no questions, just answers
Title: no questions, just answers
Fandom: Kingsman: The Secret Service
Characters: Eggsy Unwin
Word Count: 1312
Rating: T
Warning: Referenced child abuse & domestic violence
Summary: The pre-movie fic about Eggsy fucking up and being fucked up, told in second person with all the angst in the world (and then some).
Your stomach hurts all the time. You get so used to it you barely notice it on a conscious level, most of the time. It's like, you wake up in the morning and you need to piss, you're still tired (you're always tired), and oh, yeah, your stomach's burning, another day in the life.
The blanket you have in your bedroom isn't warm enough. The flat's heated, of course, but you've got a fucking window right over your bed and you're never warm enough in there (but you're always in your bedroom if you're in the flat, unless you're eating breakfast, so you're rarely in the flat enough except to sleep and dress and muck around with Daisy a bit).
You wake up and your trainers are first-rate but your socks have holes. Your room is cold, as previously mentioned, so you dress and shower quickly (and mum doesn't like it when you waste the hot water) and eat breakfast, sometimes, and bolt.
Eating is a thing that's done, so you do it (even though you're rarely ever really hungry, since your stomach hurts). Dean's there, most mornings. He likes eggs and toast and Nescafé and watching your mum move around the kitchenette. Sometimes he dandles Daisy on his knee while he eats, but he always hands her off to you or your mum if she gets fussy or tries to grab at his plate.
After breakfast, you kiss Daisy goodbye and leave. You tutor kids from the local college sometimes, or write papers for Ryan's cousin's friends who are at uni but lazy, or you fill in for guys at the pub if they call in sick too late to reschedule anyone. It's not much, and it's never enough (before Dean there was enough money to eat and clothe yourselves and eat out every once in a while at the pub with mum, and now there's more than that but it's never enough to get out to do something to be something) but it's better than nothing at all. You've seen them, blokes at the pub who work with Dean or others like him and who spend entire days doing nothing, and you know you'll probably end up like them one day, and the thought of it makes your stomach hurt even more, but what else is there to do.
(It's not a question. You already know the answer. You've always known the answer.)
You used to coach some kids at an after-school sports club for at-risk youth, and you liked it, but someone found out you'd been caught, once, in possession of drugs, and that was the end of it.
(You used to be in a club like that once. It's where the gymnastics coach found you and told you you had talent. Told you if you practiced hard every day and never let up the world could be yours. You were so good you won quite a few competitions and were captain of your team, and several papers mentioned you and one actually sent a reporter to interview you for an afternoon after practice. When it came out it called you a hardworking boy from the south side who could rise up above his peers [from what sort of muck you were rising, precisely, was never accurately defined, but several mentions of boys in caps and low-slung jeans and loud, garish shirts were made, and you knew how to fucking find a definition from context]. The article said you were one in a generation, made a mention of a father who would have been proud of a son who defined class expectations, a mother who left you to the care of your coach until late in the evening [through no fault of her own, of course, because better for a woman who had been so careless as to be left a widow with a young child try to make her way than live solely on the dole-although some virtuous women, of course, had found a way to manage odd jobs with child care and succeeded, but they were not all women, of course, and your mother was not to be faulted for finding herself lacking in ingenuity (when she was so tired when she got back home, sometimes, she fell asleep on the couch while she was in the middle of asking you about your day)]. The article said a lot of things without saying them explicitly-about single mothers and widows, council houses and drug addicts, cheap music and flashy trainers.
You didn't go to practice the day after it was printed, or the day after that, and eventually your coach stopped calling you and your teammates stopped talking to you and you stopped thinking about what it felt like to reach for the uneven bars and fly).
After you're done doing the things you're going to do, you usually head out with Ryan or Jamal. Sometimes you drink, sometimes you watch trashy t.v., sometimes you head over to Jamal's house and kick his little brother off the XBOX (you never head over to Ryan's house, because Ryan's father is a bastard. You understand about him, Ryan understands about Dean, and no one ever says nothing because-because, well. What are you going to do.)
(That's not a question either. Most things aren't. Not for people like you).
Usually you go back home to sleep, and usually you stay there for the night. Sometimes you're too lazy or too tired or too drunk to go home and sleep on the couch. Sometimes you get home and Dean's not happy to see you and you find somewhere else to sleep or you find somewhere warm to sit until morning and don't sleep at all. You're always tired but never exhausted; you sleep long hours but shallowly, always conscious of every noise around you and the knowledge that tomorrow will be another empty day of nothing that stretches out in front of you seemingly without end.
Sometimes you watch Daisy when Dean and Mum go out to the pub. Sometimes Dean's off making some money and you have dinner with Mum and Daisy, and it's nice. Sometimes things are different.
(Sometimes you'd come back from training and take your mum out for fish and chips and make fun of misguided tourists who couldn't find the right Tube stop. One time you came back from training and your mum said “I've met someone, love,” and then she said “I'm pregnant,” and you saw bruises on her lower arm. You didn't stay in training too long after that).
Most days, though, are similar enough they blend in one with the other, a litany of aching eyes and aching head and aching stomach and a short, tight feeling in your chest when you wonder what's going to become of Mum and Daisy for too long.
You don't ever wonder what's going to become of you. It might have been a question once, but now it never will be, so you don't bother pretending that it is.
Life just runs and runs and runs and never end, and one day-one day you wake up and you eat and you work a few hours as a valet at some posh club and you head home and change and you end up at the pub with Ryan and Jamal, and one of Dean's little friends has something else to say and today-
-today you think, today I'm going to do something so's I'll remember it different than tomorrow-
-and when he does his posturing, you nick his keys right out his pocket.
And ten minutes later you're cuffed in the back of a car, and you know you're fucked-know you've fucked it all-and your eyes still burn and your stomach still hurts-but it doesn't matter.
Because there was never any question it wouldn't end like this.
Fandom: Kingsman: The Secret Service
Characters: Eggsy Unwin
Word Count: 1312
Rating: T
Warning: Referenced child abuse & domestic violence
Summary: The pre-movie fic about Eggsy fucking up and being fucked up, told in second person with all the angst in the world (and then some).
Your stomach hurts all the time. You get so used to it you barely notice it on a conscious level, most of the time. It's like, you wake up in the morning and you need to piss, you're still tired (you're always tired), and oh, yeah, your stomach's burning, another day in the life.
The blanket you have in your bedroom isn't warm enough. The flat's heated, of course, but you've got a fucking window right over your bed and you're never warm enough in there (but you're always in your bedroom if you're in the flat, unless you're eating breakfast, so you're rarely in the flat enough except to sleep and dress and muck around with Daisy a bit).
You wake up and your trainers are first-rate but your socks have holes. Your room is cold, as previously mentioned, so you dress and shower quickly (and mum doesn't like it when you waste the hot water) and eat breakfast, sometimes, and bolt.
Eating is a thing that's done, so you do it (even though you're rarely ever really hungry, since your stomach hurts). Dean's there, most mornings. He likes eggs and toast and Nescafé and watching your mum move around the kitchenette. Sometimes he dandles Daisy on his knee while he eats, but he always hands her off to you or your mum if she gets fussy or tries to grab at his plate.
After breakfast, you kiss Daisy goodbye and leave. You tutor kids from the local college sometimes, or write papers for Ryan's cousin's friends who are at uni but lazy, or you fill in for guys at the pub if they call in sick too late to reschedule anyone. It's not much, and it's never enough (before Dean there was enough money to eat and clothe yourselves and eat out every once in a while at the pub with mum, and now there's more than that but it's never enough to get out to do something to be something) but it's better than nothing at all. You've seen them, blokes at the pub who work with Dean or others like him and who spend entire days doing nothing, and you know you'll probably end up like them one day, and the thought of it makes your stomach hurt even more, but what else is there to do.
(It's not a question. You already know the answer. You've always known the answer.)
You used to coach some kids at an after-school sports club for at-risk youth, and you liked it, but someone found out you'd been caught, once, in possession of drugs, and that was the end of it.
(You used to be in a club like that once. It's where the gymnastics coach found you and told you you had talent. Told you if you practiced hard every day and never let up the world could be yours. You were so good you won quite a few competitions and were captain of your team, and several papers mentioned you and one actually sent a reporter to interview you for an afternoon after practice. When it came out it called you a hardworking boy from the south side who could rise up above his peers [from what sort of muck you were rising, precisely, was never accurately defined, but several mentions of boys in caps and low-slung jeans and loud, garish shirts were made, and you knew how to fucking find a definition from context]. The article said you were one in a generation, made a mention of a father who would have been proud of a son who defined class expectations, a mother who left you to the care of your coach until late in the evening [through no fault of her own, of course, because better for a woman who had been so careless as to be left a widow with a young child try to make her way than live solely on the dole-although some virtuous women, of course, had found a way to manage odd jobs with child care and succeeded, but they were not all women, of course, and your mother was not to be faulted for finding herself lacking in ingenuity (when she was so tired when she got back home, sometimes, she fell asleep on the couch while she was in the middle of asking you about your day)]. The article said a lot of things without saying them explicitly-about single mothers and widows, council houses and drug addicts, cheap music and flashy trainers.
You didn't go to practice the day after it was printed, or the day after that, and eventually your coach stopped calling you and your teammates stopped talking to you and you stopped thinking about what it felt like to reach for the uneven bars and fly).
After you're done doing the things you're going to do, you usually head out with Ryan or Jamal. Sometimes you drink, sometimes you watch trashy t.v., sometimes you head over to Jamal's house and kick his little brother off the XBOX (you never head over to Ryan's house, because Ryan's father is a bastard. You understand about him, Ryan understands about Dean, and no one ever says nothing because-because, well. What are you going to do.)
(That's not a question either. Most things aren't. Not for people like you).
Usually you go back home to sleep, and usually you stay there for the night. Sometimes you're too lazy or too tired or too drunk to go home and sleep on the couch. Sometimes you get home and Dean's not happy to see you and you find somewhere else to sleep or you find somewhere warm to sit until morning and don't sleep at all. You're always tired but never exhausted; you sleep long hours but shallowly, always conscious of every noise around you and the knowledge that tomorrow will be another empty day of nothing that stretches out in front of you seemingly without end.
Sometimes you watch Daisy when Dean and Mum go out to the pub. Sometimes Dean's off making some money and you have dinner with Mum and Daisy, and it's nice. Sometimes things are different.
(Sometimes you'd come back from training and take your mum out for fish and chips and make fun of misguided tourists who couldn't find the right Tube stop. One time you came back from training and your mum said “I've met someone, love,” and then she said “I'm pregnant,” and you saw bruises on her lower arm. You didn't stay in training too long after that).
Most days, though, are similar enough they blend in one with the other, a litany of aching eyes and aching head and aching stomach and a short, tight feeling in your chest when you wonder what's going to become of Mum and Daisy for too long.
You don't ever wonder what's going to become of you. It might have been a question once, but now it never will be, so you don't bother pretending that it is.
Life just runs and runs and runs and never end, and one day-one day you wake up and you eat and you work a few hours as a valet at some posh club and you head home and change and you end up at the pub with Ryan and Jamal, and one of Dean's little friends has something else to say and today-
-today you think, today I'm going to do something so's I'll remember it different than tomorrow-
-and when he does his posturing, you nick his keys right out his pocket.
And ten minutes later you're cuffed in the back of a car, and you know you're fucked-know you've fucked it all-and your eyes still burn and your stomach still hurts-but it doesn't matter.
Because there was never any question it wouldn't end like this.