Archive of Our Own ^beta

Once Harry and Eggsy had been crudely - but irritatingly efficiently - restrained and left to stew in what may have once been a laboratory or, given the coated stone flooring, a morgue, the initial rush of fear had passed. The blanket threats of further bodily harm actually gave away an indication that they were to be held until the return of someone else tomorrow, their captors seemingly unaware of the rescue alert that had beamed out before they'd found the last of the communications devices. Help is on the way: they only have to wait it out.

Harry’s first thoughts, as always, are for Eggsy. Fortunately he's a mere few metres away, spreadeagled, cuffed at wrists and ankles to metal supports , whereas Harry’s arms are bound awkwardly together above his head, legs similarly strapped and double fastened to a pipe. Immediate assessment shows no obvious weak points in the restraints worth the further injuries of attempting to get free, as it stands.

“Are you hurt?”

Eggsy huffs. “Nah.” He sniffs loudly and spits on the floor, a bit of the blood clearing from his top lip and inside his mouth, showing the white of his teeth again -  all present and correct. “My arms are killing me and I really need a slash.”

“Ah, yes.” Harry settles, tossing his head to flick his hair out of his eyes. “I can see how that might become a problem.”

“Yeah, ain't it. Couldn’t they have given us a bathroom break before they strung us up?” Eggsy says it as though the lack of creature comforts is his primary concern, as though he's not carefully assessing the blood soaking through the chest of Harry’s shirt, but there’s nothing for him to worry about on that score: he’s just bust a couple of stitches from their previous mission. Of far more concern are the more deliberate recent injuries. “Comes under Cruel and Unusual, don’t it? Breach of my human rights, this.”

Harry gives him a rueful smile, a little strained.

“I think those probably went out of the window around the time they dislocated both my elbows.”

“Fuck. How's that treating you?”

“Exactly how you'd imagine.”

“Oh, babes. Not long.” He’s full of real sympathy, still wounded by every mark on Harry more than his own bloodied nose and bruises, and Harry loves him for it, and probably more so for the endearments when he knows nobody is listening to them.  “That mayday sent before they took our kit. They’ll be here for us in a bit, yeah? I’m here.”

“I know, darling.”  Harry also knows that the evacuation team are at least four hours away, yanking a far more vulnerable Bors out of a far more critical plight in Siberia, but there are some things he's not allowed to tell even Eggsy, and whilst he's fairly confident they've gone completely dark he's not about to risk accusations of breach of protocol given the allowances made for them being in a relationship. Not that anyone has named it as such, just yet, but they're turning a polite blind eye to their obvious blossoming romance and Harry is not about to push that luck with allegations of impropriety.

They fall quiet then for some time in which Harry uses breathing exercises to cope with his pain and creates mental libraries in which to catalogue the important facts he doesn’t have the glasses to communicate or store and so must memorise. It’s not been a wasted trip by any stretch of the imagination. They’ll return with exactly what they needed, even though things didn’t go exactly to plan.

He's become adept at measuring time without context: a surprisingly specialist and unusual skill, and often more a hinderance than a help. It's around half an hour before Eggsy starts talking again, just to break up the silence.

“I feel like a fucking kebab,” he announces, obliquely. “Not as in I want one. As in l actually feel like one… look at me, just hanging about.”

“I've looked,” says Harry, allowing a matching note of lighthearted approval in his tone. “You look vaguely pornographic. I keep half expecting a woman in a leather corset and improbable shoes to come and somehow take the buttons off your shirt with a bullwhip.”

“Ooh. Like that is it?”  Eggsy ticks an eyebrow and purses his lips at him playfully, tilting his hips. “Wanna crack out the handcuffs when we get home?”

“I think I've probably seen enough of them for a while. A hot bath and about a week under a duvet is seeming like the more appealing option at this moment.”

“You're a spoilsport, this would be way more fun with nipple clamps.”

Harry laughs, partly at that, partly at the abstract this is nice that floats through his head which is not at all sarcastic: indications are that they are safe and merely need to hold out for rescue that's on its way, however slowly, and at least he has Eggsy, right where he can see that he's unharmed, cracking jokes and flirting to while away the time and keep Harry's mind of his pain and perhaps his own off his discomfort. Because he is uncomfortable, wriggling in his ties and pulling his weight from limb to limb as he writhes.

Eggsy swears like a trooper and fights like a bulldozer, but he blushes like a renaissance cherub. It’s horribly enticing in a way Harry does his best to ignore: the way the pink forms in a hot stripe across his cheeks and then spreads down his jaw before flushing around his neck like he’s been held there.

“On the bright side, I think this is the longest we’ve managed to be alone together and both still have trousers on. Merlin will be most impressed.”

Eggsy chuckles then moans, and it almost sounds like pleasure. “Don't make me laugh, Harry, honestly, it ain’t helping.”

An answering blush springs up on Harry’s own face.  As much as he’d like to comfort him, it would be cruel to push it, so he lets the conversation die again; returns to mental maps and stoically ignoring his aches and pains, as well as Eggsy’s undignified predicament. That he does feel sorry about, because he knows they’re still hours from rescue when he pipes up again, something close to half an hour later.

“Ugh, where the fuck are they? I'm literally going to piss myself if they don't hurry up.” He's still making an effort to sound jovial but the desperation is stretching his voice out.

Harry snorts. “I wouldn't worry about it.” There are certain inevitabilities, given the circumstances, and Harry’s been stuck in enough compromising situations to accept them although he’s doing his level best not to even start thinking along those lines until they’re unavoidable. “Scores will be evened eventually, time’s a leveller.”

“Well you're obviously holding out better than I am. Christ. It actually hurts. I'm sorry, I know your elbows probably proper cane but I haven't felt like this since I was six and we got stuck in a gridlock on the M25 outside Epping for three hours. Someone gave me a capri sun, Harry. Who does that? ” He falls silent for a moment and then hisses, like he’s really in pain. “Fuck.”

At a loss, Harry makes some soothing noises but stops short of any actual coddling. He knows he should tell Eggsy to let go, give up trying, but somehow he can’t bring himself to form the words and he doesn’t think Eggsy would want to hear them if he did. It’s that much more delicate because of what they are, and he doesn’t blame the poor boy for being too embarrassed to just let nature take its course even though he can’t reasonably expect any other outcome now. He’s done very well, considering.

Eggsy’s quiet again, for a few moments, until he begins making a frustrated, whiny sort of humming noise and Harry almost can’t bear his discomfort.

“Would it help if we talked about something else? Take your mind off it?”

“I don't think there's a damn thing in the world that's going to help much longer. Shit. This is fucking stupid.” Eggsy kicks his heel back in anger and the clanging of the chains at the metalwork is deafening. He tries each limb again in turn, searching for weakness in the bonds first methodically and then frantically, just thrashing against the cuffs and seething. “Fucking wankers. Cunts. First fucking shitstain that shows his face in here is going to get it ripped off and shoved up his arse.” There was a study done, Harry remembers, which scientifically proved that swearing helped the body cope with pain better but now is probably not the time to chat about it: Eggsy sounds on the verge of tears. “Fuck. Fuck.”

“Calm down. Our best bet for being in one piece when extraction eventually get here is them utterly leaving us be. Relax.”

“Fuck you n’all Harry, yeah? Leave me the fuck alone.”

Defeated, Eggsy clatters into silence save for the steady, slow heaviness of his breathing. As requested, to the best of his ability Harry respects his wishes and leaves him to it for another ten minutes or so marked only by the occasional sigh, an unfortunately loud and constant drip in the corner, and then a little whimper from Eggsy.

Harry looks to check he’s alright and sees him biting his lip, head tipped back as if in prayer, foot bouncing. He can’t help his eyes dropping to where a tiny bloom of darkness is spreading at the inside top of his left thigh. It stops at an inch or so across.

“Are you alright, Eggsy?”

“Don't fucking look at me.”

Harry turns his head and shuts his eyes in an attempt to afford him what privacy he can, but there's no hope at all of avoiding the groan of absolute helplessness or the trickle of liquid through dense fabric; the first uneven splashes ringing guiltily out from the stone floor. Eggsy lets out a soft, defeated little sigh of relief that doesn’t do anything to cover the hiss of the stream which drags on for a humiliating age before eventually slowing to a drip.

After that is just a burning silence in which Harry can find absolutely nothing reassuring to say.

He’s not sure if it’s a mercy or an insult, then, that the support team turn up less than fifteen minutes later. Under a flurry of gunfire and explosives they're hauled into the jet and are speeding for the safety of home, ninety or so minutes earlier than Harry had calculated for unless his estimations are way off… which, when he checks the mission logs against the time, he finds they were. Not good enough, Galahad.

By the time Harry’s triaged - under duress - Eggsy’s washed and changed and looks to be two-thirds asleep, sniffling quietly in a soft tracksuit, so Harry leaves him in peace.

***

Eggsy spends two nights and a mostly slept-through day in between at home with his mum, licking his metaphorical wounds whilst Harry is in the medical wing having his physical ones tended to. For the first disjointed stretch of hours he can’t bear to make contact with him, trying to tell himself it’s because he’s allowing Harry time to recover rather than because he’s too preoccupied with his own shame to worry about Harry’s arms, but he does care and eventually he just can’t sit and wait to see when Harry will break the radio silence of his own accord.

Apparently he's been yanked back into shape, given all the painkillers he’ll take and prescribed another four weeks of desk work which might go some way to explaining why he's quite so monosyllabic and sulky every time Eggsy tries to speak to him.

Or, of course, it could be because Eggsy pissed himself.

Eggsy has trouble closing his eyes without thinking about it. It's sort of just typical of his life, ain’t it? He spends fuck only knows how long pining after Harry, weeks of awkward emotional outbursts followed by a further month or so having intense “we shouldn't be doing this” sessions before they’d finally settled into some sort of... Something.  He's just got him into bed, and beyond that into actually staying in it and waking up there, into dinners and routine and easy affection and even once or twice holding hands, and then he fucking wets himself like a child in front of him.

And he's trying not to put two and two together and come up with seven but Harry's avoided any sort of personal contact with him since and Eggsy is entirely, burningly humiliated every time his brain assaults him with the memory, which is often. He’ll manage to think about something else for a few minutes at a time and then a swirling void of visceral horror will open up from nowhere and swallow him; he's torn between praying nobody ever finds out about it and taking a bloody ad out in the Evening Standard so it's over and done with.

Back at work, he wonders if the other agents know. It eats at him, irrelevant but insistent. They had no glasses and no taps. He can't reasonably imagine Harry ever deliberately embarrassing him or gossiping, even when he’s consciously trying to imagine worst case scenarios, so that’s out. He'd bundled his suit into the jet’s pressure shower with him so that by the time he turned it in for cleaning it was all soaked and didn't look nearly as incriminating, but of course there'd been the extraction team. Nobody says a word but there's no way Percival could have missed having to avoid standing in a fucking puddle to uncuff Eggsy's legs and get him out.

Running in wet trousers weren’t exactly fun, either.

Between the hot flashes of humiliation, Eggsy manages to approach the situation logically enough to overcome the urge to fake his own death or turn in his notice-  if either are even possible things to do when you work for an intelligence agency. Everybody is totally normal with him, apart from Harry, who is never directly rude or dismissive enough to give Eggsy the chance to call him out on it but instigates no affection, never stops to chat, never seems to be in any of the places they’d find themselves catching rushed, exciting little kisses or extending an invite for later. Nothing.

Either nobody else knows or they’re too polite to bring it up, but then why would they? He tells himself a thousand times if he does once, that he’s being paranoid: it just cannot be the first time that's happened to someone on a mission. What if they'd been there another two hours, or four, or ten?  Not even Harry could hold out forever. He's fucking human, Eggsy knows it, he's felt the press of his heartbeat under the skin of his neck against his lips, the texture of his hair in his grip, the slip of sweat between their skin. And he’s seen Eggsy at his most unguarded, naked and naive; all the soft spots of his body, the gamut of moods, the vulnerability of sleep.

Sleep alone gets harder each night, every hour another in which something is definitely wrong and that something seems to be too terribly timed to have nothing to do with the twat he’d made of himself in that manky French basement.

It ain't that fucking bad. Snipers have to piss where they sit all the fucking time. Of course, snipers don't make such a bloody fuss about it, but in Eggsy's defence they aren't usually starfished out in front of a man they're sleeping with, might just be in love with, at the time - presumably, he's not one to judge.

Of course, it didn't help that he'd reacted by moaning and squalling about it rather than just taking it like a man or laughing it off. Perhaps it was the immature handling of it rather than what actually happened  that had made Harry not want to ask to see him, or even chat with him beyond cold politeness.

Eggsy rolls over in bed to bang his forehead softly but deliberately against the wall. Fuck .  How was Harry supposed to respect Eggsy, to be attracted to him as a man and not the jumped up kid he was always in danger of being seen as, if he was going to deal with a setback by throwing a strop?

Eventually,  he sends him a message apologising for swearing at him, that he didn't mean it, he was stressed out and he hopes they can forget about it, and the reply he receives is quick enough to be almost encouraging.

[You were under a great deal of stress, perfectly understandable.]

[And the other thing. I'm sorry you had to see that, fckin gutted. Can we forget that too?]

To that he receives no reply at all.

***

The whole calm, measured, not-throwing-a-strop thing doesn't last more than a day after that and when he finds himself near Control after being all but completely ignored all afternoon, Eggsy marches in to have it out with Merlin, who doubtless knows everything.

“Alright, the fuck’s the matter with Harry?”

“‘Was hoping you'd shed some light on that, actually.” Merlin looks up from the computer bank but there’s nothing but the same question in his eyes. “He's had a complete bee up his arse since we got you back from France.”

“Tell me about it.”

Merlin knows that they're sleeping together. Were sleeping together - in the last five days Harry's not so much stayed in a room alone with him for long enough to ask the question, let alone make physical contact. So he's as sensitive as he's capable of being, Eggsy assumes.

“Did something happen? Whilst the two of you were in the dark?”

Eggsy shoots him a look, reflexively petulant. “We spent six hours hung up like fucking sides of beef waiting for you lot to sort your shit out, is what happened.”

Merlin doesn't mention it again.

***

Eggsy keeps telling himself he's being paranoid, making the logical excuses: Harry's busy, he's hurting, there's paperwork to be done and other agents to debrief, he might have something else on his mind that Eggsy isn’t aware of but when the invitation round for their usual ‘Wednesdays are our Friday nights’ takeaway doesn't come by mid morning and Harry deliberately avoids him when they break from a meeting he knows there’s definitely a problem.

Maybe he has a phobia, or some sort of trauma? For fuck’s sake, it was only piss, and although he's fucking mortified Eggsy is almost over it. He can very readily think how it might have been a lot worse and then maybe he'd understand why Harry won't even look at him.  Is it some sort of OCD thing? He tries to think if he's ever stood next to Harry at a urinal, or left the door to the ensuite open when he's stayed over and Harry's been waiting for him to come back to bed or pottering around getting dressed, and can't recall anything specific.

Eggsy’s stomach rolls and prickling panic springs up the backs of his arms. He can't have lost all that. Not over something so stupid. Not over something he couldn't help. He might be besotted but he just can’t find it in him to believe Harry would simply go cold on him over something so superficial without there being something deeper behind it.

Eggsy fires off a last ditch message, laying it out. Harry needs to get the fuck over it and talk to him, look, he's really sorry it's obviously really upset him and it's messing with Eggsy's head. Unusually, for their communications this week, he gets a response straight away.

[I promise I'll never bring it up, nor tell a soul. Forget it ever happened.]

He types out and deletes What, us? four times before putting his phone in his pocket and heading for Harry's office.

***

Harry startles physically enough to rattle his chair when Eggsy slams his door open and then shut again behind him. It's a sure sign he's distracted in itself, but whilst the noise makes him jump he can’t really be surprised by Eggsy striding into his space, shoulders set like he’s ready to finish a fight Harry never wanted to start. Realistically, Harry knew this was coming - silence rarely being the miracle tactic he’d hoped for - yet he’s no closer to knowing what to do about it.

“You been avoiding me since we got home from France. And yeah, I get it. And I get that it was rank and you don’t wanna look at me no more but have the fucking decency to dump me properly, yeah?”

There was a time Eggsy would have raged at him from the doorway or at least the other side of the desk but he asserts himself now, drawing close enough that Harry has to stand up to regain a bit of control.

“No, Eggsy, no.” Having had no idea how to behind, he finds the words knock something loose, and Harry spits them out like teeth, ready to fall. Eggsy is blazing and Harry wants to kiss the anger right off his face. He doesn’t know, now, how he expected him to take Harry pulling away so quickly, only that he had to, and did, heedless of the price of his own wallowing.  “No, I… I don’t want that.”

“You don't.” There's a flash of relief but he buries it in sarcasm, gaze burning into Harry's cheek when he turns away. “You got a fucking funny way of showing it. I get being too disgusted to want to… touch me, but you’re a grown man, Harry, you can answer a fucking text with more than two syllables.”

“I wasn’t disgusted. You've not done anything wrong,” Harry was a fool to think he'd ever get away with this, and he’s never been so grateful for anything in his life.  Eggsy wouldn't be half the man he thought if he were the type to simply roll over and give up, and true to that he’s having none of Harry’s fumbled excuse for an ‘It's not you, it's me’.

“You can’t even look me in the eyes!”

Harry owes him better than this. He rubs the back of his hand over his forehead and sighs.

“Sit down, Eggsy.”

“Why? So you can give me some lecture about how you’ll still respect me as an agent but you can’t think about me that way anymore? I get it, yeah. I just want better than you fucking cutting me off like nothing ever happened, just beca-”

“Eggsy, will you let me speak?”

Eggsy closes his mouth firmly enough to just his chin up and raises his eyebrows, waiting, which only makes it harder. Harry takes a deep, steadying breath and lets it out as a sigh. Eggsy is so clearly furious and under the furious he’s hurt, and it’s that wounded sheen to his flaming eyes that steels Harry’s resolve to do this once, properly, so that he’ll understand. Another deep breath. Two. Eggsy looks expectant, like he’s not going to just stand there whilst Harry hyperventilates at him.

“I’ve got… I've got a thing , Eggsy. For… for what happened to you. In France.”  Blank silence. “I liked it. Sexually, I mean, liked it. I couldn’t help myself reacting to it, and you were in distress, and it didn’t stop me getting hard at seeing you like that and I’m an awful, awful person and you deserve much better, and I-”

“You fucking what? A thing? ” Harry gears himself for a punch he suspects he might not try to defend himself from before a near hysterical laugh bursts out of Eggsy. “What, like a fetish? Are you being serious?”

“Painfully. I’m afraid. Although I wouldn’t say fetish. It’s just… a thing. ” Harry gives up. This should have been the reaction he was expecting, really. He doesn't recall ever having been the type to blush but he knows he's red to the tips of his ears from the heat he can feel in his face, the scorching shame, the disgusting taste the words leave in his mouth. The way Eggsy's looking at him… although that, strangely, could be worse: his appalled expression does at least show more than a quirk of amusement amidst the surprise, like he knows something so plainly absurd has to be true, so at least Harry isn’t about to have to argue the case on top of wanting the floor to open up and swallow him.

Eggsy stifles another mad laugh.

“You... Are you telling me you’ve been being a twat because you popped a stiffy about me pissing myself?”

Straight to the crux of the matter, then.

“I don't want to talk about this. I'm doing my best to just forget it ever happened, as I'm sure you'd love to.” Eggsy's obviously done little since but rue the day if his grovelling texts were anything to go by, although if he thinks Harry's no longer attracted to him, that may have compounded his regret. How else was he supposed to interpret the could shoulder? There was no way to tell him nothing could be further from the truth. And there Harry has been, desperate to touch him, to hold him, but unable to even entertain the concept of desperation without spiralling into guilty fantasy and the answering self loathing. Unable to trust himself to have him without inflicting his weirdness on the poor boy even more than he has. He didn’t sign up for Harry’s filth: not this bit, not the things he’d have hidden from him forever if they’d not been so cruelly dragged into the light.  “If you're too disgusted to… pursue things, I'll understand, and I'm truly sorry about the whole mess. ”

At that point, Eggsy snaps from his slack jawed, furrowed browed confusion and looks at Harry like he has entirely lost his mind.

“Nah, fuck off.” There’s his answer, in its essence, but he’s dismissing the idea of leaving rather than dismissing Harry and Harry has never been happier to be sworn at. “Hang on… okay, there's two things here, ain't there. Right. First, sit your fit arse down because I ain't walking out over you being a rabid fucking pervert. It's always the posh ones, dunno why I'm even surprised.” 

Eggsy perches on the edge of the desk and crosses his legs at the ankles. The fight drops from his body, although there’s not the momentary suggestion that Harry’s going to be let off lightly. “You gonna pour me a drink or we gonna have this conversation without one?”

Dumbstruck, Harry reaches for the decanter at the corner of the desk and pours two glasses.

“Talk to me, Harry, I ain't going anywhere.” Eggsy raises his eyebrows at him expectantly over the crystal tumbler, throughout a slow sip and swallow.

“Do we have to do this?”

“Yeah. You’ve been being a total dickhead to me for a week, I think we do.”

“For that I really am sorry, Eggsy.  I didn't know how to… I felt guilty, and I was embarrassed.”

“You're embarrassed. You’re embarrassed.” Now he mentions it, well. “You. Are embarrassed, am I getting this right Harry. You're embarrassed? I literally wet myself in front of my boyfriend and you're embarrassed.  Why did you not just tell me at the time? I thought you were never gonna come near me again. ”

Harry swallows, both at the endearment and the sharp jolt of arousal the words send through him. Not now .

For all his intelligence, Harry Hart sometimes does very silly things. He once forgot his actual civilian passport when he went to visit family in Geneva. He occasionally thanks cash points and self service tills, out loud. He let the man he loves sit for a week thinking Harry didn’t want to be with him anymore, almost lost him, because he’s got a horrible kink he’s too ashamed to talk about.

“It was hardly the time for it-”

“It was exactly the fucking time for it. I'd say any time up to ten seconds before I piss myself and then spend a week dying of shame would be the time to tell me you're the sort of dirty old freak who'd get a boner about it, yeah? “

Harry allows a small smile and lowers his head. If there’s such a thing as mercy it’s in that the ridiculousness of the conversation has knocked Eggsy’s rightful rage right off it’s footing.

“Still not seeing what your malfunction’s been since we got ‘ome. You ain't normally bothered about getting off on the weird shit.”

Therein lies the rub.

“Because you give that to me willingly and knowingly!” He hisses it, although he doesn't mean to, it's himself he's angry at. Eggsy, bless his heart, thank fucking god, iappears to be missing the crucial difference, but Harry knows he has to be brave enough to spell it out for him once and for all if they're ever going to let this lie, if he's going to forgive him for the way he's behaved in response. “There's a world of difference between us enjoying things together and me being aroused by you actually suffering, and I'm disappointed in myself. Enjoying that the way I did It was an absolute and total abuse of something you couldn't help, and I am furious with myself for being turned on by it.”

“So you took it out on me. Rather than talking about it like a grown up. You left me thinking I'd put you off me for life.”

Eggsy’s tone is gradually sliding down from fury: there's hope that the stop through disappointment will be a brief one, as the understanding is already creeping in at the edges. Harry already appreciates that Eggsy will be the one to soothe him through this although by rights it should be the other way round: Eggsy sees Harry's vulnerability through his stubbornness. As if he'd ever let Harry go into self destruct on his watch.

“... for which I owe you further apology. And a great deal of gratitude for handling this… rather more maturely than I have. Oh Eggsy, come here.”

The kiss is mercy, is benediction. A press of lips that only opens out to the touch of tongue long enough to leave no ambiguity: crisis averted, the damage is fixable. Harry will do whatever it takes.

“Will you forgive me?”

“Oh it ain't that bad, Harry, Christ. Bit of a relief really.” In all their painful, guiltily arousing detail, Eggsy’s texts had betrayed an amount of self consciousness that twists at Harry’s core just in remembering. “I don't get it though.”

“I don't expect you to, and I'll not bring it up again. Honestly, I can't apologise enough.”

The look on Eggsy’s face softens, and he takes another mouthful of his drink. He’s not a huge fan of whiskey, and Harry would start keeping something else for him but he doesn’t want to encourage either of them to start making a habit of meeting in his office recreationally. That way madness lies.

“Nah, it's not… there's worse things, ain’t there, I'm not freaked out, I'm not judging you. Well maybe a bit...” He cracks into a dirty grin. “I just want to understand. Other things I get. Golden showers though, really Harry? I'm not seeing the appeal.”

Harry winces.

“It's not that. It’s not about,” he drains his drink and puts the empty tumbler decisively down on the desk. Then he refills it, mostly for something to do and so he has somewhere to look whilst he speaks, although the slosh of liquid into the glass is suddenly damning.  “It's not about piss. So much. It's about the needing to, and not being able to do anything about it. It's about the struggle, and eventually losing.”  He’d probably be a bit more mortified if his brain were willing to process the fact they’re actually having this conversation, but it appears to have disconnected entirely, replaced with an excited flatline and a buzzing low down in his hips.

“Oh, so that was right up your street then, what happened to me.”  He looks a bit intrigued. Fascinated, like when Harry teaches him about archaic weaponry and outdated espionage, sitting forward a little and putting his drink down on the desk.

“Horribly so. Knowing that, now, you can imagine the effect that had on me.”

“Hmm.” He sounds thoughtful, perhaps even edging towards playful, and Harry has the coiling, tightening sensation that often starts when he's being briefed for something dangerous.  “So. Have you had a wank over it?”

“Eggsy…”

“ Harry . Have you?”

“I've been trying very hard not to.”

“That ain't an answer. Come on, you owe me this.”

“No.” At least he can say it in good conscience, and he's bloody glad of his resolve in that. “I won't pretend it hasn’t crossed my mind. Popped up unbidden into my head. That’s… that’s mostly been the problem, but I made myself think about something else and then when I couldn't, to have a very cold shower. It’s not actually been the easiest of weeks in that respect.”

“So you haven't since?” Eggsy's eyes widen. “Fuck me, no wonder you're being such a moody tosser.”

“I can't… I couldn't risk it. I couldn't trust myself not to think about it.”

“Well, that's a fucking waste, ain't it!”  He sounds genuinely affronted and in some twisted way Harry sees his point, although it's such a violent turnaround from his own standpoint it could give him whiplash. “Someone might as well get something out of it. It’s already happened. So. Was you gonna tell me about this at any point? Like, was you gonna ask me to... do something?”

“Probably not. It's not something I would ever press upon a partner or even discuss. It's not exactly most people's idea of a romantic night in.”

Eggsy has to relent at that but it doesn’t put him off his tack.

“Well it's fucking weird, yeah, but you know I like knowing what gets you hot under that stuck up starched collar.” He drags a finger up to tuck under the aforementioned, damp as it is with nervous sweat, toying first between tie and cotton and then cotton and skin, looking somewhere along Harry’s buttons where his tie’s askew. “So what, but you think about it? Do you watch porn of it? Did you get your old boyfriends to like, piss on you? Or what?”

“Eggsy, I really don’t want you  thinking I’m some awful pervert-”

“...Which you are...”

“- Which I am, but I’m not going to push any of this on you, I won’t ask you for anything, I’d rather we just forgot it had ever come up.”

Eggsy huffs, bored of his generosity being rebuffed.   

“I get it. I get why you're beating yourself up, but we've talked it out and no harm done, right? Just a misunderstanding. So how about you make me feel better about the whole thing?” There's that note of challenge again. “You're bothered about having taken something from me when I hadn't said you could, right?”

Harry nods to tell him yes, that's a far more succinct appraisal of the situation than he himself has managed, despite having done nothing but stew on it for six fucking days.

“I'm telling you how you can give it back.”

“I'm listening.”

“Nah, see, I want to listen.” Eggsy nudges at Harry so he can sit across his legs, leaving enough room to go for the fly on his trousers, finding him guiltily, unsurprisingly hard. It hurts Harry, how pleased he looks. But then, if he'd spent a week thinking Eggsy would never find him attractive again because he found him so disgusting… oh, god, he's a fool. A lucky one. He's not about to throw another second of this generosity back in Eggsy’s face.

“Maybe I don't believe you. Maybe you're just saying it so I'll cheer up about it all.” Eggsy’s lips against his ear, breath hot on his skin as he extracts him smoothly from his trousers, not a note of sincerity in his voice now, all clever manipulation.

“I wish.”

“Okay. I felt shit because I thought you were put off. Maybe if I'm thinking about this I'll remember it a bit different? Like I was just making my freak of a boyfriend’s sick little dreams come true.” He releases his grip for a moment. “Have you -? Ah, knew it.” It only took him two compartments of the desk to find the tub of coconut oil. Useful for all sorts of things, Harry’s told. Somehow it only ever ends up being used for two.

Eggsy starts to stroke along his cock, smooth and slow; relief and arousal stiffens and shatters through Harry like a windscreen bursting out from being smashed with a stone.

“So tell me. Tell me what you've been trying not to think about.”

Harry wants to argue, but he won't insult Eggsy further by insisting he doesn't know what he's asking for. Besides, he's been on a knife edge ever since -  fending off the images imprinted on his mind on his own in the dark, missing the feel of Eggsy's body; the smell of his skin; the feel of his weight on him;  the memory so close to something he'd conjure himself on the brink of orgasm, just needing that spike of depravity to shove him over the edge...

“You...” That's enough to have Eggsy settling his weight on Harry’s leg for comfort, changing the angle of his wrist to encourage him to continue.  “Bound up and desperate. Knowing you were going to make such a mess of your pretty suit, and not being able to do anything about it.”

“Dunno. Sounds a bit grim to me.” Eggsy's definitely fishing for reassurance now, and Harry’s going to give him as much as he wants.

“It isn't. It's fucking beautiful.” Harry’s already breathless with arousal, with the feel of Eggsy’s grip on him. Being forced to talk about his darkest wants should put him off but with Eggsy goading him, happy in his lap, it just makes him want to let it all spill out. “The humiliation of waiting for it, the fucking… ah. Inevitability. And to see you of all people, trying so hard and being so brave and then giving in to it, just being helpless. And I knew you were so embarrassed and I'm so sorry, that only made it hotter.”

That's the sore spot, but Eggsy murmurs an encouraging little mmm and keeps stroking him, the slick sound as nothing under the weight of Eggsy’s breathing by his ear. He’s enjoying this. “It's okay. I like the idea of you being so turned on that you can't help yourself even though you're trying. Because of me. Has this ever happened before?”

Harry groans and swallows so hard his throat clicks. His head’s swimming in bliss, he can barely keep up.  “Which bit?”

It's not that it never comes up at all. Not a single agent who'd past the train test has made it through entirely without incident but he's rarely there to witness and besides, the momentary control lapse at the peak of fear isn't the same.  It still makes the back of his neck hot to think of Eggsy, specifically, breathing his way down from the adrenaline high to suddenly become aware of the minute wet patch on his boxers, but would have been a dribble, if that. Not one he had time to process, and certainly not one Harry’s about to admit he's thought of since, although right now it makes his blood itch under his skin.

“Like, that whole scenario…  someone being that desperate and then having to give in to it...  just unfolding right in front of you. Has that ever happened?”

“Never.” The memory of it, so fresh; Eggsy echoing the crushing inevitability of a bladder full to bursting, the hopeless merciful surrender, punches Harry in the chest and makes his toes and inner thighs tense up. Eggsy doesn’t miss a single flinch and he’s staring at him, eyes dark and heavy-lidded, hungry for the way Harry’s responding to his words, let alone his hand. “ Fuck , Eggsy.”

“So I'm the only person you've ever seen in like… that position, for real?”

“You are, you perfect boy.”  Eggsy may never truly appreciate quite how closely his predicament mimicked Harry’s worst thoughts. The hand on his cock is inconsequential, almost: Eggsy’s acceptance of something he never thought he’d acknowledge in itself would be enough; his teasing at it, so eager to please, is more than Harry needs after depriving himself ever since. “You know, you're going to make me come if you keep talking about it.”

Eggsy lets out a little gasp, perhaps involuntarily. “Yeah, you know I like that. I like being good for you.”  Harry grabs a grateful handful of Eggsy’s crotch through his trousers, squeezes at him, finds his cock searing and rigid. Eggsy’s words come out on a groan. “For the record...for the future… I'm cool with it, yeah? You can think about it any time you want. ” The twist and flex of his hand speeding up makes it very plain when he wants Harry to think about it. Eggsy's made his feelings about being the subject of fantasy very clear on many occasions. “If you’re ever tossing yourself off and it pops up in your head, be my guest. And if you can’t remember what it looked like, what I felt like, I’ll remind you.”

Harry gasps and shifts his hips a little to dislodge Eggsy’s hand from its rhythm, to buy himself time. “Do shut up, you menace.”

“Don’t think I will, actually. I’m enjoying myself.” Eggsy rubs his free hand up over his stomach, down enough to pull his trousers taught over his hard cock. “I’m kind of into you being into something so fucking dirty, and the seal’s broken now, innit, I’m game. So...why don't you tell me why it gets you off. Because you can bet I'm going to at least talk about it...” The at least piques another flip in Harry's gut that he doesn't need, but he’ll indulge any whim that keeps him writhing in his lap, spouting filth and working Harry over with smooth wet strokes, his hand urgent and demanding.

“I suppose it’s… the idea that you know it's going to happen eventually, and all the wriggling and squirming in the world won't help you. Trying to fight it, knowing you won’t win.”

“Mmm, and I did all that didn't I?”  Eggsy practically preens. He nudges at Harry’s ear with his nose, then his lips, just letting him hear the excited stutter of his breathing. “Writhing around moaning about it.”

“Yes, shit. The talking. Fuck me Eggsy, you talking about how badly you needed it, how it felt...”

“Ugh, it was awful. But you know how it sort of feels good, when you really need it and you sort of squeeze up?” There’s laughter in the heat of his tone: he knows exactly that Harry knows. “How hard were you? I didn't even think to look. Imagine if I’d caught you.”

“I was twitching, Eggsy, it was unbearable. I was trying so hard. But you were making all those gorgeous noises like you weren't going to be able to hold it much longer and I couldn’t do anything. Knowing it was a matter of time before you had to let go.” He whimpers, then, just like Eggsy did. He can't help it.

“And that happened right in front of you, and you were such a gent you didn't even watch…” Eggsy goes in for the kill, voice low in the shell of Harry’s ear, and Harry’s cock jumps in his fist. “You heard though, didn't you.”

Harry nods quickly, eyes squeezed shut, mouth open. He heard. The little noises of desperation, the hisses and whimpers. He's haunted by that groan of unwilling relief, the zip of liquid through stiff fabric. The patter and the stream, just going on, he must have needed it so badly...

“And you must have seen the state of me after. My trousers were soaked.”  Harry is given away by his cock throbbing suddenly, pulse thumping against Eggsy's loose palm. “Oh! That’s a thing too then, is it? Better than if I’d been naked? I’m learning all sorts about you today, ain’t I?”

“Eggsy, please -”

His hands are merciful, even when his words are not, pulling in even, shallow strokes, working over the head quick enough to strike sparks into the trail of pleasure up Harry’s back.  “Nah, it’s good. I always feel like you got me eating out the palm of your hand. It’s nice to feel like I can do that to you for a change. You got a kick out of me being helpless, now look at the state of you.”

Fair’s fair.

“Can you blame me? The most gorgeous boy I've ever seen goes and does that in front of me and you had no idea, no idea at all what it was doing to me to see you like that." His hips push up, trying to find more even with Eggsy's weight on him, and Eggsy allows it, works with it. "It took every shred of my control not to have my hand down my trousers the moment we were on that plane. I never thought I'd be glad of a dislocated elbow.”

Eggsy moans then, raw and genuine, shifting his hips.

“Amazing . Wish you had. Wish I’d heard you then and you’d had to tell me. It's making me want to do it just to see you lose your mind for it like this.” He sits forward so he can get a better angle, wank Harry off faster now that he’s curling up out of his chair with the tension. “Drink a fuckload of sprite, maybe when we’re on a long drive somewhere, and start whinging about needing a piss and squirming around and see what it does to you.”

“You'll get us both killed. Do it at home.”

“Maybe I will.”

Something unravels in Harry, fast and molten.

“You'd like that, wouldn't you. Will you want to touch me? Put your hand right here…” He grabs Harry's hand and puts it low on the heat of his belly, so low Harry can just feel the tickle of Eggsy’s pubic hair against his pinkie finger. “...And feel how full I am? How bad I need it?”

Harry groans raggedly, his mouth gone dry. He doesn’t doubt Eggsy can feel how close he is, can feel victory impending.

“Or would you rather just watch, like you were trying not to. Me all spread out so I can't even cover myself when it happens. When I can't hold on anymore.” He's getting the hang of it now, reading between the hitches and sighs in Harry's breathing and the leaking of his cock into his hand. The slip of his strokes gets easier, the sweet of coconut drowned out with musk and new sweat, heat hanging damp around them like thick fog.  “You want me dressed all nice? Suit? Or tight jeans, maybe…”

“God yes.” Harry’s enthusiasm gets another pleased grin from Eggsy, another rewarding twist over the head of his cock. “Or just boxers,” he volunteers, mindless, mostly just to prompt Eggsy to keep talking.

“Something you can see get wet?”

Harry just makes a strangled noise in his throat, already gone.

“Yeah, that’s it.” Eggsy tightens his had just slightly. “What if I were sitting here like this, and you held me down so I couldn't get up and go to the bathroom? Until I had no choice?”

Harry Isn't sure if the kiss he catches him in is just to shut him up because he can't take any more, or to stifle his own broken shout as he comes, back tensing bolt upright, cock spurting thick over Eggsy’s hand and up his stomach, smeared onto his creased up shirt by the sudden press of their bodies.  When they pull apart, breathless and sticky, Eggsy is laughing at him again.

“Fuckin’ hell Harry. You fucking grubby beast.”He looks satisfied, and wild. There's a strange amount of respect in his face.

Harry slumps back into his desk chair, panting.

“Not a fucking word out of you. Not a word.”

A breathy, dirty little chuckle and then Eggsy is kissing him again, sweet forgiveness and patient heat. Harry reels. He’s vaguely aware of Eggsy removing his tie, possibly to clean his hands on or just because it’s a lost cause, and sitting back down with his weight spread better so that he can lean back without squashing Harry’s wet, softening cock or giving him a dead leg.

“Christ,” Eggsy mutters when he’s settled with Harry's fingers absently running through his damp hair. “We’re never going to have an argument about anything normal, are we?”

“I do hope not. This is much more fun. I am sorry though. Both for the weirdness and then for being such an intolerable arse about it.”  Harry presses his face into the warm skin of Eggsy's neck, overwhelmed with gratitude and post-orgasm softness. “ I shall have to make it up to you, if you’ll allow me.”

“Hmm.” Eggsy props his feet up on the edge of Harry's desk. “A very public bunch of flowers should do nicely. The proper ‘ oh shit someone's in trouble’ sort. The ‘everyone knows you're sleeping on the sofa ’ sort. At work.’

Harry grimaces. “Done.”

“And you can sort this out.” He puts Harry's hand in his lap so that it rests naturally - unavoidably- on the bulge of his erection.

“That's not a penance, it's a privilege.”

Eggsy just rolls his eyes at him and continues with his ransom. “Dinner out, suited and booted…” 

“Yours. Absolutely.”

 “... At KFC.”

That gets a laugh out of Harry. “Do you not think you’re rather milking it now?”

“Harrrryyyy -” He singsongs it, and Harry doesn’t argue. “We're watching all the Fast and Furious films. And I get breakfast in bed for a week.”

“Now you're just taking the piss.”  

Eggsy just raises one perfectly sharp eyebrow, and in a beat, Harry realises he will never be safe again.

“Oh. Oh no, oh Jesus fucking... bugger. Two weeks.”

Eggsy smiles and holds out a still-sticky hand to shake, and Harry notices he's shaking slightly. “Deal.”