43 - Captain
It was just after closing time and Harry had barely begun his cleaning up when the door to his bakery opened in spite of the 'closed' sign. He looked up to see Sean Renard enter and take his customary seat with the type of effortless dignity that seemed to always surround this man.
The captain had never once come by during Harry's actual opening hours, and the baker had never once complained about the presumption.
To be honest, he didn't particularly mind.
Harry stopped wiping the tables down and went to wash his hands. "Coffee?" he then offered politely.
"Please," came the simple reply.
The baker went through the familiar motions of preparing a simple cup of dark roast, as well as a cup of tea for himself. He added several leftover pastries to his tray as well and brought it over when he joined the other man at his table.
"What brings you here today, captain?"
Harry had settled on calling the man that at some point, because solely using his last name somehow sounded agonistic in a way that it never did for Monroe, who was only ever Monroe.
And using the man's first name without explicit permission was far too familiar for this proud man, who was still so much a mystery to Harry even now.
That left a different form of address, and Prince was too heavy – weighted down by the secrets they both kept, for and from each other. It would be a concession on Harry's part, to address the man as such out loud, an implicit acknowledgement that the wizard fell under the Royal's rule.
He didn't – he wasn't one of this man's subjects, though what Harry could be, what he considered himself to be, was an ally. That defined their relationship best, not a friendship like what had formed so naturally with Monroe, with Nick, with Rosalee and even Hank, but closer to an alliance with a measure of trust. No assumption of unfettered aid, only the expectation of an unspecified extent of loyalty and respect.
Or at least, that's what Harry figured. So he addressed the man as captain and while it was perhaps a bit impersonal, it seemed to be working well enough.
Dark eyes assessed Harry for a moment before the man took a slow, measured sip of his coffee. "Merely curious," Captain Renard answered, "I haven't seen you back at the station and have heard no rumours of anything else occurring. Has the situation been resolved?"
"You mean the bloody message?" Harry repeated, blinking at the unexpected topic. "Erm, well, nothing else has happened…"
Which meant Harry had shrugged the whole thing off as either a prank or a fearful Wesen lashing out against a supposed Grimm. Tracking the perpetrator down or coming after them would only escalate the whole thing, so it was probably better to just let it be. It had just been a bit of petty vandalism after all.
He personally thought that this was very mature of him, actually, so there was no reason for the police captain to give him that look.
The wizard studiously turned his attention away from Sean Renard and to one of the pastries he'd brought out, taking a few bites of a lemon tart.
The other man sighed. "You will inform me should anything else occur. Be it a threat, vandalism or suspicious characters hanging around."
"Does that include you?" Harry shot back before abruptly remembering that this wasn't one of his friends, who he could banter with. "Erm…" he looked up and shot the man a sheepish smile.
The captain just shook his head and drew one of the plates of pastries towards himself, taking slow, deliberate bites. "It's good," the man idly complimented.
"Thanks," Harry answered.
They quietly finished their drinks, the silence oddly peaceful between them.
"You will let me know if something occurs?" the police captain checked, oddly insistent about something that was so very trivial that the whole thing was rather baffling to the wizard.
That might be the reason that Harry folded like a captured snitch.
"Alright," he agreed. "I'm sure it was nothing, but if something does happen… I promise I'll let you know, captain."
"Good," the man stated with a nod, before rising to his feet. Apparently that was all the man had come to do - to check up on him. Huh.
"And Harry," the captain said, pausing in his graceful exit to meet his eyes, "do call me Sean."
(Word count: 750)
AN: Is this an alliance, is this friendship? Are they flirting? Harry sure doesn't know (I don't either). But hey, that's life, right? Or maybe that's just me.
In other not-quite-news, I have a not-so-active tumblr and I think I might post some of my smaller drabbles that are not really a full-fledged story or finished enough for regular posting every now and then (not especially applicable for this story, though).
This comes with the note that I'm not the most active on tumblr, so if you have a question and want a reply anytime this month, your best bet is leaving a comment on AO3 (or to tell me to look at my tumblr). Yes, I am that bad at social media.