#and then went to Biarritz for the second week because come on Europe is tiny it's basically a puddle jump away

[faketrex]

FirstPrince, 12

Thank you, Chrissy! 💝 For prompt number 12, "the beach at ten on a Monday morning."

RWRB, canon divergence: different first meeting, set in April 2016 (nearly a year after Arthur's death but still before Rio, and well before the first Claremont Election Day).

...

If Henry had been thinking ahead, he might not have adopted a puppy immediately before fleeing the country for a week.

His Royal Highness Prince Henry will undertake a Spring Tour of French Basque Country. This will include visits to…, per Royal Communications.

Translated, Unfortunately, HRH Prince Henry would have gone irretrievably off his bloody rocker if he had spent one second more suffocating in Kensington Palace’s gray cloud of mourning. Therefore, he's going away to convalesce by the sea for a tick. Best of luck to him.

Hopefully, a week in Biarritz will set him to rights. He'll return freed of the temptation to smash vases and tea settings and any number of priceless stolen artifacts for the sole purpose of eliciting any reaction other than pity.

David the puppy may yet have a penchant for breaking things, but he's cute enough to get away with it. Henry had grown out of such a forgiving stage years earlier.

At ten a.m. on a chilly Monday morning in April, the Plage de la Côte des Basques is nearly empty. It's too cold to swim, in Henry's opinion. David doesn't care; he bounds across the sand where the waves crest and crash onto the beach, zig-zagging on his lead and getting soaked in the process. Although he's much too small to swim, he's adept at making himself thoroughly wet and sandy and sharing those conditions with Henry by shaking his tiny body to fling water over Henry's rolled-up trousers.

Watching David play, it's easy to almost forget how he'd woken Henry appallingly early after a near-sleepless night–Henry's, that is. Henry had lain awake until four in the morning, staring at the ceiling. All the while, David had slept peacefully in his dog bed, curled next to a plush toy. He had woken Henry at seven a.m. without the slightest hint of remorse.

Luckily, he's adorable.

When they return to Henry's spot on the sand, he sits and wraps David in a towel, settling him on his lap to keep him warm. Aside from the waves, the seagulls, and the chatter from surfers carrying their boards across the sand, the beach is quiet.

Henry feels muzzy with fatigue and his heart aches, still, as it has for the past eleven months, but it doesn't overwhelm him. For once, the ache is more sore than sharp.

"Hey, can I say hi to your puppy?"

The boy is standing several meters away, likely in deference to the dark-suited PPO lurking nearby. He's close enough for Henry to get a good look at him, though: dark curls hanging in dripping ringlets over his forehead, a black wetsuit bearing the stylized blue wave logo of one of the surf schools, a sharp square jawline. The grin on his face doesn't once falter while Henry looks him over.

Despite the persistent ache, Henry feels his heartbeat quicken. He might be several meters away, but that's nothing, really; he's not so far that Henry can't recognize the danger.

A boy like that could set him on fire.

David wriggles in his lap, grumbling, and the boy's smile widens.

Henry should turn him away.

"Yes," he says instead. "But you'd better have a seat so that I can hold his lead. He's a very good boy, but he's rather excited to be at the beach today."

"Cool," the boy says, dropping unceremoniously onto the sand within reach of Henry's blanket. "I'm Alex."

"Henry."

The moment of realization as Alex connects Henry's name to his face to, presumably, his status as a figurehead-in-training, is painfully obvious: Alex's expression melts from friendly interest, to surprise, to hesitance.

It was too much to hope that Alex wouldn't recognize him. His accent sounds American, but that's no matter. Even Americans aren't unaware of the unfortunate persistence of the British monarchy. There's no denying that Henry has a famous face; if the monarchy hadn't cursed him to that, being Arthur Fox's son would have sufficed. Still, he wouldn't give up being his father's son for any of it.

Henry sticks out his chin a little and doesn't look away. "I'm Henry," he repeats. "And… this is David."

Alex keeps staring at him, but slowly, oh-so slowly, one of his eyebrows creeps upward. "Henry and David, huh? Are you two planning a hostile takeover of the fruit basket industry?"

It's nothing like any reaction that Henry could have expected, no mention of the Queen or James Bond. There's no pity on Alex's face, either, just the hint of a sly smile accented by the sheen of drying seawater. "I–what?"

"It's–you know, like Harry and David?"

"I'm afraid I don't," Henry says, unwrapping David's towel and setting him down, dry and slightly fluffy, on the sand between them. "And I said Henry, not Harry."

"What a waste of a great joke," Alex complains, but his grin has fully returned–at David's antics, surely.

"You should consider yourself lucky to meet him now, in fact. David is going to grow up to be an international rock star."

"Oh, yeah?" Alex holds one hand still while David gives it a thorough sniff.

"Exactly right," Henry affirms. "In the footsteps of Bowie."

"David Beagle Bowie, huh? That's fucking cute."

A sea cure, really. Henry has always been an Austen fan, but the dream of convalescence had only been a dark joke. But perhaps–well, he can't help but wonder.

And Alex, for his part, seems in no hurry to leave.