tailorable | INBOX

Okay. See you in fifteen.

[ knock knock. ]

[ there's tea being kept warm on the stove when eggsy knocks on the door, thomas in a suit as always -- three pieces, heavy wool this time. ]

Eggsy.

[ a greeting. thomas steps back to let him in. ]

[ for a moment, he stares at thomas, searching his for clues to his actual age or the magic. belatedly, with his hands tucked in the pockets of his black trackies, he smiles and steps through the doorway. ]

Hey. [ clearing his throat. ] Nice suit.

[ then, he hovers, waiting for thomas to lead the way wherever he's welcome. ]

[ there are none, but thomas still lets eggsy look for a long moment, still. ]

Thank you.

[ the living room is small, things for tea set out. ] Are you hungry? [ he has scones, if eggsy wants them. ]

[ at that, he nods. he’s pretty much always hungry...even when he’s here for more important endeavours, like sussing our nightingale. once he has tea and scones and a comfy seat in an armchair, however, he resolves to poke around more. ]

Is there anything else the magic does — that you do?

[ besides age backwards, for fuck’s sake. ]

[ scones and tea are a comfort, even if the scones are store-bought rather than made by molly. (nightingale imagines he can taste the difference.) ]

If it does, I don't know about it.

[ for a moment, he looks out over eggsy's shoulder. then: ] I don't know why I started ageing backwards.

[ maybe it’s selfish, for eggsy to be relieved there are no more magic bombshells coming his way, especially when thomas admits he doesn’t know why it happened. wouldn’t that be concerning? ]

It wasn’t intentional? Not even a little bit?

[ most people would like to stay young, wouldn’t they? ]

Ah.

[ nightingale thinks he knows what eggsy is asking. he wishes he could answer affirmatively, but - ]

No.

[ the truth is that he'd been quite ready to die of old age, seeing how nothing else had managed to kill him. he's not actively suicidal, never has been, not even after the war, but -- he'd long given up on actively wanting to continue on. ]

Oh.

[ he inhales sharply, pausing as the weight of thomas’ answer registers. way to stick your foot in your mouth, unwin. he wants to reach out to thomas, but there’s a distance between them (physically small but exacerbated by the other questions whirring in eggsy’s head.) ]

Are you, uh, ageing normally now?

[ even if he isn’t going backwards...could he be stuck? ]

[ the questions don't have the power to hurt thomas, not really. it's everything surrounding them that can, but the questions themselves, eggsy's curiosity, those things are not even a bother. ]

As far as I or anyone else can tell, I'm not ageing at all.

[ stuck indeed. ]

I met one other person with the same affliction. She had no explanation, either.

Jesus Christ, Thomas.

[ he cards a hand through his hair, already disheveled on his day off. not that eggsy would worry over mussing his hair, honestly, after everything thomas has told him. months training with james have taught him the power of magic, but this is still shocking. ]

That sounds like it fucking blows. [ perhaps not being young, exactly, but not having a say in any of it. he shifts his gaze to focus on thomas. ]

[ thomas takes another sip of his tea. maybe he should have spiked it. ]

It is what it is.

[ that's all he has to say on the matter. it "fucking blows", yes, but what point is there in lingering on it? at least with peter as his apprentice, he'd -- well, found a renewed sense of purpose. here, he doesn't have that, but he has more people he's cared about than he's let himself have since the war.

that outweighs the heavy fog of grief at the loss of his world, most days. ]

[ he sets his plate aside to lean forward on his knees, watching thomas now. it is what it is. hadn't that been eggsy's reaction to his shitty circumstances? yeah. 'cause all you can do is go on. ]

Thanks. [ a beat. ] For telling me, I mean, and answering my questions.

[ he thinks he might have more to ask, but — that's enough for one day. ]

Of course.

[ a beat. ]

Do you remember -

[ thomas steels himself for a moment, back straight despite the comfortable chair. ] The night at the bar, when you asked if I could think of reasons not to?

[ when his own answer had been "none i want to mention right now" or something to that effect. this had been what he'd been thinking of at the time. ]

[ it takes him half a minute to think back, mouth slipping open in a small o. fucking hell, he remembers alright, and he's kicking himself for not asking about it afterwards. so much for being a super spy. ]

Yeah. [ so, thomas had thought about it then: the age difference that's a step above picking up an older bloke at the bar. eggsy doesn't know if he would have liked to know, then, or if he'd have believed thomas, at that point. hell, it might not have changed anything. he bites the inside of his cheek as he runs through their interactions since then. ]

Is that why you've been [ he hesitates, considering his word choice. ] off, when I've been chatting you up?

[ frank, as ever. ]

[ off.

thomas considers it for a moment. turns over their interactions in his mind and fits the label to them. it's as accurate as any, or has been at times. ]

Yes. [ he says after a moment, and - ] For the better part of my life, kissing a man even in private was a crime.

[ but the truth is that while that's had an impact, he's less -- off around john, for the most part, who is still considerably younger than thomas but has maybe twenty years on eggsy, so the age has a lot to do with it. ]

[ eggsy rubs the back of his neck. ]

Guess I hadn't thought about that part. [ an admission of his naivete or an apology for pushing boundaries. maybe both. perhaps it was naive of him not to consider thomas' background. he knows that even in the eighties, things were different. hell, things are still far from ideal. ] It ain't the same at all, but Dean, my stepdad, he and his mates always gave me shit about it. Not that they knew or anything, but — still made a point of calling me a rent boy. [ he adds quickly, ] Which I'm not.

[ just in case the thought crosses thomas' mind, even cursorily, when eggsy lives with a well-off older man and hit on someone else (thomas) fitting that bill on a night out. ]

I just mean I get that it's not always easy.

[ even if it always seems easy for him. he knows he doesn't — and couldn't — understand the extent of thomas' experience. ]

[ thomas inclines his head, acknowledgement more than anything else. it's not always easy, no -- and he's sorry to hear that has remained constant over the years, even when the legal situation's changed.

and the thought of eggsy as a rent boy hadn't crossed his mind, not that there's anything wrong with it, but -- he also doesn't want to let eggsy believe that the age and the fact that they're both men is something that thomas is deeply bothered by.

not that they aren't factors. not that they're not -- perhaps amongst the main factors. but, ]

I haven't really been the type to go out and -- kiss anyone, [ much less do anything more than kissing ] for a very long time.

[ not since david mellenby. ]

[ eggsy wonders how much of thomas' type is down to being, well, thomas or if it has to do with going backwards and then getting stuck, as it were. he supposes it doesn't matter much, regardless.

everything's a factor. that, at least, eggsy can understand. ]

But then a pushy bit of rough corners you at the bar, [ quite literally, at one point. the memory pinks his cheeks. eggsy had certainly been forward that night, but he'd caught thomas looking. he'd felt a hand firm on his hip and then asked to be sure. ] and everything's off.

[ there it is again. off. he'd meant it to be teasing, but it sounds more observational. rusty, he'd joked the last night he'd been in thomas' house, but things are different now. ]

[ it's a lot. after years of withdrawing from the world, even peter had been a lot. welcome, dragging him back into the present, but nonetheless a lot. losing the entire world, peter in stasis, a loss of purpose -- it would have been all too easy to fall back into that same haze again. to withdraw.

instead, here he is. having scones and tea with a young man who'd summarily seduced thomas (not a difficult task that night) in a bar and been a stable part of his life since. a friend, really. ]

Yes.

[ he admits after a moment, because that's not inaccurate. (if he has to swallow at the memory of eggsy pushing him against the bar, well -- he doesn't think anyone could blame him for that.)

and he'd never asked, after, if eggsy had been all right with it, with whatever it had been in the air that loosened their inhibitions, thomas' perhaps more than eggsy's, whether he'd taken any liberties. eggsy had answered those questions easily, implicitly -- but perhaps there's something he never said quite clearly enough himself: ]

It's not unwelcome.

[ no, he hadn’t said it clearly enough, not like this, so plainly reassuring. to be fair, eggsy hadn't asked either, perhaps for fear of the answer. presently, his brows arch in surprise. he’d thought that the choice of a phone call rather than a meeting and thomas’ subsequent reaction to eggsy asking about why things had changed — well, it seemed like it meant the end of his pushiness. and he would be alright with that 'cause it's thomas' friendship he values, not the odds of shagging again after a night where everything just happened. he hadn't gone home with someone else, then he'd run into thomas, and thomas had been bolder than ever. lucky, as he'd said to thomas after. ]

It wasn’t unwelcome then, [ a confirmation that thomas means that. his voice ticks up as he continues, canting his head. ] or it's not unwelcome now?

[ his eyes sharpen on thomas, searching for any signs of uncertainty. and suggesting that maybe he means right now and not a general now. now that eggsy knows the truth. ]

[ eggsy knows the truth -- and the fact remains that thomas wants, but he's not in a habit of allowing that to come to the forefront. he's not in a habit of letting himself even dwell on wanting. and yet, this place seems to have brought it all up again. sleeping with eggsy, sleeping with john, byerly's soft and seductive words -- every moment brings want closer to the surface again when he'd thought that he was all but empty of it.

thomas takes a breath and lets it out slowly, looking back at eggsy. steadily, hands relaxed on his thighs. ]

Both are true.

[ and eggsy believes him. he liked thomas almost immediately, after all, instinctively wanting to trust him even though that's something eggsy can't allow. (even with thomas divulging precious information, eggsy can't tell him i'm a spy or that he probably shouldn't sleep with the same person twice, or be as close with all of his friends as he is). at this point, eggsy has other things on his mind: thomas nightingale is over 100 even if he doesn't look it (jesus christ), thomas has trusted him with this information and confessed to wanting him, then and now (thank fuck, seeing as he very nearly felt guilty over the whole affair). rather than say something immediately, eggsy stands and wanders over to where thomas is seated. ]

[ with a sly smile. ] Then we're on the same page.

[ as much as they can be, with everything they are. ]

[ eggsy moves. thomas stays still. he stays in his armchair, hands on his thighs. eggsy wanders over, wanders, and thomas tips his head back and looks up at him, fingers twitching once before stilling again.

when he stands, it's slow. not the movements of an old man but something deliberate. this isn't where he'd seen the evening going. where he'd seen his revelation going -- but there's a part of thomas nightingale that was young once and remembers it still, a part that enjoys rubgy and boxing and eggsy's sly smile more than a man of his age and standing perhaps should. ]

[ it's easy, then, to close the distance, running a hand over thomas' collar. then cupping the back of his head and leaning in to kiss him. not chaste, but not the desperate snog he'd gone for in the bar, either. putting his money where his mouth is, as it were, not letting the magic or the misunderstanding bother him — and proving that it wasn't just something in the wyver air. he thinks this might be the only time sleeping with someone simplifies things instead of complicating them. ]

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