And then Eggsy starts avoiding too much contact with Harry, because not only has Eggsy become hyper-aware of it, but it’s simultaneously a conscious strategy to discourage all those false rumors about them.
It’s not like Eggsy cares about his own reputation—being from the lower classes, he knows very well the suggestive things that are whispered about him behind closed doors, amongst the rich arseholes who think he probably sold himself to get by on the streets. But he doesn’t want Harry talked about that way, like Harry took advantage of him even when he was just a recruit, like Harry ever used his power over Eggsy that way.
They’re equals now, both Kingsmen, but still. Harry doesn’t deserve to become the target of salacious gossip just because Eggsy can’t stop touching him. So Eggsy has to stop.
It’s the least he can do for his mentor, even if it hurts not to touch Harry, not to have those spontaneous gestures of affection, the absence of which makes him realize just how he feels about Harry—has probably always felt about him, because surely it isn’t normal for someone to ache so much at the absence of another’s touch, not unless they’re in love with that person.
So that part of the gossip is true. Huh.
But Harry also notices this new lack of intimacy, of course he does, because it’s become as essential to him as it has to Eggsy, and their physical closeness—thus far innocent—had become somehow integral to their relationship. It is only in the loneliness of going without it, in the solitude of being untouched, that Harry, too, begins to realize how he feels.
Their closeness, Harry now begins to recognize, had always had that romantic undercurrent to it—the undercurrent that is present in the touches of a long-established couple, a suggestion of closeness that goes beyond that of the skin. So, did all those touches mean to Eggsy what they meant to Harry? Surely not.
With a start, Harry intuits that maybe the reason Eggsy isn’t touching him anymore is that, even if there was some interest there once, it isn’t there anymore. Maybe Eggsy has somebody else he wants now, and his physical withdrawal from Harry is also a sign of an emotional withdrawal, because Eggsy’s giving his touch and his love—his sweet, painfully selfless love—to someone else.
It breaks Harry. Or starts to break him. It’s a slow crack starting in the depths of his soul and working its way outwards, something that he can hide initially but then becomes more and more difficult to conceal the closer it draws to the surface, the cracks multiplying, splintering the facade of indifference he has been working so hard to build.
He’s just Eggsy’s mentor. Just a mentor. And he should respect the boundaries Eggsy is now putting up between them. It’s only healthy, after all. Eggsy must have sensed the inappropriateness in Harry’s intentions even before Harry did, and Eggsy is doing the right thing, pulling back and giving Harry some space, some dignity, so that Harry can stop pining after Eggsy like the stupid, undeserving old man he is.
Why would Eggsy want him? Even if Eggsy had momentarily wanted him—and that was what all those touches had been about—surely he’s come back to sanity now. It is much better for Eggsy to have a younger lover, someone who is as beautiful as he is, someone who is as luminous—
No. Harry can’t let it show, how much this hurts him, how much the lack of Eggsy’s touches is driving him slowly insane with want and despair and a terrible, all-consuming need, simmering like fire in his veins and making every accidental brush of their arms somehow electric, charged in a way their touches never were before.
Finally, everything reaches breaking point when Harry overhears some of the rumors as well—rumors in which sly old bastards just like him are talking about how Eggsy must go down on his knees for Harry—filthy, demeaning rumors that make Eggsy into some sort of pet.
And Harry just fucking loses it. He throws punches, viciously accurate punches, the kind he usually only reserves for the villains he brings down. And maybe a part of his rage is that these ignorant fools are so casually talking about what Harry doesn’t have, will never have, can never have—
Harry only stops when Eggsy is summoned to calm him down, which Eggsy does… with a touch. A touch on Harry’s shoulder, just that, but it sizzles through Harry like electricity through a live wire. He jolts, whips around only to find the same, shocked awareness in Eggsy’s eyes… and then Harry is hauling Eggsy in, grabbing him by the collar, and kissing him right there, in front of everyone, hard enough to bruise.
And the other agents just roll their eyes, because obviously, the rumors were right all along.
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