10 - Blood
There was blood on his shirt.
Blood on his arms and face too, and in his hair and mouth – but that was his own blood and didn't bother him even nearly as much as the blood on his previously blue shirt.
Even if it hadn't been Harry who had killed the Mauvais Dentes in the end. Harry had still made his choice – had refused to take the risk that the beast-man would come back and hurt those he considered his friends.
Not with Nick on the floor, unconscious. With Rosalee running from the bakery to get some help at Monroe's urging.
With Monroe hurt and scared and desperately trying to get the Detective to wake up.
His promise had echoed loudly in his ears and he couldn't break it. Not for his life.
So he had stood before the Mauvais Dentes and didn't even try to expel the Wesen from his shop with magic. No, he wouldn't risk this man coming after his friends later, without Harry there to help them, and finish what it started.
But with Monroe's fearful eyes darting between him and the beast, with Nick softly groaning as he regained consciousness Harry couldn't, wouldn't call on his magic in any obvious way.
Not unless he had no other choice.
Because some things scared him far more than this creature in front of him. And revealing to any of them what sort of freak he really was - that was one of them. No, he didn't want to go there. Not with his life here still so painfully fragile.
He didn't think he could deal with the change it would bring between them.
So he trusted his wards, even if the wards on his bakery were not nearly as tightly woven as those on his apartment - couldn't be, because it wouldn't do for a customer (even if they were the sort of hate-filled, blood-stained person stopped by his wards) to be unable to enter. Still, he trusted that he, as the ward-maker would not meet his death to the one who entered his territory to do harm to him and his own – those under his protection.
And he trusted himself, because Harry knew more than just magic – had fought in a war since he was eleven, even if he hadn't fully realised he was fighting back then. And he had known violence and pain even before that, at the hands of Dudley and his gang.
He did not fear either pain or death. Nor did he long for them.
And that made him a difficult opponent to fight.
But his friends were hurt and he had made a promise and he would bloody well keep it.
And that made him more than just a difficult opponent. No, that made him fierce, determined and willing to break every unspoken rule he imposed on himself, because if it came down to it he would not lose.
In the end, it hadn't quite gotten that far and his rules remained unbroken.
Blood on his face and legs, bruises on his arms and hips. Scratches and bite-marks but Harry had left his own marks on the one who dared hurt those he cared for; a broken leg, a large bruise on the face, the deep slashes of a bread-knife. But none of that really mattered in the end.
Because it was the bullet-wound that had killed the Mauvais Dentes.
The Grimm.
And Harry was ridiculously grateful to the detective for that - that in this world he was not yet a killer.
Even if there was blood on his shirt.
(Word Count: 600)
