bakerstreet | Nearly everybody gets twitterpated in the springtime.

"Nah, I'll stick with the soft stuff. You ought to know, I'm a proper flirt when I've had a few in me," he says, eyes bright. "On your way back up north again, after?"

There's no nervous hope or expectation, this time, he's literally just curious.

Eggsy doesn't give him time to respond to the first part, so he just grins a little more mischievously as he starts walking towards his car.

"Nope- I'm here all weekend. Hotel room in the city, all that."

And so this time it's Eggsy stopping him with a quick, gentle hand to the arm. If he's seriously contemplating London traffic then he really doesn't know about the shuttle, in which case he's going to get in so much shit, but--

"Nah. Come downstairs with me, I wanna show you something."

He carefully ignores the shiver that runs through him at the touch, and he turns around, surprise clear in his eyes.

"Showin' me the dungeons, Eggsy?" He just knows it's going to be something interesting and secret, because this is Kingsman, and it always is.

He laughs.

"Nah, if Merlin's got some Red Room shit goin' on I think I'll be the last person to find out about it."

He leads him through the parts of the underground levels Tommy will know - the labs, the testing rooms - and out into Merlin's nerve centre. To one side, there's a vast panoramic window over their assorted vehicles - planes, cars, bikes, even buses - and to the other side, the sliding doors that open into their own private shuttle.

"Look at this. When I talk about takin' the Tube here, this is what I mean. Straight through to Savile Row in five minutes flat - beats hacking through traffic, dunnit?"

Tommy's seen some of it- the cars, other more outlandish vehicles- but when Eggsy opens the door to the shuttle he's physically stopped in his tracks, mouth half-open in surprise. He gives Eggsy one look, then huffs a disbelieving laugh.

"Jesus Christ," he says, his shock replaced with boyish enthusiasm. "They could've saved me so much time."

"Don't tell anyone you know about this, eh?"

He presses a button just inside the door and the doors slide shut, and the shuttle moves away - quick and smooth, with barely even a jolt.

"I mean, you probably ain't got the clearance, so I'll probably got bollocked once Merlin's checked surveillance, but - Jesus, if anyone's earned it by now."

Tommy enjoys the ride for a full minute, distracted by the feeling of miles moving away underneath their feet, the interior of the shuttle, the idea of being in something so secretive and fast. He looks younger, less tired, even though he hadn't particularly looked tired before.

When the minute's passed he turns back to Eggsy and knocks the back of his hand against the younger man's. "Thank you. This is fuckin' fantastic, eh?"

Eggsy smiles and hooks his index finger around Tommy's.

"Yeah, it is. Was how I got here, the first time, right after Harry - um, the Galahad before me - told me he weren't really a tailor. Comes up in one of the fitting rooms."

In fact, when they arrive, the entirety of Fitting Room One is waiting for them on the underground level. Eggsy does sometimes wonder what happens if they arrive while there's a civilian customer in for a fitting, but - there has to be another way in, surely. He lets Tommy out first and follows him over, getting them in situ for the ascent to ground level.

"Where's your hotel? Some good bars in Soho, if you're near the shop."

Tommy'd known Harry, in passing- not like he knows the technical crew, definitely not how he's getting to know Eggsy. But he'd known him, and he gets the distinct feeling that Kingsman is a lot poorer for it without him there.

He touches the tips of his fingers against Eggsy's when they step into the elevator- he does know this place, because it's where most of their product ends up, and he'd asked to see it one day. It always fills him with pride to see it, but right now he has very little attention for the weaponry.

"Yeah- Yeah, I'm just 'round the corner. You pick a place."

Eggsy normally goes to the Coach and Horses if he's going for a pint after work - often because it's a journalists' hangout, you hear things, it's useful, plus it doesn't hurt to be seen as a known local washing in from Savile Row in a sharp suit - but this time he'd rather not be anywhere people know him, so he takes Tommy to the Dog and Duck instead. It's a handsome Victorian corner pub, small and cosy, lots of mahogany and a few quiet booths near the back. It looks traditional, but also it's fucking Soho, nobody's got the right to give a shit about two men there who obviously aren't Just Mates.

It's not too busy yet, and Eggsy orders a pint. He doesn't want to get onto anything too strong, not when he's not sure where tonight's going. (Surely Tommy wouldn't have specifically said he had a hotel room for the weekend unless he was thinking--)

"What're you having?" he asks, glancing back to Tommy.

"Whiskey," he replies, rapping his knuckles on the wood of the bar and looking around with a soft smile on his face. "Irish."

When they have their drinks he leads them to a booth in the back, where they can talk about their jobs and their lives without being overheard. He's too tentative, still, to put a hand on Eggsy's arm or back, but once they're seated he can't help but sit close enough for their knees to touch.

He makes small talk, asks after Eggsy's family and tells him about his own; says a few words about his time in the army, lets him know how long he's been single, how long it's been since he's been interested in a man, talks about the first time he kissed a bloke and how shockingly nice it'd been. By that time he's slightly flushed, from the warmth and conversation more than the whiskey.

Eggsy nurses his pint slowly as they talk. He tells Tommy a bit of lightly coded stuff about work, but with him, he finds work is the last thing he wants to talk about. Instead he chats about the classes his mum's taking, his sister's forays into nursery school, his mates' general hopeless fumbling as they get through their apprenticeships, the fact that he's going to be best man for Jamal's wedding but has no idea what that'll involve. He talks (briefly) about his abortive Marines training and his one fleeting experience he'd had with another lad there, so fucking stilted and awkward that he thought he'd never be interested in another man. They hadn't kissed, even, so he admits (quietly, not quite making eye contact) that his first time kissing a bloke is going to take place some time in the future.

By the time he's at the bottom of his beer, he feels weirdly intoxicated for reasons that a single pint of lager could physically not affect in him.

"...another?"

He licks his lips and considers it- they've created a nice little bubble for themselves here, warm and amiable, but he can't touch Eggsy here the way he'd like to, can't look at him with everyone else looking at them. So he knocks his knee against Eggsy's, lets it linger, and looks at him with his big blue eyes.

"Got a bottle of me own in the hotel. Could grab some beer from the shop if you'd like--?"

Those eyes are going to be the death of him.

"No, you - I - I mean, yeah, I could have a whiskey. At yours. That - that's fine."

He's developed some kind of weird psychosomatic allergy to brandy, but whiskey? Whiskey, he's got no problems with whatsoever. He laughs, uselessly, ducks his head.

"Sorry, I'm really shit at this."

He bets James Bond never got tongue-tied over someone he properly liked.

He finally can't hold back anymore: he reaches out and folds his thumb into the crease next to Eggsy's mouth, feeling impossibly tender and fond.

"How about I stop talking in metaphors, then, eh? I wanna take you to my hotel room and kiss you, but other than that I just want to spend time with you. Yeah? Nothing you ain't done before."

He'd be up for more, but he thinks they should probably take it slow.

Eggsy goes warmer still, and it actually shows on his face now. Yeah. He's not sure he can deal with being alone with Tommy, kissing him, not having to worry about what anyone else would see or think - but nice clear language, that he can deal with.

"Yeah. That sounds -- that sounds good."

But he thinks Tommy could look at him - those pale blue eyes, that slow hypnotic blink - and Eggsy would follow him anywhere. He tilts his head toward the doors.

"We gonna head off, then?"

He hums and nods, reluctantly lets go of Eggsy's face and slips out of the booth. Once they're out he stays close, but doesn't touch him-- still, he can talk in a low voice so Eggsy can hear him. He's taking the lead, on account of being older, more experienced, and because he likes the flush on his cheeks when Tommy talks like this.

"If anything we do makes you uncomfortable, if you wanna speed up or slow down- tell me, yeah? I'm here because I- I like you, not because I want to get in your pants."

Eggsy smiles, keeping close enough that their arms bump, sometimes. It's nothing like he would have done back home, even if he had ever allowed himself to think that his tussle with the other trainee was a missed opportunity and not a horrible mistake. Where he grew up, you just don't. That's a smack round the back of the head with a bottle in a dark alley, and only if you're very lucky is the bottle both empty and intact.

"Yeah, but you like my pants too, dont'cha?"

And he actually manages to summon up a flirty little grin.

"...Don't worry. I ain't gonna let it go further'n I want it to."

And if he wants it to go further than he might have first contemplated? Well, clear enough that Tommy'll be happy to make that happen, as well.

"Well, they're very nice pants." He shoots him a furtive little grin, sticks his hands deep in his pockets.

His hotel's on the cheaper side of the spectrum, but it's nice, and the rooms aren't too small, the beds are comfortable. He's got an electric kettle and a television, and his luggage tucked neatly in a corner. He locks the door behind them out of habit, places the key on the nightstand, and lets Eggsy take off his coat, lets him get comfortable. He's not in a hurry, and he doesn't want to hurry Eggsy either.

Eggsy feels -- he feels like he's stepped into another world. Some alien place where sex isn't some quick frantic scramble in the back of a club, or the back seat of a car too small to fuck in. And he's there with a man, older and sweet and sure and generous, in a way that Eggsy wouldn't really care for in a girl. He likes his girls a bit bossy, selfish, demanding.

But maybe a bit of a thing for being told what to do might be transferable.

He takes off his coat, his jacket. Loosens his tie, then - after a moment - reaches to take off his shoes.

"Been pinching like a bastard all day," he says, by way of explanation. "I, uh, I'll take that whiskey, if it's still going."

He feels like he's being pulled every which way, from anticipation alone, and he could use a drink to bring his nerve down.

He toes off his own shoes, getting comfortable, then goes to grab two glasses and the bottle of whiskey he'd gotten from a other client. He hands Eggsy a glass, two fingers of whiskey inside, then sits down with his back against the headboard.

"You live far from here?" Just some more small talk, to settle him. As far as he's concerned they can spend the rest of the night talking.

"Nah, not really. Round Kensington, maybe...twenty minutes from here? That's the house I got off Kingsman. I grew up in Camden - that's further up north," he adds, aware that non-natives don't have his instinctive sense of local geography.

He sips his whiskey, hums. It's very good.

"Bits of it have got gentrified, it's all fuckin' - hipster pricks with fixie bikes an' beards, round Camden Lock. But that never really got as far as our estate," he says, smirking.

He knocks his foot against Eggsy's, just for the thrill of the physical contact, and rolls his head towards him to laugh a little.

"Still proper rough there, eh?" The problem, of course, is that the gentrification makes for fewer living spaces for families like him and Eggsy had grown up in. Small Heath may have been a shithole, but it'd been affordable, and it's been theirs.

Eggsy chuckles at the exact words he'd have used, and nods. "Yeah, proper rough. Got worse as I was growin' up an' all. Council funding goes down, support dries up, ends up that if you need to pay the electric you're borrowing off the kind of people take their interest in fuckin' fingernails."

Showing slight signs of improvement, now a mystery benefactor is ploughing half his ridiculous paycheck into various local charities. There's only so much he can do, but it's the old adage, isn't it? If he can protect just one kid from the life he lived...

"Sorry, that got grim." He sips his whiskey. "What about you, where'd you grow up?"

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