bakerstreet | Nearly everybody gets twitterpated in the springtime.

"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?"

It makes him feel so much fonder of Eggsy, when they're both surrounded by people with titles and country houses. He trails a hand idly up his forearm, just touching him as they talk.

"Grew up in the same house I live in now. Small Heath, Birmingham, round the corner from the BSA?" Which ought to give Eggsy some more insight into how Tommy got into this field. "We ruled that place when we were little, but the people got rougher, more private in the last few years. We keep to ourselves, have a pint in the local pub but other than that..." He shakes his head; shrugs.

"Nothing to be done. Things change, I've me family, I've me health, and I've got a job I like." He throws Eggsy a furtive glance- he has dates, now. He's happy.

Eggsy returns that glance, and a little smile along with it.

"Yeah. We've got what we need, yeah? Got it all worked out."

He sets down his tumbler and gives Tommy a sidelong, slightly wary glance. He's excited, couldn't want to be here more, but - he's anxious, too.

"...Kiss me?"

Heat pools in the pit of his stomach; Eggsy's going to be able to do so much to him, is going to have him wrapped right around his finger. He knows it, and he's looking forward to it.

So he puts his glass down as well, then leans over to cup Eggsy's jaw, thumb fitting back in that crease near his mouth, and he leans in.

"Here it comes, Eggsy," he whispers, gives him a little smile, and then he ducks his head to press their lips together.

Oh.

In some ways it's just like kissing a girl, just the mechanical action of it, the touch of mouth on mouth - what possible difference could there be? But that's the absolute, basest level of similarity.

Tommy's taller, and that shifts the angle. His lips aren't as full as a girl's and there's none of the tackiness of lipstick or gloss against his mouth. He smells masculine in a way that Eggsy can't begin to quantify.

It's good, it's so fucking lovely, all of it -

He returns the kiss easily, one hand coming up to cup Tommy's jaw, body turning into his from where they're sitting on the bed together. All he wants to do is kiss him again and again and he sees no reason not to - so he does, gently pulling back just to bring their mouths together again, lips a little softer and more parted each time.

He slips the hand on Eggsy's cheek down to his shoulder, and then his waist. He leans happily into the kiss, feeling softly satisfied as well as thrilled- it's been a long time since he's kissed anyone like this, someone he liked, someone he wanted to explore. After the third time of Eggsy puling back and leaning back in he takes a chance, runs his tongue over his plush bottom lip while lightly squeezing his waist.

It's so, so nice. He forgets that he'd been a little nervous, forgets that Eggsy had been. It's just them, moving together in a warm little bubble.

Eggsy shudders. It's the anticipation that really does it for him - usually, when he kisses a girl it escalates pretty quickly and they'd have been at it with tongues almost immediately. By the time he feels Tommy tracing at his lip, he wants it, it feels like it'd been something missing.

He parts his lips properly and coaxes Tommy's tongue into his mouth, touching it with his, and he feels so much more aware of everything he's doing now. It's not just kissing but every little part of the process experienced one by one. Tommy's hand on his waist, his own running over Tommy's hair, the bump and press of their shoulders, the slick-hot slide of their tongues.

He feels hot, all over, he feels good. Maybe it's because he's been waiting so long for this. Apparently delayed gratification really is better.

"You're good at this," he murmurs in Tommy's ear, voice thick and almost purring with it.

"When I'm properly motivated," he whispers back, sliding his hand up Eggsy's chest to curl back around his shoulder. He ducks back in and sucks on his lower lip, runs his tongue along the inside of his teeth in a move that always makes him buck helplessly, moans when Eggsy tugs just slightly on his hair.

Eventually, after long, long minutes, he pulls away to lean their foreheads together. His eyes are half-lidded and his breath comes in short bursts.

"Eggsy," he murmurs, needing to say something when he doesn't really have the words.

"Yeah," he breathes. He's a mess. Half-hard already from just a bit of snogging and light petting and this is normally the point where he'd want a girl to reach for his fly, or grab his hair and push him to his knees. But this is different; Tommy's slim, but he can still feel those straight, masculine lines under his clothes.

"Know you said we could slow down," he whispers, "if I wanted. But you said we could speed up too, yeah? I mean - I don't wanna go faster," he amends hurriedly, "this is a good speed, this is good. Just - more?"

A flush settles happily on his cheeks even as his eyes soften. God, he's lovely-- Tommy's fighting such conflicting instincts, wants to pull Eggsy on top of him and hold him, just as much as he wants to push him down and make him come so hard he forgets his own name.

He'd half-forgotten how nice it is to be with a man, to feel hard lines and know it's alright to push a little more without seeming too aggressive. But Eggsy, it seems, wants to push him a little, and the words punch a moan out of him and he nods. As if he'd refuse- as if he could refuse him anything right now.

"Yeah," he agrees, ducking back in to kiss him, but this time he slides his hand down to rest on Eggy's chest. His other hand settles on the back of his knee, pulling him in closer.

He goes closer - but this isn't comfortable, sitting side by side like this, he's having to think about his balance and where to put his hands and it's distracting him from the main event. So he moves, swings a knee over Tommy's and puts himself over him, bracketing his thighs with his own. It brings them nice and close, more of them touching - and a part of his mind skitters nervously away from it, because he's seriously sitting on the lap of a man ten (?) years his senior in a hotel room.

He thinks briefly of the Dog Pack round the estate, calling him a poof because he gave a shit about how he looked, starting off with the rentboy jabs because Dean had him doing odd jobs for some bent coppers, and he knows none of that shit has nothing to do with anything here but he just - he just -

He leans into Tommy, puts his face against his neck and just holds him, clinging to his shoulders.

"I'm alright," he mutters, because he knows he seems like he isn't. "I'm okay."

Tommy runs a hand soothingly up his back, pressing his fingertips lightly between his shoulderblades. He presses a soft, tender kiss to his temple and waits until his breathing has evened out.

He really doesn't believe he's alright, but he won't say anything yet: they're not that close, not yet, and he needs to let Eggsy speak his mind because he won't know, otherwise. He can guess, but he's afraid of insulting him, so he doesn't.

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Just gonna... Merge rl and canon here...

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