The Pretender

Break needs a hobby in the worst way.

Chapter 3

There was cheery morning light steaming through the magically placed windows in the infirmary and Liam Lunettes was sitting on his bed, cradling an aching head in the palms of his hand. It would, he fervently hoped, fade soon so he wouldn't be late to his morning shift.

"You're awake."

He looked up to see a blur that was vaguely recognizable as Sharon had entered. "I rather wish I wasn't." he told her honestly.

She thrust what turned out to be a steaming mug of tea at him, "Here, you look like you need this more than I do."

"No, there's coffee upstairs." Liam said, going to push himself to his feet. A wave of light-headedness and Sharon's firm had on his shoulder made him sit back down.

Sharon thrust the mug into his hands, "This is better for you than coffee. The morning shift doesn't start for fifteen minutes so don't try to drink it too quickly or you're going to add a burned mouth to your list of healing injuries."

With a wince Liam thought back to the last time he had been awake, "Did I actually drink that much Skella-grow?"

"Unfortunately, yes. Let me see your arm, the one that was broken."

He shifted the mug to his other hand and extended his free arm out to her. "This was the only thing I actually broke, right?"

"Yes, but you cracked plenty of other bones to make up for it." she replied, carefully feeling his arm around where the break had been. "You, um, cut your hand open too."

"That I remember." He sipped cautiously at the tea; it proved to be black and quite strong.

"There might be a problem." She let his arm go and glanced at his other hand.

His first instinct was to follow his gaze, but he knew from looking that his palm only showed a scar. After a second he realized what she was actually talking about and frowned at her, "Why?"

"There's another Auror, he was the one that found you. He came to see you last night. And…" This close Liam could see her eyes flick guiltily to the side. "I told him you were my tutor at Hogwarts."

"Sharon-"

"I know!" She cut him off, "I'm sorry, I was flustered and it just, kind of, slipped out. He was really suspicious about your fall; I think he put together how you got that cut on your hand."

Almost imperceptibly Liam's eyes narrowed, "What's the name of this Auror?"

"Xerxes Break. He's that one that just lost his eye, you remember?"

"Him?" Liam looked up briefly as he did a search of the mental rolodex and sighed when he found the right 'card'. "Him." he repeated, his voice distinctly irritated. "He never does his paperwork right. You told him how I tutored you?"

She nodded. "That's all though, I swear."

After a moment's thought Liam seemed to come to a conclusion. "I don't think it will be a problem but you should be careful if you talk to him again."

"I'm always careful!" Sharon protested. "This time was just… an accident. I know what's at stake," She reached out and gently touched the hand he had curled around the mug, the hand that had been sliced open, "I won't ruin this, I swear."

"I know you won't, I told you before, I trust you." He offered the mug back, "I should get to work, here, I won't have time to finish this."

"Take it up with you," she told him, "Just remember to give the mug back later."

With a nod of thanks he slid off the bed, paused a moment to make sure the light-headedness of before had really passed and left.

Break was perched on Lunettes' desk, thoughtfully licking a lollipop. He had not slept well, but he rarely did now that most of his nights insisted on repeating the pattern of him lying awake and feeling his empty eye socket ache. All the same, he had a mug of coffee in hand that promised to fix any lingering doziness and he had a mission to fulfill, which kept his mind nicely occupied.

He was waiting for Lunettes and the man was late. That was odd, Lunettes seemed the type who was punctual to a fault.

Only a few leisurely sips of coffee later Break caught sight of the man he was looking for, he was making his way slowly down an aisle between two row of cubicles. He had a mug in hand looked very much like had slept in the clothes he wore now, attesting to the fact that he must have spent the entire night in the infirmary.

"Someone looks like they had an interesting night." he remarked to him when the other man drew level.

Lunettes frowned at him for a moment, then reached around him to flip a drawer of his desk open. From the drawer he drew a glasses case which he opened. Once the new glasses were on his nose he looked again at Break and apparently recognized him. "Oh. You."

"'Oh, me'?" Break echoed, raising an eyebrow, "You don't have to sound so very excited to see me."

"Wait a moment," Lunettes replied, shuffling through the papers on his desk. He located a stack and thrust it at Break. "This is the half of your report I've looked over. I meant to get to the rest but… something came up."

"I know," Break said, he stuck his lollipop into his coffee free a hand and took the stack, "I was there."

"Yes, Sharon mentioned something about that. I suppose I have you to thank for anyone finding me at all." he set a mug of what appeared to be tea on his desk and took his seat.

"Speaking of that incident," Break reached into a pocket of his robe, "I found these on the stairs last night, I suppose they'd be yours."

"Oh, that's what happened to them." Lunettes took the offered glasses and sighed when he saw that one of the lenses had broken. "I swear, these things," he drew his wand, tapping the glasses as he murmured, "Reparo." Then he switched the newly mended glasses with the old ones, setting the old ones in his desk.

"Your eyes are that bad?" Break asked curiously, he set the stack of papers in his lap so he could fish his lollipop out of his coffee.

Lunettes made a face when he saw him pop the candy into his mouth. "That's disgusting. And, yes, they are."

"It tastes quite good. Your eyes really change that much between one pair and another?" He was actually interested, nearsightedness was not all that common in a world of magical healing, it was only in the case of negligence or accident that anyone ever ended up dependent on glasses. Snagging the glasses Lunettes had set on the desk Break held them up over his eyes. "My, my, someone's awfully short-sighted, aren't they?"

Leaning over Lunettes gently tugged the glasses out of his hands. "They could be worse." he replied as he folded the glasses and put them back in their case. "These two pairs are only a little different, I wouldn't really care which I was wearing but my eyes can tell the difference. The older ones give me the worst headache."

Break crunched the end off of his lollipop thoughtfully. "That must be rather a pain."

"Yes," Lunettes replied absentmindedly, he was already sorting through a stack of scrolls of his desk. "It is. Was there anything else you wanted? I'll have the rest of your report back to you soon."

"It isn't important, take your time," Break said. As long as that report remained unsubmitted he had an excuse to keep coming into the office.

He never before he really thought about it but just about ever important document in the office came across Lunettes' desk at some point. Because the official format was a pain and mistakes caused a huge administrative snarl the Aurors opted to have their work checked over by the office elected proofreader -which was Lunettes, these days- and have it returned with neat red corrections. This seemed nice and sensible on paper but seeing the piles of work on Lunettes made Break feel vaguely guilty.

Especially since he knew he was a major contributer to those piles.

He flipped through the report in his lap, wincing at the amount of red ink he saw and not just because those were all things he would have to correct. It was undeniable that a certain someone had spent some time correcting this haphazardly written report; Break hadn't felt bad when he'd slapped it together, but he did now.

"Liam, there's- oh, you have a guest." Nightray stood in the opening of the cubicle, his bicolored eyes regarding Break with interest.

"Who…" Lunettes looked up from his paperwork and seemed to notice for the first time that Break was still sitting on his desk. "Oh, he's-" he gave a slightly panicky look from Break to Nightray, "He's just leaving, Vince."

"That's right," Break slid off the desk and waved the papers in Nightray's direction. "I was only getting these. And…" he didn't turn to look at Lunettes but kept his eyes on Nightray's face, "I wanted to see how Lunettes was after that nasty fall."

There was flicker in Nightray's eyes of something -annoyance perhaps?- and then he smiled pleasantly. "How nice of you. Yes, Liam, I would like to know too, how are you feeling?"

They both looked to Lunettes, who colored visibly under the double attention. "I'm fine." he said quickly.

"That's good," Nightray said, "Especially because I just passed Barma and he told me he wants to see you."

"Of course," Lunettes reached out to pick up a rather thick stack of paperwork.

"You've been spending a lot of time working with Barma lately," Nightray remarked. "Should I be jealous?"

Lunettes colored slightly more, saying," N-no, certainly not. He's got quite the backlog of work, you see, and he needs my help to make any headway. I… I had better go help him." He took another few scrolls in hand before leaving.

As Nightray drifted back to his own desk he gave Break a distinctly dirty look over his shoulder and Break had to work to suppress a grin. Nightray was oddly territorial of a man who he had no problem pushing down a flight of stairs and leaving to bleed.

Those were thoughts to store away and ponder carefully later.

In the meantime he went back to his desk to look over the part of the report Lunettes had given him. Just the sight of all that red was enough to make him sigh. He found a blank scroll and took out his wand, as much as he hated redoing these things he would have to start on this in case one of the superiors came around to get on his case for being in office on his medical leave and not even working.

Tapping the revised paper with his wand he picked up a quill and gave it too a tap before setting it on the blank scroll. Immediately the quill began copying out the words from the original papers. When it came to the first edit the quill stopped and waited for him to check and gave it a confirmatory tap before it went on.

And then he raised his eyes from his work and saw Tamara everywhere. Up to this point he'd done a very good job of ignoring all the pictures he had pinned up, but when he looked up he could have sworn the Tamara in each of them was staring at him. Accusing. Dark eyes saying, "Why didn't you save me, Xerxes Break? Why did you leave me to die?" He stood up, so abruptly that his chair fell backwards, and scooped up his paperwork.

Oscar was on the afternoon shift and wouldn't be in for a bit, so Break settled down to do his paperwork at his desk instead. There he was safe from accusing eyes. He propped up his head on his hand and watched his quill industriously scribble back and forth.

When Oscar came in some time later (early for his shift) he rolled his eyes to find Break set up at his desk. "What're you doing here?"

Propping up his feet on Oscar's desk Break gave him a grin. "Nothing at all, as usual."

"If that's the case then I need you to scoot." Oscar waved a hand at him. "I've got a lot of paperwork to wade through before shift starts."

"Ah, I see how it is," Break sighed in mock resignation, gathering his papers into his arms. "I'll just clear out then."

"You're not supposed to be here at all, Break. Don't you have medical leave until the higher ups decide whether you're up for work again?"

He shrugged. "I suppose I do."

"Then why are you here?" Oscar asked. When he got no answer he turned to look at Break, only to find that he was gone. He rolled eyes. "Why do you always have to do that?"

An hour later Lunettes came back to his desk to find Break set up there, licking a lollipop thoughtfully and watching his quill whizz back and forth over parchment, happily rewriting. He regarded him for a moment, as if mentally weighing him up and debating something then dumped his armful of scrolls onto his desk.

"What have you been up to?" Break asked wickedly.

"None of your business Xerxes Break." Lunettes snapped. He glanced sideways at Break, opened a desk drawer, and hastily stuffed some of the scrolls out of sight.

"You've been helping Barma this entire time? What could he possibly be up to?"

"He's very far behind in his paperwork," Lunettes said. "It took a while to straighten out."

"Why do you have to help him with it? Don't you have rather a bit of work yourself," he nodded toward the many stacks of paper on his desk. "Isn't there someone else Barma could get?"

Lunettes paused, blinking. "I suppose I never thought about it like that." then he shook his head. "But it doesn't really matter, since Barma is never going to be able to dig himself out without help and he prefers mine."

Leaving over his parchment Break read the edit the quill had paused for him to look over and tapped the quill with his wand to authorize it. Because he was looking down he didn't notice the new arrival and looked up quickly at the sound of his voice.

"Oh, will you look at this."

While Break looked up quickly to see that Nightray was leaning against the cubicle wall, Lunettes did the opposite, looking down as his fingers clenched on the papers he held until he creased them.

A smile crossing his lips that (for some reason he couldn't put his finger on) made the little hairs on the back of Break's neck Nightray came forward. "I don't think I've ever seen you so sociable, Xerxes Break. Are you feeling particularly chartable today?"

"Just particularly lonely." he replied blithely.

"Ah, yes, your partner died, didn't she?" Nightray asked.

The look Lunettes shot Nightray was startled, but he didn't protest his own partner's bluntness.

"She did." Break said flatly. "You know, you should take care of your partner, they're easier to loose than you'd think."

Nightray reached out and put an arm around Lunettes shoulders. A possessive arm. "Oh, I take very good care of mine." he said.

Break did not miss the way Lunettes flinched when Nightray touched him, shying away from the arm on his shoulders.

"Just keep him away from stairs in the future, eh?"

"Of course." Nightray's smile edged on the sinister. "Now, Liam," he turned that smile on Lunettes, who shrunk back from it a little, "The shift's over, we should leave."

"I-" Lunettes' eyes flickered to Break, then back to Nightray. "Just let me get my cloak."

Removing his arm Nightray said, "Sure."

Break raised a mental eyebrow. Had that been pleading in Lunettes' look? Or was he just imagining things?

Perhaps he was.

Lunettes settled his cloak around his shoulders and Nightray took possession on his hand. "Let's be off then."

"One moment," Lunettes said and turned to Break, "Don't make a mess of my desk."

"Wouldn't dream of it." Break replied.

Then Nightray all but dragged Lunettes away.

Break settled back in the chair, popping a candy into his mouth thoughtfully. Well, Lunettes hadn't told him to leave, had he, so he might as well finish. He leaned forward and authorized another edit.

An hour and a half later the rewrite was done and he got up. Then, almost as an afterthought, he tapped a desk drawer with his wand, filling it with brightly wrapped sweets.

Keep you in the dark

You know they all pretend

(The Pretender)

TBC