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brogued2015-02-27 08:30 pm
mannersmaking) wrote in brogued2015-02-27 08:30 pm
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Harry Hart, aged twenty-one, is precisely the kind of young man who has achieved much and is expected to accomplish nothing. The younger of two brothers - not the heir but the spare - he’s raised in luxury and encouraged to perfect himself in every aspect simply because he had no earthly reason not to. He has nothing but opportunities, and his parents - keen sponsors of charities for the disadvantaged, determined to let him see every rung of society - make him feel ungrateful for every one he seems reluctant to take. By the age of eighteen he is fluent in French and Spanish, passable in Arabic, a nationally competitive marksman and a regional medal-winner in both ju-jjitsu and judo. His academic career is a cliché of entitlement: Eton, then Magdalen College, graduating with the expected First in European & Middle Eastern Languages.
He has no idea what to do with his life; spends the summer after final exams fretting about it. Perhaps if he continued to postgraduate level — remained in academia — there’s always the Civil Service, though they’re rather poorly thought of —
The incumbent Galahad dies in Marrakech, in September. Harry receives the tap on the shoulder two days later, and doesn't that rather neatly resolve his concerns.
Five years pass.
The Merlin who trained him prepares to retire at the age of sixty - no longer fighting fit, but still more than able to kick a bunch of mouthy graduates into shape - and the agents are called on to suggest their candidates for his replacement. It's a more specialised role, more intellectual than physical (though they're warned that the man to take the post will be expected to pull his own weight in the field). They're given forty-eight hours to nominate. Galahad has no idea what the fuck he's doing, but he selects a family friend recently out of Trinity who seems to have the aptitude for it.
Sebastian Lightfoot gets booted out at the first stage, and Harry finds that he's...grateful. Firstly because Seb is a bell-end of the highest order, all things considered, and secondly because he didn't deserve to be here.
The Scottish lad deserves to be here. He's quiet, doesn't make waves, is just relentlessly and unselfconsciously competent in a way that embodies the ethos of Kingsman. While the outgoing Merlin remains to train his potential replacements, he fields out some of the more bodily demanding sessions to other agents. Galahad - technically on medical leave after a messy engagement in Moscow - gets allocated a few sessions on unarmed combat.
During their sixth session he ends up on his belly on the floor (real life does not have crash mats; therefore, nor does their training) with one arm twisted behind his back and the taller boy's entire weight pinning him down. If, after dusting himself off, he happens to remove himself to the nearest toilet and put one hand over his mouth while the other is furiously stripping himself like he's just discovered the craft of masturbation; well. That's between God and himself.
(Needless to say that he's so deeply in the closet he thoroughly expects to awaken in Narnia someday. Gentlemen aren't sodomites. Apparently.)
Outside their training, they don't talk. Candidates are discouraged (that is: forbidden) from speaking to any agent besides Merlin and their own sponsors, and vice versa. Though sometimes they're sitting on opposite sides of the library and he fancies that he feels a pair of eyes on him.
He's cleared for duty three months after nominations, and then he's in and out of the Wrotham Park headquarters; moreso out. He kills people, seduces beautiful women, keeps the world on its axis and buys a copy of The Sun after each assignment is concluded. Between the controlled chaos of his missions his life is generally uncomplicated. He spends as much time at home as he can; for obvious reasons, agents cannot have their dogs at HQ during candidates' training, and while his next door neighbour is genuinely happy to foster Mr Pickle? Harry misses him.
Sheerly by providence, he manages to be at HQ when he hears the gunshot from the drawing room.
One of the two remaining candidates - short, whey-faced, pale floppy hair - comes storming out of the library with an anxious Jack Russell in tow. There are tears streaming down his face and he doesn't make eye contact with Harry, or even acknowledge him. Harry goes past him and takes the stairs, pausing on the turn to hear -
"Welcome to Kingsman, Merlin."
- followed by Arthur's footsteps on the landing. Harry waits for him to retreat before making his way into the drawing room. The scene is as stark as he remembers: the gun, the dog, the damned plastic sheet on the floor.
"Merlin," he says, then falters, because the last thing he'd have wanted in this moment (when he realised that Kingsman was more than his dog's life was worth) was company.
He has no idea what to do with his life; spends the summer after final exams fretting about it. Perhaps if he continued to postgraduate level — remained in academia — there’s always the Civil Service, though they’re rather poorly thought of —
The incumbent Galahad dies in Marrakech, in September. Harry receives the tap on the shoulder two days later, and doesn't that rather neatly resolve his concerns.
Five years pass.
The Merlin who trained him prepares to retire at the age of sixty - no longer fighting fit, but still more than able to kick a bunch of mouthy graduates into shape - and the agents are called on to suggest their candidates for his replacement. It's a more specialised role, more intellectual than physical (though they're warned that the man to take the post will be expected to pull his own weight in the field). They're given forty-eight hours to nominate. Galahad has no idea what the fuck he's doing, but he selects a family friend recently out of Trinity who seems to have the aptitude for it.
Sebastian Lightfoot gets booted out at the first stage, and Harry finds that he's...grateful. Firstly because Seb is a bell-end of the highest order, all things considered, and secondly because he didn't deserve to be here.
The Scottish lad deserves to be here. He's quiet, doesn't make waves, is just relentlessly and unselfconsciously competent in a way that embodies the ethos of Kingsman. While the outgoing Merlin remains to train his potential replacements, he fields out some of the more bodily demanding sessions to other agents. Galahad - technically on medical leave after a messy engagement in Moscow - gets allocated a few sessions on unarmed combat.
During their sixth session he ends up on his belly on the floor (real life does not have crash mats; therefore, nor does their training) with one arm twisted behind his back and the taller boy's entire weight pinning him down. If, after dusting himself off, he happens to remove himself to the nearest toilet and put one hand over his mouth while the other is furiously stripping himself like he's just discovered the craft of masturbation; well. That's between God and himself.
(Needless to say that he's so deeply in the closet he thoroughly expects to awaken in Narnia someday. Gentlemen aren't sodomites. Apparently.)
Outside their training, they don't talk. Candidates are discouraged (that is: forbidden) from speaking to any agent besides Merlin and their own sponsors, and vice versa. Though sometimes they're sitting on opposite sides of the library and he fancies that he feels a pair of eyes on him.
He's cleared for duty three months after nominations, and then he's in and out of the Wrotham Park headquarters; moreso out. He kills people, seduces beautiful women, keeps the world on its axis and buys a copy of The Sun after each assignment is concluded. Between the controlled chaos of his missions his life is generally uncomplicated. He spends as much time at home as he can; for obvious reasons, agents cannot have their dogs at HQ during candidates' training, and while his next door neighbour is genuinely happy to foster Mr Pickle? Harry misses him.
Sheerly by providence, he manages to be at HQ when he hears the gunshot from the drawing room.
One of the two remaining candidates - short, whey-faced, pale floppy hair - comes storming out of the library with an anxious Jack Russell in tow. There are tears streaming down his face and he doesn't make eye contact with Harry, or even acknowledge him. Harry goes past him and takes the stairs, pausing on the turn to hear -
"Welcome to Kingsman, Merlin."
- followed by Arthur's footsteps on the landing. Harry waits for him to retreat before making his way into the drawing room. The scene is as stark as he remembers: the gun, the dog, the damned plastic sheet on the floor.
"Merlin," he says, then falters, because the last thing he'd have wanted in this moment (when he realised that Kingsman was more than his dog's life was worth) was company.