It's a curious thing, holding one's temper.

Eggsy was extremely good at holding his temper.

There were a number of reasons for this.

First and foremost, Eggsy was generally an easy going sort of guy. It took quite a bit to rile him up enough to react, and so long as people did general good by him, he wasn't generally disposed to wanting to overreact when they fucked up every once in a while.

Because the thing is, everyone fucks up every once in a while.

Take Eggsy's Mum. She tried to do her best by him, most of the time. She told him off when he got into trouble, she patched him up when he got hurt, and more than anything, ever since his Dad had been killed in action involved with some shady organisation (he'd been 6, not deaf, when that man in the fancy suit had showed up to tell them Dad was dead and give him that get out of gaol free card medal, and you don't just forget that sort of thing, even when you're only 6,) she was the one person in this world who told him that she loved him.

Because of that, there was a lot he could forgive her.

Even getting involved with Dean.

Who, to be fair, even though he was an epic level cunt, had not always shown himself to be so. Before his Mum had married him, Dean had played the part of being the strong, tough man to aspire to being. He'd given Eggsy tips about boxing, and clapped him on the shoulder and told him 'well done' the first time Eggsy had used that to punch out a kid who had been set to pick on one of his mates. Sure, he made Eggsy quit gymnastics, but at the time, Eggsy had been kinda suspicious of the coach anyhow. (The Olympics? Yeah fucking right. Eggsy knew how the world worked, and Billy Elliot might be based on a true story, but Eggsy knew better than to believe in fairytales.)

Then Dean gave Eggsy some pills to deliver to a mate of his, Eggsy got caught when the cops did a raid and he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong fucking time, and Eggsy had never listened to a fucking word the asshole had to say ever again. Because Eggsy might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer when he wanted to trust someone- after all, he'd ignored his instincts when Dean had asked him for this favour, and he knew his instincts were usually good- but once someone had lost his loyalty, he never bothered with them again.

Unfortunately, at that point he still lived with his mother, and she was then pregnant with Daisy. So there he was, just out of highschool (he'd actually done pretty well, all things considered, and maybe with a scholarship he might have made it to uni, but what the fuck was the point for even applying when he knew that would mean leaving his Mum and his soon-to-be-born baby sis living with the fucker who got him a record?) and with a shiny new criminal record. No one would hire him (weren't like there were a bunch of jobs going to start with) and the one time he did get a job, Dean, (who had taken a distinct dislike to Eggsy ever since Eggsy told him straight up he had no interest in becoming more of a criminal,) had sent his bully boys over to fuck shit up, until the shop owner had told Eggsy that no hard feelings, but he couldn't run a business like this.

In another universe, Eggsy's temper would have held another two and a half weeks, until Dean made a comment about him and his dog-faced second in command having a go at his Mum.

In this universe however, Daisy caught a cold, and kept Eggsy awake with her coughing and sniffling and crying.

Eggsy loved his baby sister, but there's nothing like lack of sleep to lower the filters and general tolerance for bullshit.

So in this universe, when Rottweiler made a comment about Eggsy's mate Jamal, instead of Eggsy letting it slide like Jamal had asked, this time…

This time Eggsy lifted Rottweiler's keys and went joyriding.

(After all, the combination of Rottweiler and the rest of Dean's gang giving him and those he counted close shit, the bright yellow souped up Subaru Impreza and Eggsy's hard-won driving skills – street racing might be as dangerous and illegal as fuck, but there was good cash in it, and it wasn't like adding a little to his criminal record would hurt his already shit employability, and so Eggsy had been able to put away a small sum for emergencies before he'd had one close call too many with the cops and decided to quit until the heat was off – were always going to be like the combination of match, petrol tank and raging pyromaniac.)

In this universe, it took more than a block before Eggsy ran into a cop, but the result was about the same. In this universe though, it wasn't a fox that made Eggsy stop and get cornered, but rather a sleep-deprived mum taking her bub out on a stroll in the pram and not quite looking both ways as she crossed the street.

Eggsy's mates were a little quicker to get out of the car in this universe, but otherwise, the result was about the same— Eggsy made the sacrifice play, just like his Dad had always shown him when he was teaching him chess back in the day.

(Eggsy had never had to be told that he was a pawn. He looked around with open eyes, and he saw how little control he would ever have over his life, and how little people would ever give a shit.)

To their credit, the coppers were begrudgingly impressed that Eggsy had allowed himself to get caught rather than hitting the pram. (Though that probably said a lot about the calibre of criminal they were used to dealing with).

On the other hand, they weren't about to just let Eggsy walk after that, so naturally, he still found himself locked up at the police station.

And so it happened that in this universe, a full two and a half weeks previously than the other one, when Eggsy made the call from the interview room to Kingsman, (off a mobile phone he'd lifted from one of the detectives, because the thing was, he was in the UK, and the UK have a different set of rules than the US with their whole "right to a phonecall" business,) Harry Hart was not looking for a Lancelot candidate.

And that made all the difference.

...

A/N: Because clearly what I need is another plotbunny in the Kingsman fandom. Clearly. O.o