[november catchall - closed-ish]

[etiquette]

Who: harry hart etiquette & various
What: november catch-all for event stuff!
When: early november
Where: wyver mostly, little bit of olympia probs
Warning(s): def some nsfw jungle heat threads in here, beware!


[this is a catch-all for late october/early november threads! if anyone else would like to plot something or needs a starter feel free to hit me up by pm or on plurk over at obscurial. i'm def up for more during the new plot! c:]

Comments

what's sadder than sad

[tailorable]

[ there's tension thick in the air, coiling around his throat, threatening to choke the words out. his lies and half-truths have tangled up for almost two months now, forming a tight vice on his heart. the topic arises too frequently because harry's cleverer than anyone else, pointing out the gaps in eggsy's story yet trusting him, anyway. innocently discussing the way the dead rise here, without knowing what it means for himself. he doesn't have enough information to indict eggsy, certainly, only omissions that prevent his protege from reaching full credibility. see, eggsy can't exactly tell harry about officially becoming galahad without admitting aloud, to harry himself, that he died on a sunny day in the american south, staggering forward with a sheen of dust and blood on his kingsman suit, a church-full of corpses behind him.

and eggsy watching from his office.

instead, he said, you were compromised. and in fucking kentucky, at that. there wasn't time. arthur was a traitor, and merlin didn't know to trust me until I killed him. it all happened so fucking fast. we saved the world. today, he tells harry we need to talk. ]

You've been trusting me, Harry, and I haven't been honest.

[ he perches on the edge of the coffee table, facing harry on the sofa. his hands fist in the fabric of his trackies, a tell of his anxiety. despite his fidgeting, his features have settled into a somber, if jagged, expression. his entire body, normally soft in the safety of their shared home, has gone rigid. ]

But you've got to hear me out, okay? This time, I'm telling you everything. Swear down. I've just been trying to do the right thing.

[ he pauses, already losing a fraction of his confidence. a sharp inhale. he can't help but search harry's face for signs of anger and disappointment. ]

[etiquette]

[harry has suspected for some time now that eggsy hasn't been entirely truthful with him about the exact details of what happened after their argument and his landing in kentucky. at first he'd thought perhaps the boy was still affected by the poor terms they left on--the fact that if it weren't for them being recognized for the abilities and taken here, they may have never seen each other again. and harry knows he was one of the first people to give eggsy the means to meet the potential that was so painfully begging to be realized. so it's not hard to think maybe he just needs time at first, to process all the what-ifs.

honestly it's not even inconceivable that it's taken them so long to even sit down and discuss it between the terrorist attack and the relocating, the adjustments to sharing a small living space. any time harry thinks to mention it himself there's something else that comes up, or even their small little tiffs over things that are insignificant in the long run aside from eggsy's safety. anything harry's ever said alluding to this matter however are just light teasing; he's got no reason to suspect anything really.

he trusts eggsy, just like the boy sits him down and tells him. he looks absolutely tortured--harry can see it written all over his face and his own brows knit into concern.]

Eggsy--

[harry doesn't look cross at all, only concerned. part of him wants to reach out and place a reassuring hand on eggsy's shoulder, squeeze gently. but he doesn't, just leaning in marginally from where he's sitting on the sofa, hands folded in his lap.]

Whatever it is, I want nothing more than to listen and let you do what you think is right. I'll hear you out.

[eggsy is loyal to a fault. anything eggsy was holding in must have been for good reason, the way harry sees it.]

[tailorable]

Thanks, Harry.

[ which seems like a profoundly stupid thing to say, given his full knowledge of the circumstances. he does appreciate the understanding, at least — the instinct to trust rather than judge. he wonders if that will only make the blow worse, in the end. anger, at least, is better than sadness, disappointment, emptiness. ]

I'm sorry, I only — I thought it wasn't fair to tell you. [ said with an earnest undercurrent, completed by the way he instinctively leans forward. harry has to know he didn't lie thoughtlessly or with ill-intentions. ]

[ he remembers the feeling of james finally cracking around him, saying his friends looked at him like he was a ghost. dying is horrible on its own — eggsy recalls sinking to the ground in the vr, warmth spilling out of him and colouring the snow, panicked and helpless, a voice that must have been his own calling for his partner — but knowing you died without experiencing it, seeing the loss etched in a friend's face, surely that's an equal horror, and one people aren't meant to endure.

yet even if it's the right thing to spare harry, he can’t keep it up. on instinct, he places a hand on harry's knee, too tight to be comforting. he hopes to anchor himself and be reminded that harry isn't dead. not anymore. ]

It wasn't just that you were compromised on V-Day. [ he swallows. this is it. a few steps more. ] You went into the church, like I said, and Valentine used his device. Got you to — he made you kill everyone, Harry. [ he doesn't look away from harry, even though his eyes threaten to shutter closed. snatches of violence return to him. ] And then when you left, he was waiting for you outside with Gazelle and — [ his breath hitches. a single shot. a deafening crack. it's not that kind of movie. ] — he shot you in the head. Point-blank range. 

[ and yet he still can't say it plainly, even if it's obvious, and he's getting bloody choked up. you died. he can only set the pieces for harry to conclude the outcome. ]

[etiquette]

[harry inclines his head, leaning in too when eggsy does to let him know that he's close--he's right here and he's not going anywhere. whatever it is, his mind and body are completely attuned to just listen to him. let him say his piece and get whatever this is off his chest seeing as it's so clearly got him choked up and feeling guilty. it's not unlike his own guilt he'd carried around, spilling out in the bathroom before he'd left for kentucky. it might have felt a little better if they'd gotten to resolve it properly--there were things harry had said in anger that he doesn't regret, but he wishes he'd been able to extrapolate on.

he thinks only for a moment before setting his own hand atop eggsy's where it's clenched around his knee, meant to soothe away some tension. and then he listens. there's not much eggsy says really, but each of the statements land and they're positively deafening.

he realizes his first thought is only that he'd set eggsy up to watch him die that day. he'd left him on such a poor note and--what else had eggsy seen? a device--they'd guessed at something like that with the cards, but not the end result. not the thought that harry murdered an entire clergy. despite the hateful rhetoric he remembers watching on the plane, the knowledge of what these people preached and declared as their right to free speech--they didn't deserve to die in cold blood.

harry swallows hard, head pounding even as he forces himself not to flinch, though he does pull away both his hand and his proximity finally. he needs space--he needs a moment to try and compose himself with the reality of everything settling in.

he'd slaughtered all those people, and then he'd died without preventing anything that richmond valentine had planned. he couldn't save anyone--not lee, not eggsy, not those people, not the rest of the world. for once, the words are a struggle to find.]

You've been carrying that around--all this time?

[it's not accusatory, not angry. it's neutral and distanced because harry needs more time to absorb it and to let his own shock pass. but eventually he continues carefully.]

Every time we take those missions, we accept the risks. The chances that we won't return, that this one might be our last.

After all that, and the last thing you saw of me was--

[he cuts himself off, mouth thinning into a grim line as he looks down at his hands.]

I am sorry, Eggsy. For all of it.