The sky is grey and cold, the light watery and dim, when Eggsy shows up on his doorstep, clutching Daisy to his chest like a lifeline.
“Harry,” he whispers when the door swings open. It’s the most broken the older man had ever heard him.
Harry ushers him in as fat rain drops begin to fall from the sky.
“I’m sorry,” Eggsy says miserably, hands tight around a steaming cup of tea, Daisy playing with a small plushie at his feet. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
“You’re always welcome here, dear boy.”
“Am I?”
The question slices Harry like a finely honed blade, cold and precise. It isn’t an unfair one. Since his return, there’s been a tension between he and his former protégé. Things haven’t been the same. He doubts they ever will be. Harry still isn’t cleared for active duty, and it grates on his nerves, making his snappish and impatient. Eggsy, for his part, still hasn’t managed to move past his supposed death. The boy had lost a great deal in his life; Harry suspects he’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the rug to be pulled out from beneath him once again, for Harry to be dead.
“Of course.” Harry places his hands on his knees and leans forward, meeting Eggsy’s downcast gaze. “I’m sorry that I’ve made you feel otherwise.”
“S’okay,” Eggsy says, nearly inaudible.
Harry suspects it isn’t, but says nothing.
It’s another several minutes before either man speaks. The air is thick with something, and the silence is one that Harry is hesitant to disturb. He’s beginning to think he’ll have to when something in Eggsy’s expression shifts, and it’s like a dam breaking.
“My mum,” he begins, seemingly unable to look up from his quickly cooling tea, “she was still using. I’ve tried to help her, gotten her into rehab, kept the drugs out of the house but –" Eggsy’s voice breaks and he claps a hand over his mouth.
Harry moves from his place in the armchair to Eggsy’s side on the sofa. The young man looks up in surprise when Harry’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder, but he leans into the touch, as if instinctively.
“What’s happened?” Harry asks gently.
If Not Happy, Then Content
Published
FantasyBoudicca 