Archive of Our Own ^beta

When Eggsy told the story, he liked to say that what happened happened because of Roxy’s uncle Percival.

Technically Percival wasn’t Roxy’s uncle. He was a related to her in that kind of distant-cousin-twice-removed sort of way a lot of posh people seemed to be related to each other, but he was also her godfather and had been very present during most of her childhood, so she always just called him Uncle Percy and left it at that. Percival had come into the shop where Eggsy and Roxy both worked a couple of times and he had always struck Eggsy as a mousy, unmemorable sort of man- so when Roxy told him that Percival had been single for most of her life Eggsy wasn’t all that surprised. He was a bit more surprised when- one evening after several beers- Roxy announced that she was going to get Uncle Percy a date by the end of the month.

In hindsight, maybe Eggsy shouldn’t have been. Roxy seemed sane enough but it was important to remember that she wasn’t like Eggsy or most of the people that he knew. She- and Charlie and Hugo, almost everyone who worked at Merlin’s Coffee Shop and Bakery with Eggsy in fact- had gone to some posh school or other and then, for reasons Eggsy preferred not to examine too closely, found it difficult to get a job in any of the more lucrative career paths. Instead of playing polo or throwing parties for duchesses or whatever unemployed rich people did, they had all ended up with the same job and the same paycheck as Eggsy, who had quit school the moment he could and been arrested three times since then. He never hesitated to remind them all of that when they got too full of themselves- especially Charlie. The point being that Roxy was bored, and in Eggsy’s experience rich people did strange things when they were bored.

“And not only will I get him a date by the end of the month,” Roxy added, “they will have gotten engaged by the end of the year.” She drained her glass and slammed it down on the table for dramatic effect.      

“No fucking way,” Eggsy protested.

“I will,” Roxy said with stubborn, drunken certainty.

“If you’re so sure,” Charlie slid into the conversation, “why don’t we make a little wager on it? Say… twenty-five pounds?”

“No fucking way,” Eggsy repeated with extra emphasis.

“Already too rich for your blood, I know,” Charlie said. “I’d put you in charge of the pot if I didn’t think you’d steal it.”

Eggsy gave him the two fingered salute and kept quiet after that, his eyes getting progressively wider as the two of them bargained each other up to fifty quid. “Oh my God,” Amelia said from her end of the table.

He considered Amelia the sanest of his coworkers because she was in the midst of starting her own business- it was something tech related that Eggsy didn’t completely understand- and had actually taken the job at the coffee shop because it had yet to become profitable and she needed the money. When he turned to her, however, Eggsy developed the suspicion that she was not, in fact, referring to Roxy and Charlie’s conversation because she promptly passed out.

“I think it’s time to call it a night,” Hugo said.

Eggsy upgraded him to most sane. “Thank God,” he muttered. A little louder he said, “Rox, you can get her home, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Roxy agreed, and just like that everyone was getting ready to leave and Eggsy assumed that the moment of madness was behind them.

But a little less than a month later, Percival was back in the shop- and on a date.

James Spencer was as unlike Uncle Percy as Eggsy thought it was possible to be.  He was arrogant and flashy and flirtatious. Eggsy had to look at him out of the corner of his eye sometimes like he was staring at the sun because he was that gorgeous- not that he was Eggsy’s type.  Eggsy's type was apparently older, smoother, and obviously not interested in Eggsy- but enough about that, since this wasn’t about Eggsy. This was about Percival, and the way that whenever he- quietly and mildly, as was his way- started talking, James would listen to him like he was the most fascinating person on the planet, and when Percival wasn’t looking at him James would watch him like he couldn’t believe his luck.    

And apparently it wasn’t their first date either, because Percival had actually brought James to the shop to properly meet Roxy- which according to her meant that it was a serious- and James told a story about how they met which involved an escaped circus lion, a Brazilian model, and a pair of missing diamond earrings.

Eggsy was 99% sure “James” was an actor Roxy had hired and that she had somehow gotten Uncle Percy in on the elaborate joke.

This made Eggsy and Charlie, for once, allies.

Unfortunately, proof that Roxy had made it all up never surfaced, and six months after that Eggsy received an invitation to their engagement party for himself and a plus one. He brought his mother and mingled with the very large crowd, forced to admit that maybe the whole thing was for real after all. Roxy was rich, but he didn’t think even she could hire that many actors.

“How the fuck did you arrange the lion?” Eggsy asked Roxy.

She tossed her head regally. “Don’t question my methods, Unwin, for they are beyond your ken.”  

Eggsy rolled his eyes.

Hugo, who had been made arbitrator in the end, declared Roxy the winner of the bet and handed the money over while Charlie questioned his parentage. Eggsy, buzzed on expensive champagne and drunk on the sight of his mum- his mum- chatting with a woman who was actually called Lady Montague-Herring, felt a great deal more charitable about the whole business. A good time was had by all and Percival looked happy, so he could see no harm in it.

Only a week later the harm became very evident indeed- because Roxy had decided she was god’s gift to the single population, and she had another perpetually dateless target: Eggsy. 

*   *   *

“What’s this I hear about Roxy taking up matchmaking?” Merlin asked one morning.

Eggsy groaned over the croissant dough he was rolling out. “Please don’t remind me. She’s gone over the edge, guv. Completely bonkers.”

“Is that right?”

It was, and Eggsy had plenty of anecdotes to prove it. Roxy was utterly convinced that she could get Eggsy as happily ensconced as Percival, and having the benefit of practice now she intended to do so at record speeds. And Eggsy might not mind so much if Roxy’s idea of setting someone up was of the usual kind- a blind date, a double date, even just a fucking garden variety introduction- but no. Eggsy still hadn’t gotten the weird smell out of the jacket he’d been wearing when he and date number four ended up in a fountain, nor had he been able to track down the actual owners of the missing puppy he and date number seven had stumbled upon together.

“So I have a pug now,” Eggsy told Merlin miserably. Even Roxy admitted that the bit with date number twelve, the British Museum, and the mummy had been better suited to a horror movie than a rom-com. Eggsy had yet to stop peering carefully around every corner like James fucking Bond- or maybe more accurately Brendan Fraser- and he had a feeling that unlucky number thirteen would be even unluckier than usual in his case.

He knew Rox meant well, and he also knew that she was probably Merlin’s favorite employee, which didn’t make him the best audience for the minor nervous breakdown Eggsy was about to have because of her. But Merlin was more than a boss to Eggsy, and Eggsy fancied he was more than an employee to Merlin, so Eggsy still spent the morning regaling Merlin with every strange and “serendipitous” first meeting Roxy had arranged for him since Percival and James got engaged, and also explaining in great detail how he would run away to Outer Mongolia and never come back if she tried to set him up with one more person, all while Merlin puttered around doing God and Merlin himself only knew what with coffee and chemistry.  

As Eggsy understood it, some foreign gourmet or other had nicknamed his boss Merlin because a) his real first name was stupid, ask about it and die, and b) he was some kind of wizard with coffee. He apparently did things with flavor combinations that no one had ever thought of before, and the shop was accordingly very expensive and very popular with the experimental cuisine crowd.

Eggsy had no idea, personally. The coffee just seemed like coffee to him, and he was only there to take orders and bake stuff.

His genius with hot beverages aside, Merlin was completely at sea with pastries, which people who knew about that kind of thing had informed him that he ought to sell in his shop. Eggsy, who had always been good at baking, had interviewed for the job, never thinking for a second that he would get it. Eggsy’s only prior employment- selling things (okay, drugs) for his stepfather’s shady contacts- wasn’t something that typically got him anywhere on a resume, especially not when the only baked goods he had ever had cause to sell before had had pot in them. But Merlin’s interview had been less about Eggsy’s past and more about what Eggsy could cook up using whatever happened to be in Merlin’s kitchen in the next two hours, and Merlin had taken a general ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ approach to most things about Eggsy’s personal life, and so he ended up hired.

‘Don’t ask don’t tell’ had not outlasted the first time Eggsy came into work with a black eye, and for a while Eggsy, his mum and his sister had all lived in the flat above the shop, which Merlin rented but never used. Now Dean was gone and Eggsy’s mother had full custody of the baby, a job telecommuting, and her own home, but Eggsy still slept above the shop most nights so he could start the baking early. If, by happy coincidence, this had also led his mum to believe that Eggsy was seeing someone, so much the better.

Now if there was only a way to get Roxy to develop the same impression, Eggsy’s life could go back to normal.

Eggsy stopped.

“Are you all right?” Merlin asked him.

Eggsy had probably stopped telling horror stories some time ago, and now he was just standing there, covered in flour, and staring at the opposite wall. “I’m fine,” he said. He was better than fine, because he had an idea. “Just thinking.” The best idea.

Merlin shrugged and went back to whatever he was doing.

Eggsy used the time until the shop opened and all the morning’s pastries were arrayed in the counters out front to formulate and plan out every minute detail of The Lie.

*   *   *

Technically, The Lie was very simple: make Roxy believe he had found someone on his own and was dating them, and if- and only if- Roxy ever came to her senses about her insane ideas for setting people up, fictionally break up with this fictional lover.

The primary difficulty, as Eggsy saw it, would be in making Roxy believe him.

Eggsy had been alone for all the time he and Roxy had known each other. He had joked about it at work, whined about it at pubs, and even- once, after a rom-com and a tub of ice cream- literally cried about it at Roxy’s house. If, after all that time, Eggsy had suddenly found someone right after she went into matchmaking, Roxy would get very suspicious. It would be a hard sell, and all of Eggsy’s efforts would have to go toward making her buy it.

He couldn’t just call Roxy and tell her he had a boyfriend now (Eggsy had decided he would get a boyfriend while rolling out rugelach); that would be an amateur move. No. He would have to be much subtler. He would tell someone else that he had boyfriend now, and wait for word to reach Roxy on its own. The rumor mill at their little shop was working well, and everyone liked to know everything about everyone else. If Eggsy was careful with what information he doled out when, everyone who worked there would be defending that Eggsy’s relationship was new but 100% legitimate by lunchtime, and pretending to have known about it from the beginning by the time they closed.

Eggsy’s particular stroke of genius- in his humble opinion- lay in who he picked to tell the story of his new boyfriend to: Uncle Percy.

Percival could normally be depended on to have breakfast in the shop, and that happened to be Eggsy’s shift today, so he was easily accessible. He was a regular customer and a friend to all, but he wasn’t an employee, which meant that everyone would have to put in a little effort to pick up the tale of Eggsy’s new boyfriend for themselves. And, of course, Eggsy thought it poetically just that Percival be patient zero for The Lie, since it was his fault Eggsy had to tell it.    

Accordingly, Eggsy sold Percival the pastry that was on special that morning with more zeal than usual.

“How are you this morning?” he said brightly.

“I’m well, Eggsy,” Percival said. “And yourself?” He peered at Eggsy through his always-slightly-foggy glasses. “You seem… happy.”

“I am,” Eggsy said. He was, because he was not going to be experience a thirteenth disastrous pseudo-meet-cute. This time tomorrow, Eggsy would be free once again.

“Is why a secret?”

“Kinda.” Eggsy beckoned to Percival and leaned over the counter toward him. “You know how happy Rox is for you and James, yeah?” When Percival nodded, he continued: “She’s seeing romance in the air because of it, and she’s been trying to set me up with people. But the thing is, I ain’t actually alone right now.”

“You’re dating someone?”

“Yeah. It’s new but it’s going real well, and I ain’t sure how to break it to Rox because she’s trying so hard to do something nice for me, yeah? And anyway I’m- well, I’m thinking she might not believe me.”

“Why not? I’m sure anyone can see how happy you are.”

This was going even better than Eggsy had suspected it might. It was not at all difficult to keep a dreamy smile on his face. “I know she thinks I’m kind of a loser.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t.”

“You ain’t seen the people she’s tried to set me up with, Percy. She does.”   Eggsy shook his head, as if at himself. “Nah, I gotta figure this out on my own. Keep it yourself, yeah?” Eggsy raised his voice. “All of you.”

There was tittering from over by the coffee machine.     

Oh yeah. It was going very well indeed.

*   *   *

Word spread exactly as quickly as Eggsy had predicted it would. Only two hours later Amelia, who hadn’t even been in the building at the same time as patient zero and observers, took Eggsy aside to tell him that she was happy for him.

“I get it if you didn’t want everyone to know everything right away,” she said. “I’m sorry about the gossip.”

“It’s fine,” Eggsy assured her, trying to look like he was braving the embarrassment of it all rather than dancing for joy on the inside. He gave her hand a comforting pat. “It’s not like I don’t know what they’re like.”

“Then… if you don’t mind me asking… who is he?”

“Someone I met here, actually.”

“And what’s he like?”

Eggsy had thought a lot about this part, because he knew it was going to be one of the more difficult bits. It was easy enough to get caught up in the fun of tricking Roxy after what she’d put him through and convince the others that it was the first flush of true love or some shit. It was another thing entirely to talk about a person who didn’t exist like he was in love with them and have people who knew him reasonably well actually believe it. As well as Eggsy’s baking and planning session had gone in every other respect, a part of him had always known that this was the gaping hole in his grand plan.

He had gone over it and over it in his mind- what his fictional boyfriend would be like. Special enough to have caught his eye but not so extraordinary that Charlie would wonder- very loudly, of course- what he saw in Eggsy. Sweet enough to satisfy Amelia’s taste for romance. Average enough to show Roxy the error in trying to set him up in a manner that had no place outside of the movies, but fun enough for Hugo to buy that Eggsy would actually take an interest. And close enough to Eggsy’s particular specifications to fool everyone, because- since the rumor mill was, as already mentioned, very effective- what Eggsy liked was already practically common knowledge, but not so close as to seem a little too perfect to be real.

It was a tall order, and one that suddenly flew right out of Eggsy’s head. “He’s… nice,” Eggsy started, and that seemed to be all he had. It was underwhelming to say the least.

Amelia looked hesitant and almost sad. “Eggsy, are you sure-”

“Okay, so he’s not always nice,” Eggsy said quickly. “He teases, he’s nitpicky about the strangest things, and when he raises his eyebrows and turns up his nose it’s like the judgiest thing on the planet. He’s got no tolerance for people being rude- that’s how we met, actually, when he made some guys from my old neighborhood stop picking on me. But he’s always polite, and he’s always made me smile when I’m having a shit day, he’s always been very good to me and- well, I wasn’t expecting to go head over heels but there it is.”

Internally, Eggsy was kicking himself because if Roxy heard about any of this that was his whole plan down the drain. Externally, he just couldn’t get his mouth to stop moving- which was just as well because judging by the look on her face Amelia was eating this up. She was practically swooning right there.

“And under the prim and proper gentleman routine he’s this big fucking nerd, right? And he’s actually a little bit shy. And the two of us, we could not be more different. Like he’s a bit older than me- okay, a lot, but fit as fuck, you get me?- and he’s even posher than Roxy, but when we’re talking everything just… makes sense, you know? Like none of that stuff even matters. And we’re still figuring out how it’s gonna work or if it’s gonna work, so yeah-I was hoping it would take a little longer for everyone I’ve ever met to hear about it, but I just… I gotta try, right? Because I’m not sure I’ve ever been happier than when I’m with him.”  

“Wow.” Amelia cheeks were flushed. “I’m so happy for you, Eggsy. And I won’t spread it around any more than it already is,” Amelia promised. In case he had doubted it, Eggsy now had proof that that last bit about figuring things out had been inspired- if only his feelings about it weren’t so very mixed.

“Thanks,” Eggsy said.

As if on cue, he heard Charlie’s voice in the other room saying, “The Egg-boy has a boyfriend?” loud enough that they probably heard him in Paris.

Eggsy winced. “I could’ve lived without that, for sure.”

There was a clatter from outside, and then there was Hugo poking his head into the kitchen to say, “A customer spilled some coffee. I didn’t know if you wanted to handle it, Eggsy.”

“Why would I want to handle it?”

“Because it’s-” Hugo stopped abruptly and seemed to think hard, then- “um- it’s your favorite customer.”

“Fuck,” Eggsy breathed, because he had been trying really hard not to think about him, and it had been going pretty well until five seconds ago with Amelia, but now he had realized the giant hole in his brilliant fucking plan, which was that pretending to be with someone sort of sucked when he actually very much wanted to be with someone but wasn’t and never would be.

“You have a favorite customer?” Amelia asked, blinking. She didn’t normally work early on weekdays- Eggsy thought it was something to do with her other job- so she wouldn’t know about that the way what felt like everyone else did.

“Yeah,” Eggsy told her, suddenly very tired. “And yeah,” he said to Hugo. “I’ll get out there, he probably shouldn’t be exposed to Charlie in large doses.” No one got along with Charlie all the time, especially not after whatever shock or shit morning was required to make the most graceful man Eggsy knew spill his coffee.  

As he made his way out into the dining room, Eggsy prayed that Amelia wouldn’t put together the fact that Eggsy’s- worryingly specific, now that he had time to reflect on it- description of his made up new boyfriend fit his favorite customer to a t.

Eggsy had a feeling that when they said lie as close to the truth as possible that wasn’t the kind of thing they meant.

*   *   *

Technically, though as far as Eggsy was concerned it was still all Percival’s fault, Eggsy’s favorite customer was not entirely blameless either. Roxy’s matchmaking attempts were silly and possibly hazardous to Eggsy’s health, but he didn’t think he would be anywhere near as against the idea if he wasn’t already- how had he put it to Amelia?- head over heels for one Harry Hart, who came through the shop almost every day and seemed to survive solely on coffee, whatever pastry was the special that day, and the tears of people who would never look as good in a suit as he did- i.e. everybody else in the world. 

Eggsy had met Harry more or less as he had described to Amelia. Some of Dean’s old cronies had tracked Eggsy down and were hassling him at the counter when Harry walked in and- with a few well placed words and a single regal eyebrow- had them running out with their tails between their legs. And if Eggsy had claimed not to think that was hot as fuck it would have been a lie, but he’d also taken in Harry’s clipped tone and sharp words, and his perfect hair and polished shoes, and suspected that he wasn’t going to fare any better at Harry’s hands- which were huge, by the way, don’t think Eggsy didn’t notice that they were huge- than Dean’s boys did. But then Harry just gave him a quick, tiny smile, asked if he was all right, and ordered his coffee with minimal fuss.

And sure, later- when Harry was Harry and not just a name that Eggsy hastily wrote on a sleeve, and Eggsy was Eggsy and not just the person between Harry and his next infusion of caffeine- Eggsy would learn that Harry was a snob about a great many things, but other people weren’t really among them. And Harry never made Eggsy feel low or uncultured, even when it must have been painfully obvious that he was both of those things.

Suffice it to say that Eggsy had developed a giant crush on him.

The moment Harry had walked out of the shop that first time, Charlie had taken to calling Harry Eggsy’s boyfriend.    

“Why?” Eggsy had sputtered, only just starting to breathe again after the way that Harry’s long, graceful fingers had brushed against his when he took the cup, the way he had held Eggsy’s gaze with such warm brown eyes and said thank you, and the way his fucking unreal shoulder to waist ratio had looked framed in the shop doorway.

“Because you fell all over yourself when he said he took his coffee black.”

“I didn’t,” Eggsy had protested before he remembered that it was no use. Charlie was right for once; something about the way Harry had said it had made Eggsy, briefly, forget that there was nothing all that special about the words no thank you, I take it black. “You noticed?”

“The people on the space station noticed,” Hugo had informed him.  

“Fuck,” Eggsy had breathed.

But he had more or less let the nickname slide. Charlie had his fun and it gave Eggsy certain privileges. Whenever Harry came into the shop Eggsy got to be the one who took his order, and if they weren’t too busy he made his coffee too. Harry stayed to drink only rarely, but when he did Eggsy also got to check in on him, maybe have a chat with him about whatever project he was working on. Harry was with a big law firm, which made sense to Eggsy because Harry had a way of looking at people who he thought needed a lesson in manners that said someday when you’re accused of murder I will be the only one who could get you off and shut them right down.

But of course Hugo had hiccupped over the nickname after all this time, because now Eggsy was supposed to have an actual boyfriend, one who- when Eggsy came up with him this morning- had never been intended to resemble Harry Hart in any way, shape or form. His conversation with Amelia had changed that, turning the boyfriend into someone exactly like Harry, and now Eggsy was imagining it. Being with Harry. Seeing if the two of them had a chance together long term.

Yeah. It sucked. When he came up with The Lie, he’d never banked on wishing it was real this hard.  

*   *   *

By the time Eggsy got out of the kitchen someone was already pressing a fresh cup of coffee into his hands, the mess by Harry’s table was almost completely cleaned up, and the situation was basically a non-situation, or it would be if Charlie would just disappear. With Harry’s cup still in one hand, Eggsy slung the other over Charlie’s shoulders. “Go away fast, go away now,” he said in Charlie’s ear.

“Right.” Normally Charlie didn’t listen to Eggsy very well, but maybe he could tell that Harry was in a foul mood because Eggsy had never seen him move that quickly before.  

But when Eggsy glanced Harry’s way he really didn’t look like he was in the mood to kill Charlie- and it didn’t actually take a whole lot, in Eggsy’s experience, to put a person in the mood to kill Charlie. If Eggsy was Harry, spilling his coffee alone would have done the trick, and Eggsy still maintained that Harry wouldn’t have spilled his coffee in the first place if he wasn’t having a shit day already. Harry just looked... sad, and also like he was beating himself up for being sad. Eggsy had felt like that often enough to know that it was not going to make him feel better any faster.

“Hey,” Eggsy said, letting a hand come to rest on Harry’s arm. “How are you?”

In the background, he vaguely heard Charlie saying something, and out of the corner of his eye he noticed Amelia tug Charlie close and whisper something in his ear, but he had no idea what exactly was going on and he didn’t really care enough to figure it out. As usual when he was around, Eggsy only had eyes for Harry.

“I’m all right, Eggsy,” Harry said ruefully. He took the coffee Eggsy pressed into his hands, but he didn’t drink it, he just held it. To Eggsy’s eye, he still looked shaken, and there were a few coffee stains on his normally pristine white shirt.

“You sure?”

Harry sighed, shrugging and spreading his arms. “Just a bit of a mess, that’s all.” Harry’s lips flattened into a line, the way they did when Harry was trying to smile but just wasn’t feeling it. “I had a bit of a shock,” he said at last, as though he was confessing something scandalous. “It really shouldn’t have been such a surprise, but…” Harry shrugged, “there it is.”

“Can I help? My shift’s almost over.”

Eyes crinkling, Harry somehow contrived to look both incredibly fond and absolutely miserable at the same time. “I’m afraid not.” His tone changed abruptly, kidding now: “Unless you have a dry cleaners hidden in the back.”

“I don’t,” Eggsy admitted, though at the moment he wished like hell he did, just to make Harry smile for real again. “But- uh- there is a flat upstairs-” Eggsy carefully neglected to mention that he lived there- “and you could at least rinse that shirt out, yeah?”  

Harry blinked several times in quick succession. “Thank you, Eggsy,” he said at last. “That would be most kind of you.”

Eggsy’s brain took this moment to fully process the fact that he was essentially taking Harry home with him, and suddenly he felt his face heat. He ducked his head and tugged at Harry’s sleeve and then led him through the kitchen to the stairs at the back, all with his head still stubbornly down. He didn’t have a shrine in there or anything- the problem was primarily that having Harry in his house made it harder to stop imagining all the reasons Harry could have been here that did not involve rinsing his shirt out and being on his way again.  

Eggsy unlocked the door and held it open for Harry, who nodded his head and stepped inside. It took just a few seconds for the noise to wake J.B., his little doggie toenails skittering along the floor as he made a dash for the entry way.

By the time Eggsy had finished shutting the door behind them and hanging up his apron, Harry was crouched low and petting the overexcited pug. Eggsy tried very hard to keep his heart from melting further at the sight of the two of them- reminding himself that neither were actually his to keep- but failed.

Harry looked up at Eggsy, eyes dancing. “What’s his name?”

“I been calling him J.B.,” Eggsy said. “But he ain’t mine and I don’t actually know.”

Harry frowned a little, absently scratching J.B.’s head. “He belongs to your-”

“My nobody,” Eggsy told him firmly. “There was a whole thing when Roxy was trying to set me up with people. I haven’t figured out who he belongs to yet.”  

“I did… hear something about that,” Harry said, brows drawing together. But of course Roxy’s little matchmaking attempts were even more confusing to the people who weren’t involved in them than to those that were. “From Merlin.”

Eggsy gathered that Merlin and Harry had gone to school together and were old friends, so it made sense that when Merlin heard a story this ridiculous he told Harry. It didn’t make it any less embarrassing to imagine Harry knowing how long it had been since Eggsy had been on a date and what drastic measures those who called themselves his friends had resorted to accordingly. It was even worse to realize that news of his made up boyfriend- suspiciously similar to Harry or not- would probably eventually reach Harry.

Actually, remembering Charlie’s loud discovery, it probably already had.

Eggsy snorted to himself. Like Harry had ever been interested in him anyway. The Lie changed nothing.

“Since I’m here I should take him for a walk,” Eggsy said. “You can wash up through there.”

“Thank you, Eggsy,” Harry said again, giving him a heartbreaking smile.

*   *   *

There was a park close by and Eggsy used his little walk there to try to clear his head out and sort through what was happening to him and what he was going to do about it. He had always known intellectually that making things up could be slippery slope, that one perfectly harmless white lie could grow teeth and might turn around a bite the teller at any time- but this felt a little less like a slippery slope and more like a giant fucking cliff.

Only this morning The Lie had seemed entirely simple, and already Eggsy felt distinctly bitten in the ass.

And the worst part, Eggsy decided as J.B. examined a scent on a tree-trunk, was that he had the oddest sense that things could easily still find a way to get worse from here.

He told himself that everything was going to be fine all the same. Nothing had changed that much since this morning. So he hadn’t expected to find himself describing Harry in excruciating detail to Amelia when he talked about his made up boyfriend. She wasn’t going to memorize what he said and tell it to everyone in exactly the same way, meaning that no one was likely to make the connection, and it had given veracity to his claims, since he really was mad about Harry. So he hadn’t anticipated Harry finding out about his fictional boyfriend. Once again, it wasn’t like it mattered. He’d never had a shot with Harry anyway.

So it was fine. The novelty that he was dating someone would go away, hopefully soon, and Eggsy’s life would go back to pre-matchmaking-Roxy normal. He and Harry would still have their little talks and around the time people- i.e. Roxy- started wanting to meet Eggsy’s fake boyfriend he would explain that said boyfriend had moved to Canada or something and they would discover that long distance relationships were hard and mutually decide to go their separate ways.

Eggsy felt the strangest pang at the thought of breaking it off with almost-Harry, and he briefly entertained a fantasy of keeping it up his whole life. He imagined being in a home with Roxy, playing her at checkers, as she waved a cane reprovingly at him and said in her crackling old-lady voice, You are still hiding the identity of your boyfriend from me.

“Pathetic,” Eggsy said to himself.

J.B. gave him a look that could- if Eggsy was generous- be construed as sympathy and then he emptied his bladder on a bush.

“Fuck my life,” Eggsy muttered.

*   *   *

However much Eggsy tried to comfort himself, that thought was still the prevailing one when he returned to the flat with J.B. on his leash. It only grew more profound when he released J.B., turned a corner, and found Harry in the kitchen washing out his shirt at the sink. Because his shirt was in the sink, Harry’s chest was bare and he looked unfairly good. Eggsy had heard that Harry had been in the military for a while, and he had obviously kept up some kind of training regimen since, because he was lightly muscled and incredibly slim despite the broadness of his chest. Eggsy had always thought that Harry’s shoulder to waist ratio was unreal, but the look of him was somehow even more impressive when he was shirtless, a sight that Eggsy had never really expected to be treated to.

“Hello,” Harry said, and smiled, still scrubbing at the shirt even as he turned to look at Eggsy. Eggsy was still staring like an idiot at him because of course he was, and Harry noticed because of course he did, smile slipping off his face. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” Eggsy managed to cough out. He looked at the floor to stop looking at Harry. “Are you in a rush? Sorry, shoulda asked that before.”

“It’s fine, Eggsy, and no. The building was being fumigated, actually, and then-” Harry abruptly laughed at himself, perhaps a little bitterly. “You don’t need to hear about this.”

Eggsy almost said that he absolutely did need to hear about this, that there was nothing Harry could possibly say that he wouldn’t be fascinated to hear, but that would be ridiculous. Eggsy decided that he should take this whole business as a wake-up call. Just because he didn’t happen to care for Roxy’s methods didn’t mean she was wrong. He shouldn’t have to create a fictional boyfriend just because he was too caught up in someone who was never, ever going to see him like that to so much as look around. “I’ll get you a shirt, okay?” Eggsy said instead.

The first step to being a new, clear-headed Eggsy who wasn’t stupid over a man who was entirely out of his league would have to be putting Harry in a shirt.

Unfortunately, as Eggsy discovered when he produced an old- but still one of the nicest he had, even though that wasn’t all that nice at all- t-shirt for Harry to wear, they weren’t the same size. He’d known that before, of course, and thought a lot about how it would feel to have Harry’s larger body wrapped all around his- new clear-headed Eggsy would be making his appearance later, all right?- but it was different when the corner of Harry’s mouth ticked upward and he pulled the shirt- which had always been oversized on Eggsy- over his head and it stretched tight across his giant shoulders and the firm shape of his pecs.

Eggsy managed to keep the cursing internal, but only just. Harry looked so lovely, his hair a bit ruffled, his neatly pressed, expensive trousers a stark contrast next to Eggsy’s shabby t-shirt, and his feet bare because he had toed off his shoes and socks at the door.

Carefully, Eggsy weighed the possibility that Harry would respond positively if Eggsy just threw himself into Harry’s arms right now.

He concluded the likelihood was not high and refrained, but it was a struggle. Eggsy was almost more relieved than disappointed when there was a knock at the door. Eggsy cleared his throat. “I’ll- uh. I’ll get that.”

“Yes,” Harry said, eyes crinkling.

“Right.”

Eggsy stopped being grateful for the reprieve the moment he opened the door and saw Digby standing there. Primarily referred to as date number three in Eggsy’s mind, Digby was the only one thus far who had actually found the zany circumstances under which they met charming even though in Eggsy’s opinion the less said about the fortune teller the better- Roxy was his best friend probably but she was also crazy- and that scared Eggsy even more than Digby’s ideas about class, which from where Eggsy was standing were terrifying, he was not Lizzie Bennet and this was not the regency.

“Eggsy,” Digby said, and even his smile and the way he said Eggsy’s name managed to be utterly pompous. How did Roxy even know this guy? “I was told I might find you up here.”

“Were you?” Eggsy asked warily.

Digby took a step forward. “I haven’t heard from you and I was wondering if something was amiss.”

Eggsy took a step back. “Uh, no. Nothing amiss.”

“Then I don’t understand. We had a connection. I know you felt it too.”

“Uh, no. No connection. Just a tarot card reader who said our meeting had preordained. I have to tell you that that kind of stuff really isn’t my thing and I also that I’m- uh- I’m actually with someone else right now.”

Digby took another step forward. “Do you mean that in the sense that there’s someone else in the flat right now, or that you’re seeing someone else?”

“Both.”

Eggsy had totally intended to say that, so he was a little surprised to discover that the word had not come from him. No, that was Harry, just leaning casually against the wall between the entry way and the living room. His voice had that softness to it that actually mildly terrifying when Harry used it just so. Digby stopped, and Eggsy didn’t blame him. His life would probably pass before his eyes if Harry ever used that tone on him.

“You’re-” Digby’s eyes flicked sharply from Harry to Eggsy and back again, taking in Harry in Eggsy’s flat in the middle of the day wearing an old t-shirt and nice slacks with a button down slung over his arm, clearly recently washed. “Oh.” The amount of judgment Digby managed to get into that one word was frankly mind-blowing.    

Eggsy darted a look at Harry, trying to gauge his mood and apologize with his eyes at the same time. He had limited success, because Harry’s face might as well have been carved of marble and his eyes were cold, and Eggsy himself probably just looked terrified. Still. He edged closer to Harry, looked at Digby, and pasted on a smile. “Yeah,” he said. He found he couldn’t glance at Harry again so he just reached for him blindly, hand landing on a pec. Eggsy fought the urge to flinch and curled his fingers into a fist around the flimsy fabric of his t-shirt and drew Harry closer, feeling Harry settle against him, those big hands encircling his waist. “We’re only just starting to… you know.”

“No,” Digby said, crossing his arms like he didn’t believe a word. “I don’t know.”

“Uh- honey-” Eggsy started, looking blindly at Harry’s left ear because he really couldn’t meet his eyes right now.

Eggsy floundered and he would have given up altogether except that he felt gentle fingers on his chin, tilting it up, and then he had brief glimpse of Harry with a strange light in his eyes before warm lips were pressing against his. Eggsy made a noise, muffled by Harry’s surprisingly soft mouth, and let his palm go flat against Harry’s chest.

The kiss lingered, much too long now to be chaste but nowhere near as dirty as Eggsy tended to picture when he left himself imagine kissing Harry Hart. Eggsy let his other arm go around Harry’s neck, kissing him back a little clumsily- not wanting this to end for a lot of reasons, and only one of them was because he could practically hear Digby’s jaw dropping.

Harry pressed little kisses to Eggsy’s lips and slowly drew back, turning on Digby. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, sir…”

“Right,” Digby said.

Harry closed the door behind him, one hand still around Eggsy’s waist. Once the door clicked shut Harry let Eggsy go so abruptly that he- still weak-kneed from the kiss- stumbled a little and hit the wall by the coat rack. “Ooof.”

“Forgive me,” Harry said stiffly.

Eggsy stayed against the wall, figuring it at least wasn’t out to torture him today, and he forced himself to look at Harry. Harry’s gaze was fixed to the floor and there was a faint color high on his cheeks. He looked like he thought he’d really fucked up. Eggsy licked his lips reflexively, and thought he could maybe taste a hint of black coffee and maybe something… more. Harry. “It’s okay,” Eggsy told him, swallowing. “It was my idea to tell him we were together, right?”

“That’s true.” Harry sounded rueful. “But I still shouldn’t have done that without permission from you.”

“Well, live and learn,” Eggsy said before he could stop himself. Harry stared nakedly at him. Eggsy cleared his throat. “Fuck. Sorry. I’m having a really shitty day in terms of thinking things through and maybe it’s catching.”

Harry cracked a very small, painfully shy smile.

“I’m not mad at anybody but Roxy for getting me into that guy’s orbit in the first place, I swear.” Eggsy reached out awkwardly and patted Harry’s chest.

Harry nodded slowly. “All right. I should probably go, though.”             

Even more awkwardly than he had reached out, Eggsy drew his hand back. His palm was still tingling from the firm heat of Harry’s chest and he had to resist the urge to wipe it on his trouser leg and hopefully neutralize that phantom warmth. “Yeah,” he agreed.

“If you would permit me, I’ll just borrow this-” Harry tugged at the t-shirt that he was still wearing as clarification- “and return it to you tomorrow, if that suits.”

“Sure,” Eggsy said, something coiling hot and strange in the pit of his stomach at the thought of Harry continuing to wear his clothes. If you had asked Eggsy yesterday if there was a way for his stupid infatuation with Harry to get worse, he would have said that of course there wasn’t. What a difference a day could make. Now Eggsy fancied he could still feel the soft pressure of Harry’s lips, still taste Harry on his lips.

Without his giving it permission to, Eggsy’s tongue flickered out to get another sample.    

Harry stared at him for a heartbeat that seemed to stretch out for a hundred years, and Eggsy almost thought that he might… do something. But then Harry fled. No matter how gracefully he did it- and because he was Harry that was very gracefully indeed- fleeing was still the word. He coughed out, “Thank you again,” collected his jacket and the rest of his things, and was gone before Eggsy could formulate another thought, let alone speak to him.  

*   *   *

Eggsy woke up the next morning, remembered the day before, and groaned. He put his pillow over his face and wondered aloud why the world couldn’t have done him the small favor of ending while he slept. After Harry left the day had passed in a haze as he actually kissed me was chased periodically across Eggsy’s mind by obviously that’s that never going to happen again. It happened once again as Eggsy lay in bed and vaguely considered staying there, perhaps until the end of time.

In the end, he didn’t.

In the end, he got up to face the day, reminding himself that after yesterday things were unlikely to go anywhere but up.

But the thought that Eggsy had had the day before about how lies could grow teeth remained apt, and if Eggsy had thought that The Lie had bitten him in the ass already he was about to find out that he was very wrong.

Things did indeed have a lot more downhill yet to go.

*   *   *

Eggsy’s first hint that The Lie had attained an alarming but frankly not altogether surprising life of its own came later that morning, when he first caught the tail end of a rumor that Eggsy wasn’t just dating someone, he was dating one Harry Hart. Eggsy knew this one had come from Charlie because a) Charlie knew Digby, because posh wankers flocked together and b) it was Charlie’s cousin, who was an aspiring writer who spent most of her time in the corner of the shop not writing, who Eggsy overheard relating the whole business to a friend.

“High time I say,” she was saying. “That boy’s been pining long enough.”

“Don’t you have better things to think about?” her friend- Eggsy had made her coffee, what was her name? Tilde? She wasn’t English, Eggsy knew that much- asked.

Charlie’s cousin sniffed regally. “I’m a student of human nature,” she declared.

Tilde rolled her eyes and Eggsy decided that he liked her and hated the universe in general, a feeling which carried him through the next few hours. Unfortunately, most of the people he worked with- and some of the shop’s regular customers too- picked up on his drastic change in mood since that time the day before, and though Eggsy didn’t overhear any speculation on the subject he had no doubt that there was plenty of it.

He wasn’t called upon to explain any of this until Amelia came into the shop. She was there to buy coffee rather than sell it, but she was still Amelia, so she still noticed Eggsy’s change in attitude, and she still called him on it.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, perhaps a little too forcefully. He lowered his voice so no one else would hear. “I’m just trying to figure out how everyone got the idea that I’m dating Harry.”

Amelia froze, then went pale, and then tugged Eggsy into the supply room without another word.

It took Eggsy a second to even understand what had just happened to him.

It took Amelia a second more to gather herself and say, “That could- uh- that could actually be my fault.”

“What happened to not spreading it around anymore than it had been?” Eggsy asked. His voice came out sharp, but he wasn’t really angry at Amelia. The situation was annoying, but while she had most definitely made it worse in the short run he didn’t think she’d done anything that wouldn’t have happened eventually anyway. If the kiss that Digby saw hadn’t gotten back to Charlie or Roxy by now it would at some point, and even if Amelia hadn’t said whatever she said Eggsy would probably have still ended up trying to maintain the fiction that he was with Harry for as long as he could before finally admitting the truth, so all Amelia actually did was hasten the inevitable.  

“I’m so sorry, Eggsy,” Amelia told him with energy. “I really thought I was helping. When I saw you and Harry together it just- it seemed so obvious. And it actually shut Charlie up for a second to think that you two were-”

“Yeah,” Eggsy managed. “Wait. How do you know Harry anyway? He mostly shows up in the mornings while you’re-”

“Working,” she finished for him. “At his offices, updating their- you don’t need to hear about that. But I know him, Eggsy. Actually pretty well.”

“Fuck.”

“Sorry,” she repeated earnestly.

Eggsy patted Amelia’s hand. “I ain’t mad.” She looked skeptical. “Okay, I am mad but not at you. It’s just all so stupid, you know?” He kicked the wall as carefully as he could. “Anyway, it would have gotten around anyway because when Harry was in my flat the other day Digby showed up and I kinda implied that we were an item and Harry kinda went along with it, so…”

“I don’t understand why you couldn’t have just mentioned whoever it is you’re really going out with.”

“Because he ain’t real,” Eggsy huffed out. “He sounded like Harry when I described him to you because he kinda became Harry while I was talking to you. I ain’t actually with anybody at all. I never was. I just started telling people that so Roxy would- so she’d just stop, you know?”

Amelia nodded like she understood though her eyes were baffled.

Eggsy didn’t blame her. He couldn’t believe that any of this was happening either. “Of course, somebody will probably have figured out that it all ain’t true before I even see Roxy, so it don’t matter anyway.” Eggsy scratched his forehead lightly and sighed.

“When are you going to see Roxy next?”

Eggsy thought about that. Not at work, probably, since she wouldn’t be back until Monday and it was a Friday now. But he was likely to see her over the weekend, wasn’t he? If it was just the two of them he supposed he might be able to get in front of this thing, but probably not because he was pretty sure that there was something bigger planned. Something about- “Fuck.”

“What?”

“There’s a Sunday brunch thing planned with Rox’s family and Percy and James and everyone. I’m invited and I’m bringing a plus one, which would be my boyfriend if I had one. That is going to be embarrassing as fuck- although maybe not as embarrassing as admitting all of this to Harry, which I’m gonna have to do before Merlin hears about all of this and asks Harry if he’s gonna make an honest man out of me or whatever.”

“It’ll be all right,” Amelia said, patting his arm in a solid but ultimately futile effort to comfort him. “Harry’s a great guy. Really nice. He’ll understand that this just got away from you.”  

Something about how earnest Amelia sounded made Eggsy go a little crazy. He remembered what it felt like to have Harry pressed up against him, Harry’s lips all sweet and gentle against his, and it was out of his mouth before he could put a stop to it: “Is he nice enough to go to Roxy’s brunch with me and pretend to be my boyfriend?”

Amelia stared at Eggsy like he’d lost his mind. She was not wrong.

*   *   *

What happened next could best be described as an unfortunate coincidence- Eggsy running into Harry too late for all of Amelia’s gentle reminders of why it was a really bad idea to still be running through his head, but too early for Eggsy to have thought better of it on his own.

Of course, technically Eggsy didn’t run into Harry because technically Harry was avoiding him. Eggsy was making a trip to the kitchen when he caught a glimpse of Harry out the window. Harry had found Hugo outside the back door and was evidently trying to convince him to take Eggsy’s shirt off his hands and return it to him, thereby eliminating Harry’s need to see Eggsy at all. By the looks of things, Hugo wasn’t having it.

Eggsy poked his head out the door. “There you are,” he said.

“Right,” Hugo said, eyes flicking between Eggsy’s face- manic and dogged- and Harry’s- panicked and unsure. “I’ll just-” he pointed back into the shop.

Eggsy caught him by the elbow. “If I ever claim you aren’t my favorite,” he said, “remind me of this moment.”

“Okay,” Hugo replied, eyes wider than usual. He made himself scarce.

Eggsy turned on Harry.

“Here,” Harry said, pressing the shirt to Eggsy’s chest. “Thank you for letting me borrow it, that was very kind. And I’m sorry again about yesterday.”

It was only by a very narrow margin that Eggsy kept from saying thank you for wearing it, and I would very much like a repeat of yesterday, preferably for real instead of to scare off a potential suitor. He had to go about this delicately. “It was my fault, Harry, you know that. I’m the one who told him that-”

“You are,” Harry agreed wryly. He hesitated, then: “Why did you do that?”

“You were there,” Eggsy said. “And I needed a cover. See, the thing is…” Eggsy stopped, but he knew that he had to press on or he’d never get through this so he forced himself to continue. “The thing is that I ain't actually dating anyone. I just started telling everyone that so Roxy would stop setting me up with people, and you’d be amazed, really, how fast a thing like that can grow, because I panicked, and suddenly the boyfriend I made up sounded a lot like you, and that was even before the thing with Digby, and I’m really sorry you got dragged into this but I was wondering if there was any chance at all that you would be willing to go along with it for a little while, because there’s this brunch on Sunday and if I don’t bring anyone-”

“Yes.”

“It would just be for a little while, just to pacify everyone, and I wouldn’t be any trouble, I only- did you just say yes?”

“Yes.”

“As in yes, yes?”

“Yes.” When Eggsy just blinked at him for another moment, Harry let out a long breath. His lips were pressed a little thinner than usual, but otherwise he seemed like his normal self, and- more importantly- he didn’t seem like he was thinking better of agreeing. “Yes, Eggsy, I will do that for you. Shall I pick you up on Sunday?”

“Uh.” Eggsy swallowed heavily. These last few days had redefined Eggsy’s understanding of how quickly a thing could escalate, but this here was really something. “Yes? 10:30? Ish?”

“From here?” Harry asked.

“Yeah.” Eggsy’s voice sounded very small.

“All right,” Harry said with exaggerated gentleness. “I will see you then.” And then he actually bowed his head slightly before turning away, leaving Eggsy with his t-shirt cradled in his hands and a dumbfounded look on his face. Eggsy genuinely had no idea if that was a positive development or not.

*   *   *

On Sunday morning, Harry arrived to pick Eggsy up wearing a full suit as always. Eggsy felt a bit underdressed in the slacks, button down, and cardigan that Roxy had instructed him to wear, but sometimes Eggsy thought that Harry must have been born wearing a suit and so couldn’t exactly protest. Probably, no one from the shop would recognize him if he wasn’t in one.

“Uh,” Eggsy said awkwardly. “Hi, Harry.”

“Eggsy,” Harry replied. There was something just slightly off- just slightly sad- in his voice. “You look very well.”

“Uh,” Eggsy said again. “Thank you?” It sounded like a question, and Eggsy flushed slightly at his own awkwardness. Roxy had certainly made appreciative noises at the ensemble- but it was one thing to be wearing something other than an apron and polo shirt for once, and another thing entirely to have actually impressed Harry. And he hadn’t, surely? Probably Harry was just caught up in the date-like atmosphere and saying whatever he assumed was appropriate. “You too,” Eggsy added, coughing. He meant it too much.  

Harry huffed out a quiet laugh and then guided Eggsy towards the car.

And Harry had a driver- because of course he did, honestly what else had Eggsy expected? And what was he thinking asking a man like Harry to pretend to be his boyfriend for fuck’s sake?- and so they sat in the back together, elbows just barely brushing, as they got underway.  

After Eggsy gave the address to Harry’s driver, the silence stretched and grew oppressive. Harry was the first to break it. “Is there anything that I should know?”

Eggsy stared at him. “Like- uh- in what sense?”

“Is there anything you told your friends and colleagues about our relationship that I should be aware of?”

Trust Harry to have made that even more incomprehensible the second time, but Eggsy got the picture. Harry wanted to know if Eggsy had told people that Harry’s guilty pleasure was American reality TV or that they were getting married in the spring or something else that Harry could never reasonably come up with on his own. “I really haven’t said all that much, Harry. That we met in the shop, obviously, and got to know each other. Look, other than the larger ‘we’re dating’ part of it, I didn’t actually make much up.”    

Harry let out a long breath. “All right.” He silent for another moment. “Still. We should get our story straight as they say, should we not?”

“As in?”

“As in who asked who out first, when was that, where did we go, that sort of thing.”

“Right.” The inside of Eggsy’s mouth went dry. This was just another in a long line of things that Eggsy really should have seen coming, but it still felt surprisingly heady, just imagining it. “I- uh-” the warmth of Harry’s arm against his was suddenly very acute. “I probably asked you, yeah? Maybe… bringing you a refill one day?” And he could imagine it all too vividly, how he could have finally worked up the courage, how he would have stuttered a little over the words. And Harry would smile and- no, that part wasn’t so easy to imagine, which was probably why it had never really happened, why Eggsy had never worked up the courage after all. He just couldn’t picture anything other than Harry reaching out and gently patting his hand and- very kindly- turning him down.

But then there was Harry, next to him now and decidedly not imaginary, very softly saying, “Yes, I think so. And I would say, ‘I would like that. Very much indeed.’” And Harry sounded so very earnest, and he was so solid against Eggsy, so close. Close enough to-

Eggsy leaned nearer to him and Harry stiffened briefly. Eggsy heart stuttered his chest, but he forced the words out. “We should probably get used to-”

“Yes, of course.” Harry hesitated a moment more, and then he put an arm around Eggsy’s shoulders, drawing him toward his chest. Eggsy pressed his face into the crisp fabric of Harry’s shirt. He had always liked the smell of Harry’s cologne, but it had never filled his nose quite like this before. And the way that Harry’s big hand came up to cradle his shoulder… it was amazing.

“What- uh- what would have happened next, do you reckon?” Eggsy asked, his mouth going dry as a desert.

“We would go out,” Harry said slowly. “Perhaps… for tea? I for one have rather had enough of coffee.”    

“Yeah,” Eggsy whispered.

“And then, after, I would ask you if you’d enjoyed yourself. And you… you,” Harry stuttered and went quiet.

It was hard for Eggsy to speak, but he managed to say, “I’d say yes.”

“And then later I would take you to dinner, perhaps-”

“And I’d just about have a heart attack when I saw the place, but then after I relaxed a little I’d actually have a really good time-”

“And then after I would take you home,” Harry finished. His thumb moved in little circles and Eggsy’s skin prickled at his touch even through his shirt.

“Harry,” seemed to tear its way out of his mouth. Harry’s face seemed closer still, suddenly, and Eggsy wanted to kiss him more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. Looking up at him, Eggsy could count his eyelashes and it would be easy, so easy, to close the distance between them. He even had the excuse- they ought to get used to kissing each other as much as they ought to get used to touching each other, right? Harry would never have to know just how much Eggsy’s mouth was watering for it.

But Harry looked back at him, those dark eyes kind and slightly touched with apprehension, and Eggsy couldn’t do it. He was asking enough of Harry as it was. It would be wrong to try to push him for more.

He cleared his throat. “What next?” he asked.

Harry’s brow lifted and something odd happened in his eyes. “A gentleman wouldn’t answer a question like that.”

Eggsy felt like even his toes were blushing when that sank in. He swallowed heavily and admired Harry’s pocket square rather than meet his eyes. “Right, yeah, a gentleman wouldn’t. But. Uh. A lot of my friends aren’t gentleman, so for the record I probably asked if you wanted to come up for coffee. And I’ve had enough of coffee too.”    

Harry’s grip on Eggsy’s shoulder tightened fractionally, and then it loosened again, and when Eggsy looked at Harry again his eyes had cleared and it seemed that the danger had passed.

Okay, Eggsy told himself. It’s going to be okay.

*   *   *

It wasn’t going to be okay.

Eggsy was going to have ‘decided it would be a good idea to pretend to be dating Harry Hart’ engraved on his tombstone, and he was going to make Roxy pay for it since all of this was her fault anyway. This was going to kill him. He was going to die.

He and Harry had agreed on a few other particulars, like how long ago those first few dates had been- just a few weeks- how often they had seen each other since then- not as often as they would like, since Harry’s job kept him so busy- and what kinds of PDA were comfortable for both of them- far too many, it turned out, for Eggsy’s sanity.

Maybe ten minutes in- after introducing Harry to Percival and James and Roxy’s various relatives and finding out what it felt like for Harry’s hand to make itself at home in the small of his back for nearly every second of that time- Eggsy found that he just couldn’t take it anymore. He excused himself to the bathroom- one deep in Roxy’s family mansion where no one was likely to find him- locked the door, and then spent a good five minutes just staring at his reflection. You asked for this, Unwin, he reminded himself. His temple felt like it was on fire where Harry had nuzzled him gently and pressed a soft kiss. Eggsy had told Harry he thought that no PDA would look unconvincing. Being unconvincing would have been so much better than this.

Eggsy finally forced himself to leave the bathroom.

Two hallways and a staircase later- when Eggsy said mansion he meant it, yeah?- Eggsy turned a corner and saw Charlie and one of his friends- Rupert? Rufus? One of those?- in conversation. Eggsy slid back as silently as he could, in no mood to talk to either of them.

“Of course I am,” Charlie was saying- gloating, by the sound of it. “You should’ve seen her face when the Egg-boy and his sugar daddy showed up. This is a beautiful day.”

When that sank in- the part about Harry being his sugar daddy, Eggsy had no idea what to make of the rest of it- Eggsy thought about sneaking out the window. But he couldn’t just abandon Harry here after Harry had done so much for him, and more importantly he wasn’t sure how he’d get home without Harry and his driver, so he didn’t. He did take the long way around to avoid facing Charlie, though.

It was a nice enough day, sunny and warm, and the brunch was outside at a collection of tables. Eggsy zeroed in on Harry immediately; he was sitting alone at one of the tables, apparently absorbed in his phone.

Eggsy moved to join him.

Harry put his phone away and then smiled up at Eggsy, but his brows drew together almost immediately. “What’s the matter?”

“I- uh- I heard… something.”

“What sort of something?” Harry asked.

Eggsy flopped down in the chair next to Harry. “Charlie talking to one of his friends. I guess he thinks- he thinks you’re- he thinks you’re my sugar daddy.”          

Harry blinked several times at Eggsy, and then said, “Oh. You…” he trailed off. “Forgive me. I… misunderstood.”

“What did you misunderstand?”

Harry kept his voice low in case anyone was listening. “As I understood you it, you described a boyfriend who one of your coworkers assumed was me, which- forgetting the incident in your flat for the moment- is why all this happened.”

“Yeah,” Eggsy said slowly. He didn’t really understand what Harry was getting at.

“I am… at least twice your age.”

“Yeah,” Eggsy said again.

“And our financial circumstances are… different.”

“Right.”

Harry closed his eyes. It was clear that he didn’t want to put too fine a point on this- whatever it was- but that he was beginning to understand that he would have to anyway. “Eggsy, you see- I rather thought that was the point.”

“No,” Eggsy finally managed to say, although it wasn’t like it really mattered whether Harry thought that Eggsy had been telling people he’d found a rich old guy to look after him or not. “That wasn’t the point at all.”

“I see,” Harry said slowly. He leaned close to Eggsy, feeling so incredibly warm, and put a hand over Eggsy’s on the tablecloth.

Hesitantly, Eggsy threaded their fingers together and met Harry’s eyes.

Harry smiled gently. “There’s no reason for our fictional relationship to upset you this much,” he said. “Obviously neither of us thought very much about the difference in our ages, not when we fit so well together.”

Eggsy laughed, and if it came out a little wet Harry ignored it like the gentleman he was. “And obviously you know that I ain’t in it for your money.”

“Yes,” Harry said, almost too softly. “Of course I know that.”

“And for every fancy outing you to take me on, I make you come to the greasiest fish and chips place-”

“Or the dingiest pub-”      

“Just to remind you that I ain’t just your arm candy or some shit.”

Harry raised his free hand, fingers tracing lightly over the curve of Eggsy’s face. “My dear boy,” he murmured. “I would never doubt it.”

Probably, given the conversation they were just having, the pet-name should have annoyed Eggsy- but actually it just turned him on to a frightening degree. The sound of ‘my dear boy’ rumbling out of Harry’s mouth like that would probably fuel a great many fantasies to come. And suddenly it was all too real, and Harry was too close, and Eggsy had to kiss him. He didn’t know if anyone was watching, didn’t know if his too-thin excuse for all of this was about to get thinner, but it was like he couldn’t breathe unless he kissed Harry- so he did.

It took Harry a moment to kiss him back, fingers pushing deep into Eggsy’s hair and pulling him closer, but he did- and when he did Eggsy wished he had tried to get Harry to practice kissing him in the car after all. He could have used the experience, because having Harry’s mouth against his once just to shut Digby up had in no way prepared Eggsy- truly prepared him, that is- for what kissing Harry was really like. He felt like he was drowning in Harry’s lips, which somehow managed to be soft and firm and possessive and frighteningly tender all at the same time. And Eggsy himself felt surprisingly grounded and yet also as though he was going to fly out of his own skin.

Eggsy wanted to lick into Harry’s mouth and taste every part of him. He wanted to climb into Harry’s lap. He wanted to do a lot of things that Roxy’s family- and most likely Harry as well- would not appreciate him doing. Harry pressed little kisses to Eggsy’s lips and it was by sheer force of will alone that Eggsy kept from moaning against his mouth.

Distantly, he heard a throat being cleared.

Harry pulled away first, a very faint blush coloring his cheeks, and his eyes slid away from Eggsy. Eggsy followed his gaze to Roxy, standing by their table with her arms crossed and a complicated look on her face. At first, Eggsy couldn’t meet her gaze, but he could feel her eyes boring into him all the same. “Well,” she said. “Aren’t you going to properly introduce me to your boyfriend?”

Eggsy noticed that he was still holding Harry’s hand. He tightened his grip a little and felt Harry do the same. He turned to face Roxy.

*   *   *

On Monday morning everything really started to come down.

It started out bad, because when Eggsy woke up he could have sworn he could still taste Harry on his palate. Harry had had an arm around his shoulders or a hand on the small of his back for more or less the whole brunch, and apart from the incident with Charlie- and the fact that Roxy was angry with him for some reason- Eggsy had actually had a really good time. Too good a time, honestly; everyone had seemed to like Harry and Harry had seemed to like everyone, and with Harry by his side all of the incomprehensible things about Roxy’s circle suddenly seemed so much easier to handle. To top it off, Eggsy had learned that J.B. was part of a litter of puppies belonging to Roxy’s cousin, who was perfectly happy for Eggsy to keep him.

It had been a great day, and one that should not have left him as miserable as it did. But it was like the image of Harry smiling at him and laughing at his jokes was seared onto the inside of Eggsy’s eyelids. It was for show, Eggsy knew it was, but he couldn’t get the idea that maybe- just maybe- he could actually make Harry that happy out of his head.

He went downstairs and began his work on the morning’s baking early, hoping it would clear his mind. It didn’t. He kept finding new ways to remember how it felt to hold Harry’s hand in his and what it was like to say out loud- without shame or self-pity- that he had been head over heels for Harry from the start, and to have Harry grin at him like no words could have made him happier.

Suffice it to say that Eggsy was not in a very good mood when Merlin wandered into his kitchen close to opening and said, “So I had to hear from Charlie- Charlie- that you and Harry are seeing each other now.”

Eggsy froze. “I’m sorry,” he said, because he was. He was sorry that this had gotten so out of hand so quickly. He was sorry they were all going to have to live with the consequences.

Merlin waved a hand. “No need to apologize, although it does put me in a bit of quandary. I’m terribly fond of you, lad, and Harry is one of my oldest friends. Consequently, I have no idea who to give the shovel talk to.”

Eggsy tried to laugh and it came out more like a sob.

“He’s here now, by the way.”

Miserably, Eggsy went back through everything Merlin had said to determine if there was the slightest possibility at all that when he said he’s here now Merlin did not, in fact, mean Harry. “Charlie?” he tried, hesitantly. He had never hoped this hard for Charlie’s presence in his life and he doubted he ever would again.

Merlin rolled his eyes. “Harry, obviously.”

“Uh. Why?”  

“There’s some kind of conference happening at his workplace,” Merlin explained. “So he needs a lot of coffee and baked goods and a hand carrying them.”    

“Did you tell him I was too busy?” Eggsy asked. There was no doubt in his mind, at that point, that Merlin was angling to send him but he figured it was worth a try.

“No, I told him you’d be happy to.”

“Of course,” Eggsy said weakly. He told himself that this was a good thing, because he needed to talk to Harry and a situation like this was as good an opportunity as any. Things had been getting out of hand for several days now, but to his mind Merlin represented a tipping point.

He actually seemed happy about the idea that they were together. Worse still, he seemed to find the whole thing actually plausible, as though everything between Eggsy and Harry thus far had been building to this, as though anyone would think so. He and Harry were going to have to put a stop to this. They would have to… break up, as it were. And there was no reason, no reason at all, for the thought of fake ending their fake relationship to sting so much. And yet Eggsy couldn’t help thinking that if telling everyone he finally had Harry after all this time had hurt, it would be so much worse to claim to have lost him again.

Still, it had to be done and Eggsy intended to do it. Harry was about to be a relatively captive audience, so this might even be the best time.

“Thanks, Merlin,” Eggsy said, trying to make himself believe that Merlin really had done him a favor.

He started packing up bags for them to take, and by the time he was finished he was still trying to come up with the best way to tell Harry thanks for your help but I really can’t do this anymore, kindly but without admitting that it would all be so much easier if he just didn’t want it to be real so much.

Coming out of the kitchen, Eggsy heard Roxy’s voice: “If I find out that that’s what you’re up to, Hart, you’ll regret it.”

Eggsy kept very still, surprised that Roxy was in the shop so early and curious about what she was saying to Harry, what Harry might say back. He wasn’t disappointed when he heard, “I assure you, Miss Morton, that that is not the case.”

“Because you suddenly decided you liked Eggsy, right?”

In a flash, Eggsy realized that Roxy’s mood- at the brunch and at the moment- could be traced to her belief that he and Eggsy weren’t really together. Why she should be that annoyed about it Eggsy wasn’t sure, but she obviously was. And he knew it was making her unnecessarily harsh, but it still stung a bit to think that she thought it was that impossible that Harry would ever see him that way.

“I didn’t suddenly decide anything,” Harry said, voice soft but fierce. “Eggsy has… enchanted me for as long as I’ve known him. Whatever feelings I have expressed towards him are genuine, and the time we’ve spent together, of late, has been some of the best of my life.”

Eggsy stood rooted to the spot, unable to decide if he needed to call the charade off now more than ever, or if he wanted to keep it up forever. Harry was a hell of an actor. Roxy certainly sounded convinced when she said, “Right. Sorry. Just- you know-” she cleared her throat- “you’d better not hurt him, all right?”  

“I have no intention of doing so.”

“Well,” she said at last, “Okay.” After that she fell silent.

Eggsy waited, pressed up against the wall, for at least a minute. The way Harry’s gorgeous voice sounded saying Eggsy has… enchanted me for as long as I’ve known him wouldn’t stop running through his head.

“Fuck,” he muttered to himself, and stepped out into the shop proper.

Harry was sitting at one of the tables with a large portable carton of coffee close to hand. Roxy was behind the counter and neither of them showed the slightest sign of the conversation Eggsy had just overheard them having. “Hey, Harry,” Eggsy said.

Harry smiled the same kind smile that Eggsy had seen a lot of on Sunday but would probably only get to see in his dreams going forward. “Hello, Eggsy,” he said. “I hope that this isn’t too much of an inconvenience.”

“No, it’s- uh- it’s fine. I actually needed a chance to talk to you about something.”

Eggsy knew that if he didn’t do it today, he might not be able to do it at all- and who knew what that would lead to.

Harry smiled again. Whatever feelings I have expressed towards him are genuine, and the time we’ve spent together, of late, has been some of the best of my life. Eggsy was probably never going to forget that one. “Come along then,” Harry said.  

 *   *   *

“When I said I needed a chance to talk to you about something, this isn’t what I meant.”

“Well, I doubt you could ask for a better opportunity,” Harry said with humor in his voice. Eggsy knew Harry was trying to keep the situation light, trying to help, but that didn’t keep his temper from rising. Seriously, fuck his life.

Eggsy had still been working on how to tell Harry what he’d decided when they reached Harry’s building, and when they got in the elevator.

And then it fucking stopped, bright red emergency lights glowing in the dark and everything. He couldn’t believe it. He thought that kind of thing only happened in movies.

“This is Roxy,” Eggsy said. They’d been in there for almost five minutes and he was already sitting on the floor with his back to the wall and hugging his knees. “She knows we lied to her and she set this up to torture me, I just know it.”

Harry sat down beside him, somehow managing to make even sitting on the floor elegant. “And how could she have done that? Even assuming that she somehow knew what I was going to ask you to do this morning beforehand, there’s no way she could have made the elevator stop like this.” Harry’s voice was soothing. “A thing like that simply isn’t possible.”

“Tell that to the circus lion. And the old lady who thought I was the reincarnation of her favorite brother.”

Harry stopped briefly to stare at Eggsy. “The life you’ve lead.”

Eggsy decided he might as well stare miserably up at the ceiling for a while, change things up. “It’s her. It has to be. Of course she’d never buy it.”  

“Why, precisely?”

“Because.” Eggsy sighed and buried his face in his knees. “You know, I like to blame this on how she got Percival and James together and then decided she was a matchmaker, but that isn’t really why any of this is happening.”

“Why is it happening?”

“Because she knows I like someone. She knows I am fucking nuts for someone who wouldn’t ever feel that way about me. She knows that we would never… of course she doesn’t believe it. It was never the plan to tell her we had a thing. It just got out of hand so fucking fast and suddenly that was exactly what we were doing.”

“I see.” Harry’s voice sounded strangely sad, and then he went quiet for a while.

“And now she’s pissed at me.”

“To be fair,” Harry said, “I don’t think it’s you she’s most angry at.”

It was true, Eggsy thought, that Roxy seemed angrier than just being lied to about Eggsy being with Harry would explain. Really, she should have been at least a little amused that Eggsy might have found the courage to ask Harry to pretend to be his boyfriend but still couldn’t actually ask him out. “Something else is going on, yeah?”

“Yes,” Harry said. “I spoke to her while you were in the kitchen. Apparently she had something of a bet on with Charlie.”

“Of course she did,” Eggsy groaned.      

“From what I gather, at one point they were in conversation, and Charlie said that you would ask me out on a date before she got the guts to ask Merlin. I assume, given the circumstances you’ve described, that he meant it as a rhetorical device, a way of saying ‘never.’ At any rate, she told him he was wrong and then before either of them knew it there was money riding on it- none of which really mattered because, again, it was meant to be an impossibility. Until Charlie heard from Amelia that I was your boyfriend- and then the brunch seemed to bear it out.”

“Oh,” Eggsy said finally. It seemed hopelessly unequal to the task of expressing how he felt in that particular moment.

“Most of her anger appeared to have been based on her belief that Charlie had convinced one or both of us to pretend that we were together in order to lose her that bet rather than for any other reason. I think that she was especially worried that I might have done so… without consulting you on the subject.”

That made Eggsy feel a little bit better, that in her way Roxy was just trying to protect him. “You’d never do that.”

“Of course I wouldn’t.”

Eggsy fell silent, processing what he had just learned. “Rox likes Merlin, huh?”

“So it would seem. And given all the drunken whining I’ve been subjected to about how young and lovely she is and how she couldn’t possibly want him, those feelings are not unreciprocated. However, since unlike what seems like everyone else at the moment I have no interest in taking up matchmaking, I intend to let the two of them sort it out themselves.”

“Right, yeah,” Eggsy said. “I’m sure that’s for the best.”  

There was another period of silence after that, and then Eggsy felt Harry’s hand- light and warm- over his. “I’m sorry if this has caused trouble for you.”

“It’s my own fault if it has.”

“Still, you’re obviously unhappy. I would do anything to make you smile again.”

Eggsy looked at Harry then, he couldn’t help it, and Harry’s expression was so painfully earnest that Eggsy had to look away again, staring accusingly at the unmoving elevator doors. “I overheard you and Roxy,” he admitted to Harry quietly. “You lied to her for me, Harry. I think you’ve done plenty.”

Harry was silent for a moment. Then he said, “First of all, ever since what happened with the runaway carriage and the baby I’ve thought that her schemes might actually be endangering people, and I believe you have every reason and right to do whatever makes sense to you to put a stop to it. Second of all, you asked for my help and I gave it, and until such time as you ask me to stop I will continue to do so. Third of all- and probably most importantly- I did not lie to Miss Morton.”

“But you said-”

Harry’s voice came unusually rough when he said, “Yes.”

Eggsy gave himself a second to go over what he had heard Harry say to Roxy in the café to make sure that he couldn’t possibly have misunderstood the implication.

Only when he was sure did Eggsy finally look at Harry. His expression was gentle, so earnest and self-deprecating. Eggsy couldn’t help the noise that came out of him as he turned his head and kissed Harry. Harry’s lips were still beneath his for a long moment, but just when Eggsy was about to pull away again Harry kissed him back. Harry’s hands came up, cupping Eggsy’s face, and Eggsy deepened the kiss, tasting Harry again, and properly this time.

“My dear boy,” Harry murmured between little kisses. “All right.” He made a noise halfway between a groan and a sigh. “All right.” He pulled Eggsy even closer.  

Eggsy practically climbed into Harry’s lap, shivering at the feel of Harry’s touch. Long fingers slid into his hair, gliding along his scalp. Harry’s other hand fell to Eggsy’s shoulder and held it, keeping him near as though he could possibly have pulled away. Eggsy’s own hands came to rest on Harry’s broad, firm chest, and touching him there felt as good as Eggsy remembered. Too good.

They kissed for ages. Eggsy wanted to know every corner of Harry’s mouth, wanted Harry to know his in return. When Eggsy finally broke away, it was only to press his lips into Harry’s jaw, nuzzle his throat and inhale his scent at his pulse point.

“Eggsy,” Harry murmured, grip tightening as Eggsy kissed his neck. “Eggsy.”

It was just as the well that that was when someone arrived to get them out of there, wedging open the doors and calling down to ask if they were all right. Eggsy wasn’t sure what would have happened next, otherwise.

“We’re fine,” Harry called back, voice even rougher than it had been before. Harry might as well have had gravel caught in his throat.

The next few minutes were a jumble of people Eggsy didn’t know asking questions, a little bit of climbing, and the eventual belated delivery of baked goods and coffee to a conference room. Through it all, Eggsy got the distinct impression that Harry was to trying to avoid talking to him.

He could understand that Harry was technically at work and that he was busy- Eggsy had to get back to it himself, after all- but that didn’t mean it wasn’t confusing.

Eggsy caught Harry’s arm. “Uh, Harry. Can we maybe… continue our… conversation later?”

Harry stopped, hesitated, and finally said, “Come to my office.”

Harry’s office was about what Eggsy would have expected it to be if he had thought much about it: of good size, tastefully decorated, with lots of antique furniture and knick-knacks in warm color tones. He seemed to have a thing for butterflies that Eggsy was definitely interested to learn more about, if Harry was willing to let him in. Eggsy was suddenly afraid that he wouldn’t be. He had no idea why Harry had shut down on him so suddenly, but he didn’t like it at all.

When Harry closed the door behind them, Eggsy automatically reached for him. Harry caught his hands and held them gently. “Please don’t.”

“Why?” Eggsy asked. “What’s wrong, Harry?”

“What… happened back there… shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

Eggsy stared at him. “But you- you said that you- you said that you liked me.”

“I do, Eggsy. God only knows how I do. But I don’t… I don’t know who it is that you want. I don’t know why you think that you can’t ever have them or what kind of fool they would have to be not to want you. But I do know that you have to try. I know you’re wonderful, and that you deserve better than to just pretend with me because you think you don’t have any other options.”

“Oh,” was all Eggsy could say at first as he realized that that was where they’d gone wrong. Harry didn’t think- Harry actually didn’t think- “Harry, you’re wrong about why Charlie said I was gonna work up the courage to ask you out before Roxy did Merlin.”

“Am I?” Harry sounded so sad.

“It’s because apparently the only one worse than her is me! Harry- you’re the one I was talking about before. The boyfriend I made up sounded like you because I wanted him to be you.”  

Harry simply stared blankly at Eggsy.

“You’re the one, Harry.” Harry’s hands were limp on top of his and Eggsy slipped out from underneath them, reaching up to cup Harry’s face. “You’ve always been the one.”

Harry was still for a moment more, and then he reached out, gripped Eggsy by his belt loops, and drew their bodies together, kissing Eggsy hard.

“Although you’re pretty bad too,” Eggsy said the next time he could speak. He was breathless and his grin was so wide it almost hurt. “Making fun of Merlin for pining after Roxy when you were-”

“I never thought for a second that you-” Harry stopped, huffed out a laugh and ducked his head. “Point taken.”

Eggsy laughed out loud and nuzzled the side of Harry’s face before kissing him again.

“I do have to work,” Harry said apologetically. There was so much awe and shy joy in his eyes. “But I’d like to see you later, if you-”

“Yes, Harry. You are my boyfriend now, after all.”  

“I suppose I am.” Harry kissed him once more and then rested his forehead against Eggsy’s. “You know, I spilled my coffee that day because I heard what Charlie said. That you were with someone. I remember thinking, ‘There, now I’ve lost him.’ And feeling like such a fool because I’d never even tried to get you in the first place.”

“Well,” Eggsy said, thumbs stroking over Harry's cheeks, “I guess we’re lucky it turned out the way it did, then.” He pushed Harry away gently. “I really do have to get back.” He paused, grinning. “You know, unlike you, I’m thinking I might just take a turn at matchmaking. Gotta get mine back, don’t I?”

“What are you going to do?” Harry asked slowly.

“Nothing crazy,” Eggsy assured him. The moment he wasn’t touching Harry anymore he wanted to be again, and he reminded himself that in not too long he would be able to again- because this was really happening. God, Eggsy thought. We are going to be unbearable for a while, aren’t we? He was looking forward to how much his coworkers were going to hate it- Charlie in particular. “But maybe I could lock Merlin and Rox in the supply closet for a few hours or something. Getting stuck in a small space worked for us, right?”

“I suppose it did,” Harry admitted, and he smiled at Eggsy as though he, somehow, felt as much like he was going to burst with happiness as Eggsy did.

Eggsy smiled- no, beamed- in return and made himself leave- though not before stealing one more kiss for the road.