checkingout | a gent of good intent who's content to be ( OPEN )

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a gent of good intent who's content to be ( OPEN )

Who: Everyone!
Where: The initial arrival rooms, the main lobby, all over the place.
When: March 3rd
What: Welcome, newbies.

ARRIVAL.

you wake up when you hit the floor in a dark room, and the air is knocked out of your lungs. the carpet is threadbare, worn with use, kind of dusty. and you're not the first person to endure this crash landing. nor will you be the last.

once your vision rights itself, you can see the well-lit hallway through the doorjam straight ahead of you. not to say there’s monsters in the shadows, but something propels you towards that door and out into the bright hallway beyond.

and once outside your room, you can hear it: the steady thrum of rain outside.

MAIN LOBBY.

there's a staircase at the end of the lengthy hallway you tumble out of. grab your suitcase and follow the dull green exit signs on the ceiling until you reach the disappointingly bland stairs that lead you down to the ornate old fashion hotel lobby.

to your left is a warmly crackling fireplace, to your right is a lobby desk. straight ahead are three large sets of doors, though only one of them is open to the public. and outside the few (curtained, permanently dark) windows is the continually steady hiss of rain. once you leave the hallway you wake up in, you won't be able to return.

welcome to the hotel.

FRONT DESK.

though there is a bell and a plaque designating the desk to be the main desk, the customer service desk, there are currently no staff members behind it. none shall answer your calls, either.

terribly sorry for the inconvenience.

SCREENING ROOM.

on a long pull-down screen, a silent version of the phantom carriage will be playing on loop. at the back of the room, between the neat rows of fold out chairs, mounted on a wobbly table is the old-timey projector, and mounted on the walls are some rather old speakers that warble out "terrifying" old music.

along the curtained windows is another long table, with a large bowl of popcorn and a large hot drink dispenser full of hot water, but without any tea or hot chocolate packets around.

OTHER.

the ballroom is currently closed, and the grand doors locked.

there is no main door leading to the outside, good luck trying to find one.

the doors to the courtyard and breakfast hall are unlocked, but looks like you've missed the morning meal. sucks for you.

ROOMS.

you've a room key with your assigned room number on it. all the new guest residences will be located on floors three and four. while there is an open elevator in the main lobby, and the buttons light up inside, the doors will not close. all in all, you'll be better off taking the stairs.

while they're the same stairs you undoubtedly came down to get to the lobby, the door to the endless hall everyone woke up in will not reappear between the main floor and the subsequent residential halls.

there are twenty rooms per floor. feel free to get to know your surroundings; or your neighbors as they trickle in around you.

EXISTING GUESTS.

it's late when the newcomers arrive, there's a good chance you'd been about to go to sleep (or just waking up, who knows, your mom's not here to tell you when to go to bed or get up). but if you're paying attention, you might hear the hustle and bustle in the lobby below; or maybe you're just drawn there because your gut told you to go join the commotion. whatever the case may be, go mingle!

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Harry lets out a breath. A gentleman does not acknowledge bad manners, and frankly they're both profiting from that right now because to call this a rather emotional day would be an obscene understatement.

(He's wearing the suit Harry had made for him; what does that mean?)

"I'm afraid Eggsy and I do have some catching up to do. Though I'm certain you and I shall cross paths again today," he says to Jack, and smiles faintly. "Thank you for your kindness. I apologise for the mess I made of your handkerchief."

Edited 2015-03-05 09:11 (UTC)

Cockblocked and dismissed. What is this world coming to?

"I-"

Yeah. Jack isn't quite sure how to take it as his eyes move from the kid back to Harry.

"All right. Yeah. See you around."

Giving way to the kid, Jack shifts his attention elsewhere. Just because that suit was wrong doesn't mean that he won't find Ianto here somewhere. There's a lingering worry about that tremble he saw in Harry's hand but the lack of battleworn places in his hands fools Jack enough.

He'd done his time in the Marines, made it halfway through the program before flaking out, but that was more than enough time to learn how and when to salute. Which might not be the most appropriate gesture here, but — oh captain, my captain — he gives Jack an idle, half hearted version before diverting all his attention back to Harry, and...

After a very obvious, sweeping once over that leaves Eggsy's lips pressed tightly together and has his shaking his head infintesimally from side to side:

"You look like hell, Harry."

There's blood on his hands. Just faint bits, and only a few spots on his collar that are going to stain. There's just enough physical disarray that Eggsy can put two and give together and get Southglade Missio Church. But then the math gets tricky, and his eyebrows knit in rather blatant confusion.

(He'll have to look Jack out again later, apologise properly. He doesn't strike him as a man who holds grudges.)

"You don't," Harry says, very quietly, as he gives Eggsy a sweeping once-over. He looks perfect. He looks -

He looks like a fucking Kingsman.

He blinks, once, and inclines his head towards the staircase. "We should talk. And we shouldn't do it here. My room is on the second floor."

Apparently. He hasn't actually made it there yet.

(Not when blowjobs are concerned, Harry, use that NLP.)

It'd be a lie to say Eggsy doesn't stand the slightest bit straighter when Harry says that; doesn't puff his chest out a little, or square his shoulders, or let that grin flit back across his features for a hot second before they delve right back into business.

"Yeah, alright, let's do yours." His room is on the fourth floor, which is just that many more stairs they'd have to climb before having a few important discussions — where the fuck are we, how the fuck do we get out, how the fuck are you so calm right now? just to name a couple. Even if Harry hadn't offered, that's probably where they'd end up. And now Eggsy gestures in the same direction Harry'd nodded, and falls into step a half-pace behind him. "Lead the way."

They reach his room without incident; the key works perfectly fine, and the room beyond is less objectionable than expected. Harry shuts the door behind them, sets his suitcase on the bed (perfectly aligned with the edge of the mattress, for all that it looks careless), then turns to face Eggsy.

"Tell me exactly what was happening immediately before you arrived here."

His voice is clipped. It's the question he fears most; hence, it's the first he has to ask. Everything else can follow.

This isn't his room, he won't make himself too comfortable (unless asked, some lessons stick), and just leaves his suitcase by the door, for an easy retrieval whenever he leaves — if he leaves, he's more than a little concerned.

And that clipped demand doesn't do anything to alleviate his worries, just has his eyebrows making their way up his forehead, and Eggsy shuffling further into the room.

"Lockin' a door. I was at the Black Prince." But he's a little purposefully hazy on the exact details on why, in case there's a gentlemen don't indulge revenge stories lecture in his future. "I killed Valentine, that's all over with. I was just going to visit my mum."

Locking a door in the Black Prince. He wonders, for a moment -

Then let me teach you a lesson.

but it's swallowed by larger things.

"Valentine is dead? And you - "

Killed him. Survived. Made it home. And certainly wasn't shot in the back of the head by one of his stepfather's mouth-breathing lackeys. Not even before his training was that likely to have happened.

He swallows dryly.

"You have no reason to think you might have been hurt," and finally there's a cold vein of fear running through his voice.

Hurt?

"Fuck nah," Eggsy insists emphatically. "I can take Dean and his muppets." Can, could, and he's more than a little sour he wasn't able to to get around to it before their kidnappers had deemed fit to throw him...here. Some limbo between the living and the dead, it seemed, because he was certainly alive, and Harry Hart was certainly dead.

Right?

And that must be hard.

"You alright?" Which sounds incredibly stupid after it's out of his mouth, and which Eggsy silently curses for after the fact.

Is he alright?

No.

No, he's not alright.

But Eggsy is alive, and Valentine is dead, whatever maniac scheme he planned to execute with his SIM cards presumably foiled. And of all the things Harry's ever regretted in his life, all the things he did never knowing he'd have reason to regret them, dismissing Eggsy's apology in favour of storming out of the house with a dismissive I'll sort this out when I get back - never knowing he wouldn't have the chance -

staring down the barrel of the gun and knowing he'd failed Lee Unwin's son

He doesn't answer. Instead, he grabs Eggsy's shoulder and pulls him into a fierce hug.

It hurts. He doesn't care.

It does hurt. Even on this end it's a little uncomfortable. It's tight and squeezing, and he hadn't been entirely prepared, so his right arm is trapped awkwardly between their chests for the long, blinking moment it takes for Eggsy to realize what's happening, and extricates his limbs to give him a few claps on the back.

They're light, and he's careful to avoid where Harry'd been shanked in the shoulder in case the bespoke bulletproof suit wasn't quiet knifeproof too, but it feels good to reaffirm that he's real; real and alive, and Eggsy lingers for a handful of heartbeats before pulling back.

"Yeah, you're not alright. You wanna wash? I can wait 'n tell you all about it. Or I could leave." But actually fuck that idea. "You know what? Sit."

On the bed. Where he's pointing. Like he'd point to JB.

Harry eyeballs him disapprovingly.

"I'm not your damned dog, Eggsy," he says - in keeping - but ultimately he's so tired that he just takes the path of least resistance and sits down on the foot of the bed.

His shoulder hurts but it's one of a plethora of other bruises from being punched and kicked and thrown around and God knows what else. The knife penetrated deep enough to stick for a while; the weave of the suit helped, it's a shallow wound, but it's still there.

"...Thank you," he adds, because even in the face of being treated like a small charmless thoroughbred, he can be polite.

Eggsy doesn't hear the thanks. Or, hears, but is too busy poking around the bland hotel bathroom for a rag. He looks for antiseptic too, but comes up painfully shorthanded, and instead improvises on the cleaning end; rubs a bar of soap viciously into the washcloth he's wetting in the sink in lieu of any proper sanitizer.

He's not Captain Jack Harkness, thank you very much, he won't clean Harry's hands for him. He'd look at the shoulder if asked, and run an errand for a doctor if one were present, but for now just hands over the washcloth and awkwardly hovers like a worried mother hen.

"For your..." He gestures by way of finishing his sentence; gestures at his own chin where he thinks Harry ought to start dabbing. And then after a good bought of carpet kicking. "Arthur was in on it, too."

"...Fuck."

It's quiet but deeply felt. He presses the rag to his jaw, cradling it more than cleaning it; he feels like he's been beaten with an entire church's worth of furniture, which is almost certainly the case. It's just as well that he hasn't broken anything. A few of his ribs feel a bit creaky but they'll heal.

The soap is a sharp sting; plain water might have been better, but he's not of a mind to correct him right now. More important matters to discuss:

"He's dead, then."

Kingsman forgives little. It categorically does not tolerate traitors.

"Dead as fuck."

And Eggsy waffles on telling Harry that it had been him who killed him; that he'd been given the option to join the new world, be part of the new Kingsman and had boldly rejected — I'd rather be with Harry — that offer. He's sure his mentor would be proud, no doubt, but killing superiors isn't something that one should toot their own horn about.

"Valentine and his valet too. Who, by the way? Not a real valet at all. More like a sharp ballerina — of death. Oh, and about, two hundred elected officials world-wide, Merlin blew up their heads." And a source of morbid delight for Eggsy: "Charlie's, too. After I decked him."

"It's been an eventful few days for you," Harry says lightly, and tucks away what he might have said about Charlie's untimely demise (to wit: Good. Parasitic, entitled little arsehole).

He peels away the cloth carefully. Beyond a couple of spots, the bleeding seems to have stopped. He looks from it to Eggsy. He looks flawless in the bespoke tailoring, of course, but moreover he looks comfortable. Not a boy in costume, or a man in uniform, but a knight in armour.

"What of the SIM cards?"

"Oh, well."

Biometrics. KC & The Sunshine Band. Fireworks. Disco balls. The world went to shit, but he stopped it from getting too bad.

"There were a couple —" thousand "— casualities as a result of the chips. But the whole plan got doxed, and they're recallin' them all now. I've heard a lot of people are rippin' them out of their cells on their own, and the news says the masses're calling for full disclosure from private companies now. Not that you could blame 'em."

Harry wonders what is hiding behind the phrase 'a couple casualties'. His were unusual circumstances, true, but he knows perfectly well what was accomplished in a small room over the course of under four minutes. He doesn't push it.

He loosens his tie, then neatly pulls the knot clear. There's still the barest weakness in his hands (I killed all those people), the tiny tremor (I wanted to).

"...Merlin and Lancelot?"

Are they - alive, unhurt, still loyal to Kingsman? He could ask the same of any of them, of course, but he knows precisely who Eggsy would turn to in the event of a crisis situation and Arthur's death.

"Fine 'n fine."

They all defer to Merlin as their leader now, and Eggsy doesn't know if he's going to take up the mantle of Arthur, but would be hard pressed to think of a better candidate. The Scotsman'd had his back throughout the entire ordeal with Valentine and his cronies, and if there were any two people he'd trust his life to... Well, it'd be Harry and Roxy, but Merlin would be a close third. Briefly, he allows himself to wonder if the two of them are here too, if they'd been unfortunate to be snatched by whatever ghost nabbing kidnappers that'd managed to wrangle themselves two iterations of Galahads. Selfishly, he'd like them to have been. But time would tell, he's still rather preoccupied with (a shaken, not stirred) Harry Hart here.

"Roxy floated up to the edge of the atmosphere and shot a satellite out of space," he says, rather proudly and with a wide grin.

Floated?

Ah.

"The prototype TAV? Christ. I had no idea Merlin kept the thing in storage." Taking off his jacket makes him wince. The stab wound doesn't look like much from the outside - Kingsman suits are designed to minimise blood staining - but there's an undeniable red patch across his shoulder. "Still. Damn good show on Lancelot's part."

(He'd kept meaning to ask Percival about the precise nature of the bollocking he'd have gotten from Arthur for bringing a girl to their boys' club. Women have done great things in the background of Kingsman, but if there's ever been an actual agent, he's never had one as a colleague. The time has passed now, he supposes.)

"...and yours," he says, glancing to meet Eggsy's eyes. "I - you have no idea how proud I am of what you've accomplished."

Ah, praise from someone resembling a father figure. That's something he's been perpetually robbed of since he was five, with all the niceties Dean ever doled out having been liberally applied with insults and fists. It stirs something in his heart, though it feels kind of like a kick in the rib cage, and looking at Harry, Eggsy can't quite help thinking — even without his mother, his sister, his dog, and his other fellow Kingsman agents; even with the looming question about exactly what sort of hotel and kidnappers could bring people back from the dead (without any signs of decomposition, looking good for a corpse, Harry) — there's worse places to be.

And worse things to hear from your mentor, but pride swelling in his chest, the compliments still leave Eggsy shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.

"Right, you're concussed," he shakes it off, reaching for the jacket on the pretense of hanging it up so Harry doesn't have to stand up unnecessarily. "How'bout I go find you a doctor."

"Thank you - I am not concussed, Eggsy," Harry says tiredly. He knows exactly what a concussion feels like. He's not - well, alright. Borderline at worst.

And it's depressing but not surprising that his protege is using praise for his achievements to diagnose head trauma. Regardless, they have to prioritise:

"We need to discuss our situation."

"A'right."

He's still going to go for a doctor. But that particular venture can wait for a few minutes; they can have their discussion, but from where he's standing, the basics are pretty clear.

"We've been kidnapped or something, yeah? I don't know by who, this don't look anything like Valentine's set up." They're not locked in a mountain; they've windows and can roam about free as they please, so it seems right now. No armed guards, no one attacking them (well, there'd been that one drunk, though he'd turned out harmless) but also no door. "No one'd tried to kill us. Yet. Though looks like they've no concept of personal space neither."

( Jack. )

At any other time, Harry would be using that remark as an opportunity for a brief lecture on the particular importance of courtesy to friendly strangers in a potentially hostile environment (no matter how overfriendly they happen to be), but this is not any other time. He can't begrudge him some lost decorum when he thought he was -

- was -

He realises belatedly that he's been working with a theory, but there's now someone with him who knows the facts of the matter. And it's a surreal question to be asking, but:

"...Eggsy, what happened to me after the church?"

[OOC: for my own ref and retconning Harry saying Jack was the first person he'd spoken to, but I'm going with a chronological order of Helen -> Fitz probably -> Jack -> Eggsy for Harry's early threads because it. makes logical sense.]

The petulant scowl at the not so distant memory of the Captain mocking his name and glasses slips off his features in a second; a split second, in the amount of time it would take to snap ones fingers. And then Eggsy is paling, looking a little sick because — Harry was covered in blood, roughed up and a little out of it (he saw that hand tremor), it had seemed like a fair assumption to make that he's just walked out of the church. But now for the first time, it is occurring to him that maybe Harry hadn't walked out of the church. And now he was going to have to tell him he was dead.

What tragic news to break.

But no sense dancing about it.

"Valentine shot you in the head." His voice sounds like gravel, and Eggsy swallows, gesturing his hands without anything to actually gesture to. "I watched on your tablet."

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sigh DW reply-by-email coding is weird

staring down the barrel of the gun and knowing he'd failed Lee Unwin's son

laughs at u but still cries about hugs

fuck not again. I should probably just work out how markdown syntax works.

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bullshits post movie things

Re: bullshits post movie things

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