'Hey it's Eggsy ;)'

Eggsy waited, bored on the train, for a reply. The bird he met last night was gorgeous, and he had no idea how he'd gotten her number. Now, if only he could figure out what those numbers were life would be grand.

The hastily-scrawled digits were now just a smudge on the meat of his palm, eight, four, seven or one, nine, eight, or zero, and so on. He was on his fourth try. His phone chimed in his hands and he had a moment of triumph before reading the text.

'Sry, I think u have the wrng #'

Eggsy sighed and hoped she was only that gorgeous because of the booze. A few more minutes passed in the uneventful droll of the train and Eggsy started to get a headache from looking religiously in one direction so long. He picked his phone back up.

'Who says I didn't mean to text you, gorgeous?'

Nothing. He frowned. May as well go back to the classics.

'What are you wearing?'

'how poetic. u shld try 2 publish it'

Eggsy sniggered to himself.

'I'm a genuine Byron.' He grinned to himself 'Have you ever tasted a woman until she believed that she could be satisfied only by consuming the tongue that had devoured her?'

There was a pause, then 'my, such eloquence.'

'Only the best for you, love.'

He got nothing back, but he was grinning as he went to work that day.

'Have you got your hair down?' he sent the next day at lunch.

The response was immediate. 's 2 short 2 b elsewhere'

'Really? Wonderful. I won't have to move it aside to kiss your neck in the morning.'

Radio silence.

'Would you prefer I kiss you somewhere else then, miss-?'

'Because I'd love to. Get on my knees with your thighs around my head'

He was about to continue when he got a reply 'mr., and ty, but I think I'm qite alrite with u standing'

Eggsy paused, got his brain off one track and on board of another, then texted 'So you'd want me against the wall, then?'

He came off lunch vaguely curious as to what his mystery number looked like.

Mr. Morpheus, as Eggsy had named him in his contacts (what. He had to call him something) was becoming a bit of a habit of sorts for Eggsy. He liked to text him at work because he was always particularly snarky (unless he'd disappeared for a few days again, which happened occasionally. Eggsy liked to get creative in his sexts during those times). He liked to text him at night because he was usually a bit more loose-fingered with his replies, like he was a little drunk. And recently he might have taken to good morning texts.

Which was not weird thank you, it just seemed like the polite thing to do when you'd spent the better part of an hour vividly describing how you'd like to eat someone out the night before. Or gotten into a heated debate about the best James Bond movie. Not that Eggsy paid attention to those conversations. Because he wasn't starting to fall for a mysterious man whose name he didn't even know. Who even did that?

Him, he was forced to admit after an inspired conversation wherein he finally got a name. Harry.

Harry liked bad movies and spies. Harry read Hemingway and knew Byron and Vonnegut. Harry was bright and quick as a whipcord. Harry swore just enough to keep Eggsy feeling a thrill every time he read the word 'fuck' in a text. Harry liked dogs, Harry was a tailor, Harry was just about Eggsy's favorite person ever.

Eggsy slammed his head onto the table in the pub, making a few patrons jump.

Eggsy was so fucked.

Eggsy's phone buzzed on the nightstand, making a sound not dissimilar to a freight train going off the rails. Eggsy moaned and threw something at it. He heard a crash and figured he'd missed. Eventually it stopped and Eggsy sighed happily into his pillow.

Then it buzzed again, and he flailed around until he could pick it up.

"Mmm'elo?" He muttered.

The LEDs on his alarm clock were distressingly bright, but for a second before his sense kicked in he thought it read three am. But that certainly wasn't true, because anyone who would call someone at three in the morning had fled the continent after the third Reich.

"Is this Eggsy?"

"'is" he squinted at the clock, then out the window. It was dark o'clock. He let his face fall back against his mattress.

"You're the top contact in the phone of a man who's just been admitted to our hospital, sir."

Eggsy felt suddenly very cold and very awake. He yanked the phone from his ear to look at the number – and swore.

Mr. Harry Morpheus.

"Is he okay?" Eggsy asked immediacy.

"He's hurt pretty bad. We can't say yet."

"Shit, fuck, where? Wait, no, hold on, call- call other people in his phone. I barely know him." And have never actually met him, he doesn't say.

"St. Thomas'. You were the only contact that picked up."

Eggsy felt like his stomach had taken up parkour over his insides, the way it kept trying to sink and shove its contents out his mouth at the same time.

"Right, well, I'll come down and keep trying then, yeah?"

Eggsy didn't know how he got to St. Thomas' hospital in fifteen minutes, but he did it and it was probably something some physics professors would be interested in. He stumbled to the front desk to the pitying looks of the nurses and got led down a hall and down another hall and down another white blue and staff-littered hall. He went down so many halls that he had the chance to wonder about himself, so concerned over someone who he'd never even seen. But while a part of him was still shaky from panic and lack of sleep, he couldn't deny that he did know Harry, as much as the man had let him. And it wasn't like anyone else was coming, yet, and who knew what had happened so what if he was dying all by himself and Eggsy had to stop thinking so the doctors would stop watching him go by with gleams in their eyes.

They finally reached a room, all glass walls and monitors. The nurse let him in and handed him the phone when he spluttered about needing to call Harry's family or something. And then he was alone in the room with his digital pen pal, who was hooked up to about a dozen things and had just survived a shot to the head.

With that in mind, Harry looked quite good. He was older than his texting style suggested, maybe, but Eggsy had at one point entertained the idea that he was texting one of those nine-hundred pound people or a serial killer, so.

There was a white bandage around his head, which nearly matched his skin in the light, and his hair was brown but greying and damp with something Eggsy didn't care to know.

Eggsy had no idea what to do with himself, so he sat down in the chair by the bed and waited for something to come to mind.

He tried 'Merlin' again, for something to do with his hands really. If the bastard hadn't picked up for the first forty-six calls, Eggsy doubted the forty-seventh would sway him. At some point it had become day time, and Eggsy had called out citing an emergency. He'd have to explain that tomorrow.

Then (and if he hadn't known it before he'd survived the bullet to the head he sure did now) like the stubborn arse he was, Harry stirred.

Eggsy jammed the help button. It did not fill him with confidence when they were not immediately swarmed.

"Where am I?" Harry asked, sounding far too put-together for a man who'd just undergone both professional and unprofessional brain surgery.

"St. Thomas'." Eggsy replied. He hit the help button a few more times for good measure.

Harry's uncovered eye flicked over to him, then blinked.

"Eggsy?"

Eggsy belatedly remembered that yes, he had sent Harry a few nudes while very drunk, how marvelous.

"Hey." He waived awkwardly "So this wasn't how I'd pictured us meeting."

Shit. Not what he'd meant to say.

Harry just raised his eyebrow. "Oh?"

Well, in for a penny, Eggsy thought. "Figured there'd be more lube in better flavors."

Harry huffed, and there were the doctors, finally, man it was a good thing they didn't have patients with head trauma in their ICU, oh wait, and Eggsy was shoved out of the way while they tested and re-sedated Harry.

No one called Eggsy back. Not one of the fuckers on Harry's phone would so much as send him directly to voicemail. He gave up on them on the third day.

Harry wasn't coming around so much now that they had him on enough meds to kill a horse. So Eggsy went to work, and spent his nights in the ICU with his pen pal who still had no last name. He brought the first season of 24 to play on the little TV in the room, but found it still ran on VHS and brought Get Smart instead. He felt ridiculous and worried and lost all at once, and not being able to talk to Harry wasn't helping.

He finally woke up again on the sixth day. Eggsy had a feeling he wasn't supposed to, but figured the doctors wouldn't come anyway.

"Some friends you have, mate." Eggsy said blandly when Harry looked surprised to see him "Can't get even one to answer my calls. Your calls, really, since it's your phone. Guess we don't have to look too far to find the source of the lead in your brain."

At his words, Harry reached up to touch the bandage on his face. Then he looked at Eggsy and started to chuckle.

"So you've taken it upon yourself to sit at my bedside, then? Should I be worried about my virtue?"

Eggsy tried to look affronted "I'm not a tyrant. If you've got a headache I have a perfectly good hand ready and waiting."

"That's not even very good"

Eggsy threw up his hands "I've been sleeping in a chair for a week, pardon me if my witty one-liners are leaving something to be desired."

Harry smiled a little and held out his hand. Eggsy looked at it and almost took it. Harry had strong hands, Eggsy'd noticed. He'd been thinking about maybe holding them all week. To see if he'd respond a bit. Power of human kindness or something.

"My phone, if you would."

"Ah" Eggsy fumbled with his pockets and handed it over.

Harry went straight for the keypad and didn't hit enough numbers to call out, then held the phone to his ear.

"Galahad, code Lazarus. Please send flowers to room –" he paused and looked at Eggsy.

Eggsy blinked "Ah- four eighteen."

"Four eighteen, St. Thomas' hospital."

He hung up without waiting for an answer, then looked at the phone expectantly.

"What the hell was-"

The phone started vibrating and ringing at once, never getting far in the ringtone before starting over. Harry sighed and muted it.

"You'll be happy to know that I'll be out of your hair momentarily, Eggsy. Thank you for watching over me as long as you have."

Eggsy frowned "And where the heck does a man who's recently taken a bullet to the brain have to be?"

Harry closed his eyes "Someplace better than this shit hospital."

Eggsy laughed "No doubt. But seriously, do you need to duck out? If it's the guys who shot you or the ones who've been hangin' round here, there's places you can go."

Harry's eyes snapped back open and to him "Around here? Where?"

Eggsy shrugged "Dunno. They just looked suspicious. Asked where you were at so I told 'em you'd died. Had great timing, they pulled a cadaver out just as I said it."

"When was this?"

"Between calls eighty-seven and a hundred and three to Merlin? I don't know, I didn't even remember until now." Eggsy scratched at his neck and Harry's eyes dropped to his fingers.

"I see. Thank you again, Eggsy."

"Yeah. But look, it's not like I minded anyway. I kinda wanted to meet you. You know. Because we actually do have stuff in common."

Eggsy rather hated his less than effective mouth. Why couldn't all conversations be through texting, he wondered. He was far smoother when Harry wasn't looking at him like he was something very intensely interesting that he would like to take apart. The door burst open behind him to admit a frazzled-looking man, and Eggsy was a bit impressed because bald men didn't usually pull off frazzled. Flanking him were half a dozen men and women in white robes who looked slightly similar to doctors.

"Harry, good god. I thought you'd died."

"Hello to you too, Merlin" Harry greeted as the people in white came around to read his charts. "I trust my transfer has been-"

"Merlin!" Eggsy burst out, clamoring out of his chair "Check your damn phone once in a goddamn while why don't you. Do you have any idea how many times I had you called?"

Merlin raised his eyebrows. He looked to Harry, who was looking at Eggsy with unmasked amusement.

"Oh do answer the man, Merlin."

Merlin sighed "Two-hundred and ninety four, Mr.-?"

"Eggsy Unwin, you gigantic prick, and it was closer to five hundred with my phone and the nurses. What would you 'ave done if he hadn't woke up?"

Merlin's face didn't actually do much, but Eggsy caught a range of exasperation, annoyance, and recognition.

"Eggsy" he finally said, and looked at Harry very, very flatly.

"He answered on the first call." Harry said.

Merlin sighed "Of course he did. Of course you did. Alright Eggsy, stand still a moment-"

"No, it won't work."

Eggsy looked between them and tried to decide if stepping closer to the bedridden one would be more telling or cowardly.

"Why not, Galahad?" Merlin dragged out his words a bit more than necessary.

Harry pursed his lips "He's already been hit recently. I don't know by who. Merlin, I think we have a problem. Internally."

To Eggsy, it felt as if the tension in the room had jumped to the level of snapping.

"That's not something to say lightly, Galahad."

Harry didn't say anything more, just looked dark.

"And what do we do with the boy, then?"

Harry looked at him again, finally and said "How much do you know about knights, Eggsy?"