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The soft sound of old jazz filtered between them, soothing and background until it cut off abruptly mid-song. Harry hated interrupting a good song.
"Do you mind if I play something else for you?"
Eggsy looked up from his book and shrugged. "As you please, innit?"
"Innit," Harry muttered in reproach, before sliding his finger across the screen of the touchpad.
"I'd rather be with Harry."
Eggsy paused.
"I'd rather be with Harry."
"What I find most interesting about this, and indeed compelling, is that I was not part of this selection."
"It was implied," Eggsy shot back, fingers threatening to crumple the pages between them. "You were dead. It was pretty obvious he was giving me the life-or-death shit."
"But you didn't say you'd rather die." Harry's tone was infuriatingly calm. The kind of serenity that never failed to piss Eggsy off in situations like this. "You said you'd rather be with me."
"You were dead," Eggsy repeated, and he'd practised the words in front of the mirror long enough that his voice only wobbled a little over them. He was met with silence, eventually forced to drag his gaze from the long-forgotten book to where Harry was staring at him, something uncomfortably knowing and sympathetic in his eye.
Just the one.
"You were dead," Eggsy repeated, firmer, and swallowed hard, looking away. "And."
And he'd almost let Arthur just kill him there. It hadn't been a lie; he'd wanted to be with Harry. Just with Harry. Dead or alive. Except his Mum was alive, and his little sister, and maybe he could kill himself after he'd saved them, but not before.
"And I'd rather be with you," he finished roughly, snapping the book shut and setting it aside, rubbing at his eyes. Shit. One day, maybe, he'd think about staring down the barrel of that gun through Harry's eyes, the deafening crack of the bullet, the way the screen had shown a brief, fractured glimpse of the sky before cutting out completely, and not bawl his fucking eyes out.
It would always be Harry. Harry and the grey at his temples that spread with every week. Harry and the gnarled, red pock where his eye had once been. Harry and his love for old jazz and expensive tea and Harry who still sometimes forgot he couldn't see shit on his left anymore.
Harry who snored a little in his sleep and liked his yolks too runny and was walking over, soft footfalls and a softer hand on Eggsy's shoulder. Harry's fingers curled in, squeezing, before trailing a slow, gentle path up his throat, under his jaw, backs of his knuckles lifting Eggsy's chin gently.
"My dear boy," he murmured, and Eggsy nearly bit his fucking fingers off.
"Don't you fucking say it," he snapped hotly, gripping his knees mercilessly. "Don't fucking say it, Harry. I don't give a fuck, alright? I know it's stupid. I know it's impossible. Hell, you've probably got a wife and fucking kid I don't know about tucked away in some London foxhole somewhere. I know I'm just the pity project you found a legacy in, right? So just. Fuck off."
He blinked hard, alarmed at the wetness in his eyes. His chest heaved with the sudden outburst, and embarrassment was an inferno curdling in his stomach. He hadn't actually meant to explode like that, but he was so goddamn tired.
Harry's fingers were still so gentle. The cuff of his wrist held onto the scent of his aftershave. There was a scar on the side of his index finger which rubbed roughly at Eggsy's chin.
"My dear boy," Harry repeated, softer, slower. "I was only going to say that I'm glad you didn't follow me. But that selfishly, I would rather be with you too."
The angry venom pooling on his tongue fizzled out like a damp firework.
"What?"
Harry's hand shifted, gently cupping his chin, thumb rubbing over a small scar on the curve of it. His eye was softer still, molten and impossible to look away from.
"What I should say is that you are young, and that this will pass. I'm the first person to genuinely show any belief in you. The first person to ever offer you anything remotely like safety and comfort. I should tell you this is a false affection, mixed signals in a brain too inexperienced to understand the true message."
Eggsy really did bite him then, ducking his head to sink his teeth viciously into Harry's fingers. Harry curled them into his mouth, hooking his jaw and shaking his head like a dog.
"I should tell you it'll go away, and you'll be grateful one day you never crossed that line. I should. I'm not going to."
"'Oo k'n'a jus' 'id," Eggsy grumbled around his fingers, scowling.
"What I am going to tell you," Harry continued, ignoring him entirely, "is that I came back to Kingsman for you. I remembered who I was because of you. Even when I did not, once you left, I could not stop dreaming about a boy with green eyes and a shockingly uncouth mouth."
He rubbed the pads of his fingers against Eggsy's tongue. "A mouth I have imagined in a multitude of ways before and since."
Eggsy stared at him, mouth dropping open so much drool slipped past Harry's fingers and soaked his sweater collar. "What."
"Mostly in the interest of shutting you up," Harry admitted, a smirk pulling at his mouth. "But that is neither here nor there." He slipped his fingers from Eggsy's mouth and, still wet, used them to cradle his jaw.
"You chose me. It is only pertinent and fair that I make you formally aware that I have chosen you too."
"Harry. If you're fucking with me. If this is some kind of shitty Kingsman test, I'm gonna shoot out your other goddamn eye. And this time it really will ki—"
Eggsy's further protest was silenced as Harry leaned down, smothering the words with a dry, slightly clumsy press of thin, chapped lips.
It was a kind of shit kiss, honestly.
And it was perfect.
Harry pulled away first, stooped awkwardly over the back of the couch, gaze steady. "Do you still wish for me to; fuck off?" Then almost immediately his hand moved to cover Eggsy's mouth. "Do not ruin the moment by saying some awful pun about fucking."
Eggsy cocked a brow.
Slowly, carefully, Harry pulled his hand away.
"I had a really good one about my mouth and shutting up locked and loaded," Eggsy grumped, and Harry rolled his eyes.
"Heaven sent. Is it too late to revisit your earlier threat of a more permanent lobotomy?"
"Now who's ruining the moment, ay?"