, “but only tell her I brought someone with me, no mention of who.”

“You can be so cruel, Harry,” Merlin says, not berating, but rather like he’s enjoying the wickedness of it all, and Eggsy is beginning to think there is history here.

Harry just rolls his eyes and walks off, striding ahead of Eggsy until they reach the room Merlin pointed out and he moves out of the way to let Eggsy in first. It causes them to collide only seconds later when Eggsy stops dead in his tracks two steps through the door.

“Sorry,” Eggsy murmurs, actually getting out of the way this time. “I just ain’t never seen nothin’ like this before.”

The room is massive on the same scale everything else in the house is, but the more constrained space emphasizes the height of the floors more than anything else, the ceiling appearing to be three storeys high. It doesn’t take away from the plush king size bed centered against wall and framed by curtains draped neatly across a headboard that stretches all the way up to the ceiling or any of the grand old furniture lining the walls. Absolutely everything seems to be in excess: three sets of curtains hanging from the windows, blankets and throws layered on the bed. There are so many fluffed pillows on the bed, Eggsy can’t imagine how anyone would sleep in it, particularly when he’s apprehensive about even touching it.

Harry just unceremoniously slings their bags onto the pressed linens and asks: “Which side do you want?”

“Uh, the window’s fine,” Eggsy says because it’s where he’s currently standing. Harry pushes his bag over to the right side of the bed and Eggsy in turn hoists it over to an old sofa positioned under one of the three windows that is four small panes across and stretches all the way up to the ceiling.

Spotting movement outside, he peels back the light curtain just enough to peer out of the window unobserved by the congregation on the lawn. Just like Merlin said: nine people in a cluster by a gazebo large enough to hosts an entire dinner table and two outdoor sofas. The groomed lawn stretches on ridiculously from thereon out, lined in long straight rows that go uninterrupted save for a rose garden and the brook that cuts through the landscape a quarter of a mile from the house. Returning to the immediate outdoors, Eggsy watches Merlin sidle up to a graceful elderly woman that Eggsy can only assume to be Harry’s mother. It’s quite an audience, he realises. A few old ladies he could’ve maybe pulled the wool over, but ten people in three different generations is another matter.

“Do you need to freshen up?” Harry asks behind him and Eggsy lets the curtain fall.

“Huh?”

“Before we head outside, would you like  a moment?”

“Uh, no,” Eggsy stammers, because no one’s ever asked him that. “No, let’s just get it done.”

“Suits me. I’ll be ready shortly,” Harry says, heading toward the other door in the room Eggsy assumes must lead to an en suite.

Alone for the moment, Eggsy presses a palm into the bedcovers to test the mattress like he’s in a hotel. He isn’t all that certain their charade isn’t going to be a total failure, but at least he gets to spend a weekend in luxury and the bed is definitely large enough for the both of them. They could fit a third person comfortably too, if they were inclined to, but that, Eggsy suspects, might be overkill.

“So, Merlin,” Eggsy says ten minutes later when they’re back on their way downstairs, “Is he named after the wizard or what’s up with that?”

“The one from the Arthurian legend? Yes, but it’s only a mononym, not his real name.”

“Yeah but why doen’t he use that?”

“Is your legal name ‘Eggsy’?” Harry counters and Eggsy falls behind a step in his surprise. He’d expected Harry to ask when Eggsy introduced himself the way most other people do, so that, when he’d let it slide without remark, Eggsy had just assumed he either accepted the name at face value or didn’t care enough to pry, not that it would come up now.

Somewhat evasively, he says, “No, it ain’t.”

“Well, there you have it.”

“Ya know his real name though, right?” Eggsy asks and Harry gives him a long, evaluating look.

“I do.”

“But you ain’t sayin’.”

“No.”

They enter the garden through a set of french doors in the sitting room downstairs, which is both intimidatingly tall and spacious. Even with large rugs and decorum everywhere, the furniture is still afloat in such a vast sea of emptiness, it’s claustrophobic.

Going outside is a relief, but the feeling doesn’t last long. Almost instantly, the others take notice of them. Harry’s mother is the first to react.

“Harry,” she says, pleased until her eyes fall on Eggsy and the line of her mouth straightens before it tips into a frown.

The instant contempt makes Eggsy’s cheeks flame up with involuntary shame and a spike of anger until he remembers this is exactly the sort of reaction they were aiming for.

When she says, “I didn’t realise Merlin meant you were bringing a protegé, I mean, what are we going to do about the rooms now?” Aware of the role he’s meant to play, Eggsy makes an amused sound and repeats the word ‘protegé’ like he can’t believe anyone would make a mistake like that.

Grabbing Harry by the arm, he says, “Babe, I thought you’d explained ,” with feigned exasperated fondness he can’t recall ever actually feeling.

“Explained what?” Harry’s mother asks and Eggsy feels Harry tense up in his hold.

For a moment he’s worried Harry is going to regret bringing Eggsy after all and try to wriggle out of the situation somehow, but then he takes a deep breath and says, “Mother, Eggsy isn’t my protegé. We are… together.”

That has the rest of the group perk up a bit more, everyone gravitating closer. One of the two men about Harry’s age asks, “What, ‘together’ as in romantically involved?”

When Harry doesn’t answer immediately Eggsy says, “Obviously,” and that Harry can at least nod along to.

“I’ll say,” the guy about Eggsy’s age - Charlie, Eggsy assumes - murmurs over Harry’s mother’s scandalised gasp. The girls just exchange a glance and drop their gazes while the younger of the other two women flashes them an encouraging smile, mirrored a bit more weakly by the other.

“Harry-” his mother hisses just as one of the women asks: “How did you meet?”

“Pardon me?” Harry says reflexively because they didn’t talk about this in the car, too busy going over their segregated lives to fabricate a shared one. Eggsy, going with the first outrageous thought he can muster, blurts: “The unemployment office. We met at the unemployment office.”

“The unemployment office?” Harry and he woman ask in unison, Harry sounding more shocked than her.

“Yes, the… unemployment office. Don’t you remember?” Eggsy asks Harry, trying to sound like he’s offended instead of panicked about how terrible Harry is at this. Playing for time, he just rambles on. “I’d just come outta there and Harry was hurrin’ down the sidewalk with this big coffee in hand. Big clash, like in the movies, ya know? I was mortified! His suit was ruined, I mean just beyond help , and dry cleanin’s expensive too, so for a moment I was totally out of sort, but luckily he didn’t press it.”

“It was as much my fault as yours, I’m sure,” Harry chimes in, having recovered, and it gives Eggsy enough courage to go on.

“Such a gentleman, I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I told him he had to at least let me get him another coffee, and it went from there really.”

“How pleasant,” the other, older lady says.

Harry decides to hijack the moment for introductions, waving a hand first at the older lady then the younger one. “This is my aunt, Anne, and a family friend of ours, Mrs Rosalie DeVille.”

“A pleasure,” Rosalie says, offering her hand.

It’s a cue for the rest of the party to introduce themselves too, endless names and hands, it seems.The two young women Eggsy’s age introduce themselves as Sophie and Roxanne —  “call me Roxy”. The guy next to them simply says, “Charlie Hesketh,” with a weight like it’s supposed to mean something to Eggsy, who doesn’t dare ask, so he nods along politely.

The men Harry’s age turn out to be brothers, Percival and James, the former the older one and wearing glasses like Merlin. Out of the two, James appears to be the more outspoken one — the one with the charming smile, Mr ‘Romantically Involved’. Harry’s mother introduces herself last. “Alethea Hart,” she offers and Eggsy tries not to let it fall flat on his tongue.

“So you are currently out of work then?” Aunt Anne asks him once the formalities are done with. She doesn’t attach any particular intonation to the question, but Eggsy can feel everyone’s eyes on him and his hands grow sweaty where they’re still forcefully curled around Harry’s bicep.

“Yeah, I’m between jobs right now, just working the odd gig here and there,” he says and it’s close enough to the truth to easily keep track of.

James inquires: “What do you do normally?”

“Uh, ya know, construction work mostly,” Eggsy starts, then decides to embellish the truth a little by adding, “Entertainment for bachelorette parties sometimes, that type of thing.”

“Ooh, that sounds fascinating,” Aunt Anne says even as a few others cough uncomfortably. Rosalie, standing beside her, leans in close to whisper something, probably the word ‘stripper’ or whatever it is this lot likes to use for it, and Anne’s face goes up in a silent ‘oh’.

Merlin’s poker face holds through it all, his mirth restricted entirely to the glint in his eyes, but no one else looks suspicious in the least. And for how out of line this must be for him, Harry is holding up remarkably well. On the surface, he’s as calm as ever, though he’s glowing under all those layers of composure, the nervous heat passing right into Eggsy where they’re still attached. Maybe they can pull this off.

Deciding someone needs to move the conversation along, Mrs Hart says, “Tea?” raising her eyebrows at them encouragingly and the party decides that tea is indeed a good idea.

By chance, with some luck and awkward shuffling, Eggsy ends up seated between Roxy and Percival for tea, Harry opposite him. It’s a convenient arrangement,  since he’s largely ignored and tea turns out to be an exercise in multitasking: passing plates of biscuits and pastries and the single tray of mini sandwiches he’s trying to get a hold of while trying to make sense of a conversation running a fine comb through the entirety of the extended family tree’s affairs. It’s not at all like coming home in the afternoon and stuffing his face with jammie dodgers over a large cup of builder’s tea. Instead it’s tiny porcelain cups and strategic dabbing with cloth napkin.

It’s all a bit of a whirl to him and it must show, because by the time the scones come around to him, Roxy whispers, “I recommend putting the cream under the jam no matter your personal stance on the matter or we’ll have another full blown world war on our hands,” holding the scones steady between them.

She lets go of the plate and Eggsy does as he’s told. No longer veering on a volatile topic, she says, “This must be your first time here.”

“Am I that obvious?” Eggsy asks, knowing full well he is. It’s rather the point of the arrangement.

She shrugs. “Partially. And partially it seems like you’re being willfully obtuse. Either way, it’s fun to observe. Rattles the golden cage a little and makes me look better adjusted.”

Genuinely surprised, Eggsy asks, “This ain’t your scene?”

“Not quite,” Roxy says and smiles nervously, her voice dropping again. “I’m just a smart middle class girl that got into Oxford and happens to be friends with the right people.”

There’s a comfortable softness about her voice like she doesn’t have an aversion to chatting despite being so quiet earlier. She might not be shy at all, just treading on thin ice with more caution than Eggsy.

“Ya mean Sophie?”

“M-hmm.”

“What about—” Eggsy’s eyes cut to Charlie.

“No, he’s a thoroughbred.”

“Like a racehorse?”

“With the way things play out in these circles? Almost.” Her sneer is refreshing after nearly three hours of muted smiles and flat tones. “I don’t have much to do with him,” she says. “What about you: Know anyone besides Harry? Eggy, was it?”

“Eggsy,” he corrects. “And no, I don’t.” He wants to say ‘not yet’, but it isn’t as if he’s ever going to. After this weekend, he’s happy to be out of the grasps of the upper class.

“Well, it’s nice to have some new blood and I’ve certainly heard stranger names around here.”

“Yeah?”

“There was a Hortitia-Louise at the last estate I went to.”

He frowns at that and she bites her lip as if to say ‘I know’.

Then she carries on, saying, “Everyone calls James over there Lance, short for Lancelot.”

“More Arthurian legend.”

“It’s some sort of inside joke, I think. I expect Harry’s told you all about it,” she says and Eggsy offers a strained smile, because of course Harry hasn’t told him anything. They’ve talked for a total of not even three hours, maybe four if sorting the details of the trip out via text counts. Roxy says, “I don’t think he’s in on it anymore,” and that’s a relief at least.

On her other side, wrapped up in a conversation with Charlie and James, Sophie gets her attention and she slips from Eggsy’s grasp just as he was starting to relax a little, no longer feeling entirely like a fish out of water. He hopes Harry might pick up on his abandonment, but he’s immersed in a polite conversation with his aunt, so Eggsy returns his attention to his plate and promptly collides with the butler’s arm - coming into existence and disappearing again seemingly out of thin air to replenish the tiny splash of tea in cups that isolate so poorly it’s cold essentially the very moment he pours it.

“Fuck, sorry,” Eggsy hurries to say. The crash causes tea to slosh out of the pot onto the linens and Eggsy shoves his napkin onto the spot as quickly as he can, the liquid staining everything brown in the blink of an eye. Once again everybody is looking at him and he’s just cursed in what he can only assume to be the sanctum sanctorum of the house, this picturesque octagon of heaven on the perfectly kept lawn, saved explicitly for beautiful days.

The butler recovers before Eggsy can make any more of a scene and says: “The fault was entirely mine, sir. I shall fetch you a fresh napkin.”

Eggsy wants to say something more, but it’s difficult to argue with a man standing at his side fully composed with tea dripping down onto (and probably into) his shoes, so he lets it go and returns to his plate, wishing someone would resume the conversation.

“Treacle tart, anyone?” Here, at last, Harry decides to be helpful and the moment passes.

Percival, to Eggsy’s right, leans in ever so slightly and murmurs, “Don’t worry about it; that man has survived two generations of absolute brats, myself included. Fifty-four years he’s been with this family.”

“Oh,” Eggsy says, catching on, then, “Shouldn’t he be retired by now?”

Percival gives him a strange look for that, similar to that amused consternation Eggsy has seen in Harry. “They used to start them rather young, but yes, I do suppose he’s seventy by now, or at least very close to it. Sometimes servants are reluctant to leave.”

“What for?” Eggsy asks, thinking of all the jobs people couldn’t wait to quit, but had to hold on for a living. He can’t imagine waiting on emotionally distant members of the aristocracy all day would be something anyone would want to hang onto.

“Some people are attached to their families,” Percival explains, “and other times they’ve been live-in personnel for so long, it seems impossible for them to just set off on their own and live in a flat somewhere.”

Having disappeared inside for a few minutes, the butler returns, cutting across the lawn with a fresh pot of tea and Eggsy watches him. His features are neutral, not like he cares particularly for what he does but not like he despises it either. Maybe it just becomes habit. Maybe people get stuck here the same way they get stuck at home, utterly resigned to life.

“Has he been here as long as Harry?” Eggsy asks, curious. It doesn’t occur to him that as his pretend boyfriend he probably ought to know things like Harry’s age until after he’s posed the question.

He can’t come up with a way to backpedal immediately, but luckily the strangeness slips right by Percival, who says, “Helmsdale does have a few years on him. I don’t know what Harry has or hasn’t told you, but he’s not that old.’

He thinks you’re into men so much older that under fifty doesn’t cut it , Eggsy thinks, flushing. “Oh no, he didn’t-”

Percival waves an unconcerned hand. “Keep your mysteries. I assume it’s part of the appeal and excitement.”

There are so many misconceptions to correct, Eggsy doesn’t know where to start, so he doesn’t. He holds his tongue and James comes barging in on their conversation asking about a decade old bet.

It just so happens Harry’s disengaged from his conversation too and they’re left staring at each other as both halves of the table chatter on. An actual couple wouldn’t struggle to find a topic of conversation. An actual couple would even relish the chance to go off on some private tangent and take a break from the world around them. As it is, Eggsy says, “Can ya pass me the sugar?” even though he doesn’t take any in his tea.

“That was a nice touch with the unemployment office,” Harry tells him later when they’re left alone to wander in the garden. Even with no overt warmth between them, everyone seems to have decided they’re a pair of lovebirds to be left alone at all costs. What that says about their ability to read people, Eggsy decides to ignore, because it makes his job significantly easier.

“‘S not too much?” Eggsy asks. “Don’t wanna lay it on too thick either.”

“I would say it resulted in exactly the desirable response, although perhaps you could try to warn me in advance next time.”

“We should’ve prolly come up with a story beforehand.”

“I don’t know how well we would be able to stick to it.”

“It don’t have to be complicated, but if we get separated and spout some wildly conflicting bullshit, people are bound to catch on.”

They stop at the apex of the bridge arching over the brook — a little oversized for the spot, but then everything here is built that way — and Eggsy’s gaze falls onto a group of five people beyond Harry’s shoulder, watching them from the garden. He wonders again what they must look like: whether they’re standing too far apart or if Eggsy’s turned the wrong way, facing the water rather than Harry.

“That hadn’t even crossed my mind,” Harry says.

“Your lot ain’t the most suspecting up close, I’ll give ya that,” Eggsy says, eyes still trained on their audience, “but they’re still comparing notes when we ain’t around.”

Catching on, Harry glances over his shoulder and half a dozen heads turn one after the other, some shameless, other hurried.

“Is that why you’re so uptight?”

“Pardon?”

Eggsy hadn’t really known how to bring this up earlier, neither during tea (If they’d genuinely known each other in the way they pretend to, it would have been a kick to the shin under the table and a meaningful look, saying, “Try harder!”) nor in general because it seems like the sort of thing that is about as wise to poke at as a hornet’s nest. Now that the opportunity to ask has presented itself, Eggsy fails to hesitate and the words come out before he figures out how to backtrack in case the avenue of inquiry is, as it appears to be, not welcome.

“I mean maybe that’s just your personality,” Eggsy says and it’s hardly a good evasive maneuver, “but you went from being an alright bloke indoors to having the charm of a dead flounder left in the sun all day as soon as we went out.”

Harry frowns at him.

“I don’t mean-”

“Don’t feel obligated to flatter me. Admittedly my family is not the most… emotionally expressive.”

Eggsy wants to scoff at that, because it’s really the understatement of the year. He rarely makes it a week without some form of altercation at home, be it a screaming match or something involving decidedly more force and knuckles,  but surely normal families aren’t like this either? Judging by the way Harry looks, it’s likely to be a sore point and Eggsy decides he won’t gain anything by pressing Harry about it.

“I don’t know-” he starts, then finds he isn’t any better at this than Harry. “Maybe try to say somethin ’ from time to time. Or touch me if that’s easier. I’m here to play a part, so you play yours. I ain’t some blushing teenage virgin and it don’t mean nothing. I ain’t made of glass and there’s no ‘fragile’ stamp printed across my forehead.”

Him, in his early twenties, giving someone Harry’s age a pep talk about intimacy is so absurd, Eggsy has to smile.

“You’re absolutely right,” Harry agrees and Eggsy thinks the tension in him eases marginally. “It’s  rather difficult to overcome a set of manners drilled into you for forty odd years, but I will endeavor to try.”

“And I’ll do my best to help. You ain’t in this alone. You wanted scandalous, right? That always takes two: the sin and the sinner. A minister and his mistress ain’t nothin’ without each other.”

“I think you may have forgotten a third component,” Harry says and Eggsy rewards him with an, “Oh?”

“Nothing happens in a vacuum. Committing an offense has no consequences until you are found out.”

“Yeah, well, the whole world’s watching with baited breath, so...”

“Are they still?” Harry asks, not turning to look. Eggsy nods and Harry says, “The field slopes quite a bit not far from here, enough to be secluded spot under that old tree-” nudge of the head toward a massive oak- “if you’d like a break before dinner.”

It’s a welcome break and Eggsy goes, sure they’ve got three pairs of eyes on them as soon as he turns. Harry offers him an arm and Eggsy moves closer. At least they’re on the same page now.

If he felt out of place at tea, dinner is significantly worse. Eggsy watches Harry retie his bow tie in front of the mirror because it doesn’t meet his standards the first time and is suddenly nervous. When he’d asked if there was anything particular he’d have to bring with him for the weekend, Harry had told him he should be as much himself as he can be, which is fine and all; Eggsy preferred it that way, but unfortunately that involved tracksuits and trainers, not a three piece suit. Baggy jeans and snapbacks instead of polished Oxfords.

Even the very best of the newest Adidas collection doesn’t quite measure up to the dress code that reigns at Hart manor and Eggsy stares helplessly at the five shirts he bought with him, trying to decide which one is the least offensive. Not one of them is right and no matter which one he chooses, he’s still going to have to suck it up and pick the next best one tomorrow.

“Is everything all right?” Harry asks, catching his eye in the mirror.

Even more embarrassed at being caught out feeling embarrassed about his clothes, Eggsy quickly reaches for his black polo shirt and mumbles, “Yeah.”

He disappears in the bath to change —  a sizable marble affair with two side-by-side basins and a claw-footed tub, eccentrically large in a way makes him look small in the mirror — and spends a good five minutes psyching himself up for what’s to come.

“Eggsy?” Harry says on the other side of the door, careful not to shout, but still loud enough that Eggsy startles, knocking over a bottle on the vanity.

“Just a sec,” he yells, wincing at the way his voice echoes on the walls. He rights the arrangement of toiletries and folds his used shirt before he emerges to find Harry ready and waiting, hair combed in place and freshly polished glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose.

“We are going to be late soon,” he says calmly, but Eggsy still takes it as an accusation, the prospect of dinner finally starting to get to him.

He’d managed to push the thought out for most of the afternoon and Harry was companionable enough with no one around. So much so, Eggsy could say he’d had fun and not lie, but as soon as they had come back inside, Harry had drawn into himself, composure like an iron curtain between them. Then Sophie had slinked across the hallway to Roxy’s room just opposite hers carrying the sort of dress Eggsy has only seen in ads he can’t imagine being relevant to anyone waiting at a bus stop, and he’d known he was in deep shit. His nerves were shot since then and by now, any trace of optimism regarding his current situation is gone.

“Sorry,” he says, “I just need a moment.”

“If something is bothering you, you ought to tell me now.”

“It’s nothing,” Eggsy says, because admitting he’s intimidated feels like a failure. Then again, Harry and him are supposed to be in this together, as allies, Eggsy owes it to him to be honest about his misgivings.  “You live like this, so you wouldn’t understand, but this is fuckin’ nerve wreckin’ for me.”

“What, dinner?”

“This whole thing .” Eggsy gestures up and down at Harry dressed to the nines, or what is more likely a six on his scale while simultaneously shattering Eggsy’s. “You probably eat like seven courses with sixteen forks-”

“Three actually. Courses, that is.”

Eggsy rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean. It ain’t the sort of thing people show up to in polo shirts. And I won’t know what to say to anyone. I know that’s kinda the point, but do you know how humiliatin’ it is to constantly feel like you’re a kid in a room full of adults?”

“I didn’t know you felt that,” Harry says and Eggsy scoffs, because he could not possibly be more obvious, but Harry goes on: “The purpose of this weekend is by no means to make you uncomfortable. I would actually prefer to avoid that as much as possible, since this arrangement is only supposed to spite my mother.”

“You ain’t gotta be nice to me when you’re payin’ me money to look a right fool,” Eggsy argues, starting to be irritated by Harry’s impractical politeness. “All I’m sayin’ is that I’d like a few pointers. I don’t mind seeming like an idiot so long as I do it on purpose, but so far? All I’ve done today is wonder if I actually know how to do anythin’ at all.”

He doesn’t notice how worked up he’s getting until he’s already there, clenching his jaw shut to keep from shouting in his frustration. It’s exactly what Eggsy had hoped to avoid this weekend, stranded out here at Harry’s mercy, where he can neither storm off to calm down nor brawl it out.

“It was never my intention to make you feel that way.” Harry, apparently, knows a shortcut to defusion.

“You haven’t,” Eggsy says immediately, because there’s a segregation between the way Harry treats him and the way the others do. “You don’t. But you’re too flippant ‘bout everyone else’s opinions. When I signed up to this, you said it’d be a few old cronies, not ten people. All I want is a class crash course and I promise to still royally piss of your mum. If I know what rules I’m s’posed to break, I’ll only be able to do my job better.”

In Eggsy’s mind, it’s a long shot, but Harry nods anyway. “Stands to reason.”

“Okay,” Eggsy says, dumbstruck and out of anything to say with their not-quite-argument come to such an abrupt end. It still leaves them with the original point of contention, namely, dinner, which they can only be late for now.

“We should go downstairs,” he says to Harry. No matter what the evening entails, it can only get worse by stalling.

“Are you certain you are up to it?”

“Yeah, let’s just go,” Eggsy says, frustration resurfacing momentarily, because he isn’t accustomed to kindness, to being given options. It’s too strange a thing for Eggsy to take at face value and his apprehensions about dinner are surpassed by the itch to be somewhere else and around other people where Harry can’t say things that leave him feeling oddly vulnerable.

Dinner is set in what seems a world away: at the other end of the house. The hallways leading there stretch and twist treacherously and seemingly without end. Harry stalks them with a purpose that’s rooted in old routines with Eggsy, who doesn’t dare stop and look at any of the paintings and ornaments on the walls,  following two steps behind. Even the passing impressions of rows of ageing portraits are enough to give him a sense of the family history. It seems the vast majority involves stoic expressions and stiff clothing — in essence, Harry Hart, but dressed for the 1830s.

It all leads to another staircase similar to the one near their quarters but larger. Instead of being propped against a wall in the entrance hall, it’s the centrepiece of the room it’s in, cascading like like a waterfall down into the oldest alcoves of the house. At the very top, Eggsy hears the voices of people below that are still out of sight and Harry shoots him one last reassuring look before they descend onto tonight’s stage.

As the stairs twist, Eggsy reaches out for Harry’s hand, the warmth and shape of it totally foreign in his own, and tries to hold it naturally. That is all he needs to focus on: putting on a convincing show with Harry. It’s not about him and he stops worrying about the glimpse of Percival he catches - three piece suit and sparkling cufflinks - about Charlie having added a tie to his semi-formal ensemble from earlier, about James wearing a decidedly nicer shirt now, even if his dinner jacket is red velvet.

Neither Roxy nor Sophie are wearing the dazzling dress he saw earlier, but rather, the consensus seems to be on a smart casual dress code, something more suitable for a business lunch than the gala Harry dressed for. It still falls miles short of Eggsy’s wardrobe.

“There you are!” Rosalie ambushes them from the side, coming out of a room that looks suspiciously similar to one attached to the entrance hall, as if the house is so large it just keeps repeating itself.

“Yes, we had a bit of a hold up,” Harry says with the barest hint of a grimace to match the tone of his voice. It doesn’t look at all like an expression that’s meant to be on his face and Eggsy suspects it never is in any other setting. “Are we the last to arrive?”

“No, I am,” Merlin says, coming down the stairs behind them. He, at least, looks exactly the same as before, not something that soothes Eggsy in the slightest. If anything, the way he looks at them standing there awkwardly holding hands makes Eggsy even more nervous and he wishes he could extract his sweaty palm from Harry’s grip to wipe it off on his trousers. Merlin doesn’t say anything though and they move into the dining hall.

How a party of eleven can look dwarfed at any table is beyond Eggsy, but so is the concept of a table that seats twenty, when, at home, they haven’t even always had enough chairs to fit everyone at once, Eggsy wolfing down cereal at the kitchen counter.

Here, he could take a seat and have another to spare for his feet, if only his legs could reach across the table. Two seats down from him, Matron Hart takes her place at the head of the table and Eggsy picks the chair between Harry and Rosalie. He half wishes he could be at the other end of the table near Roxy, who shoots an encouraging smile his way, but for the moment, sitting next to Harry offers a strategic advantage. Half the work and an infinitesimally small chance of accidentally giving contradictory accounts of just how in love they’re meant to be.

The first course arrives in the arms of someone from the kitchen — tiny plates of what looks, to Eggsy, like a strangely large fried egg and asparagus — while the butler goes around pouring them each an appropriate glass of red or white.

Eggsy leans over to Harry and whispers, “Why’s this so big?” casting a meaningful look at the egg.

“It is a duck egg.” Instead of Harry, his mother answers, and Eggsy says: “Oh.”

He suppresses the urge to ask what it tastes like, but his apprehension must show, because Harry says, “They resemble chicken eggs quite a lot, in case you are wondering. The taste is richer, partly due to—” drawing a circle with his fork just above the egg— “the yolk here, which is much larger than in chicken eggs, compared to the size of the egg.”

“They’re really quite delicious,” Rosalie insists and, feeling once again like everyone’s watching him, Eggsy severs a chunk off with his fork and takes the plunge.

“Not bad,” he mumbles. It does actually taste good, but the way Alethea Hart is looking at him makes him wary of moving a single muscle in his face, so that Rosalie has to ask, “Really?”

“M-hmm. Where d’ya even get these?”

“Sometimes they’re collected off the grounds, but Martel and I usually just buy them from the shops.”

“I’ve never seen them,” Eggsy says. He guesses it’s because they’re not exactly a thing one could expect to find in the Tesco Express he usually does the milk run at, but he’s never looked for duck eggs either.

Rosalie says, “They’re not uncommon here, but you know how it is with French supermarkets.”

He doesn’t, actually, because the only place in France he’s been to is Paris, where everything was either tiny or packed with stroppy cart pushers, sometimes both, not unlike London in that sense, because metropolitan overcrowding is a universal plague. Not wanting to say that though, he opts for, “I think my mum would like these a lot,” and makes a mental note to get some for her next birthday breakfast.

“Oh, I’m sure she would! I can’t imagine anyone that wouldn’t, come to think of it,” she says and Eggsy tries to smile politely. Out of the blue, she asks: “What is she like?”

“Who?”

“Your mother, of course,” Rosalie says, her tone of voice saying ‘silly you’, and Eggsy blanks trying to come up with something that is neither too revealing nor a lie. She interprets his pause as hesitation and says, “Come on, I won’t tell. My kids seems to be torn between unwavering love and teenage disdain, at this point, and I am quite curious what I have to look forward to once they hit your age.”

It feels remarkably like being interrogated by one of his school mates’ parents, so Eggsy answers accordingly. “Um, she always looked after me and out for me, still does.”

That that care hadn’t always taken on the most constructive form goes unmentioned, but sometimes money was a more pressing matter than anything else, and Eggsy is old enough to appreciate that now.

“I think part of bein’ an adult is lovin’ your parents in a more nuanced way instead of dealin’ in absolutes,” he continues, “As a kid, you can only deal with one emotion at a time and everything’s got to be straightforward. I guess, my mum’s just a normal person, really.”

“In a larger perspective, certainly, but isn’t that a little reductionist on a... subjective level?”

“O’course I love her,” Eggsy says, because it’s a point he does not want to be misinterpreted on. Something about the statement must still be controversial, because three pairs of eyes go wide at the word ‘love’. It dawns on Eggsy the very notion of parental affection might be a childish in these circles, but this time, the thought of having misstepped doesn’t leave him feeling inept. Instead, it’s pity that engulfs him.

Perhaps Harry’s chilly relationship with his mother isn’t out of the ordinary at all. Perhaps the cool exchanges he witnessed earlier in the afternoon are as good as it gets for anybody in this room. At times, Eggsy hadn’t had the luxury of being a kid because the world at large is cruel to everyone where he’s from, but to have that stripped from him without reason and by his own parents, on purpose, is unimaginable. To reach an age — ten, twelve, fifteen? — and be expected to treat his mum with the same attitude he might use on his boss, seems cruel. Beside him, Harry chews quietly on his asparagus, focus trained on his plate.

After a prolonged silence, Rosalie finally says, “I do hope my girls feel the same way about me one day.”

“I’m sure they will, if you just let ‘em.”

Harry clears his throat and on the other side of the table James decides to breach an unrelated topic. Capable of taking a hint, Eggsy returns to the meal in front of him.

Luckily enough, everyone seems to care more for the food than conversation and he gets through the main without hassle, letting Harry do the talking while he tries to navigate a roasted chicken leg with his cutlery, convinced it’s a form of group masochism when they have two perfectly serviceable hands each. Whenever he’s out of an idea for an angle of attack, he sips at his wine, which is too often. Finding the glass refilled at random so that he loses track of just how much he’s had to drink, it doesn’t dawn on him how drunk he is until he’s served a plate of panna cotta and promptly misses the actual dish with his spoon.

“Oh shit,” Eggsy breathes quietly enough that no one besides Harry can hear him. Glancing over at Eggsy, he must take notice of the heated splotches on his cheeks and reach the same conclusion Eggsy did moments ago, because he asks, “Would you like some water?” in a tone that can’t be bargained with, and Eggsy nods.

On the other side of the table, already having finished his dessert, Percival says, “We can’t go outside; it’s far too cold,” just as Harry switches out his full water glass for Eggsy’s empty one.

“It’s still summer!” James counters. “You used to have a sense of of adventure.” Turning to Charlie, he asks, “You would go out, wouldn’t you?”

“He would,” Sophie says without hesitation, “The number of times his college empties onto the lawn at night...” Opposite her, Roxy has to bite her lip to keep from smiling.

James, to Percival, again: “See? We should go out.”

“Lance, we aren’t foolhardy university students anymore. He’s, what? Twenty-two?”

“Four, actually,” Charlie says, finally managing to get a word in, “I’m doing a masters.”

That statement sets James off on a different tangent, which turns into another debate with his brother until Merlin cuts in. With dinner over, the entire table seems much livelier, the formalities done with and, Eggsy reckons, the wine kicking in. He’s certainly feeling it, only narrowly avoiding tripping on a chair leg when he gets up. Thanks to Harry’s quick reflexes and a surprisingly forceful grip, he doesn’t topple over. The steadying hand lingers even when he’s safely upright again.

Passing over into the main hall, their voices become louder and more disjointed, echoing off the walls.

“Boys,” Alethea Hart says when James snaps at Percival, “do behave yourselves.”

“Sorry,” both mutter, chastised enough to let themselves be guided down a corridor by Anne.

“Charlie, are you coming?” James asks and Charlie looks between Sophie and the men, obviously conflicted.

Sensing his hesitation, Percival offers, “Girls?”

Sophie shrugs; Roxy says, “Sure, might be fun,” and it’s enough to attach Charlie to the party.

“What about you, Harry?” Rosalie inquires, dangling from Merlin’s arm for the moment.

Harry glances at Eggsy, who’s just retracted his hand from the wall he was leaning on. “I’m gonna need a loo first,” Eggsy mumbles, partially because he doesn’t trust himself to manage a single step outside in the dark and partially because he’s been chugging wine and water for the last ninety minutes.

“We’ll join you shortly,” Harry says, reaching a compromise. Save for a concerned, if slightly lethal glance from his mother, there are only a few shrugs before the group ambles away.

“Christ, sorry, I didn’t mean to be this out o’ it,” Eggsy says as soon as they’re out of earshot, reaching for the wall again as Harry reaches for his arm. Eggsy doesn’t shrug him off, just fists a hand in the sleeve of Harry’s suit and tries to leave the wall again. In theory, he’s okay, but when he tries to translate any thought into motion, it goes tits up. “What the fuck was in that wine?”

“It has a bit of a kick, I should have warned you. It’s made at a local monastery.”

“Fuck, I thought drinkin’ outside of communion was like sin or somethin’.”

With a hint of a tremble in his voice like he’s fighting to keep his composure, Harry says, “No.” If Eggsy were inclined to open his eyes, he might even catch the smile.

“So that’s what they do all day,” he says, “Farm some shit, try not to masturbate, and get shitfaced every night.”

“Not quite, I should think,” Harry says, affronted.

“I dunno, don’t sound too bad to me. Well, maybe not the ‘no sex’ part, but ya know.”

“The wine?”

“Yeah,” Eggsy breathes and experimentally cracks an eye open to see if the walls will stay in place.

“Are you all right?” Harry asks and Eggsy waves his hand dismissively.

“Will be in a mo. I weren’t kiddin’ ‘bout the loo though.”

“Fifth door on the right down that corridor,” Harry says and points in the relevant direction.

When he emerges ten minutes later, having splashed some cold water on his face, Eggsy finds the house has gone eerily still.

“Feeling better?” Harry asks him from the doorway to the lounge where he’s been waiting.

“Yeah,” Eggsy says and it isn’t a lie. He can walk in straight line, if slowly and with great focus. “Sorry again.”

Harry says, “I think this might actually serve our cover better than the alternative.”

“Suits me fine, anyhow. Did everyone go out?” Eggsy asks, because he half expected Harry’s mother or Anne to come back in shortly.

“Yes, they did.”

“Should we-”

“We can stay here,” Harry says, “unless you absolutely want to go.”

“Not a chance, mate,” Eggsy says, plopping down in the first seat he can find.

It’s a sinking leather chair that feels like a full body sigh, compressing under his weight. In dim lights wrapped in the smell of dusty books, a moment of utter calm stretching out before him, the day’s exhaustion finally catches up with Eggsy and he yawns.

Harry heads straight for a closed compartment in the bookcase to pour himself two fingers of bourbon, then comes to sit opposite Eggsy, stretching his long legs out on one side of the table.

“I would offer you a drink, but...”

“Best not,” Eggsy agrees.

They’re quiet for a while, comfortable in each other’s company when no longer having to keep up pretenses. Eggsy even closes his eyes, deciding he might as well rest while no one’s around. He can’t be entirely sure he hasn’t dozed off, but when he next opens his eyes, it’s because Harry’s moving something and it makes a strange sound. He appears to have shifted in his seat to loom over the chessboard, shifting pieces thoughtfully. Eggsy clears his throat and pulls himself up a little straighter in his chair, smoothing a hand over the mussed up side of his hair.

“What time is it?” he asks, voice croaky.

If he had any doubts about having fallen asleep, he can be sure he’s been out for a while when Harry says, “Five to ten.”

“Shit, wow. Okay.” He fights another yawn. “No one’s come looking for us yet?”

“No.”

“Ya coulda still woken me. What’ve you been doing for the last hour? Playin’ chess by yourself?”

“I did have another drink as well,” Harry says, a small smile playing across his face. “If you’ve sobered up sufficiently, I can fix you one too.”

“No, thanks. I ain’t makin’ that mistake again. Already swore off vodka five years ago and I’m startin’ to think it’s best if I stick to beer forever. Maybe the occasional shot of tequila.”

“There is no need for drastic action. You’re simply an impatient drinker, that’s all. That being said, I wouldn’t mind having an opponent, so you might as well have your wits about you.” Harry rearranges the figurines on the board into what Eggsy recognises as the starting positions and gives him an expectant look.

“Oh, I never learned  to play.”

“You never learned to play chess ?”

Eggsy shakes his head, “It weren’t exactly a popular playground game ‘round my school.”

“What about your parents?”

“I don’t think my mum knows how to play, or if we even have a board, and my dad died when I was just a wee lad, so…”

Harry asks: “Well, would you like to?”

“What, learn? Now?”

“Why not?”

Eggsy could name a few reasons ( Ain’t got no one back home to play with. What use would it be? Games like this ain’t helpful in the real world.) , but they all sound like excuses, maybe because they are. Somehow, he settles on the most self-deprecating option because it feels the least telling when it come to the actual state of his daily life.

“I won’t be no good at it,” he says, but Harry isn’t having it.

“It is never too late to learn a new skill and expand your horizons. Exercising the mind is crucial at any age.”

“All right,” Eggsy concedes. There’s nothing else to occupy his time with anyway. “Go on then.”

He shifts forward in his seat to mirror Harry’s stance over the board and watches carefully as Harry explains each of the pieces to him, how they move and what importance they have relative to one another.

“Unless you are particularly keen on technical literature, and even that is not all encompassing in nature, the only way to improve at this game, is by playing. You will lose for a long time, so try not to get frustrated.”

“That same old story ‘bout how practise makes perfect again?”

“It is true in an unfortunate number of walks in life, wouldn’t you say?”

“Too many,” Eggsy says soberly. “If I’m the white ones, I get to start, right?”

“Yes.”

He’s clumsy at first, confusing pieces and turns on occasion and when he does get those right, he finds himself stuck in tricky spots having to decide between two pieces facing the death penalty. More often than that though, he simply misses all the warning flags and steps right into a trap. It’s annoying and teeth grinding, but it doesn’t drive Eggsy up the wall the way he expects. He suspects it’s largely due to Harry, who, despite being overwhelmingly more adept at the game, doesn’t look the slightest bit smug about it. He doesn’t look bored either, but rather a lot like Eggsy — puzzled — as if he’s trying to work out counter moves that aren’t the fastest route to victory, but learning opportunities for Eggsy. It might be condescending if he let Eggsy think for even a second that he’s got a chance at winning, but Harry doesn’t go that far. He drives Eggsy’s king into a corner mercilessly, left to rely upon dwindling lines of defense he dismantles one by one and without haste, forcing a drawn out surrender that has Eggsy hoping for a way out at every turn.

“Check mate,” Harry says eventually and Eggsy lets out a deep breath.

“That’s the proverbial gun to my head then, innit?”

“So to speak, yes,” Harry says and it’s the first time he allows himself a predatory grin.

For that alone, Eggsy says: “I want a rematch.”

“Very well.”

By the time they’re halfway through the second game, Eggsy’s starting to develop a headache that derails his every line of thought, so it’s a relief when Roxy washes up in the room, saying, “Oh, here you two are. Lance accused you of being dull and having snuck off to bed and I’m afraid the idea went down hook, line, and sinker.”

“Well,” she amends, “he suggested something quite different as the activity you retreated to—” flash of whites, unapologetically suggestive— “but Perci decided to save your honor.”

“How chivalrous,” Harry says, nonplussed.

Roxy hums and leans against the side of Eggsy’s armchair, bending forward a little to inspect the chess board. “You’re losing,” she tells him bluntly.

“He’s only just learned how to play,” Harry offers in Eggsy’s defence and she reconsiders her position.

“Then you are doing quite well, actually.” Pushing herself back up again, she says, “I only came inside for the lavatory, but if you don’t mind company, I think I’d prefer to stay; it’s cold out, no matter what Lancelot and his velvet suit say.”

Eggsy and Harry exchange a look suggestive of an entirely non-verbal conversation being carried out even though they don’t know each other anywhere near well enough to actually execute one of those.

“I’m afraid the fireplace is ornamental, but feel free to warm up in here,” Harry says, because it’s the only polite thing to do.

“Thanks, I will.”

“Drink?”

“No, thank you, I’m fine. Are you two still playing?” Roxy asks, gesturing at the board and Eggsy instantly sees a way out of the ongoing match without losing.

Offering her his seat, he says, “I’m not.” As she takes  his place, he retreats to a second set of furniture further back in the room.

“Am I worthy of your time, Mr Hart?” she asks, glancing meaningfully Eggsy’s way, implying a thousand things at once. It’s all exactly as it should be and yet the way she looks at him makes Eggsy want to squirm.

Harry doesn’t sweat it and simply replies with: “Black or white?”

“I’m not fond of being on the offence,” Roxy says, spinning the board around.

Harry takes it in stride, opting for an opening move that’s different from the one he showed Eggsy. Roxy recognises it instantly though and they race through six moves like they’re reading a script before Harry pauses to think. Eggsy watches them play, partly because there’s nothing else to do and partly because he feels it’s what an attentive boyfriend should do.

Sometimes, when there’s a lapse in the quick back and forth exchanges, he actually has time to consider the board and, when Harry moves his rook the way Eggsy thinks he might’ve in the same situation, he has to hide a smile. It’s not telepathy, of course, but they’ve shared at least this one thought, something Eggsy might’ve insisted is impossible if he’d seen Harry on the street mere days ago, hell, even that morning.

Inherently, Eggsy’s got nothing against posh blokes. Most of them happen to turn out to be complete dickheads, but the same could be said about half the lads at his local pub, and out of the lot here, Harry does seem the most decent.

Perhaps that makes it all the stranger that he would do something like this, hire an outrageous fake boyfriend to piss off his family. James, Eggsy could see doing that, but Harry? If he wasn’t in on it, he knows he wouldn’t believe it, and he supposes that is what makes it so ingenious. Reserved, proprietary Harry — he would never do something like this.

“So this is the party you’ve abandoned me for.”

Eggsy looks up at the doorway where Sophie’s just passed through, clutching a dark jacket around herself. She comes to stand behind Roxy, who lets her focus break for the first time.

“Is that Charlie’s jacket?” she asks even though the exquisite tweed is rather self explanatory.

“I would have given it back, but that would have meant talking to him again, and it took me long enough to shove him on someone else in the first place. It shall find it’s way back some other way, tomorrow.”

“Don’t be mean to him,” Roxy says sarcastically.

Sophie, far more seriously says, “I don’t owe him anything. And he isn’t in a position to complicate my life for not wanting anything from him.”

“Maybe you should tell him that too,” Roxy says, turning back to the board. “That you don’t want him .”

It hangs strangely in the room, the ease of the past hour going stagnant. Sophie doesn’t say anything, but withdraws from the backrest of Roxy’s chair, choosing to wander over to Eggsy instead. Judging by the expression on Roxy’s face, her next move is bad, and Harry asks, “Would you like to retract that?”

“No,” Roxy says defiantly at first, then changes her mind immediately. “Yes, please.”

She sinks back into the game, as does Harry, and Eggsy, bored of watching, says to Sophie: “He’s a bit of a knob, ain’t he?”

“Who, Charlie?”

Eggsy nods, short, jerky motion.

She hums to acknowledge his point even though she’s clearly indifferent to it. “I’m not going to argue he isn’t tiresome, but—” he mouth curls distastefully— “it’s just how he’s been brought up.”

“That ain’t an excuse,” Eggsy says, letting years of frustration colour his voice. Unless it’s an incident that makes national news, dysfunctional families only ever work as a cop out for the rich. He’s seen the ugly, survivalist side of it — the codependency (financial and otherwise), the cheating and screaming, the violence that comes from being stuck in the dirt together — but people like Charlie seem to do it for fun: throw themselves at momentary, all-consuming passion only to eventually  sink back into bitter indifference anyway, just waiting for the next affair to flare up and shatter it all again. He supposes in that sphere, Sophie with her aloof elegance, begging to be chased whether or not it’s the impression she wants to give off, is practically made to be his counterpart.

She says: “I suppose it isn’t; we don’t all turn out bad.” She crosses her legs and leans back, looking over at Harry. “I can’t speak for myself, of course, but, having had first-hand experience for a stellar man, you ought to know as much.” Sophie grins at him and Eggsy’s line of sight drifts over to Harry, who’s watching them, but looks away as soon as their eyes meet.

“Indeed.”

They retire not much later. Rosalie passing through the lounge to bid them all goodnight finally lets everyone acknowledge how tired they actually are, Roxy and Harry still halfheartedly playing at a second round of chess, though they’ve both grown careless. They leave it unfinished in the end — the fate of most games in that house  — and call it draw before either has to succumb to a particularly humiliating and fatal mistake.

Back in their room, Eggsy lets out a bone deep sigh, collapsing against the back of the door for a moment.

“Bloody hell.”

“You can say that twice,” Harry grumbles, dissolving too. A minute ago, out in the hall before they’d parted with Roxy and Sophie, he’d still been rattling off the history of butterfly conservation on the estate. Now he looks more knackered than Eggsy.

Harry tosses his cufflinks into a porcelain bowl on the dresser and wedges two fingers into the knot of his tie, pulling it loose. “Do you want the bath first?” he asks and, even though all Eggsy wants to do is say yes, he shakes his head and decides to award Harry with the sort of consideration he’s been showing Eggsy all day.

“You go first. My phone’s prolly been blowing up for hours with my mates wonderin’ if you’ve gone all serial killer yet and I ain’t sure they won’t come lookin’ for me if I don’t respond ASAP.”

“Wouldn’t want to send the police on a wild goose chase in the country,” Harry agrees and disappears in the bath, the lock clicking shut behind him.

It takes Eggsy a moment to comprehend he’s finally completely alone for the first time all day, an extra bit of tension leaving him when he cracks one of the windows open for some fresh air. Relatively certain Harry isn’t going to walk in on him while the shower is running, Eggsy slips into pair of sweats he’s brought along as pyjamas, keeping on his polo shirt for now, since he didn’t bring a tee to sleep in and he doesn’t exactly fancy being found lounging shirtless.

Still undisturbed, he uses his time to curl up on the sofa with his phone, back to the bathroom door as he send off a few texts. At Jamal’s request, he takes a picture of the room first and then hoists himself up high enough to snap a bad impression of the garden.

It’s too dark to see anything on his phone, but Eggsy can still just make out the shapes of four people. Charlie in his white shirt is the most obvious, though he appears to be rooted on the spot while someone else is running in circles. The grey blob by the gazebo, Eggsy is reasonably certain, is Merlin slinking off for the night. He watches them long enough for Harry to emerge from the bath, changed into shimmering silk pyjamas whose seriousness is ruined by the damp mess of curls taking on a life of their own on his head, sticking out in some places and drooping in others, but having absolutely no shape or form.

Outside, someone hollers and Harry asks, “What is going on out there?”

“Not a clue,” Eggsy says, still watching the commotion with mounting curiosity.

Below them, James shouts, “Harry,” and he moves closer to the window, leaning over Eggsy on the sofa.

They’re much be easier to make out, him and Harry, inside the lit up house and James, seeing the movement, yells, “Harry! Fuck him good, mate,” displacing everyone’s equilibrium.

Downstairs, someone shouts at him, voice growing loud and stern, though it only sounds like a murmur from where Eggsy is sitting, face aflame. Harry isn’t doing any better. He clears his throat and says, “Well,” shutting the window as Eggsy pulls his knees to his chest to get out of the way.

Neither of them dares to say anything for a few minutes, Eggsy slipping away into the bath under the guise of brushing his teeth, which he does, but only after he’s been leaning on the counter long enough for the nervous spike of adrenaline to settle a little. His face having returned to its usual shade, he reemerges even though he still studiously avoids Harry, who has gotten into bed to read in the light of the bedside lamp.

“I’m so sorry about that,” Harry says, seemingly talking to his book. Eggsy notices his eyes aren’t moving along the lines of text at all, but jumping all over the page.

“At least we know the ruse’s successful, right?”

“Evidently so.”

Too knackered to bother anymore, Eggsy doesn’t say anything anymore and Harry looks to be fine with that. The crowd outside seems to have left too, James probably having been ushered in by the rest, because the lit up gazebo has disappeared into the black lawn when Eggsy looks out for the last time. He closes the curtains anyway, not keen on being watched now or in the morning.

With the main lights turned off, the room is dim enough that he’s comfortable with slipping out of his shirt and crawling under the covers.

They’re cool and soft as he pulls the taut edges out from under the mattress, but there are still too many pillows and Eggsy tosses a few onto the sofa before he thinks better of it and pushes a big one towards Harry. It works well enough as a divider, sitting between them on top of the shared duvet. The bed is certainly wide enough to allow for it and Eggsy is grateful they won’t have to wake up inevitably glued together in the morning, for fear of falling out of bed if nothing else.

On the other side of the pillow, Harry turns a page. Eggsy pulls his phone off the nightstand and turns off his alarm from earlier, sensing he’ll be up a lot earlier than ten thirty tomorrow morning, but when that is will have to be at someone else’s discretion. At least he can fall asleep in whatever position he pleases because on the scale of a mattress, Harry is miles away.

Chapter Text

The very first thing Eggsy becomes a aware of on Saturday morning is that the sheets smell like lavender (strange) and, for some reason, stretch on far beyond the width his bed is supposed to be. Next, the impatient banging on a door filters through and, subsequently, the supercut of the rest comes rushing: mansion, pretend relationship, the bloke on the other side of the bed. He bolts upright in bed, heart rate up by forty painful units and clutching at the duvet.

On the other side of the door, someone — Merlin, Eggsy’s brain supplies after a moment — yells, “Harry!” The hand on the door is firmer this time, and Eggsy tosses the pillow squished between him and Harry out of the bed, paranoid they’re going to be walked in on lying there a foot apart with a divider down the middle of the bed and ruin all of the previous night’s work. Beside him, Harry makes a sound like he’s surfacing from the bottom of the Atlantic. Eggsy kicks him to speed up the process.

“Hmm?” Harry murmurs unintelligently, blinking at Eggsy, who pointedly looks at the door just as the next round starts up.

“Harry, I swear to God.”

Finally realising what’s going on, his eyes go wide before he rolls over onto an elbow and shouts, “Yes?”

“It’s eight thirty; get your arse out of bed,” Merlin says and Eggsy has half a mind to walk up to the door and deck him right then and there, because in what realm is eight thirty am a good reason to cause such a commotion. Unaware of Eggsy’s wrath, Merlin follows up with an irritable: “Did ya hear me?”

“Yes,” Harry shouts back. “Thank you.”

They don’t receive an answer to that anymore, just the sound of retreating footsteps down the hall. Eggsy sighs in relief and falls back onto the mattress, kicking off the duvet to alleviate the adrenaline fueled heat pulsing under his skin, the sheet damp from the sweat on his back.

“I think I may have forgotten to set the alarm,” Harry says and Eggsy can’t help muttering a sarcastic, “Ya reckon?”

He tries to glare, but they’re both still too frazzled for it to sink in properly, so Eggsy cups his hands over his eyes instead and opts for a decisive ‘fuck’.

Harry murmurs something that sounds like he agrees, though he also says: “We ought to get up.”

“What, just ‘cause someone came banging at the door at fuck-o-clock in the mornin’?” Eggsy asks sarcastically. “Coulda never gathered that meself.”

Actually making an effort to get up, though it’s not without a groan and a fair amount of stiffness, Harry says, “Since breakfast won’t be served after nine, that was as much a kindness as it was a rude awakening.”

Eggsy wants to say, “Are you fucking kidding me?” but then that wouldn’t be very polite first thing in the morning. Keeping his mouth shut, Eggsy forces himself to sit up in bed as a compromise for actually getting out of it.

It’s just as well, because Harry makes a beeline for the bath without asking and getting a full suit on is bound to take a while, so Eggsy stays put and blinks at the light streaming in through a crack in the curtains, reluctantly coming to terms with the fact that he’s awake for the day. Bleary eyed and already hacked off, he crawls over the edge of the bed to let some actual light in and get on with it.

The previous days’ excellent weather looks to have worn off in favour of England’s more customary mass of nondescript grey clouds looming. Even that manages to be impressive somehow: panoramic, vibrantly green  country still life that’s larger than all the Royal parks in London put together. Coming out of a concrete jungle, Eggsy could watch it forever.

“Is someone out already?” Harry asks from behind him, startling Eggsy.

“No,” Eggsy says and turns around. Harry is back in his full suit of armor — a literal suit, charcoal pinstripe —  and Eggsy, still barefoot and in his sweats, self consciously crosses his arms over his bare chest. “I just like the view.”

Harry almost looks surprised at that, doing a double take at the garden. “I suppose it is scenic,” he admits as if he hasn’t given it a thought in thirty years, like it’s a forgettable backdrop.

Everyone here must be bored of it already. They’ve had a lifetime of summers to stare at it, after all, Harry probably a number of winters too, and Eggsy can understand that. He imagines if it made up his entire world, he would feel the same, but London bred and born, he’s acutely aware of the cost of space and this is something utterly incomprehensible.

Harry says, “It’s quarter to nine,” dispelling the magic.

“Right,” Eggsy mutters and rummages around in his bag for something to wear.

They’re the last to show up in the breakfast hall but not the only ones present. At the far end of the table, Rosalie is finishing up the last of her plateful opposite James, who looks a touch nauseous like he’s experiencing the sophisticated version of a hangover where he’s meditating into his cup of coffee and Eggsy wonders if he remembers the previous night. Not wanting to chance it, he takes a seat less than halfway across the table — not quite far enough to signal deliberate avoidance, but still at an inconvenient distance to keep up a conversation — and Harry accommodates him by reaching for the chair opposite Eggsy.

He does say ‘good morning’ to the others though and Rosalie returns the sentiment with what Eggsy supposes must be enthusiasm by their standards. To him, it’s just muted politeness, but he’s currently too hungry to figure out whether there really is a difference.

As Eggsy is on a mouthful of toast, Percival comes through the door, though apparently not for breakfast, because he’s shouting for James before he’s even in the room. When he sees Eggsy and Harry, he stops in the middle of his stride, momentarily derailed before he says, “We’re going out to play croquet. Would you like to join?”

Harry gives Eggsy a look that says it’s up to him and Eggsy shrugs. “I ain’t big on it,” he says to Percival, because the thought to standing around on the lawn for the next two hours hitting balls in turns sounds mind numbing. In spite of that, he adds: “Harry’s happy to join though.”

“Are you sure you will be all right on your own?” Harry asks and he nods. Harry’s insistence on not forcing any optional activities on Eggsy is a two way street in his mind, which means he has neither right nor reason to keep Harry from participating.

“We start in ten minutes,” Percival says sternly, though the remark seems to be aimed at James more than Harry. “Don’t be late.”

If he wanted to, Eggsy could while away the morning hiding up in their room, but the temptation fades fifteen minutes into him sitting on the bed to be replaced by the niggling sensation that he ought to be doing more. No matter what Harry says, he has a duty to contribute to their farce enough to feel he’s earned his five hundred quid by the end of the weekend, so he pulls on a jacket and heads out to roam the garden.

With how deserted the house is and the barely audible, distant sounds of what he imagines must be Harry and the others playing croquet, he doesn’t expect to encounter anyone, but when he draws closer to the gazebo, he finds Rosalie and Merlin sitting within.

He knocks hesitantly on a post as he enters and Merlin looks up from his tablet.

“Eggsy,” he says, surprised, and Rosalie lets the top of her newspaper flop over to look at him. Merlin says, “You didn’t go play croquet,” somehow making it sound like a question and a statement at once.

Not quite sure what he’s meant to say to that, Eggsy is relieved when Rosalie responds for him. “Obviously,” she says and, turning to Eggsy, “I hope you brought your own reading.”

Eggsy runs a hand through his hair, suddenly shy. “Uh sorry, nah. Have ya seen anyone else around?” he asks casually, hoping he might be able to attach himself to Roxy for the morning and not be constantly out of his depth like this.

“Well, the girls went out riding hours ago, much to Charlie’s dismay,” Rosalie says. For once, Eggsy can sympathise. “As far as I know, he went to play croquet in the end—” she looks to Merlin for confirmation and he nods— “Other than that I don’t know. Has anyone seen Alethea this morning?”

“I haven’t,” Merlin says even though Rosalie doesn’t seem particularly interested in the answer as she hums nonchalantly and flips her newspaper back up.

“If you’re looking for something to do,” she adds sweetly, turning a page, “you are more than welcome to stay with us though.”

Having nothing better to do, Eggsy says, “Thanks,” and grabs the closest chair. Out of curiosity pertaining mostly to Merlin, he asks, “Why did neither of you two go play?”

He thinks he can see a smile tug at Rosalie’s mouth, but she pulls her paper closer and disappears behind the weather forecast. Merlin’s face remains perfectly still, but there’s a passing, telltale desperation in his eyes that smoothes out before he says: “I categorically refuse to after James decked me with a croquet ball the other summer. Before you ask, I was significantly closer to the ground than I would be standing — he’s not that skilled — but he did break my glasses and I would prefer not to take any chances since they’re a pain to get repaired. She, on the other hand—” he gestures at Rosalie— “is avoiding it today in particular because she used to be engaged to Percival.”

“What?” Eggsy blurts out.

“Briefly,” Rosalie says, mitigating, and tosses Merlin a scathing look for implying that little detail carries any significance.

He must agree, because he says, “This was twenty-five years ago,” in a placating tone.

“And it’s not as if I left him for Martel,” Rosalie adds.

“No, you left him… why exactly?”

“We weren’t right for each other,” Rosalie says condescendingly, as if it is not only the simplest thing in the world but one she’s explained to him several times.

“You could say that about a fair few people,” Merlin counters and the measured casualness of his tone of voice seems like a jab.

“If we are having an honest moment here,” Rosalie says, “neither of us were particularly excited about the idea of getting married. Our relationship was never really anything more than a convenient arrangement to begin with, but at some point an engagement seems like the right step to take and then people tend to get swept up enough in the idea of everlasting love long enough to get hitched without a thought.” Eggsy wouldn’t coin himself as a romantic, but this worldview sounds unnecessarily cynical even to him. “Afterwards,” Rosalie continues, “you’re trapped in the forever after fairy tales purposefully cut off at. Suddenly it’s no fun anymore and you reach the exact same conclusion you arrived at before the entire wedding circus: that you simply aren’t keen on the other person. What’s the point to that? Why bother? So, I called it off and went to the continent. Perci holds no grudge.” She sighs and says, “Looking at it now, it may well be the best thing that happened to him.”

“Modest,” Eggsy says without meaning to, the comment slipping out of his mouth before he can process it’s more than a thought. Merlin inhales audibly, cheeks hollowing so as not to smile, and Eggsy is briefly convinced he’s done something horrible, only Rosalie doesn’t look the slightest bit offended.

Instead she says: “They’re facts. Being so catastrophically slighted by me—” sarcastic eye roll at the old, skewed narrative— “bought him time to be a wounded bachelor, develop a sense of self outside all this.” She gestures vaguely in the air, but it’s enough to encompass the essence of the place and its people, that deep seated discomfort Eggsy experiences witnessing all of their strange lives. “Even if he did end up marrying a mutual friend later, those few years gave him what he needed to find a more suitable match within this cesspool of half arranged marriages.”

“Feeling pessimistic, are we?” Merlin asks, grinning openly this time.

“Oh, you have no room to talk.”

“In this respect? Yes. I’m not like the lot of you.” At Eggsy’s confused look, he says: “I’m a member by association, not blood.”

“By now, is there a difference?”

“Aye,” he says pointedly and Rosalie snorts dismissively.

“Well, whatever the case, leaving this behind never did me any good. I ran into Martel too soon after I left England — before England had really left me — and now I’m taking refuge at my ex fiance’s family estate to spite a scoundrel of a husband.” Leaning forward in her chair to look intently at Eggsy, she says: “Don’t get caught up in us.”

The sincerity in her eyes leaves him struggling for words, not that he needs any, because she says, “Harry is a good man, but only in the context of our class,” in a way money sounds like a disease he’s lucky not to be subjected to, as if Harry’s not good enough for him instead of the other way around, and if that isn’t food for thought. Even the insinuation of an otherness that sets him apart for the better seems impossible to him. Not because he sees himself as inferior, but because, secretly, Eggsy doesn’t believe in class complexes.

Yes, he bitches about silver spoons as much as he insists he’s more in touch with reality for not having had one up his arse; it’s the only way to navigate a system slanted to his disadvantage in every aspect of life. He’s balancing on the same double edged blade that’s inherent to any stereotypical view of others as anyone else, but on a grand scale, he doesn’t see the need to rank people. Very real privilege and associated resources set aside, in some theoretical universe, he has no doubt even him and a geezer like Harry would draw up even.

As things are, they couldn’t be more at odds and yet here they are pretending to have found enough common ground in their dissonance to be smitten with each other. Eggsy says: “That’s for me to decide, innit? What kind of bloke Harry is.”

“I don’t mean to question your judgement,” Rosalie says immediately, placating even though she refuses to backtrack. “Heaven knows, people have made that mistake with me before. All I am saying is that you are young, Harry is not, and this is the first time he has brought anyone home, at least to my knowledge.” She gives Merlin another one of those questioning looks and he inclines his head in confirmation, gaze slipping away from Eggsy’s as the severity of the situation dawns on him. “Don’t get yourself into something you aren’t prepared to see through,” she warns him and he swallows.

“I can sort myself out just fine, thanks,” he says, sounding far more confident than he feels.

Rosalie smiles at him. “Good,” she says and the newspaper rises back up.

Eggsy leaves the gazebo soon after, head spinning. Playing someone’s casual, disposable boyfriend for a weekend is one thing; pretending to be the significant other that finally warrants coming out — explicitly and unapologetically so — is something else entirely. He didn’t sign up for this, to be permanently regarded as an important part of Harry’s life when he set out to play a fling at best.

Eggsy finds he’s wandered into view of the part of the garden where the croquet court is set up and the temptation to discontinue their arrangement wells up immediately and with fury. He heads towards the course and Harry, then stops, because the damage is already done whether or not he makes a scene. Save for publicly exposing their entire plan — a humiliation he doesn’t want to subject Harry to in spite of being pissed off at him — Eggsy has irreversibly insinuated himself in this narrative, so he slows forty feet from the group and circles them instead. He needs a new plan to get Harry alone, watching like a predator for an opportune moment.

When he does finally catch Harry’s eye he waves. Harry returns the gesture and Eggsy tips his head sideways, motioning for him to come over. It earns him a confused look first and compliance after, so Eggsy wanders off sideways, trusting Harry to catch up. By the time he does, Eggsy is standing under the ledge of the roof, picking at a vine clawing its way up the side of the house.

“Is something wrong?” Harry asks, quieter than he needs to be considering they’re too far to be overheard even at a normal volume, not that Eggsy blames him.

He hastily scans the garden before he turns his attention on Harry and says, “Depends.”

“On... what?”

“When were ya gonna tell me this ain’t some ‘hired a prostitute for a prank’ type shit?” he asks and the look on Harry’s face would be funny if he wasn’t mad at him.

Intonating with care, Harry says: “Excuse me?”

“I thought I’m here to take the piss out of your mother for… for I don’t even know what. Being a stuck up twat, I guess, but I never bothered to ask, did I? ‘Cause I trusted you to spell the basics out, but here I am sittin’ in the gazebo with Merlin and Rosalie puttin’ on a show for your sake when I get told ya ain’t never brought a fella home before. Made me look like a right fool and kinda put this weekend into a whole ‘nother perspective, so you tell me,” Eggsy challenges.

Somewhere in there he must flip a kill switch, because something in Harry closes off, even the light in his eyes fading more with every word. “My romantic history is in no way relevant to your role here,” he says coldly and Eggsy huffs.

“Oh, don’t pull that shit on me,” he says, “‘s everythin’ to do with me! I’ve been playing my part as a slutty lad with a taste for older men, not whatever it is these people think I’m s’posed to be to ya. I didn’t agree to this.”

The fact that Harry is still not reacting just serves to make him angrier, convinced he’s not being taken seriously until Harry asks “Are you saying you want to call it off?” grave but not the slightest bit accusing, as though it’s the most logical course of action.

Which… it should be — and is, if Eggsy considers the facts — but looking at James, Charlie, and Percival still playing croquet, goofing around just to kill time, that isn’t what he wants to do. “No,” he says, because leaving now wouldn’t change a thing, “but ya still shoulda told me.”

“Given that you never asked-”

Eggsy scoffs. “I shouldn’t fuckin’ have to, bruv; it’s your con. I was willing to leave well enough alone and trust ya, ‘cause ya know it’s kinda weird: a guy like you needin’ to hire someone for a gig like this. I mean, it’s not exactly reassurin’, but I gave ya the benefit of the doubt anyway-”

“What do you want me to say?” Harry snaps, “That there were others and I’m insufferable? That my life so tragic I can’t ever hope to find a partner?” Harry asks bitterly and Eggsy recoils, scalded by his misstep.

A thick silence reigns between them long enough for Eggsy to cross his arms over his chest and avert his gaze while Harry studies the climbing vines pretending he didn’t just lose his temper.

“Look,” Eggsy says when he’s worried someone’s going to pick up on their argument even from a mile away, “I don’t really care, mate-”

“Clearly you do.”

“Not personally, I don’t. This is business, right? Ya can’t drop me in it like that if you want this to work out for ya, simple as,” Eggsy says. Harry still isn’t looking at him, so Eggsy takes a step forward and places a hand on his forearm to draw his attention, saying, “I ain’t here to judge ya.”

“Right,” Harry says to himself and his jaw unclenches. Eggsy doesn’t know if it’s progress exactly, but at least it isn’t making matters worse.

Pulling himself together, Harry speaks calmly again. “I would prefer not to go into detail,” he says, “but this affair, for lack of a better word, is not as serious as you may have been led to believe. Admittedly, the stakes are probably higher than I initially implied and choosing to omit the true nature of this situation was not the fine art. Rosalie DeVille is right in that I have never brought a man here, but there have been others, ones Merlin, Percival, Lancelot, and I imagine some others know of. But, these types of affairs are kept quiet in our circles; Rosalie has spent a long time abroad and not all gossip travels.”

“Okay. What about your mum then? Even if ya never brought anyone to meet her — which, I don’t blame ya, but — that don’t mean you never told her.”

“True, but I’m afraid that is a more... complicated matter.”

Eggsy wants to ask, but is well aware now is neither the right time nor the place, James laughing loudly not far off as Charlie shouts, “Good luck trying to reel that one back in, Perci.”

Sensing the oppression of their all-too-close presence too, Harry says: “I should get back to croquet.”

“Yer gonna tell me later though, right?”

“I suppose I can,” Harry concedes and Eggsy gets the sense he’ll never hear of it again, but he won’t argue.

Instead, he says, “A’ight. Well, I’m gonna be inside if ya need me,” and watches Harry go.

Eggsy fully intends to head straight for the staircase and lounge up in their room for the rest of the morning, but his plans change when he runs into Anne as he’s passing through the sitting room, nearly colliding with her in his inattention.

“Oh, Eggsy, good morning,” she says, steadying her cup of tea after she almost drops it. “Were you outside?”

“Yeah, for a bit.”

“Are you not playing croquet?” she asks, glancing past him at the men on the grass.

“Ain’t really my sort of game.”

“I never understood it either,” she confesses. “It seemed to be rather popular among young fellows at some point. You can imagine the many boring afternoons that followed.”

“It ain’t exactly ‘in’ no more,” he says politely and she smiles.

“Ture, it does seem to be the fancy of a previous generation,” Anne says, then offers, “If you are out of company, I am knitting over here in the lounge.”

“Uh...” He thinks of making up an excuse, but it’s more effort than simply joining, so he says, “Why not?”

After all, she seems nice enough, of a different stock than Harry’s mother, even if she is just as surprised by his supposed relationship with Harry. Considering the circumstances under which he’s showed up, Eggsy can’t entirely blame her. If the rich never stray from one another, woven tight into their elite packs, she must lead a sheltered life, and his appearance on the scene can’t be anything short of a shock to the system.

“You know, it is such a delight to have young people in this house again,” she tells him as they pass over into the adjoining room, Anne returning to an armchair flanked by a bag of yarn while Eggsy takes up the closest sofa. “Perhaps not quite in the expected way, but regardless. The last influx of a rowdy young crowd in this house would be from Harry’s generation, and out of the three out there, only one married and none had children. I could never have envisioned it properly with James anyway, but we all expected Harry and Perci to continue the family line eventually. Liven the place up a bit, but it’s been dead for the past fifteen, twenty years.”

To that, Eggsy really doesn’t have anything to offer, because he doesn’t know the first thing about whether or not Harry even wants kids. It isn’t any of his business and he isn’t going to guess, choosing to change the topic instead by asking, “Are they your sons: Perci and James?”

“Oh dear, no,” Anne says with a nervous laugh and something that sounds palpably like relief. “We never had children. They are my nephews — not by blood. My husband’s and Alethea’s older sister is their mother, but they’ve always summered at various estates, so they are integral parts to various branches of the family. The two of them were — and still are — a dynamic duo for all intents and purposes, ever confident in themselves and the world. Easy guests on others, easy to send away from home, and always so lively: a pleasure to have, really. Some of it rubbed off on Harry too, being in the same age group and all, but you could always tell he was an only child.”

“Still can, if ya ask me,” Eggsy says and she gives him a fond, knowing look.

“His reserve just takes a while to melt away. When he used to stay with us in the summer, you could practically see the transformation in him. He would go from being a shy little boy to becoming the most wonderful, warm child I have ever met. Heart of pure gold. But what am I telling you for?” she asks and Eggsy clears his throat uncomfortably at the implication.

For all he knows about him, Harry could be anything beneath his rigorously kept, polished exterior, but this is a suggestion Eggsy is inclined to believe at least in part. He’s seen enough to know Harry is exceptionally kind (at least by Eggsy’s standards) but he’s doubtful as to whether that translates to genuine emotional depth.

Trying to find a response that isn’t a lie while still serving their cover, he says, “He’s certainly the most decent bloke I’ve met.”

“As any prospective partner should appear to be. It must have been up to some absolutely miraculous instance of chance, you two meeting and hitting it off,” Anne says.

Alethea Hart manages to pick that exact moment to walk through the door, saying, “Anne,” before she cuts herself short, eyes meeting Eggsy’s. She blinks at them both, awkward tension rising in the room, and Eggsy can feel the heat creeping up his neck.

Anne says, “Alethea,” as if she’s pleasantly surprised while Eggsy wants nothing more than to disappear. His hopes for that go out the window when Anne says: “Do join us.”

Alethea, at least, seems to share his apprehension. “Oh, I don’t know,” she says, eyeing him suspiciously. “Chester will be here soon.”

“Nonsense, he isn’t due for at least another hour.”

Short of an excuse like Eggsy, Alethea Hart reluctantly takes a seat on the sofa next to him, thought she’s insistent on sticking as close to the opposite armrest as possible, the aversion a sentiment he shares.

Determined to make them get along, Anne continues undisturbed, saying: “Eggsy here was just asking about the boys. Or, well, I suppose they’re all grown men by now.”

“They don’t always act like it,” Alethea says, “ but, then again, men in the throes of a midlife crisis do often regress, so perhaps that is not an accurate statement.” She says the words ‘midlife crisis’ as if the concept is an infection and regards Eggsy like he’s the rash that’s manifested as a symptom. This, at least, he can deal with. Being Harry’s young toy boy acquired along with a lethal motorcycle is far less frightening than what Rosalie sees in him.

It’s textbook really, so Eggsy says, “If you’re fit, what’s the harm in having a taste for life?”

“You are far too young to understand,” she says, addressing him head on for the first time since he’s been here. Strangely enough, it makes her less intimidating, the venom in her words not aimed at him, but Harry and, Eggsy suspects, some unspoken history that is likely tied to her deceased husband.

It’s only a hunch, but it is also the sort of thing Harry would have told him about if they were actually dating, so Eggsy reasons it’s a worthwhile bluff. “He ain’t got a partner to injure, no marriage to break up or kids to scar by dumpin’ his wife outta the blue. Why shouldn’t he get to enjoy himself any which way he pleases?” That Harry would even want to lead a moderately exciting life is probably a generous assumption, but Eggsy feels he should defend the principle if nothing else. “Who says ya gotta lock yourself in the house and toss the key out the window at forty?”

“It isn’t right,” Alethea insists and Anne cuts in before Eggsy gets the chance to tell her what he thinks.

“Perhaps that is not quite true,” she says, addressing Alethea. To Eggsy, she says, “You have to understand, this is not a conventional alliance and as such it’s bound to cause some dissonance.”

“It don’t have to,” Eggsy says. “If two people can choose to spend their conflictin’ lives together and be happy ‘bout that, there bloody well ain’t no excuse for anyone else in’erferin’.”

Alethea counters with: “Every individual has a determinate place in society.”

“That’s a bit elitist, innit,” Eggsy says, the words razor sharp on his tongue.

“You assume I take that as an insult.”

For the first time, Alethea Hart smiles at him. It’s cool and contained, but still there and Eggsy doesn’t know why it’s simultaneously infuriating and yet feels like a minor victory.

“Harry knows where he stands,” she says and Eggsy, heart racing with an influx of adrenaline, adds, “Currently, that’s at my side,” getting up to leave.

Harry comes upstairs an hour later, walking in on Eggsy sprawled over one half of the bed scrolling through his phone.

“Here you are,” Harry says, surprised, as if he’s been looking for Eggsy.

“Yup.”

He waits for something more and when there’s nothing, Eggsy puts his phone away and flips over onto his back as Harry heads for the dresser and pulls out the tie he neglected to put on in the morning. Eggsy asks: “Is it time for lunch yet?”

“Nearly.”

“How was your game?”

“James won, unsurprisingly.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yes,” Harry says, eyes cutting to Eggsy’s in the mirror, quickfire. “How come?”

“You seem… I don’t know.”

“I’m fine.”

“Well, I’m glad one of us is. I had an argument with your mum while you were out,” Eggsy informs him, climbing off the bed, and that at last gets Harry’s full attention.

Wary yet impressed, he asks: “How did you manage that?”

“She started spouting some shit about your proper place in life or society or somethin’ and I dunno,” Eggsy says, stuffing his feet back into his shoes. “I just went off. Hope that wasn’t an offence.”

Harry huffs. “You are here to offend.”

“Oh well, I’m doing perfect then. Does this earn me a lil extra?” he asks jokingly and Harry, starting to be in a better mood, murmurs: “Not quite.”

“Shame,” Eggsy says and smoothes out his shirt as Harry straightens his tie. Finally, he asks, “So, are you gonna tell me what’s really goin’ on?” because even he understands enough of Harry’s microexpressions to realise something about him is off.

When Harry is about to dismiss him again, Eggsy crosses his arms and leans against the dresser, saying, “You were gonna be honest with me, remember?”

“We have more company,” Harry says, albeit evasively.

It’s still something for Eggsy to latch onto. “Who?”

“Chester King, older gentleman. The title is questionable though, in my opinion.”

“And you hate him, why?”

Harry gives him a startled look and says, “I don’t hate him.”

“Fine, ‘find displeasin’ or whatever ya wanna call it. Clearly you’ve got beef.”

“He is not my favourite person, if that is what you mean,” Harry says and Eggsy rolls his eyes. It takes him a moment to articulate his thoughts, but eventually Harry says, “To me, he represents everything that is wrong with the aristocracy.”

The idea filters through clear as day. “Oh,” Eggsy says.

“Precisely.”

It’s strange to him that Harry can say something like that and make himself understood when, two days ago, Eggsy would’ve considered him to be the pinnacle of the upper class. Now, Eggsy studies him in the context of all of the morning’s revelations and wonders how much is true of what others say about him, whether the people Anne and Alethea described can indeed coexist in this one man. Whatever the case, this close up, Harry’s façade is filled with cracks, of which Eggsy is currently the biggest, most visible fracture.

Brushing some lint off his suit, Harry clears his throat and Eggsy looks away.

They’re early for lunch and end up drifting into the sitting room where Percival and Merlin are already sitting killing time. There are no drinks this early in the day and the boredom is palpable, fingers fraying the edges of decorative cords, tapping against an armrest at the too loud tick tock of the grandfather clock above the fireplace. Eggsy sits on the middle seat of the sofa, far too aware of how close he is to Harry: torsos an inch apart, body heat gathering in that minuscule space. They’re not even technically touching — Harry tipped a little towards him with his legs crossed and an arm draped over the couch behind Eggsy for show — but any movement would cause them to brush up against each other and the wait seems endless.

Rosalie and James liven the place up a little ten minutes in and Eggsy is almost hopeful they’ll get to eat soon when Anne and Charlie arrive in quick succession, until he makes out the hurried voices of Roxy and Sophie bounding up the stairs, only just back from the stables. His body already going numb with the effort of holding himself perfectly still and ramrod straight, he sighs and sinks back into the curve of the backrest, shoulders pressing against the inside of Harry’s arm. It’s a long line of warmth across his back, strange but less distracting than the alternative.

In response to a conversation Eggsy hasn’t been paying any attention to, Harry says, “That is hardly a universally applicable law.”

Whatever he’s talking about, Merlin agrees.

“I studied this for an entire year,” Percival says and Merlin sneers, “Twenty years ago.”

“It’s philosophy. The same ideas have been floating around for thousands of years; two decades hardly dull my point.”

“What about the new schools of thought?” Charlie asks even though he doesn’t appear to be interested in the conversation, frequently glancing at the staircase instead of contributing.

Percival says: “Everyone wants to be a modern man at twenty, but at forty you come to realise there is a reason some theories have been around longer than others.”

“I’d argue a theory’s got to be better if your monkey brain hasn’t thought of it yet,” Merlin says. Percival rolls his eyes as Rosalie turns away to hide her smile while James grins openly, but it seems to be the end of that squabble. Even Harry’s mouth twitches, though Eggsy only notices because his amusement vibrates inside his body, muscles tensing momentarily against Eggsy’s back.

The same thing happens again when his mother enters with a stranger — tension, this time — and things are beginning to make sense. Perhaps Harry isn’t emotionally stunted, Eggsy thinks, but he distributes the impact of any emotional reaction across every last cell in his body, so his face can remain unperturbed and give off the illusion of aloofness.

“We have an… exceptional guest,” Alethea Hart tells the man next to her and Eggsy sits up a little straighter, realising he’s being talked about.

“Eggsy,” he says and holds out his hand, wanting to make the first move for once.

“Chester King.” The handshake is firm, but Chester doesn’t look at him, eyes drifting over to scrutinize Harry whose body goes rigid with tension. He looks like he’s parsing Harry for any sign of weakness, but it’s Eggsy he speaks to when he says, “I don’t think we’ve met before.”

“Erm, no.”

Still clutching Eggsy’s hand, Chester asks, “How do you do?”

Eggsy isn’t sure whether the question is actually directed at him or Harry, until Harry answers for him, saying, “Fine, thank you. And you?”

“Excellent.”

He retracts his hand and turns his attention to the other half of the room. Only then does Eggsy realise Harry was holding his breath, his posture collapsing by a fraction as the air escapes him. Not knowing what else to do, Eggsy puts a hand on his thigh and squeezes, mouthing, “You okay?” when Harry looks over, eyes making a detour via the hand on his thigh.

He inclines his head slowly and Eggsy eases up on the pressure, his hand migrating back into his own lap.

Breathless, Sophie appears in the doorway with Roxy in tow. “So sorry we’re late,” she murmurs, squeezing Alethea’s arm familiarly and pressing a quick, placating kiss on her cheek. “Shall we eat?”

This time, they end up at the opposite end of the table from Alethea Hart, Harry picking the first chair in the row, so that everyone has to move past them. Eggsy chooses the seat opposite him today and Sophie slides into the chair next to his, Roxy next to her and Charlie opposite, flanking Harry. Eggsy doesn’t mind the configuration, but Harry looks out of place among a bunch of twenty-something kids, like he’s been exiled from the grown-up table.

They’re served courgette and lentil soup first (green, grainy, and new to Eggsy, though delightful) and Eggsy can honestly say he is almost enjoying himself.

Then Charlie asks, “How are the horses out here?” aiming to sound casual, but slipping into accusatory territory anyway.

Eggsy wants to groan at the thought of being in for an hour long show of jealous flirtation, but Sophie is gracious enough to ignore the hostile tone.

“They are perfectly serviceable horses. I am sure you are welcome at the stables. That  is, if you still ride after that incident a few years ago,” she says with a cool smile that has Charlie instantly flustered.

“That was just a bad day,” he says so quickly the excuse loses all credibility. Eggsy hears Roxy swallow as if she’s trying to avoid choking on her soup and he wonders what they’re talking about.

“Well, then I think you would really like this gorgeous, black stallion they have. Absolutely stunning and simply massive.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t bought any appropriate clothing,” he says drily.

“Surely there are a few spares here,” Roxy says and, because they truly are verging on mean now, adds, “Maybe Eggsy would like to come too, if Harry can spare him.”

“I don’t ride,” he says and Sophie’s eyes gleam dangerously.

“No? Not even with such a stud in your stable.”

This time it’s Eggsy who almost chokes. Reaching for his water, he makes eye contact with Harry, who’s frozen with his spoonful raised halfway to his mouth. Charlie clears his throat and Eggsy registers a quiet reprimanding murmur from Roxy’s side, so that Sophie continues, glossing over her previous remark.

“They do have two award winning mares, if any one of you feels inclined to go. You used to ride, didn’t you, Harry?”

Harry swallows his mouthful, having finally gotten to it, and says, “Yes, but that was years ago.”

“Oh, you can’t forget how to ride a horse. It’s just like that old thing about bicycles.”

“I haven’t had one of those since university either and I haven’t bothered going to the stables probably since I moved to London.”

“Such a shame, it’s what I always treasure most about going home,” Sophie says, “having the horses and hounds right there.”

Eggsy wonders if she could resemble a designer country catalogue cut-out any more if she tried. It does carry a certain charm, but also makes her seem borderline transcendent at times, inhuman in the most enticing way. That illusion fades when he passes her the bread basket and feels her neatly lacquered nails scraping against his skin. If they’d met at a club in the pulsing heat of London, she’s exactly the kind of girl his mates would’ve fallen head over heels for only to be too intimidated to actually pursue her, so he doesn’t blame Charlie for the furtive glances he keeps throwing her way. She isn’t imposing enough to turn him into a shy man, but her presence knocks a substantial dent into his ego and it’s entertaining to watch.

“Would you like more bread?” Harry asks Charlie innocently, taking the piss out of him for having sullenly picked his previous slice apart over the course of fifteen minutes. Eggsy would scarcely believe he’d bother being so petty if it wasn’t the exact reason he’s even here, wondering whether a spoon has to be set at four o’clock when it comes to soup too or if an empty plate speaks for itself.

In the end, he sets the spoon down beside the plate, dabs at his mouth with his napkin, because everyone else does, and decides he doesn’t need to understand what’s going on to get through the weekend.

Eggsy discover there seems to be a general consensus on the afternoon being meant for hibernation. The party breaks apart after lunch, each of them heading for their respective rooms. He imagines some of it has to do with the sheer amount of food they’ve consumed, his portion of shepherd’s pie sitting heavily at the bottom of his stomach.

He doesn’t really mind getting away from everyone and plops down face first on the bed as soon as he and Harry are alone in their room, squeezing a hand between himself and the mattress to tease open the button on his trousers.

“Bloody hell, ain’t none of ya heard of the five meals a day policy? First I spend the better part of two hours starvin’ and then we’re stuffed to the hilt like fuckin’ turkeys.” Mildly nauseous in the position he’s lying in, Eggsy turns onto his back and lets his eyes go out of focus against the cream of the ceiling.

Somewhere in the distance, he hears the sound of Harry’s cufflinks hitting an ornamental bowl on the dresser. He says, “Make it last. Tea will be much sparser today and dinner isn’t until eight.”

Eggsy groans, simultaneously incapable of entertaining hunger even as a theoretical concept and already annoyed in advance. Beside him, the mattress gives way under Harry’s weight and Eggsy’s head lolls to the side, towards him. “You ain’t seriously taking a nap, are ya?” he asks, because Harry has not only taken off his tie and jacket, he’s unbuttoned his collar and rolled up his sleeves too — all gestures of defeat.

“Was that not your plan?” he asks, lying there with his arms turned outward like someone drifting on the surface of the ocean as he closes his eyes against the afternoon sun.

“Nah, I’m just givin’ in to a ten minute food coma.”

“If that is what you want to call it,” Harry murmurs, “Then let’s do that.”

 “Harry-” Eggsy shifts his weight onto his right side, intending to say, “I’m serious,” and then doesn’t. He sighs and rolls over in the opposite direction, getting off the bed with a grunt to close the curtains. If this is happening, he’s at least going to set an alarm so they don’t wake up hours later dehydrated and hung over from sleep. To his surprise, he’s out cold five minutes later, having rucked the quilt at the foot of the bed up to his chin to stay warm.

Waking an hour later feels like surfacing in an alternate and much crueler reality.

“Fuck,” Eggsy grumbles, patting down the sheets around him for his phone.

On the other side of the bed, Harry makes a guttural sound as he rolls over, confused by the sudden noise. Finally remembering he isn’t at home, Eggsy has the sense to look for his phone where it’s vibrating impatiently somewhere above his left ear. He hoists himself close enough to the nightstand to grab it, fumbling with the too bright screen to press snooze, and breathes out in silent relief.

“What time is it?” Harry asks, voice simultaneously rough with sleep and breathy with relief. He blinks owlishly in the not-quite-darkness of stray rays of daylight washing in through the seams of the curtains and shoring in thin white stripes on the walls.

Somehow Harry has ended up a foot closer to Eggsy so that they’re only half a foot apart anymore. Trying not to think about that too hard, Eggsy says, “Just after three,” even as he’s cataloging Harry’s sleepy features to stay awake. Once he’s confident he can keep his eyes open for more than two second at a time, Eggsy rolls back over onto his back and takes a few moments to just breathe.

Still a little out of it, Harry asks, “Who closed the curtains?” and Eggsy has to smile at how perplexed he sounds.

“A’ight,” he says, “Enough sleeping for one day.”

It still takes them twenty minutes to shake off the fatigue, Eggsy pushing the curtains back and cracking open the window for some air. He brushes the fuzzy, sour aftertaste of lunch out of his mouth and finds the sock he’s lost somewhere inside the quilt. Meanwhile, Harry unrolls his sleeves and, realising they’re too wrinkled to stay that way, rolls them back up in neater folds. He swaps his suit jacket for a sweater vest and briefly resembles Eggsy’s old English teacher until he puts on his glasses. Somewhere between those two things, he regains his composure too.

“What now?” Eggsy asks because they’ve still got plenty of time to kill and the lawn outside gapes empty.

“Someone might be downstairs or we could go for another walk,” Harry suggests. He gives the sky a dubious look, then says, “The weather looks like it might hold up for another few hours.”

Eggsy chooses the walk, mostly because he isn’t keen on speaking to anyone, but also because he still has unanswered questions he’d like to sort out before he has to face another dinner.

They take the same route as the day before and he waits until they’re past the bridge before he says, “Er, ya wanna tell me what’s actually going on here?”

Harry raises an eyebrow at him and Eggsy says, “Your mother.”

“Oh. That.” For a moment Harry looks displeased enough that Eggsy isn’t sure he’s going to continue, but instead of clamming up, he says, “We have never had a particularly… affectionate relationship.”

“Yeah, figures; even a blind monkey could make that out,” Eggsy says, fidgeting with a stalk of hay he’s torn of the edge of the footpath.

“Yes, well, seeing as it isn’t an uncommon state of affairs in this social sphere, it’s hardly a secret. My mother has always regarded me more as a theoretical legacy than how I imagine other people might treat a son. There are certain rules and expectations that lead to life being a narrow path with few forks in the road, such as which respectable young lady out of the dozen in your age group you are going to marry.”

Eggsy thinks of Rosalie and Percival washed up at the same junction twenty-five years ago and wonders if Harry ever had a moment like that.

“That is how things have been for generations. That is how things were for her, so it is how things became for me.” He pauses, index finger drumming against his thigh. Then he says, “Obviously my inclinations were not in keeping with that.”

“So you never said anythin’ about bein’ gay,” Eggsy supplies and Harry turns his head to look at him out of the corner of his eye with a sad smile.

“No, I did, eventually. It didn’t really matter. She hoped it was something I could and would grow out of, both my parents did. Over the years she’s tried to set me up with the odd woman from time to time — only when it’s been someone of a highly desirable standing — but generally speaking there has been a simple consensus between us: she will be appeased, though not satisfied, so long as I remain a bachelor. Because supposedly, disregarding a desire to spend your life with another person is simple when others don’t approve of the gender of said person.” A flash of bitterness crosses his face before he sinks back into melancholy and looks away. “And, in a way, she was right.”

“That’s horrible,” Eggsy says even though he has no room to talk.

“Perhaps,” Harry says and his nonchalance pains Eggsy.

“No, it really is.”

“Being born into this family has granted me a lot of privileges. There are bound to be some drawbacks too. I do sometimes wonder what it would be like to be twenty now, but I’m not entirely sure it makes a difference.”

Eggsy wishes he could say with certainty that it would (and for some, of course, it does), but he’s living proof that isn’t necessarily the case. Some of his mates are accepting enough, but he knows more than a handful of people he’d never want to come out to. He’s yet to brave his mum even if he likes to think she would take it better than Harry’s has and mostly because he knows Dean would take it much, much worse if he ever found out.

“What about Chester King?” Eggsy asks, because he doesn’t want to think about his own problems and it’s evident Harry’s run deeper than he’s admitted, pooling around him like toxic waste.

“What about him?” Harry asks as if that interaction he had with Chester earlier could ever be mistaken for something besides thinly veiled hostility.

“That kinda distaste has history,” Eggsy says and Harry seems torn for a moment — impressed at having been read, yet reluctant to give in.

“I used to work for him,” he says eventually, a distant look in his eyes, “some twenty years ago, before I opened my own business.”

“Wait you own like a company? Your own company?”

“Yes, but probably not in the way you imagine. It’s a small tailor shop, not an office or factory or even a consulting firm. That’s what I used to do before, under Arthur: consulting. I hated it. I spent all day around people like my father when moving to London was supposed to be a way to avoid that.”

Hopeful, Eggsy asks, “And that ain’t the case anymore?”

“I wish I could say that, but unfortunately my clientele still runs on the wealthy side, although not quite in the same way. People do not treat a suit they same way they treat overseas investments, and that makes my life significantly easier. I can focus on an old trade instead of others’ egos, let the craft do that aspect of the work for me. Not to mention, being able to go home at the end of the day knowing I haven’t made the world any more morally abject, even if I may not have improved it much either, is quite a step up. My time at King Consulting was not like that at all.”

A haunted look passes over his brow, teeth grazing thoughtfully over his lower lip. “It is, to date, the only time I would say I was utterly, thoroughly miserable in my life. This in spite of the endurance for unpleasant social circumstances a household like this inevitably teaches you as the first lesson in life. The fact that I worked there full-time for nearly five years, two of those in King’s inner circle still baffles me at times. It’s more than enough time to get to know a man though, and neither Chester King nor I were impressed with what we uncovered about one another, so I had to leave.

“In your eyes, I must veer towards extreme conservatism, but in his eyes, I had dangerously progressive ideals and a ‘lifestyle’ he didn’t approve of to make matters worse. In many ways, he represents something worse than my mother does. His elitism is simply all encompassing; I’m almost willing to vouch he has a breeding chart tacked to the living room wall. Eugenics has yet to become an outdated concept in his mind. For some unfathomable reason, my mother has decided to award him with a friendship in recent years. I doubt she entertains him as a serious suitor, but I don’t want him around waiting for her to change her mind.”

Considering the way she views the lower classes, Eggsy at the forefront of that group, he isn’t so sure it would be a dramatic change of heart, but he doesn’t tell Harry that. Instead he asks, “D’ya reckon she actually would?”

“I cannot say I would put it past her,” he says, a wry smile taking over. “Isn’t that almost worse than having a firm answer? I think she would leave any future romance to social opportunism. Her marriage to my father was largely one of convenience, brief, youthful courtship excluded, and she hasn’t wasted a single day complaining about it, so doing it a second time is not out of the question.”

Hearing her life discerned so coolly, as if none of it matters, Eggsy feels a surge of sympathy towards Mrs Hart. These arrangements look different where he’s from, but he imagines they’re largely the same in nature at the end of the day. It’s enough to turn anyone bitter.

“I think she’s just lonely,” Eggsy says, “I ain’t faultin’ ya for not wanting to be around her — she ain’t exactly lovin’ — but it gets to ya eventually, the isolation. ‘S just a matter of how long you’re willin’ to hope for an alternative.” He wonders how long Harry’s tether is.

“There is never an incentive to accept the unacceptable.”

“Now you’re just being dense, ‘cause that ain’t ever true as long as people know how to kill each other in a billlion ways and make a bullet to the head look like the nice way out. People strike all sorts of deals outta desperation,” Eggsy says. They’ve circled the grand oak Harry claims to have spent most of his childhood afternoons under, taking shelter from the cage of his life and Eggsy stops under the last of the umbrage, casting a worried look up at the darkening sky, but steps out from under its mercy anyway. “We wither and die in more ways than ya can think about every day without going mad, so we soldier on and try to stay sane. From one thing to the next and into our coffins we walk, straight down along the lane yous was born in. I ain’t sayin’ your mum’s in the right or that that Chester bloke ain’t a wanker, but at least she’d be tryin’ to improve her life by some miserable margin in the only way she knows. And ya know what? You can’t look down on her for that, ‘cause you ain’t no better.”

“Me?” Harry asks, pointing at himself in disbelief, and Eggsy nods.

“All this,” he says, rolling his eyes in an effort to capture all of it, “I ain’t here just ‘cause you wanna get one over your mum, no matter what ya tell yourself. You’re doin’ this ‘cause there’s more to life — things you choose not to go after — and all this fucking around with some fake relationship is your attempt at absolution. Ya wanna know nothing’s changed, that there’s no point longin’ for more ‘cause it’s all pointless anyway.” What he’s saying sounds too familiar, so Eggsy takes a deep breath, trying to tamp down his irritation at having touched upon a door he’s trying to keep shut, and says, “Otherwise what was the point in lyin’ or—” sensing Harry’s protests even before they’re voice, Eggsy amends— “omittin’ the truth, if that’s what ya wanna call it? If this was all a big joke, you coulda been upfront about your life, but ya weren’t ‘cause it bothers you. You’re self conscious about it, bruv, no way ‘round that.”

“Is that what you want to hear: that I am unhappy?”

“No,” Eggsy says immediately even though there’s something vindicating about the thought. Well, maybe not Harry specifically, but the general lot out here; the knowledge that money truly does not make you happy would ease many a challenging night for him. “I’m askin’ ya to think about why you’ve had to hire me? You’re rich and pretty fuckin’ fit too — factual observation, not a compliment —” Eggsy says at Harry’s raised eyebrow, “so how come you’re on a datin’ site tryna bait someone out here for the weekend for a couple hundred quid? You ain’t gotta be alone if you don’t want to and you know it. Plenty of people would take ya, no questions asked.”

“Because that is a healthy basis for a relationship.”

“You know what I mean,” he says, annoyed that Harry insists on misunderstanding him at every turn.

Harry looks like he’s going to argue, but the expression fades and he says, “Fine. Then who says I’m not content on my own?”

“I honestly wish you were ‘cause it’s how things oughta be, but if that were the case, I wouldn’t be here right now,” he says. “If ya were happy by yourself, your mum couldn’t get under your skin and I didn’t have to be here pretendin’ to drool over you.” He feels the agitation building up again, liquid fire in his veins, but this time Eggsy keeps his cool, because if he cracks now, he’ll have lost.

Harry, trying desperately to find a way out of the argument behind his perfectly calm façade, says: “I think it’s going to rain.”

“Are you fuckin’ serious right now?” Eggsy snaps, turning on his heel to glare at Harry. Before he has the chance to properly go off, two fat drops fall onto Harry’s right shoulder, unmistakeable dark spots that are followed by something distinctly cold and wet on Eggsy’s scalp. He blinks, fury doubling as the situation dawns on him, and says, “You better fuckin’ know how to run, I swear to God-”

“Half marathon two months ago,” Harry says and at least he has the good sense not to look smug about it.

Sighing, Eggsy zips up his jacket and they make a dash for it. It’s only scattered drops at first, always a prelude to something worse, so he cuts through the grass off the footpath in hopes of avoiding the downpour. To his credit, Harry switches directions without hesitation or delay, a skill that took Eggsy years of alley sprinting to master with any accuracy. When they cross the path again, he looks back to find Harry still there and not the slightest bit flustered, breathing still flowing evenly. It ain’t fair, he thinks when, crossing the bridge, Harry passes him and, incidentally, the sky opens up over them in a deluge.

“Fucking hell,” he pants, feeling the water creep through the fabric of his clothes. Harry, two feet ahead, offers him a hand, an absolutely ridiculous gesture, but Eggsy takes him up on it.

Harry’s hand is slippery at best, but he’s got a solid grip that keeps Eggsy tethered to him. They dash up the steps into the gazebo and out of the rain, the patter still deafening against the roof. Eggsy lets go of his hand and folds over in half, clutching his aching sides.

He hasn’t gotten himself into the type of shit warranting a mad sprint in a while and his muscles sting like nettles in protest. Somewhere on the inhale, the stretch feels like a knife to to the ribs, and his breath hitches audibly. By now at least, Harry is heaving for air too, though he’s still faring better than Eggsy.

When he looks up, Harry’s grinning wide as a loon. It’s infectious.

“Sodding hell,” Eggsy says and Harry starts laughing in a low rumble, like he’s been hit with the aftershocks of hilarity rather than the first impact.

“Your face was priceless.”

“You absolute wanker! I was ready to deck ya, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” Harry says, trying and failing to tamp down his smile: a sunshine grin like Eggsy has never seen before. Collecting himself a little, he says, “On a serious note though, I did not intend to be dismissive of you. Everything you said- Your criticisms and concerns were completely valid, probably more so than I would care to admit, so I did not necessarily react in the best way. I should point out: No one has really challenged me in... probably fifteen years, Merlin excluded, and even he’s started to let slide in his old age. It’s quite refreshing to have my perspective challenged and, in many ways, even necessary, so I would like to apologise for being so harsh, for just now and earlier this morning.”

“Thanks, but look don’t worry about it,” Eggsy says, “I’m a stranger and you ain’t got no reason to trust me. I get it.”

“That doesn’t make it acceptable or gentlemanly and you were right: You deserve to know what you have agreed to be a part of. I want you to know, if I ever come across as rude or ungrateful, that isn’t intentional.”

Standing there, sopping wet with his arms crossed, Eggsy says, “Harry, really-”

“Please let me finish,” Harry says earnestly and Eggsy can’t decide whether the utterly soaked look contributes to or detracts from the sentiment.

Figuring that fighting him on this matter is not only pointless but way too much effort, Eggsy says, “Okay,” trying to suppress a shudder.

“I realise I can be quite withdrawn and impersonal at times. Neither of those qualities makes your task any easier, but you have been doing incredibly well in spite of that, and I do appreciate the initiative on your part.”

“With what you’re paying me, I think it’s only fair,” Eggsy says. “Ya could still do more. Hell, when I’m gone, get out a bit, hire a slew of blokes and let everyone think you’re a right slut. I bet ya could shock a few people into an early grave.”

Harry chuckles nervously and says, “I don’t think I am quite so daring.”

“Well, you’ve done it once now,” Eggsy says even though the weekend isn’t over yet, “Can’t be much of a step up from here.”

“True, but I rather think it might have gone tits up first thing in the garden if you hadn’t pitched in so quickly.”

Eggsy grins. “Always out to please,” he says and sniffles. This time, the shiver gets the better of him, vibrating up his spine.

Considering the soles of his shoes are oozing water and the back of his shirt is glued tighter to him than his own skin, it seems self-evident, but Harry still asks: “Are you cold?”

“What, is the teeth chattering not tellin’ enough?” Eggsy asks sarcastically. He steps closer to the edge of the gazebo to peer up at the sky, trying to guess how long it might be until the rain lets up and, by proxy, assess whether it more sense to wait it out or make a run for it back to the house.

Harry asks, “Would you like my jacket?”

“Your drenched jacket?” Eggsy repeats, shifting from one foot to the other impatiently. At least he’s tryin’, he thinks even as he says, “Bet it’s real warm.”

“All right, perhaps not,” Harry agrees. By now, he’s rubbing his hands up and down his arms too, so Eggsy says, “Look, let’s cut a deal, ‘cause it’s real fuckin’ cold out here. We wait for five more minutes and if it doesn’t stop raining, we make a run for it. Okay?”

Harry nods. “Fine by me.”

“Great. Until then,” Eggsy says and takes two steps towards him, “ we might as well stay warm and put on a show, so just bear with me and unfold your arms.”

Harry eyes him skeptically, but complies anyway, so Eggsy wraps his arms around Harry’s torso and closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to process the contact. Harry’s arms come to rest somewhere against his ribs and Eggsy focuses on the heat instead of the strange feel of Harry’s sweater against his cheek. Trying not to fall into a rhythm with the slowing heart thudding beneath his ear, he silently starts counting down from three hundred in the rain beating down around them.

Chapter Text

They end up making a break for it in an intermittent drizzle, quickfire sprint along the side of the house before the rain doubles back up and swallows them whole.

“Goodness me,” Aunt Anne says, clutching a hand to her chest when they come in through the West entrance, panting like rabid dogs with the door slamming shut behind them, echoing all down the hall.

“Sorry,” Eggsy murmurs reflexively, an adrenaline smile tugging at his mouth, because there is something comical about all of this: Harry and him stood in the foyer, arms carefully held away from their bodies as if it would make them any less sopping wet, as if it’ll stop them from dripping onto the tiles, the beginnings of a puddle forming at their feet.

Eggsy, deciding he isn’t too keen on getting a cold, does the only smart thing, which is to unzip his jacket and get it off his back. On second thought, he takes his shoes off too and peels his feet out of his socks, stuffing the socks back into the shoes as he stands there barefoot, but slightly drier.

“Did you get caught in the rain?” Rosalie asks, appearing in one doorway, James behind her with a slice of treacle tart on a plate.

“Afraid so,” Harry says, brushing the fringe that’s plastered to his forehead out of his face.

Rosalie says, “Oh my,” and Harry, rather lamely: “Were you having tea?”

“Yes, but you ought to get changed before you come through, lest you get sick. Actually, it’s best you have a bath. Shall we set something aside?”

“Please,” Harry says, another performative grimace playing out on his face —  embarrassment over the inconvenience bred with gratitude, this time. It’s such a delicate expression, it takes Eggsy several moments to decipher, blinking dumbly at Harry and then Rosalie’s reaction until there’s a hand against the small of his back ushering him towards the stairs, and he startles out of himself.

Somehow, trudging up the stairs feels like a walk of shame, and up in their room Eggsy realises why.

Moisture seeping into the carpet, they’re forced to make a beeline for the bathroom, sticking to opposite ends of the vanity. Eggsy drops the clothes he’s already taken off in a graceless heap on the floor and glances at Harry in the mirror, fighting his way out of his blazer against the practically see through plane of his white shirt clinging to his back and chest in turns. They’re both freezing and while Eggsy is all too aware of his own nipples, he forces himself to look away from Harry’s under his shirt.

They’re grown men, after all, and this is hardly the time for modesty, so Eggsy pulls his shirt over his head unceremoniously and asks, “D’you want the shower first?”

Harry’s eyes flick to his in the mirror, deferred eye contact that feels inoffensive until Eggsy realises where exactly the trajectory of his gaze is headed. Perhaps some things are only human nature.

Caught, Harry snatches his towel off the wall and says, “No, you go. I’ll appropriate another bath.”

“Appropriate,” Eggsy repeats into the empty space. As if Harry is just going to wander about and lock himself in the closest unoccupied room with a tub. Maybe he is, Eggsy thinks, locks the door, and turns on the shower, too impatient to run a bath.

When Eggsy re-enters their room half an hour later, two degrees warmer to the touch and much drier, Harry is nowhere to be seen. At the mercy of a mere towel around his waist until he can unearth some clothes from his duffle bag, that suits Eggsy just fine. He pulls on track bottoms and the first shirt he can get his hands on, worried Harry will walk in on him more or less half naked, albeit feeling infinitely better.

Dressed and still undisturbed, he picks his wet clothes off the bathroom floor one by one and hangs them up to dry. His nicer jeans and the trainers are definitely lost for the day, but he entertains a flicker of hope for the shirt, if only because he has nothing better to wear to dinner and he’s already going to have to make do with inappropriately light denim.

While he’s at it, he decides to drape Harry’s damp shirt over the closest chair along with his socks, unfurled and left dangling over the edge of a dresser drawer. The suit jacket doesn’t seem as thoroughly drenched as Eggsy’s own jacket, so he puts it on a hanger and risks putting it up on the door of the wardrobe while he leaves his own jacket to drip in the bath.

Harry still hasn’t returned by then and, stomach gurgling pitifully, Eggsy is starting to grow impatient enough to consider leaving without him. Yesterday, he would’ve stayed put out of sheer fear, but today he’s already navigated half the morning alone, so he doesn’t see the point in waiting around for Harry, especially when everyone is likely to be done with tea by now and he could be eating by himself instead of sitting here waiting here to be barged in on. The only problem is he’s out of shoes to wear, his only pair drying slanted against the bathroom wall. Eggsy glances at the slippers sitting by Harry’s side of the bed and wonders if couldn’t just nick them and go if he leaves Harry a note.

If Harry can appropriate an entire bathroom, surely Eggsy can appropriate a pair of slippers. They’re a little large on him and he can’t find a single piece of paper (or a pen, for that matter), so he sends a text instead — ‘ borrowed your slippers. cheers, eggsy’ — drops Harry’s phone in the middle of the bed where he can’t miss it, and takes off, slippers slapping against the floor.

Downstairs, Eggsy finds the lunch hall where tea was set up half an hour earlier deserted. He stands in the room confused until Alethea Hart clears her throat behind him and tells him a tea tray has been brought into the library for his convenience. Where the library is, Eggsy doesn’t dare ask, so he says, “I’m still waiting for Harry,” as an excuse to drift over into the sitting room and bother someone else with his cluelessness.

He’s lucky, because it’s only Anne and Percival on the sofas, Merlin brushing past Eggsy with a tablet, all too easy to tug by the sleeve and pull out of earshot. “Where’s the library again?” he whispers because Harry’s supposedly explained the theoretical bones of the house to him before, not that he remembers any of it now.

Merlin points Eggsy in the right direction and he takes it from there, striding over into the next room with a confidence that stops short as soon as he’s through the door. Out of sight, he allows himself to peer through doorways and finds the library two wrong guesses down the line. It’s a room that’s simultaneously an alcove among much larger structures and a crown jewel of the estate, walls lined with books floor to staggeringly high ceiling and the furniture two hundred years old, the smell of ageing pages stagnant in the afternoon sun.

Sure enough, left on the tiny table between two armchairs, there’s a steaming teapot waiting for him.

With no one around to see him, Eggsy pulls his feet up onto his seat and pours himself a cup of tea, relaxing into the back of the chair nibbling on a piece of quiche balanced precariously on his left knee. It’s quite possibly the first time he’s felt comfortable in the house since their arrival, which naturally means it isn’t meant to last.

“As I mentioned,” Chester says, borderline agitated somewhere in the space beyond the back of Eggsy’s chair.

He holds his breath for a moment, missing the second half of the sentence holding himself tense like that, but all his hopes for being ignored leave him in a single breath when Rosalie pipes up, saying, “Oh, Eggsy. I was looking for you,” in a bright, pleased voice. At his startled look, she adds: “Well, Harry, actually.”

“Um.” He swallows tediously around a mouthful of quiche. “He’s still in the shower.”

She makes a displeased sound at that, glancing up at the ceiling, distracted by a thought, and Eggsy slips the plate off his leg to look less like a kid caught eating on the sofa watching telly, though he still can’t bring himself to look Chester in the eye. Recovering from his initial bewilderment, he says, “Thanks for settin’ up tea, by the way.”

“Hmm? Oh yes, that. Not a problem—” flash of a brilliant smile— “I just passed the message down to the kitchen.”

“Of course,” Eggsy mumbles and it occurs to him anything else would’ve been a ridiculous assumption anyway.

Much to his relief, Harry chooses that moment to finally materialise in the doorway, just in time for him to escape having to come up with a proper topic of conversation, opting instead for a pleasantly surprised, “Oh hey, there you are.”

“Hello,” Harry mutters, distracted, followed by: “Have you seen my slippers?”

“Uh, I took ‘em, actually,” Eggsy says and Harry’s stops wandering as his gaze falls to Eggsy’s feet.

“Oh.”

Harry himself has evidently laced up another pair of Oxfords in the absence of his preferred shoes and they do admittedly look silly with the cardigan he’s wearing even though he’s tried to do damage control with a neat pair of slacks.

“I left a note,” Eggsy says, eyebrows rising in a desperate plea for Harry to just play along, because Eggsy can’t say, “I texted you,” if Harry was meant to be in the bath one room over. “I tried shouting, but I don’t think you heard me over the shower.”

Chester eyes them strangely and, for a moment, Eggsy thinks the gig is up, but thankfully the light bulb in Harry’s head flickers on, eyes widening as the situation dawns on him.

He says: “Ah, indeed I did not. Was it, by any chance, on that receipt? I threw it out, since I did not have my glasses on me, but I did wonder why it was in the middle of the bed.”

“Yes,” Eggsy says a little too quickly, a little impressed and infinitely grateful for Harry’s ability to fabricate excuses. To really sell it, he adds, “I keep tellin’ ya you’re blind without ‘em,” as if they’ve had a thousand incidences like this, like it’s a fond argument they have every Sunday morning.

“Hardly blind ,” Harry says and takes up the opposite armchair.

Pretending to be benevolent by dropping the issue for now, Eggsy turns to Rosalie. “You were lookin’ for Harry,” he says, phrasing it half as a question, when really all he wants is an excuse to stop talking to anyone.

She doesn’t see it for the ploy it is, instantly returning to the animated conversation she was having when her and Chester entered the room. “Oh yes,” she says, “What is it you were telling me about earlier? The Cloutier complexes? Chester here was saying-”

“I don’t recommend it as an investment property,” Harry cuts, tone three shades cooler than before and Eggsy doesn’t miss the way Chester King’s eyes narrow ever so slightly. “That is all I was saying. In my opinion, it is not in keeping with the residential needs and growth of the area.”

“Right,” Rosalie says, “Then I’m not certain Martel will be interested in it.”

“Well, six months ago perhaps,” Chester starts and Harry opens his mouth again to interject, but an ancient clock in another room beats him to it with a series of solemn gongs that suspend the tension in the room, Harry and Chester keeping up a steady, mutually challenging eye contact as the grandfather clock wears itself out.

Rosalie, either still blissfully ignorant of the developing sour mood or desperate to escape it, mutters, “Christ, is it six o’clock already? I need to go find something to wear for dinner.” It’s  a feeble excuse at best, but Eggsy wishes he had even that much. Instead, he’s got half a slice of quiche left and a duty to stand by Harry. “You’ll excuse me, gentlemen,” Rosalie says, all charm and veiled relief, trailing a hand lightly down Chester King’s arm as she takes her leave, hurrying out of the room with quick steps that echo in the corridor.

As soon as she’s out of earshot, Chester refocuses his attention on Harry. “I was unaware you have chosen to return to investment.”

The comment makes the corners of Harry’s mouth twist downward, a nauseated look passing over his face before its equilibrium returns. “I haven’t.”

“Then I suggest you keep out of this business,” Chester says, clearly making it an order if not a threat. He doesn’t stick around for Harry’s rebuttal but stalks off toward the sitting room, which means he at least has some common sense for all the respect he lacks.

Being left alone is enough for Eggsy to relax, heaving a sigh into the clearing static still in the air. Harry, though, sits even stiffer.

“Hey,” Eggsy says and nudges at Harry’s foot with his own, forcing him to unclench his jaw and look away from the spot on the wall he’s fixated on. “Don’t let that prick get to ya.”

Harry huffs. “That is easy for you to say.”

Eggsy shakes his head and says, “Nah, don’t start on me now. What’s between you and Chester King ain’t none of my business — you can gut him right there in the garden for all I care —  but I won’t have anyone walk in here seein’ you scowling like that; they’ll think we’ve got into an argument and I refuse to be counselled on this so called ‘relationship’, you got that?”

“Of course.” Harry says, softens, his lines losing their rigidity. Sighing, he scrubs a hand down the side of his face. “I apologise.”

“You don’t need to go that far either,  cause’ that guy is a massive twat. Just drink your tea and stop tryna get into a fight with one toff or another every five minutes,” Eggsy says because it seems to him the two of them have waded through as much shit in the last twenty-four hours as he’d normally put up with in an entire year, if this were a genuine relationship. All this bullshit is exactly why it’s not that and why Harry’s paying him cold hard cash to stick it out, but even so, Eggsy is desperate for a break.

Harry probably feels the same, because he nods instead of saying anything that could set either one of them off again, reaching over to pour himself a cup of tea and grab his plate instead. The peace is fragile, but the silence comfortable, so they eat.

But Eggsy is done long before Harry and he can only stare at the bookcases pretending to be fascinated by a collection of disintegrating leather spines for so long.

“Care to tell me why you took my slippers?” Harry asks between two mouthfuls of quiche, well aware he’s the only reason why Eggsy is still sitting there, silently counting old encyclopedia volumes.

“Oh, uh. That was just ‘cause the only shoes I brought are sitting in the bath upstairs soggier than yesterday’s Weetabix. To be fair, I woulda nicked actual shoes, but I didn’t see any and it would’ve looked even worse with these,” he says, tugging at his sweats. If oxfords look weirdly formal with Harry’s idea of a casual outfit, they would’ve been atrocious on him. “Plus I think your feet have at least a couple sizes on mine-”

Apparently not having considered that point before ( and why would he have , Eggsy asks himself) Harry studies their respective feet on the floor again. At this rate he could put a research paper together on the fate of the slippers, Eggsy thinks with less derision attached to the thought than he’d expect.

Harry hums around a mouthful of treacle tart and, after he’s swallowed, says, “I take it that means you don’t have anything to wear to dinner then.”

“I don’t think the soles are gonna dry out that fast.”

“I fear trainers might be a little too informal in any case,” Harry says and Eggsy reads it for what it is despite Harry’s carefully constructed casual tone, because Harry has not once told him anything he’s worn is inadequate, not when that’s exactly what Eggsy is supposed to pretend to be. It’s not a hard act when all he has to do is exist as himself, so being criticised on that point must mean something is off.

On guard, he says, “Yeah?” It’s a neither a question nor a statement, more of a prompt he doesn’t particularly want a response to.

“I’m certain I can procure you a pair of shoes,” Harry says.

“If they’re anything like your usual sort, they’ll clash with literally anythin’ else I own,” Eggsy counters. “If what I wore last night ain’t good enough, you’re fucked, ‘cause that’s about the best I’ve got with me.”

“Right,” Harry says. It’s the first time Eggsy sees him honest-to-god glitch as he wraps his posh brain around the fact that Eggsy hasn’t been doing his damn hardest to stand out and that he does not, in fact, have a three piece suit stuffed into the side pocket of his duffle bag or whatever it is he imagined. The longer the silence drags on for — the crease between Harry’s eyebrows an unmoving fixture throughout — the more Eggsy worries.

“In just how much shit are we?” he asks when he can’t take the uncertainty anymore.

“Well, even Merlin wears a proper suit to Saturday dinners,” Harry says.

Briefly, it occurs to Eggsy it’s a borderline miracle he even understands what the fuck that’s supposed to mean, but then he’s far too busy grappling with the fact that he’s going to have an aneurysm. He thinks of Sophie’s ghost of a smile and that frighteningly gorgeous dress she hadn’t worn last night and of Rosalie, retreating upstairs to get ready two whole hours before dinner, the space filling with a variety of vanity rituals in the back of his mind. He must look a little green by the time he manages to say: “Shit.”

“Yes, quite.”

Harry’s voice is so dry and matter-of-fact, Eggsy’s mounting panic dissolves into a mixture of unfiltered emotions that’s equal parts fury and disbelief, because how could anyone actually be this daft. He’s already so used to migrating from one problem to the next and then a third as soon as that resolves itself, he’s lost the capacity to be genuinely upset, and instead just snaps: “Ya couldn’t have mentioned I’m s’posed to be fit to dine with Queen in your ad, could ya?”

“Not the Queen… But, in hindsight, that may have been a slight oversight on my part,” Harry admits and Eggsy doesn’t have the first fucking clue what he’s meant to say to that.

In the end, he demands, “Well, can ya fix it?” On the heels of the day he’s had, it feels a bit like reminding his mum they need dinner after she’s had a massive crying fit in the bathroom over a bloke - utterly wrong and like it’s the least of all their problems.

Harry takes a moment to consider, eyeing Eggsy strangely, then says, “The proportions are all wrong, but I do have an idea.”

Thank fuck , Eggsy thinks but doesn’t say along with, couldn’t possibly make it sound more ominous, you twat? What he does say is, “‘S all yours, mate,” rising out of his chair.

Harry gets up too, shoving the rest of his pastry into his mouth for the road, as they head for yet another part of the house Eggsy has yet to see.

They end up in a musty corridor that Eggsy triangulates to lay somewhere on the first floor roughly in their half of the house, though he can’t place it any better than that. It looks like the shuttered up corner of a mansion inhabited by a too small family, something straight out of a BBC period drama. It might be charming for that very reason too if it weren’t for all the creepy portraits lining the walls.

Eggsy can’t make the faces out properly in the dim light streaming in through too few windows, but he’s reasonably certain they’re in the corridor reserved exclusively for the less attractive members of the family — one shares Harry’s chin, another the hair, but all of them still look like badly carved replicas.

Harry in the flesh, the best version of himself in this lineage, stops in front of one unassuming door among a dozen and rattles an uncooperative doorknob. Huffing something Eggsy doesn’t catch, he spins around to make a beeline for a nearby chest, pulling out the top drawer. It’s stiff and uncooperative, the vase of dried roses on it rattling threateningly as Harry shimmies it out and off the rails.

Eggsy watches with reservation, glancing down the corridor like they’re two naughty children and he’s been assigned look-out, until Harry says, “Could you give me a hand, please?” and pushes the entire drawer into his arms.

It’s filled to the brim with linens and much heavier then Eggsy expects so that the weight of it almost tips him over when Harry lets go. They’ve both got lightning reflexes though, Harry steadying the far end with a palm to the bottom while Eggsy rams a knee upwards for support, narrowly missing Harry’s fingers. Exchanging a quick, mutually assuring look, Eggsy lets out the pained breath he’s been holding and Harry peels a key off the back of the drawer.

“Old precautions,” he says by way of explaining as he heads for the door. “You can put the drawer back for now.”

If his hands weren’t full, Eggsy would opt for a cutting retort, but he’s still breathless from tring to balance half the sheets of the bloody estate, so he simply rolls his eyes at Harry’s back and tries to realign the drawer with its rails. It makes an awful lot of noise that does nothing to soothe his paranoia, unlike knowing he’s doing this on Harry’s orders, because it’s literally impossible to break into a space in the owner’s presence. Only, when he turns around, Harry isn’t there anymore, gone with an open door left in his wake, and Eggsy curses under his breath just thinking of what the situation would look like if anyone had found him right then.

Having wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans and about to say something to that effect, Eggsy stops short just inside the room, trying to take in what he’s seeing.

This time it’s size and lack of grandeur that shock him, because the room is by far the smallest Eggsy has seen on the estate, though it’s still twice the size of his bedroom at home. Harry pulls at the curtains and the room floods with bland daylight and nostalgia. It’s cluttered and musty and full of the kind of personal touches the house seems to lack at large: child-sized trophies on a dresser, medals and ribbons hung above it in a glass case, hand drawn butterfly sketches tacked to the wallpaper, crowding the wall above and around a desk with knick knacks and picture frames strewn all across it. It’s a room that actually looks lived in, ordinary and outdated, just a normal childhood bedroom. It’s the shrine to Harry’s personal history and so utterly out of character for the household Eggsy understands why it’s here: among the shunned.

Still on the mission and untouched by their surroundings, Harry yanks open the louvered wardrobe doors and starts rifling through the racks of clothing.

Eggsy, inhaling twenty-year-old dust in awe, asks: “What is this place?”

“Officially? Old servants’ quarters, but they have been out of use for decades by now. After being largely decommissioned, it briefly became where Lancelot, Percival, and I were sequestered during summers off from school so as to not disturb Mother and Father in the South Wing or any of their more esteemed adult guests in the West Wing.”

There’s a touch of a smile colouring Harry’s voice, even if it doesn’t quite reach his mouth. Eggsy can’t imagine Harry making enough of a ruckus to disturb anyone even as a child, his entire personality the definition of subdued, but perhaps it was James that got them evicted from polite society, because him Eggsy can see running scuff marks into the carpets like the paradigm of a rascal he still is.

This room only carries the wear and tear of a quietly oscillating day-to-day life though, colonised too meticulously to be a seasonal getaway.

“And if I ain’t asking the family biographer?” Eggsy probes, mostly intending it as a joke, except Harry’s face doesn’t even twitch and of course they’re the sort of people that hire other people to write about their lives.

“I suppose this is what could have been called my room in the late seventies and early eighties,” Harry says, sounding reluctant to admit that, but still preferring it to discussing the biographer. “I always had a suite in the main quarters, but after a term at Eton it felt far too empty, all the space filled with my parents’ studious avoidance of one another, which stopped feeling like a break from the constant buzz of a boy school a week into summer, so I moved.”

That sending someone away to boarding school could ever make a child less lonely hasn’t ever occurred to Eggsy before. The notion is so cruel, it leaves him at a loss for words, so he turns his eyes away toward the dozens of drawings  — the precursor to the real life display currently sitting in Harry’s foyer, because some things never die. He thinks of Harry at nine, ten, maybe eleven cobbling together a second layer of wallpaper rationed in A4 patches, and his throat tightens under the pressure of a claustrophobic heart refusing to stay put.

“Did ya draw all these yourself?” Eggsy asks.

“Yes,” Harry says, “They’re mostly from textbooks, but some, like these here—” he gestures at a patch near the ceiling— “are from specimens.” His childhood enthusiasm still shines through as he goes into the specifics of some favourites: dropping latin names, a finger curving along the edges of the wings to a detailed commentary on the differentiation between two species Eggsy mistakes to be the same drawn in different years. It’s endearing and heart wrenching at once because Eggsy can’t help but wonder if he’s ever had anyone to properly talk to at all or if he’s just sat here scribbling away at his desk in silence for years.

It isn’t much of a question, because he can see the way Harry becomes self-conscious when Eggsy can’t do more than nod politely, speech slowing and tapering off.

“I used to want to become a lepidopterist,” he says with one final breath, like he’s willing himself to stop.

“A what?”

“Someone who collects and studies butterflies.”

“Ya still do, don’t ya? Got them hung up on your walls in glass caskets and shit like that,” Eggsy says, gesturing vaguely in an attempt to make up for the missing terminology.

Harry smiles wanly as he says, “It’s only a hobby.”

“Oh,” Eggsy says, realising Harry’s initial confession referred to a career choice, “Is this one of those obscure things people go to uni for?”

“Some people do.”

“Why didn’t you?” Eggsy asks in all seriousness, because Harry definitely has the money to do something frivolous and impractical if he wanted to, but his question only makes that vulnerable part of Harry, carelessly left on display for a few moments, slip out of reach, old walls coming up instinctively.

“It wasn’t a viable career,” he says coolly like it’s a dilemma he’s thought over so often, the solution has been distilled to that singular factoid. For a moment, his eyes look incredibly young — twenty-two and worried he’s squandering his life away in more ways than one by longing for something he can’t have  — and then, just as quickly, it’s gone again: his usual composed, middle-aged self returning, pragmatic enough to step out of his past and revel in complacency.

Clearing his throat, Harry says, “Right,” and the last of the spell is broken.

He gestures to the closet and Eggsy’s attention shifts the two racks of Harry’s old clothes.

“Unfortunately I used to have quite different proportions to you as a young man,” Harry says, which makes Eggsy imagine him in his prime: tall, thin, and dashing, but retaining that same quiet poise he still has. “Regardless,” Harry adds, “I am certain we can make it work somehow.”

Eggsy nods, turning away from the butterfly wall and stepping closer to the closet, because clearly their focus has shifted irreversibly now. If there’s still a lingering curiosity in him, it’s pushed aside by his worry for the evening to come.

Harry cards through a series of items that all look identical to Eggsy, black and grey trousers arranged by a subtle gradient, the biggest outlier being a pinstripe pattern. Harry finds what he’s looking for with a pleased ‘ah’ and pulls it out for Eggsy to see.

“These were too short for me at the time and I don’t think mother ever got them fixed,” he says, giving no indication of whether ‘at the time’ refers to last year or three decades ago. Eggsy doesn’t ask, just holds the trousers out in front of him wondering if they’ll fit since they look narrow even on a hanger.

“You’ll have to try them on, of course,” Harry says when Eggsy still hasn’t moved.

“Right,” he says, self-consciousness tugging at him and making him shy.

Whether or not Harry senses his hesitation, he turns his back to card through jackets, saying, “There isn’t enough time to hem anything properly before dinner, but I might be able to find a temporary solution if those are impossible. It won’t be easy though.”

Reminded of the fact that they’re up here to solve a wardrobe malfunction and nothing more, Eggsy shucks his sweats and pulls on another man’s trousers, clearing his throat once he’s buttoned them up. They’re a bit on the tight side, clinging in places Eggsy suspects they aren’t meant to, and a little too long in spite of everything.

Harry’s hum is so noncommittal, Eggsy has to ask: “Well, what’s the verdict?”

“They don’t pool at your ankles, which is a start,” Harry says. “How do they feel?”

“Uh, the fabric’s real nice,” Eggsy says, “Maybe a bit office slutty on the whole, but it’s better than jeans, innit?”

“That it is. And, under the circumstances, it is probably the best we can do.”

“What about the top half?” Eggsy asks, because a washed-out white tee really won’t do if he’s committing to wool trousers.

“Try this,” Harry offers, holding a dress shirt out expectantly.

This time, Eggsy doesn’t second guess himself, just pulls his shirt over his head and slips on Harry’s, doing the buttons up without looking at him, not that Harry is watching him exactly, too busy picking out a jacket.

“Oh dear,” Harry says once he does stop to take Eggsy in.

It isn’t much of a surprise; Eggsy already knows the shirt won’t work, buttons bulging dangerously over his sternum as he’s doing them up and the sleeves pooling around his wrists, because Harry’s mass has always been distributed differently.

In the poorly fitted, slightly oversized off-the-rack suits Eggsy is used to wearing and swapping with his mates as need be, discrepancies like that wouldn’t matter, but Harry’s clothes are tailored so closely to him , wearing his shirt feels like Eggsy’s trying to inhabit someone else’s skin.

It’s just another way he doesn’t fit in and he’s quick to admit it, asking, “What else you got?” before Harry can say anything.

“In the way of suits, not much,” he says slowly and Eggsy thinks he might be done for, after all, but then Harry’s moving again, across the room to the dresser as Eggsy undoes the last buttons on the dress shirt. It’s still hanging on him when Harry’s measuring him up against a jumper pulled from the bottom drawer. It’s a wholly new way to be exposed, Eggsy thinks as he holds himself perfectly still while Harry’s gaze flicks back and forth between his borders and the jumper’s, putting together a professional verdict.

“This ought to do,” he says with so much conviction, Eggsy’s breath rushes out of him, the stress of squeezing himself into clothes that aren’t right dissipating in an instant.

“And under it?” Eggsy asks, squirming out of the dress shirt as quickly as he can.

“I think the only real option we have is a polo shirt with a tie. Nothing else has enough give to accommodate your... physique.”

Grinning at the thought there’s an experience universal enough to touch them both, Eggsy asks, “Bit year nine, polo shirt and a tie, don’t ya reckon?”

“It will have to do, I’m afraid,” Harry says and grimaces, selecting the items from another drawer. He snatches a pair of oxfords from the closet after and asks, “Do you have a sock you wouldn’t mind sacrificing? I would prefer not to ask around for gauze.”

Catching on, Eggsy says, “Yeah, I can let you shred one.”

“Great,” Harry murmurs and glances at his watch. “Then we should have just enough time to sort ourselves out.”

Eggsy pulls his own shirt back on, but elects not to change out of the trousers for the trek back to their room. He also doesn’t think about what they must look like coming out of a deserted wing, Eggsy dressed in Harry’s trousers and Harry carrying a pile of clothes, not even at the strange look Anne gives them when they pass her in the back in the West Wing.

As promised, Harry engineers him a pair of shoes before dinner. It’s just a matter of arranging two bunched up halves of a cut up sock in the tip, but Eggsy is grateful nevertheless, struggling with his tie for fifteen minutes thanks to the nervous tremor in his hand.

“There is really no need to worry,” Harry tells him mellowly, aligning the cuffs of his shirt and jacket as Eggsy ties his shoes.

“Yeah, tell me again when your mum’s looking at me like my existence alone gives her heartburn,” Eggsy says, willing himself to stop worrying even as he says it.

“It probably does, actually,” Harry says and Eggsy is nervous enough to let a laugh burst out of him , quick and embarrassed.

It’s quickly replaced by his usual anxiety though, because, even classed up by several degrees, Eggsy still falls short as soon as they step into the dining hall. They bump into James first thing, dressed in a clean pressed grey suit with a silken waistcoat gleaming under the attention of a chandelier.

“Would you two like some champagne?” he asks, clutching the bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other, everything twinkling, his eyes included. Behind him, Merlin passes them in a kilt and Eggsy tightens his feeble hold on Harry’s arm, so convinced he’s going to throw up from nerves, he doesn’t care he’s hanging on for more than appearances.

“Please,” Harry says beside him, so calm that some of it rubs off on Eggsy and he manages to accept a glass without dropping it. It’s too late to turn back now anyway, Eggsy reminds himself, and takes two greedy sips of champagne for courage.

Up in the room, he’d thought he looked better than he probably ever has before: cadet blue cashmere hugging his body — the fabric forgiving where the dress shirt hadn’t been — hair combed neatly into place, tie settled square in the jumper’s V-neck. For a moment, even his eyes had seemed brighter, but in the cascading glimmer of diamonds around Sophie’s neck, none of that matters anymore.

However subpar he feels, Sophie doesn’t take any notice, instead cooing, “Oh, you look charming,” mouth quirking into a pleased smile as she pulls Roxy closer by her arm, away from Charlie, and asks, “Doesn’t he?”

“Sorry, what?” Roxy asks, then amends, “Pardon?”

That slip up passes Sophie by too, but Eggsy doesn’t miss it, a sense of camaraderie washing over him at the flicker of panic that passes in Roxy’s eyes. He isn’t the only one who’s trying to assimilate.

Sophie pointedly says, “Eggsy,” to her, as if it’s the most obvious thing, and the question is made evident by the expectantly raised eyebrow that follows.

Finally catching up with the conversation, Roxy rakes her eyes up and down his form. Eggsy squares his shoulders on instinct under scrutiny, thinking that if he can impress her, that’ll mean something, because she knows better than anyone here what shortcomings to look for.

“You do look good,” she agrees, “Very comfortable.”

Eggsy is willing to take it as a compliment until Charlie asks: “Is casual becoming chic again? I can’t ever quite seem to keep up with ‘fashion’.”

“Well, that much is obvious,” Roxy snipes back before Eggsy can translate the string of insults crossing his mind into something more socially acceptable. Deciding to be his knight in shining armour for the night, she adds, “But then you are looking for like-minded people stuck in the fifties aren’t you?”

“Roxy,” Eggsy cuts in — a quiet warning — finding his voice at last.

Reprimanded, she murmurs, “I’ll get another glass of champagne.”

“What’s her problem anyway?” Charlie asks immediately, probably hoping Roxy isn’t out of earshot yet, so he can strike where it hurts.

Eggsy wants to say, “You, and she’s right mate,” but holds his tongue because it would be rude, nails subconsciously digging into Harry’s arm from the effort of restraining himself. Without Roxy there, Charlie steps closer to Sophie, murmuring something he can’t hear, and Eggsy tries to think of something, anything to say when Merlin joins them by squeezing himself between the two. It’s almost comical, the way Charlie’s face contorts at being interrupted, prompting smiles and frowns alike around him. Eggsy thinks half the room is as hell bent on cockblocking Charlie while the other is committed to setting him up with Sophie, Alethea Hart’s displeased scowl on the other side of the room not going unnoticed by Eggsy.

“What drab party is this supposed to be then?” Merlin demands, far too self assured for someone in a kilt, knee socks, and probably no pants. At least it’s some variety to the evening gowns and formal suits everyone else is wearing and, by extension, making Eggsy stand out less like a sore thumb in a lineup of Savile Row bespoke suits.

The ease that affords him is quickly displaced by the hyperaware drift of Eggsy’s thoughts to how he’s standing in relation to Harry, where their bodies are touching and where they aren’t (and where they should), whether they look in love and at ease, because there are ten people here trying to trip them up in an elaborate lie.

Taking another large sip of champagne, Eggsy scoots two inches closer to Harry but loosens his grip on his sleeve to a mere ghost of a touch, the distance of their artificial intimacy respectfully reestablished. That Harry is standing at his side limp and quiet doesn’t look good though, so Eggsy leans in closer to whisper, “I thought you said Merlin was gonna wear a suit.”

For how forced Harry looks playing his part without direction, he can follow a cue with remarkable ease. His head tips sideways as he listens and then Eggsy can feel his gaze sliding steadily to keep eye contact as he turns his head to whisper back, “He ought to, but I think he is doing this to antagonise my mother. He’s always enjoyed that.”

“Can’t fault him. If ya ask me, I think you shoulda asked Merlin to be your fake boyfriend, ‘cause he gets off on it a lot more than I ever could.”

“If he hadn’t been around this family for nigh on thirty years, I might well have, but his many romantic pursuits are too well known for us to pull anything off convincingly. He might still agree if I were to ask now, but our time passed years ago.”

That carries a reverie that makes Eggsy wonder. “Were you-?” he’s asking and then isn’t, not quite sure how to put it or if he ought to go there at all.

“No,” Harry says immediately and without defensiveness, “definitely not. Merlin is decidedly into women and I know better than to get caught up in a Scotsman.”

It doesn’t offer an answer on whether Harry has ever seen anything in Merlin. Even old feelings are prone to distort the fabric of a relationship years on and the absolute last thing Eggsy wants is to be caught in the ghost of bygone emotional turbulence. Playing Harry’s illicit lover is bad enough as it is without an added layer of history like that to be mindful of, without someone else’s secrets to keep.

Sensing the apprehensive shift in Eggsy, Harry goes on, saying, “I blame Lancelot for the introduction, but one misguided fling in my first year at Oxford was quite enough to put me off the whole lot, so that when I met Merlin, my mind was quite made up on that front.”

“You, a fling?” Eggsy asks, because that seems easier to approach somehow, more like something meaningless dredged up just for his entertainment than the complicated web of interpersonal relationships Harry apparently has with his friends.

Somewhere just off to the side, the conversation they’re supposed to participate in carries on without them as Harry asks, “Is the mere concept that shocking to you?”

He makes it sound like a challenge and Eggsy feels the impulse to backtrack, play it like he’s played the entire weekend. He holds his ground though, because no, he can’t see Harry as someone who sleeps around, though he knows for a fact Harry’s also never gotten tangled up in anything serious either and, because Eggsy isn’t naive enough to think that means Harry’s a blushing virgin, that leaves him with nothing at all.

Sticking to the truth, which is that Harry continues to masterfully break and stick to the conventions of his position in life — always full of surprises — Eggsy says, “It’s just a difficult lifestyle to reconcile with your personality, is all.”

“It was the eighties,” Harry says as if it’s the be-all-end-all excuse for questionable choices.

“Oi, lovebirds,” Merlin chimes in and Eggsy startles, having somehow gotten lost in Harry for a moment. He almost jerks away like he’s been caught doing something he’s not supposed to until he remembers this is exactly what he’s being paid to do.

“Dinner waits for no man,” Merlin says and that’s reason enough for everyone, including them, to untangle themselves and populate the dinner table.

He and Harry wash up at the head of the table like the previous night, probably something to do with where Harry ought to sit in relation to his mother. It’s not ideal, but Eggsy has resigned himself to spending the next hour trying to make conversation with Percival in an effort to stay out of Alethea’s way before he’s even sat down.

About to take his place, Eggsy notices Chester King choose the seat to Alethea’s right, opposite Harry, and something possesses him to sit down in the chair Harry’s pulled out for himself. It’s an impulsive choice and suicidal at that, but once he’s sat down, it’s irreversible, the bullet he’s taken for Harry lodged firmly in his chest in the form of Chester King’s unforgiving eyes.

“Thanks, babe,” he says with a forced smile, twisting around to look up at Harry still standing there dumbfounded, and the moment passes.

Harry nods, pushes the chair in as if it’s what he intended to do all along. He bends down over him to whisper in his ear and Eggsy thinks for a moment he’s going to argue, but instead he simply says an earnest, “Thank you,” before taking the seat next to Eggsy.

Eggsy murmurs something in response he doesn’t even think of properly, eyes sliding over to Chester King to watch him with reluctant interest while Alethea Hart glares icicles into him in profile. It’s like a torture seat made just for him and Eggsy’s mouth runs dry as he asks: “So what’s on the menu?”

That the stiffness of a formal dinner could be a relief, isn’t something Eggsy thought to be possible until he’s dissecting a slice of venison in perfect silence, as content as anyone could be, eating the most delicious meal they’ve ever had in the worst possible company. After two jerky attempts at conversation in the interlude between the entrée and the main, he pretends to be engrossed in the pinkish tint of the meat with such a single minded focus, his GCSE physics teacher would probably drop dead from disbelief. Hell, he could even pretend to be passionate about thermodynamics if it got him out of talking to Harry’s former boss, let alone his mother, because the venison can only get him so far.

“Eggsy,” Chester King says, slow and deliberate like he’s weighing Eggsy’s character up on his tongue in that one word, “I’m afraid I know woefully little about you.” He offers Eggsy a polite but bile stained smile that suggests they’re going to have a long, unpleasant conversation about all the ways in which he falls short of the rest of them.

“I reckon you ain’t the only one here who feels that way,” Eggsy says, resting his knife and fork on the side of the plate when he asks: “What would ya like to know?”

“Well, the usual chit chat to begin with, perhaps. What you do for work, education, and the like.”

“Uh, I haven’t gone to school since I sat my GCSEs and I don’t have one of those old fashioned vocations every guidance counsellor goes on and on about, so there’s not really much to tell. I get by the same way a lot of people do,” Eggsy says, trying to skim over general half truths from his past to avoid cracking his wide open right then and there.

“So what profession are you in currently?” Chester pushes, clearly not willing to drop the matter even though Eggsy tries to return to his venison.

To prove she hasn’t been a bad hostess, Alethea Hart says, “He’s an entertainer, of sorts,” even if she can’t quite bring herself not to sound derisive.

“Actually,” Eggsy cuts in, yesterday’s joking suggestion he’s a stripper annoying him when it’s coming from her, “I work odd jobs in many sectors, mostly construction and sales.” The call centre he wouldn’t go back to even under a threat of grievous bodily harm, but that isn’t something he needs to disclose.

“And which is it at the moment?” Chester inquires casually.

“Uh, neither.”

“But you do have a job?”

It’s a question that’s tripped him up countless times before, uncomfortable regardless of context, but like a dagger to the side here and now when he’s forced to admit, “Not at the moment, no,” under Alethea’s watchful eye.

Chester says, “I hear that’s an endemic affliction in common youth these days.”

“Don’t know what you mean by ‘common youth’,” Eggsy says, swallowing his last mouthful, “but you’re right about unemployment practically bein’ an extra family member for a lot of people by now. The economy’s still in the pits, ‘tentative growth’ be fucked.” He flushes at having sworn and mutters a quick apology that is barely audible, because the look on Harry’s mother’s face is enough to arrest even her son’s attention. Feeling Harry’s gaze hot on his cheek, Eggsy says: “I don’t believe in politics no more, if I’m honest and I ain’t the only one.”

“That’s rather harsh, don’t you think?” Chester asks, equal parts placating and condescending. “The men in our government, and indeed the women too, are doing their best to navigate our country through a trying time.”

“Yeah, well, hard work don’t always pay off like it should.”

“Barring a few unfortunate exceptions, the principle that work yields results is what our society is built on,” Chester says and Eggsy can’t help the snort that escapes him.

“Is that why blokes on construction sites, night time bus drivers, and garbage men don’t get paid shit compared to how tough their jobs are?” Eggsy asks. “Is that why my neighbour’s are still in poverty after working overtime for twenty years straight? You think talkin’ to people ‘bout money in a minimalist eight floor office all day is hard? Try cleaning vomit out of a Mackie’s toilet at 2am ‘cause your kids are malnourished and the GP shames you for it at every check up.”

“Health inequalities aside,” Chester says, as if it’s something that doesn’t matter, “a personal bad experience is not a reflection of how the system works on a macroscopic scale.”

Eggsy says, “Excuse me?” too calm and too quiet, balanced right on the edge of righteous anger, wine glass feeling far too brittle under his tightening grip. He doesn’t know what would be worse, cracking a tooth or shattering the glass, but they both seem like pretty good alternatives to lunging at Chester across the table.

“Cash flow into the government depends on citizens and the wealth of some citizens depends on the cash flow out of the government’s pockets. Those with jobs support those without jobs, as I imagine you understand. And, if you want to be liberal and maintain institutions like NHS, a system that’s fundamentally flawed — designed to drain resources that could be far better invested elsewhere — then people are going to have to pay into that in the form of taxes too, even if it cuts into their wages unpleasantly.”

“Or people that make as much as you could pitch in more than a tenner,” Eggsy counters.

Beside him, Harry clears his throat. He grips Eggsy’s forearm, fingers digging into the soft flesh on the inside, pressing into tendons until Eggsy’s forced to relax. He’s almost willing to let it go, but then Chester says, “If you turned up at elections with the same enthusiasm you seem to have for preaching idealistic politics at strangers, perhaps you would see some of the reforms you desire.”

“If only it were that easy. My mum was working durin’ the last election, ‘cause some jobs need to be done no matter what. What was she s’posed to do? Get fired? ‘Cause if she ain’t doin’ it, someone else will, and the same goes for my gigs. And whether or not I write someone in on a piece of paper don’t really matter anyway, in the end. Politicians don’t do nothing for people like me. It’s just policies pushed back and forth; for anythin’ they give ya, two things disappear into the night. So no, we don’t always make it to the polls, ‘cause the world ain’t fair like that, which just leaves you lot voting for all your conservative pals, but that’s always worked out great, hasn’t it? We’ve got Brexit to show for it and all.”

On the other side of the table, someone chokes on their drink, but Eggsy just keeps going. “Ya can’t seriously argue that’s gonna be a good thing. Even the racists in my neighbourhood know that’s gonna fuck us all over, already has. The economy’s shot itself in the foot and we look like right twats on top of it too.”

The ensuing silence is so pregnant, it’s two weeks overdue.

“The referendum,” Harry starts, just to say something , anything really, “is not something anyone here anticipated.”

“Speak for yourself. I voted Labour,” James murmurs and Eggsy doesn’t miss the scathing look Harry throws him.

“Dessert, perhaps?” Anne suggests, the cheerful sweep-it-under-the-rug voice she opts for impossible to argue with.

Alethea says, “I suggest we take it in the parlour,” and  the fragile atmosphere in the room shatters with relief, everyone jumping at the chance to disperse.

It feels like a fight half finished, the lights turned up in a pub after the first punch, everyone scampering like they weren’t watching with bated breath all along. Disoriented, Eggsy blinks at Chester rising out of his own seat as though nothing happened even though his heart is still trying to go into bloody cardiac arrest from the pure stress of ranting in front of a dozen strangers. It’s the brush of Harry’s fingers curling around the back of his chair, knuckles pressing into Eggsy’s back, that startle him into action and ground him in the moment.

“I’m sorry if that was outta line there,” Eggsy says to Harry once they’re sat side by side on a loveseat in another room and not in danger of being overheard by anyone.

Harry knocks his spoon through the surface of his crème brûlée and says, “While it is perhaps wisest to steer clear of politics in the future, you have nothing to worry about. You irritated my mother with that outburst, so you were well within your rights as far as I’m concerned.”

“Plus, that dinner could’ve been worse.”

“Yes, very much so. If you were here in a serious capacity,  believe there would be more than moderate tension between us by bedtime.”

“Jesus. Please don’t ever actually force anyone to try to impress your mum,” Eggsy says, imagining the horribly awkward, strung out weekend that would be. It’s as comforting a thought as it’s horrifying, because essentially he gets to have the same horrendous family dinner anyone else would get, but relax afterwards knowing Harry isn’t about to give him the silent treatment for a month. Of course, the price he pays is having his skin crawl at every forced casual touch, getting into impersonal arguments about nearly being caught out every three hours, and no sex, so Eggsy doesn’t know if he’s doing that much better in the grand scheme of things.

“I would claw my eyes out with the wrong end of this very spoon,” Harry says around a mouthful of crème brûlée.

“Yeah, I’m also pretty sure no person your mum likes could actually be good for you,” Eggsy says.

“A paradoxical metric, I can assure you,” Harry says dryly and Eggsy has to look away, staring down at his dessert instead of Harry because he doesn’t want to think of Harry spending god knows how long trying to find someone that isn’t in direct conflict with some quintessential part of his life.

Keen to talk about something other than his apparently catastrophic lovelife, Harry asks: “Do you feel any better about the... clothing dilemma?”

It’s oddly thoughtful, his concern — touching almost.

“Yeah. It’s fine. I haven’t even thought about it since we sat down to eat,” Eggsy says even though he’d still been fiddling with the hem of the jumper well into the starter.

He doesn’t want to let Harry know that though, because it did stop bothering him somewhere during the meal, or at the very latest when James started pawing at his bow tie just before dessert and he noticed everyone was coming undone after their third drink. By now, Merlin has peeled himself out of his bespoke jacket and Percival has relaxed enough to have broken out into a charming grin that crinkles at the corners of his eyes when Rosalie says something Eggsy can’t hear, but guesses to be lethally sarcastic judging by the nebulous wave of her wrist and the satisfied smirk that follows.

“I should still have taken it into consideration beforehand, “ Harry says and Eggsy’s attention shifts again.

“Huh?”

“That whoever I was hiring wouldn’t exactly be equipped for this.” He waves his crème brûlée about, indicating the room at large. “It isn’t that I forget this is not the paradigm of normal, per se, but sometimes I don’t realise just how deeply ingrained a certain lifestyle is in me.”

“That happens to everyone though, don’t it?”

“Yes, but I don’t want to be a snob. Apart from Merlin, no one here has done anything to merit having as much money as they do, to have been awarded the opportunities they have had from birth, myself included-”

“I think you’re selling Roxy short,” Eggsy says, cracking a lopsided smile.

Harry just looks at him like he did yesterday afternoon in the car, as though Eggsy’s said something that made his mind change gears, one dumbfounded blink slipping out between two perfectly composed expressions. “Indeed,” he says and turns to look at Roxy where she’s smiling politely at Anne, a little out of her depth without Sophie nearby. “Apart from Roxy and Merlin, well… The moment I allow myself to forget the privileged position I have always been in, I’ll start casting judgement on strangers and making reductive assumptions, and that is not who I want to be.”

“For what it’s worth,” Eggsy says, compelled to absolve Harry on this particular point because he knows Harry at least tries to better, “you’ve been real decent to me. Ya have your moments, but you’re the best posh tosser I’ve met.”

It sounds far more earnest than he intended and Eggsy quickly shoves another spoonful of crème brûlée into his mouth to keep himself from saying anything even more compromising while Harry is still, or rather again , staring at him with that look of bemusement.

“Thank you,” he says. “That truly is a compliment.”

Eggsy wants to say something to that, but doesn’t know what and then someone giggles on the other side of the room and the moment is gone. Somewhere, sometime in the last ten minutes, most of the party has bled out of the room without Eggsy taking any notice.

“Eggsy,” Roxy chimes, bright and demanding and halfway to the doorway, “would you care to join us for a drink?”

Ahead of her, Charlie and Sophie turn like they’ve only just remembered he exists, and Eggsy can’t help but be taken by the fact that she thinks of him of all people in a roomful of people who evidently don’t, no matter how much he stands out of the crowd.

“We’re making cocktails,” she adds when he still hasn’t said anything and at that, Sophie chimes in with a conspiratorial, “It’ll be such fun!”

Beside him, Harry says, “Go,” in the sort of quiet rumble that could move mountains.

“You sure?”

“I’ll find something to do, perhaps investigate where Merlin and the others have gotten to. You should enjoy yourself.”

In the doorway, Roxy says his name again, her voice ticking upwards to make it a question in and of itself.

“Yeah, alright,” Eggsy says, because if he can do something fun and uncomplicated for an hour or two, he’s not going to pass up on that.

The kitchen, or something remotely resembling one, is housed two rooms down from the library, or perhaps that was sideways after all; Eggsy’s lost track between Sophie dragging him this way and that by his arm. Where they end up is sort of a fusion between a bar fitted with kitchen appliances and a lounge, the leather sofas separated from the gleaming marble counters by a long island.

Eggsy is still trying to figure out where exactly he is when Sophie, always seven feet ahead when she’s not feeling him up, croons: “Martinis? God, Charles , you’re such a bore .” She’s tipsy tonight, Eggsy notes, leaning in too close to Charlie as she says it and he might enjoy the attention if it weren’t so cruel.

As things are, he withdraws every inch she comes closer, escaping the orbit of overeager, clumsy limbs.

“Alright, you two,” Roxy says and adds nothing more, because her hand on Sophie’s shoulder is enough to drive her and Charlie apart.

“Let’s find something to drink in here,” Charlie says.

It’s a peace offering that seems to appease all three of them, so Eggsy goes along with it and experimentally opens up a cupboard. It’s all tea cups and saucers, hurricane glasses, champagne flutes, and plates unfit for anything more than an appetiser or two. He tries another — martini glasses, tumblers, two unopened boxes of cheese crackers — and wonders whether this place has ever been used to cook an actual meal or if it’s strictly stocked for entertainment.

He settles on the latter when he opens the fridge and finds it stocked for a party. Well, multiple parties. Whichever one anyone might be in the mood for: from camembert and roquefort to tonic water and still lemonade.

“Jackpot,” Charlie says and pulls a bottle of gin out of the cabinet he’s hunched over. A few more bottles follow, enough to draw Sophie and Roxy closer.

“That ought to do it for you,” he tells Sophie.

“Isn’t there any vermouth?”

“Don’t,” Roxy interjects before he gets the chance to answer. “That stuff drives her mad.”

Undeterred by her stern look, Charlie says, “Lucky we’ve got this then,” producing a half empty bottle with a shit eating grin, much to Sophie’s delight.

“I hate you,” Roxy states plainly, confiscating the bottle before anyone gets any ideas she doesn’t approve of.

Eggsy expects her to stash it somewhere, but instead she finds a glass, pours herself a bit, and then grabs the gin, because apparently they’re on a suicide mission tonight.

Considering the day he’s had, he doesn’t object to that at all. He closes the fridge and starts assembling the worst drink he knows while Charlie fumbles with the vodka bottle and Sophie pushes herself up onto the counter, waiting for one of them to crack and enable her.

Who ends up being the culprit is a mystery: Eggsy, Roxy, and Charlie mixing too many drinks, an odd number of glasses between them, so that Sophie has a whole selection to choose from, eyeing Eggsy’s two glasses even after she’s gotten her fair share of Roxy’s concoction.

“What is that?” she asks in the sort of voice that really means: “Can I have one?”

Eggsy can’t see why he should have all the fun, so he carefully balances a glass filled to the brim in front of her and waits for her to take a sip before he hands it off, momentarily stood too close to the edge of the counter where her splayed legs brush the side of his thighs through her gown.

“Mmh, a delight,” Sophie declares in a creamy voice, and for a moment — towering over him, diamond eyed and flushed halfway down her neck — he can see it: the magnetism surrounding England’s very own golden starlet.

Afloat in her praise, he says, “Yeah, well, don’t knock it back cos you ain’t gettin’ that at no bar,” thinking of the time he was fifteen, mixing Ryan’s older brother’s leftovers together with whatever non-alcoholic liquids they could find in the kitchen, praying the mountain of a bloke wouldn’t wake from his bender induced coma before they made it out of there.

Sophie croons, “Surely you’d make me another if I asked nicely,” and he realises just how far removed he is from that life now.

It still exists somewhere out there; he’s going back to it tomorrow night. The thought sobers him up a bit, alerts him to the fact that he’s shamelessly pilfering through a stranger’s liquor cabinet, mixing drinks for a woman he neither wants nor stands a chance with come Monday morning.

“Sure,” Eggsy says hollowly.

He clears his throat and backs off, finds he isn’t the only one who’s gotten a little lost in the moment. When he glances over at Roxy, she rushes to hide a sullen look behind the rim of her gin and tonic, looking away as Charlie’s eyes linger absentmindedly on Sophie’s profile, and Eggsy has to wonder if this all they do: eat and drink and go ‘round and ‘round in desperate circles of suppressed emotion and pointless suggestion.

“I don’t believe it! Not for one second,” Lancelot exclaims, pushing his chin up in the same stroppy way he’s done since he was five when he discovered this tended to work particularly well on others. They’re all stood outside, shivering and warmed only by whiskey and spite.

Perci says, “Well,you don’t have to,” equally defiant, if less visibly so, and Harry would roll his eyes at them if he hadn’t trained himself out of that habit thirty years ago.

It’s a good thing, because with these two, they may well have fallen out of their sockets by the end of the night. It’s remarkable how little their boys club has changed, Harry thinks; the liquor’s gotten stronger and the lines on their faces deeper, but the play-by-play is straight out of a night on the patio in the long vacation, home from Oxford for just a tick between the south of France and the north of Italy.

“If it’s such a concern,” Merlin says, “just put yer feelers out about it next time you’re in London.” He takes a long drag from his cigarette, a dirty habit he’s never quite shaken. Tonight, Harry watches him smoke longingly, wishes he were still twenty-two and reckless enough to think the one won’t kill him.

“God, no, I don’t want to give the wrong impression.”

“And what might that be?”

“That he cares ,” Perci supplies helpfully, though it’s less for Merlin’s benefit and more to embarrass his brother.

Lance says, “I don’t,” stroppy, sounding like he’s talking about a boyhood crush rather than an ill-advised, two-month marriage to a long-term acquaintance, entered and annulled over the course of a single feverish summer overseas that no one is allowed to speak of. Even just a brush with the subject is enough to make Lancelot’s hands twitch impatiently, flicking the ashes off the end of the cigarette he’s stolen from Merlin.

Harry sighs. “Surely you can speak to each other by now.”

But Lancelot only huffs and complains, “I can barely go to America and expect to have decent company, let alone speak to Catherine directly. It’s atrocious, so I insist on keeping my friends this side of the pond. No, if she were in Europe, I would know; a woman like that gives you chills on intuition alone.”

“You’re impossible,” Percival declares and Merlin chimes in with a dry, “A-men.”

“Excuse me-” Lancelot starts, ready for an outraged rant now he’s down six fingers worth of liquor, but Perci cuts him short, saying: “She isn’t Cruella DeVille.”

“Well, you say that, but-”

“On that note,” Harry says, not exactly keen on getting caught up in this old tale again, “I’m going inside.”

He knocks the rest of his cognac back as Merlin blows a lungful of smoke into the sky and says, “Oh, come on. What are you, eighty-five? Being middle-aged doesn’t mean you need to pack up at eight o’clock and scuttle off to bed. You used ta be fun, once ‘pon a time.”

“Fun is for the young and debauched,” Harry says and Lancelot’s eyes glitter dangerously when they flick past him to Merlin.

“Oh, he knows it alright, what with someone young and easy on the eye to keep his bed warm at night. He doesn’t need you old bags hanging around when he can have a hot cocoa before bed and still get some.”

Perci shoots him a withering look. “For Christ’s sake, James—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“—have some decency.”

“It’s only the truth,” Lancelot says in his own defence, not that it sways Percival at all, so Harry clears his throat and says: “It’s quite alright.”

It’s not, though, Harry thinks, his cheeks throbbing with heat. He’d hate to have a genuine lover spoken of in that way — hates it all the same now, but scandal is exactly what he’s come for this weekend.

“Well, I, for one, think you should treat yourself,” Lancelot goes on. “How old is this boy of yours anyway? He looks positively juvenile.”

“Twenty-five,” Harry says without hesitation because that he did check.

“See, there’s no harm in it then. Consenting adults and all that humbug.”

“I’m still going back inside,” Harry says. If he was merely cold before, he’s annoyed too by now and twice as determined to make his escape.

Lancelot, who didn’t know how to leave well enough alone forty years ago and hasn’t changed one iota since then, says: “Oh no, I have offended you, haven’t I?”

“No,” Harry says, his aversion to confrontation kicking in like a reflex, when he can’t decide whether he truly is or whether he has a right to be. It doesn’t matter either way; he’s already turned to leave, nodding at Merlin as he goes.

“Now, hang on just a moment,” Lancelot says behind him, ever so insistent and Harry suddenly feels drained to the marrow of his bones.

“I’d rather not,” he says, quietly enough not to be heard, which he regrets when Lance thrusts his cigarette at Perci — “I can’t, you know Louise hates the smell.” “It’s already on your suit. Just take it!” — and hurries after him in a three-step-jog.

“Harry—”

“There really isn’t a problem.”

“Yes and that’s presumably why you’re running away.”

“I am not running away ,” Harry says without looking at him, keeping his eyes fixed on the house instead.

“Briskly walking then, whatever. Look, I didn’t mean you any harm,” Lancelot says. He’s lapsed into his innocent schoolboy charm routine, familiar to Harry from their shared days at Eton and something he only ever witnessed in action when his cousin was far from blame free. “If those remarks came across as crude,” Lancelot continues, “It’s only because we’ve never gotten to do this with you.”

“Do what?” Harry asks, his gaze accidentally slipping to meet Lance’s far too earnest eyes. Startled, he walks even faster along the side of the house, the door to the sitting room already in view, Lancelot picks up his pace too.

He says, “The rest of us have needled each other about every crush, shag, girlfriend, fiancé, and wife since we’ve managed to stand upright. There is a certain tolerance for jibes of all sort, a status quo of lewdness, if you will, and, for you, that threshold is somewhere else. There haven’t been people to tease you about.”

They’ve come around to the windows of the lit up portion of the house when Harry stops dead in his tracks — Rosalie, Anne, and his mother sat ten feet from them on the other side of the pane. Lancelot careens past him at first, momentarily thrown by the abrupt stand still, and then spins around to face him again from the opposite direction.

“I hadn’t considered that,” Harry says, because he’s had boyfriends and the odd short fling before, but never anything serious enough to warrant an introduction beyond Merlin, let alone someone to bring home.

“If you absolutely hate it, I will keep my mouth shut from now on, but it was worth the attempt: in the name of equality, inclusion, and what have you.” Lancelot grins, a flash of his unrepentant self shining through the apology, somehow making the whole thing seem all the more sincere for it.

Harry knows he should say something, but he’s drawing a continuous, complete blank and then the sound of the french doors opening draws their attention elsewhere.

“Could I have a word with Harry, please?” his mother asks, directing the question at Lancelot, because evidently Harry doesn’t need to be consulted on an infringement upon his own time.

A minimal twitch of uncertainty passes across Lancelot’s face at the idea of being an interrupted just when they were getting somewhere, but he’s smart enough to know he doesn’t have options besides acquiescing. “Of course, aunt Alethea,” he says in his blandest,  most polite tone of voice, resignation dulling his eyes.

It’s how things have always been, and yet, before he leaves, he grabs at Harry’s arm, just a brush. “Are we settled?” he asks, the question rushed, desperate, and full of childhood remorse,  

In the doorway, his mother says, “Harry, darling?” quietly demanding in a way that doesn’t warrant bartering.

But Lancelot is still there, patiently waiting, so Harry nods at him —a minuscule gesture, but enough for now — and hurries after his mother.

By the time he’s made it into the sitting room, she’s already slipping into the library and Harry follows, casting a guarded glance at Rosalie and Anne before he shuts the library doors behind him in anticipation of a conversation he doesn’t want to have, because he’s in for a bollocking: the quiet, cruel kind that leaves no bruises, but scars something on the inside.

“What is it, mother?” he asks, affecting innocence as though he doesn’t know exactly how far past the red tape he’s ventured.

She gestures for him to sit in the chair Eggsy occupied earlier, their roles reversed and Harry’s the nervous one now, butterflies aflutter in the pit of his stomach. It seems strange that he ought to have felt more at ease in the company of a veritable stranger than his own mother, but then, she has made it her business to perfect intimidation to an artform.

“Harold,” she says, the same pitying start she uses every time, and Harry draws himself up straighter, rests his hands on his thighs and wills them to be still, never a day older than eight under her scrutiny. His mother sighs and Harry resists the urge to flinch.

The first time she’d done this — sat him down for a tête-à-tête with that disappointed, solemn look on her face and no weapon in her hand — he was six years old, still fidgety but already quiet and incapable of imagining the existence of horrors beyond the sting of a belt on his backside. They were in the library then too. Twenty minutes and he’d walked out in tears, unsure of how to soothe a pain that was all over and nowhere at once, impossible to rub at, because it had been struck into his heart before it perfused into every crevice of his body.

“I know I have let you misbehave in many ways over the years, but,” she says, admitting fault in herself before she transfers it onto him as she always does, lamenting shared burden he’s caused by saying, “ some things are simply pushing boundaries too far.”

“I don’t know what you are referring to,” Harry says in defiance of the meaningful pause she leaves, hoping against hope that playing dumb would work just this once.

As ever before, it does not. Instead, the vacant boredom in his mother’s eyes hardens into something more focused, razor’s edge sharp, and pierces him. “Do not try to take me for a fool, Harry—”

“I am doing nothing of the sort, mother.”

“—I don’t know what possessed you to bring something like that under my roof.”

“Some thing ?” Harry echoes. “Eggsy is a person-”

“He is filthy,” his mother cuts in, rising from her chair in a fit of anger, “and so are you: gallivanting around with someone twenty-five years your junior. That is corrosive enough to a reputation without it being somebody so plebeian, but you couldn’t even leave it at that; no, it had to be a man too.”

“I’ve hardly been unclear about my… inclinations in regards to gender,” Harry says, feeling all the uncertainty and shame from his youth welling up again, rising around him faster than he can take a breath and he remembers what it was like: to be suffocating all the time.

He isn’t the only one struggling, his mother rising out of her chair in a fit of pique. Harry tries to keep his eyes fixed on the empty chair instead of following her pacing, because her slips in composure have always been nerve wracking to observe and he’s still trying to remember how to breathe.

“It’s not right for the only son of a respectable family,” she says and he isn’t sure if the words are hers or someone else’s, if others throw them at her the way she throws them at him, roundabout insults like the ones his father used to deal in.

“I wish it were a choice,” Harry says, reverting to the desperate twenty-four-year-old confessing there’s truth in the rumours that circulate about him.

By now, the words are worn into his tongue, brandished with ease after countless arguments over the years. Whether the sentiment actually holds true anymore, he doesn’t know, because he’s stopped wishing for things to be different, doesn’t ever think of existing any other way when he isn’t here.

In London, he’s only ever kept awake by thoughts of warm eyes and firm thighs, memories and fantasies of men, and any alternative seems impossible.

He can’t imagine himself with a doting wife and two children, can’t conceive what it would have been like to mull over Rosalie giving him a drunken kiss on the cheek instead of replaying the time his rowing team’s captain squeezed the back of his neck with a sturdy, calloused hand until it left him dizzy.

He thinks of all the cautious, confused glances he cast around in his youth, the sparks that became a steady current with time: all the men that have made him feel electric over the years, however briefly or secretly, and everything he’s denied himself because he couldn’t have explained himself to people like his mother otherwise.

No amount of restraint will ever be enough for them though and he can’t force himself to feel something that isn’t there when he can barely repress the feelings that are.

His mother says, “Harry, I have tried my very best with you,” and he thinks the feeling’s mutual .

She’s gone still again, back turned to him, whatever is on her face too ugly to show. “I kept your nature from your father,” she says, “I tolerated whispers of your indiscretions and suffocated the rumors that threatened to grow large enough to reach him, because you know well he would not have been as tolerant.”

She makes it sound like an accusation, as though Harry could ever forget the fear that used to crawl up his spine whenever he was called into his father’s office for a ‘talk’. If he’d ever been found out by his father, he would have been disowned and nothing his mother could have said on his social potential, on the grace and breeding he’s tried to reflect every single day of his life, would have been enough to prevent his exile. And, while she may only have been Harry’s ally insofar that the common enemy was greater than their personal differences, he’s still indebted to her and she knows as much.

“It was a mutually beneficial agreement and I played my part,” he says, because it’s made him bitter over the years, enough so that he doesn’t care about what follows.

He says, “I was seen with the ladies you wished me to be seen with; I never publicly went out with a man; I stayed out of the tabloids and worked a respectable job; I went to your luncheons and garden parties and galas without complaint, but nothing ever satisfied you,” thoughts unraveling so quickly, they become a blur next to his heart slamming into his ribs, blood rushing in his ears, deafening even over the wailing alarm bells in the back of his mind. “I truly am sorry I could not bring myself to marry for your sake too,” Harry says, “In hindsight, I doubt it could have made me any unhappier, but at least I didn’t drag some poor, innocent woman into a mess like that, and I’m not even capable of loving them properly: women. I suppose I have more compassion than this miserable family warrants.”

His mother makes a sound like she’s been shot, hiss of air through her teeth followed by an incredulous, “How dare you?”

It’s searing enough to cauterise the wound that’s threatening to bleed him dry with old heartache and Harry takes a deep, steadying breath. This is where he ought to cave, the interlude where his manners should kick in, but Eggsy has pushed him out of the confines of prim and proper all weekend and now the fail-safe refuses to kick in.

“How do I dare?” he repeats, rising out of his chair to stand his ground, “With the same audacity you treat anyone that does not conform to your ideals. You know, mother, I never quite realised how atrocious it really is, to be among those you scorn, and I can’t care on my behalf anymore, but you don’t get to speak badly of Eggsy.”

It’s not something he’s going to debate, the argument over from his point of view, so Harry makes for the corridor. His mother doesn’t seem to agree though, her footsteps following.

“You know it’s nothing more than ill-advised folly,” she calls after him and for the first time ever, he can hear her desperate to cling to her foothold over him.

“That isn’t for you to decide, mother,” he says and keeps walking toward the murmur of young voices, laughter on marble and a shriek that carries down the hall unaltered.

“Surely you can’t purport to love him ,” his mother says and that finally does throw Harry, makes him falter and stop.

He’s been in love with exactly three men in his whole life — one unacknowledged in anything but hindsight; another never addressed, even with the feeling painfully palpable between them; the third tragically unrequited — and no, none of them are Eggsy, but his mother doesn’t know about the others, couldn’t tell the difference if her life depended on it, so Harry lies.

“I can,” he says, swivelling around to catch her face fall, “and I do.”

The silence that falls between them is filled by the distorted sounds of a party, so very far away and simultaneously just around the corner.

“If you truly believe that, you’re a damn fool, and this will be your downfall.”

“Perhaps so. I’ll take my chances, because it can’t work out any worse than your marriage,” Harry says and the fringes of his vision blur with a searing hot, red pain across his cheek.

“Don’t ever speak to me like that again,” his mother hisses as he gently presses three cool fingers against the throbbing half of his face, the shock of being slapped for the first time in more than thirty years reverberating in his bones.

When he comes to his senses, the heat has spread from one cheek across to the other, well on its way to invading his entire body. There’s a hunger for retaliation blossoming in the disbelief, come out of the woodworks now that they’re discarding the rules left and right. It’s a terrible idea, but he hasn’t let himself be reckless in so long, it sweeps him up like a tidal wave.

While the perks of the high life don’t make up for all the shit that comes with it, Eggsy has to admit there is something transcendent about getting sloshed in the warm glow of a marble kitchen to whatever horrific playlist Charlie has put on. It’s good enough for their tipsy not-quite-dancing, Eggsy twirling Sophie twice on the little dancefloor they’ve created by shoving all the furniture out of the way. She’s lost her heels along the way, three inches shorter now and her dress a tripping hazard she’s too drunk to care about.

“Oh my god ,” she gasps when Eggsy, still sober enough to tell she’ll regret if she keeps going the way she does, stops her mid-spin. In fact, she already looks a touch green now, the colour rushing from her face for a moment before she smiles and lets out a self-conscious laugh.  “I thought I was going to tip over there.”

“Maybe take a break, yeah?” Eggsy suggests and tries to steer her towards an armchair. He could use a breather too, because Harry’s jumper is hot as balls even with the sleeves pushed back and it’s much later than he thought, voices in the corridor making him think the others must have come back inside already.

He reaches for his glass on the counter, downs the remainder of his drink, and refills it with water from the tap before he chugs that too, parched from the drinking and the dancing and the leftover nervousness from dinner. It all leaves him a little out of breath with a headache building slowly at his temples, so Eggsy lets himself take a moment to just lean against the sink and close his eyes, waiting for the tension dissolve.

There’s nothing left to worry about, really. He’s made it to Saturday evening without a major catastrophe and somehow, in spite of it all, he’s actually sort of having fun. Not just here and now: touching on tipsy with Roxy’s voice soft on a punchline and Charlie’s laughter a robust echo of her amusement. No, Eggsy enjoyed most of the afternoon too, Harry making for surprisingly decent company when he doesn’t have a ten inch silver spoon rammed up his arse — certainly worth five hundred quid if Eggsy can just survive the next fifteen or so hours, half of which he’ll get to be asleep for anyway.

On the other side of the room, Sophie demands someone help her up, keening in the tell tale way of someone who’s had a touch too much to drink. Feeling kind, Eggsy dumps the remnants of her cocktail into the sink and gets her a glass of water too. He’s halfway across the room with it when Harry walks in, alone and rattled, hair fallen out of place and a stone cold look of determination in his eyes that freezes Eggsy like a deer in headlights.

“What happened to your face?” he means to ask when he catches sight of the angry red spot high on Harry’s cheekbone, but comes up short, because Harry’s in his personal space before he can even attempt the first word, they’re colliding in a number of ways.

The first thing Eggsy’s mind supplies is that he’s going to fall over, so he clutches at Harry’s lapel to try and stay upright. Then it registers that he’s being kissed, Harry’s lips warm and insistent against his, bruising with the way his hands press up under both sides of Eggsy’s jaw. For a moment, Eggsy feels as though he’s just had the wind knocked out of him, every fibre in his body reeling against being held there: suffocating.

It’s the tongue sliding against his bottom lip that startles him out of his panic, reminds him of the fact that whatever is happening here is happening in front of an audience, so Eggsy grips a fistful of fabric on Harry’s suit where he already flattened his hand to push him away and forces his shoulders to relax, since looking like he’s been dunked in the English channel in midwinter won’t do when he’s being kissed by the man he’s supposedly in love with.

Once he’s decided to uncoil, it’s easier to just go lax than tip toe the line of fighting back. The breath Eggsy was holding escapes him in a sigh as he opens his mouth for Harry, his tongue briefly brushing against Eggsy’s.

But that, at last, seems to be too much, because Harry jerks away, slipping from Eggsy’s grasp before he even knows it’s happening. He tries to hold on for a little longer, reluctant to stop when they’ve only just started, but Harry is already a million miles away even when he’s only retreated a few inches, something haunted flashing briefly in his eyes before he’s closed off to the world again.

Eggsy drops his gaze to where his hand is still on Harry and drops that too, realising he’s spilled Sophie’s water all over both of them and the floor. He’s going to say something about it, he’s certain he is, but there isn’t room for a single word before the precarious, stunned silence in the room breaks under the weight of a wolf whistle and the tension between them shatters into a million pieces.

Eggsy says, “Harry,” just as he takes off again, disappearing as quickly as he appeared in the first place. It’s all very confusing — the sound of Charlie and Sophie’s voices bleeding together, glasses clinking, feet on the floor as everyone is in motion again while Eggsy tries to make sense of what just happened.

He’s still feebly clutching the glass he was holding before, rooted to the spot, fingertips pressed to his lips as though he can’t quite believe this isn’t all some drunken interlude he’s imagining. He casts a guarded glance around the room, his eyes falling onto Harry’s mother stood in the doorway with her arms crossed and her mouth held in a thin line, and knows he isn’t going crazy. Something is horribly wrong and somewhere Harry is running amok, wounded and destructive.

“Sorry,” he murmurs as he blindly thrusts the glass in his hands onto the nearest surface and hurries off toward the main hall. He passes Harry’s mother on the way and the look on her face — incomprehensible to him in nature, but startlingly naked on her face, like a sliver of light betraying the cracks in a perfect porcelain façade — is so out of the ordinary, he’s fighting the urge to run.

If she’s rattled enough to let her mask slip, Harry must be in absolute turmoil, Eggsy thinks, chasing the sound of his footsteps down the corridor. By the time Eggsy reaches the bottom of the staircase in the main hall, Harry is already at the top turning a corner.

“Harry,” Eggsy shouts after him, taking the stairs two at a time. Jogging down the hall, he’s just in time to have the bedroom door slammed in his face.

The sound alone sends a shot of adrenaline down his spine, breaking furniture and doors quivering on their hinges usually the prelude to a nasty fight, but Harry is not Dean, Eggsy goes against all his instincts — pushes down on the door handle and puts his back into it before Harry has a chance to lock him out. The door opens with none of the resistance he expected, no counterweight on the other side, and Eggsy nearly goes toppling over as it swings out of the way.

Harry, three steps ahead, shuts himself into the bath. This time the lock clicks shut before Eggsy has the chance to do anything about it, so he’s left standing there in the middle of the room by himself: out of breath and reeling. It’s the sort of situation that would normally make him punch something and storm off muttering a string of curses, because he’s used to high strung, tense affairs that ignite and fizzle into nothing at the drop of a hat.

But Harry and Harry’s family are not like him. Their fights aren’t rehashed in weekly rows, claws and teeth bared with the neighbours privy to every last detail. They have age-old, canyon wounds, left to fester and go necrotic, salted with snide looks and passive-aggressive remarks, and Eggsy doesn’t think him throwing a fit demanding to know what the hell is going on will improve the situation in any which way.

In theory, Harry may be far overdue for a proper shouting match, but it’s not with him, so Eggsy takes a deep breath and steps out of his own anger. He shuts the bedroom door for some privacy before anyone has the bright idea to come looking for them, then knocks hesitantly on the bathroom door.

“Harry,” he tries again. On the other side of the door, the tap turns on. “Look, ya don’t have to tell me what the fuck just happened, but can ya at least let me know you’re okay?”

When that gets him nothing, Eggsy rests his forehead against the door and sighs. “Harry?”

“I’m sorry.” The words come through the door a little muffled and all in one go as though they’re just tumbling out of Harry’s mouth. “I should not have done that.”

That the subject of his apology should still be unspeakable doesn’t even surprise Eggsy.

He wants to say, “It’s okay,” but his mind gets stuck on a replay of the kiss, all the sensory input that wasn’t Harry filtering through ex post facto: the lights, the people, the water seeping into his shoes, and amidst it that stutter of a breath stuck in his windpipe. He hasn’t experienced anything like it in years, not since the very first time a boy kissed him in the fitting strobe lights of an overheated club, pulling Eggsy out of the dark momentarily.

Under different circumstances, he might attach meaning to the fact that his cheeks are still flushed, but, just like that first time, this is less about feelings and more about the element of surprise. It’s definitely not worth having a crisis over like he did then, especially when, between the two of them, Harry’s clearly beat him to the punch on that by a merry mile.

Aware he still owes a reply, Eggsy says, “I’m sure you had your reasons.”

He isn’t exactly demanding an explanation, but the invitation is there.

He’s rewarded for his patience with the taps turning off and Harry saying, “My mother and I had a disagreement.”

The words are miles away from the usual frantic, ninety-decibel-word-vomit-cascades that usually send his heart racing — as a matter of fact, Harry sounds perfectly calm — but they still set him on edge, because even on such short acquaintance, Eggsy knows a wealth more lurks beneath the surface.

It’s written in that unguarded expression on Harry’s mother’s face and the way he’s hiding now, putting literal walls up between himself and Eggsy, because the ones that protect him from the world at large are crumbling and, in the grand scheme of things, they’re still strangers to one another.

That doesn’t stop Eggsy from asking: “D’you wanna talk about it?”

Maybe it’s a stupid question. Maybe it’s not. Either way, Harry seems to at least consider it because it takes several moments for his answer to come. “No.” Another beat. “Thank you, though — for the offer.”

“'Course,” Eggsy murmurs.

He could leave it at that; he’s done everything he’s supposed to, what he’s being paid for. In fact, he would probably be more use to their charade if he was downstairs right now instead of being here: gone forever after that little scene downstairs. People will assume they’re having a lover’s quarrel up here if he isn’t back soon. He isn’t even sure what exactly, if anything, he is waiting for, so Eggsy pulls himself together and knocks on the bathroom door again.

“Harry, I’m gonna go back downstairs,” he says. “What should I tell everyone?”

Harry says, “I’m sure they have their own ideas,” and it echoes strangely in the tiled room, either amplifying or dampening the bitterness in the words, though Eggsy can’t tell which it is. It’s probably a lost cause anyway, trying to suss Harry out when he’s like this.

“Okay,” Eggsy says, backing away from the door. There’s nothing more for him to do here.

Out in the corridor, he briefly considers just telling the truth if anyone does ask, not wanting to get tangled up in anyone’s misconceptions, but, spotting Merlin at the bottom of the stairs — the look on his face equal parts worry and relief — what comes out is: “He has a migraine.”

The next hour is trying, the interlude with Harry upstairs having worn off his buzz so that, when Eggsy returns to the kitchen to look for his abandoned drink, the lights are too bright and the music grating. Not only that, but he finds everyone who was there before gone, Percival and James now sniffing at bottles of amber liquid and Sophie in her armchair replaced by Rosalie.

“Hullo, you look very tired,” she says, straightening a little from her curled up sideways slump, hardly alert herself.

Eggsy says, “Harry’s unwell,” and the sympathy that tugs at his mouth is not his own. It’s merely the notion of a feeling, an externalised, rational thought, and something straight out of Harry’s repertoire. It’s an act, but it works — hook, line, and sinker — because Rosalie says, “Oh dear,” and leaves him to it.

A drink and a half later, he’s back on the stairs, no one any the wiser about what’s gotten into Harry, but convinced Eggsy’s appropriately upset on his behalf. He supposes it counts as a job well done, but the satisfaction of it is dulled by the bone aching tiredness that makes him pause on the stairs at the sound of tittering voices skittering across the hall.

Two hours ago, he might’ve laughed too, dancing a subpar tango on the kitchen floor with Roxy, but by now he’s all too keen to get a break from the drinking and the sugar-coated cruelty. He wants to have a lie down and not worry about the implications behind every word and every gesture directed at him.

Then Eggsy remembers there’s still Harry, that mess from earlier far from resolved. He’s probably waiting for Eggsy or he’s taken the car and fucked off, gone into hiding forever. Both possibilities seem equally likely to Eggsy, so he knocks carefully on the door before letting himself into the bedroom.

To his relief, Harry has indeed come out of the bath, but not taken off, because his suit is draped on the back of an armchair. Harry himself seems to have curled up in bed facing the open windows.

“Hey,” Eggsy says, shutting the door. It comes out so quietly, he isn’t sure Harry heard him, so he raises his voice a little to say, “You really missed out. It’s a proper shit show down there; last I saw, James was wearin’ someone else’s tie ‘round his head.”

When Harry doesn’t even twitch at that, Eggsy walks around to the other side of the bed to find Harry asleep, or rather pretending to be. Eggsy has been on the other side of where he’s standing — either trying to escape a beating from Dean or waiting for his mum to go to bed so he could sneak out — often enough to recognise when someone is awake.

Part of him wants to chuck one of Harry’s slippers at him and tell him he’s doing a shit job faking it, that he can’t just kiss Eggsy out of the blue and then hope to avoid the fallout by regulating his breathing poorly, but a far larger part of him is just too tired to bother.

Tomorrow evening this will all be behind him, Harry and his problems just a story for a night in the pub. He doesn’t need to make Harry his business, so he pulls the jumper over his head and heads for the bath.

That he actually wanted to sort things out and commiserate over the fact that they both surround themselves with twatty people, half by choice and half out of necessity, is something Eggsy doesn’t let himself think about too hard. Instead, he splashes his face with colds water and stares at his dripping mirror image for too long before he reaches for a towel, wondering why he looks so hacked off even though everything is fine.

All he’s wanted for the last hour is to climb into bed and here he is, moments away from doing exactly that, but it doesn’t seem nearly as satisfying a thought now. And the visceral aversion to speaking to anyone died the second he shut the door to their room behind himself, leaving only him and Harry. He wanted them to be alone and have a moment to talk, to process the day and put it behind him, so that when he lies down he won’t have to think about it anymore.

But he doesn’t need Harry for that, not really. He hasn’t had anyone else to speak to properly all weekend, constantly being on his toes around anyone else, but there’s nothing stopping him from texting Jamal to get a good laugh out of how pear shaped everything’s gone.

He doesn’t feel like it anymore by the time he’s done brushing his teeth though. He steps out of the bath, ready to go to bed, and finds Harry has turned the other way in his pretend sleep just so he doesn’t have to face Eggsy. It sends a sting of irritated hurt through him — a consequence ascribable entirely to circumstantial closeness, but no less visceral for it — the same brand of cutting playground jealousy he used to feel when his mates snuck off somewhere to skip class without him.

It’s an insignificant emotion and temporary at best, Eggsy tries to remind himself as he closes all the windows before he hits the lights. It doesn’t occur to him that he’s forgotten to toss the horde of pillows still stacked high on his side until he’s already crawling into bed in the dark. For a moment, Eggsy entertains the thought of shoving them all up against Harry’s back, give the man a barrier if he really wants one, but in the face of how still Harry holds himself, taking up as little space as possible on his half of the mattress, petty revenge doesn’t seem all that gratifying, so he pushes them over the side of the bed and onto the floor instead.

Lying in the dark, the desire to do something refuses to leave him though, so Eggsy says, “For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s going to bruise.”

Chapter Text

His mouth tastes of cotton when he wakes up, which, Eggsy realises, is because he’s been drooling face first onto the sheets for god knows how long. It’s bright outside and he comes to with a grunt, cheek resting in a wet patch that’s soaked through into the mattress. He must’ve rolled over onto his stomach sometime during the night — hours ago now, if the deadweight stiffness of his body is anything to go by — so that he can’t feel his arm anymore where it’s gone numb under the weight of the rest of him.

On the other side of the room, someone moves about, and he’s reminded he’s here, in a mansion in the country with Harry fucking Hart, who kissed him. The prospect of having to address any part of the previous night when he’s no longer half drunk is daunting enough that Eggsy is tempted to just slip off into oblivion again, the inkling of a hangover pressing up behind his eyes encouragingly, whispering, “Forget it all.”

But then Harry says, “Good morning,” in a borderline cheerful voice, and Eggsy groans - a pitiful sound that’s muffled by the mattress.

He turns his head enough to glare at Harry’s back for a moment before he pushes himself up to his knees and elbows, resigning himself to the fact that the day has irreversibly begun now. “If we’re late for breakfast again,” he says, leaning back onto to his haunches, “just leave me for dead.”

“Surely you didn’t have that much to drink,” Harry says. The statement is laced with enough concern that it sounds like a question and Eggsy shakes his head even though Harry’s probably not looking.

“Nah, just… dunno.”

Eggsy scrubs a hand across his face, then runs it over his chest as if slowly taking stock of his body. How he’s managed to wake up feeling like he’s been hit by a truck when he’s come out of a sleep so deep he may as well have been comatose is so baffling, it leaves him longing for a stiff drink to kick start his day with — an impulse that must be a common affliction in this household.

He chalks it up to emotional exhaustion and crawls out of bed, determined to make it through the day through sheer force of will, armed with the knowledge that he can forget all this in a few short hours with five hundred quid padding his pockets for all the trouble he’s gone to.

He stretches and yawns, stands still for a while, idly watching Harry manhandle his tie in the mirror. He catches Eggsy at it, their eyes meeting in the glass for a brief moment before Eggsy turns away to look for a shirt to put on.

Harry says: “Take your time; there’s no rush.”

Eggsy hums in acknowledgement, pulls the shirt over his head, and disappears in the bath, where he tries to tame the cowlick at the back of his head as he brushes his teeth. The eyes of his reflection in the bathroom mirror are bloodshot, dark eyebags sitting there like accusatory bruises, because somehow this one weekend weighs on him more than the usual circus at home. It’s bizarre, he thinks, that people can be so stressed living with comforts like these.

Why Harry even comes here when he’s clearly got enough money to live out the rest of his life in his neat little townhouse irrespective of whether he’s on speaking terms with his mother is beyond Eggsy, but he isn’t being paid to psychoanalyse the man, so he pulls on yesterday’s jeans, collects his dried trainers from under the sink, and chooses not to make it his business, not when Harry’s waiting for him.

Stepping out of the bath, Eggsy finds the room empty though, which leaves him standing there baffled with his shoes in his hands. Sure, Harry had already been putting on the finishing touches to the polished sophistication that doubles as his armour by the time Eggsy even managed to crawl out from under the duvet, but he hadn’t expected Harry to bolt while he was in the bath.

Then again, last night is still an icy lake waiting to thaw beneath the impatient tapping of Eggsy’s feet and Harry is probably just trying to avoid the fallout — all cagey eyes in the mirror and calculated movements of limbs tucked close to his body. Eggsy can’t blame him for that even if it is petty and irritating, a game he doesn’t have any interest in playing.

It occurs to Eggsy that Harry must’ve gotten up very quietly not to wake him in the first place, because he’s lived in an explosive household long enough to startle at the sounds of an unfamiliar routine. He isn’t one to sleep through a morning filled with clumsy, human steps gravitating towards the bath, or the odd gurgle of the sink and the click of the old bolt in the lock slipping into place.

The thought alone is enough to sour his mood. Eggsy drops his shoes carelessly on the carpet to grope for his phone, two missed calls from his mum waiting for him, and he collapses back into bed as he calls her back.

The line rings for a long time before it clicks through to the familiar sounds of a chaotic morning at home: clattering dishes and aggravated voices echoing in the background, lives reset, patched up, and spun anew for another trying day.

“Hi, mum,” Eggsy says, his voice treacherously soft over Daisy’s indignant squawk in the background. He’s lived these mornings a thousand times, more often than not muffled through his bedroom door with a pillow pulled over his head to block out the light for five more minutes , but here and now, watching the light curtains billow over the open windows, it all seems a million miles away. It leaves him unexpectedly homesick and it takes him a breath to push past the feeling and say: “You called?”

“Huh? Oh yeah—”

It’s an inconsequential matter, ultimately, the type of thing she’d phone him up for distractedly whilst at the self-checkout at Tesco’s after work, phone held between her shoulder and ear the old fashioned way, her voice forever the comforting fodder of the interstitial spaces in Eggsy’s life. It makes him long for their lumpy, stained sofa watching his mother dart around frantically looking for Daisy’s lost plush bunny, or to be ten again, cramming in two episodes of morning cartoons before school while his cereal goes soggy.

Today, his mum is busy though and Eggsy can barely keep her on the line for five minutes and even that short time he has to share.

“Yeah, I’ll be home tonight,” he says when he hears the tell tale sound of the front door slamming in the background, no doubt Dean coming home from his cig run. As predicted, she has to go, so they go through their goodbye routine rapid fire, Eggsy saying: “No, I’m still in Slough with Ryan; he’s got that new bird. Okay, okay. I will. Yes, mum, alright. Bye.”

Having hung up, he sits on the bed adrift for a moment, staring at his phone display until it goes dark. He lets himself gather his thoughts before he sighs and steels himself for the day ahead. Then he clambers off the bed and laces up his trainers, deciding he should just head to breakfast on his own, since Harry doesn’t seem to be coming back.

Out in the hall, he can hear the quiet murmur of voices elsewhere in the house, too distant to make out and a little bit eerie in the perfect calm of a corridor where even the sound of his own footsteps is completely swallowed by plush carpet.

At the top of the stairs, he realises some of the voices are coming from the hall downstairs and not the kitchen like he thought. He peers over the banister to see the back of Rosalie’s head, her hair pulled up into a neat bun and her face tipped close to Percival’s. Their voices are quiet and urgent, bodies leaning toward one another in a way that is both secretive and familiar, casually intimate like childhood mischief in the making. The step Eggsy lowers himself onto for a better vantage point creaks treacherously under his weight and Percival’s eyes flick up to meet his mid-sentence, a mortifying invisible dagger that makes a flush rise onto Eggsy’s cheeks, especially when Rosalie looks up too.

Her face isn’t nearly as wary though, her initial surprise melting into a pleasant smile that Eggsy can peg neither as genuine nor fake. “Good morning,” she says. “How are you?”

“Fine, yeah,” Eggsy says, mentally kicking himself into motion because he looks like an idiot just standing there. Walking down the rest of the stairs, he says, “I didn’t wanna interrupt.”

“Oh, don’t worry; you weren’t. Where is Harry?”

“He already came down a while ago, actually,” Eggsy says and, when Rosalie’s smile is beginning to wear thin, adds, “He wanted to let me sleep in.”

“That’s sweet of him.”

“Yeah... I, uh, I’m starving,” Eggsy says, trying to extricate himself from the situation by pointing towards the breakfast hall and hurrying down the hallway.

Their voices don’t pick up again until he’s almost out of earshot, certainly too far away to make any sense of what they’re talking about. When he glances back at them, they’re further apart than they were before, but Rosalie seems irritated now, gesturing with her hands.

Eggsy is still wondering about it when he nearly crashes into Harry in the corridor. He’s lucky there’s a tray between them, but the glasses on it rattle ominously at the disturbance and his hands fly up on autopilot to steady it, catching the edge of the tray and one of Harry’s large wrists as he does so.

“Shit, sorry,” Eggsy says, ears pinking because he knows they’re making a scene and the very people he was watching a moment ago must now be watching them .

Harry clears his throat. “I’ve got it,” he mutters and Eggsy lets go as if scalded.

Harry steps around him to continue down the hall and Eggsy stands there motionless for a moment until Harry glances back to check if he’s coming, so he hurries after Harry and falls in step behind him.

“What’s all this?” Eggsy asks, indicating the overflowing breakfast tray Harry’s lugging somewhere at full speed.

“Breakfast. I thought we might take our chances with the weather today and eat outside.” At the sidelong glance Eggsy throws him, Harry adds: “My mother seems to have made herself at home in the breakfast parlour and the prospect of a confrontation before my first cup of tea did not seem ideal.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Eggsy says, opening the French doors in the lounge for Harry before he can attempt to do it himself and upend their breakfast in the process. While Eggsy has him at his mercy like that, he snatches the teapot and a small pitcher of orange juice off the tray because he doesn’t exactly trust the whole lot to make it safely across the garden to the gazebo in Harry’s hands.

Ambling slowly after Harry, focused on not spilling anything, he’s struck by what a gorgeous day it is, the morning sun crowning above the trees and piercing through them in a series of golden rays. They’re far enough into the year for it to be chilly in spite of all the light, though, and in the shade of the gazebo, Eggsy brakes out in gooseflesh.

“Should prolly grab my jacket,” Eggsy says, but before he can head back, Harry says, “Oh, you’re welcome to have mine.”

The offer throws him, because there’s no one to put a show on for, but maybe Harry’s forgotten that or perhaps he’s simply a gentleman to the core. Either way, Eggsy says, “You’ll get cold,” trying to wave him off.

Harry doesn’t give in easily though. “Nonsense,” he says and shrugs it off his shoulders.

Eggsy can hardly refuse the jacket when Harry’s already out of it, holding it out over the table, so he takes it and murmurs a quiet, “Thank you.” He drapes it over his shoulders while Harry pours them tea, too self conscious to put it on properly in fear of staining the sleeves reaching for something.

He butters two slices of toast in silence and wolfs down all the eggs and bacon Harry leaves behind. The silence between them is not exactly uncomfortable, but it isn’t easy either, both of them keeping their gazes carefully off each other while they eat. Eventually, Eggsy slows his pace to match Harry’s, the food offering only a finite opportunity for distraction that he doesn’t want to run out of prematurely. He pours a dash of milk into his tea and pulls Harry’s jacket in closer by the lapels, watching the fold that appears in Harry’s exposed waistcoat on the other side of the table as he reaches for the raspberry jam. He’s dressed in sympathetic tweed and a crisp white shirt today, the cutting black lines of the night before only a distant memory. Dressed like this, he almost looks as if he belongs here, like he’s spent every Sunday of his life in the quiet of the country, truly his mother’s son.

“Look, Eggsy,” Harry says into the silence between them, grave with his mouth set in a straight line, “I want to apologise for my behaviour last night.”

“What d’you mean?” Eggsy asks, taken aback by the words, then adds: “You already did that last night. I don’t know how much you had to drink-”

“It isn’t that,” Harry say. A flicker of frustration passes over his brow and Eggsy wonders what he’s missing out on here. “I let my mother get the better of me and I should not have taken that out on you. What I did… well, it was a rash decision, and I’m not going to try to justify it. I suppose what I am trying to say is: I took some liberties that violated the generous trust you have placed in me, and for that I am deeply sorry.”

“Harry,” Eggsy says and his voice cracks from nerves at having to say, “It was just a kiss.”

“That doesn’t absolve me of anything.”

“Then I’m gonna. It’s all good, seriously. I mean, I appreciate what you’re tryna do here, but you’re paying me five hundred quid for a weekend; for that amount of money, you could get a lot more than a measly, drunken kiss. And,” Eggsy says, “not to make this weird, but that was among the better kisses in my life, so I don’t really mind on that account alone.”

He feels stupid the moment he says it, but Harry is the one who blushes, eyes falling onto his plate and remaining there.

“Honestly, the sheer drama of it was pretty impressive and the look on your mum’s face was out of this world, so let’s just get on with it, yeah? We’re so close to pulling this off,” Eggsy says and thinks that has to be a strange thing to be proud of, but Harry seems to agree, a smile tugging at his mouth.

They sit outside for almost an hour after breakfast, something Eggsy constantly expects to be interrupted at even though they aren’t. He chalks it up to the fact that half the household must be hungover and hiding away in their respective bedrooms for as long as possible. He’d probably be doing the same if it wasn’t for Harry, but he has to admit that he actually quite enjoys killing time by sitting in the fresh morning air more, playing gin with a forgotten pack of cards to pass the time.

They talk idly about their respective adventures with strange variations of poker for a while and Eggsy shares the story of how he played strip poker with three girls on a year ten school trip and got suspended for three days because of it; Harry tells him about a version at uni involving too many vodka shots and a legendary blackout where Merlin was found shirtless in some bushes a mile from their shared flat.

Eventually though, there is movement in the direction of the house. The light reflected in the panes of the sitting room shifts as Anne decides to take her chances with the great outdoors and slips out of the french doors in the front. She heads out towards them and Harry moves onto the loveseat next to Eggsy to free up the wicker chair for her, their game put on hold for the moment. He slings a casual arm over the backrest to signal their performance is back on again, and Eggsy relaxes into it, almost used to switching seamlessly between who he is with Harry and who he and Harry pretend to be around others.

“Good morning, you two,” Anne says.

“Good morning,” Harry says. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, thank you. Most of the commotion died down not long after you went upstairs.”

“It was getting late,” Harry says as though that was the reason rather than the scene they made.

Anne says, “Your mother is in a bit of a mood today,” and Harry hums noncommittally, neither keen to discuss it nor take credit.

He looks uncomfortable enough that Eggsy decides to take over and cut in, asking: “So, Anne, are you leaving today too or are you stayin’ on?” He pulls a leg up onto the sofa and folds it sideways to let it rest against Harry’s thigh.

“Oh, I think I’ll be staying for a few more days. Ernest is coming to dinner tomorrow, you know,” she says, directing the second sentence at Harry, who nods in recognition at the name. To Eggsy she says, “He’s my husband. He had business to attend to in Leeds this weekend, so he couldn’t be here, but it will still be nice for him to see his sister again.” Returning to Harry, she adds: “You boys really ought to come around more, all of you: Perci, Lance too, but especially you. I know you’re all caught up in your careers and this young man must keep you very busy, but we barely see you anymore and it’s a shame.”

“Auntie,” Harry starts, but she doesn’t let him interrupt.

“We would be more than happy to have the both of you over for dinner if that is what it takes to lure you out of London every now and again.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Harry says evenly and Eggsy waits in vain for the but it’s not that serious to come, but it never does. Instead, Harry says, “We will keep that in mind,” and Eggsy feels the reflexive need to smile, his mum’s voice in the back of his head telling him to say thank you for a present he hates.

He is at least saved from having to make fake dinner plans with Harry’s aunt with Percival’s appearance in the gazebo. Unlike James, he can’t be heard coming from twenty feet, so he’s already bent down to kiss Anne on the cheek before Eggsy has even managed to set his feet back down on the ground.

“What are you doing out here all on your own, aunt Anne?” he asks and rests his hands on Anne’s shoulders. “Where is auntie Alethea?”

“She and Chester went into the library after breakfast.”

“What?” Harry asks a little too abruptly and Anne gives him a curious look.

“They were discussing something and I didn’t want to disturb them, especially when it is such a nice day out.”

“Yes,” Harry says tartly, shifting beside him, and Eggsy shoves an elbow into his ribs. It does little to ease the tension in Harry’s body, but he does unclench his jaw at the disapproving look Eggsy shoots him when he looks over.

Like navigating a minefield , Eggsy thinks, more and more confused about the relationship Harry has with his mother the further into this farce he gets pulled. The mix of hatred, hurt, and disdain he can handle, but this strange undercurrent of protectiveness and jealousy that seems to underpin the toxic sludge of their relationship is well and truly above Eggsy’s paygrade.

“Harry, maybe we should go pack?” Eggsy suggests, trying to to avoid another argument or anything that could lead to a repeat of last night. They’re so close to being out of here, only a meal and a two-hour car ride away from being London strangers again; he doesn’t want to fuck this up at the last minute.

Thankfully Harry says, “That would probably be for the best, actually. I still have some business to attend to before we leave.” He’s up and off the sofa too quickly, standing like he’s been electrocuted, so that Eggsy is forced to be the one offering the apologetic smile to the confused relatives. It’s not something he’s used to doing, but after jumping between being the reasonable one and the one losing their temper all weekend, he’s become almost intuitively attuned to complementing Harry’s changing moods.

Maybe, when this is over, if he’s lucky, he’ll retain an ounce of this newfound cooperativeness and avoid a beating or two in the future. For now, he catches Harry’s elbow halfway across the lawn and pulls him closer.

“Hey, slow down,” he hisses and it’s enough to get Harry to calm down and stop stalking toward the house at full speed. “

When they do reach it, the house is cool and quiet, filled with an air of abandon without their party to breathe life into to it. It’s an atmosphere that hangs heavy and makes Eggsy feel trapped under the weight of it, caged. The feeling doesn’t ease off even when they run into Roxy and Sophie coming down the stairs in the parlour just as they’re about to go up.

The two of them look worse for wear from the night before, but Sophie’s voice is as cheerful as ever when she greets them. “I was actually just thinking of you,” she says to Eggsy and he responds with a surprised, “Oh?”

“You’re so much more dangerous than you look,” she tells him, letting her sunglasses slide down the bridge of her nose to give a meaningful look, eyes bloodshot and dark rimmed in the light of day, “It seems you could drink a horse under the table without blinking and, quite honestly, I’m offended you’ve managed to come out of it looking this good.”

Her eyes slide over to Harry and the ghost of a smile appears on her lips. “Then again, considering your company, I should’ve expected as much.”

He isn’t sure what that is supposed to mean, but it sounds suggestive enough that his cheeks start to burn. Sophie squeezes his arm and glides past him, Roxy in tow. Down the hall, she says: “I think we’ve missed breakfast, but let’s see if we can’t scrounge up some coffee and an aspirin.”

“What was that about?” Eggsy asks Harry in a half whisper.

All he gets in response is a shrug and Eggsy might have let it slide if Harry hadn’t averted his eyes so quickly. As things are, it only makes him more suspicious. He squints at Harry, considers him properly for the first time that day: how he looks too well rested for the state he was in the night before, loose limbed and put together, and how they’re the only ones up and about for the moment.

“Wait,” Eggsy says as the clues fall into place. “No fuckin’ way you’re the one with the reputation”

Harry says, “I don’t know what you are talking about.” He constructs the words with care, sounding them with the sort of calm that does not ripple - a mirror still, flawless façade - but the artery in his temple bulges as he clenches his teeth and Eggsy breaks out in a disbelieving, victorious grin.

“Bullshit,” he says, sounding entirely too happy to have sussed Harry out. It’s just the two of them now anyway, stashed away from the pretense up in their room, so Eggsy says: “I just assumed either James or Merlin would be the one with the iron liver, but it’s you, innit?”

“What makes you think there is anything notable about my ability to handle a drink?” Harry asks innocently, though he still isn’t making eye contact, opting instead to smooth out the duvet.

“C’mon, you can give me that much,” Eggsy says, because he’ll never tire of knocking over people’s superfluous walls just to peer at innocent secrets they’ve carried with them for years, wrapped in layers of mortification.

Harry only says, “We should pack,” in a clean, casually avoidant voice, but it’s not the sort that screams ‘stay away’, so Eggsy pushes a little more.

“I can always ask Merlin over lunch,” he says, and the implied ‘in front of your mother’ is enough to make Harry stop and consider him.

As far as threats go, it’s feeble at best, but he runs his teeth over his bottom lips, visibly torn for a moment before he decides he would rather confess than deal with his mother. “I used to share a flat with Merlin during our time at university,” he says. “He taught me some of the… cruder aspects of drinking.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing too scandalous; I am tainted more by a long standing association than any concrete offense, but we did accidentally tip over an ice sculpture at a wedding once and, because James was there and it was the event of the millennium, the story lives on.” He folds two shirts into his bag and rolls up a tie. “I really don’t lead as exciting a life as you presume.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be so sure ‘bout that. You haven’t exactly lived up to the impression you give off,” Eggsy says, because Harry may not be an eccentric, rich playboy, but he isn’t as meek as he would like people to think he is either. There is a history to him, layered beneath the version of himself he presents nowadays, currents of warmth and humor flowing rich somewhere underneath the thick ice he’s grown to isolate himself from the realities of life.

Harry says: “First impressions can be misleading and assumptions similarly untrue. No one is simply the sum of their circumstance.”

“That’s true, but people bein’ prejudiced twats is also what you’ve been countin’ on this weekend. If I came here with the assumption that you’re a posh, stuck up twit who can’t spell fun, let alone have it , that’s only ‘cause you went looking for someone to play a chav for ya.”

“I dare say those presumptions have worked in my favour so far.”

“Your mum’s furious, that’s for sure. Don’t know how you’re gonna get outta this one — if you even want to — but good luck. She’s never gonna let you live me down,” Eggsy says and it feels almost like an achievement to leave such a profound mark in someone else’s world.

Harry says, “I wouldn’t expect otherwise,” his eyes resting on the long lines of a pair of trousers he folds with military precision. “To be honest, I think going into this, I foresaw graver consequences than I will actually have to face.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Well, short of bringing home a black, Jewish boyfriend who works in a military abortion clinic, this is just about the worst thing I could have done to my mother and yet, none of the things I’ve feared for years have happened. I haven’t been disinherited or sent packing. I haven’t been disavowed or sent halfway across the planet to atone in private for something that is not a sin. I know that is likely only because I am no longer dependent on my family the way I was when I was younger; I already have part of my inheritance, plenty of money of my own, an education, and a certain degree of freedom my mother can never revoke, but the fear of what might happen if I lived my life according to my own wishes instead of my mother’s never adjusted to become proportionate to those changes.”

His eyes become focused on some distant point as he speaks, carding through old memories with new eyes, and Eggsy wonders whom he’s rejected and lost over the years because of the secrecy he’s cloaked himself in, who’s been left behind because he’s carried this viscous tar pit of fear with him all this time.

“D’you regret doin’ that for so long?” Eggsy asks and sits up where he’s laid down on the mattress, quieted and sobered by the forlorn look on Harry’s face.

“No,” Harry says. “The relationships I have had with other men have been shaped by far more than this one aspect of my life and my troubled relationship with my mother, too, is more complex than a conflict about my sexuality. That isn’t to say that I am not grateful to have made these revelations—” his eyes come back into focus and fall on Eggsy— “which I doubt would have been possible without you, so thank you.”

Eggsy gives him a small nod and a smile diluted with sympathy. It’s all he has to offer, too aware of how fragile they both are to say anything, and then the moment passes, loses both its danger and its magic to leave them stranded in broad daylight with a half packed overnight bag between them and nothing more to say.

Eggsy doesn’t bother packing with nearly as much care as Harry awards his things. He gathers the odd shirt off the floor and tosses it into his bag, because wrinkled fabric isn’t something he’s ever concerned himself with. Half the time, especially on early mornings, he’ll pick the closest half dirty shirt off the floor and get going. Even when he makes the effort  to look good, all any of his shirts need to straighten out is to be hung in the bath while he has a steamy shower. It’s none of this starched, pressed nonsense Harry’s filled dozens of hangers with.

They toss the excess pillows from the floor back onto the bed, Harry reflexively smoothing out the duvet on his side, his fingers tugging at the edge of the cover with practised precision.

“I can take your bag downstairs,” Harry offers after he’s had a last look around the room to make sure they haven’t left anything behind.

“Thanks, but not a damsel in distress,” Eggsy says, “I’ll carry my own stuff.”

He shoulders his bag and Harry, still trying to be a gentleman even in being rebuffed, insists on at least opening the door for him, switching his suitcase to his other hand to pull it shut again behind them.

“This feels like leavin’ a hotel,” Eggsy says, glancing down the carpeted corridor, a dozen doors identical to theirs standing to attention. “Although I’ve never been to one this nice.”

“If it weren’t out in the middle of nowhere, this property would be fantastic as a hotel,” Harry concedes, already halfway down the stairs. “That being said, it’s never been much of a home.”

“Yeah, that ain’t a surprise. As much as I’ve always wanted to live in a proper house, I’d hate it here. You’d need a whole in here village for this place to feel alive.”

“Well, that was more or less the thought when it was built. It was never intended for a family of this size. The Hart’s used to be numerous, generations upon generations of family members and servants all living under the same roof at once. And now, well, there’s only my mother and the butler and, from time to time, me.”

“Kinda sad, innit? All this space, basically wasted.”

“Mmh.”

Eggsy thinks of the paintings in the hallways that depict the estate in its prime: portraits of stoic men with stout little dogs by their side, a mother with five children in their Sunday bests herded into two rows in front of her, two sisters smiling faintly at one another in the rose garden. People used to have companions here, someone to sit with in the sewing room to cross stitch on a gloomy afternoon and it occurs to Eggsy that as much as he hates how overcrowded not only his flat, but the entire estate he lives on is, it’s meant he’s never been lonely like Harry.

The front door creaks a complaint at being opened, unused to visitors and Eggsy asks: “D’you think you’ll ever live here?”

“I don’t know,” Harry says, looking up at the ancient vines snaking up the front wall. “I have never been fond of the idea and there is no point in paying for the upkeep if it’s not going to be used, but it seems a shame to sell such a beautiful estate. It might be a moot point though, since it seems the bloodline is going to end in me. It won’t make much of a difference whether it’s sold ten or thirty years down the line; the Hart’s won’t be around for much longer. Maybe, if I had someone to share all this with, I might enjoy spending my retirement out here, but that seems improbable considering I’ve had to hire a stranger to bring home for the weekend.”

“You still have time,” Eggsy says.

“I suppose, but when you get to my age the years ahead just don’t seem as long anymore.”

“Your mum ain’t given up yet, so why should you?”

“Chester King is hardly much of an effort on her part,” Harry says dryly and Eggsy rolls his eyes at him because that really isn’t the point.

“You know that’s not what I meant. You’re rich, handsome, and an eligible bachelor. If you’d stop gettin’ in your own way, you might actually get somewhere. That fake datin’ profile you made… well, if you set one up properly, I bet you you’d get mad traffic.”

“That isn’t really my sort of thing,” Harry says, popping open the trunk of his car.

“Neither is anything you’ve done this weekend,” Eggsy says, tossing his bag into the trunk, “and I don’t know about you, but, all things considered, I’ve actually sorta had fun.”

“It has been surprisingly all right.”

“Uh-huh, thanks for the glowing endorsement,” Eggsy says sarcastically. “Seriously though, you should think about it. And I’ll even let ya put me down as a reference, since your actual dating history is too piss poor to flaunt. I’d be happy to vouch for the fact that the stick up your arse is only half as long as your face suggests and that you’re actually a decent bloke.”

“Excuse me?” Harry says and raises an eyebrow at him, but Eggsy just shrugs, completely unapologetic.

“I ain’t gonna lie, you look like you got a silver ladle instead of a spoon and it must be makin’ you real sore. Don’t know about top barristers or whoever it is you have the hots for, but it sure ain’t my cup of tea.”

“Thank you for the feedback,” Harry says, purposely flattening his affect to make a point and Eggsy rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, that robot routine is another thing ya might wanna tone down a bit.”

Lunch isn’t served until half one, so they spend the rest of the morning cooped up in the library, Eggsy thumbing through the Shakespeare play he had for GSCE English to try find all the dirty bits he and his mates had marked out while Harry rifles through work emails on his phone, a copy of Two On a Tower lying face down on his thigh, open where he stopped reading half an hour ago. It’s strangely intimate, sitting there like that, not that Eggsy realises until Charlie stumbles on them and whatever question he had dies on his lips as he scurries away, a flush rising along the back of his neck as if he’s witnessed something compromising.

Harry doesn’t even notice the intrusion, too engrossed in typing, a deep frown etched on his face and his glasses slowly slipping down the bridge of his nose, gravity and the angle he’s staring down at working against him. Eggsy watches him for a few minutes after Charlie is gone — the slight tremor in his thumb when he stops to think of what to write next, the occasional tilting of the novel on his leg as the muscles shift underneath, how he’s comfortable enough around Eggsy to let himself get lost in his thoughts. It’s an ease he does a lot of things with when no one else is watching; it’s how he sleeps and drives and eats when he’s not sitting ramrod straight at his mother’s side, and Eggsy thinks of how strange it is that he could be exempt from the restrictions Harry seems to place on the people surrounding him, especially when they’re meant to be the ones who are close to him.

Eggsy is a stranger here, a ghost. He only has the liberty to drift between worlds on borrowed time because he doesn’t intend to stay. And perhaps the things he recognises in Harry he can only see because they exists in him too, albeit as polar opposites. Where Harry becomes subdued and collected at home, Eggsy splays his legs wider and taps into his aggression because it’s the only language Dean speaks, but here — alone together in social limbo — they’re both somewhere halfway down the spectrum, almost close enough to touch.

They really aren’t as different as everyone, themselves included, likes to think, Eggsy realises and the thought is unsettling.

“Are you all right?” Harry asks and the tangibility of his voice startles Eggsy out of his own head, guides him back into the world like lightning into the ground.

“Yeah,” he says and returns to his play.

“So when are you going back then?” Merlin is asking Rosalie when he and Harry show up to lunch. Half the seats are already taken, James pouring aperitifs for anyone that isn’t going to be driving that afternoon, and Eggsy gratefully accepts a glass before he pulls out the chair next to Roxy’s.

“Did you find your hangover cure?” he asks, because she still looks vaguely nauseated staring down into her glass of water.

“I thought I did until I walked past that drinks cart,” she murmurs and forces a smile at Anne who sits down on the opposite side of the table next to Charlie.

“D’you need a painkiller? I’m sure Harry knows where they’re stashed,” Eggsy says. He might as well use his fake boyfriend for some good while he has the chance.

“No, knowing Sophie, I brought my own, but there’s only so much two ibuprofen tabs can do. Thanks for the offer, though.”

“Mhmm, yeah ‘course. I’m surprised anyone’s willing to have a drink this early after last night.”

“Oh trust me, they’re used to it. I spent two weeks at Sophie’s last summer and the cumulative hangover is the worst thing I’ve ever experienced.” She grimaces at him and Eggsy can’t help but grin in response, finally back on familiar territory with someone who’s an outsider like him, though Eggsy has no doubt that Roxy, unlike him, will have assimilated perfectly by the time she reaches Merlin’s age.

He imagines her as part of the next generation gathering in another house like this: attuned to the rituals of a household with help and the lonely echo of having too much space, her humble middle class origins forgotten because she’ll eat an oyster the right way without having to look around. She’ll mix herself a vodka martini before dinner every night, wrapped in a casual but all too expensive cashmere sweater like the one he was given the night before and some day she’ll stop thinking about how much it cost every time she puts it on. She’ll be splendid — that rare story of a successful transplant — he doesn’t doubt that, but she also won’t ever quite be able to shake the feeling that she’s an imposter.

It’s what he envisioned for himself when he was younger, a My Fair Lady story he thought he’d found when he joined the Marines — a way out of the dingy little flat with the mold patch on the bathroom ceiling and the cot in the living room. He never envisioned himself climbing into high society, but he was going to get off the estate, move somewhere else unscathed and pretend his scars aren’t forever.

Seeing Roxy here now makes him wonder why he didn’t do it when his father died trying before him, died for him, but here he is: stuck in the same place but for this very brief elevation he’s obtained solely because he has gotten nowhere in life so far.

The sheer magnitude of the rift between his life and Harry’s doesn’t always seem so large when it’s just the two of them sitting in silence somewhere, but in a group like this, Eggsy inevitably becomes hyper aware of how little he belongs, that he’s the one people make allowances for, the one they keep an eye on, partially to ensure he’s behaving himself and partially to catch him in any minor mistake just so they can assure themselves of their superiority.

Still wrapped up in conversation with Rosalie and James, Harry silently places two glasses of lemon water on the table and sits down next to him, and Eggsy is reminded this truly is his world no matter how little Harry cares to be part of it. He’s been brought up with the same privileges and prejudices as the rest of them and he walks the paths paved by it comfortably. 

He’s only set apart by his same sex attraction, an alienation that weighs most acutely on him when Chester King walks into the room with Alethea Hart by his side, the two of them the personification of all that Harry has struggled against, the people that have held the keys not only to the chains keeping him shackled to a life he longs to escape, but also the keys to doors leading to something better, to freedom without sacrifice. Eggsy remembers feeling that way about Dean before he learned to hold his own and hit back, back when he was a scrappy thirteen-year-old and a grown man laid into him without mercy. It’s not a notion that’s entirely gone, but he’s come to grips with it the same way Harry has: with a great degree of reluctance and  the eternal, niggling hope that one day things will change.

He’s so familiar with the ache of it, he can feel it resonate inside him through the mere shadow reflected in Harry’s eyes and Eggsy’s heart creaks dangerously for it. Eggsy moves his hand to squeeze Harry’s briefly atop the table as everyone settles down for lunch, a quiet, “You are not alone,” that lingers as a memory of warmth in his fingers all through the first course.

They’re served gravlax to begin with and Eggsy discovers it isn’t nearly as revolting as it looks, though the raw fish is still too much for the girls. He attempts his serving in small slivers, Harry piling large slices onto thin rye bread next to him.

For the main course, they’re served a proper Sunday roast and Eggsy relishes in the sophisticated simplicity of it. Everything manages to simultaneously be familiar on his tongue, yet taste exquisite, his Yorkshire pudding flaking into the gravy and the meat practically melting in his mouth. He’s even inclined to like the roasted parsnips he’s always slipped into a serviette at his nan’s.

At Harry’s end of the table, the conversation turns to a development project near Percival’s house while Eggsy, Roxy, and Sophie get wrapped up in Anne recounting how she met her husband.

“I was still in nursing school and Ernest was at university, so neither of us expected meeting the other. It is very strange to have set your life on a certain path and then have it collide with someone elses and go off the rails into new, common territory — strange, but wonderful. I know you young people aren’t in as much of a hurry to marry these days, but you still make meaningful connections at this age, sometimes in the strangest ways, dare I say.”

Sophie asks: “Do you mean the internet?”

“Well, that and your apps and what not.”

“Like Tinder?” Sophie suggests and Roxy quickly says, “There’s still room for old fashioned chance encounters, though. Meeting Sophie in the corridor of my college my first week of uni has certainly altered the trajectory of my life, even if it isn’t the same thing. And look at Eggsy; He met Harry in a literal collision on the street. That’s the stuff films are made of.”

“It is indeed,” Anne says her lips drawn into a small smile as she looks over at Eggsy.

“It really weren’t that excitin’,” he tries to say, fighting off a blush, but she waves him off.

“Oh, it never seems that way at first. The most mundane stories become exciting over time. No one meets handsome strangers at masquerade balls.”

“You’re just not going to the right places, Anne,” Sophie says and Roxy elbows her in the arm.

“A guy in a horse mask at a rave is not what she meant,” she says pointedly.

“Do I care to know what that means?” Anne asks and Roxy and Eggsy both shake their heads, grateful she has a sense of self preservation, because explaining that particular image to her isn’t what either of them wants to be doing with their Sunday afternoon.

They’re saved from any further peril by dessert arriving — platefuls of uneven meringue pie slices topped with fresh raspberries and blackberries that make Roxy whisper, “I could die right now, having tasted this,” after her first forkful.

Eggsy finds it an amusing statement until he tastes some himself and wonders if it’s possible for one’s insides to melt with joy. As relieved as he is to be going home soon, he can’t help but think he’ll miss the food, no matter how tense every meal has been: Harry’s gaze perpetually drifting to the head of the table with discomfort and Eggsy trying not to look like a deer caught in headlights sitting beside him.

“Instant noodles and chocolate oranges really ain’t gonna do it anymore after this,” he says to Roxy, who replies with: “Come on, even the most elaborate dessert can’t beat a chocolate orange. They’re the absolute height of indulgence.”

“I knew I liked ya for a reason,” he says and grins at her, his kindred spirit.

He tips back the last of his drink, buzzing pleasantly from the small high of it, and Eggsy doesn’t know if it’s the wine or the company or both, but in that moment, he’s overcome with premature wistfulness for the weekend: the cocktails and the tipsy dancing, the countryside walks and leisurely mornings, midnight chess, long afternoons. It isn’t enough to overshadow his excitement at finally getting the hell out of here though, so he declines the coffee they’re offered at the end of the meal, so impatient to leave that he knocks his leg against Harry’s when he’s still talking to Merlin ten minutes into his second cup.

Roxy and Sophie are the first to leave, Sophie already kissing Alethea and Anne goodbye by the time Eggsy and Harry come into the parlour to put their coats on.

“It was lovely to meet you,” Roxy tells them both and Eggsy wraps her into a quick hug while Sophie’s pulling on a pair of cream coloured leather gloves. “Get home safe,” he tells her and she nods, a fond smile lingering in the line of her mouth as he turns to Sophie.

“Stay stunning,” she says, “at least until we meet again.”

“Likewise,” Eggsy says, wondering if he and Harry have really put on a convincing enough show for her to assume he’ll be around for long enough that their paths will inevitably cross again.

Sophie presses a kiss to his cheek too and then they’re off, the engine springing up in the driveway before Charlie’s even made it to the bottom of the stairs to ask after Sophie.

“I’m afraid you just missed them,” Anne says regretfully and the look on his face nearly makes Eggsy pity him.

“She said they would wait for me.”

“I’m sure you will see plenty of her at university,” Anne tries to say even though they all know it isn’t true.

Maybe he’ll seek her out a few times before he finally decides to take the hint, but eventually their lives will drift apart again, because it’s clear even to Eggsy that Sophie won’t let herself be tethered to a guy like Charlie, not yet anyway.

That isn’t the crux of his current misery though, because Charlie says, “They were going to drop me off at the train station,” with a dumbfounded helplessness he can’t have encountered often in his life.

“Are you not going back to Oxford?”

“I’m meeting father for dinner in London tonight.”

“I’ll take you,” James offers, fresh out of the dining room with Merlin in tow.

“Would you?” Charlie asks, his self-assured young man’s charm turned back on. “That would be very kind.”

“Oh, it’s no bother. Perci is taking the train too; he’s going up Manchester for the week.”

“Well then.” He turns to Alethea to shake her hand. “Thank you for the wonderful weekend.”

“My pleasure, dear boy. You’ve grown up quite handsome and I would be delighted to have you again-”

From the other room, Rosalie shouts, “Lance, could you be a lamb and give me a ride into town?”

“Yes, but hurry up,” he shouts back to her and in a quieter voice says to the rest of them, “Clearly I should have become a chauffeur instead of a professor; I’m in much higher demand.”

“Don’t be silly, James,” Anne tells him, but the hug she gives him is tight with affection, much tighter than the embrace he shares with Alethea. Turning to Harry and Eggsy she says, “I suppose you two will be eager to get going too.”

“I’m afraid so,” Harry says and Eggsy doesn’t know how he manages to sound sorry when he’s been counting down to their departure since they pulled up in the driveway on Friday.

“Thank you for coming,” his mother says, always sparse with her words, which are aimed only at Harry and not the both of them.

Anne adds, “We don’t get to see nearly enough of you, darling. And it was lovely to meet you, Eggsy.” She clasps one of his hands in both of hers and he wonders if she’s going to hug him, or if he should hug her, but they settle on squeezing each others hands while Harry leans in closer to his mother to brush an impersonal kiss onto her left cheekbone.

“I hope we get to meet again,” Anne says and she sounds sincere enough that for a moment, for her sake, he wishes his  relationship with Harry wasn’t a sham.

They’ll have broken up as soon as they’re safely in the car, but Eggsy still says, “Uh yeah, that’d be nice,” like he means it.

To Harry’s mother he says, “Thanks for lettin’ us stay here,” as though there is anything benevolent about the way she has treated them.

She acknowledges him with a small nod and a quiet, “Goodbye.” To Harry, she manages to add: “Have a safe drive.”

They still say they’re goodbyes to James and Charlie and Percival before they actually leave, Harry holding the door open for Eggsy as a last act of courtesy, his hand ghosting over the small of Eggsy’s back as he passes him.

Out in the driveway, Merlin’s stashing his bags in the trunk of his car and Eggsy expects them to linger there to chat for a while, but Harry only waves at him from afar because their friendship is age old and intimate in a way that doesn’t require elaborate goodbyes; they’ll hear from each other soon enough, an e-mail popping up on a Tuesday evening to set lunch at an old favourite scheduled for the following Monday. Eggsy’s the same with his best mates: tripping on the sidewalk in front of the pub, flipping each other off at the end of a long night before they head down separate ends of the street assured the other will complain of a wicked hangover by text come morning.

“I almost can’t believe it,” Eggsy says when he slides into the passenger side seat and pulls the door shut behind him, “That must’ve been the con of the fuckin’ century and now it’s just over . I mean… weird, innit?”

Harry turns the key in the ignition. “Incomprehensible, almost.”

Paradoxically, leaving for London doesn’t improve Eggsy’s mood at all. There’s a weightlessness in him that doesn’t feel quite right, relief and disbelief mixing into a new kind of emotion that doesn’t sit right.

He’s held himself so tense all weekend — through every moment of silence, every touch, every conversation, every laugh and smile — finally getting to relax again means he topples over like a card house under his first relieved breath. He’s as good as done now, almost home, and the thought of it makes him restless. He can’t bear sitting still in a car that smells of brand new leather making polite small talk with a stranger as the country whizzes past on the side of the motorway, so he fishes his headphones out of his pockets and blares his own music over the sound of Radio 4 in the background while Harry stares down the road mutely.

He must doze off at some point, because the next thing he knows, they’re being honked at in the middle of a tangled mess of clogged up roads, two storey brick houses and corner shops crawling by outside instead of fields and muddy rivers.

“Welcome back,” Harry says when Eggsy pulls himself upright in his seat with a grunt, amused at the way he blinks in confusion at the change of scenery. They roll forward a few metres in traffic and stall again, a sea of break lights unfolding before them. “I’m sorry to have woken you; the gentleman in the car behind us is rather impatient.”

“Nah, I didn’t mean to fall asleep anyway,” Eggsy tries to insist even though he feels a yawn fighting its way out of his body. He hides it in his sleeve and tries to sort out the knots his headphones have tangled themselves into in his lap. “Where are we?”

“Stuck on the A406 for the moment. There’s been an accident ahead, so I’m afraid this might take a while.”

“Ugh, fuckin’ fantastic. I’m gonna have to text my mum I’ll be late for dinner.”

“I can drive you home,” Harry offers, but Eggsy shakes his head.

“I’d rather take my chances with my mum. No offence, mate, but being seen with someone like you in a car like this in a neighbourhood like mine? I ain’t lookin’ for a reputation.” If he were to be seen by the wrong people, he could get more than a beating for it too and Eggsy isn’t exactly keen to be knifed down in an alley the next time he’s out alone.

“Duly noted,” Harry says and turns back to the road. They crawl another three metres before traffic jams again.

Eggsy sighs. “That really was almost a compliment. Trust me, ya don’t ever wanna blend in where I’m goin’.”

“You have just spent a weekend, if not exactly assimilating, then immersed in a foreign social milieu;  you shouldn’t sell other people’s ability to do so short.”

“Ha, if it didn’t run the risk of you gettin’ mugged, I’d like to see ya try.”

“Your concern is touching.”

“Don’t take the piss out of me,” Eggsy says and Harry smiles to himself, two and half hours of quiet in a car having softened him up a little.

It’s bizarre, Eggsy thinks, how different Harry looks when he’s at ease even though the changes in his expressions are subtle at best. He can’t place what it is — perhaps it’s the corners of his eyes crinkling or the way the very edge of his smile curls downwards like he’s subconsciously trying to counteract it. What would it take to break through those defenses , he thinks to himself. How many people have managed it, if anyone at all?

“I’m serious,” Eggsy says and the smile grows a little wider before it disappears altogether.

Harry says, “I am doing no such thing,” putting on his best poker face.

“You’re on thin fucking ice,” he warns and returns to his phone, though he doesn’t put his headphones back in.

“What are you doing?” Harry asks him twenty minutes later when they’ve nearly made it to the site of the accident.

“Oh, uh, I’m playin’ Candy Crush,” he admits because Harry has probably been watching him for a while already. Before Harry can comment, he adds, “I know it’s stupid, but my mum’s obsessed, so my sister loves it too and she’s always asking to play. I’ve been tryin’ to pass this level for her.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” Harry says and Eggsy hums in response, because he isn’t about to admit he may be doing it as much for himself as he is for her. Glancing at Eggsy’s screen, Harry says, “I assume the objective is to match symbols by colour.”

“Candy, they’re candies. But yeah.”

The next time they move, Eggsy loses another round. “Fuck, I’m dead again. Wanna have a go?”

“I am driving, Eggsy.”

“Not really though,” Eggsy says, “we are movin’ slower than a lamed dog. A minute won’t kill ya.”

“All right, then,” Harry says,  taking the phone. “What do I do?”

“Just swipe. You gotta get these nuts to the bottom of the screen before you run outta moves — they’re up here. No bombs or chocolate or nothin’ on this level, but I just can’t hack it. Oh, and try to get four or five of the same colour in a row for special candy.”

Rules in hand, Harry tries his luck as Eggsy watches from the sidelines. He’s much more patient with the game than Eggsy has ever been even though he’s still half paying attention to the road, handing the phone over from time to time to pull forward a car’s length before he resumes playing. In the end, he doesn’t pass the level either, though he comes dangerously close to Eggsy’s practised score.

“It’s surprisingly difficult,” Harry concedes when he loses.

“Mm-hmm?”

“Can I try again?” he asks and Eggsy bites his lip to fight off a smile, because he knows if he shows his amusement now Harry is going to backtrack and Eggsy quite likes the way his brow furrows with concentration. There’s a razor sharp intensity to his focus that’s intriguing even when it’s directed at something as inane as Candy Crush, maybe even more so because it’s the only thing Eggsy has seen him regard like that. He can imagine how heavy that look would feel resting on the back of one’s neck, that there’s an honour to being at the centre of Harry Hart’s attention. He’s only indirectly responsible for Harry’s current fascination and even that is heavy enough to make Eggsy want to give him more, enough so that he says: “Yeah, sure. I just leveled up so I got a few lives to spare.”

Harry passes the level on his second try and his exclamation of victory is so loud, it rings over Eggsy’s annoyed and baffled, “No way!”

“I hate you,” Eggsy says, teetering between merely pretending to be offended and genuinely being it. He grabs his phone as the final score adds up and he gets his ranking.

“You are being a terrible sport,” Harry teases, much more composed now.

“If you’re so great, why don’t ya play through the whole damn episode for me?”

Harry says, “I would, but I do actually have to drive.” He tilts his head towards the road, which has cleared another few metres, the police surrounding the scene of the accident already in sight when he pulls forward.

“Oof, yeah, don’t wanna get ticketed over playin’ Candy Crush. Plus, I reckon those cops are not in a forgivin’ mood right now, havin’ stood out there in the pissin’ rain all afternoon.”

“It’s probably part of the job description, or the fine print at the very least.”

“Wanna get paid for bein’ rained on all the damn time? Join the Met.”

“That’s a recruitment slogan.”

“Whatever. You know, I wanted to be a copper when I was a kid,” Eggsy says.

Harry gives him one of his semi-curious, semi-surprised looks. “Really?”

“Yeah, back when my dad was in the army.” Looking out at the stone faced constable in a bobby hat and neon yellow raincoat guiding cars with traffic batons those days seen impossibly far away. “I thought it was kinda the same thing — all blazing guns and hard justice — but closer to home so it wouldn’t upset my mum as much. ‘Course it ain’t like that, neither in the Met nor the military.”

“No, it really isn’t,” Harry says.

“People have so much faith in ‘em too, but for what? Our soldiers are out there killin’ people as much as they’re protecting ‘em, and dyin’ themselves doin’ it. And coppers ain’t no better; they ruin some lives over petty offences while other people get off scot free for the same shit.”

“You know, Merlin would probably agree with you word for word. He used to work in military intelligence for a few years in his thirties and I think nothing has ever fuelled his cynicism and disillusionment about our national institutions as much as that job did.”

“Yeah, I think my dad felt the same way when he went overseas,” Eggsy says, voice going quiet. “He wouldn’t say nothin’, of course, and I was just a kid, but he had this look in his eyes that I still remember and I think I get it now.”

He doesn’t know whether what he’s describing is really a memory or if it’s a desperation he’s projected onto the few remaining shreds he still has of his father because it’s somethinghe’s felt himself, because he’s seen it in his mum and the kid next door and the old man living upstairs, because it’s a feature of this life of theirs and he, too, was once part of that.

Harry says, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Eggsy asks, so accustomed to meaningless platitudes that he’s immediately on the offensive.

“That you have become acquainted with the same struggle despite your father’s best efforts, that your life has led you to feeling this way. It can’t be easy.”

“No,” Eggsy mutters. “It really ain’t.”

He clears his throat and takes a deep breath, surprised at the lump that’s formed in his chest and the way his eyes are starting to water. Ahead, the constable signals at them to pull forward and past the wreckage.

Harry drives him to Neasden station and pulls up to the kerb to fish an envelope out of his breast pocket.

“I thought fifties might be suspicious,” he says as he hands it over and Eggsy peeks inside.

“They would be, but so are neat twenties,” Eggsy says, rifling through the notes. “And not to question your judgement, but there’s... six hundred quid in here. I’ll take it if ya don’t want it, but-”

“I did promise a bonus for a number of your qualities, didn’t I?”

“Fair enough. It’s your money, mate.”

He’s about to grab the door handle to get out when Harry says, “Eggsy.”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. For everything. You were outstanding this weekend.”

“Um, thanks,” Eggsy says, taken aback. “It was an experience for sure.” With a dimpled grin, adds: “You weren’t half bad yourself.”

“Glowing praise,” Harry murmurs and Eggsy wants to swat at him for being so dense.

“No, I mean it. I thought I was gonna hate every minute of it, but it was kinda fun gettin’ to mess with your mother and the food alone was worth it.”

Opening his door, Harry says, “Maybe I should have offered a candlelit dinner as payment then.”

Eggsy says, “I’d rather take the six hundred quid, thanks,” and tucks the money into the waistband of his jeans before he climbs out into the rain.

By the time he comes around to the trunk, Harry has already taken his bag out for him. “It was a pleasure to meet you,” he says, extending his hand for a last goodbye.

It’s warm and solid in the rain, oddly familiar against his palm for only just having met Harry.

“Pleasure’s all mine.”

They stand there for a moment longer until another car pulls up behind them, white headlights washing over them, and then Eggsy takes a step back towards the station.

“If ya got any more family members to scandalise, feel free to call me,” he shouts.

“I’ll keep that in mind,”  Harry says over the top of his car. “Goodbye.”

“Bye,” Eggsy says and hurries out of the rain into the station without watching the car pull away. He’s got a six minute wait for the train and a ticket to buy.

Chapter Text

The pub is buzzing with the energy of a Friday night in full force by the time Eggsy’s staring down into the bottom of his first pint, grinning sympathetically at Ryan’s recounting of his sister’s newest doomed love affair. He can barely hear his friend over the din of glasses clinking and shifting places, bursts of rough workman’s laughter erupting one after the other in different parts of the room, but this is home and Eggsy’s accustomed to snatching life up in bits and pieces and filling in the blanks from there.

“I reckon’ he ain’t coming ‘round again any time soon,” Eggsy says.

“Nah, not while mum’s around anyway,” Ryan says. “Steph’s furious, of course; vows she’s gonna move out when she turns eighteen next month, but you know what she’s like, and Dom won’t last the week.”

Ryan shoots him a look that says, “Girls, eh?” and Eggsy hums along even though he remembers well what it was like to be seventeen, constantly going against the grain. Hell, he’s driven to stupid, impulsive acts even now - seven years later. He’s doesn’t say anything to that effect to Ryan though, because his are eyes fixed to the rugby match on the tiny telly above Eggsy’s head, his sister’s plight already forgotten.

From the other direction, Jamal approaches their table with slow, precarious steps in the hopes of successfully balancing three pints of beer in two hands while cradling a basket of chips in the crook of his elbow.

“What are those about?” Eggsy asks him, tilting his toward the chips as he reaches up to relieve Jamal of two of the glasses.

“Pretty obvious, innit?” Jamal says, setting his spoils down on the table. “Liam never came back with my bacon roll. I’m starvin’.” As if to make a point, he shoves three chips into his mouth before bothering to douse the rest with vinegar and extra salt.

Ryan hisses, “Shh,” swatting in Jamal’s general direction without taking his eyes off the telly and gets the finger in response.

Eggsy shakes his head at them and wipes idly at the tracks of spilled beer glistening on the table.

“New job’s a fuckin’ toss up too,” Jamal complains. “Don’t even get a proper lunch hour no more and when I tried mentionin’ it to the bird workin’ the other till, she said that’s what it’s like everywhere now. I’m tellin’ ya, I ain’t never seen anyone so dead behind the eyes and she still had her braces in. Couldn’t have been more than sixteen.”

“Fuck, that’s rough,” Eggsy says, because there used to be a time when he could still kid themselves into thinking there was a life for them beyond this. Apparently that too was a luxury.

Somewhere in a stadium far away, a bloke scores and the whole pub (including Ryan) groans like it’s the gravest of injustices.

Ryan nicks a few chips from Jamal, so Jamal elbows him in the ribs and says, “Get your own.”

“Piss off. You’ve got a job now; you can afford it.”

“Well, I don’t get paid till the 25th, do I?”

“Just let me have this, yeah,” Ryan says, and Jamal lets it go, though he pushes the chips out of Ryan’s reach.

With both their eyes transfixed on the telly, Eggsy chances a glance at the ongoing game, too, sipping his new pint. He doesn’t have time to make out what is happening (though he does discern the score) before his phone starts vibrating in his pocket and he’s distracted again, seeing the name Harry H. light up at him when he pulls it out.

For a moment, he just stares at his phone, because this is just about the last thing he’s expecting three weeks after he’s last heard of the man. Then it occurs to him the call might ring out  if he doesn’t answer soon, so he swipes his thumb across the screen.

“Hello?” he says, over-loud to compensate for the noise of the pub, which earns him a look from both Ryan and Jamal.

Over the line, Harry says, “Eggsy?” and he’s immediately back to wondering how anyone can make his name sound so posh.

Across from him, Ryan asks, “Who you talkin’ to? New bird on the go?”

“Maybe it’s is his mum,” Jamal offers, and Ryan chimes in with, “Oh yeah, she’s well fit.”

Trying to hold the phone away from his mouth, Eggsy hisses, “Fuck off.” It doesn’t do much besides encourage them to start talking over each other.

Harry asks: “Have I caught you at a bad moment?”

“What? No,” Eggsy says as Jamal makes a juvenile kissy face at him. “No, just, uh... hang on a sec.”

He scoots to the edge of the booth to Ryan warnings, “Mate, if you leave, your drink’s fair game,” and pushes himself upright, shoving his way through the crowd toward the front door to burst out into the street for some privacy - or at least as much of it as he can get loitering four feet from a ring of smokers huddled together under the street lamp.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Eggsy says, temporarily deaf in the absence of noise, “What d’you want?”

It comes out a little harsh, but he’s freezing and still confused as to why Harry called, which, with his upbringing, typically forebodes a hostile situation.

“I was calling with a proposition of sorts,” Harry says, equally guarded, “but if this is not a good time-”

“Nah, don’t worry. I’m just at the pub, nothin’ more serious than that,” Eggsy says and wraps his arms tighter around himself. Looking into the pub through the little window in the brick wall he’s leaning against, he can see the simple ecstasy of the evening glittering golden inside: ruddy cheeks and foam topped glasses everywhere, old-fashioned yellow lights giving everything a special kind of glow. The place is so lively it even looks noisy. It’s probably the polar opposite of whatever sort of night Harry is having, his end of the line quiet and unwavering.

“Right, well, Rosalie phoned the other day. She is returning to France next week and has invited us to an impromptu farewell luncheon this coming Monday. I could probably make excuses for you, but I thought it might be worth checking if you happened to be free and willing to come as that would be simpler on my end.”

“Oh,” Eggsy says. He doesn’t know what he expected when he offered to do more or less exactly this sort of thing the last time they spoke, but it wasn’t this.

Sensing his surprise, Harry adds, “I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t for the fact that it has only been a few weeks since we were at my mother’s, so selling a split might be difficult - at least not without eliciting a series of uncomfortable questions.”

“Yeah,” Eggsy says, “We might’ve sold it a bit too well for that.”

“I understand if you have other plans,” Harry says, and Eggsy jumps in with, “No, no it it ain’t that.”

He doesn’t realise how that sounds until the words are already out of his mouth and he kicks himself mentally for not telling his Harry he’s busy and doing this over text where his slips of the tongue aren’t so painfully obvious. Under the streetlight, the smokers are looking at him with a sort of hostile interest, taking some minimal entertainment for the drama unfolding on Eggsy’s face. Suddenly self-conscious, he turns his back to them, and asks: “Monday lunchtime, yeah?”

“Two o’clock, yes.”

“All right, I’ll be there. Ain’t got nothin’ better to do anyway.”

“Are you certain?” Harry asks, sounding wary in a way Eggsy doesn’t know what to do with, so he says, “Yeah. It’ll be a hot meal if nothin’ else, right? And if her food’s anything like the stuff at your mum’s, it’ll be well worth it.”

A few minutes later, having settled on the details, Eggsy shoulders his way back into the back of the pub where his pint still sits mercifully untouched.

“So?” Jamal demands, leaning forward on the table like the nosy little shit he is, sniffing a good secret from a mile off.

“Harry,” Eggsy says curtly and at that even Ryan looks up, because they’d forced the story of the whole weekend at Harry’s out of him the week after he’d gotten back, sitting not three tables over getting pissed just like this, and neither of them were short on opinions about it.

“What’d that tosser want?” he asks.

Eggsy says, “Nothin’ important,” and returns to his beer.

Between coming home past three on Saturday morning and spending the next night wide awake sweating out a belated hangover, Monday morning comes all too quickly. Eggsy doesn’t wake up until noon because no one’s in to make an obnoxious amount of noise in the living room, so he finds himself stumbling around for an hour trying to sort himself out, competing against the clock to wash his hair and put it in something resembling a respectable shape. He’s running late enough that he isn’t too fussed about what he pulls out of his closet, pulling on a shirt blindly so he can make a dash for it.

Naturally it starts raining as he’s sprinting through a back alley to take a shortcut to the tube and he ends up not only with soaked through, muddy trainers, but also misses the tube by a hair almost slipping on the stairs. By the time he arrives at the station where he’s agreed to meet Harry, it’s five past two and he’s spent the entirety of the ride cuffing and uncuffing his jeans as if that could somehow fix the state he’s in.

It’s still pissing down when he finally emerges into London proper – glimpses of expensive storefronts caught amid a sea of cheap brollies and out of breath people braving the rain with only backpacks or briefcases over their heads. Eggsy yanks his jacket up by the collar to pull it over his head in the hopes of arriving damp instead of drenched, squinting around the street through the staircase railing.

He spots Harry as soon as he clears the landing (slippery and borderline lethal), put together as ever in a dark pinstripe suit still untouched by the rain thanks to the gigantic dome of an umbrella he’s cradling in one hand - signet ring gleaming in the light - as he flicks his other wrist impatiently to look at his watch.

“Hi,” Eggsy breathes as soon as he’s within hearing range and mutters a quick, “Sorry I’m late,” over Harry’s: “Hello.”

He doesn’t notice until then that they’re standing a little too close, Eggsy having instinctively moved out of the rain to take shelter in Harry’s personal space. Harry must notice it too because he tilts his head as if to say, “Shall we?” and Eggsy is quick to nod, stepping sideways.

They fall into step side by side under the umbrella, walking close enough for their shoulders to bump every now and then. The first time it happens, Eggsy tenses up, though his feet keep moving forward without hesitation because Harry’s do too and, when he chances a sideways glance at Harry’s face, he seems unbothered by it, so Eggsy decides he should be too.

At the first corner they turn, Harry finally speaks, sounding almost like it’s only just occurred to him that perhaps he ought to be sociable and polite even when no one’s there to witness. “Have you been well?” he asks.

“I guess. It’s the same old, really,” Eggsy says evasively, starting to get nervous at the looks they’re getting from passersby. He doesn’t know he’s managed to forget what this was like in a few short weeks, but that mix of inadequacy and irritation is bubbling up in him anew, making his palms sweat. “You?”

“Nothing particularly exciting on my front either, I’m afraid.”

“Haven’t been disinherited or anything?” Eggsy half-jokes.

“Nothing quite so drastic, no,” Harry says, “I haven’t heard from my mother since our visit.”

“What, not even in passing?”

Harry shakes his head. “We are not exactly given to speaking frequently; you have to remember we aren’t close. Besides, lately work has kept me busy enough to be an adequate excuse even if she did take offence.” He worries a lip between his teeth as though he’s contemplating whether to say anything more, then adds, “And when it comes to the great rumor mills of the upper echelons, my mother is quite protective of me.”

“You or her reputation?” Eggsy asks, because he can’t imagine her to have any particular regard for her son’s privacy. What he can easily envision though, is that she’d hide Harry’s sexuality for her own gain - social or otherwise.

Harry considers the question for a moment before he says: “I suppose I don’t know.”

Something sad and confused flits across his face, an expression that comes and goes as quickly as a thought. He levels his gaze at Eggsy with that intensity that makes it obvious Harry’s re-evaluating him and says, “I think if I had a sibling, this likely wouldn’t even be an issue.”

“How so?” Eggsy asks.

He doubts if Alethea Hart would become indifferent to Harry being gay simply because she’d have someone else to tout around as her poster boy. Then again, he doesn’t know her well enough to make assumptions like that.

Harry says: “If there was another, she wouldn’t have to tolerate me.”

“Oh,” Eggsy says, realising he’d misinterpreted Harry’s comment by a mile. Him being an only child is as much protection as it is a burden and Eggsy is struck by how horrible that must be for Harry: always having to maintain his position in the world by teetering on this edge of being irreplaceable yet despised. “I’m sorry,” Eggsy says. They’re the only words he can think of even though they sound devoid of meaning, so he squeezes Harry’s arm in an attempt to better convey his sympathy.

“Yes, well,” Harry says, radiating discomfort at the turn their conversation has taken. They take another few steps before he clears his throat and says, “We’re here.”

“What?”

“Rosalie’s apartment,” Harry repeats, and Eggsy suddenly becomes aware of the building towering above them on the side of the pavement and has the good sense to let go of Harry’s arm, having held on for too long as it is.

“Oh darling, you made it!”

Eggsy almost stumbles backwards at the enthusiastic greeting Rosalie flings their way as she opens the door. Beside him, umbrella forming a puddle around the ferrule, Harry stands perfectly still except for the hand that darts out to try to steady Eggsy.

“Sorry we are late,” Harry says and the hand on his arm clasps Eggsy by the sleeve and tugs him forward.

“Don’t worry about it,” Rosalie says, moving out of the way to let them in. “You aren’t even the last to arrive. James still isn’t here.” Her eyes do a half roll, stopping skyward as if uttering a silent prayer, and Eggsy can’t decide if it’s for asking deliverance or punishment.

Harry leans in closer for a moment to murmur, “He has a tendency to be late, much to the chagrin of everyone, especially those in attendance at Percival’s wedding.” At the curious look Eggsy shoots him, he adds: “He was two hours late and, since he was the best man and thus had the rings, the whole congregation was forced to wait.”

Eggsy doesn’t have time to do much else than look stunned before Rosalie is pulling him into the apartment by his hand, leaving Harry to hang up his jacket and the umbrella. He offers Eggsy the slightest smile of encouragement when he glances back and it’s enough for the panic in Eggsy’s gut to subside into something softer - warm and fuzzy instead of spiky.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Rosalie tells him, and he has enough sense to nod even though he’s barely listening. “You know, I wasn’t sure if I would see you again. Harry is so sweet, but I’m not around much and I doubt you two are in the habit of knocking around coastal France.”

“Uh, no,” Eggsy says.

“Mmh, yes. Harry’s never been much for the place in general, though he speaks the language well enough. I can’t understand it either, but you know how he is.” She offers him a conspiratorial smile that Eggsy tries to match although he hasn’t the faintest idea of what she’s talking about.

Thankfully, Harry materialises behind them and comes to his rescue by asking: “What horrible tales are you feeding him now?”

“Only the truth,” Rosalie says defensively, but her grip on Eggsy loosens as Harry steps closer and when he wraps an arm around Eggsy’s waist, she slips away entirely.

Harry’s touch is both unexpected and overly familiar, and Eggsy almost jumps out of his skin at the press of fingers in his flank - his muscle memory still attuned to kids harassing each other at school - but manages to stop himself and channel his unease into a nervous smile when he notices they’ve stepped into a room filled with people.

“Everyone,” Rosalie says in a voice that makes eyes snap up mid-conversation, “this is my darling friend Harry and his partner Eggsy.” She introduces them with a broad smile and Eggsy tries not to let his own falter as four pairs of strange eyes fall on him and Harry, evaluating gazes stuttering on Harry’s hand resting against his hip.

Reversing the introductions, Rosalie gestures toward a tall redhead sat on a powder white suede sofa that Eggsy worries might get stained just from being looked at. “Poppy Adams, debonaire starlet of the medical world, here on a courtesy visit from the states with Mr Angel.”

The man nods at them, a brief sign of acknowledgment where Poppy just lets her eyes drift up and down the both of them, forming a judgement they’re not privy to, the expression on her face never changing from a polite, white toothed smile.

Pressing on, Rosalie gestures to the other, pair, though this time Eggsy doesn’t need an introduction. At least not for the man sat in the arm chair. “You’re Valentine,” he says before Rosalie gets the chance. He’s seen that face dozens of times in sixth form, his friends’ heads squished peering down at a little phone screen. It didn’t connect with him instantly, Valentine’s customary snapback resting on his knee and his face lined with the marks of a number of years, but now that Eggsy’s made the association, it’s impossible to unsee.

“That’s me, kid,” Valentine says and Rosalie chimes in with a pleased: “I see you’re already acquainted.”

“Well, who wouldn’t recognise ya, uh… Mr Valentine?”

“It’s just Rich to Rosie’s friends,” says Valentine and the young woman stood behind him tightens her hold on the back of the armchair, her mouth slipping into a brief moue of distaste. The expression vanishes as soon as Valentine says, “This is my assistant,” twisting to look up at her.

She doesn’t smile at the introduction, but does offer them a curt, “Gazelle.”

“That’s a cool name,” Eggsy says, though he supposes his isn’t exactly standard either,.

Valentine says, “It’s well-earned,” and Gazelle, showing off, takes a step to the side. Eggsy hears the sound of metal on the floor before his eyes make their way down to a pair of legs replaced by what he can only assume are honest-to-god blades .

“Woah,” he says just as Harry chimes in with: “Impressive.”

Gazelle offers them the tiniest smile, so small it seems to tug the corners of her mouth straighter rather than upward. “Thank you.”

“Are those real knives?” Eggsy finds himself asking, although he wishes he hadn’t when he sees Rosalie’s expression.

Gazelle doesn’t seem to take offence though, saying instead: “Blades. And yes, they can be, but that depends on how much time one devotes to their upkeep.”

“They’re just her latest baubles,” Valentine says as if they’re a toy rather than a weapon.

“Why don’t we get you two something to drink?” Rosalie asks, jumping in to diffuse the situation.

“Yes,” Harry agrees, and before Eggsy knows it, he’s being swept into the kitchen.

“I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?” he asks as soon as they’re alone, unable to shake the feeling Rosalie was trying to herd him away from Gazelle.

“No,” she hurries to say, then slows and adds a more reserved, “At least I don’t think so. But Gazelle’s, um, legs aren’t really a thing anyone ever draws attention to. She isn’t exactly keen on personal questions.”

“She didn’t seem to mind,” Harry says and Eggsy breathes a sigh of relief at the notion that he might not be the only tone deaf person in a room full of people silently screaming at him to avoid the elephant in the room.

“All I know is that she lost them in an accident when she was a child, long before any of us knew her. I doubt anyone in Rich’s circles did, to be honest. What I’m trying to say is that it may be… insensitive to enquire about them.” She speaks the last words like she’s trying to explain something to a child, water down a more complex question into something simple to swallow, and Eggsy feels an embarrassed heat creep up his neck at being treated like that.

In the living room, everyone’s picked up whatever conversation they were having before Eggsy and Harry arrived, and their voices bleed into the kitchen, jovial and easy.

Eggsy says, “Got it,” swallowing down the knot that’s forming in his throat.

“So,” says Rosalie, clearly trying to reconcile their current conversation with the carefree lunch they’re supposed to be having, “how about those drinks? Is cava alright?”

Harry nods and she seems to take it as an answer for both of them, because she turns to find some glasses without waiting for Eggsy’s assent. As she fishes a bottle out of the fridge, Harry tugs at Eggsy’s sleeve, and he looks over to see a question forming on his brow.

“Who exactly is this Valentine?” Harry asks, voice pitched low enough not to be heard by anyone else.

“What, are you serious?” Eggsy asks, “You really don’t know?”

He shakes his head, so Eggsy explains: “He’s a rapper.”

“Like a singer?”

“Well, sorta. He’s much more than that though.” Eggsy pulls out his phone to quickly type up a Google search on the man before handing the device to Harry. “He’s also kind of an eco nut, always banging on about the environment and global warming. I think he even has a charity for it or something. Oh, and he’s been runnin’ this campaign for free global internet, which I think is pretty cool, but Americans seem to think is batshit insane.”

“That’s… interesting,” Harry says, still scrolling through headlines and blurbs. “Those aren’t values shared among many of the extremely wealthy.”

Eggsy shrugs. “Maybe it’s cos he didn’t grow up that way. I don’t really know that much about him. He just connects really well with people’s struggles through his music.”

“What are you two lovebirds chatting about?” Rosalie suddenly cuts in, offering them each a glass of sparkling wine.

“Just wondering about Angel,” Eggsy lies, reluctant to be caught discussing Valentine in case it’s too close to Gazelle after the talking to he’s gotten.

Rosalie raises an eyebrow at him. “What about him?”

“We didn’t quite catch his relation to Ms Adams,” Harry says for him and Eggsy thinks they’re almost good at covering each other’s backs, which is strange considering they barely know each other.

Appeased, Rosalie lets out a breath and says, “It’s complicated. No one really knows. He is involved with her professionally, that much is public knowledge, but their relationship clearly extends past that; it’s just hard to say into what territory and how far,” and Eggsy wonders what exactly that is supposed to mean.

Perhaps it’s a polite way to say they have sex without strings attached, or perhaps there are strings – even ropes – that no one is privy to, or, and this he’s won’t discount quickly, perhaps their closeness is simply misinterpreted by the pervasive rumor mill that surrounds all these people’s lives.

“How long have they known each other?” he ventures.

“Verging on five years now. Poppy went to South America to do business at the turn of the decade when she separated from her husband, Charles, and Angel is what she brought back, which is when she finally filed the papers to actually divorce Charles and he took over as her right-hand man in the company, so naturally there were rumors.”

Harry asks: “What line of business is she in?”

“Pharmaceuticals.”

The intercom buzzes before Rosalie can elaborate, rushing off to get the door.

“That’s gotta be James, right?” Eggsy asks hopefully, sceptical as to whether he can handle another stranger.

“I would think so. Are you ready to go back out?”

Eggsy says, “Yes,” without giving it any thought, but the concerned look in Harry’s eyes makes him stop and reconsider the answer. Could he say no? Would they stay hidden here, could they even leave altogether? He knows Harry’s question wasn’t meant to be that complex, but he truly does look as if he’s offering Eggsy the option to say ‘no’.

On account of that alone, Eggsy repeats the word, “Yes,” more firmly this time.

In the living room, Gazelle has taken a seat on an impossibly soft looking, fluffy footstool, her crossed legs sinking into white faux fur. Meanwhile, Angel had risen to his feet to pour himself a measure of scotch from a small bar assembled on a side table and, as Harry and Eggsy rejoin them, James appears out of the hall with a bottle of champagne and a cheek splitting grin.

“I’m here, I’m here. Sorry to be so late.”

Following in his wake, Rosalie adds: “I’m afraid he’s incorrigible when it comes to bad timing.”

“Yes, but you knew that when you invited me.”

“Which is why I told you to arrive at half one.”

James merely shrugs like an extra half hour’s lateness doesn’t make any difference and thrusts the champagne at her. “So when are we eating?”

“Preferably immediately,” Valentine says and earns himself a few half-hearted smiles around the room.

“Well, Rosie?”

“Alright then. Seat yourselves; I won’t be a minute. James, give me a hand, will you?”

Taking their cues without delay, her remaining guests get to their feet and, under Poppy’s direction, pour into the dining room. It’s a bright, open space – white surfaces and wide windows like something out of a magazine – but it’s devoid of life in an unnameable way and Eggsy can’t help but feel it’s cold .

He takes a seat near the end closest to the doorway beside the empty space left at the head of the table. With Harry to his other side, he’s as surrounded by familiar people as he can be, the lunch starting to feel like all those meals at Harry’s mum’s. He’s almost used to this: pulling a napkin into his lap and sipping at his water with downcast eyes, Harry’s thigh radiating warmth under the table with how close together they’re sat.

Eggsy wonders if Harry feels it too, of if he even pays attention to trivial details like that. To Eggsy, caught in this foreign world where he’s got to be so conscious of every little thing, every oddity, no matter how small, becomes magnified, but for Harry this is likely just a normal Monday. Curious, Eggsy lets his right leg relax and drift sideways until his knee grazes graze Harry’s leg. He doesn’t even expect Harry to linger, but to his surprise, Harry presses back, his leg sliding along Eggsy’s until their knees touch.

“Careful!” Rosalie shouts, directing James who is carrying a steaming terracotta pan, though  Eggsy doesn’t notice that bit until he’s already slammed his legs together like he’s been caught doing something naughty, a furious blush rising under his skin.

He swallows and glances at Harry, whose face is totally impassive even though he must’ve felt Eggsy flinch, and he doesn’t have the first clue what to make of that. Fortunately, Eggsy doesn’t have time to drive himself insane over it, because James leans down between them, whispering, “Sorry,” as he places an oven baked salmon on the table.

Rosalie shoos him out of the way to add a bowl of salad and a basket filled with a variety of sliced bread. She waits for him to take his seat before she clears her throat and says: “Now that we’re all here, I want to say a word of thanks. I’m going to keep it short, because I can see the hunger frenzied look in some of your eyes.” She throws a mischievous smile Poppy’s way and earns herself an embarrassed smile. “This past month hasn’t been easy. I’m sure by now my circumstances have made it into every last nook and cranny of England, so I shan’t bore you to death prattling on about it any more. Though it’s been wonderful catching up with you all – old friends and new alike¬” she bestows Eggsy with a benevolent smile¬ “the time has come for me to go home. Let this be our last hurrah.”

“Cheers!” James shouts from the other end of the table, lifting his glass.

“To Rosie,” Poppy ventures and everyone joins in to repeat the words with enthusiasm.

“Alright,” Rosalie says after a long sip of her own drink, “let’s eat.”

She hands out serving utensils for the fish and salad, one set offered to Angel and another to Harry, each of whom starts dishing out portions dutifully. Eggsy hands his plate to Harry for a helping of fish and gets it back with a mound of salad and two slices of bread already in place, saving him the trouble of having to pester others.

“Thank you,” he says, inordinately touched by the thoughtfulness of the gesture.

The food itself is delectable in its simplicity - truly the hallmark of good home cooking. The fish is something stunning, a far cry from the dry, fried cod he uses to have at his nan and granddad’s as a kid, and Eggsy wolfs it down, even going for a second helping. The butter’s laced with sea salt and melts onto the bread, which Eggsy doesn’t realise is warm until he’s holding it in his hands and his heart catches at the glory of it. He has to admit he even sort of likes the strange combination of courgette, sweet peas, and dill in the salad, though he’d be hard pressed to admit that to the guy at his usual chippy.

“Rosalie you’ve outdone yourself,” Poppy says and beside her, Angel nods in agreement. “I thought Martel was supposed to be the chef between the two of you.”

Rosalie huffs. “Oh please, he isn’t home five days a week, too busy doing his tricks for the cameras in Paris. Someone’s got to keep the girl’s fed and they’re used to a certain standard with him, so what was there to do but learn?” Flash of a self-deprecating smile, though not without a hint of secret pride, and Eggsy is surprised by how much she reminds him of his mum in the old days before the bruises and fatigue became permanent fixtures in her life.

“Where exactly do you two stand now?” James enquires from the other end of the table, impossible to dismiss or overhear, yet trying to sound casual.

Harry lowers his gaze delicately, as do Gazelle and Poppy, but Eggsy doesn’t have the same built-in tact and he looks up at Rosalie for her reaction instead, instinct dictating it’s better to stare danger in the face and know what’s coming. He manages to catch the brief flash of deer-in-headlights distress in her eyes before she smiles with the ease of the long-suffering rich.

“Nothing is set in stone,” she says diplomatically, but James doesn’t back down, so she adds: “The consensus here is I love my girls and I’m going home to them because they need me right now, and whatever happens with Martel is really a side issue.” Her tongue passes over her lower lip uneasily, eyes downcast and cutlery resting mid-air above her plate.

Against all odds, Harry is the one to break the silence first. “You are doing the right thing,” he says and gets a few silent nods for the effort.

“Thank you,” Rosalie says and Eggsy thinks he’s never seen such a fond, unguarded look in her eyes.

Valentine redirects the entire table by asking, “Anyone want another slice of bread?”

He doesn’t get any takers, but manages to turn it into an opening to start talking about the state of his hometown – featuring a congregation in a Kentucky small town – which expands to encompass the deficiencies of America at large and finally the entire planet’s impending demise in the form of global warming.

“I mean, how fuckin’ disheartening is it see politicians argue over whether global warming is even real instead of comin’ up with a way to get out of this vat of shit we’ve backed ourselves into? And yeah, you gotta be able to argue with science – that’s kinda the whole foundation of it – but it’s arguing science with science and not Christ or oil, or whatever the fuck’s popular this week.” He looks around the table to see if he’s still holding anyone’s attention. “Am I crazy for thinkin’ that?” He levels an intent look at Angel. “Do I sound nuts to you?”

“I don’t pretend to participate in politics anymore,” he says, speaking for the first time in Eggsy’s presence. His voice is husky but with an unexpected softness to it on account of the thick accent. “Venezuela has been corrupt for a long time.”

“So how do y’all get anything done?”

He glances at Poppy like he’s seeking approval and says: “My sister says all there is left for us now is violence and the grace of God.”

“D’you think she’s right?”

Here, Poppy jumps in with a cross, “Richmond, stop. You’ve become terrible,” and the tension in the room rises exponentially.

“Forgive him, please,” Gazelle says, her typical disinterested tone from earlier turned conciliatory. “He has a habit of getting impassioned when it comes to the environment. It comes with the territory of working too much for a cause that seems lost at times.” She smiles a thin miniature smile that Eggsy thinks may well be her real one because it’s too subtle a thing to put on for show.

“It is nothing,” Angel says, clearly uncomfortable at being the centre of attention, but it’s not him Gazelle is apologising to.

“Poppy?” Rosalie coaxes, and Poppy’s face undergoes a rapid metamorphosis.

“It must be frustrating, trying to save the world when everyone insists on being contrary,” she says, honey dripping from her voice, and Eggsy can well imagine her at some big company meeting, grinding a metaphorical heel into her counterpart’s spine all the while smiling radiantly above board.

Valentine says: “There are some things even money can’t do.”

Poppy chuckles, but turns cold when she says, “Sadly, I know .”

Eggsy swallows his mouthful of fish nervously, suppressing the impulse to turn to Harry and whisper, “What does she mean?” because he’s here to sit pretty, not pry into other people’s lives. Not to mention, no matter what they’re pretending to be in front of others, Harry and him are hardly close enough behind the façades to gossip about someone’s else’s personal life, their intimacy a circumstantial being.

Wherever the conversation goes next, Eggsy’ stopped paying attention, thinking about their legs under the table instead. If this were someone else, he wouldn’t attribute anything to it, but Harry can barely hold hands convincingly when he’s trying ; he flinches and tenses up at every touch, hyperaware of the space he occupies for all the secrets he holds, yet here he is: comfortably occupying Eggsy’s space.

Maybe it’s a one-off thing , he reasons, tearing into a slice of rye, some sort of unconscious tick . Or maybe he’s reading into it too much and it’s nothing; except,  it has to mean something .

“Eggsy?”

Harry’s voice tears through his thoughts, sounding like it isn’t the first time he’s said his name and Eggsy blinks at him, humming in question.

“More water?” he asks, Perrier bottle in hand.

“Uh, yeah,” Eggsy says reflexively and holds out his glass, “Thanks.”

He really shouldn’t be thinking about this, Eggsy tells himself as he sips he water and then watches as Harry pours Rosalie some too. Three weeks ago, this was a business arrangement and now it’s a favour, plain and simple. There is nothing more to it and he knows even entertaining it as a possibility is treacherous. In a bit, he’s going to go home and their comically antithetical lives will become the stuff of legend, never to cross again.

He’s shaken out of his stupor for a second time by a burst of laughter enveloping the table and Eggsy smiles in response to it, not wanting to be the odd one out even though he’s already looking to Harry for some sort of cue about what he’s missed.

“Perhaps we should take this back to the lounge?” Rosalie suggests when the shared joy dies down. “I’ll sort out the dishes and brew some coffee, hmm?”

This time, it isn’t James who sticks around to help out but Eggsy, asking, “D’you need a hand?” before anyone else offers.

“If you don’t mind bringing the plates into the kitchen,” she says.

James slips out of the room after Valentine and the others follow suit, leaving Eggsy to gather up the plates while Rosalie carries the terracotta pan out. Harry stays behind to help him, silently pooling cutlery to place on Eggsy’s stack of plates.

He looks like he’s about to take the lot off of Eggsy, so he says, “I’ve got it,” and grabs the stack before Harry can protest. He even tries for a quick smile that’s meant to be reassuring and whispers: “Go on, I’ll be fine.”

Harry does take him at his word eventually, if a little reluctantly, and Eggsy allows himself a breath, blissfully alone in the kitchen for three long moments before Rosalie returns with the remaining dishes.

She’s piling them into the sink as he lingers at the counter, unsure of what to say, but wanting to stay here - out of the way - for as long as he can. When she finally turns to say something to him, Eggsy blurts, “I hope everythin’ goes well. When you get home, I mean.”

“I- Thank you.”

“I know I don’t really know you or the situation – it ain’t none of my business either – but, uh… I want ya to be okay. And your kids, obviously.” He adds a wicked smile, and says: “Your bloke I’m not so sure about.”

“That’s very sweet of you, thank you,” Rosalie says in the sort of even tone that’s meant to disguise a riptide of emotion. She swallows thickly, clearly trying to push past “For what it’s worth, not that it’s any of my concern, because Harry’s a grown man who’s well for himself, I’m glad he has someone as conscientious as you. It seems to make him happy.”

“Yeah,” Eggsy murmurs, not because it’s true, but because it should be. Harry ought to be with someone who makes him happy, as should Rosalie, and even Harry’s mother. All these lives – so glamorous on the surface – are in complete shambles behind closed doors and he’s got sympathy for that.

Solicitously, Rosalie adds, “I hope he makes you happy too,” and Eggsy realises she’s misconstrued his feelings.

“He does,” he says and tries for his most convincing fake smile, the one he used to put on for his mum when he came home from school with bruises pooling between his ribs.

“I’m glad.” She squeezes his hand, then says, “You know, I know Alethea didn’t give off the best impression of Harry’s family, but they’re not all like that. Perci, James, Anne: they’re all so happy for you. And I know you are just living your lives, but the fact that Harry brought you home has had such a positive impact.”

“What d’you mean?” Eggsy asks, her tone putting him on edge, because Harry hasn’t mentioned anything like that to him. All Eggsy set out to do was piss off his mum, which, as far as he can tell, is exactly what happened, collateral lies excluded.

Rosalie smiles at him and asks, “Haven’t you heard? Sophie brought Roxy home to introduce her properly to her parents.”

“What?” Eggsy asks, his insides in turmoil as his stomach drops at the exact moment his heart tries for an elated flutter on Roxy’s behalf. It makes him sound very distanced and a little bit panicked, both of which he realises he’s actually feeling as soon as he hears himself.

Rosalie just keeps grinning at him. “Apparently they have been seeing each other for quite a while now and, while no one can say for certain, Perci too is of the opinion seeing you and Harry together at his mother’s probably gave them the courage to come out.”

“Um, how did you hear about this?” Eggsy asks, none of the other thoughts crowding his mind ones he should voice.

“Well, I heard from Perci, though it’s Anne who spoke to the Montague-Herrings. The news seems to have gone over well, although poor Tessa’s still recovering from the initial shock. I think it was Sophie’s brother they were expecting to be gay, what with the lifestyle he leads. She’s always been such a girl’s girl. Just goes to show, doesn’t it?”

The words seem to come from a million miles away and Eggsy’s first response is a baffled, “Huh?” He manages to get a grip when he notices Rosalie’s worried expression and says: Yeah, guess so.”

“Anyway, we’re all so pleased for them.”

“Mmh, yeah,” he mutters, “Me too.”

He’s saved from having to say anything more by the sound of the intercom buzzer going off again.

“That must be dessert,” Rosalie says, drying her hands on a towel as she hurries out of the room, leaving Eggsy behind.

In the living room, Harry and James are in conversation with Valentine in what seems to be a positive, but heated discussion, voices all a-lilt with slick smiles and good humor. When he peers around the wall, Angel and Gazelle are standing at the foot of the sofa, speaking much more quietly as Poppy listens on disinterestedly, glancing at the men from time to time.

Rosalie tells them the same thing she told him, though she quips a quick, “Harry, could you get the coffee started?” not bothering to wait for a response, not that she has to.

Harry excuses himself from his present company immediately and heads toward the kitchen where Eggsy is still people-watching.

“Are you alright?” Harry asks with his back turned to Eggsy as he starts opening cupboards at random to locate the coffee.

“Yeah, ‘course. Why?”

“You just don’t seem particularly uncomfortable today.”

Eggsy shrugs. “Well, this ain’t the same as bein’ at your mum’s. These are just people and they couldn’t give two fucks whether you’re gay or straight.” At the counter, Harry finds the coffee, fills the machine with grounds and water. Eggsy crosses his arms and asks: “What exactly are we tryna do here?”

“What do mean?” Harry asks and this time they’re face to face.

“It’s feels underhand, sittin’ out there pretendin’ we’re a couple. Your mum deserved it for being a homophobic old wench, but these people wouldn’t battin’ a fuckin’ eye either way, so what am I doin’ here?”

Harry, helpless, says, “I don’t- You came of your own volition.”

“Yeah, I did,” Eggsy says and thinks: but why did you ask me to come in the first place? Wouldn’t it have been easier for both of them if Harry had just made excuses for him?

“We can leave,” Harry offers, but that doesn’t feel right either, so Eggsy shakes his head and says, “No, that’s not- Look, it’s fine.”

“It clearly isn’t,” Harry says, “Something is bothering you.”

He’s standing much closer now, speaking quietly over the gurgle of the coffee machine, one of his fingers tapping the counter. Then it stops and his hand inches closer to resting next to Eggsy’s flank where he’s leaning into the counter - Harry looking at him while Eggsy is looking away. “This isn’t you. You are distracted, distant.”

“Yeah well, we’re not that close, Harry, are we?” Eggsy asks and is surprised that sounds like an accusation.

Harry hears it too, because when Eggsy looks, his expression is something entirely new to Eggsy, closed off and vulnerable all at once like a door half shut. He wants to apologise, take the words back and smooth them out, but instead he blurts: “It’s Sophie. And Roxy.”

Harry’s brow furrows. “What about them?”

“Rosalie just told me they came out ‘cause of us and I just- That’s fucked up, Harry.” Eggsy cuts himself off, unsure of whether he should say something, but the expression that unfolds on Harry’s face mirrors his own and gives him courage. “All this is just a lie and they went and took a huge leap off the back of that. And now they’re bein’ outed without their knowledge. Sophie only told her parents - what? - a week ago and it’s already gone through three people to make it to me . I never wanted to be responsible for somethin’ like this.”

“This is not your fault,” Harry says, grave with reverent kindness, but Eggsy only shakes his head.

“If I’d known this was going to happen, I would never have agreed to this.” He crosses his arms. “It ain’t right.”

“No,” Harry agrees. His voice is still pitched soft and it’s only making Eggsy’s discomfort more acute, his distress solidifying into a lump in his throat. Harry says: “Look, I know this is far from ideal and I’m afraid what is done can’t be undone, but for me, there is a glimmer of hope in all this.”

“How?” Eggsy scoffs, squeezing his arms.

“Do you know what I would have given in my youth not to have to be the first?” Harry asks, and it’s enough for Eggsy to unwind, “Can you imagine what it would have meant to have someone show me the way so I wouldn’t have to battle a neverending shame of which I carry a morsel with me to this day ?”

“Harry,” Eggsy says, because his hands are shaking now with the effort of trying to restrain himself, eyes averted and his breathing forced into a regular rhythm, and it’s breaking his heart.

“Maybe what we are selling is a fabrication, but it does not represent a lie,” Harry says. “I am still gay, and that has made my life complicated in a way I would never wish upon anyone else, so if this helps someone else with their struggle, it’s a dishonesty I can live with.” He looks up, eyes searching Eggsy’s. “But if you don’t feel the same, I understand that too.”

Eggsy shakes his head, his hand finding Harry’s on its own accord and enclosing his fingers in a loose grip because he has no way of expressing what he wants to say in words, wishing he had something else to offer, but Rosalie chooses that precise moment to return, cake box in one hand and kitchen towel in the other.

“Oh, sorry,” she says, instantly aware she’s walked in on a delicate moment, “I’ll just be off.” She sets the cake down, glances at the coffee pot, and hurries out awkwardly, but the damage is already done; Harry’s walled himself in again, heart torn off his sleeve.

“I have to sort out the coffee,” he says as he retracts his hand and puts some space between them, and Eggsy decides to leave him to it.

They reassemble at the table for coffee and cake, though the seats change. Eggsy ends up opposite Harry at the other end of the table this time, Gazelle to his one side and James to the other, straining to pour everyone a cup. Rosalie doesn’t wait for him to finish before she unveils dessert: a carrot cake covered in what she informs them is an orange cream cheese frosting, topped off with strings of bright citrus zest over crumbled walnuts and pecans.

Harry does the honours of cutting it up and while he’s at it, Eggsy pours a dash of milk into his cup of coffee the way he knows Harry likes it. He stirs it through with his own spoon - still in hand from the sugar he put in his own coffee.

A wedge of the three tier cake has materialized before him by the time he’s done and he digs into it as a distraction. As expected, it’s sinfully good, better even than he could have imagined - heavy with moisture but still fluffy, the nuts a welcome bit of texture amidst the overbearing richness of it all. He isn’t the only one blown away by the cake because no one speaks for several minutes, too preoccupied with indulgence.

Even then, meals at Rosalie’s don’t drag on the way they did at Harry’s, and they retreat into the living room to digest without preamble. Harry takes Eggsy’s spot on the sofa, leaving him with the middle seat next to Gazelle, though the butter soft cushions inevitably slide him into Harry with the way he’s trying to give Gazelle her space. If Harry’s aware of the fact that their flanks are drawing ever closer, he makes no move to adjust the way he’s sitting, so they end up pressed shoulder to shoulder, both with their hands in their laps like naughty schoolboys.

It’s making Eggsy antsy, so he shifts, thinking, if they’re here to pretend, then let’s pretend. He draws his right leg up under his left, folded sideways to press against Harry’s thigh as Eggsy turns his torso toward him and rests his forearm on the back of the sofa, fingers wedged into the space behind Harry’s shoulder. That, at last, makes Harry look, eyes sliding sideways with mistrust, and Eggsy gives him an innocent, questioning look.

He isn’t sure what he’s trying to get out of the situation - certainly not an honest reaction - but he still can’t help but feel a sting of disappointment when Harry returns his attention to Angel instead of playing along, leaving Eggsy to rest his head on the wall and affect the role of the bored toy boy.

Angel is talking at length about an endangered species of flower to Valentine, stumbling over pauses where he’s trying to find a translation for the words in his head, and Eggsy watches on, realising he’s tired of feigning interest - tired of feigning love, interest, commitment, anything at all. The words start piling up so fast, he has to close his eyes and take a deep breath.

He counts to ten in welsh to calm down, remembering the way his dad used to sound the numbers.

When he gets to six, he feels a hand come down on his leg and slide up a few inches before it descends again and remains there, far too intimate. It forces Eggsy to hold his breath, something nameless welling up within him, threatening to spill over if he doesn’t hold perfectly still. Then Harry’s measured voice sounds in response to a question he doesn’t hear and Eggsy breathes out, tension dissolving.

He opens his eyes and shifts his head to rest chin first on the hand he lays across Harry’s shoulder, effectively pinning him back against the sofa. This close, Eggsy can smell the remnants of his cologne - the scent warm and mutated from when Harry put it on earlier that morning in his lonely South Kensington home. It makes his heart surge with misplaced affection at being given the chance to pry away the carefully constructed veneer of him and peer behind at the things no one’s gotten to see in years, his words in the kitchen just one of the many things he’s entrusted Eggsy with.

“Hey,” Eggsy whispers when Angel isn’t looking, “I’m sorry ‘bout earlier. I shouldn’t have gotten so worked up. You obviously didn’t mean for things to go they way they did either.” He feels his throat constrict as he swallows, Harry’s focus flicking between his contorting features, searching. “I didn’t get a chance to say it then.”

Harry shakes his head, a minute movement that’s barely perceptible if you’re not looking for it, but Eggsy always is. “It’s all right. I understand.” His head shifts closer, mouth hovering right above Eggsy’s ear as he whispers, “I want you to know you are doing me a huge favour by being here and I really am grateful.”

It’s a sotto voce secret that Eggsy tucks close, nodding into Harry’s shoulder in acknowledgement. Nothing more passes between them, Harry ignoring curious glances from Rosalie while Eggsy twists his head ‘round to watch Gazelle and Valentine, Harry’s hand still resting on his thigh.

The last to arrive, James is the first to leave, claiming the job won’t let him be kept any longer. “She’s a jealous bitch, the department,” he says.

Rosalie asks, “Is that how you talk about Madeline?” voice flaring with irritation.

“Spencer?” James asks, sounding both incredulous and amused, “No, she’d have my tongue on a platter for something like that. Besides, she was promoted to Vice-Chancellor a year ago - a well overdue rise in the ranks, if you ask me.”

“No one did,” Rosalie counters and he gives a nonchalant shrug that says, “Fair enough.”

“Well, whatever the case, I have to go,” he says. “I’ll give Maddie your love if she ever ventures down to Classics.” He kisses her once on each cheek as she rolls her eyes at him, then adds, “Shall I drop Perci a line too?”

“You’re a bloody menace,” Rosalie tells him, but also does add a quiet: “Yes.”

It only raises a faint smile in James, and when Eggsy glances at Harry, the same is true for him. It’s simultaneously subtle but weighted and Eggsy wonders what it’s like to have history like that - deep and broad.

All there is in his family are the cutting events: the deaths, the scandals, the extramarital pregnancies and resulting feuds. Those scars rarely turn into something to smile fondly about; they’re more grin-and-bear-it-over-Christmas-dinner sort of affairs.

He’s still mulling it over when Harry nudges his leg and asks, “Shall we?”

“What, now?” Eggsy says, his surprise coming off as reluctance when, in reality, he can’t wait to get out of here.

Rosalie says: “Not you too.”

“I’m afraid I still have two clients booked for a late fitting,” Harry explains, “and there is Eggsy to get home.”

“Harry, you scoundrel, the shop I could argue with, but not you being a gentleman.” she admonishes him, though she doesn’t manage to actually look disappointed, smiling at him instead.

“Enjoy your last days,” he tells her, the grave earnestness back in his voice. “I wish you all the best back home.” He squeezes both her arms and she cups his elbows in what looks like some personalized (if rather distant) version of a hug.

“Thank you for coming,” she says to him and, turning to Eggsy, adds: “You too. It was a delight to have you both.”

In a moment of complete impulsivity, she surges forward to give him a proper hug, and Eggsy wonders what it is about him that makes people around Harry react this way to him when they’re so reserved around him.

Eggsy says, “Trust me, I got the better end of the deal,” and she laughs, the feeling becoming his through the shared vibration of their ribcages. When she finally lets go, Harry already has Eggsy’s jacket over his arm and it’s in that moment that he realises this is all over.

“Bye now,” he says for the both of them, the ghost of melancholy washing over him though it’s gone as soon as he’s aware of it, and the chorus of belated nice-to-meet-yous falls against a closed door.

Being out is a is a relief like no other and Eggsy heaves a sigh, manic smile creeping up on him as they wait for the elevator, Harry’s foot tapping impatiently on the ground in what Eggsy is certain is a tick he isn’t even aware of.

“I’m sorry about all that. I didn’t realise there were going to be that many people there,” Harry says once they’ve been swallowed into the anonymity of the busy street outside, somehow more themselves for being unrecognizable in the masses. “Rosalie did only mention James.”

“Wait... you thought it was just gonna be the four of us?” Eggsy asks, because if Harry was only going to bring him to lunch with two people they’d already had to trick into believing they’re together weeks earlier, he really had no right to be angry.

Harry says: “Yes. The others were opportunistic additions, as far as I understand. Valentine mentioned being here to promote his newest album and Poppy Adams just seems to be on holiday.”

“You could’ve said,” Eggsy mumbles, feeling like an idiot.

“How would that have helped? We were already there with them; there was no changing it at that point.”

“Still,” Eggsy says, because he could’ve saved himself some frustration and Harry a whole slew of unjustified accusations.

“I must admit I did feel bad for you though.”

Eggsy balks. “Me? Why?”

Harry shrugs, switches his umbrella into his other hand. “It was supposed to be an easy few hours with familiar people and good food. Instead, you get thrown into a room with yet another collection of total strangers. I can’t help but feel I owe you dinner for the trouble.”

Eggsy huffs, the sincerity of the offer ridiculous and touching at once.

“It seems like the only compensation for ruining that meal.”

“Harry…” Eggsy says and he’s smiling now, because this has to be a bad joke and even if it isn’t, he should say ‘no’ no matter how much he wants to say ‘yes’.

“I’m entirely serious,” Harry insists. His eyes are restless, caught in a fleeting look that rejoins the the jagged skyline before Eggsy can make heads or tails of it, and the whole thing leaves him feeling strangely afloat in his own body.

“Even so,” Eggsy says and he can’t look at Harry as he continues speaking: “If the point is to make things easy for me , dinner in some fancy restaurant ain’t it. We’re gonna get weird looks if we’re out no matter where we go, whether we’re there as friends or… whatever .” Making his point for him, a passing woman does a slow double take of them for even speaking to each other.

Men like them can’t be anything to each other, not even acquaintances.

Instead of arguing with him, Harry says, “So come to mine.” It sounds like an impulsive idea, but the words clearly gain traction by having been spoken, because Harry continues, saying: “There won’t be anyone besides me, so you can come as you are. The neighbours are old and decrepit, but I’ll shut the curtains if they bother you. And, while I am no Marcel, I can cook.”

It’s an insane proposal - a fantasy begging for trouble. Still , Eggsy thinks and the interjections are always the hardest to shake. It’s not like Harry to propose something spontaneous with what, for him, is positively childlike glee.

“Okay,” Eggsy says after a moment and the word feels surreal on his tongue. “When?”

“Are you free on Friday?”

“Uh no, pub. Can’t miss it without some questions.” Especially not after fleeing halfway through to take a call from Harry the previous week. “Thursday?” Eggsy suggests, deciding that sooner would be better than later in this instance, lest the momentum of the decision wear off and leave them stuck with an awkward dinner for two.

“That should work for more.”

“Thursday it is.” And there it is again: that ferrous tinge of excitement and impending doom he can’t ever quite seem to shake in Harry’s company.

Chapter Text

Thursday arrives in a flash. One moment Eggsy is trudging home from the tube in the rain and the next he’s fussing over his hair with the attention and frustration of his sixteen-year-old self.

Why he even agreed to this dinner, he doesn’t know anymore. The whole point of it was to avoid nerves, yet here he is, strung up tight by them, trying to flatten out strands of hair he’s just painstakingly gotten to stand up. In the other room, his sister shouts something incomprehensible at the telly, snorts of Peppa Pig and her own, half-formed words muffled but not entirely filtered out by the bedroom door that Eggsy’s jammed a chair in front of to get some privacy.

Just last night, he’d texted Harry for cursory confirmation that dinner was still on, half hoping he’d get out of it somehow. Half a week was more than enough time for regret to settle in, but the day itself is too close to to cancel, and Harry hadn’t let him off the hook either. All that had happened was Eggsy talking himself into bringing dessert for a menu Harry refused to reveal. Now here Thursday is: vibrating unease. 

The more he thinks about it, the less he wants to go, because - even at best -  he’ll only get a slightly awkward evening with good food and scotch so expensive he can’t even dream of ever affording it. They’ll never see each other again after. 

Then again , Eggsy thinks, and it’s not an interjection he ought to be making - he’d thought he’d seen the last of Harry a month ago, when he’d dropped him off at a train station. And then, last week, Eggsy was convinced the Monday gone by would be it, a one-off encore to their charade that should have ended out on the curb where, for some inexplicable reason, Harry decided to invite him to dinner and Eggsy, in an even greater fit of madness, actually agreed. Hypothetically, they could keep crossing paths on the pretence of these conjectures forever, but Eggsy knows it’d only be postponing the inevitable, that he’s gambling with an attachment he can’t afford to have. 

“Shit,” he murmurs, catching the time when his phone lights up with a text from Ryan. Not wanting to be late again, he grabs his phone, shrugs on his favourite bomber jacket, and manhandles the chair out of the way so he can get going.

“And where are you goin’?” his mum shouts from the kitchen, hair a bird’s nest as usual from running around the place after his sister while trying to put dinner on the table.

“I told ya I wasn’t gonna be home for tea tonight,” Eggsy reminds her, wrestling with his shoelaces. “I’m goin’ out.”

“Eggsy-”

“Won’t be late, promise.”

“You better not,” she threatens, “If ya wake Daisy up one more time…”

“Got it, I’ll be at Ryan’s if it’s past eleven,” Eggsy says. Snatching his keys off the top of the fridge, he shouts a quick, “See ya,” before he’s off, practically flying down the concrete steps outside.

Even with a detour through a Tesco Express on Gloucester Road, he arrives at the Mews ten minutes early. He wonders if he shouldn’t make a trip around the block until he remembers the tub of ice cream melting away in his hands.

He walks up to the house half expecting Harry to swing the door open before he has a chance to knock, all the lights downstairs on, but he doesn’t see any movement inside, so Eggsy stands on the step for a few moments taking deep breaths to quell the restless flutter of his insides.

Of all the things he’s done with Harry and for Harry, this has to be the easiest, not that his body is going to be convinced of that. He wipes his sweaty palm on his jeans and reaches for the knocker, banging it hard three times.

Several seconds pass before he finally hears a noise from within, something clattering followed by the rapid shuffle of feet on a parquet floor. The few moments that elapse before the door opens isn’t enough warning to prepare him for Harry in an apron, sleeves rolled up sloppily past his elbow. He looks like a dressed down, alternate version of himself: someone with a charming, tall brunette for a wife and pictures of summers in Italy littering the house.

“Uh, hi,” Eggsy ventures. He blinks twice, trying to dispel his bemusement at seeing Harry in something so casual.

“Hello, come in,” Harry says, making way for him. “Can I take your bag?”

“Yeah, um, you might wanna put that in the freezer actually. There’s ice cream in there.”

“All right, I will be right back.”

Eggsy nods and watches him go, noting Harry’s sheepskin loafers. Spotting the shoes lined up by the door, he decides to take his own off too, padding into the house sock-footed. The place is pretty much as he remembers it from his brief first glimpse at it weeks ago: the butterfly case still on display by the stairs, framed pictures and newspaper clippings lining the yellow walls, the faint smell of leather and wool in the air. The living room is painted a darker colour than the parlour, but retains the same atmosphere. It’s filled with large, well-loved leather furniture and rich, medium toned wooden bookshelves that make the place feel more like an old library than a living room. It still screams wealth, but not in the pretentious, detached way that makes everything untouchable and cold, nothing more than a dollhouse for the living. No, Harry’s house gives off the sense of something beloved worn into being snug, and Eggsy has learned long ago that isn’t something money can buy.

Behind him, Harry clears his throat, and Eggy whirls around, heart jack-rabbiting like he’s been caught doing something illicit. “I took the liberty of pouring you some wine,” Harry says, holding out a glass, another one for himself held in his other hand.

“Thanks.”

Harry clinks his glass faintly against Eggsy’s, an official opening for an informal evening, and they both take a sip to seal the deal.

“Mmh, this is nice,” Eggsy says, taking another, longer, savouring sip. “What is it?”

“A Barolo. I’ve been saving this particular bottle for a special occasion.”

“And this is it?” Eggsy asks, voice rife with scepticism.

Giving him the tiniest smile, Harry says, “That would depend on your definition of a special occasion, wouldn’t it? This is certainly… out of the ordinary. And the other kind are far and few between in my case, so I thought I might as well get one of the nicer bottles out.”

“It is good,” Eggsy reiterates, oddly lost for words standing there under Harry’s attentive gaze. “So, are ya gonna tell me what we’re havin’?” he asks once he’s finally recovered himself.

“No. It’s still a surprise.”

“To you or me?”

“I suppose that depends on how it turns out.”

“You can cook, can’t ya?” Eggsy asks, banter turning to concern.

“Yes,” Harry assures him, then says, “You ought to have more faith. You’ve never concerned yourself with my qualifications before.”

“Yeah, but that was different,” Eggys says and Harry’s answering, “Oh?” makes him drive his tongue into the space between his lip and his teeth, wanting to bite the damn thing off before he says something even more stupid.

“You know what I mean,” he says, swallows, and backs away to take a seat on the couch. It’s firmer than it looks but still swallows him into an inexplicable relaxation, the sink of it like a mother’s embrace. Setting the wine glass down, Eggsy says: “That was pretend.”

“And this?” Harry counters.

It’s an honest question, not something to tease Eggsy with, and it renders him adrift in uncertainty. “I don’t know,” Eggsy says, choosing to be honest even though it adds an unspeakable amount of tension to the room. “There ain’t nothing to play at anymore.”

“Indeed,” Harry murmurs over the rim of his glass.

He excuses himself to check on the food again and Eggsy wedges himself further into the corner of the leather sofa, absentmindedly tracing the seams as he thinks about the fact that he has no idea where he stands in relation to Harry. They’re not quite friends, but they know each other too well not to be, and then there’s the matter of all the strange transgressions their shared lies have demanded. He’s never kissed any of his friends, not even as a joke. He doesn’t know what their hands feel like on the inside of his thighs, hasn’t laced his fingers through theirs holding hands. But similarly he doesn’t know if those are things Harry does with people he’s interested in. Those touches haven’t had the heat of the real thing, too full of gravitas and self-awareness to feel real despite looking it.

Head spinning from the dilemma of it, he tips his head back, closes his eyes, and lets out a long breath. He’s going to have to put the matter aside if he wants to get through the night, so Eggsy decides to focus his attention on surveying the room.

There’s a small chandelier hanging from the ceiling – unlit, unlike the two-foot lamps and the the green table lamp sitting beside the sofa. It’s perched behind a stack of books on what Eggsy assumes is Harry’s usual seat. The books are too far for him to reach just by leaning over and he’s reluctant to move, but Eggsy manages to catch three of the titles even at an angle: two classics and a paperback novel that’s thick as a brick with a title he’s never heard of.

When Harry returns, it’s sans the apron, wine bottle in one hand and a kitchen timer in the other. “Dinner should be ready in twenty minutes or so,” he says. He tops up Eggsy’s glass and lowers himself into his corner of the sofa, once again level with Eggsy, who yawns.

“Sorry,” he says, clapping a hand over his wide open mouth, “I’ve been getting’ up at the crack of dawn every day to look after my sister while my mum’s at work. Guess I’m feelin’ it more than I thought, but I gotta earn my keep somehow.”

“She isn’t in school yet?” Harry asks and Eggsy shakes his head.

“Nah, she’s still practically a baby. We’ve got twenty-two years between us.”

At Harry’s thinly veiled surprise, he adds: “Yeah, I know. It was kinda weird when my mum announced she was pregnant ‘cause I was already older then than she was when she had me, but she was the one havin’ a kid. That’s probably why people always assume the baby’s mine when we’re out. And I do love havin’ her around, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t imagine havin’ a kid of my own yet, ya know?”

Harry nods, remembering himself as a young man - too concerned with the complicated process of finding his place in a world set on alienating him to consider a life outside his own. In a way, those days had dragged on and perhaps they’d never quite ceased, but to Eggsy, he says, “You’re still young.”

“Yeah, well, that’s easy to forget sometimes. I can’t say there’s many happy endings ‘round me, but some are more dismal than others. I know a kid from school who’s got an eight-year-old and a mate of mine’s got a little boy he hasn’t seen for three years now, and he’s only twenty-one.” He worries his lip between his teeth, then says: “Sorry, don’t mean to be a bummer.”

“No, not at all."

“Let’s talk ‘bout somethin’ else. What’ve you been up to since Monday?”

“Only work,” Harry says and there’s nothing he’s trying to disguise in it, but Eggsy still asks:

“That it?”

His smile is thin, strained – it whispers of his desire for things to be different. “I’m afraid so.”

“Ya don’t do much with your time, do ya?” Eggsy asks, because while Harry’s past is undoubtedly more colourful than he cares to admit to, he has the sneaking suspicion that his life has since settled into a monotony so pervasive it isn’t even coloured in hues of black and white anymore but drenched in a single shade of grey.

Harry says, “I work forty-five hours a week at the shop and spend my evenings in the company of the arts, culinary and otherwise, and, admittedly more often than not, that happens in my own home. You tell me what you consider that to be.”

“Habit, innit,” Eggsy says. He’s swirling his wine, mirroring Harry unconsciously. “I’m curious, when’s the last time you went out?”

“Monday,” Harry says without hesitation, the corner of his mouth twitching, “You were there.”

“Obviously I meant before that.”

“I’m well aware,” he says, the words quick as a whip as if he’s been balancing them on his tongue knowing they’d come in handy.

The thought sends a thrill up Eggsy’s spine. They’re dancing through a conversation here:  mouths moving along words they can anticipate three lines ahead.

“Let’s see,” Harry says, pretending to rake through his memory for a moment before he says: “I had dinner at the Bombay Brasserie with Merlin the other week.”

“Okay, and before that? Last genuinely exciting thing?”

“With someone or on my own?”

“Mmh, one for both.”

“Well, I visited Vienna in June to go to a private concert in the home of a world-renowned cellist,” Harry says, careful about not sounding any more pretentious than the content of the sentence renders him by default.

It still makes Eggsy want to roll his eyes, but he settles on asking: “Alone?”

“Alone, yes,” Harry confirms and it’s just another reluctant truth among the many he’s already divulged to Eggsy. If he’d been in a relationship serious enough to merit a trip like that, he hardly would’ve been online looking for someone to take home two months later.

Treading in territory he has no business in, but too curious to stop, Eggsy asks, “What about the last time you went on a date?”

“March last year,” Harry says after beat, the admission uncomfortable even for him.

“Fuck,” Eggsy says without thinking, “and I thought Jamal had a shit track record.” He instantly wishes he could unsay it because Harry’s eyes slide away, a pink sting creeping into the tips of his ears. Humiliation, Eggsy thinks; it looks strange on him – out of place.

“Why do you think I placed an advert online?” Harry asks quietly and Eggsy shrugs.

“I don’t know, I didn’t really question it… Beyond the possibility that you were just like a really weird serial killer.”

Harry blinks at him for a long, dumbfounded moment, then says, “Right,” and takes a large gulp of his wine.

“Look, I don’t mean that as offence-”

“No, it’s… a reasonable consideration.”

“Stranger online-”

“Unconventional proposal-”

“But I mean, that whole thing aside, there really ain’t no reason ya couldn’t find someone. If ya actually looked, I mean.”

Harry cocks an eyebrow at him in that way that demands further elucidation, so Eggsy says: “You’d have to set up an actual profile, of course, with, like, pictures and a bio, but I really think you could make the, uh, online dating thing work.”

“Well, thank you for having faith in me, but I doubt it is for me,” Harry says primly.

“Why not?” Eggsy asks, challenging him. “You reckon you’re just gonna run into someone at a bar? People don’t meet people the way they used to anymore, Harry, and even if they did, you ain’t exactly the going out type. What are ya gonna do, chat up a stranger? I don’t fuckin’ think so. And yeah, there are some creeps out there on the internet and probably a catfish or two, but there’s also real people. I bet you’d get snatched up like that-” he snaps his fingers- “I mean… just look at ya: You’re pretty fit, sophisticated, kind, smart, well-dressed – the list just goes on. I’m not sayin’, ‘Get on Tinder,’ but maybe be open to the idea of lookin’ where you haven’t dared look before. There ain’t nothing wrong with wantin’ affection.”

“I-” Mouth opening and closing around a few mis-starts, Harry finally manages to ask: “Why do you care ?”

Eggsy shrugs.  It’s an obvious truth to him, so he says, “I’ve spent enough time with ya to wanna see you happy,” but the sentiment feels too heavy hanging in the air between them. A lopsided, cheeky smile coming to his rescue, he tacks on a quick, “Cheesy, I know,” to diffuse the situation. 

Harry shakes his head. “No. If anything, I think it shows a remarkable amount of empathy and emotional depth.”

Lucky for Eggsy, the sound of the kitchen timer spares him the trouble of trying to say something to that, the moment well and truly shattered at the borderline heart attack they’re both given.

Harry’s dining room is done up in the same yellow as the parlour, the dark furniture carrying over all the way across from the living room. His mahogany table must be larger than the dinner table at Rosalie’s, though Eggsy doubts it has any real practical use besides filling up space.

Tonight, it is set only for two, their plates opposite one another at the far end. There’s a floral arrangement sitting in the middle of the table – clearly not a purchase made for Eggsy’s sake but one of Harry’s regular indulgences – and he’s grateful to find the candles stashed away on top of the bar table, an incandescent floor lamp lit up for them instead. In essence, the dinner is void of anything that might brand it romantic, though not at the cost of the appearance of wealth; the smooth, wrinkle free tablecloth; matching, unchipped china; and white cloth napkins rolled up in some sort of cool stone rings are still very much in place.

Eggsy touches everything like a child while Harry’s busy in the kitchen. He traces the edge of the bar table – old and re-varnished several times, the sort of piece that might be an heirloom – and sniffs at the liquids in various hefty crystal decanters.

When he hears the oven closing, he sits down and spreads the napkin over his lap, not wanting to be caught nosing around. Harry comes out moments later carrying a large glass oven pan. He sets it down on the table and Eggsy leans forward to inspect the steaming, melted cheese surface of it as sets Harry mittens aside.

“Lasagne?” he asks, registering the pasta and tomato beneath the surface.

“Cannelloni,” Harry corrects, plunging a utensil into the dish and turning the handle towards Eggsy, who lifts a portion onto his plate while Harry takes his seat.

Once he has the food on his plate, Eggsy can see the pasta is arranged in wide tubes spanning the width of the dish instead of flat layers, tomato sauce filling up the crevices between the circles, and something green spilling from inside the rolls. It’s unfamiliar, but not so strange that he feels intimidated. It’s the kind of adventure Eggsy doesn’t have to fear and it’s evident Harry’s worked hard to keep his comfort in mind.

Eggsy pours them each a glass of water as Harry helps himself to some food and then they’re frozen in place for a few seconds, hesitant to start, hands hovering over knives and forks as their eyes meet properly for the first time in several minutes. Harry clears his throat and lets his fingers close around the silverware.

“Bon appetit,” he says and the spell breaks, the precipice they seemed to be standing on just a second ago dispelled into nothing.

Eggsy digs in with the same fervour he’s learned to have for all the meals he’s had in Harry’s company, his desire to eat driven less by the hunger that normally has him wolfing down three pasties when he gets home and more with the excitement of being about to experience something so good, it’s going to invariably make him happy . This time is no exception; the food is steaming hot and he has to blow on every mouthful, but what looks like a mess on his plate dissolves into something that’s simultaneously rich in flavour, creamy, and textured in his mouth, a variety of sensory nuances dancing around each other to form an amalgamation he can only describe as warmth.

“This is fuckin’ delicious,” he says and pulls one of those pleased smiles out of Harry that he tries to hide from others. “What’s in this?”

“The stuffing is made of ricotta cheese, baby spinach, and courgettes and the rest is simply pasta, homemade marinara, and some cheese to top everything off. It may not be the most complex dish, but I’ve always found it quite charming.”

“Yeah, it’s got like a home chef vibe,” Eggsy says, “not that we ever make food like this.”

“I’m certain you could manage,” Harry says and Eggsy, mistaking it for modesty, shakes his head, but Harry insists. “Cooking really is not as daunting as it’s made out to be. The notion that grown men are incapable of making a decent meal for themselves is ridiculous. You’re perfectly capable of putting a meal like this together.”

It isn’t an admonishment, Harry’s tone going soft on the last bit, but an admission of faith – encouragement, kindness, all those intangible little acts that have been in such short supply in Eggsy’s life. It draws a delirious smile out of him, the kind that smarts.

Shifting the topic, Eggsy says, “You said you ain’t no Rosalie, but this seems pretty good to me, so what else you got up your sleeve?”

“Well, I can prepare a fairly compelling mushroom risotto, some soups, a few basic dishes to rotate during the week, a decent Sunday roast. In theory, I do also know how to bake bread, but it isn’t a skill often put into practise.”

“So… basically a pro.”

“Not quite.”

“C’mon, you’ve got more dishes under your belt than my mum and she cooks for us most nights. Or is this one of those things where ya ain’t got a clue what passes as ‘normal’?” Harry shoots him one of his incredulous ‘pardon me’ looks and Eggsy says: “You know, like how you probably don’t know what a pint of shit beer costs or how little a family of four can spend on a week’s shopping when money’s tight and you walk thirty minutes to the closest Aldi to buy 20p spaghetti. I mean, I don’t know if those are average experiences exactly, but I’m pretty sure when it comes to puttin’ food on the table after a long day at work, most people go for the easy, cheap thing.”

“I don’t cook like this every night,” Harry says as if that’s the point.

“Yeah, but this alone would feed ya for like five whole days on leftovers. Which, by the way, ain’t something you can float by kids. If you try to feed ‘em the same thing more than twice a week, you’re fucked. Take someone like my mum,” Eggsy says, “Imagine coming home from a ten or twelve-hour shift scrubbin’ toilets, possibly overnight, and then imagine having to cook for four people from scratch. Not only that, but if you can choose between a peaceful evenin’ in front of the telly at and tryin’ to get some veg into a pissed off toddler, well, there are only so many days ya can be strong. It’s prolly true that it ain’t that hard and anyone can learn, but not everyone’s got the time, the resources, or the energy to.”

“I didn’t mean to imply-”

“I know,” Eggsy cuts in, because he does and he isn’t angry. “You gotta understand though... We hear this so often with no regard for the circumstances of our daily lives, that it starts to fall on deaf ears. I know you mean well just like I know my mum’s only ever wanted the best for me and my sister, but she’s only human. We’re all only human and we’re tryin’. It probably don’t look like much from your point of view, but trust me: we’re all trying. ” 

Eggsy swallows, the conversation having suddenly become a little too real, Harry’s eyebrows knitted together with sympathy, though he averts his eyes when Eggsy’s looking because he knows Eggsy doesn’t want his pity.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I didn’t mean to go off like that.”

Harry says, “No, I understand,” with that perfect calm of his, his evenness comforting for a change. It makes Eggsy think he could absorb anything, that, for once, he’s going to be heard . It’s a dizzying notion and he isn’t quite sure what to do with it.

Desperate to escape the table, Eggsy says, “Just- Thanks for dinner,” and sets his napkin down on the table as he pushes his chair back.

He stalks off to the bathroom without bothering to ask where it is, some vague memory of seeing the door earlier carrying him through the house. He slams into the back of the door with the weight of his whole body, heart racing. He doesn’t know what’s gotten into him, why he insists on arguing –  why the razor-sharp focus of Harry’s dark eyes on him makes his mind stutter.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asks himself, his tongue moving around the words though he makes no sound.

He isn’t here to eat cannelloni. He isn’t here for the company, or the gratitude; the only thing Eggsy can call it is gravity, but even that is horribly romantic, which is not something he is.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, he opens his eyes and forces himself to face reality, but all he sees is a stuffed dog and he almost screams. By some grace, he manages to clamp a hand over his mouth on the preparatory inhale and the breath out comes whooshing quietly through his nose. It takes him another moment before he can move, eyes glued to the creature mounted on the shelf above the loo. At a closer distance, he can make out the letters on the little golden plaque – Mr. Pickles – and he wonders if this is just a display of terrible taste in decor or whether Harry’s actually gone and stuffed a dead pet to keep it in the downstairs loo.

He does have all those butterflies , Eggsy reminds himself, two cases of them hung even in this tiny room.

Realising how long he’s been gone for, Eggsy flushes the toilet and steps over to the sink to run the taps for a moment, even running a hand under the water because he knows it changes the sound of the water hitting the sink.

When he re-emerges, the dining room has been cleared and he has to pad into the kitchen to find Harry.

“All right?” he asks and Eggsy nods even though he doesn’t feel it.

Instead of asking about the dog, he opts for asking about whether they’re having dessert.

“What, right away?” Harry asks and Eggsy shrugs.

“Yeah, I figured why not.” The ‘why not’ would be polite dinner etiquette, but Eggsy’s shaken up and fighting a losing battle with his own mind and he needs to get the fuck out of this house before he says something really stupid.

Harry asks: “Would you like some coffee?” When Eggsy shakes his head, he adds. “Do you mind if I brew some for myself?”

“No, ‘course not,” Eggsy says and tries to smile encouragingly, because he knows he seems furtive and the very last thing wants to do is alarm Harry. It’ll only make things worse.

They stand around awkwardly while the coffee drips, perched on opposite counters, the water in the coffee machine gurgling restlessly. “Brandy, perhaps?” Harry asks when there’s a pause in the splutters and Eggsy immediately nods, the thought of something to take the edge off sounding like a damn blessing right now.

“The decanters and glasses are out in the living room,” he says. “You can pour yourself anything you want.”

It’s a dismissal as good as any and Eggsy excuses himself with a simple nod. The room’s gotten much darker in the hour they’ve been away, dusk falling outside, and he instinctively clicks on an extra lamp on his way to the bar cabinet. It’s smaller than the setup in the dining room, but a similar, ancient piece – one Eggsy gets the distinct sense might have been Harry’s father’s, little rings from scotch glasses worn into the top even though it’s now filled with snifters.

He reaches for one of the glasses stashed on the top shelf and settles on the second of three decanters on top of the cabinet, sniffing at each before he pours himself a measure of two fingers. It’s the colour of the amber bracelet he bought on his first and only continental shore leave in the marines – the one he lost years ago – and Eggsy feels a stab of longing for those times.

He tries to chase the memory away with a sip of brandy, but the drink is so strong, it almost sends him into a coughing fit. Eggsy briefly considers pouring his drink back into the decanter, but the thought strikes him too disrespectful, so he replaces the crystal plug and takes his glass back to the kitchen.

“D’you have any ice?” he asks Harry, who’s stirring his coffee with his back turned to Eggsy.

The spoon clinks against the rim of the cup when he says, “Yes,” and turns around to open the freezer for Eggsy. There is indeed a tray of ice in it, Eggsy’s tub of ice cream sitting next to it, and he takes them both out while he’s at it.

“We’ll need some bowls too,” he says, but Harry’s way ahead of him already setting them down in front of Eggsy before he’s finished his sentence.

Harry’s thin, knowing smile and their strange synchrony feel like taking two easy steps in the dance they’ve been tripping through all night and it reminds Eggsy of how they’re not always at odds.

“Presumably spoons too?” Harry asks, trying to be sly.

Eggsy pops three ice cubes into his drink. “Yes.”

He cracks open the tub, fingers practised on the plastic bit he’s fumbled with on so many childhood summer evenings. He’d considered buying something nicer for Harry’s sake, but the bleach white chemical vanilla ice cream he’s subsisted on for so many years is nothing without it’s watery taste, so he’s sprung for the authentic off-brand tub.

It’s meant to be a slice of his life, after all.

“Is this what we’re having?” Harry asks once Eggsy’s dished out two helpings. There is no judgement or prejudice in his tone, so Eggsy decides to play nice too.

“No,” he says and grabs the container of rainbow sprinkles to shake them in front of Harry. “ These are ingredient number two.”

Harry deadpans, “Fascinating,” and Eggsy rolls his eyes at him fondly.

“It don’t look like much, I know, but this is never not amazing. Now, if you’re like my sister, you put the sprinkles in now–” he pours a generous amount into Harry’s bowl– “so that when the ice cream melts a bit and you mix it all, you get this pastel streaked mess.”

He gestures for them to move into the living room and Harry follows obediently bowl in hand, though he does asks: “And if one is you?”

“Then you wait for the ice cream to melt first and put the sprinkles in later so you get a nice, sugary crunch. I’ll let you try some of mine to compare.”

“How gracious of you.”

“Yeah, it is ‘cause you’ll realise my way’s the real way.”

He finds his spot on the sofa and draws his feet up onto the seat as Harry takes his.

“So, to clarify, we’re waiting for this to melt?” Harry asks, “Doesn’t that defy the purpose of ice cream?”

“It would if you wait till it’s turned to soup, but what ya wanna do here is give it just enough time to turn it into a sort of soft ice.”

“All right,” Harry says, still sounding sceptical, though he mimics Eggsy in hacking his scoops to bits with the spoon, stirring every now and then to try turn the molten and the solid bits into something uniform.

A comfortable silence reminiscent of those at the country estate envelopes them and Eggsy leans his chin on his knee, resting the bowl on his other thigh. The moment feels like that afternoon in the library, delicate and companionable, and in times like these Eggsy, almost wants to run himself into this in spite of all his reservations.

“Is this what it’s meant to look like?” Harry asks after a few minutes, pulling a spoonful out of the bowl for Eggsy to see. It’s turned three different colours and soft enough for Eggsy’s tastes, so he nods.

He pours some sprinkles into his own bowl while Harry has his first mouthful, then thrusts his bowl towards him. “Here, try this one.”

“It’s got a bite,” he says and even Eggsy can hear the crunch.

“Yeah, that’s kinda the idea.”

“I think I agree with your sister on this front.”

“What? No,” Eggsy says. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“Do you not want honesty?” Harry asks and it’s a more earnest question than Eggsy is expecting.

“Yeah, I do,” he says quietly, then perks up and defiantly adds: “But it don’t matter in this case anyway. Dais’ won’t ever know.”

Harry’s lips press together to suppress a smile, his eyes fluttering for a moment with the effort. It’s an expression so real, Eggsy swallows and has to look away. He chooses to focus on eating his ice cream and makes short work of the portion.

He’s done long before Harry and is left to watch him and fidget. “D’you ever think about how insane this all was?” he asks out of the blue, impatience gnawing at him.

“What exactly?” Harry asks between spoonfuls.

Eggsy shrugs. “You know, everything. That they all believed us. I mean, the whole point was that it’s a crazy premise, right? And yet like fifteen people fell for it hook, line, and sinker – no questions asked.”

“I suppose it was a convincing performance.”

“Still though… You and me, together, that’s gotta be-” Laughable . That’s what he means to say, but there’s a sound like a gallon of marbles being upended on the roof and Eggsy’s eyes snap up in surprise, the word forgotten on his tongue.

“Is that rain?” he asks, halfway to his feet and hurtling towards the window before the words are even out. It’s a universal reflex – Harry right on his heels, shifting the wooden shutters with a deft hand as Eggsy yanks the curtains out of the way. They aren’t the only ones to see what the commotion is about; the lights go on in at least one house and Eggsy thinks he sees the curtains move in another, though it’s hard to tell anything for certain through the downpour. For all the rain in London, this is the kind that startles – loud, dense, and brutal – fat droplets bouncing off the cobblestones on the street.

Eggsy watches, heart hammering in tune with the water. He doesn’t realise just how close Harry is standing until the first flash of lightning tears through the sky and he jumps back only to knock into the other man. “Sorry,” he murmurs as he finds his feet, flustered, Harry’s hand firm on his arm.

Eggsy makes the mistake of glancing down at it and then up at Harry who’s looking at him and keeps doing so without shame. His eyes are pitch black when he’s backlit like this, and there’s a breathlessness to him Eggsy isn’t sure whether he ought to ascribe to their proximity or the weather.

For a moment, he thinks they’re going to kiss, Harry’s lips parted over a faint exhale and his eyes flicking down to Eggsy’s mouth, but then he swallows and releases Eggsy’s arm. He takes a step back and the tension fizzles, a flame snuffed out, and Eggsy thinks he’s going to fall over leaning into the empty space he leaves behind, because that was the only thing keeping him upright in his own delirium, but fortunately his feet seem to take on a life of their own and carry him safely back to the sofa.

He reaches for his brandy on auto pilot, the ice mostly gone by now. He nurses it without tasting it, distantly aware of his throat burning, though it’s a hard sensation to single out – all of him overheated.

At his end of the sofa, Harry is finishing his ice cream in heaped spoonfuls. His coffee is still untouched and Eggsy thinks if he has to sit there and watch him drink that too, he’s going to lose his mind.

“Maybe I should be going,” he says and tips back the rest of the brandy. “It’s getting late,” he croaks through the sting, trying desperately not to cough.

Harry asks, “Are you sure?” voice neutral, though his frown is practically begging Eggsy to stay. It’s easy enough to read, but it’s also easy to deny.

If Harry would ask him outright to stay, Eggsy isn’t sure he could refuse, but, as things are, he says, “Yeah,” and shoves himself up off the sofa.

“All right, well, I’ll get your coat.”

“My-” He hadn’t even noticed it wasn’t on the back of the armchair where he’d flung it anymore, Harry already such a familiar presence around him that he’s stopped watching his every move – not something that comes naturally.

Eggsy’s still grappling with how unsettling a thought that is when Harry manages to invade his space without his notice again. He’s crouched over his shoes doing up the laces when his jacket appears out of nowhere, just suddenly there . Some furious, burning part of Eggsy wants to snatch it from Harry and bolt, but he is holding it out for Eggsy to slip into, so he doesn’t have a choice besides getting up and letting Harry help him into it.

“Thanks,” Eggsy says and Harry nods his polite miniature nod, the one that’s all manners and no sentiment.

He reaches around Eggsy to unlatch the door for him and Eggsy shoves his hands into his pockets as the chill of the night rushes in to greet him. It’s dark outside by now, his path home lit sparsely by porch lights down the Mews, the street beyond a shimmering float in the ocean of the life he leads beyond this doorway.

So this is where it ends , he thinks, torn between relief and reluctance.

“Thank you,” Eggsy says and swallows, an unexpected pang of loss constricting his throat, “For dinner, for everything.”

He wants Harry to say something too, but all he gets is that same nod.

“It was fun,” he tries.

He’s sure his smile is absolutely pitiful, but it does get Harry to say, “It was… something,” in a voice that is gravelly and quiet, eyes restless on Eggsy’s face like he’s trying to take in all of him without seeing anything at all, and Eggsy doesn’t know what to say to that, his heart lodged in his throat, caught in the space between his clavicles so he can’t breathe.

“I,” he starts and then doesn’t, his breath a furtive little thing cut off halfway by the serrated edge of emotion in his throat. And Harry – Harry who is so wrong for him even though nothing’s ever felt this right – follows his inhale, leaning in impossibly close so that, when Eggsy tilts his head up, their lips brush.

It’s a tender, chaste thing, but it opens the floodgates for Harry to come crashing down on him. The kiss is feverish and sloppy for a few desperate moments – all stumbling feet and stuttering breaths – and nothing like that first, false attempt at one they had in a crowded room weeks ago. This one’s laden with a month’s tension: clumsy and handsy, Eggsy’s fingers twisting into the fabric of Harry’s shirt over his shoulders as Harry’s hands find his waist.

He isn’t sure who pulls on whom, but they stumble backwards two steps, just enough for Harry to push the door shut and shove Eggsy up against it without preamble. There’s enough force in the motion to knock the air out of Eggsy and he gasps, the vertigo of all the things he’s been keeping in rushing out making the room spin.

Harry, just as breathless against his ear, bends to nose at Eggsy’s neck. His exhale warm against Eggsy’s skin, so that Eggsy can’t decide whether to bare more of himself or squirm out from under him, everything seeming like too much and not enough at once. He settles on just tipping his head back against the door when Harry presses a kiss behind his jaw and lets a hand sink into Harry’s hair. That draws a sound out of Harry he feels more than hears, a moan that reverberates in the cavity of his chest like a secret. It’s so heady, Eggsy draws his fingers into a fist filled with his soft curls and pulls Harry’s head back to kiss him again.

He’s rewarded for the trouble with the firm press of Harry’s body against his, his thigh pressing up between Eggsy’s legs, a hand pinning his free wrist to the door. God , he thinks, the things they’ve denied themselves. He hasn’t kissed anyone like this all year, his last conquest a drunken one-night stand in February and all he remembers of that are the bitemarks he found on his shoulder the next morning.

This is something else entirely: sober and deliberate in spite of the fact that he feels like he’s been knocked off a tightrope, the weightlessness of a fatal fall settling into the pit of his stomach. All he can do is cling to Harry, whose hands are ravenous on him. He’s pushed his palms up under Eggsy’s shirt to map out his bare skin, fingers skating over his stomach, up his sides, across his chest, and back down to brush against the waistband of his trousers all while Eggsy is still lost in the marvel of his hair, holding on for dear life.

If he weren’t so caught up in the urgency of the moment, Eggsy might be embarrassed about the insistence with which his erection is making itself known. He pushes his shoes off with his back pressed into the door before he retrieves his pinned hand to press it against Harry’s chest to get away from the damned door already.

Harry takes the hint to move things along and guides him forward, the hazards of his house so engrained in the memory of the soles of his feet, he can track across the floor backwards while Eggsy’s trying to simultaneously snog him senseless and get his coat off, though it’s ultimately Harry who pushes the thing off to be abandoned somewhere on the floor.

He drags Eggsy across to the parlour to the stairs, a hand braced against the edge of the bannister to keep Eggsy from knocking into it arse first.

“Upstairs?” Eggsy asks, somewhat delirious, the layout of Harry’s house the last thing on his mind when he’s just had the man’s tongue in his mouth.

The stairs are too much of a hazard to navigate blindly, so Harry climbs after him, undoing the top buttons of his shirt while he’s at it. Eggsy grabs him by the open collar as soon as he’s on the landing, pulling Harry up the last two steps and towards him.

Their momentum feels boundless in that moment; it presses Eggsy up into the closest wall, head hitting the wall inches from a picture frame and Harry’s fingers digging into his hip. He growls against Eggsy’s cheek, soft but demanding, and his hands find the buttons on his polo shirt – undone quickly to pull it over Eggsy’s head.

He’s vulnerable laid bare in front of Harry like that, hair tousled and eyes wild, but it doesn’t frighten him like it might with someone else, because Harry’s always watching, always quietly seeking permission. He never takes anything for granted and for that reason alone, Eggsy is willing to give him everything . He lets his arms come down around Harry’s neck and in turn, Harry’s hands move up his back: searching, the same way his eyes are.

“You look like something carved by the gods,” he says, voice made of jagged stone, and Eggsy’s heart threatens to shatter.

“Shut up,” he whispers into Harry’s neck.

It sounds like a plea and his eyes feel hot, liquid and unsteady like the rest of him, Harry’s fingertips in the divot of his spine are making him shiver.

He could still make this end, go home without dealing either of them any more damage. He could keep Harry’s in his mind like this forever; those could be his last words to Eggsy, tinged with the scent of his cologne in the crook of his neck, but Eggsy wants more. He wants all of Harry and he wants to give him all of himself in return, so that their lives will have been irrefutably entangled for just one moment – so that they can be part of each other’s history for more than pretence.

There are no witnesses here this time, but Eggsy isn’t here for anyone but himself. It’s him who needs to feel the planes of Harry’s skin beneath his hands. It’s him who eases Harry’s shirt out of his trousers to press hesitant fingers into the warmth underneath.

It doesn’t have to mean anything. It can’t.

Even though he’s lean, Harry doesn’t have the same muscle tone as him, and Eggsy’s fingers sink into soft flesh. Eggsy lets his hands drift and soak up his warmth and Harry sighs, fingers twitching against Eggsy’s back in response.

It’s a quiet moment and far too tender for what this encounter is supposed to be, so Eggsy scrapes his nails down Harry’s sides, drawing a moan out of Harry that only serves to turn Eggsy on even more, his jeans more than a little uncomfortable by now.

Growing impatient, Eggsy grinds his hips against Harry’s thigh, an unambiguous invite. Harry, eager to please, pulls him forward by his hips, fingers hooked into the belt loops in Eggsy’s jeans. They make their way slowly down the hall, constantly threatening to trip on each other, their feet a jumbled mess of tiny, blind steps and Eggsy’s fingers working their way down the buttons on the front of Harry’s shirt.

They bump into yet another door, though this time it’s Harry who’s got his back up against it, giving Eggsy the room to fumble open the last of his buttons while Harry feels around for the doorknob. He finds it just as Eggsy pushes his shirt off his shoulders and the door gives way behind them. Eggsy nearly falls over from the shift in balance, but Harry’s there to catch him, palms spread wide on his back.

Calves meeting the edge of the bed and with Harry closing in on him, Eggsy finally lets himself fall. Harry comes tumbling down with him, though he manages to catch himself on an arm and get a knee under himself to keep from crushing Eggsy. He’s so distracted by the effort of balancing his weight, Eggsy has time to open his belt and undo his trousers before Harry retaliates with a mouth on his neck, teeth grazing sensitive skin. He sucks a bruise to the surface as punishment, then presses a gentle kiss to his clavicle.

It’s maddening, so Eggsy shoves Harry’s trousers out of the way and grinds his hips up to gain some leverage. That only earns him a painful scrape of teeth and he hisses as that edge between pleasure and pain slices him clean open.

Harry, the cruel bastard he is, just smirks at him as he crawls off the bed to take his trousers off properly. The sudden loss of contact only makes Eggsy’s nerves feel more frayed, his eyes going unfocused on the ceiling. He’s certain he’s going to go insane if this drags on any longer, but luckily Harry doesn’t seem intent on torturing him, his lips pressing back over the mark he made earlier before he works his way lower.

He nips at a nipple and, when Eggsy bucks underneath him in surprise, he presses the flat of his tongue over it to soothe. It’s an excruciating back and forth, but Eggsy endures it because it’s headed in the right direction, however painfully slow.

Harry’s patience is far greater than his; he takes the time to explore Eggsy inch by inch with a combined tactile assault of his mouth, teeth, and tongue – fingertips ghosting down Eggsy’s flanks as an afterthought.

Eventually though, his hands find the front of his jeans and Harry undoes them without ceremony, mouth plush against the skin above Eggsy’s navel. Eggsy lifts his hips as soon as Harry hooks his fingers into his waistband, eager to get rid of the uncomfortable fabric. He manages to get his socks off too somewhere in the confusion, though his mind briefly goes blank when the tip of his cock grazes Harry’s chest, even that little bit of friction lethal at this point.

The sound he makes is absolutely mortifying and he feels the flush rise as Harry’s huffs against his thigh. He presses a few butterfly kisses inches from Eggsy’s knee before he settles in for something slower, more deliberate, cupping Eggsy’s thigh with a large hand to press it against his mouth.

The move is unambiguous in intent and Eggsy feels a thrill run up his spine at the touch of Harry’s tongue tracing rarely touched flesh. It sends his heart racing, goosebumps breaking out over his stomach with the anticipation of becoming intimately acquainted with that mouth. Terrified he’s going to blow his one chance at this, Eggsy bites his lip when Harry lifts his head from his thigh, eyes still firmly fixed on the ceiling.

He still ends up looking when two hands grip the tops of his thighs and unexpectedly drag him down the mattress. His surprise draw his eyes toward Harry’s, who maybe never stopped looking at him in the first place, because they seem like they’ve been on him forever. Pinned under his gaze, Eggsy swallows, hyper aware of how exposed he is even in the half dark of the bedroom. In this light, Harry’s eyes are unreadable, but Eggsy can feel the weight of his scrutiny as surely as the warmth of his hands.

It strips him barer than he’s comfortable with, so he presses a foot into Harry’s side to urge him on, pleased when his eyes flick away to settle between Eggsy’s legs. He still sees Harry swallow before he turns his eyes skyward again, Adam’s apple bobbing along the column of his throat, and then he’s holding his breath because he knows Harry’s going to duck.

His lips close around the shaft of Eggsy’s cock and the slick heat of the inside of his cheeks and the heavy warmth of his tongue tap into something primal in Eggsy, pulling a guttural moan from him. The sound is obscene and Eggsy has to grip the sheets to keep himself from letting out another as Harry’s fingers curl around the base of him.

He starts with a languid, almost lazy slide and Eggsy mutters a disbelieving, “Oh god,” that comes out more as a grunt than actual words. Some part of him thinks he’s never going to be able to see straight again after this, not with the memory of his cock pressed into the roof of Harry’s posh mouth seared into his brain like a church fresco waiting to be unearthed at any moment.

Harry hums around him as though he can sense Eggsy’s thoughts drifting and the sensation draws him back in and ever closer to the edge. Eggsy feels it loom just out of reach as Harry’s tongue swirls around his tip, swift on the upstroke and dragging all too slowly on the way back down.

His mouth is the mouth of a tease and Eggsy’s self-control is unravelling faster than his mind can follow, the thread of his thought constantly slipping out of reach. He’s broken out in a sweat somewhere in the last minute, the sheets damp in his fists. In an effort not to buck his hips, he drives a heel into Harry’s back, seeking purchase in the resistance of taut muscle. It does nothing to stop him from gasping for breath though, inane little nothings spilling from his lips as Harry hollows his cheeks theatrically for a moment.

He hasn’t gotten sucked off with this kind of devotion probably ever and Eggsy can’t keep himself from sinking his hands back into Harry’s hair in a desperate attempt to regain even an ounce of control. It doesn’t stop the heat from pooling in his pelvis, but at least Harry’s hands tighten on his thighs at the tug of Eggsy’s fingers, so he knows he isn’t alone in being unbearably turned on.

Apparently out of patience now, Harry picks up the pace up from there and Eggsy knows he’s done for, his heart slamming away at two hundred beats per minute as he comes. His orgasm breaks over him with the weight of the entire world, convulsion after convulsion rippling through him. All he feels amid the tension is the stutter of his heartbeat, pulsing even on the canvas of a vision washed white with pleasure.

He comes to slowly, various body parts beginning to register in the periphery of his mind. First, Eggsy becomes aware of his hands, clenched so tight he must be hurting Harry, not that he seems to mind, pulling back only far enough to wipe his mouth when Eggsy loosens his grip. He shifts by inches and withdraws his hands to fling them out as his sides as he tries to catch his breath, one foot still pressed flat against Harry’s ribs, the other resting against his hip.

“Fuck,” Eggsy says, directing the words more at the ceiling than Harry, who’s still kneeling over him at the foot of the bed. He’s gone back to peppering Eggsy’s stomach with kisses and Eggsy feels Harry smile against his skin when he says, “Ya could kill someone with that mouth of yours, you know.”

With his heart beginning to slow, he murmurs a quiet, “Thank you,” eyes earnest on Harry’s, and the look they share is one of those things Eggsy knows he’ll never forget.

He cards his fingers affectionately through Harry’s hair, the barest hint of nails against his scalp, and Harry must really like it because he leans forward to rest his forehead against Eggsy’s chest with a sigh. He tries to nuzzle closer, nose brushing Eggsy’s sternum, but he’s caught in a shudder and hisses. Just then it occurs to Eggsy he must still be painfully hard and probably pressed torturously up against the mattress.

“Jesus, you’ve gotta be dying,” he says, forcing himself up onto his elbows to look down over Harry.

He doesn’t move his head from where it’s resting on Eggsy’s stomach, but he does hum a vague agreement, hips held perfectly still against the edge of the bed to save him the agony of any excess friction. “You don’t get through the life I’ve led without a little frustration,” Harry murmurs against his skin.

“Still though,” Eggsy says and shoves at his shoulder. “Just gimme a minute and I’ll be on that.”

“Only the one?” Harry asks, teasing, and Eggsy has to close his eyes before he says, “Okay, maybe a few. I’m pretty spent.”

“I could prep myself, if it helps.”

“Uh... prep yourself,” Eggsy says slowly, the notion that Harry doesn’t want to fuck him but be fucked by him only just beginning to dawn on him. It shouldn’t come as a surprise when Harry’s managed to defy expectations at every turn so far. Somehow, he manages to overcome his amazement long enough to say: “Yeah. Yeah, alright.”

Last night, he’d lain in bed thinking it’d been ages since he’d let anyone fuck him, dancing around the notion that he would let Harry if it came down to it. Now, even that not-quite-fantasy is turned on its head as Eggsy lies there with an arm flung over his eyes trying to calm himself, but it’s no use. Even just the thought of Harry at his mercy makes his cock twitch with interest.

He hears the sound of a drawer opening and closing somewhere to his right, no hesitation and no rummaging there. Harry knows exactly what he’s after and knew to keep it on hand too. The click of a bottle cap is noisy in the room.

Eggsy feels the mattress dip under Harry’s weight and he shifts to make room for him, scooting out of the way and sitting up. The room’s only gotten darker in however long they’ve been up here and, although Eggsy can barely see Harry anymore, there’s something inherently voyeuristic about being perched on the edge of the bed like that, holding his breath to listen to Harry.

At first, Eggsy only hears the rustle of the sheets and a heavy exhale, but as his eyes start to adjust, there’s the strangled whine of a man on the brink of pleasure trying not to be heard, and Eggsy’s surprised to find he’s getting hard again.

Harry’s breathing stays erratic, so he asks, “What are ya up to?” and gets a bitten out: “Three.”

Fuck , Eggsy thinks, this really is the end of the line . “D’you have a condom?”

He gets a packet pressed into his palm with shaking fingers and Eggsy doesn’t need any more encouragement than that. He tears the wrapper open and rolls the condom on, seeking Harry out blindly in the dark.

“Are you ready?” Harry asks, voice thin and Eggsy nods before he realises Harry can’t see and says: “Yeah. You?”

He makes a strained sound and shifts further up the bed. “Mmh-hmm.”

Part of Eggsy wishes he could see better while another knows this wouldn’t be possible without this thin veil of anonymity protecting them from themselves and one another. It’s still Harry whose ankle he finds and follows, but it’s Eggsy’s iteration of him, not the man he is to the rest of the world. Tonight, Harry is naked greed and curious hands and, above all else, he’s entirely Eggsy’s.

Drunk on the thought, Eggsy runs cool fingers down the plane of Harry’s back before he grips his hips and rises onto his knees. He aligns himself with a steady hand and thrusts deep in a measured, fluid motion that makes Harry suck in a noisy breath. If it weren’t already so dark, Eggsy imagines this is the part where his vision would go black.

They both take a moment to adjust before he starts moving again, more measured in his movements than he thinks he’s ever been, every inch of his mind screaming at him to be patient. This isn’t a drunken alleyway quickie; he can’t bungle this. He gets this once only and Eggsy’s hellbent on making it last.

Beneath him, Harry’s breathing is becoming a rhythmic kind of laboured. Eggsy picks up the pace a little to match the roll of Harry’s hips and the shift draws a low, “Oh,” out of Harry that makes Eggsy grateful he’s already come once, because otherwise this would be over faster than his first clumsy attempts at sex as a teenager.

Harry, desperate now, makes a keening noise that’s dampened by his own arm. He’s neither particularly quiet or noisy during sex, involuntary sounds spilling from him like secrets shared in the night, and Eggsy tightens his grip on him to see if he can get anything more out of him.

His hips snap forward with more force and Harry moans, a hand bracing white against the headboard. “Fuck,” Harry gasps, the word rendered far filthier on his tongue than it ever could be on Eggsy’s.

He’s delightful when he’s dishevelled like this, teetering on the edge of losing his composure, and Eggsy wonders how much more he’s going to have to push to get Harry to unravel completely. Transferring more of his weight onto his legs, he leans forward enough to reach for Harry’s cock, closing a fist around it as Harry struggles to stifle another moan. He’s too far gone to hold himself upright properly anymore, so he caves under Eggsy, lowering onto his elbows back arched.

At least it awards Harry the dignity of getting to pant into a pillow, his desperation muffled marginally in it. That doesn’t stop Eggsy from driving into him harder, absolutely ruthless by now, but the position is starting to take its toll on him too and his thighs quiver with the strain of keeping up the pace.

Eggsy grits his teeth through the burn, intent on getting Harry off. It’s the best kind of struggle, a battle strictly between body and mind and a balance he can keep with the right focus. For a few minutes, he runs strictly on willpower, punishing himself for Harry’s sake.

His nails dig into Harry’s skin with the effort of keeping himself upright, but it’s worth it, because then Harry’s coming with a low groan, a tense shudder running through him and into Eggsy. His relief is so palpable, Eggsy comes without meaning to, his own orgasm flooding him by surprise. It nearly knocks him over, one hand braced against the mattress and the other scrabbling for purchase on Harry’s back as his legs threaten to give out.

He manages to keep himself from collapsing onto Harry, but it’s a close thing and he still all but melts into the mattress as soon as he pulls out. Buried half underneath him, Harry erupts in an incredulous burst of laughter.

It takes Eggsy a few moments to catch his breath enough to roll over and ask, “And what the fuck are you laughin’ about?”

“Nothing, I just… It occurred to me I haven’t done something this reckless in literal years and right now I’m struggling for the life of me to remember why .”

It’s because he’s taken on the burdens and fears of so many other people he’s forgotten himself somewhere along the way, but all Eggsy says is, “Because you ain’t always as smart as you look.” Harry pokes him in the ribs for that, but Eggsy knows even in the dark he’s grinning like a loon, so he grabs Harry by the wrist to still him instead of saying anything, tracing a hurtling pulse with the pad of thumb.

Eventually, he gets up to dispose of the condom, stumbling toward what he assumes is an en suite and is pleased to see the white outline of a sink when he opens the door.

“Look out for the-” Harry shouts after him, but it’s too late; Eggsy’s already stubbed his toe on a corner.

“Ow, fuck!” he swears, clutching his foot.

“-I was gonna say shower.”

“Oh yeah?” Eggsy calls back sarcastically, then grumbles, “Thanks a fucking bunch,” as he’s hobbling back out to Harry trying to smother his laughter in his hand.

“Sorry,” Harry says, trying to sound reconciliatory as he reaches for Eggsy. “Come here, let me take a look.”

Eggsy sniffs an insolent, “Fuck off,” but lets himself be pulled back into bed anyway because Harry’s hard to resist when he’s like this: brushing apologetic kisses onto whatever part of Eggsy’s face he can reach, his hair a right mess, and his hands quietly possessive. He hooks a leg over Eggsy’s, foot pressed against his calf, and Eggsy decides there isn’t anywhere he needs to be besides here. There’s a thumb tracking a cord of muscle in his neck and he turns his head into Harry, intent on savouring the moment for what it is: Simple.

Chapter Text

The world returns to him with a wash of cool air and the roll of a mattress in motion under him. Immediately, Eggsy decides this is not home. His hand falls on still warm sheets as his vision adjusts to a back drenched in the blue light of dawn and it takes him a few moments to realise he’s looking at Harry, and that, somewhere, a phone is ringing rather insistently.

There’s another moment of Harry sifting through clothes on the floor before he grumbles a delirious, “Hello?”

In the pause that follows, the person at the other end presumably answering, the reality of where he exactly he is rams into Eggsy at breakneck speed. Weighted with the notion of what he’s waking up to, he deflates with a deep sigh, the word ‘fuck’ flashing behind his eyelids in all caps.

“Christ, what time do you call this?” Harry asks the caller, his sleep grated voice unravelling slowly around the syllables, and Eggsy thinks he’d very much like to know too - though not nearly as much as he wants to go back to sleep and pretend this never happened. No, that isn’t quite right either. What he really wants is to wake in a different way, to a different kind of life where he could find himself in this bed without it belonging to a man who’s twice his age and unattainable on account of being about twenty rungs up the social ladder.

Harry would sigh not out of frustration as he does now but because he’s surfaced from an easy sleep, but that’s not how life goes and every step he takes pacing around the room draws Eggsy further into the realm of consciousness.

“All right,” Harry says quietly, clearly trying to be mindful of Eggsy, “I’ll come in.”

And it’s in that moment that Eggsy knows this is over. It’s not something that comes as a surprise, but knowing he’s gotten everything out of Harry still disquiets him. There is so much to him beneath that poster boy facade of his that no one else has been allowed near in decades - if ever - yet there Eggsy is: a hand pressed over his mouth as if the monumental loss he’s just suffered is something easily held in.

Across the room, Harry stands in the dark for several breaths, the phone hanging from a limp hand by his side. Then he pads over and kneels down beside the bed to wake Eggsy with a gentle hand shaking him by the shoulder.

“Eggsy,” Harry whispers, his tone softer than ever before.

There’s a gentle hand carding through his hair as a silent apology for something that’s neither of their fault and Eggsy aches under the touch. He screws his eyes shut tighter as he hums an acknowledgement of Harry.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” Harry murmurs, fingers drifting over the seams of Eggsy’s skull. “There’s been a sartorial emergency, so I am afraid I will have to go into work.”

“What, someone tear the seat of their pants?” Eggsy grumbles and he can hear the amusement in Harry’s voice when he says, “Something like that.”

The words hang there, encased in a silence born of reluctance to act, the morning mirror still around them until Harry breaks through his hesitation to press a kiss to Eggsy’s shoulder, lips lingering. His thumb traces the curve of the shell of Eggsy’s ear before it drifts onto the pillow and Harry pushes himself back up to his feet and withdraws into the bath to take a shower.

Left alone, Eggsy lets go of the breath that he’s held onto for so long it’s started to burn in his lungs. He drags his hand from his face to his chest and tries to draw comfort from the steady thrum of his heart - still cradled safely within his chest, unbreakable with the day not yet broken and the constellation of moles on Harry’s back still fresh in his mind.

He dresses while Harry showers, tracing their movements from last night in reverse through the lense of a new day. He finds his pants and jeans right there on the bedroom floor; the shirt dangles off the railing on the landing and his jacket lies abandoned on the parlour parquet. One of his socks seems to have vanished entirely from the trail, the other in the doorway of the bedroom, so he stuffs the one he’s found in his pocket and decides to go barefoot.

With the water still running upstairs, Eggsy braves the kitchen in search for a cup of tea or, at the very least, some water.

Luckily for him, Harry’s kettle is less complicated than the coffee machine seems to be, so he fills it for two, flicks the switch, and grabs a tea bag from one of the boxes on the counter. Finding a mug takes him through three different cupboards before he guesses the right one.

He finds what he’s looking for in a cabinet filled with stacks of white plates and rows of identical glasses and mugs stacked neatly onto their own shelves. They’re clearly all part of a set and so different from his - the selection at home a happy mix of mismatched, chipped porcelain cups and worn tupperwares stained yellow from ill-fated encounters with leftover curry.

It’s such a small thing and yet it sets their lives apart by miles, even the collectively British notion of tea a wholly different experience for them.

Eggsy pulls a blue mug from the shelf and fills it halfway with boiling water from a kettle whose inside isn’t entirely coated in limescale, then tops it off with cold water from the tap to cool the drink down faster. Normally, he’d just drink it like that and get the fuck out, but today he’s bold enough to raid the fridge for milk.

He gives the pint a reflexive sniff even though Harry’s doesn’t seem the type to ever have had the milk go off. He probably wouldn’t trust anything past a minute beyond it’s ‘best before’ date, but Eggsy hasn’t taken any chances with this since he poured clotted milk all over the last of his Cocoa Puffs as a kid.

He’s halfway through nursing his tea when some part of the house creaks and it dawns on him that the shower hasn’t been running for a good while. He hasn’t even fully digested the fact that he’s lost his opportunity to make a quiet escape before Harry appears in the doorway, dressed to the nines, suited and armored, every thread tucked in its rightful place.

“Ah, you’ve found the tea,” he says in that polished tone that betrays no emotion. It’s  unnerving now that Eggsy is used to seeing the nuances hidden in the craquelure of Harry’s perfect facade, and it throws him.

Suddenly, they’re on opposite sides of a morning after instead of sharing a night and Eggsy kicks himself again for not getting the hell out of dodge sooner. But the damage is done and all he can do is feign ease, so he continues to lean casually against the counter as if he isn’t struggling to fit himself back into his own skin.

Hair swept into place and his tie tucked safely into the V of his waistcoat, Harry looks every bit himself, the soft creature Eggsy approached last night sealed off and inaccessible now.

He tries to say something about the kettle and trips over himself under the watchful eye of this sharper, more composed version of Harry, so that he only ends up mumbling something unintelligible before taking a sip of his tea.

To put Eggsy out of his misery, Harry says, “I actually prefer coffee in the morning these days,” his vowels clean and the consonants as crisp as the first apple of the season.

He fishes himself a cup out of the same cupboard that Eggsy was in minutes ago, his hands at home where Eggsy fumbled. He can grope for a coffee capsule with one hand and place his mug under the nozzle of the coffee machine with the other without paying any attention to either action, the morning unfolding in the waiting room of his cerebral cortex.

This is his world after all: a house filled with the hiss and splutter of the espresso machine, beams of morning light spilling onto the floor through the shutters. Harry is bags of loose leaf tea and thick tweed and Eggsy in his stonewashed jeans over trainers doesn’t fit in.

The reality of it has never felt quite as scathing as it does in that moment, and Eggsy’s throat closes up around the thought in a vice grip so that when Harry asks, “Would you like anything to eat?” he can only shake his head.

It’s the first time their eyes meet that morning and Eggsy expects himself to freeze under what he finds in Harry’s eyes - rejection, regret, longing - but he just feels hollowed out.

“Are you certain?” Harry asks again and this time Eggsy gathers the strength to say, “Yeah.”

Downing the last of his tea, he adds: “I should get goin’ anyway, get outta your hair.” He places his mug in the sink under Harry’s watchful eye, not sure he’s going to get anything more more out of him, except Harry’s been raised on chivalry so his footsteps follow Eggsy’s into the hall even when words don’t.

He’s put on his shoes by the time Harry actually speaks. “Eggsy-” he starts and then stops.

His right hand hovers over Eggsy’s bicep, grazes it, the touch so light he’d chalk it up to a hallucination if he weren’t looking directly at it. Then he’s blinking back up at Harry and it’s the same kind of freeze-frame moment as last night and Eggsy’s eyes flick instinctively to Harry’s mouth.

“I’m really very sorry about this,” he says.

“Yeah, well,” Eggsy says, eyes sliding sideways, and Harry’s hand slips from his arm to his flank, fingers splayed over his ribcage where they slot into the gaps between his bones and become part of his breathing.

Caught in the heat of the moment, Harry ducks down to kiss him – quick but with a sincerity the drags, like scraping the bottom of the ocean.

It’s a moment Eggsy wishes he could savour, but they’re stranded in a new day too firmly anchored in reality and already dawning with regret, the acute sting of it a distraction for the thing hurting much deeper down.

Still, it’s a pain that’s both visceral and unmooring, impossible to place and inescapable. It pushes Eggsy to take his leave before he does something stupid, the words ‘call me’ stuck in his throat.

“Well,” he says, stood on the threshold, “you know how to find me.”

Sat in a Gregg’s at the station over cheap coffee and a sausage roll waiting for a decent time to go home, Eggsy finally begins to draw out of his sleepy stupor. The caffeine humanises him enough that he can confront the reality of what’s happened even if it makes him all too aware of the fact that he’s essentially doing  a walk of shame through a neighbourhood he wouldn’t be comfortable in dressed to the nines, let alone the half-hungover state he’s currently in.

Strangely, the nagging shame of the looks suited commuters wandering in and out of the shop throw him  doesn’t lend any clarity as to whether he regrets the night itself.

Part of him wishes he’d put a stop to things at Rosalie’s. He could have maintained his distance and let the tension fizzle out instead of coming back and letting it brew into a storm. He could still have taken his leave last night before things progressed, before they staggered across a minefield he can never hope to cross again, but then he’s haunted by the tender moments – the way Harry’s hands linger, frightened to press too hard lest he bruise, and how he’d subconsciously crowded Eggsy after. He’s so clearly clearly starved for intimacy that Eggsy hesitates to call it a simple fuck, but he isn’t deluded enough to think anything will come of this.

He’s not a romantic; no part of his life has let him believe in cinematic love of gargantuan gestures and happiness against all odds. He may be shit at math but even he understands this is an impossible equation.

Besides, what’s to say he isn’t simply attracted to the surreality of it all. After all, there’s a safety in pretence, in knowing none of this will be true anymore once he gets home. For a moment he gets to live a life rife with the kind of tension that won’t get him beat up or land him in jail – something that’s simple even in all its complexity. Maybe he wouldn’t give Harry a second thought in different circumstances.

He’s very nearly convinced himself Harry’s nothing but a poor attempt at escapism when his phone pings with a message from the man and Eggsy’s left wondering all over again.

I wanted to apologise again for this morning, it reads . My intention really wasn’t to herd you out without so much as a piece of toast. I’m afraid it wasn’t very gentlemanly of me. -HH

Ya know ppl don’t sign texts anymore, right? there’s this new thing called contacts now… anyway, it’s fine. i get u r busy.

He doesn’t think anything of his reply until it’s been a few minutes and he hasn’t heard back, and the words starting to take on a cutting edge he didn’t intend them to have. Paranoid he’s offended Harry, Eggsy sends a quick follow-up text: Hope ur meeting went well tho.

It takes another ten minutes for the next message to come in, but when it does, Eggsy smiles.

Yes, it did. Charged the wanker double for dragging me out of bed.

Slipping his phone back into his pocket, he downs the rest of his coffee and heads off.

By some miracle, he manages to slip into the flat while his mum’s getting Daisy ready in the bath so that he can sneak off to his room and catch another few hours of shut eye without being questioned on his movements. It’s well past noon by the time he comes round properly, by which point he’s starving, dehydrated, and knee deep into a pounding headache.

Outside his door, someone laughs, low and gruff. It’s not Dean’s but probably one of his goons, so Eggsy pulls on a pair of sweats before he braves the living room in search of some water and a Nurofen.

“Oi,” Poodle all but barks, “if it ain’t our very own sunshine man.”

Eggsy flips him off, which earns him a look from his mum and a hissed, “Eggsy!” that he chooses to ignore in favour of circumventing a glass and sticking his head straight under the tap to drink greedily.

“When’s this little fucker come home then?” Poodle carries on and Eggsy says, “I didn’t,” to spare his mum.

“What, some bird take yer ugly mug in for the night?”

“Fuck’s it matter to you?” Eggsy retorts and elects not to hear the reply, shutting himself into the bathroom instead.

It’s the first time in a while he’s been alone and in private and he cherishes his twenty minutes in the shower like nothing else, revelling in the bliss of being able to let his mind go blank while the warm water melts the tension out of his shoulder. It’s a rebirth the way all hungover shower are: the filth and grime of the previous night washed down the drain as the actions of a former self become divorced from the one he steps out of the shower as.

Once he’s back in motion, the week slips by just like that. Harry messages him a few more times over the weekend, most of which Eggsy spends at Jamal’s getting hotboxed from the back-to-back joints Liam’s smoking on the settee. Monday finds him babysitting and then he’s stuck running odd jobs for Dean all the way through to Friday.

Curled up in bed in his boxers, he texts, This 9 to 5 shit’s real exhaustin , before he can think any better of it. He isn’t exactly counting on a reply, but he’s also too nervous to keep using his phone so he lies there in the dark listening to a normal evening at home from the outside: the telly’s blaring Top Gear reruns in the other room, the dialogue barely audible and undercut by the occasional sound of the laugh track and a beer can popping open.

When his phone, face up on the covers, buzzes eventually, it lights up half the ceiling, and Eggsy has to will himself not look too soon.

He isn’t entirely sure when talking to Harry became such a juvenile affair, only that he’s sweating when he shouldn’t be and that he can’t help but always try to get the last word in. He feels about fifteen and hates himself for it because he knows this isn’t going to go anywhere and yet he can’t seem to break away either.

He checks his screen three minutes into the ten minute wait he set himself and just like that he’s back to typing.

What exactly is it you have been doing? Harry asks .

Don’t worry bout it… guessin you’ve been busy patching up people’s trousers

Something like that.

What r u doin next weekend??

Merlin seems to have co-opted me for moving his things to his new flat in Marylebone, so I expect that.

Ouch, don’t break ur back

Will do my best.

He doesn’t get a second message and thinking of a reply takes Eggsy so long, he falls asleep in the process.

By the time Eggsy eventually washes up at the pub the following Friday, he’s almost forgotten about Harry, at least until Ryan asks, “By the way, have ya heard anythin’ else from that geezer?”

“Who, Harry?” Eggsy asks, feigning ignorance even though he knows exactly who Ryan’s asking after.

“Well, how many of these fuckers d’you have on the go?” Ryan challenges him and Eggsy can’t avoid reverting back to answering the question.

“None now, ya tosser,” Eggsy says, and adds, “I reckon that’s a done deal now,” because after nearly a week of radio silence, he’s not too optimistic about the whole thing.

He hopes it’s enough to get Ryan off his back, but he’s got no such luck. It’s a quieter night than usual, no footy match up on the walls to distract them, so Ryan says, “You don’t look too pleased,” a rotten tendril of insinuation in his tone.

Eggsy tries to shrug it off, not keen on the idea of confessing that things between him and Harry have escalated beyond what should have been strictly a business arrangement, or that he might not actually mind that development all that much. “It was easy money, innit,” he tries, though even he knows it sounds half-hearted.

His friends shoot each other a look and Eggsy sighs, bracing himself for whatever lecture he’s about to get.

“You’re full of shit, mate,” Ryan tells him point blank and Jamal chimes in with, “Ya didn’t even get paid last time.”

“Why are you so fuckin’ bothered anyway?” Eggsy snaps. “It’s none of your business.”

“Alright, bruv, chill,” Jamal says and holds his hands up, not willing to get into a full blown confrontation just because Ryan’s bored.

“Sorry,” Eggsy says. “I’ve just had a rough week, yeah?”

What he doesn’t tell them is that it’s because he’s checked his phone every time he’s even thought it buzzed, or that there’s always a sting of disappointment when it’s one of them texting him instead of Harry, that Eggsy’s last question is still sitting unanswered in the chat, four days gone now. Maybe it’s bothering him more than it should and evidently it shows but he still isn’t about to have a schoolgirl breakdown in front of his friends.

“I heard Rotti had you on his leash,” Jamal says, trying to change the topic.

“What, from the wanker himself?”Eggsy asks. “Nah, mate. Dean put me in touch with someone and he just happened to be there.”

“That’s not what Poodle’s been sayin’.”

“Poodle’s a middle-aged fuck with a face like the arse-end of a rhino.”

Ryan suppresses a snort over the rim of his glass as Jamal almost inhales the giant crisp he’s just painstakingly manoeuvred into his mouth whole.

“If ya wanna be rid of his ugly mug, you could always scrub toilets at McDonald’s or whatever. Maybe Jamal can hook ya up,” Ryan suggests.

“Fuck off. It’s an alright job, actually, and I’m the kitchen now,” Jamal snipes back and the conversation devolves into an argument about whether or not Jamal’s going to permanently smell like a grease fire.

It’s distracting and oh-so-typical of his friends, and by the time Eggsy’s done laughing and has to intervene, he’s forgotten about Harry again, slipping effortlessly back into his old skin for the duration of the night.

“Eggsy,” his mum yells from the kitchen.

“Yeah, I’ll be out in a sec,” he shouts back, quickly towelling down his hair.

He’s still chilly from being on a construction site all day, but at least the worst of the dust is gone thanks to a hot shower.

His mum’s voice only grows more insistent. “I’ve gotta go in a minute!”

“I know,” he bites back as he yanks the door open, but softens as soon as he sees the frazzled look on her face, his shirt only halfway over his head. She’s got the keys clutched in one hand and a rag to clean the baby up with in the other, always spreading herself thin to try to keep all of  them afloat.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “I’ve got it, yeah?”

She takes a breath like she’s about to say something but doesn’t. Instead, she presses the cloth into his hands without a word and hurries off to crowd around Daisy in her high chair, pressing a kiss to her temple before she’s off.

The door shutting behind her sucks a kind of vacuum into the flat, everything quiet save for the television droning on on whatever channel Dean has left it on still vegetating in front of it. Eggsy steals a quick glance at him in his easy chair, bitter that he’s too busy running a ring of petty criminals to be bothered with his own kid, not that Eggsy would entrust him with a baby even if he gave a single fuck about her. When it comes to his little sister, he’d rather pick up Dean’s slack than let her suffer.

“Come here, baby girl,” he coos as he lifts her out of the chair,.

She’s clearly done with her dinner for now and Eggsy doesn’t want to cause a fuss, so he settles her on the couch and nicks the remote to turn the telly to CBeeBies for her. Tired from work, he’s happy zone out and just waste away on the couch for an episode or two of something mindlessly bright asking them to shout numbers and colours at the screen.

In the murmur of the programme, Daisy is quiet curled up against his side. She’s stock still in the same the way he used to be when, as a kid, for a moment, things seemed to be alright in an otherwise volatile household. It isn’t something he’s noticed in his sister before – this hyper focus that makes everything else slip away – and he aches at the thought that she’s already subconsciously sealing herself off from the world to protect herself.

In the recliner, Dean’s voice rises on the phone, irritation threading quickly into his words and Eggsy finds he’s instinctively tightened his hold on Daisy whose fists knot into the fabric of his shirt. Who’s trying to comfort whom he isn’t sure of but he forces himself to relax and brushes his palm over the baby’s head in soft, slow strokes that whisper, “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

It calms her enough that she stops flicking her eyes over to her dad every few seconds and, assured in the reestablishment of the status quo, she re-focuses her attention solely on the telly. It isn’t exactly peace, but it’s the best Eggsy can do for her at the minute and he wishes, not for the first time, that he could drag them out of this life and be spared from watching her grow up in his fucked-up footsteps.

The thought is an old one, though it hasn’t surfaced in a good while, years of being beaten out of hope with resignation and resentment taking over in equal measure until he’d begun to accept that this is just how things are despite knowing better.

He’s lived snippets of an alternative, after all - his earliest memories filled with a woman he barely even recognises as his mum, his father’s shoulder beneath his legs as firm as the ground, his hands pressed over Eggsy’s thighs to anchor him in place. At twenty-four, those years are only a fleeting shred of his life, but it’s one no one can take from him and so much more than Daisy’s had.

All she’s ever known is tired eyes, peeling wallpaper, and her father’s explosive temper. She’s born of the very squalor Eggsy’s been trying and failing to tell himself isn’t all there is to his life, and maybe – just maybe – recently he’d even briefly let himself believe that.

Dean barks, “What the fuck are ya lookin’ at?” at him and Eggsy snaps back into himself.

“Nothin’,” he says and reminds himself day dreaming’s never changed anything.

Construction takes another two weeks. The weather’s miserable and Eggsy’s mood plummets with it. He gets pissed three weekends in a row until the combination of cold exposure and reckless drinking makes him come down with a cold that traps him in bed for a whole four days. It’s an undignified and endless cycle of snot infused fever sweats and the few hours he’s awake drag on like decades.

Eventually, he feels human enough to be bored again, glued to his phone for most of the day because he’s still too stuffy to do anything proper, but even that is a limited distraction. It still beats watching telly on the sofa though. At least he doesn’t have to deal with Dean’s particular brand of shit levelling himself up Candy Crush and playing snatches of Alto’s Odyssey.

He’s mid-combo when a notification tagging him a group chat message distracts him and he swipes out of the app to check what’s going on. There’s a slew of wank from earlier in the day, but the latest message is Jamal asking him if he’s recovered from his plague yet, so he writes back, Why? ya need a day off?

Fuckin keep it, m8 , he texts back, Ryan wants to know if ur comin out

Nah, still too fragile tbh

He doesn’t get anything more, the planning probably relegated either to Jamal’s kitchen table or the Tesco down the road if they’re out of beer. Eggsy still gives it a few minutes before he leaves the chat for good, starved for contact after nearly a week of isolation, which is how he ends up scrolling through his chats and stumbling upon the message that’s been sat there as an open sore for three weeks.

Doin anythin this wknd?

It’s not quite an invitation even though it was not only meant as one but probably received as such, which only makes it worse that it’s still sat there with the read receipt blue and no reply.

In hindsight, he knows it was a stupid thing to send in the first place. They were going to have to cut ties sooner or later, but the way Harry’s strung him along little by little only to ghost him still feels like a blow.

“I think I’ve fucked up,” Eggsy says. He’s sat at Ryan’s, in exile from after almost getting into a fight with Dean and definitely getting clocked by Poodle. His mum stepping in to tear them apart had barely saved him from a kick to the head, but not before he’d gotten a heel to the chest that he’s still recovering from.

Eyeing the bruise forming over his sternum, Ryan mutters, “Yeah, no shit, mate.”

“No, not this,” Eggsy huffs, “I only got in a scruff ‘cause I’m hacked off about Harry.”

“Ha- Wait,” Ryan says and Eggsy nods before he can even ask if he’s thinking of the right bloke. “I thought he was outta the picture.”

“He is,” Eggsy says, “which is what bugs me.”

“No.”

“Yeah.”

“He called ya back for a gig once and what? Ya should be glad to be rid of him. I mean, the guy’s gotta pay someone to pretend to be fucking him to his mum ; it’s a bit psycho.”

“It wasn’t-,” Eggsy cuts in, but doesn’t finish his thought, because that is exactly what happened. But it’s also not whole truth, so he says: “It wasn’t all pretend.”

The confession leaves a deafening bombshell silence behind that makes Eggsy want to squirm out of his own skin, but then he’s been feeling like that a lot and getting things out in the open at least means he can stop going insane lying in bed at night trying to demarcate the stains on the ceiling in his sleeplessness.

When Ryan finally does speak again, his words have yet to form properly. “Wait- Are you- You- You fucked him?”

Eggsy nods. “Not for the money though,” he says as if that makes it less shocking.

“I honestly don’t know if that’s better or worse,” Ryan says. “When even was this?”

“Six weeks ago, maybe? He asked me ‘round for dinner-”

“-and ya stayed for dessert?” Ryan asks, eyebrows rising with insinuation, so that Eggsy’s ears are burning when he says: “No! Look, I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“So, what... ya got off, fucked off, and now ya feel bad?”

“Not exactly,” Eggsy says, looking away. “I stayed the night.“

“Oh, fuck no. You can not be serious about this,” Ryan says, the way he’s looking at Eggsy almost a plea.

“I don’t know. I don’t wanna be,” Eggsy says, “but we just kept talking for a while after and I- I don’t know what I want.”

“Eggsy-”

“I don’t wanna want him but what if I do anyway?” Eggsy asks.

Just saying the words makes him feel breathless, like his world is crumbling with the absurdity of how impossible a notion it is that he could want someone like Harry fucking Hart and not be punished for it.

He’s well on his way to spinning out of control when Ryan finally asks, “Does anyone else know about this?”

“Fuck no! I mean- I didn’t know how ‘cause I know this is such a stupid fuckin’ idea…”

“Yeah, I’ll back ya on that, but sometimes that’s the only kind ya got,” Ryan says and Eggsy doesn’t insist this is his worst one yet because Ryan is clearly trying to stay calm for his sake, saying: “Ya know, I think this one’s a Jamal special.”

“He’s at work.”

“Yeah, so... vodka?”

It’s the kind of suggestion that’s going to make him end up dead in a ditch, but right now Eggsy seems to be full of those anyway so he says: “Please.”

“You’re colossally fucking stupid,” Jamal declares straight out of the doorway but still hooks an arm around Eggsy’s shoulders to give him a friendly noogie.

Having come straight from work, he smells like food and sweat because apparently sorting out Eggsy’s life takes priority over a shower.

“Now what’s this mess I hear you’ve gotten yourself into?” Jamal asks, so Eggsy explains the whole affair from start to finish, starting with the decidedly fake bits and the odd all too genuine moments early on. He skims over Rosalie’s only because he can’t for the life of him explain what he was thinking when he agreed to go in the first place. That lands him promptly on the subject of dinner which he somehow simultaneously describes as a social travesty and the most genuine encounter he’s ever had. He must sound insane trying to explain it, but then maybe the deep end is where he’s headed anyway because lately, he’s had flashes of Harry’s mouth on him when he’s shut his eyes in the shower after a long day, visions of bruising fingers on a thigh and a fist in his hair.

That bit he chooses to omit from his friends though, ending instead on: “It’s stupid, I know that. Probably in my top three worst ideas so far.”

“Probably? Nah, mate. That’s a definite number one,” Jamal says, “but that’s alright. We’ll get you back on your feet.”

Apparently, that’s a plan that involves an immediate update of Eggsy’s Tinder profile over a case of beer, although Eggsy’s not actually allowed anywhere near his phone for any of this. The damn thing gets passed back and forth between Ryan and Jamal who assemble the profile between  the two of them, bickering and taking the piss out of Eggsy for the selfies they’ve explicitly asked for.

Having them go through shirtless pics of him is embarrassing even through his drunken stupor, but his mood picks up somewhat by the time he gets to start swiping, sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch with his friends hovering over him. Being several drinks behind Eggsy and Ryan, Jamal is nominated designated texter even though Ryan is the one who supplies most of the lines they end up using.

It feels like prank texting girls in secondary school and he treats it about the same, fucking around for most of the night. He ends up passing out a few hours later with several shots and a dozen matches under his belt, gone enough to be pleased with himself for a change.

The morning after is relentless. Eggsy wakes with his face shoved into a sweaty sofa cushion, half slumped across the couch but still sat on the floor. One of his legs feels like it went numb hours ago and his mouth is furry with the taste of old malt. Having made it into a horizontal position, Jamal seems marginally better off than him, although he’s still sleeping on a couch with his bare feet dangling off the far end. Not spotting Ryan on his first, dizzying sweep of the room, Eggsy and assumes at least one of them’s made it to an actual bed.

He hasn’t decided if he’s bitter about it or not before he’s stumbling into the toilet to throw up, the previous night’s mix of spirits and beer on an empty stomach coming up in short bursts of hideous, acidic fluid. The aftertaste alone is enough to make him retch and he spends a good ten minutes trying to empty an already deserted stomach, clinging to the loo as if his life depends on it, knees white against the tiled floor as he works up a cold sweat.

Wrung dry, Eggsy hauls himself over to the sink and washes the worst of the last twelve hours out of his mouth, not that it does much for him. He’s still got a gnawing headache that radiates into a shoulder stiffened by a bad night’s shit and the pain makes his stomach clench up.

It’s just endless shit upon shit – a series of compounding factors he could really do without.

When he finally does make it out of the bath, Eggsy opens the dingy living room window for some air and lets himself a glass of cold water, nursing it by the kitchen sink. The first gulp is nearly enough to make him vomit again, so he sips at it more cautiously, reasoning patience is going to get him further than bringing everything he drinks right back up again.

Over on the sofa, Jamal is still out cold, so Eggsy sits down on the floor and scrolls through his phone. He checks the messages that have trickled in overnight: a few from guys he’d still be interested in when he isn’t stone drunk, but the prospect of having to flirt his way into meeting up for what’s undoubtedly going to be nothing more than an expensive rebound fuck in the club loos is entirely too much effort. He swipes through few more people out of habit before deleting the app.

It was only meant to be a distraction anyway and, while it was fun the night before, the whole dating scene has lost its appeal sober. In spite of this, he still ends up hovering over the little nook of apps – all Tinder mock-ups – tucked away in a series of interlocked groupings of apps to hide them from prying eyes.

They’re simultaneously a testament to his loneliness and his cowardice – reflexively checked whenever he’s bored but all notifications disabled lest an incriminating message pop up on his screen at an inopportune moment.

He hasn’t exactly had the energy or the desire to check up on any of them lately, but maybe his friends are right and this is the sort of dilemma you have to fuck yourself out of. Opening one, he finds a few half-hearted messages from a guy he talked to briefly months ago and the odd ‘hey’ from strangers gone unseen.

Still the only one awake in the flat, he ventures onto another app, then a third. This one’s more of a traditional dating site than any of the others, his feed filled with snappy free form introductions. He’s got two messages waiting in another tab and Eggsy clicks over to check on them even though he hasn’t been on this app for months, surprised to find neither of them is from a stranger at all but Harry.

Just seeing the name in his inbox makes his stomach flip.

He glances up to check Jamal is still fast asleep before opening the first message from a month ago, three days after Eggsy last texted him.

Dear Eggsy,

Had a rather unfortunate mishap on the street the other day which resulted in my phone getting spectacularly smashed. I have since been informed the damage is pretty much irreparable, so I had to get a new one and seem to have lost your number in the process (although mine remains the same). I don’t know how often you check this account, but it is currently the only way I have of contacting you, so if you happen to see this in the next few days, I have no plans for the coming weekend, and if you don’t, I’m happy to arrange for another time.

Yours,

Harry

He scans through the words a second time, his breath stuck in his throat the entire time.

When his lungs finally empty, it’s with an uncertain, bobbing shiver that makes his eyes itch and all Eggsy can think is: He knew .

He’d sent Harry that message weeks ago – the one he kept looking at and hating himself over – and Harry had not only caught his drift but responded in kind, even if the gesture ultimately got trapped here in the hidden testaments of a sexuality Eggsy’s kept secret for years. And that after all the time he’s spent lecturing Harry about learning not to give a toss about other people’s opinions and live life as he wants to. You’ve got room to fuckin’ talk , Eggsy thinks, the thought corrosive.

With shaking hands, he presses the back button to access the second message, sent a mere week ago.

Eggsy,

I hope you are well. I realise this is a long shot at best, but I recently received an invite to the opera for the both of us from my mother, so if you happen to be free and inclined to come on the night of the 17 th , please contact me. If you are busy or wish to decline, I understand fully and wish you all the best.

Kind Regards,

Harry

Checking the date, Eggsy discovers there are still two days left until the 17 th . It’s too short notice to draft a reply and hope Harry sees it in time, but there’s still time to call up. It’s not something he’s keen to do when their last real interaction was tripping through an awkward morning after in Harry’s kitchen six weeks ago.

Besides, even if Harry had wanted to see him again when he sent that first message, four weeks is plenty of time for any man to sober up and face facts, not that it’s curbed Eggsy’s interest. If anything, it’s only fuelled what is quickly becoming an addiction, because even as he’s still pretending to contemplate, Eggsy’s fingers are itching with the desire to respond.

Desperate for some moral support, he whispers, “Jamal.”

Eggsy shoves his shoulder and Jamal stirs enough to grunt and wave him off before he burrows deeper into the couch and drifts back off, so Eggsy pushes himself off the floor to check if Ryan’s any more awake. He finds him in bed dressed in a sweater and no trousers, and decides this one’s entirely on him.

If he’s going to do this, he at least wants a modicum of privacy for it so he locks himself into the bath and takes a few deep breaths before he brings Harry’s number up and places the call. It rings for what seems like an eternity and he’s starting to worry no one’s going to pick up when the line finally clicks.

“Harry Hart speaking.”

“Um,” he says over the roar of his heartbeat. There are a few more seconds of silence before he finally manages to croak out: “It’s, uh... Eggsy.”

“Eggsy,” Harry repeats, surprise painted broadly in his voice.

“I saw your message,” Eggsy presses on, his words too fast where he couldn’t get them out a moment ago. “Well, both of them, really.”

“Right,” Harry says slowly.

“So if ya still want- need me to come to that thing with your mum...”

“Oh. Yes, well-” There’s a flurry of background noise and Harry’s voice thins out as if he’s  turning his head away from the receiver, so Eggsy asks: “Did I catch ya at a bad moment?”

“Uh, I’m at work right now. But if you’re certain you can come…”

“Yeah, shouldn’t have anythin’ on.”

There’s another pause while Harry thinks before he says: “All right.”

“Okay,” Eggsy says and another silence settles between them. “So... where’d d’you want me?”

“Depends on whether you have a suit?”

“Not like a proper one f that’s what you’re askin’.”

“Hmm, then I shall have to arrange for one. Would you be able to make it into the shop today?”

Sparing a glance at the time, Eggsy winces, “Umm, I doubt it. Ain’t exactly in the best shape and I’ve gotta be home to babysit in a couple hours, so unless there’s literally no way ‘round it, I’d rather not brave the tube.”

“I see,” Harry says. “If you have a tape measure and someone to help you out, you should be able to take the relevant measurements at home and so long as you send them to me before tonight, I should be able to alter a model suit for you by Friday.”

“Ain’t that a bit much? Makin’ a whole suit an everythin’,” Eggsy asks, suddenly shy at the thought of not only wearing more of Harry’s inordinately expensive clothes but to have them tailored for him.

“I’m afraid it is closer to a necessity than a frivolity when it comes to the Royal Opera House. So, if I do send you the instructions for taking measurements, will you get back to me with the numbers?”

“Yeah, sure”

“All right. In that case I will also send you the address of the shop,” Harry says, speaking slowly as if he’s writing himself a note. “If you could arrive at five forty-five on Friday, that would be grand.”

“Yeah, alright. I’ll be there.”

The line is quiet for another moment and Eggsy wonders if it’s because Harry’s trying to think of something or if it’s because he’s nodded, forgetting Eggsy can’t see him over the phone.

Then he says, “Yes,” in the quick, embarrassed way that leads him to think it was probably the latter. Clearing his throat, Harry adds a quiet, “Thank you.”

It’s not the sort of statement that should stun someone into silence, but Harry’s earnestness has always had a way of derailing Eggsy. He wonders briefly if he should say something about still wanting to go out for reasons entirely separate to keeping up appearances, but he’s got no words and the phone’s growing hot against the shell of his ear, so he just says, “See ya.”

Weaving through central London during rush hour is dizzying without the underlying nausea of seeing Harry again. The throng of people all around him is rife with wafts of too strong cologne and flashes of colourful purses, and it leaves Eggsy feeling claustrophobic in his own skin.

He’s spent most of the previous two days running through every conceivable scenario of what could happen tonight and not one of them sits easily. One moment he’d be convinced the best thing would be to cancel and just call things off once and for all; then he’d roll over in bed and be equally certain, however daunting the prospect, that all they really needed was to meet in the middle of this maelstrom they’re in.

“Excuse me,” someone snaps at him as he collides with a shoulder and Eggsy shrinks away.

He knows it’s plain madness to want anything at all from Harry, but Eggsy can’t stop himself from longing for comfortable afternoons in a musty old home library and warm, candlelit dinners at a table that costs more than all the furniture in Eggsy’s flat. There’s an atmosphere of ease that springs up between them whenever they’re in the same room - inaccessible to the rest of the world - and Eggsy longs to drown himself in it, to be alone with someone in a liminality that makes no demands on him.

Maybe such a thing isn’t even possible, but the fact that he even dares to hope is a borderline miracle, so he’s going to see it through to the end.

He reaches the shop just on time, out of breath and shivering, his fingers numb from the cold despite a slamming heartbeat. They curl with determination in his pockets as he takes his last fortifying breaths before climbing the step and knocking on the glass of the door.

The sound draws the attention of a clerk who glances up at him from behind a counter with a puzzled expression. When he doesn’t move, Eggsy waves and tries for a friendly smile.

It can’t be very convincing though because the clerk’s bemusement only grows. He still decides to take his chances and comes over to unlock the door for Eggsy. “May I help you, sir?” he asks through the three inch crack in the door, a foot placed against the frame at the bottom to keep Eggsy from kicking it in.

It’s a tiny thing, but it’s almost enough to make Eggsy doubt coming at all, the way everyone in Harry’s world sees him reflected back to him with scathing clarity. Having already made the trek, he steels himself and says: “I’m here to see he Harry... Hart. Mr Hart. He’s expecting me.”

The other man blinks at him, unnervingly impassive, then says, “One moment, please.”

He disappears back into the shop and up the stairs, but not before locking the door squarely in Eggsy’s face, adding insult to injury. It can’t be a precaution that’s unique to him, but he still resents being left on the doorstep to freeze under the suspicious looks of passers-by. In the eyes of the sort of people who frequent shops like these, Eggsy spells trouble no matter what.

He grinds his teeth together against the cold trying to swallow the hurt until he hears voices from inside and turns to see Harry on the stairs.

At first he’s not looking, speaking quick words to the clerk, but then he glances up to see Eggsy looking right back and there’s a wave of relief that sweeps across his face, delight in his eyes as they catch the light. He doesn’t quite smile, but that’s what Eggsy reads the quirk of his lips as, so he grins back openly, surprised to be awash in the exact same delicate mix of emotions.

“Hello,” Harry says as soon as he’s managed to unlock the door. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting; my last client meeting overran.” He’s wired stiff with nerves standing there and something about it reminds Eggsy of when they first met, his stomach aflutter with anticipation.

Butterflies , he thinks as Harry says: “Come on in.”

Chapter Text

The shop is even more radiant inside than it looked from the street. It takes Eggsy several moments to take in its opulence in full: golden lights and warm wood panels, the furniture as well-worn as Harry. There are stacks upon stacks of fabrics on the far wall, a sort of grand swatch board that looms over the register. For having canvas faces, the mannequins cut surprisingly human lines - anonymous businessmen in traffic.

Harry lets him watch and wander for a while. Eggsy must look dumbstruck, fingers twitching with the desire to touch even if they never do. The clerk at the till slips away.

“You found your way then,” Harry says more than asks.

The words make Eggsy’s eyes cut away from a green tweed jacket. “Yeah,” he says, hand still hovering by the sleeve. “Is this- Did you make all of these?”

Harry glances toward the doorway behind the counter. “Not every piece, but most of them.” 

“They’re real nice either way.”

“Thank you,” he says, a shy but pleased smile on his lips. It’s genuine in the way that makes Eggsy’s heart pick up a beat with the desire to see it in full bloom.

“So, uh-” he looks away and finally makes contact with the fabric at his fingertips- “I’m s’posed to wear one of these?”

“Yes,” Harry says and the smile turns arch. “Your suit is still upstairs; I only finished the alterations today. That is why my appointments were delayed this afternoon and,” he explains, “why am not dressed yet.”

It sounds like an apology for an obvious digression, but it takes Eggsy a proper double take before he realises that no, Harry’s usual suit – far too posh for any function in Eggsy’s circle – probably doesn’t make the cut for a formal evening out in Harry’s world. The realisation does nothing to quell his anxiety, only makes him wonder what on earth he’s about to get himself into. If the floor models he barely dares to touch are casual wear, he doesn’t want to know what counts as formal.

In the stretching silence, Harry says: “I’ll go fetch it.”

Eggsy nods, dazed equally with wonder and the feeling of a bilious panic crawling up his throat. Left alone, he catches his own eye in the reflection of the gigantic window that makes up the shop front: twenty-four looking eighteen - hunched shoulders, snapback, tense angular jaw, and that forlorn deer-in-the-headlights look that spells death if donned around the wrong people.

“Excuse me,” a voice says behind him and Eggsy startles, swiveling around to come face to face with the clerk. Seemingly unfazed by his skittishness, the man asks, “Would you like a drink while you wait, sir?”

“Uhh,” Eggsy says, suddenly five years old grabbing at the hem of his mother’s skirt for courage at being asked his own name, “yeah, sure.”

“Whiskey or cognac,” he asks, voice an ineffable monotone, as if this is a perfectly normal evening and Eggsy is just another client. As if he hadn’t refused to come to the door a mere ten minutes ago.

Where these people get their cool from, Eggsy will never know. All he can do is imitate it as best as he can as he says, “Either will do.”

That lands him with a polite nod and tumbler of something a few moments later, both his glass and the decanter produced from under the counter, London’s most inconspicuous bar.

Before he has time to dwell on how strange this all is, Harry’s returns, various pieces on laquered hangers in one hand and a garment bag in the other.

“These are for you,” he tells Eggsy and, turning to the clerk, he adds, “Hector, would you mind getting a pair of black shoes out of the back room? Oxfords not Brogues.”

“Certainly. Which size?”

It takes Eggsy a moment to notice the question is directed at him, not Harry. “A ten, please.”

As soon as the clerk duck out, Harry directs him towards a fitting room. 

“You can get dressed in here. I’ll be in to check how the suit fits once I am dressed myself. There shouldn’t be any major problems if you took the measurements correctly, but even so: a few safety pins can work wonders.” Pointing to a second door, he adds, “I’ll be just over there if you need anything.”

Eggsy nods, hangers in hand. His entire body feels distant as it steps through the door Harry is holding open for him and Eggsy wonders what the hell has happened to him. He hasn’t been this disoriented since that first day at Harry’s mum and that was months ago, before he’d gotten to know Harry. He thought he’d grown used to Harry in all his opulence as they’ve slipped into the comfort of whatever it is that’s grown between them.

That thought - always a cause for a crisis - not being one he wants to indulge right now, Eggsy forces himself into motion, fanning his hangers out onto three different hooks to look at what he’s got.

There’s a matching set of dark grey trousers and jacket, both made of the same fabric: pressed smooth, soft and just this side of itchy, the kind of wool that’s so even, it looks like something else entirely.

Eggsy folds up his own clothes to slip into a starched white dress shirt. The buttons are stiff from being brand new and he struggles with the cuffs, remembering how the last time he wore a suit, he was practically still a kid and all he had to do to have the buttons done up was stick his wrist out to his mum. This shirt, when he finally manages to get it on properly, fits much better than the off-the-rack, two sizes too large shirt he’d worn then, and Eggsy watches himself take on a completely new shape in the mirror as he does up his trousers.

Like the shirt, they’re fitted to cling in a way that makes him look adult and important, a glimpse into an alternate life where he isn’t a nobody from the wrong side of the tracks, doomed to be a screw up. In a world like that, he could chase someone like Harry without a thought, the canyon of inequality between them reduced to a crack in the pavement.

To finish off the illusion, he pulls on the jacket, already complete with a neatly folded pocket square. It makes him look like someone straight off the pages of a fashion magazine; well, save for the fringe , he concedes, because his haircut is nothing short of chav.

Looking at himself for a moment longer, it occurs to Eggsy he’s probably missing a tie, which he ends up finding in his jacket pocket after patting himself down. At least that is what he thinks at first, but the slip of fabric is a strange shape and it dawns on him this must be a bow tie.

He stares at it, face to face with the realisation that he hasn’t got the faintest idea how to tie one of these. All he’s ever worn were those cheap clip-on versions that always ended up coming undone halfway through whatever function his mum had forced him to wear it to. Eggsy briefly considers watching a youtube tutorial on mute, but he doubts he can get the hang of it quickly enough with Harry on the other side of the door murmuring instructions about the shop at Hector, evidently already finished.

Swallowing his embarrassment, Eggsy cracks the door open.

“I’m ready, sorta.” He holds up the tie. “This one’s beyond me.”

Harry’s expression doesn’t waver at the confession doubling as a plea for help, merely nods.

“All right, I’ll be through in just a moment. Why don’t you put those shoes on in the meantime?” His eyes flick over to a pair of brogues deposited just off to the left of Eggsy’s fitting room.

The voices outside subdue to an intelligible murmur as he shuts himself back into the fitting room to stuff his adidas socks into buttery leathery shoes.

In the mirror, his ears are burning. It’s stupid and oh-so-typical of this entire arrangement that he has with Harry for him to be so self-conscious. When he’s alone with Harry, the world falls away, but when he sees him like this - in his own element, elegance dialed to the max - Eggsy is nothing but a clumsy kid playing make believe. It’s so maddening, Eggsy’s hands shake trying to tie the laces, something hot and ugly bubbling up inside him.

He’s still fumbling with the shoelaces by the time Harry lets himself into the little room with a quick double knock and they lock eyes with him on his knees and Harry standing above him, larger than life.

“How are you doing?” he asks, unusually jovial.

“Almost done,” Eggsy mutters, fidgeting his way through the last knot. When he glances up, Harry’s stood there in an honest-to-god tux and Eggsy’s brain goes blank, the understanding that Harry can, in fact, look about fifty times posher than he normally does short circuiting his mind.

To make matters worse, Harry’s got a half-eaten egg and watercress sandwich in one hand that he’s chomping away on casually - the embodiment of a perfect marriage between an aristocrat and any old tosser on the tube with a soggy meal deal wilting away in his bag.

“So, where is the tie?” Harry asks around a mouthful of food, the words maneuvered politely  out of the corner of his mouth from behind a hand.

Eggsy holds it out to him and Harry hums his acknowledgement but doesn’t take it from him immediately. Instead, he sidesteps Eggsy to wrap his sandwich back up and deposit it on a shelf and slips back into his professional persona.

He runs the sliver of fabric through his hands like he’s making a subconscious note of its character, then steps closer and pops Eggsy’s collar up. “This is perhaps not the easiest thing to grasp the first time around, but learning to tie a bow tie is well worth the time. There is something about one that has been tied that can’t be replicated in an imitation piece.”

Unsure of whether he’s meant to reply to that, Eggsy does his best to look attentive, though Harry’s eyes never waver from the tie.

“You start off by aligning the ends so one lies beneath the other. Then you cross the longer end over the short end and loop it around the back to pull it up towards your face.”

Here, one end of the tie rises into Eggsy’s view, held firmly in front of him in Harry’s hand, and both their eyes flick from that shared point to look straight at one another, the world rendered immovable for that single instant, all its weight condensed into the gravity of that look.

“Now, this is where the bow itself is created,” Harry continues. His voice is that comforting, unshakable baritone old film stars have and Eggsy can feel himself relax into it like a warm bath. “Fold the short end up horizontally, then pull the long end down across the middle. That’s the front of the bow. For the back, fold the long end up backwards and slip it through the loop behind the short end. Tighten and adjust by pulling gently at the ends and... voilà .”

He flashes a smile at Eggsy – one of those rare dimpled ones with a glimmer of white teeth - and Eggsy breaks out in his reflexive nervous grin in response.

His hands reach for the bow the same way his mum reaches for her nicest necklace (the one his dad gave her for a wedding anniversary) and a bolt of electricity slices through him where his fingers brush against Harry’s, folding his collar back into place. It’s not the sort of touch that lingers, Harry already moving to tuck the shirt collar beneath that of the jacket, but it’s enough to leave Eggsy’s mouth dry.

He averts his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the moment Harry notices the flush that’s creeping stubbornly up his neck, impossible to miss when he’s being taken in like that. The drag of Harry’s eyes is so slow, Eggsy thinks he must be imprinting him onto a canvas in his mind Eggsy can’t ever do justice to.

After all, all he’ll have left of Harry when this night is over is the memory of Harry’s hands sailing over his shoulders to smooth out wrinkles that don’t exist, his eyes deep as shadow.

“Thank you,” Eggsy murmurs after what feels like eons but can’t be more than a few moments, the subluxations of his heart coming in slow tides.

Harry nods, the motion a ripple on a still pond, and the world careens back into motion under the butterfly effect of the weight of their lives.

Harry clears his throat, averts his eyes, and sweeps out of the way to pick up his sandwich.

“Will you need a coat?” he asks, his back to Eggsy.

“Oh, shit. Probably. I didn’t even think of that, but it’s arse cold outside.”

Raising an eyebrow, Harry says, “Not exactly abnormal conditions for November.”

“Well no, but…”

“I’m sure one of the models will fit you adequately.”

“I- Thanks.”

It’s yet another thing so self-evident in Harry’s world that Eggsy falls short of - without knowing, too - it leaves him feeling alien in the shell of a suit Harry’s wrapped him in. As much as he wishes he could forget, he’s just a kid playing pretend in clothes on loan.

The spine of the very shoes he’s walking in cut cruelly into his heels with their newness, a far cry from the tattered trainers he used to wear an imprint of his foot into, his heels poking out the bottom by the time he’d move on. And the suit is exquisite, truly a sartorial masterpiece, but that doesn’t change the fact that he has no idea how to move in it, the lines of his body occupying a shape he isn’t used to, his own shadow a stranger’s.

Harry says, “You should pick one out; we have to leave soon.”

“I’ll probably be fine if we’re drivin’ there anyway,” Eggsy says in protest, hesitant to pile on any more expensive clothes, let alone waltz out into the store and grab one as if he owns the place.

“Nonsense. Just try one on,” Harry murmurs around another mouthful of food. He’s stepped over to hold the door open for Eggsy, clearly brooking no argument, so Eggsy clutches his pile of clothes close and returns to the main store, fully aware of the quick, curious look Hector slides his way.

At Harry’s encouragement, or rather because he follows with Eggsy’ forgotten glass of scotch in hand, Eggsy deposits his own things on one of the armchairs and hesitantly approaches the coat closest to him.

It’s made of black wool and definitely on the large side for him. He can tell as much without even trying it on but does anyway. Five years ago, shopping for a coat for his granddad’s funeral in a shop closer to home with his mum, he would’ve settled for something like this (albeit made of thinner, scratchier fabric) without a second thought, but Harry isn’t the type to say, “That’ll do.”

His dissatisfaction is the kind that makes you want to do better to please. It’s quiet and undemanding but so pervasive, it drives Eggsy to shrug off the first coat and try on another and a third.

He ends up wrapped in a navy number that rests easy on his shoulders and makes him broader than he is by tapering in at the waist, and when Eggsy turns to gauge Harry’s opinion, he feels the flush in the column of his neck spike up again, the dark fascination in Harry letting loose a flurry of emotions that feels like a shot of vodka on a cold night.

“I reckon this is the one,” he says, voice creaking treacherously so that he’s forced to look away again as he buries his hands experimentally in the pockets.

Harry, hiding the quick twitch of a smile, nods and turns to the clerk to ask: “Hector, could you find a matching scarf?”

“Certainly, sir.”

Eggsy pipes up with a “Shouldn’t we get goin’?” as soon as Hector disappears.

It’s not that he’s in a hurry to get to the opera, but standing around in the shop is making him antsy too.  The display window spills their lives out onto the street for everyone to see, Eggsy’s face pinched and Harry stuck in between roles.

“Just as soon as we have you suited up. I expect some will already be there.”

“We ain’t keepin’ ‘em waitin’ are we? ‘Cos if your mum-”

Harry shakes his head. “No, I expect Chester King at the very least will be keeping my mother company.”

“Oh, he’s comin’ too?”

“Yes. My mother is not the type to attend social functions on her own, not even after my father’s death, and since I won’t be there to chaperone her…”

“Sucks to get roped into these things just ‘cos of that, I bet,” Eggsy says, imagining Harry trapped playing happy families by his mother’s side for hours on end while being all too acutely aware of his own misery. Perhaps it isn’t much of a sacrifice if it’s what everyone else is doing too, but Eggsy’s bored just thinking of it.

“I didn’t become her port of call until my father passed.”

“‘S that s’posed to make it better? ‘Cos to me that just sounds like you’re second choice,” Eggsy tells him.

“Perhaps.”

Behind the counter, Hector clears his throat, and Eggsy startles.

“I took the liberty of getting a pair of gloves as well,” he says, tactful as ever and absolutely inscrutable about how much of their conversation he overheard. Turning to Eggsy, he adds, “It’s cold out tonight.”

“Thanks, man,” Eggsy says and takes the gloves.

Hector says, “Enjoy your evening, sir,” that same thin secret of a smile Harry has flickering across his face.

Seeing it on someone else leaves Eggsy dazed so that when Harry asks, “Shall we go?” he snaps back into himself with a blink.

“Yeah. Yeah, sounds good.”

He reaches up to wind the scarf around his neck only for Harry to bark an alarmed, “Don’t!”

“What?”

Eggsy stands there frozen with his arms mid-air as Harry wipes the remnants of his sandwich on a serviette.

“You don’t wrap it tight like that,” Harry says, taking the scarf from him to settle it around the back of his neck down the middle, “It will crush the tie.”

“Oh,” Eggsy says, feeling stupid again.

“If you need to keep warm, you can cross it over like this,” Harry says, gently pulling one end over the other, his fingers resting on Eggsy’s sternum at the crossover.

It’s another one of those moments that’s weighted with too much potential and not enough distance, Eggsy’s breathing erratic beneath Harry’s hand, his pupils undoubtedly blown as he stares up at Harry, heart still jackrabbiting from being told off moments ago.

It can’t be an imagined danger because it throws even Harry who backs away as soon as their eyes meet, scalded.

“We should leave,” he says, “I’ll fetch my coat; you finish your drink.”

“I- Yeah, alright.”

He watches Harry’s back disappear up the stairs with the tumbler between his lips, the last gulp of whiskey big enough to burn all the way down.

Sitting in Harry’s car is a bizarre sort of déjà vu. This time, it’s the beginning of a farce rather than the end.

It’s late enough for traffic to have died down and Eggsy watches the street lights streak past lazily on a green streak, growing sleepy from the warm air blowing into the dark interior of the car.

They drive past a lady with a pram, his eyes briefly meeting hers and Eggsy wonders what sort of impression he’s left sitting there in this nice car in his nice clothes with a rich bloke by his side. Maybe they don’t look as strange as they usually do, though the age difference persists. 

Normally, when they’re in each other’s presence, people look at Harry and think ‘mid-life crisis’, a thought no kinder than the ‘gold digger’ that pops up at the sight of Eggsy. None of that matters of course when your goal is to play into those assumptions and your relationship is a sham, but some part of him wants to be righteous on principle alone.

But maybe he’s a hypocrite in thinking that just because he isn’t selling his body the old-fashioned way, he’s above judgement; he’s still a commodity as far as Harry is concerned (eye candy that makes the bitter pill of his illusion easier to swallow) and Harry a means of financial gain to him. He’s only gotten to know the man by chasing up a quick payday pretending to be his boyfriend. Why should strangers suspend their beliefs when he’s gone into this blindfolded?

Even now Eggsy isn’t sure where to draw the line between how he feels about Harry as a person and how he feels about him as a result of their respective positions in life, the two facets invariably having shaped each other to a point where they’re inseparable. That fundamental decency of Harry’s has to be rooted in the excesses that allow him to be selfless and give without sustaining a loss to himself. The same docility that has allowed him to explore Eggsy without prejudice wouldn’t exist if he’d had to fight his way, fists raised, through every day of his adolescence they way Eggsy has.

And they’re only qualities Eggsy covets because they are rarities to him, Harry just the same with him.

In that labyrinth of arbitrary rules he’s been confined to all his life, Eggsy doesn’t know how to make demands on him. There aren’t layers and masks to every interaction between them. In fact, at times Eggsy feels like they’re two kids under a blanket after dark, the whole world shut out in the glow of the flashlight between them, but that’s not reality.

In the real world, they’re not level and Eggsy’s lost track of which differences count as a strength and which count as a weakness in this ever-changing act they’ve put on.

“Eggsy.”

“Hmm?”

Harry says, “We’re almost there.”

“Oh,” he says stupidly and looks up to find himself somewhere quite different from where he drifted off into thought.

“Where did you go?” Harry asks him and Eggsy shoots him a puzzled look. “Just now. You looked as if you were a thousand miles away. What was it you thought about?”

“I- I don’t know.” He shrugs. “All this, I guess.”

“The opera?”

“The pretence.”

He doesn’t miss the way the muscles in Harry’s cheek tighten even as he keeps his eyes firmly set on the road, calm to the untrained eye.

They haven’t discussed their relationship as co-conspirators in this lie since sleeping together, mostly because Eggsy hadn’t expected it to carry it on regardless of whether or not he thought he’d ever see Harry again, and the tension of all that’s left unsaid strains.

If Eggsy is honest, he’d assumed any post-sex interaction they’d have would at least be on honest terms, not in this limbo where they feign happy smiles for Harry’s mum and Eggsy has no way of knowing if the hand that’s settled on his waist is real or just another bit of fabrication.

“If you are having qualms,” Harry starts, but Eggsy only shakes his head.

“No, it’s just this has been going on for three months ,” he says, deliberately skirting around the far more pressing question of what they are to each other in the wake of that night of Harry’s. “Is this really gonna be the last time?”

“It can be,” Harry says, voice modulated to an infuriating degree of perfection.

It leaves Eggsy no other choice than being blunt. “Ya know, there’s making a point and then there’s whatever the fuck you’re pulling on your friends and family.”

“Yes,” Harry agrees. Eggsy’s about to tell him he’s got no fucking clue what to do with the knowledge that Harry knows when he adds: “I suppose this farce has dragged on for long enough. I shan’t ask for you again.”

In some ways, it’s exactly what Eggsy wants to hear, but he still feels wounded. Swallowing the ache, he turns to the window. “Okay, good. I think the message ’s been received loud and clear anyway.”

If Eggsy was uncomfortable in the borrowed attire before, being in an entire crowd of people even more meticulously dressed only serves to agitate further. The lights in the cavern of the entry hall twinkle off various evening gowns, pieces of jewellery, and lacquered shoes. The whole room is infused with the quiet murmur of pleasant conversation and human migration, snatches of laughter and high pitched greetings carrying over the steady click-click of stilettos on tile.

The group they’re headed for is no different. Harry’s mum is unmistakable even from a distance with her back turned, the tuft of white her next to her Chester King’s. Opposite them, Percival is wearing that polite smile he always dons when someone’s telling a story they think is fascinating but he couldn’t give two shits about. The sight of him relaxes Eggsy slightly, something familiar and pleasant, a reminder that not everyone is trying to make things difficult for him.

“Hello,” Harry says just before he shoulders his way into the group. Percival opens the circle up further to make space for Eggsy while Harry kisses his mother on the cheek, ever the prim, adoring son.

The woman next to Percival lets her sentence trail off quietly as her eyes dart over to Eggsy. 

“Hullo,” she says, curious without judgement, “you must be Eggsy .” Her tongue rolls carefully over his name like it’s been practised, an effort that goes neither unnoticed nor unappreciated.

She holds out her hand and Eggsy decides she must be Percival’s infamous wife. “Caroline,” she says when he takes hold of her hand. “It’s a delight to make your acquaintance.”

She has a raspy, soft-spoken voice that tells of an underlying shyness also reflected in her stance and, knowing Rosalie, she’s not at all what Eggsy expected. Her hair is an undyed mousy brown, body small, plump, and veiled in the kind of elegance that can only be bought with money: namely a dress the colour of dripping blood, its bateau neckline cradling a brilliant diamond necklace splayed over the pale expanse of her decolletage.

Percival inserts himself into the moment by saying, “Harry said you might not be able to make it.”

“Uh, I had another thing,” Eggsy lies, “but it got moved so I said yes kinda last minute.”

Caroline says: “Well, we are very pleased to have you. You make a dapper addition to the party.” Her smile shows the slightest bit of teeth. It’s weighted with the same gravitas as Harry’s, all old money and practised charm.

It practically makes Eggsy glow so that he’s nearly forgotten about Alethea Hart until Chester King asks, “Your suit, is it Harry’s handiwork?” and he’s pinned under the full weight of her gaze.

Not knowing what else to say, he concedes with a quiet, “Yes.”

Why it feels it feels like a confession rather than a fact, he doesn’t know, but he’s grateful when Percival pipes up with a, “I should really get one of these.”

Caroline says, “It’s beautiful handiwork,” her eyes roving over him without shame and he feels a little less like shrinking away.

It’s a stance that’s only further cemented with the press of Harry’s hand against his back. “It’s rather surprising how many people these days fail to understand the impact tailoring can have on clothes, you know. Just this last week, a man came in to get a wedding tux fitted - perhaps in his mid-thirties, the appointment booked by his bride-to-be - and it was the first time he’d had anything custom made!”

“Of course it is not the industry it used to be, but the change strikes me as an oversight increasingly driven by a demand for convenience. Coming in to be measured and fitted during business hours is a luxury to some high-powered working clients, so perhaps it’s time to adopt home visits into the sartorial repertoire.”

There’s a focused, faraway look in his eyes when he talks about his business. The transformation from a bland, reserved man into someone brimming with passion (albeit at a simmer) happens in a moment and, when he sees Harry open up like that, Eggsy longs to reach for his hand and squeeze out sheer secondhand excitement.

Except that in the no man’s land they’ve been relegated to for the night, he can only stand still and stare. He’s not even listening anymore, Eggsy realises at one point when the conversation has shifted to someone else and his eyes have gone out of focus.

“Perhaps we should find our seats,” Chester King suggests before he has a chance to catch on, making a show of glancing at a watch built like a fortress.

It’s an idea everyone that seems to have swept through everyone’s minds at once, so they end up part of a slow river of people trying not to crush each other as they amble toward the staircase at the pace of the lady in the most restrictive gown. The procession is claustrophobic at best, Eggsy stuck shuffling in tiny steps, trying to balance not stepping on Caroline’s dress with Harry’s body always inches from his back.

They rock into each other and apart in an awkward rhythm that makes Eggsy’s skin itch like it’s suddenly a size too small for him. To his right, someone takes a step too early and he’s pushed sideways where Harry’s open palm comes up to steady him, a patch of warmth against his waist. He thinks of Christmas shopping before he could see over most people’s shoulders - how he’d cling to his mum’s hand in terror. Sometimes he’d glue himself to her whole arm, his heart hammering in his chest at being brushed up against and pushed around like he was invisible. Moving through this crowd makes him want to cling to Harry like that, afraid of being forgotten and trampled like he’s five years old again.

But this isn’t like that first weekend when he could’ve palmed an act like that off on making their story believable because there were no ulterior motives. Tonight, there’s an unspoken agreement to maintain a bit of distance in light of the boundaries breached last time.

Eggsy pinches the edge of Harry’s sleeve without actually touching him, just the act of holding on to something enough to soothe his frayed nerves. Once they’re past the first flight, the crowd thins. It spreads out even more as they reach the second floor and come off the stairs, people now fanning out across several points of entry into the theatre instead of everyone pushing in the same direction.

Eggsy lets himself be led without much thought. From the landing to a queue to a doorway that spits them out into the theatre, the back of Caroline’s dress as much of a constant as Harry’s hand on his arm.

It isn’t until he’s confronted with the sight of all that space that Eggsy finally freezes up: the hall carved out like the belly of a beast, three ornate, golden tiers rising out to the walls and lit like Christmas trees, all of it lined in endless folds of carmine velvet. He’s never seen anything like it, at least not on such a scale, and for a moment Eggsy thinks this isn’t real, convinced he’s trapped in a reality distorted by a funhouse mirror: the room too big and the people too small.

Then something squeezes his arm, pushes him forward. He stumbles down a step and clutches harder at the fabric still between his fingers.

 “Eggsy,” Harry whispers, suddenly so close it jolts Eggsy back into motion though his feet don’t feel like his own at all.

They walk separately from him somewhere in the distance and his body just happens to glide along, guided down carpeted steps by a hand on his elbow, down to the bottom row until the hand shifts onto his shoulder and he sits down.

Sunk into the plush seat, the railing of the balcony rises high enough to swallow the levels below. The room narrows to just the balcony and the stage and the panic in Eggsy’s throat starts to subside, the world reduced to something more manageable.

He must still look rattled because Harry turns to murmur, “Are you alright?” into his ear.

Eggsy blinks at the question, then stares at the wall of fabric shrouding a stage preparing to entertain, considers the sea of people all taking their places like this is just another Friday night in their lives, and says, “Yes.”

It doesn’t sound convincing even to him, so he swallows, forces himself to look away from all the commotion and turn to Harry to repeat the word. Except, that time, he means it.

He’s still stiff in his seat and uncomfortable in the suit, but the way Harry looks at him - like he sees him - reminds Eggsy that no matter how far out of his element he is, Harry’s there to meet him halfway, always just an arm’s width away. The thought makes his throat close up all over again, all too painful a revelation when it’s the last evening they’ll ever spend together.

In the row behind them, Percvial leans forward to say something to Harry, the quick smile of a young boy up to no good flashing across his face over intelligible words. It isn’t until that moment that Eggsy registers both he and Caroline and Harry’s mother and Chester King are sat a step up in the row behind them, having prime seats not only for the opera but the show he and Harry are putting on.

He will have to act his part all the way: lean close, look interested. The prospect alone is exhausting and Eggsy wishes he, too, could slip into these strange lives Harry’s kind leads with ease: fawn over the programme the way Chester King does, fumble for a pair of binoculars in a purse, gush about the purity of an aria.

He wonders if the hobbies of the wealthy is something one can truly grow into the way the newly rich always make a show of doing or if it’s something you have to be born into to enjoy. On nights like these, it seems too frogein, but other days he thinks he could get used to the nice foods, and expensive drink, the fine fabrics, and the dark, wood paneled rooms that swallow one up so easily for an evening.

Around them, the lights dim but the chatter doesn’t. Eggsy turns to catch Harry’s profile cut out by a light over an exit, everything about him so relaxed it makes Eggsy want to believe that he can be too, that he can enjoy this.

Lone notes carry out of the orchestra pit for a few moments as instruments are fine tuned before the musicians start to warm up. In the dark - strands music floating amid the sound of people talking in quiet, excited voices - Eggsy feels the same anticipation he’d get sat on his dad’s shoulders, red-nosed and red-eared waiting for a Christmas pantomime to start.

Then the music dies and everything quiets. The curtains move.

Eggsy holds his breath.

The orchestra starts off all at once, the music a jovial, fast-paced melody he’s heard before but couldn’t name. It goes off with such a start, Eggsy nearly jumps out of his seat, the drums crisp and resonant in the room. Eventually the prelude slows to so something more sinister and the theatre gives an inaudible sigh as people settle into their seats to watch.

The actors file onto the stage set up to imitate a village square and the first proper number of the night starts.

Eggsy watches the progression with a childish fascination. He can’t understand any of the sung French, but there’s a beauty in the sheer melody of the voices blending into a choir, the dress up and make believe balancing reality with the absurd to produce a bastardized version of life for entertainment.

What’s more intriguing than the stage itself is the way Harry reacts to it. He leans ever so slightly forward in his seat, both hands on the armrests with his lips parted around a wonderstruck inhale. The reflection of the stage glints off his eye, reduced to nothing more than a golden speck but brighter for the attention with which Harry watches the proceedings. It speaks of some profound connection and Eggsy wonders what Harry sees when he’s watching what Eggsy finds pleasant at best.

If they were alone, he might ask. For now, he doesn’t want to disrupt Harry’s concentration, so he returns his attention to the stage where the male singers are exchanged for a choir of women.

Harry has sunk back into his seat by the time the mezzo soprano’s voice rises to a quaver that could traverse miles, his hands clasped in his lap while Eggsy’s still struggling to figure out what’s going on in the story.

Even he’s caught on by now that they’re singing about love, though he could’ve guessed as much from the posters downstairs. 

He soldiers through number after number doing his best to stay engaged but by the ninth one his composure must be visibly slipping because Harry decides to duck close and whisper: “She’s about to be arrested for stabbing a woman.”

“What?” Eggsy hisses, dragged from the brink of sleep to the edge of his seat at a moment’s notice, “When’d that happen?”

“Off-stage, while those two were singing in the square.”

And sure enough, one of the men in uniform ties the mezzo soprano’s hands together during the next number. Eggsy watches on, round-eyed. He’s perched his elbows on his knees and Harry smiles fondly at him for it somewhere in the edge of his peripheral vision, not that Eggsy notices.

“Oh, she’s gonna-” he starts but quiets down as a seduction begins to play out on the stage.

At the start of the next act, he leans back into his seat, tension drained from his body. His knee bumps against Harry’s as his legs part and Eggsy’s about to pull away when that curious little voice in his head tells him to see if Harry would be the one to move if he doesn’t.

For a while, they sit bone against bone, Eggsy’s body frozen counting the seconds. He makes it all the way to a minute before Harry’s leg finally shifts and stretches out, the knee low now, although it still isn’t more than two inches from the hem of Eggsy’s trousers.

Moments later, a hand settles over Eggsy’s on the armrest between them. It stops his breath short and his eyes immediately jump to the side, but Harry’s not looking, fully absorbed in the show. Perhaps this is for show, too , Eggsy thinks, Harry’s had warm and dry against the back of his.

It rests with the weight of something at ease and, when Eggsy’s fingers curl, Harry’s do as well. It reminds him of another instance of that subtle mirroring - his hand knotted in Harry’s hair and Harry’s in the sheets - and his cheeks flush hot in the dark.

He’d needed to know then, stood on the threshold of Harry’s house, what it would be like to let Harry kiss him without pretense, and he’s just as curious now.

Holding his breath, Eggsy turns his hand palm side up. Harry’s fingers brush against the underside of his knuckles before they shift to slot themselves between Eggsy’s. This time, it’s Harry’s fingers that curl first and Eggsy’s the ones that squeeze back.

It’s juvenile yet thrilling. He’s completely lost sight of what’s happening in the opera for the sake of holding hands with a man twice his age whose mother is sat not two feet away. It’s like sitting on a date in the movies at sixteen wondering if he was gonna get to kiss the girl at the end of the night. Except this time, there’s nothing to wonder about.

There won’t be an after to stand outside, putting off going home while being too shy to ask if there will be a next time. Even in all his unambiguous tenderness, Harry remains unattainable. Impossible.

Eggsy wishes he could fool himself into thinking otherwise. He’d managed it briefly after they slept together, but the truth is they exist in a world with so much history and context that whatever tendril of affection holds them together outside of that simply doesn’t bridge the gap.

He wouldn’t even bring a girl his own age back if she lived in Kensington, so how is he supposed to be with a middle aged man whose family is wealthier now than ten generations of Eggsy’s put together? And he can’t even feel bad about that because Harry can’t offer him anything kinder.

He’s seen the looks, heard the snide remarks and hushed arguments. The only reason he hasn’t had to take any of it personally is because it’s been directed at the role he’s played rather than him as a person, but if he were to sit here in earnest - his hand his own and not a caricature’s - all those things would suddenly become true.

Harry bestows another context clue upon him. “She’s asking him to run away with her,” he says and Eggsy turns his head to whisper back, “Does he not want to?”

“He has a duty to fulfill,” Harry explains, solemn.

How fitting , Eggsy thinks and wonders why they hold their breath for these fictional characters when in real life, a scene like this would be lunacy. No one springs into a musical number in public to profess their love or plead a cause. There are no arias against injustice. In fact, in Eggsy’s experience, you sit and suffer, wasting away with your heart in your throat because you can’t open your mouth in time.

As if on cue with his disillusionment, the song comes to an end and the lights go down. Aside from the mechanical click of the curtains sliding shut, everything is stockstill for a moment. 

Then Harry’s hand detaches from his in the dark and it’s all over, a rush of cool air flooding Eggsy’s now sweaty palm. Then the audience lights up and all at once, everyone is out of their seats, the chatter explosive.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcement start, “the intermission will last 25 minutes.”

Behind them, Percival says, “Time for some wine, eh,” patting Harry on the shoulder.

Eggsy’s still stupefied as they wander up the steps into the landing area he now notices is equipped with a bar and standing tables.

Chester King says, “We have reservations upstairs,” indicating by tone alone that he only means himself and Alethea, not that Eggsy minds this particular exclusion. Getting rid of those two only means he gets to slack off for a half hour, and right now, he is in desperate need of a breather, maybe even a stiff drink.

“I’m going to slip off to the ladies,” Caroline says, pressing her clutch into the hands of Percival, who says: “Drinks?”

“Actually,” Eggsy says, “could I have a word with-” He breaks off, not sure whether the question is meant to be for Harry or Percival even if he knows exactly what he’s trying to ask permission for.

The pit of his stomach is entirely liquid.

Not one to miss a hint, Percival says, “I’ll be at the bar,” and Eggsy nods, grateful for not being made to speak words he doesn’t have.

But then Harry asks, “Is something wrong?” and he’s put on the spot all over again.

“No. Well… Can we-?” Eggsy slides his eyes to the side to indicate he wants a bit more privacy and Harry acquiesces with a not-quite-nod.

They worm their way through the crowd toward the wall and come out at the very edge of the crowd by the stairs where it’s quieter but in an eerie way, everyone’s voices having bled together into a single tone that echoes up and down the marble.

On impulse, Eggsy reaches for the retractable belt barrier strung across the stairwell. He pushes it up with one hand and grabs one of Harry’s with the other to pull him through from under it and up the stairs. They make it past the next landing before stopping short, Harry a step below him and both of them stood close to the wall, well aware they’re trespassing.

The expectant look Harry casts him make the words that were so keen to bubble out of him moments ago catch in Eggsy’s throat. They’ve grown spikes that dig into his flesh, self-preservation instincts kicking in belatedly, telling him to make a break for it.

Harry’s hand is still hanging in his.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

Eggsy can neither answer truthfully nor lie, so he just stands there looking sick.

“Eggsy,” Harry says and the way his voice lowers an octave with concern is unbearable. It presses into Eggsy’s sternum, burns behind his eyes, and makes his hands shake.

Not knowing what else to do, he leans forward and presses his mouth over Harry’s in an attempt to convey all the things he can no longer say. It’s a sloppy, borderline violent kiss, and Harry freezes under him for a fraction of a second before he’s kissing back.

The one kiss slips into another, frantic touches that leave them both breathless and flustered.

Harry’s hands are prim on Eggsy’s waist on account of the suit; Eggsy’s not present enough to return the favour, Harry’s lapels crushed in his fists.

Tongue on tongue, Eggsy can almost believe words to be superfluous. There’s no one here to see and yet Harry remains eager, nothing about Eggsy in the moment for show. 

“Excuse me!” someone shouts from the top and they spring apart like teenargers at a school dance. They’re faced with a disgruntled waitress glaring down at them. “This area is off limits during performances. As is clearly indicated by the sign.”

Eggsy’s so mortified at being caught out snogging in a stairwell, he can’t bear to look at the woman. That’s when Harry steps in and raises his voice to, “My sincerest apologies,” in that intonation reserved for his own kind. It’s enough to appease the lady, who frowns but turns away.

Briefly not the centre of his attention, Eggsy takes his chance to bolt past Harry and down the stairs, the heels of his shoes striking up a quick trot on the marble steps.

“Eggsy,” Harry shouts, “wait!”

Determined to escape the situation, Eggsy ducks under the ribbon and pushes back into the crowd. On his heel - curse those long legs - Harry manages to grab his wrist and when he pulls, Eggsy’s momentum works against him and he spins around so that they almost collide.

Around them, people are starting to take note of the commotion.

“Leave me be,” Eggsy says quietly and pulls his wrist free.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Harry asks and Eggsy snipes back, “Ya speak English, don’t ya?”

“ You are the one who wanted to talk to me ,” he says, “You’re the one who pulled me into the staircase.” He looks angry now, or perhaps that’s hurt, Eggsy’s vision swims too much to tell the difference. “What is this supposed to be?” Harry asks and Eggsy thinks, that’s precisely it: the big question .

“‘S what I was tryna ask you?”

“Pardon?”

Eggsy shakes his head, tired of this confusion. “You kiss like you mean it but then the way you tell other people lies is very convincing too so-” his wrist flicks back and forth between them once- “what is this?”

“I-”

“There you two are!

Eggsy nearly jumps at the sound of Caroline’s voice, her and Percival materialising out of nowhere. When neither of them say anything, Percival hazards an, “Are we interrupting something?”

“Actually,” Harry tries, but Eggsy can no longer stand the tension, so eh cuts him off by blurting, “I need the loo.”

The flush on his cheeks renews itself in an instant with the odd looks he gets, but eventually Caroline breaks the silence and takes pity on him. “It’s right down there,” she says, pointing to the far end of the room.

Eggsy doesn’t even bother with a, “Thanks,” just rushes off, the discomfort in the pit of his stomach rolling like the ocean at high sea. He doubts Harry’s dashed after him; he’s far too polite to do something like that, but Eggsy still feels haunted working his way through the crowd, bodies everywhere obstructing and pressing into him.

When he finally makes it to the loo - past the ladies line a mile long - he stumbles past the urinals straight into a stall. The relief that sweeps him when he locks the door doesn’t last for long, the sound of shuffling feet and piss universally depressing, dragging him right back into Year Eight, holed away in the quietest toilet at his school to avoid a beating.

This time the dangers of a different kind but that doesn’t stop his hands from shaking. He presses the back of his head against the door to steady himself and takes a deep breath, eyes shut against the glare of the light overhead.

If only he’d kept his mouth shut, he could have sat back down, watched the second half of the opera, and walked away with his dignity (if not his heart) intact. As things stand, it quivers in his chest, all the possibilities splayed wide open in front of him. There is an answer out there though; it’s written in that affected look in Harry’s eyes right before Caroline cut him off, only Eggsy doesn’t know which of their feelings it is he’s frightened by.

And now that the question has been posed, there is no way he can sit next to Harry through another two acts pretending like the answer doesn’t matter. He’s got to get away.

Maybe he could wait out the intermission here and slip away afterwards without ever confronting the issue. He’s sure Harry could make up an excuse for him, but if he’s going to run away, he may as well know what exactly he’s running from, so Eggsy fishes his phone out of his pocket.

He retypes the text several times before he forces himself to send it.

This is still all fake, innit?

The answer takes a few minutes but Eggsy still starts when his phone buzzes, half convinced Harry’s out there feigning indifference.

Is that what you want me to tell you? -HH

No , Eggsy thinks but doesn’t type. Instead he writes: I want the truth .

It’s a simple demand and yet the most difficult of all. Eggsy watches the typing bubble appear, disappear, and reappear.

Nothing has been a lie for a long time now. -HH

The words tremble on the screen and start to swim, his vision liquefied at a moment’s notice. He thinks of Harry’s hand in the dark earlier, so warm; of his eyes blown wide at the top of the stairs; his lips warm against the crest of Eggsy’s hipbone, softer than happiness itself. He remembers the scent of Harry’s cologne standing too close in that fitting room, the protective hover of his hand whenever they’re in a crowd, and he wonders when it stopped being fake.

Overhead, the announcement to return to their seats within five minutes sounds and Eggsy realises he doesn’t have the faintest clue how to get back. He wipes his eyes and nose on a wad of toilet paper and looks at the texts that have come in while he wasn’t looking.

Will you please come out? -HH

If you would prefer, I can ask Caroline to wait for you. -HH

It dawns on Eggsy that even after all this, Harry’s still just as uncertain about everything as he is. It’s so obvious once the thought crosses his mind. He thinks of Harry standing on the steps of Rosalie’s apartment block proposing dinner, nervous as a young bird; the absolute, tender hesitation with which he kissed him in his doorway.

That forlorn look he had at the train station so, so many months ago.

If Eggsy is honest, he’s known since then that they’re playing with matchsticks, a tale so old it’s got but one ending. It’s something he’s sworn he wants no part in and yet here he is: sparking.

Nothing left to do but start a fire , he decides and pushes himself off the back of the door.

The loo is deserted by now, ditto most of the floor, a few waiters and last-minute scramblers excluded. Harry is standing by one of the entrances to the theatre, fidgeting with his phone and not looking at all like himself until he sees Eggsy and stills. They stare at each other from a distance for a delicate few moments, aware this is their last chance to claim plausible deniability.

Then Eggsy dares to smile - the hopeful, pained little uptick of the corners of his mouth that probably hasn’t graced his face since he was a little kid - and Harry holds out a hand. It’s easy to walk over after that and let his palm slip into Harry’s, to lean close and have their lips graze in a touch whose modesty speaks volumes in relationship where everything has been grand for deception.

His voice barely a whisper, Eggsy asks, “Can we leave now?”

Harry’s eyes are all pupil. “Is that what you want?”

Thumb ghosting down the groove of Harry’s life line, he nods.

“All right,” he says, “Let’s get our coats.”

Chapter Text

Calling it a garden party is misleading at best. The billowing white tent erected on the lawn is something straight off a television wedding and not at all what Eggsy imagined. Leave it to Harry’s mum to turn a private affair into a spectacle. Suddenly the three-piece linen suit hung on the wardrobe door upstairs doesn’t seem like overkill at all and Eggsy is glad Harry insisted he take it, although it makes him suspect Harry must’ve known about this all along.

“No wonder he didn’t wanna be here,” Eggsy says, “He’d fuckin’ hate this.”

Standing beside him, stony faced, arms crossed, his eyes following a waiter scurrying across the lawn with a stack of pristine white tablecloths, Merlin says: “Cruel of him to send you into Alethea’s claws on your own.”

It’s an argument he’s had twice with Harry to no avail so, while Eggsy agrees, he only says, “I can take her.”

“Yes.” Merlin’s, mouth twitches into something resembling a smile. “I’ve got no doubt about that.”

The car ride with him had been nerve racking: two hours of nothing - country road with music to match - Merlin quiet at the wheel and Eggsy fighting off the dread that’s settled in his stomach. He hasn’t been back to Harry’s childhood home since that first weekend when he was nothing but a stranger playing a part and the prospect of doing it for real is unsettling even after nine months spent with the man behind the mask.

Last Saturday morning, the day before Harry had left for an awfully strategically scheduled business trip, Eggsy had lain in his bed so certain of himself - half asleep, blindly tracing the moles on Harry’s back. Now he feels the need to yank his jeans up a few inches and take his snapback off, rendered an outcast by his surroundings.

But he’s not a nobody anymore. Harry will be here in a few hours, his eyes searching a crowd of bigwigs for Eggsy alone. Where he could only tease out the edges of Harry’s discomfort a year ago, these days he gets told without asking, Harry such an easy kind of vulnerable around him that Eggsy’s stopped worrying about being wounded.

It’s comfortable though it’s never quite stopped being a secret. Even the people they’re openly together in front of don’t know how they’ve come to be who they are and as much as he hated that in all those confused, complicated months when they were faking it, he’s glad for it now. They still tell the fake story to strangers - an inside joke accompanied by the jovial squeeze of a hand: I can’t believe they’re falling for this again.

And behind the scenes? He still doesn’t know quite what they are. He’s Harry’s and Harry is his but it’s as if the word for what they mean to each other hasn’t been invented yet.

Beside him, Merlin says, “We should get dressed for the party,” and Eggsy nods.

“Eggsy!”

He swallows the half-chewed canapé in his mouth with a gulp, surprised to find a familiar face in a crowd that’s been happy to ignore him so far.
“Hiya,” he says, squinting against the sun at Rosalie. She’s paler than he remembers but just as elegant, wrapped in a slither of seafoam silk . Most notably though, she’s with a girl who shares her chin and grey eyes, though the nose is someone else’s.

“Vicky, come meet Harry’s partner,” she says, grabbing her daughter by the shoulders. “How are you? It’s such a delight to see you again.”

“Yeah, good, thanks.”

 “I’d rather hoped to find Harry by your side.”

“He’s not here yet,” Eggsy says and the girl raises an eyebrow at him. “Business trip,” he adds, feeling the fool’s flush creeping up the back of his neck, “He’s coming straight from the airport.”

“Oh, bless your heart, being left alone with Alethea like this,” Rosalie says, echoing Merlin. Eggsy is starting to think he ought to have given Harry more grief about the arrangement.

“She’s not so bad,” Eggsy tries to say, but Rosalie cuts him off with an eye roll that makes him smile.

“Please, I’ve known Harry - and his mother - for nearly thirty years. She’s a piece of work, all right.”

“Yeah…” Eggsy says and trails off. It’s easy to forget that even though Harry’s kept many secrets for many years, that doesn’t mean he hasn’t had devoted friends to support him. It’s the same for Eggsy too, after all, and grateful as he is for his own friends, he values what Harry’s have done for him even more.

Conscious of the dragging pause, Eggsy asks: “How’s France?”

“Ah- I’m afraid I’m not entirely up to date in that respect anymore,” Rosalie says, “The children and I moved back to England over the summer.” Her hands tighten on her daughter’s shoulders. “I’ve decided to divorce Martel.”

Her daughter’s eyes slide away from his, hot with grief.

“‘S probably for the best,” Eggsy says, knowing first-hand what a toxic relationship can do to someone, “but I am still really sorry.”

Rosalie nods, solemn for a moment before her face brightens again. “This is really no topic for a party; we ought to be celebrating.”

Eggsy huffs. “Hard to do when the birthday boy ain’t in attendance yet.”

“Really very rude of him. We ought to cut into the cake without him.”

“Oh, that’s another thing. Dunno if you’ve seen it, but it’s fuckin’ monstorus. Just a topper short of a wedding cake, really. They’ve got a whole fridge cleared out for it inside.”

“Christ.”

“Yeah, if ya ask me, that ain’t a cake no more.”

“What’s this about a cake?” James, cheerful as ever, butts in. He gets a dirty look from Caroline who’s ditched Percival to trail around the party with her brother-in-law with a miniature buffet in hand.

“It’s huge, apparently,” Rosalie says.

James pops a grape off Caroline’s plate. “Well yes, what else can you expect from Auntie Alethea?”

“Victoire, you look splendid today,” Caroline says to Rosalie’s daughter who’s fallen entirely out of the conversation, “Is your sister here too?”

“She’s around,” says Rosalie, cutting in the way every mother does for a shy child.

“I thought I saw her raiding the food tent earlier,” James pitches in and Victoire, finally brave enough to speak, says, “Sounds like Eva,” glowing in the burst of laughter the comment gains her.

They chatter on for a while, Eggsy quietly listening to the three of them tossing conversational curveballs like the old friends they are. He’s simply pleased to be part of a group, the wandering guests around them gradually arranging themselves into clusters bubbling with laughter. He ought to feel alien here, stood with a bunch of middle aged upper class twits, but all he sees reflected in them now is a familiar humanity: universal heartaches, squabbles, put on smiles, and (somewhere under the perfect varnish of their exterior) even vulnerability.

He’s drawn out of the trance he’s faded into by James’ elbow nudging him in the ribs, the sparkle in his eyes incomprehensible until his words register and Eggsy’s eyes drift to the house. “Look who’s finally arrived.”

There, discreetly scaling the steps to the front door, the shape of Harry in one of his tailored suits is unmistakable.

“An hour late to his own party,” Rosalie says with a fondness so old it’s become a weapon. “Typical.”

Eggsy’s stopped listening to whatever is said next, his heart thrumming, the anticipation he’s been trying to suppress all day finally shaken loose by the sight of Harry.

“‘Scuse me,” he says, stepping out of the circle. His voice feels as faraway - curious, someone else’s - and he barely notices the inquisitive looks as he walks away, sweeping across the lawn in a daze.

He slips into the house through the french doors on the side on the garden, the curtains billowing out behind him. The change in light is disorienting for a moment. Compared to the late summer afternoon outside, the house is a cool, lifeless still.

His feet are faster than thought on the stairs, across the hall. It isn’t until his hand is on the doorknob that he hesitates. Then he twists and everything’s thrust back into motion: Harry turning as the door opens, his eyes are too dark to read when he’s backlit like that, not that Eggsy needs interpretation for this particular look; he’s seen it a thousand times - hopeful, hesitant, holding back from bursting at the seams.

“You’re back,” Eggsy says, unable to think of anything better to break the silence. He’d refused to take Harry’s calls all week out of spite - punishment in his mind - but now, all he wants is to hear that voice again. Every word Eggsy can think of carries Harry’s cadence (scratchy and blunted by sleep, a shadow of itself when Harry whispers in his ear), but none of them sound quite like the real thing.

“The plane-” Harry says, trying to justify why he’s late but Eggsy only shakes his head. 

“Doesn’t matter.”

He’s brave enough to move now, purposeful strides to the window where Harry is.

“I missed you,” Eggsy says: simple, no pretences - just the way he likes it.

It melts something in Harry, renders him soft as an old Chippendale in the morning sun: warm and achingly familiar under Eggsy’s touch.Now that Eggsy knows exactly how Harry feels about him, their quiet moments are no longer frightening, so they stay motionless watching each other in the half light.

He’s not sure who moves in for the kiss first, but by the time their lips meet, Harry’s calloused fingertips are already on his cheek tracing the outline of his face as if he’s afraid of encountering a mirage. Ten months in, they’re long past feverish, the delirious drunken and pent-up nights in Harry’s house less and less prominent in the time they spend together because Eggsy’s learned to simply rest in Harry’s presence.

It’s an ease he can’t help but be paranoid about sometimes because it goes against everything he’s ever known, too foreign to trust. But then, sat cross legged on the sofa, half-ignoring a Buster Keaton movie in favour of a heated discussion about something meaningless, he can’t imagine himself anywhere else.

“How is the party?” Harry asks.

“Not a ‘small gathering’, that’s for sure,” Eggsy says and smirks at the slow, agonized half-roll of Harry’s eyes.

“I don’t know why she insists-”

“‘Cos she’s your mum. And a fiftieth’s worth a party, innit?”

Harry frowns, so Eggsy adds: “Denial’s only for old geezers and as long as you ain’t bothered, neither am I.”

“Fifty though,” Harry says, the silence after filled with all the things people think of them but never say out loud.

Eggsy squeezes his hand. “Don’t you dare start giving a fuck about what anyone else thinks now.”

Harry’s eyes dart to his, startled and sheepish, the line of his mouth curling in apology.

“I ought to get dressed.”

“Yeah, heaven forbid someone sees ya in a two-piece,” Eggsy says even though, in his mind, he likes to see Harry in far less. He could undress him now if he wanted; all he’d have to do is place a palm on Harry’s chest and push for the hint to be taken, but he’s not about to keep Harry from the party for even longer, so instead, he goes for another kiss and says, “Come find me after you’ve talked to your mum.”

He spots Sophie smoking by the side of the house as soon as he comes out, everything about her screaming socialite on a break: blank look, one arm draped across her stomach propping up the hand holding the cigarette, the strap of her dress about to slip off her shoulder. Her hair is an enormous, wavy mass swept to cascade over one shoulder, gemstone pins keeping the loose curls in place, and a diamond necklace adorning her neck.

“Hey,” Eggsy says, squinting into the sun behind her as her head turns slowly.

She doesn’t light up exactly, but there’s a transformation towards delight he takes as an invite.

“Want a smoke?” she asks when he’s within reach, pushing the errant strap up with the back of her hand.

“Nah, I’m not about that anymore,” Eggsy says, “but I could use a breather from that .” He tips his head toward the party and she smiles through a long exhale.

“Me too. Charlie’s here.”

“I didn’t think you cared.”

“I don’t, but the message - when it finally sank in - resulted in that.” She gestures at the girl dangling from his arm, the kind of pretty that’s a little surreal even as she stands there, fearful in a skirt too short for a function like this.

Eggsy recognises the nervous tremble of someone two drinks too far into a social function they can’t understand and wonders where Charlie’s dug this one up.

“Having to watch the poor thing…” Sophie says and blows out another long breath. “Not my fault of course, but a girl’s got to have sympathy.”

They watch the girl’s heels sink into the grass as she moves, nearly tipping her over, and Eggsy thinks, Perhaps this is what I looked like at first , even if it was mostly put on.

Aware of the digression from her role, Sophie stumps out her cigarette, switches her smile back on, and says, “Come, let’s go back. We’re too good looking to be wallflowers.”

She grabs him by the hand like she would another girl at the club, both purposeful and searching in her direction as they wind their way through the crowd. They’re stopped by another hand on Eggsy’ shoulder, Roxy’s beaming face inches from his when he turns around.

“Eggsy!” She throws an arm around his neck and pulls him in for as much of a hug as she can with a full plate of food in her other hand. She’s radiant in Sophie’s enigmatic way: bright eyes, bright face, a simple old school beauty that makes one wonder why anyone ever bothered complicating it beyond a face like this.

“Roxy,” he says with disbelief turning to pleasure, “I had no idea you’d be here.”

“Plus one,” she says with a smirk, glancing in Sophie’s direction.

“Right, I heard! Congrats.”

“Thanks,” Roxy says, “but I think we’re the ones who owe you one.”

Eggsy snorts. “Nah, trust me, it’s the other way ‘round if anythin’.”

He sounds sincere enough that Roxy’s smile flattens. “What do you mean?” she asks and Eggsy, suddenly aware of how close he is to spilling the truth, bites his lip, surprised to find he wants to tell someone.

Sparing a glance to check no one else is listening, he whispers: “Harry and I didn’t get together the way we said. I didn’t even know him until the day I met you two.”

“What?” Sophie breathes, wide eyed with delight.

“Come on,” Eggsy says, pulling them towards the gazebo, where, tucked away under a tree he tells them the real story.