Title: long-lived
Fandom: Kingsman
Rating: T
Length: 869 words
Pairing: Eggsy/Merlin
Content notes: canonical character death, consent issues due to identity issues
Summary: Eggsy becomes Arthur and remembers a king he has and hasn't been.

Chester King dies gracelessly, choking on the poison inside him. Eggsy's hands are still. He's shaken but not shaking, because if there's anyone who doesn't need mourning, it's the asshole who just tried to kill him. Still, it's the second death in a period of an hour for Kingsman, and despite not being entirely taken with the organization, Eggsy's tired of it all.

He'd rather be with Harry. No truer words.

Eggsy feels for Arthur's pulse, just to make sure the bastard won't be coming after him, and is satisfied by its absence. But as he pulls away, a ring falls from Arthur's hand, rolling to a stop next to Eggsy's hand. He stares at it curiously. There's no rhyme or reason to its appearance; Eggsy's not unobservant, and there had been nothing on Arthur's finger.

He's not dumb, either, but he still picks it up despite knowing all the tricks built into Kingsman items. It's curious, this strange, old, slightly lopsidedly made ring.

Later, he won't be able to describe the urge that takes over him to slide it onto his finger.

Things go dark after that.

When Eggsy awakens a half hour later, he's not the same person who closed his eyes. He's still himself, still Eggsy, but there are years and lives he didn't live inside his head. Most of the memories lack the same emotion of his own, but they're still overwhelming as they try to rattle into place. For what feels like another eternity to match the rest in his head, Eggsy sits still at the table.

And then he takes Arthur's glasses from the dead man's body, punches in the eyeprint override code with a flick of his gaze, and contacts Merlin. Merlin, who's only been his hot instructor with a nice voice. Merlin, who's been the bane of Chester King's existence. Merlin, who features in so many of the lives Eggsy remembers, and especially the very first.

"We have a problem," Eggsy says, his voice not coming out like it should. He finds the upperclass accent he's been using for kicks coming too easily to him, too naturally.

Arthur comes too easily to him, the name now a second skin.

"Ar—" Merlin stops. "Eggsy? What's going on?"

Eggsy lets his gaze and his glasses' recording feature rest on Arthur, then on the ring on his finger. Despite the unshakable certainty that Merlin will never blame him, Eggsy sends him the footage of Arthur's last couple minutes of life.

"Ah," Merlin says. For a very long moment, he adds nothing. "Welcome to Kingsman, Arthur."

Eggsy's heart beats too loudly.

"I'm sorry," he tells Merlin.

"That's always the first thing you say," Merlin replies, a little fondly, a little sadly. "Join me and Roxy in the control room. We have work to do."

.

Merlin looks... worn.

Eggsy almost doesn't notice how suddenly he cares. This feeling, it's down to his bones, to his very makeup. With the ring's effects, Merlin's so easily slotted into his heart, right beside his family, but in a very different way.

It's not something that's going to change, Eggsy thinks.

.

Later, when the most pressing world-ending problem is dealt with, Harry finds a sitting room in the headquarters and leaves the video feed of his glasses on. Merlin joins him, bringing a scotch Eggsy's pretty sure he loves, even if he's never had it.

"I was your king," Eggsy says, staring at a face that has haunted him through centuries of memories. "Or, the person in the ring, I guess."

"He wanted to stay with me," Merlin replies. "And this was the only way how. I've never been able to recreate my immortality—it's simply how I've always been—and this form was all that was available to him. We both thought that perhaps it would be a full transition, but... You're still you, Eggsy. This ring doesn't have to spell your fate. You can leave Kingsman; many Arthurs have."

Leave me, is unspoken.

Eggsy looks at this man who once battled a dragon for him and almost laughs.

Fuck, he's not King Arthur. He's never going to be him. But he's been doing just fine as Eggsy Unwin, and the world doesn't know what's coming.

"Not with the planet still this fucked up," Eggsy promises. "And while you're here." At Merlin's startled expression, Eggsy says, "I don't know you. I remember you—as Arthur's best friend, as the second one's rival, as the third's lover, the fourth's secret—and it's all crazy in my head. There's a hundred versions of you—Chester's is particularly awful, can't see why since you're fucking amazing compared to him—well to anyone—but you've just been my teacher in this life. You don't know me, either. I need time."

"You'll have it," Merlin says, and Eggsy feels the words between them: You'll have me.

Nothing's ever been forever in Eggsy's life, but it looks like Merlin's going to be so very close to it.

One day, he's going to look at Merlin the same way Merlin looks at him, find a place between devotion and eternity. Today, Eggsy only clasps Merlin's hand and feels his life slot into place.