NINETEEN.
WHIPLASH

Bex leapt to her feet, eyes widening in shock. Michelle screamed, barely audible over the sounds of the flimsy wood of the door fracturing. Bex stumbled back, pulling Cecilia closer to her chest and place a hand carefully on the back of her head to protect her. The sudden cacophony had caused her to erupt into screams once again, contributing to the chaos.

Someone had been thrown clean through the door, sending a wave of splinters skittering across the floor. The figure rolled twice before coming to stop, facedown. He lay curled up on his side for a moment, groaning.

"Fucking hell."

Bex's heartbeat stumbled when she realized who the hoarse voice belonged to.

"Eggsy?" she gaped.

His head shot up. He pulled himself to his feet, gripping the edge of the kitchen counter tightly. Eggsy rose slowly, wincing with every inch he gained. He turned and squinted at her. Then his eyes widened in shock when he saw her and his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Bex?" he asked, incredulously.

"Well, that's one way to make an entrance," she said.

He was staring at her, and Bex felt herself flush. She realized that she was standing in the middle of his flat holding his baby sister with his mother, who was holding a rag to her forehead and looking horrified.

"You're Bex?" Michelle exclaimed, her eyes darting between Eggsy and Bex.

Bex opened her mouth to respond, but was once again interrupted by the sound of shattering plywood. Another figure was forcing what remained of the door open, kicking it aside with disdain. Eggsy whirled around, panic written plainly on his face. Another man stepped through, fists clenched.

"Dean!" Michelle cried out.

"Fuck off!" the man bellowed.

"Shit," Eggsy swore.

"You guys should seriously invest in a better quality door," Bex said, after a beat.

Dean turned to face her. He had small, beady eyes and a nose that had been broken so many times it was an ugly, squashed shape. His face was bright red, his lips curled back in a sneer to reveal two sets of crooked, yellowing teeth like crumbling ruins. His fists were clenched, his beetle-black eyes narrow and filled with fury.

When his gaze fell upon Eggsy, he let out something that sounded like a growl, but infinitely more threatening. His meaty hands seized Eggsy by the throat and slammed him up against the side of the refrigerator so hard Bex practically felt the flat shake around her. Dean was apoplectic, his eyes practically popping out of his head.

"Who the fuck do you think you are, eh?" Dean yelled, his face screwed up and spit flying from his mouth. "You think you can come crawlin' back and pick a fight with me?"

Eggsy's face betrayed no emotion. His hands lay limply at his side. He was a statue, slowly being crushed under Dean's palms.

"You hit my mum," Eggsy choked out, his teeth gritted.

"What you think you're some big hero now, then? You're a fucking coward."

"You're the coward," Eggsy gasped as Dean's grip tightened. "You only hit people you know you can hurt."

"Fine! You wanted a piece of me, eh? Here it fucking is, you prick!"

A vein stood out against the mottled crimson color of his neck. Dean released his grip on Eggsy's throat. He stepped back, then raised his fist. With a sickening crack that echoed throughout the flat, he punched him in the face. Eggsy didn't move.

"Dean, please," Michelle begged, tears streaming down her face.

She hovered near the two of them, as if she wanted to intervene. But the bruises on her face were a silent reminder of what would happen if she did. Her hands were wrapped around her mouth, tears sliding down her wrists.

"I'll fucking kill you!" Dean bellowed.

The second time Dean struck Eggsy, Bex felt anger boil up inside her like acid. It mingled with horror and shock until it ate away at her. All of her thoughts faded away except for the one that demanded she protect him. Her mind went blank as she answered the familiar call of fury.

Bex turned to Michelle, pressing the baby in her arms. The petite blonde finally tore her eyes away from Eggsy and Dean, looking from the baby to Bex.

Bex's feet carried her towards Dean as she stormed up to him. The inferno in her chest burned as his fist slammed down against Eggsy's jaw.

"Hey! You limp-dick fuckface!" she yelled at Dean.

She wrenched his shoulder backwards, pulling him off Eggsy. He spun to face her, face twisted up with rage and his fist still raised. His bared teeth opened to yell or breathe, but Bex was already in motion. With as much force as she could muster, she drew back her fist and slammed it into his face. The path her blow took never wavered.

Her knuckles against his nose made a sharp, resonating crack, and she was fairly sure she had broken it. Dean staggered back, eyes unfocused and crimson pouring from his nose, until he hit the wall. He brought his hands up to his face, blood streaming through his fingers.

"You-" he cried out.

Bex didn't let him finish. She strode over, her forearm against his throat before he could blink. She shoved him up against the wall, gritting her teeth. He made a strangled noise, and she pressed harder against his windpipe until he went silent.

"Don't you dare touch him," she said, in a voice not nearly quiet enough to disguise the rage and disgust in it. "Don't you dare touch any of them, you hear me?"

When Dean didn't respond, she slammed him back against the wall again.

"Won't," he choked out.

"If you do, I'll kill you myself," Bex hissed.

Dean let out a strangled gasp that she took as a sign of agreement. She watched his beady eyes slowly close, his mouth go slack. With every second she pressed his windpipe, her fury leaked out of her. When he finally slumped over, she let out a sigh. Rationality took control of her mind again, the poison of anger fading. She stepped away, wiping his blood on the side of her jeans. Dean's body crumpled, sliding down the wall to land in an unceremonious heap on the linoleum.

Michelle let out a horrified gasp.

"Did you kill him?" she said in a high pitched voice.

Bex looked at her incredulously. "What kind of person do you think I am?"

"A bloody terrifying one!"

"He's only unconscious," Bex said rolling her eyes. "He'll wake up in a couple hours, hopefully in a cell."

She grabbed the landline off the table in the kitchen and tossed it to Michelle. She caught it, her face still stunned. The echoes of their fight were mirrored in her eyes.

"Call the police. There's enough evidence on your face alone to lock him up."

"Who are you?" Michelle gaped.

"Bex Alden," she replied. "I know Eggsy. And I need to talk to him."

Eggsy's eyes met hers. His gaze never wavered from her face, the rapidly forming bruise under his eye only bringing out the gray in his eyes. He was slightly open mouthed, his eyes wide and glassy.

"Also, judging by the way your son is looking at me, I need to check him for a concussion."

☂

Once Bex was alone with Eggsy in his tiny, cramped bathroom, she couldn't stop looking at him. His features stood in stark contrast to one another. A strong, clenched jaw beneath fine-boned cheeks, gray velvet eyes under dark, furrowed brows. He had planted his hands on either side of the sink, fingers gripping the porcelain, and he wouldn't meet her eyes.

"I'm not concussed," he said. "I wasn't even unconscious."

She folded her arms. "You don't need to pass out to get a concussion. Your head slammed against that fridge pretty hard."

"Bex-"

"Just face me, Eggsy."

He turned to her. Luckily, the bruises that splattered his cheek and snaked their way across his nose were already fading. A reddish hue like the summer sun shone through his skin instead. The collar of his shirt was askew and his hair was a rumpled, golden mess.

A moment of silence washed over them, a silence Bex hated. She hated this disquieting version of him. How hypocritical she was, standing in this bathroom with the intention to heal him, when she was the one who had hurt him.

"I'm going to check your vision," she said, trying to sound as clinical as possible. Even though she was speaking in a low voice, it seemed to echo in the room through the silence.

"Follow my finger with your eyes, please."

She dragged her finger through the air slowly, feeling as though she was underwater. His eyes followed her hand back and forth until they stopped on her face. His eyes met hers, as deep and tumultuous as water rushing down a ravine.

The room was too bright. Focus.

Bex kept her breathing steady, but her traitorous heart stumbled from beat to beat.

They were too close. He is not yours.

She swallowed hard. "I'm going to ask you some questions to make sure you don't have amnesia."

"Fine."

"What's your name?"

"Eggsy Unwin."

"Can you tell me how this happened?"

"My piece of shit stepdad threw me through a door."

She held his gaze.

"Who am I?"

"Bex."

She wanted to pretend it had no effect on her when he said her name. Bex had a name filled with hard vowels and sharp consonants. It wasn't the kind of name you whispered in the dark or yelled from a rooftop. But the way he said it then, quiet and delicate, made it something worth treasuring.

Eggsy folded his arms, snapping her out of her trance.

"Now it's my turn to ask some questions," he said firmly, lips pressed together to resemble a knife's edge. "Like, what the hell are you doing here?"

"I..."

What was she here for, really? To apologize? To repent? To confess?

She knew everything she wanted to say would only lose its meaning if she tried to put it into words. Bex couldn't describe the immense ache inside her chest that had begun months ago

"I'm sorry," was all she could manage. "I'm sorry for all of it."

Eggsy's eyes widened. Then he let out a derisive chuckle.

"You're sorry. That's all you can manage? What, Bex, do you think you're apologizing for?"

"For hurting you. For leaving." For lying.

"I just don't understand it, Bex. How could you abandon m- us, for her? Dean leaves shadows on my skin, but your mother left shadows on your heart. She hurt you more than anyone in this world and you just went running back to her."

Bex waited for the nervous energy to seize her, to force her fingers to dance along her thighs and her heart to beat erratically. She waited for her mind to tell her to run. But it didn't, and everything remained strangely quiet. She was calm.

"I went back home and I found out everything was different. My mother wasn't even the same person. So I forgave her," Bex told him.

"You what?" he said sharply.

"Eggsy, I'll never be happy if I keep remembering. Thinking about her gives my memories power over me. I forgave her, and I let her go, and now I can move on," Bex said emphatically. "I still remember what she did, but I won't let it control me any longer."

He just stared at her.

"I can't explain it, Eggsy. It's like my life is split into two parts: before Kingsman and after Kingsman. Two different Bexes. The one who is afraid, and the one who is not."

"So you're just...not afraid of anything anymore?" he said disbelievingly.

"No, I'm still afraid. But it's a different kind of fear, a certain kind of fear. I'm afraid, yes, but I'm afraid of something. Not just terrified all the time."

"What are you afraid of, then? Clowns? Zombies?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Being forced to acknowledge that there are people who care about you?"

"Well, now it's zombie-clowns, thanks."

"Bex. Be serious."

"Honestly, anything that lives in a sewer. Grown men in leggings. Avian flu-"

"Bex."

She looked at the floor.

"Losing the people I love," she said softly. "Why do you think I spent so much of my life running? Stay too long in one place and you become a part of something or someone. It just makes losing them harder."

Eggsy let out another humorless chuckle.

"So, what? You tried to shut me out just because you don't think you deserve love or happiness?" he said bitterly.

"Well, maybe I don't," she said, defeatedly. Her voice was a fragile thing.

The confines of the tub and sink forced him to stand only inches away from her, but he made no move to touch her and she didn't either. They were planets, locked in their own separate orbits. So close, but never enough to collide.

"Please say something."

She could see every tiny movement, every clench of his jaw or flutter of his lashes. Without thinking, she reached out a hand to touch the spot where his stepfather had hit him. Her fingers drifted along the receding bruise, his skin creamy ivory under her fingertips. Dread and desire filled her heart, each one sharpening the other. He exhaled. Then he caught her hand and slowly lowered it, his gray eyes boring into hers.

"Please don't," he said flatly.

Bex looked at him, startled. A shadow had fallen across his face, a strange portrait of pain.

"You can't just do that, Bex."

"Do what?"

"You can't just tell me you don't love me, that you don't care about me, and then apologize and defend me a-and touch me like that."

"I-"

"I won't be a casualty in your war, Bex. You switch sides too fast for me to even comprehend. I'm never sure where I stand with you. One second we're nothing, then we're something, then nothing again. It's like having whiplash, Bex."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean... I didn't..."

"Make up your mind," he said acidly.

"Fine," she snapped, hurt. She knew she had no right to feel wounded when he was the victim, but his words stung. "But just, for a moment, please try to understand how terrifying it is to realize that the world has decided to offer you love after you've gone your whole life without it. How terrifying it is to place the fate of your heart and happiness in someone else."

She bit her lip, feeling the skin pull under her teeth.

"I've never had friends like this. I had Lily and Evans, but I've never had a friendship like this. It's devastating and consuming and I can't imagine going back now that I have this kind."

There was a metallic taste on her tongue. She had broken the delicate skin of her bottom lip and it had begun to bleed. She bit down harder.

"So, yes, my mind is made up. I don't want to run anymore. I want Roxy and Rose and Harry. I-I want you."

He watched her, gray eyes flickering imperceptibly. She fought to keep her breathing even and her face impassive. The only fatality was her pulse, beating furiously.

Then he was stepping forward and she was too and they slipped off their axis and collided.

His arms were wrapping around her fiercely and Bex was closing her eyes and squeezing him as though he'd returned from the dead. It was the kind of embrace that broke bones but healed everything else. She could hear the familiar thud of his heart and hum of his breathing through his shirt, a sound that canceled everything else out.

Bex drew back enough to look him in the eyes. She let a hand wander up to his face again, and this time Eggsy didn't resist. She traced the shell of his ear, down his neck, along the curve of his collar. He was still. She could feel his pulse faintly under her fingers and the heat of his skin. She did it unconsciously, without telling her hands what to do. They knew.

"Please don't lose faith in the world. Please don't lose faith in me," she said, eyes fluttering shut. A tear slipped out of the corner of eye through the cage of her lashes.

He leaned his forehead against hers. She could feel the pressure of his skin against hers. She felt bigger than her body.

"I won't," he said. He said it so gently she felt like crying.

Then he was kissing the tip of her nose and the crease between her brows and the damp spot on her cheek where there had been a tear only moment before. There was no part of Bex that wasn't burning. He was pressing his lips to the top of her head and she was burying her face against his shoulder and the air was filled with I'm sorry and I know and maybe an I love you hidden beneath it all.

─────

a quick note:

girls! save! boys! too!

sometimes when i'm writing and i'm listening to music and i just get in a mood™ and all my writing gets weirdly descriptive like poetry written by sad people. things are getting progressively depressing like bex hasn't made a pun in 5 chapters someone help her. also this chapter was so damn dramatic it freaking started with someone being thrown through a door (not sure if thats physically possible google had no answers for me) and ended with the angstiest scene i've ever written lmao