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Harry felt tense, the uncomfortable metal chair digging into his back and the too bright lights of the infirmary making his head ache fiercely. He knew Eggsy was waiting for him, wondering what reason he could possibly have for sitting at the beside of the man who’d nearly killed them, had done everything in his power to keep them from saving millions of lives.
There was no good answer.
After all, he was the one that shot the man.
The sight of him falling to the ground like a lead weight left regret heavy in his stomach, the sight nearly enough to make bile rise up his throat. It had been drastic, an unnecessary measure but between the phantom butterflies and the risk being posed to Eggsy…well he’d acted on instinct rather than sensibility.
He supposed he felt he had something to apologize for.
The fight had been hard and in the end they’d nearly killed him, something that Harry had been unable to bring himself to do, not again. Covering up what he’d done, that had proved tricky, but Champaign seemed keen to turn a blind eye to the indiscretion of their best agent.
Harry could still recall the day the man had visited him with tears in his eyes and faint scent of alcohol clinging to his skin. Despite this agency’s tendency toward drinking, the man had never seemed keen to indulge like so many of the others, a control he couldn’t help but appreciate. Not that night of course and he couldn’t be blamed in the slightest after he’d explained it to be the anniversary of the loss of his wife and unborn son.
Jack had lost sight of the mission and Harry knew exactly what that was like.
At the moment, he was dressed in a white shirt and light blue sleep pants, an indication that once he woke from his injuries, he’d be given some much needed time off and what was likely to be a battering of tests to assess his ability to remain a Statesman. A blind eye could only reach so far after all.
His eyes were closed, hair mussed, and expression relaxed. He looked younger, like he had not a care in the world and Harry found himself smiling, just a little, at the sight. Jack hadn’t been his most frequent visitor while he’d been detained, the man often being stationed in New York but when he did, well…it was memorable.
The man didn’t try to placate him or test him or push him, there seemed to be no agenda there beyond his initial morbid curiosity and then his genuine companionship. Such kindness was not easily forgotten, and Harry had found himself drawn to the man who was so easy to speak with, who could turn gentlemanly or wicked at the drop of a hat.
A subtle change in the man’s breathing made Harry’s focus shift entirely to him, watched as his eyes squeezed further closed, the way his fingers twitched absently against the course blanket tucked tightly around him. It was possible he wouldn’t wake yet, had done this very thing on two other occasions, as though he were having a terrible dream. Harry sincerely hoped that he wasn’t featured in it.
Jack’s chest rose on a deep breath before exhaling slowly, his eyes blinking awake at the same time. His face immediately scrunched up, head turning to the side in an attempt to avoid the painfully fluorescent lights.
“Ugh, shit,” he muttered.
Despite himself, Harry felt his lips twitch in amusement, “easy does it.”
The response was immediate, body tensing as he turned to look at him as though he were a mirage and not flesh and blood, gaze going right through him. Harry raised an eyebrow as the man squinted at him before huffing an unamused laugh, “well, looks like Ginger went and left me fucked in the head.”
Harry frowned at the crude words, “I can assure you Jack, I am very real.”
He hummed absently as his gaze swept the room, “sure you are Harry, if you’re sayin so. Though it wouldn’t make much sense now would it?”
“Why is that?”
Jack finally looked back at him and this time expression was reminiscent of days long past, when his guard had been lowered and he sat quietly while be regaled with stories of butterflies, “you shot me, I tried to ruin your chances at savin the world, and by all rights you should be in London right about now.”
Harry nodded solemnly, then because one of the first things he learned about Jack was that he preferred actions to words, he reached over and gripped in his hand tightly, almost too tightly and watched as his eyes finally seemed to focus, turning razor sharp.
There had been this small unspoken thing between them while he’d been detained with the Statesmen. He understood it better now, with most of his faculties intact, the loneliness they’d suffered from, the need for companionship, the attraction. Far more notably, however, had been the inherent awareness that nothing was to come from it, in Jack’s case, the ban on intimate relationships and his own…the uncertainty of his place.
Now…they were both bound by their organizations’ edicts.
Yet.
He thought of what he’d told Eggsy on that plane, thought about his devotion to the organization that resulted in the end of his life and that of so many other Kingsman, thought about the aching space in his chest when he’d watched Jack’s body tumble to the floor. He rather thought they’d both earned one small indiscretion.
Lifting the calloused hand in his own, he slowly brought it to his lips, placing a gentle kiss to the bottom of his palm, barely an inch above where it met the wrist. Jack did not pull away or make any sort of exclamation, his bravado truly tucked away, as it often was in his presence, and Harry felt a deep sense of longing reverberate through his chest, the same one he could see reflected in the other man’s eyes. Nothing could be said, not with the microphones hidden all over the place, not that there was anything they needed to say about what it meant for them.
“Steady on, yes?” Galahad murmured, needing one last confirmation that he’d be okay, before walking away.
Whiskey offered a small smile, “yeah, I’d be thinkin so.”