Chapter Text
In the Heat of the Moment
"Whatcha readin'?"
Eggsy bounces onto the bed, and it’s a sure sign of how absorbed he was that Harry jumps and - before he can think better of it - tilts his screen. Eggsy wouldn’t deliberately invade his privacy, but the instinct is too quick and it’s given him right away. Damn.
"Oooh, it’s porn! Or… erotica..." Eggsy wiggles his fingers in the direction of quote marks and raises his eyebrows. He’s damp and half naked, hair spiky from being rough-dried with a towel and Harry was so engrossed in self-published smut that he’s not only missed him getting out of the bath but that at least an hour must have elapsed since he got in it.
Well, When you're caught you're caught.
"Oh, no. It’s definitely porn."
Eggsy looks freely surprised that it was that easy, but Harry is far harder than he’d realised he was and Eggsy would have noticed that any second. If he was expecting Harry to have his nose in Lady Chatterley’s lover - or something - at least for a moment he’s the one on the back foot: a stance Harry is going to absolutely make the most of for the few seconds it lasts, whilst he works out how exactly he plans to play this out.
“Aha, busted! What kind?”
Now, why this would have to happen when Harry was indulging in the one specific train of filth left to embarrass him, he can only attribute to karma.
He could make something up, but there’s too high a risk that Eggsy would catch something amiss and wonder what - after all they've shared - Harry might feel the need to hide an interest in, and start drawing some incredibly unsettling conclusions that could worm their ugly roots into the very foundations of their relationship. It’s not worth the risk just to spare him a blush this evening. Besides, what on earth would he say? What can be left taboo between them that Harry would willingly mislead his love to believe he was interested in?
Plainly nothing, and certainly nothing Harry can think of off the cuff, with his semi- visible erection liable to rat him out like Pinocchio's nose. So he must bite the bullet.
And underneath how daunting a prospect that is… there’s the hint of promise. They have been in almost this situation before, more than once, and countless defiance of death notwithstanding, Eggsy might just be the reason Harry Hart is the luckiest man on the planet. At worst he's going to be ribbed relentlessly, reminded he's a pervert and encouraged to never bring up this particular strand of weirdness again and at best…
Well. “Best” makes him open his mouth. Close it again, swallow, sigh deeply, and then dive in.
Why do they not keep brandy on the dresser anymore?
"Do the words alpha and omega mean anything to you?"
Eggsy tilts his head when his eyebrows furrow, a little like an attentive dog.
"Greek alphabet?” He tries, and he isn’t wrong but he knows he isn’t quite there either. “American frat houses? Oh! it's a god thing, innit? Something about the coming of Christ?"
Full of surprises, as ever. Still, unfortunately, no dice and Harry can’t work out whether he’s being deliberately obtuse.
"With regards to porn?"
"With regards to porn it best be nothing to do with the coming of Christ. I've got limits, Harry." He looks genuinely perturbed and ventures no other suggestions. So, against the odds it appears that Eggsy may in fact have avoided this particular grubby dark corner of the internet and Harry will have to start from the top.
He takes a moment to close his eyes and consciously relax his jaw from a grimace or approaching hysteria. This is fine.
"I, ah, shit, how do I put this without sounding awful?" Eggsy continues to look at him expectantly, offering nothing. There’s a heat under Harry’s sternum that hasn’t decided whether it’s shame or excitement yet, and is presumably going to wait for Eggsy’s verdict to make its mind up. "Well. Let me preface this by saying it is absolutely only about humans, -"
"Right, because that's a thing you totally need to say when it is."
"- but is based, I think, on animal pack dynamics, or something.” Is it? In immediate retrospect Harry is not at all confident on his own grasp on the concept, let alone how to explain it, but he’s opened his bloody great mouth now. “It's sort of a sci fi thing, though I've got no idea where it originated,"... and am making an absolute pig's ear of getting round to why it’s sexy , but now he's come this far he's got to at least try to explain his way out of this hole he’s dug "...in which humans have. Ah. Alphas and omegas as their sex designation, rather than gender, and a far more animalistic relationship to sex on the whole. More irrepressible instincts and… you know. Pheromones, and all that.”
Eggsy’s smile is spreading into something like glee. For all he claims not to be a sadist, he does seem to take a great deal of amusement from watching Harry squirm.
“And um, the key point... would be that there is a distinct and powerful mating cycle. Omegas go into heat. Sometimes that's just a strong desire, sometimes it's a biological necessity. As in, if they don't get their needs...seen to -
"Get fucked?"
"Yes - thank you - they'll be really distressed, they might even die -"
"Oh, like ferrets!"
"Well. Quite." Harry resists the urge to shake his head to check his brains are still between his ears. Sharing a bed with Eggsy has had its unexpected moments, delightfully, and in itself has been something of a unforeseen treat but somehow he never quite managed to imagine they'd be sitting in bed alluding their fantasy sex life to that of ferrets.
“But essentially it’s about that instinct driven, fuck now, think later sort of dynamic. With a bit of… extra detail. It is usually very uh, graphically written.”
“Like how?”
There’s something softer than schadenfreude to that smile now and Eggsy’s body language as he settles into bed is inviting, approaching sultry. Either he too has some peccadilloes he’s not volunteered yet or Harry’s luck balances out on the fact a few dirty words in his voice are enough to turn Eggsy on.
“Well. Usually even male omegas are described as self lubricating… wet. They get wet. Heightened senses and marathon sex. Biting.” A strategic pause in which Eggsy, very pleasingly, licks his bottom lip. “Alphas are there for all your size kink needs, and their cocks have knots… you know the bulb that swells up? Rather like dogs, actually... but look, never mind the -“
"Is it a Twilight thing?"
"I suppose it might have been originally. I don’t know. This isn’t." Harry wobbles his phone to indicate the material he’s been reading although why he chooses to do that immediately escapes his good sense. Why draw attention to the godawful trash he’d got himself indulgently sucked into tonight? Given time, he could certainly choose some recommendations, pick out something that would play on Eggsy’s kinks and might ease him in, but this...
"Hold your horses a fucking second. Mating as in like, breeding? How the fuck have they got that working then?"
"Uh. Not all of it gets that far and I… usually stop reading before then if it does. If it's well done I suppose the implication of possible breeding ups the ante a little but I'm not sticking around for the biology.” And I am absolutely not about to explain it to you when you’d just stopped looking at me like I'm totally bonkers. “ It's mostly that imperative. The need, the desperation, that I find appealing.”
Eggsy makes a wordless, hot little noise and his hand comes to rummage under the covers, presumably in the direction of giving Harry a fondle to establish exactly how appealing he finds it but getting distracted by his stomach muscles. Suddenly, continuing his ham-fisted explanation seems like a capital idea as long as he keeps talking.
"There are less explicit themes. Highly protocoled courtship rituals, decoration, gift giving... it can be oddly quaint before it takes the plunge into brutal desperate fucking frenzies. ”
"And you're into that." The arch of his eyebrow in judgement is well deserved but cutting nonetheless.
"For my sins, yes." It is quite plain from the combination of the look he's trying to give Harry and the look on his face underneath that he is at the very least entertained by the entire prospect. "Though not so much the worldbuilding as the sloppy sex, honestly. You develop some acquired tastes by my time in life."
"Nah, I love how excited you get about the freaky shit. At my time of life. You're ridiculous. One minute you want werewolf sex, the next you're ordering a fucking Saga catalogue." Eggsy stretches his legs long and his arms up, ostensibly ready to tuck into bed but it does put the fact he’s hard himself rather front and centre. "Alright. I'm about it."
The simmering arousal that the discovery hadn't quite doused surges back to full force as Eggsy wriggles beneath the duvet and presses his hard, nude body to Harry's side. Harry suppresses the urge to thank him for the minimal mockery and the quick forgiveness because it doesn't feel as though it was too much of a hardship for him. And he doesn't rue the chance to do something with his excitement because, well, the night is yet young.
"So. You gonna send me some links, or you gonna read me a bedtime story?"