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“One reason,” Harry said unexpectedly, “is probably that people are impatient.” It took a bit for Eggsy to find the thread again and where Harry was picking it back up. “It seems like a fast way to get what you want to know. Punch someone a few times until it hurts and then shake them and ask. It’s not even unlikely that they’ll give you the right answer if they’re just random people. It is, in some ways, like using drugs. You shake them out of their composure and in their confusion, their guards are lowered and they’re more likely to comply. The problems that arise come when it’s not just about minor details but complex questions. Also, the more involved and professional your counterpart is, the less likely is it that a few hard blows will give you anything. It’s always a tightrope you walk when it comes to violence.” He frowned towards his feet. “You also have to take yourself into consideration.”
“How so?”
There was a slightly pained grimace before Harry answered. “The more you use it, the easier it gets. You have to learn to de-humanize your adversaries or you go insane. But if you do it too much, you de-humanize yourself and lose your self.” He smiled, but it was slightly bitter. “It helps to have been on both sides of the equation. It keeps things in perspective.”
“Both sides?” Eggsy asked. “During training?”
Slightly startled, Harry looked up and then frowned. “Well.” He cocked his head to the right. “In some ways, yes.” He smiled. “Being around Lancelot for prolonged exposure certainly keeps you on your toes. Paranoia is a common enough trait for a spy.” He gave a quick grin. “Healthy, too.”
Eggsy had, of course, known that it wasn’t polite conversations around an interrogation room that Harry was talking about. He just couldn’t stomach the thought of the other kind of questioning when it concerned Harry – or anyone else he cared about, for that matter. The idea of someone hurting his friends… He swallowed hard to suppress a shudder.
“That right there,” Harry said quietly and waited until Eggsy met his gaze across the room before he continued, “that exact reaction is what you need to keep in mind. More than personal discomfort-“ what a polite way to say ‘being tortured’, Eggsy thought bitterly, “the thought of someone else being in pain instead of you will keep your head straight. If you ever get into a situation where torture seems to be the easiest solution, remember this feeling. Most people you come across have friends and family who care deeply for them. No matter what it is they do or have done, someone somewhere loves them as much as you love your mother and your fiancé and your friends. Imagine them having to witness what you are about to do to their loved one and then ask yourself if that is really the type of person you want to be. And it doesn’t matter if they are that type of person if roles were reversed! In that room, it’s not about who they are. It’s all and always about who you are, Eggsy.” He smiled tiredly. “In our line of work, it is essential to know yourself. Especially when you’re pretending to be someone else.”
Something heavy settled on the air in the room, weighing it down. Eggsy couldn’t have named it even with a gun to his head and he started to fiddle with the newspaper by his side to distract himself.
Had he ever known himself? Did Eggsy Unwin know who he was? Harry seemed to think he knew him and he seemed to approve, which was a big comfort. But what about himself?
A noise pulled him out of his thoughts and he looked up to watch Harry yawn and carefully dislodge himself from the sleeping, slightly snoring dog and walk into the kitchen where he could hear him rummage around and put on the kettle. “It’s not something you can learn from a book,” he said when he came back and offered Eggsy a mug of tea, exactly as he liked it. Both mugs were decorated with various butterflies. Of course. “Every day you breathe is one more day for you to get to know yourself. I find it helpful to stop and take stock now and then about what has accumulated. Like an inventory of your own character. And it helps when you have to put yourself together again after something or someone unmade you.”
The casual way he said ‘unmade’ sent shivers up and down Eggsy’s spine and he grasped the mug to let the heat burn into his fingertips and remind him of where they were. “Like … like when we made you come back in Kentucky?” Was that really his voice? It sounded small and too high-pitched to be his. He glanced up and found Harry absently studying his mug, turning it this way and to look at the butterflies. “Did we make a mistake? Should we have let you stay there to keep chasing insects?” He didn’t want to hear the answer. But he needed to know. “I… I’ve never asked.”
Without looking up from the mug, Harry smiled tiredly. “I wish I could give you an answer to that. I don’t know. I can’t say I was … truly happy with getting myself back. I wasn’t unhappy. But since I don’t know what would have happened if some of memory found its way to the surface, I can’t say for certain if I would have been safe to be let outside. And honestly – I don’t think I’d have been content staying inside for much longer.” He grimaced. “It was getting quite dull.” Eggsy felt his world crack a little bit. The idea that he and Merlin had simply been selfish, that by forcing Harry Hart back into the Butterfly Guy they’d made their friend unhappy pained him. He felt small and ugly but when he looked up, there was only kindness from Harry’s smile. “What’s done is done anyway, and I don’t regret coming back here despite all that happened.” He gave Eggsy a pointed look. “I won’t ever regret being able to see you happily married and get the chance to maybe forge a few more friendships as long as I still can.” Harry winked. “But yes, to answer the other question. Knowing what traits of myself I have in stock did help with finding myself again after” he tapped his head at the side where the bullet had entered. He didn’t say anything further and instead reached for the crossword-page of the paper in that awkward, lanky way one did when one was trying not to wake a sleeping dog.
The silence in the room was growing, creating a pressure on Eggsy that he couldn’t shake off. It was suffocating, and he didn’t know if he should move, leave, stay… There was a question that was digging its way out of him, onto the tip of his tongue and behind his palate and stuck behind his teeth so he had to clench them hard to not just burst out with it. Luckily, it didn’t take long until Harry broke with a sigh. “Just ask, lad. I’m old enough to tell you if you overstepped.”
“Right, of course.” Still, Eggsy hesitated until with deliberate casualness, Harry put the paper away and raised his eyebrows in expectant invitation. “What’s it like? Being … not yourself?”
“Oof.” Harry let his head drop into his hand, scratching his hairline. “It wasn’t bad. Felt alright. A bit like a holiday, I suppose. In hindsight, not unlike putting on a different persona for a mission, except without the benefit of knowing it was all a ploy. Now for your real question-“ his smile was friendly but distant, shut down. “about what it’s like to be unmade… Let’s just not, alright?”
Swallowing, Eggsy nodded. He couldn’t very well demand an answer to that, could he? It was very personal and especially when Harry had been so forthcoming with everything else, it was not fair to ask for more than he was willing to give.
There was just one thing that was nigging at him, but it would have to wait. Maybe another time.
“Oh for God’s sake – what is it?” Eggsy twitched when Harry practically threw his pen down onto the side-table and noisily folded the crossword.
“What? I didn’t say anything, did I?” He hadn’t, had he? Eggsy had sat on the couch and watched his toes and thought about … well, thought about The Thing and tried to come to a conclusion himself. He’d not been successful so far, but he hadn’t done anything, certainly not said anything!
“No, but your sighs and moping are very hard to ignore.” Harry softened a little when he looked at Eggsy closer. “Out with it, lad. Let’s hear it before it eats you alive.”
Now that he was allowed, Eggsy found his brain unable to word it properly. He tried to loosen his tongue with some liquid, but the tea had gone bitter and only made it worse. He grimaced and just went for it. “Can… can you teach me? I mean, can you teach me how not to answer questions? I…” He didn’t dare look up. “I mean, I’ll be having some secrets in my future that I don’t want to get out, with me being Tilde’s husband. On top of the ones I already have. If it’s so easy to make me spill the beans… can you teach me how to not?” He bit his lip to stop the question to go further, to hold that last bit in which he feared would be answered with a very straight ‘no’ and possibly a kick out the door.
Carefully, he peeked at Harry from underneath his eyelids, trying to observe without being obvious about it. It probably wasn’t working, or Harry just couldn’t stop staring at him for other reasons. With a long exhale through his nose, Harry moved to get the dog off his chair. Bingley yawned, scratched himself and then went over to his couch, jumped up, circled there and lay down in the middle with a slightly annoyed but overall content huff. Harry, on the other hand, leaned forward.
“What is this about? The truth, Gary.”
Eggsy shifted. Harry never called him Gary. “I … When I… When I started the Program, I felt weird, right? Like I didn’t belong. But the more we went at things, the more I started to like it and love it. I wanted to be an agent! Just because of that stupid dog-test…” he stopped, re-assessed, started again. “Anyway. I wanted that. And then … everything happened and you died and I saved the world and met Tilde and everything was amazing … until, you know.”
“You came back down and crashed?”
“Yeah. That. And then the next thing happened and you’re not dead and Brandon is and Tilde nearly died and we,” he swallowed hard, “we put Agent Whiskey through a meat-grinder,” another swallow, because that sight was only barely tolerable with a significant amount of adrenalin in the system, “and… I feel…”
He felt his eyes burn and swiped at them with the back of his hand. It only made things worse and Eggsy sniffed, then looked up as he felt a weight settle on the couch by his side. Without looking at him, Harry leaned against the backrest, not quite offering contact but opening up the possibility. His body-heat mingled with Eggsy’s own and even though it was just that, it made him feel … warm inside. Less alone. “Not safe anymore?”, Harry asked while taking the newspaper Eggsy had discarded. That paper was getting a lot of wear and tear, between the two of them. “Unsure of yourself?” Eggsy nodded. “Hypervigilant, trying to keep everyone in sight?” One more nod. “I know this won’t help at all, but that’s fairly normal.” Eggsy shot him a glance. Harry was still pretend-reading about fishing rights in the English Channel. “I would suggest you find someone on a professional level to talk to.”
Oh. “Of course,” he whispered, feeling stupid. This was obviously none of Harry’s business and he shouldn’t have hoped for more than a friendly word and breakfast. He shouldn’t have even been hoping for that much, truly, especially since he very well knew that Harry, despite looking like the coolest, toughest person in the world, was just as human as he was and was probably dealing with his own issues and – he startled terribly when there was suddenly pressure against his arm.
“Eggsy, look at me.” He did. Technically, at least: his eyes were in the general direction of Harry’s face. “Look at me.” This time, Eggsy complied. “If you want, I’ll talk to Merlin to see if he can dig up some training-system for TQE – Tactical Question Evasions. He’s bound to have miles of footage from Lancelot alone, and to be quite blunt – it’s easier to learn from watching first and trying to find your own path through a tricky conversation than throwing you into it unprepared. You might not think so now, but you are quite good at this already.” Harry smiled and twitched his head slightly to the side. “When you’re not drunk off your arse in a pub with friends.” Eggsy chuckled ruefully, but it made him feel a tiny bit lighter. “Once you feel like you’re getting the hang of it, we can do some mental sparring, if you still have the urge. The current Agent Lancelot is invited as well,” Harry added with a wink. “As for what you are very carefully not saying.” The voice changed tone, went from slightly joking to more serious and it made Eggsy sit up straight. Harry’s eye took him in, head to toe, slightly like he’d done at their first meeting but with less judgement and more … worry? “I know you are smart enough to understand that you are very dear to me. Yes?” Eggsy nodded. “And that I would go to great lengths to make certain you’re fine.”
More nodding. Eggsy hadn’t really known-known but suspected that the feelings of protectiveness ran both ways in their relationship. “Yes. And I –“ But Harry raised his right index-finger to stop him from voicing his gratefulness and Eggsy shut up at once.
“Then please don’t misunderstand me in this when I say that I will not be teaching you anything else on that subject-matter. It is not something to be mucked around with and play-pretend. For one thing, it would be pretending and can therefor never be effective because you know it won’t be real. But more importantly, as I said before: It is about who I am. And I am not willing to become someone who would willingly hurt you, or threaten your loved ones.” Harry swallowed hard and Eggsy, now that he was paying attention, could see that he was putting him through a lot more emotional turmoil than he’d realized. A whole lot more than he would have wanted. “Not even when it’s not real. In fact, I’ll do whatever it takes to prevent you ending up in such a situation and anything – everything – to get you out if that fails, but the other thing you’re asking me - I can’t be that person. Never. Is that understood?”
Hardly daring to breathe, Eggsy nodded stiffly. “Understood.” He bit his lip and blinked, only then noticing that his tears had started falling. Again. “I’m sorry,”
Harry sagged and nearly melted into the couch while he tried to suppress another yawn. “Me, too.”
“I… I shouldn’t… I’m really sorry. I’m just all over the place. One minute I’m happy, next – utterly miserable.”
“I wasn’t joking when I suggested professional help, you know. I’m sure the future Queen of Sweden would be able to name a few potential therapists? I wish I could offer you ours, but it looks like a lot of them are dead and the rest scattered, dealing with personal things right now.”
Wait – what? “For real? There were actually therapists working for Kingsman?”
“Of course.” Harry stared at him as if he couldn’t believe Eggsy wouldn’t know. “How do you think we’ve managed to do our jobs? Or did you think I’m this well-adjusted from sheer bloody-mindedness?” There was definite self-mockery in his voice now and Eggsy was grateful for the chance to get back into their usual bantering.
He snorted. “Well adjusted my arse. You might do well when adjusting your suits, that’s about it.”
Harry smirked and yawned, then leaned over and let himself drop against Eggsy’s shoulder as if that was something he had a habit of doing. Like with a feral kitten one fears of chasing away through sudden motion, Eggsy sat stock-still and pretended everything was normal. “One day,” Harry said quietly while his eyes closed and he went even heavier against him, “maybe one day I’ll introduce you to Guinevere. She’d be thrilled to get to know you.”
Before Eggsy could ask who the hell Guinevere was, Harry had fallen asleep.
“Looks like I won’t be getting home for lunch then,” Eggsy muttered towards the doggy-couch. “You wouldn’t be able to go get my phone from the kitchen, would you?”
Mr Bingley snored into his tail.
“Guess not.”
Oh, well.