#khcf

He knows the room’s not empty,  he can feel it in the way the air vibrates.

Eggsy walks nonchalantly toward the massive suite’s window pretending he hasn’t noticed he’s not alone. It’s easier like this.

The suite enjoys a very privileged location in the last floor of the “Norphia Hotel” and the sight from there is simply breathtaking. Berlin is deliciously quiet that night. Stormy clouds slowly advancing through the sky just like the steps he is hearing coming from behind.

Eggsy can see his reflection easily.

He doesn’t turn. Not yet.

There’s the distant sound of thunders.

The steps come to a halt.

The world holds its breath.

Eggsy smiles.

“It seems that ‘The Walking Dead’ wasn’t just fiction afterall”.

There is no answer to his statement so he turns deliberately slow, ready to face the man whose aparently fake death he mourned for the past three years.

Harry hasn’t changed but yet he’s changed.

The first thing Eggsy notices is the bespoke suit. Harry wears it like a second skin, so sharp that can cut you into pieces. Nothing new about that.

But the color, the color is different.

The completely black suit makes Eggsy feel like he is looking directly into the Space just after a supernova implosion.  The shirt is black too. Plain. No patterns. The only touch of color given by the striped maroon tie.

And the bright red scar that crosses his left eyebrow.

“You seem unimpressed by my presence here tonight”. Harry’s voice is slow and dark, almost a whisper. It matches perfectly his new appearance.

Eggsy holds his gaze, unashamed. His eyes are still the color of whiskey but emotionless. He looks infinitely more dangerous. But Eggsy is not taken aback so easily.

“Dissociation”, he says pointedly. “ I needed to learn to detach myself from my feelings. They thought me very well as it turns out”.

Eggsy knows that it doesn’t need explanation. Harry knows who they  are. Kingsman exhaustive researches have surely done all the dirty work. It fact, Harry probably knows more than Eggsy himself.

He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care at the least. He’s here because he’s on a “mission”. Has job to do.

“Are you going to kill me, Eggsy?” Harry says matter-of-factly like he’s reading his thoughts. His eyes don’t flick. Never leaving Eggsy’s face.

Eggsy bites is own bottom lip and that seems to put Harry out of his trance.

“Please, Harry, don’t be such a fool and think for a moment I’m the same man you once knew”

He, in fact, isn’t. Since the moment the plane landed in Germany and he found his new “job”. Months of blood, alcohol and sex trying to fill out the hollow in his heart exactly the shape of Harry fucking  Hart. He was managing it quite well.

Suddenly, Harry’s hand is touching his face, tilting it up a bit.

“Oh, my darling boy. Neither I am”.

And then the fight starts.

Eggsy’s well aimed punch is easily blocked but he’s fast enough to avoid Harry’s iron grip. Exactly two seconds later Eggsy’s in the opposite side of the suite. Breathing loudly.

Harry is walking towards him, smiling and ready to another round.

There’s something terribly obscene in the way he moves, like he owns the fucking place and Eggsy can barely stands it.

Years of parkour helps him to run towards Harry and switch the direction in the last moment. That, apparently, catches Harry off guard so is easy for Eggsy to throw him to the floor and kick him right in the mouth.

Harry hisses and roll to his side just to barely avoid another punch but he stands up quickly enough to throws himself towards Eggsy and this time the first blow is unavoidable.  And the second one.

He manages to block the third one and takes advantage in Harry’s suddenly loss of balance over him.

When they both face each other, standing, bleeding and breathless, the guns are out, pointing to each other jaw. Both ready to shoot at the slightest movement.

They are incredibly close, Eggsy notices. And Harry’s looking at him again. He’s completely different now. Eggsy watched, first row, thank you, what happened in Kentucky. He knows what Harry was capable of. And he’s seen it again, just minutes ago. As if all the Kingsman training were mainly aimed to keep the beast behind crystal glass. Because Harry is, above all, a gentleman. But the glass is breaking. And Eggsy can see the animal inside.

And he understand him. Fort the first time in his life, Eggsy feels as if he is looking at Harry at the same level, not from miles under. His own hands are stained in blood too. Too much blood. And he craves for more. More violence, more everything.

Their  breaths are heavy. Harry is looking at him with such an intensity Eggsy’s sure it’d set him of fire. He’d happily let himself be burnt by it. If he doesn’t pull the trigger first.

“You weren’t trying to kill me” Eggsy deadpans. “I’ve seen you fighting before. I’ve spent almost three years watching all your footages. All your missions. You never make mistakes.”

He pauses. And then adds.

“Am I your first mistake, Harry?”

He ends the sentence with a sardonic smile. Harry answers it by caressing Eggsy’s jaw with the gun barrel. He’s smiling too. Dangerous. Lethal.

“It’d be a pleasure for me to see you dying by my hand, Eggsy.  I’d make sure it was slow, sweet and painful. But not today, I’m afraid”.

The light thread of Eggsy’s blood running from his temple is leaving small dots on Harry’s gun and he seems oddly fascinated by it.

“Besides, I left my right side unguarded twice and you saw it but you didn’t take advance of the situation. So, or your current training is far from being as impressive as I originally expected, and give your taste for violence I’m sure it isn’t the case, or you weren’t trying to kill me either”.

Eggsy lets out a hollow laugh and lowers  his gun. Harry does the same one second after.

“Yes, you’re right. It seems I can’t find the courage to simply shoot at you afterall”.

Even now that he isn’t facing the window he can feel how the heavy clouds are slowly turning into a storm outside. But there’s another storm inside, too. Equally unavoidable but much more personal.

“I see” Harry says. “What a tremendous inconvenience. That weakness of yours”.