Chapter Text
Harry comes awake rather rudely to the sensation of a hand in his pocket. It takes him a moment to locate his own hands and connect that neither happen to be the one rummaging around in his coat.
He fights off the urge to groan at how much worse he feels for his impromptu airport nap - joints he's not sure he has hurt, and if he thought he felt in need of a shower before - well, needless to say the fight is a hard one. But he manages, and cracks gummy eyes open to observe the owner of the bold hand.
He's a young man, dressed in black and yellow that's more black than yellow and decorated with a black snap-back and dirty trainers. He doesn't seem to care that Harry is looking at him for a bit longer than Harry expects, but eventually he slows, and Harry raises his weary eyebrows at him.
The boy blanches, which certainly casts the sharp color of his eyes in stark relief, and yanks his hand away, empty though Harry feels his pocket is considerably lighter. Then he bolts.
He makes it all of three steps before Harry trips him with his umbrella and rises to stand over his fallen, struggling form.
"That's enough," Harry rumbles, his voice wrecked with sleep. The boy, the laces of his trainers thoroughly caught on Harry's umbrella, flinches and stops trying to kick the things off.
Harry holds out his hand expectantly, and the boy sullenly reaches into a pocket and hands back his wallet. Harry takes it, replaces it, and holds out his hand again. Frowning, the boy reluctantly digs out Harry's phone and hands that back, too. On a whim, once his phone is stored, Harry holds out his hand again. The boy appears to be incredibly light-fingered, and Harry had slept through the thieving. He isn't even sure what's missing.
At this third entreaty his captive flinches, resignation slamming into his eyes before they turn to the ceiling when he collapses back onto the dirty cement. Harry watches all this without a hint of a clue what's going on.
Then the boy shuts his eyes and raises his hand again. He drops into Harry's palm a nearly-clear, round gem, too small to be in danger of dropping but big enough to be weighty. Harry spends a bit too long looking into the thing's swirling white frost before glancing up.
"While this is lovely, I'm afraid it isn't mine-"
He blinks. Then blinks again.
The boy is gone.
He looks around the airport, but finds no sign of him nor anyone who seems to have noticed the odd exchange enough to even look up. He looks back between the empty space on the ground and the gem in his hand.
"How odd," he observes just as the flight attendant announces boarding.
A time zone and some hours later, Harry's finally relaxing at his desk with his second tumbler of brandy and a good book. This was far from unusual for him now. His flat, an open thing set above a bookshop he'd decided to take over with all the spare time of retirement, is decorated heavily with stacks of books in various states of restoration. Counters and tables and the divider to the kitchen all held precariously balanced volumes, only small spaces between them eked out for eating or sitting or setting tea, mostly in the spots where the sun would rest during the day. He had meant to get a jump on the restoration of the very book he was reading, but was caught by a bit of prose in it and found himself delicately turning the pages for well over an hour as he read.
Eventually while reading he shifts enough to worry the little glass ball (which is his best guess at what it could be) from his pocket. He catches it gingerly, glancing at it once again in curiosity, and starts rolling it absently in his hand as he reads.
"You gonna fuckin' summon me or what?"
Harry drops his book, very nearly drops the ball, does not miss the irony in that, and whirls around to look at the owner of the voice.
The boy from the airport looks back at him sullenly.
"How did you get here?!"
Harry had meant to ask 'how did you get in here' but he realizes afterwards that the question he voiced is just as valid, seeing as they last met half a continent away in Frankfurt and the boy had not been on board Harry's plane (he checked).
For his part the boy only scowls more.
"Same as you, unless you stowed me."
"Stowed-" Harry belatedly stands, blinking "now, see here, young man," Harry realizes that he's not very good at being a stern older man when he can't back it up with something sharp, or is in his pajamas, or just off the flight from Germany, and also that he hadn't really planned the rest of that sentence as well as he'd hoped, mostly because he'd expected something to make sense by now. "You can't have been stowed," he tries, because that seems right even if he's missed the point "and that doesn't explain how you got into my house. Or why."
The boy's eyebrows crash downward at all this, his lips drawing into a tight little scowl. "What are you on about? 'Course I coulda been stowed, you had me in your pocket - what even is this argument?"
"In my - is this some kind of joke?" Harry tried to look intimidating, which was something he had been rather talented at all his life, at least. Rather than look intimidated, the boy seemed to grow only more perplexed.
"Is it? You're not makin' any sense."
"Funny, I thought the same of you." Harry folded his arms and feared it did nothing for his attempts to look imposing, as it was more of a thoughtful gesture anyway. "Explain from the beginning. Who are you and why are you in my flat?"
Eggsy only bristled more. "I'm here because you caught me, you git. Somethin' wrong with your memory?"
"Well you didn't have to follow me to London just because I caught you stealing." Harry thinks he's being reasonable - polite, even, given the boy's uninvited presence and poor attitude, but at his words green eyes gleam with a slow-dawning panic.
"You tellin' me you don't know what I am?"
Harry shook his head.
"You ain't a fuckin' collector." This he says flatly, his tone ringing with disbelief and trepidation.
"I... collect books?" Harry tries, grasping at what he can only imagine is very much the wrong straw just for something to say.
The boy blinks. He does it several times in quick succession, then covers his face with his hands and drops into the dusty chair behind him with a mournful groan.
"This is just fuckin' perfect." He sounds so distraught that Harry finds himself trying to soothe him.
"There there, I'm sure everything will be alright. Would you like some tea?"
The boy peeks at him from between his fingers, more of a glare really, then stuffs his face further into his palms without replying. Harry takes this as a yes and sets about making two cups while his guest - if he can be called that, seeing as Harry is still somewhat sure he broke in - has a sulk.
By the time he sets the steaming cups on the table and takes his seat across from the boy, he's no closer to understanding what's going on and the boy seems to be only just settling in to the real intense part of his misery.
"So what is it I'm supposed to be collecting?" Harry tries.
The boy sinks even further into the chair with a hurt-sounding whine. Harry's eyes must be playing tricks on him, but he fancies that tiny shadows have come to play on his skin and make him look even more desolate. Eventually the boy drops his hands and levels Harry with a look colored with the sort of angry desperation he's only ever witnessed in bulk after an election.
"How could you even see me if you ain't one of them?"
Harry sips his tea and thinks about this. "Well. You were stealing my wallet."
"Yeah, and you shouldn't have noticed."
"My, confident, aren't we."
"Not-" The boy growls in frustration. "Not because I'm good, which I am, by the way. Because normal people can't see me even if I'm right in front of their faces dancin' a jig singin' god save the queen."
Harry raised a brow. "Tried it, have you?"
The boy flushes but plows on without commenting. "You're not surprised by any of this."
"I admit I find it all quite hard to believe, but you are here in my house and you seem quite upset."
"You held your hand out after I gave everything back!"
Eggsy gestures wildly with the tea, and Harry wonders when he picked it up at all. He shrugs. "I was asleep when you were stealing. I wasn't sure what you took."
Resignation washes across Eggsy's form, and this time it settles there in a heavy way that drags him into a slow slouch over his cup. "Gone and gave my fuckin' sylph sphere away to the one seer who ain't a collector, Jesus Christ, how is this my fuckin' life."
"Your...what?"
"You know, I keep thinkin' it can't get any worse and then you go an' open your mouth."
Harry sighs and sets his tea aside. "I can't help if I don't understand. It would serve you better to work with me than against."
After another stretch of sullen silence the boy relents, talking in words that sound as though they had been dragged into the air through miles of barren and war-torn land. "The ball you was rollin' around. It's my sylph sphere. You took it and we made a pact. I'm bound to you now."
Harry retrieves the sphere from where he'd dropped it back into his pocket, then, belatedly remembering it isn’t, in fact, his, says, "Regardless of how you came to be in my flat - and I still haven't settled on how I feel about that - I'm perfectly willing to give this back. If that's all you need to undo this pact of yours-"
"We can't undo it," the boy tells the floor.
Harry stops where he had been reaching out to hand the swirling glass back "Pardon?"
"It's called being bound for a reason. The sphere is me, an' it's tied to you now. Permanently."
"I...see."
"No you don't."
"Not really, no."
There's a yawning stretch of time where neither of them says anything, Harry because he's not sure where to start being confused and the boy because he seems content to settle into his misery.
"So... you'll be staying, then," Harry eventually manages. "Regardless of what's going on, given how late it's gotten you really must."
The boy nods once, short and curt.
"Well if we're going to be seeing a lot of each other, then I suppose I ought to know your name."
"Eggsy."
"Eggsy?" Harry refrains from commenting further on it. Who is he to question what a magical being who lives in a glass ball calls itself. "Pleasure to meet you, I'm Harry Hart. You'll forgive me, Eggsy, but I'm quite jetlagged and I've had an incredibly long day. I'll be going to bed..." even before he looked around he knew that there wasn't a single book-free surface anywhere in the house large enough to hold Eggsy's frame for sleeping.
Eggsy, for his part, seems to catch onto his train of thought and gestures weakly to the little glowing ball. "Don't need a bed, I'll sleep in that."
"Ah," Harry says. "Yes, well. Carry on. There's fresh towels in that closet there, if you'd like to shower, and help yourself to the kitchen. We'll discuss this more in the morning. Good night, then."
Once he's out of the cloud of gloom Eggsy's casting over the living room and safely closed in his bedroom, Harry dares to open his hand and look at the sphere warily. It glows just enough to light his path to his bed, but once there he stops. Eggsy had said he would be sleeping in the thing. Did he need it?
Harry settles on no, since Eggsy hadn't told him to leave it and also because he isn’t feeling masochistic enough to walk back into the living room for another round of bewildering conversation. He sets a few old tomes on the floor to clear off a bedside table, retrieves a spare pillow, and sets the sphere up in the center of it all. As his eyes adjust to the darkness the thing becomes somewhat bright, but he really has had a long day of doing Merlin's bureaucratic dirty work and flying on a public plane and having confusing conversations with lovely young men about magic, and all together he dropped off rather quickly even under the flickering glow.
Harry is quite convinced that he's dreamed the whole mad encounter, but with Eggsy still brooding about when he wanders out in the morning he's forced to reevaluate his assessment.
The facts are that Eggsy, by some chance, has gotten from Germany to London and into Harry's flat without setting off a single one of Harry's highly sophisticated alarms, or, as far as Harry can tell, boarding a plane that would have gotten him there so fast. He may have been able to memorize Harry's address when he was pickpocketing, but that was as unlikely as it would have been ridiculous. There was also the fact that the sunlight streaming in from the domed window in his kitchen streamed right through him so he didn't cast a shadow. Combined, Harry found the facts to be in favor of Eggsy's story.
“So what, exactly, does this all mean to me?” Harry asks over the rim of his second cup of tea. All in all he thinks he’s handling this fae business rather well, tea consumption notwithstanding.
Eggsy, presently still the embodiment of misery, rolls over the wood floor and plunges into the same chair as the previous evening like a man falling to his death. Harry takes another sip and offers a cup to Eggsy, who takes it and looks marginally less grim.
“You got free reign of my powers,” Eggsy grumbles to his tea, giving it a look as though it’s betrayed his family.
“My apologies, I never asked how you take it.” Eggsy’s eyes trail over the room in a slow trek to land on Harry, who waits patiently through this and nods to Eggsy’s cup.
"Oh." The trip back to gazing at the tea was considerably shorter. "With honey, I guess." The words are so muttered Harry barely understands them, but he does and rises to fetch the honey. "What cupboard?"
Harry pauses just a few steps away and looks back at Eggsy, who still has yet to look away from the amber liquid.
"Above the sink, second shelf."
Eggsy snaps his fingers and suddenly the honey is in his hand, opened.
And that about settles it for Harry. He'd somehow caught himself a genie in a run-down German airport. He sits back in his chair while Eggsy sullenly drizzles honey into his cup.
"I'm not into wish grantin' or whatever they put in movies these days," Eggsy says, as if reading his thoughts "can't create matter or whatever. But I can get places fast and I don't need doors. I can fly. Can do whatever you can do and then some, really. Usually people know what they want." The last he says accusingly, but Harry is a gentleman and ignores it.
"So," Harry folds his hands over his lap. "You're essentially a thief."
Eggsy's eyes flash like lightning at this, finally deigning to look at Harry. "I'm a wind spirit. What you do with me is on you."
"Fair enough," Harry figures this is true - or at least he hopes it is. "If you can take things without touching them, why were you stealing by hand?"
"'Cuz normally I'd get tired usin' my powers for little things I could do just as well without 'em, but it's easier now I got your power too. I ain't done this before but I get the feelin' you're nothin' to scoff at." At these words his spirits seem to improve from apoplectic to simply dismal.
"My powers?"
The sigh is more put-upon than miserable, which Harry takes as progress. "All seers've got power, 's how they see. Any spirit they make a pact with can use it. 'S like a reservoir. I've been wastin' it all night just for shits an' giggles, haven't seen the end yet."
Harry considers this. "Is there any risk in using it?"
Eggsy shakes his head. "Even if I run you out it'll come back."
"Then feel free to entertain yourself," in fact Harry hadn't noticed a thing, but it seems best to at least give the illusion of permission. "What were you doing in the airport, if you don't mind my asking? You're obviously from London."
Eggsy shrugs. "I can go anywhere I want since people can't see me. Thought Oktoberfest looked nice."
"Did you have a good time?"
"Fuck no, it's all rowdy rich tourists and you can't have a pint in peace."
"Quite." Harry finds himself smiling a bit, and the gloom slowly burns off for a slumbery sort of peace that permeates the flat for the remainder of the morning. Eventually Harry rises from his chair and sets about the day's tasks.
The shop won’t open until noon, because Harry is retired and he has the prerogative to do as he wishes, but there are the ever-present and regenerating piles of books needing restoration to consider. He cleans up the tea, makes himself and Eggsy a few slices of toast, and once done he heads for the one mostly clear area of the open flat.
"Oi," Eggsy folds his legs under him at Harry's side. It is a sight Harry's mind takes in with great effort, as Eggsy had done so several feet off the ground in thin air. His earlier scowl has softened into a frown, one with a curious edge he’s aiming at the tome on the desk. "Ain't there anything you want me to do?"
Harry pauses in lifting a bone folder and thinks about it.
"I'm still not entirely sure what your abilities are," he says slowly, "but if you're a wind spirit, I suppose you'll at least be able to help dry pages and glue faster," Harry misses the incredulous look Eggsy gives him. "depending on how delicate you can be, that is. I can't have these books torn up in a gale. I have been meaning to dust the shop-"
"That's it?" Eggsy looks befuddled more than annoyed. Harry has to admit that his powers hold a certain charm for more exciting professions. But alas, Harry isn’t employed by any special organizations.
"I run a used bookstore. I'm afraid I haven't much use for espionage these days."
"You don't have to take over England, gov," Eggsy rolls his eyes. "Ain't there anything crazy you wanna do?"
Harry settles at his desk, drawing worked leather from one of the drawers.
"I'm retired."