Hare and Hatter
Welcome to part two, thanks for following! Last chapter went six years into the ten year jump but here we're going backwards and then forwards in time. How's that for a headache? Also, here's the manga scene where, as best as I recall, Liam is introduced.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed, it's great to know what all of you think of how things are going!
Part Two
Chapter Eleven
The ten years since the young Vessalius heir vanished into the Abyss passed rather quickly for Liam, and there were full of startling events; Lady Sharon was promoted to full field agent, another assassination attempt on Duke Barma's life (the third of five that would happen that year until they found to rebels and put an end to them), Lady Cheryl fell ill and now could only get about in a wheelchair, no sign was seen of the Vessalius heir, the Nightray household took in another orphan child, the first child they had adopted, Vincent, made a contract with Yamane and joined Pandora at age fourteen, Gilbert, his older brother and the other child taken in by the Nightrays managed to tame Raven at eighteen and then left the family to join Pandora, under the sponsorship of Xerxes Break, the field case with the Baby took out most of the new recruits and Break himself was often away from the headquarters on business that Liam could not needle out from him.
Liam spent most of those years buried in paperwork and the day to day dealings of the organization. He did a bit of support fieldwork, but it wasn't something he enjoyed and it seemed as if the high members of Pandora preferred he not do it as he was not often assigned to it unless an emergency occurred.
On his thirty-first birthday Liam was invited to the Rainsworth household --something Lady Sharon had done every year ever since she found out that there was no on in the Barma house who would even knew the day to celebrate it-- and Break seemed to make an art of avoiding him.
Though any time spent in the Rainsworth house was pleasant, Liam soon grew irritated with seeing Break whisk out of sight around the corner, annoyed with Break fleeing a room as soon as he entered, and tired of Break being just out of sight every time he tried to find him.
Liam was not a man of infinite patience. He soon gave up trying to speak to Break and just enjoyed time spent in a mansion where there weren't illusions around every corner.
But Liam would have paid good money to know why Break, after so thoroughly engraining himself in Liam's life, was suddenly so determined to detach himself from it.
Liam had not let the way that Break avoided him avidly get to him. …mostly.
And when, after months of not seeing him, Break just causally crawled out from under the tablecloth in that creepy way of not using doors he had Liam immediately tensed.
Break seemed just as surprised to see him as Liam. He recovered quickly though, waving one ridiculously long sleeve at him in a greeting so bizarrely cheerful that Liam actually winced away from it's enthusiasm as, at the other end of the table, Lady Sharon watched Break with a rather sly smile on her face. She had become much more like Break in recent years, with her secretive ways and small, sly smile, the darkness that lurked behind Break's smile leaking into her and corrupting her into something like him.
Liam and Break bickered, they usually did that, but there was something else going on, something besides the news of Grim's escape. There was a darker undercurrent to the conversations, even though Break seemed to be doing everything in him power to distract Liam from it, teasing him, stealing his cake, sprawling over the table like a manic.
"Currently the search for Grim is continuing within Pandora." He said, trying gamely to ignore Break lying on the table in front of him.
"Maybe it's already in Leveille?" Break mused, and then laughed a laugh so sinister that Liam felt all the little hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Break reached up to take a lock of Lady Sharon's hair and pressed it to his lips, "Hey, Princess," he murmured to her, "I get the feeling that something is about to get interesting," His smile widened into something more like a self satisfied smirk which, after a moment, Lady Sharon shared.
For that moment they were contained together in a little bubble of shared knowledge as Liam sat nervously on the outside. Then, as if on cue, both dropped their smiles.
Lady Sharon went back to her tea and Break heaved himself off the table.
"Wait," Liam protested, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Never you mind." Lady Sharon said. "Crumb cake, Mister Liam?" she offered a plate.
He shook his head. "No, thank you. But, Break,"
Break, who had been making his way out of the room paused and glanced back over his shoulder, "Hmm?"
"I know you've done something and whoever you sent, you should probably warn them that Lord Vincent and his Echo were sent by Pandora. They wouldn't want to get in they way of those two."
For an instant Break might have winced at the thought, then the expression was hidden again behind a wide grin. But Liam had seen and noted the wince. What he had just said had thrown a potential wrench into Break's plans.
If only he could figure out what those were.
Of course, Lady Sharon was delightfully evasive on the subject for the rest of the visit and Liam went back to Pandora very irritated with the both of them.
Not too much later Break left paperwork on his desk --surprising in and of itself, since Break avoided doing paperwork whenever he could-- stating that Grim had been dispatched by Vincent and Echo, with the assistance of that Raven fellow that rather unsettled Liam with the way he followed Break around. Why Raven would have been in Leveille in the first place was something of a mystery, since Liam was fairly sure he would have known if he had been dispatched to the field.
He didn't much like Raven. It was something about the way Break had a habit of making him not appear in paperwork, even when he was there, that Liam didn't like. And there was something in the edge of despair in the man's gold eyes that was most definitely off putting.
But his brother… well, it was hard to know what to make of a man one found lying in the hallway dead asleep, with their servant arriving soon after to drag them off to their chambers on a disturbingly regular basis. Lord Vincent might have been a powerful contractor, but, like Break, it was hard to take the man seriously.
Well, until you saw his eyes and that sly way he smiled.
"What the hell are the young Lady and that Hatter madman up to?"
"We don't know."
"We should, they are supposed to work for us."
"When I asked Lady Sharon she told me…"
"What?"
"Some ridiculousness about a private project,"
"Did you try to press for details?"
"I tried. She is very good at evading. I think Raven has something to do with it."
"Raven too? We really do no know anything, do we?"
"Ah, what a mess,"
"Indeed."
"What a mess."
TBC