The Pretender

Yes, I realized I messed some more ages up it was the only way to make something fit. Also I apologize for the delay in updating, real life decided it wanted a visit.

Chapter 8

"Wait, it's me!" Break said hastily, immediately regretting surprising an Auror. After all, he knew personally that they were an incredibly jumpy lot.

There was a very nasty moment when Break thought he should have ducked instead of talking, but Lunettes bit off his spell halfway through, dropping his wand to point at the floor. "Don't… don't do that!" he snapped, looking angry. "Don't ever do that again."

"You have good reflexes." Break said, his light tone somewhat ruined by the fact that his heart was hammering loud in his ears. "I had no idea. If I had I wouldn't have surprised you like that." His hand went to his chest, trying to get his heart to slow down by force of touch. This hadn't been a surprise he'd been anticipating.

Putting his wand away Liam snorted. "I would hope you wouldn't have. Now, get out of my closet."

At least it hadn't turned out to be Nightray's, Break reasoned as he did just that. "How is my timing?"

"Vince is gone." Liam replied. "We're in the clear." he glanced at the broken mug on the floor and the spilled tea. Evidently he decided to leave the cleanup for later because he gestured at Break to come with him into the next room. "I had enough time to set some things up."

Break followed him and was interested to see that Lunettes had set up a chair on a sheet that would presumably catch his hair as it fell. "Have you done this before?" he asked, settling into the chair as Liam indicated it was for him.

"A few times." Lunettes replied, his voice had that carefully casual tone about it that it got when Break started prying into things that Lunettes didn't want to go into detail about. "Don't worry, no one's lost an ear because of me yet."

He made of show of eyeing the scissors Lunettes was picking up. "I am so very comforted by that. Not that I like to bring this up, but those scissors. they aren't-"

"These aren't any of Vincent's." Liam was quick to tell him. "I keep a pair hidden."

Considering Nightray's well known liking for using the scissors he carried as a secondary weapon Break was quite glad of that. He glanced around that room, which seemed to be as immaculate as the bedroom he'd emerged from the closet in, even the attached kitchen looked quite neat. "This is a nice place."

Liam noted the direction of his looks. "Most of the time Vincent likes it neat."

That was when Break noticed how the curtains, at first glance completely normal, showed signs of having been cut with something sharp and then repaired again. Even with magic, the cloth still held the distinctive cut pattern.

He would have asked Lunettes about it, just to see what kind of reaction that got but Lunettes distracted him by choosing that moment to remove the tie from Break's hair and start running a brush through it.

"Ow." he said petulantly as the brush immediately caught a tangle. "Be careful with that."

"How on earth did you wash this without getting the tangles out?" Lunettes demanded. "I don't think I've even seen hair clean but this knotted."

He shrugged. "It seemed like too much effort to brush it out all the time. Do you really have to do that if -ouch!- you're going to cut it all off anyway?"

"Of course I do." Liam replied mildly. "Some of these knots are awfully deep. I'll get them and then get started."

Break grumbled under his breath, nothing distinct, just voicing his opinion on that.

Other than chuckling Lunettes made no reply to that so they passed the next few minutes in a rather companionable silence. The last person he'd let brush out his hair for him had been Tamara, which should have made this an awkward sensation, most things that reminded him of her were, but instead he could feel himself relaxing as the knots came undone.

It was only when Liam picked up the scissors that he felt a little nervous. "So… how many people's hair have you cut exactly?"

"A few." Liam was gathering all this hair into one hand and Break had to suppress the urge to crane his head around to see what he was doing.

"Like who?"

"Sharon's hair. A couple of times."

Break debated pushing, then decided it wouldn't hurt. "Sharon mentioned you and she come from the same area. Did you know each other growing up?"

Liam's hands stilled for a moment and Break thought he'd gone to far. Then Lunettes said, "We did." There was a snick of scissors as he sliced through the hair he held and Break could feel it slither to the floor. That was the end of his ponytail days apparently. "Her family is quite large and runs heavy on women. They tend to adopt strays whenever they find them."

"And your own family?"

"Was still alive." Lunettes replied easily. "I had older brothers." He said that as if it was supposed to explain why he was a stray. The scissors began working at the ends of his hair, as fingers pulled layers up to get to the ones underneath.

"So the ladies often called on you for haircutting?" Break asked, rather curious.

"If they wanted a trim or something simple. When I was little I had convinced myself I was going to become a hairdresser."

"Why didn't you do it?" Break felt the cold metal of the scissors brush the back of his ear and had to suppress a shiver. It only then occurred to him that pressing Lunettes while the man was standing behind him with a pair of scissors wasn't the cleverest of plans.

Except Liam simply trimmed a bit of hair by his ear and moved on. "Ah, well, my father had this idea that all male hairdressers, muggle or wizard had to be gay." He chuckled. "As if the occupation itself decided it. Anything but that for his youngest. He wanted grandchildren from all of us."

Break craned his head back to look Lunettes in the eye. "But it didn't really matter what job you took, eh? I mean you are what you are?" After all, he was with Nightray.

For a moment Liam looked startled, then the corners of his lips quirked up in a smile. "Yes, I suppose so."

His scissors worked in silence for a few minutes.

Then Break ventured, "About your family, when did they-"

"Let's talk about something else." Lunettes said abruptly. There was something in his voice, something forcibly calm. "Why don't we talk about your former partner. Tamara, wasn't it?"

He winced, glad Lunettes couldn't see his face, but he got the point that the other man was making. Just as painful to talk about, eh? Well, he'd up his ante then. "Sure. What do you want to know about her?"

The pause in the snipping the of the scissors was notable, but Liam recovered quickly. "Ah, um, what was she like?"

"Cheerful." he shrugged carefully, not wanting to making those scissors go somewhere they weren't supposed to. "Enthusiastic. Sometimes you wouldn't know we were fighting a war to listen to her. She was muggle born, you see, and thought everything about the wizarding world was a marvel. She was still young, too damn young to… well, you know."

"Wasn't she married?" there was something of a frown in his voice, as if he was mentally going through his notes on said women.

"Yes, when I first started working with her her last name was Sinclair. It took a while to get used to Tamara."

"Emily Sinclair… that's pretty."

Break sighed. "Yes. Yes it is… I mean… was."

"I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"I feel bad for bringing up something painful for you."

"I never said it was a painful subject." Break said.

"You were close, Tamara and you. So I assumed…" Lunettes trailed off.

"I do miss her." Break closed his eyes against the memory of blood and agony as his eye gave a phantom spike of pain. His voice turned quiet. "Quite often."

A few snips of the scissor later Liam said again, "I'm sorry."

"You know, that isn't something I want someone cutting my hair to be repeating."

His light tone gained a chuckle from Liam. "Good thing I've finished up, now isn't it?" He combed his fingers through Break's hair, patting some errant strands back into place. "Do you want to see?"

He nodded rather eagerly and Lunettes set down his scissors, drew his wand, and gave it a flick. A mirror floated in from another room, probably the bathroom and settled on the table in front of him. Break was inspecting the cut before the mirror even stopped moving, hand going up to touch his newly short hair. It didn't even touch his shoulders now, though the front bangs were still quite long. With the way Lunettes had combed it the strands fell thickly over his missing eye, almost completely concealing it but leaving his other eye uncovered.

Honestly he hadn't expected to like the results as much as he did, but that wouldn't keep him needling Lunettes just a little. "Now look at this. Here I had worried you were rusty." he tugged on one of the ends of his hair. "So much for my ponytail."

"Well, I thought you might like it like that over your eye, I mean, you were saying just the other day that you didn't want to wear an eyepatch."

Break turned to aim a smile up at Lunettes. "No, I like this. I do. Thank you."

For a moment Liam looked startled, as if he wasn't expecting thanks, then he returned the smile with one of his own. "It's a good thing you like it. The only spell I know to grow hair is a little heavy handed. It would give you hair down to your knees before I could stop it."

He gave his hair one last pat before turning away from the mirror. "Is there time to make tea before your partner returns? I have cake." That was something he often had a flick of a wand away.

Lunettes' smile this time was almost fond. "Of course you do. Come on, there's plenty of time."

The talk over tea had been mostly inane chatter, which Break hadn't minded. After getting Lunettes to talk so frankly about his family Break hadn't expected anymore nuggets of knowledge to come his way and didn't want to push for more. He did, however, note that Lunettes touched the earring he bet held a poison detection spell before he take the cake the Break had produced but not before he drank the tea. Sensible since Liam had made the tea himself and it hadn't passed from his sight sense then but just a little… sloppy.

Now Break was heading back to his home, the cake long devoured and the tea long drunk. It was just before midnight and he was keeping a careful eye out for Nightray, not wanting to be seen leaving the flat. That would defeat the purpose of his discretion. He could have just Apparated away, but he was feeling a little tired and didn't want to risk appearing somewhere he hadn't meant to.

It was a good thing he was watching out, he was able to duck into an alley when he caught a glimpse of Nightray headed his way, a young women at his side.

There was something strangely blank about her blue eyes as she looked up at Nightray.

"Yes, well, it wouldn't be long now." Nightray was saying to her. "Remember to keep carrying these little messages for me."

"Echo will remember." the young women replied, her voice blank of any infection. Break had heard that sort of speaking before, it was characteristic of someone being controlled by the Imperius Curse. And of someone who was resisting its hold, their fighting causing little flaws in its control.

She turned and started back down the road; Break only caught this because he was peering around the corner into the street. Nightray watched her go, his hand lowering to touch the scissor kept at his side, rather like he was thinking about using them sometime soon.

Quickly Break pulled himself back into the alley, hiding the shadows again as Nightray passed by. Had this Echo joined Nightray on his visit to his brother? Or had she joined Nightray later to pass on some message?

And, who, exactly, was she?

This was certainly another puzzle to consider.

He needed to do some more snooping.

Alone in the flat Liam dried the last dish, setting it back on the self, erasing the last trace of Xerxes Break's presence. The mirror had been replaced in the bathroom, the clipped hair thrown away, the crumbs wiped up. There would be nothing to give him away.

He had this under control. He could do this.

But the flat was very quiet, very large and very empty with a certain vibrant Auror gone. Liam forced his hands to relax and set down the drying cloth. His shoulders straightened and he drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. For two years he'd done this, he could do it a little longer.

Even if the memory of cake and tea and laughter haunted the edges of his mind for the rest of the night as Vincent returned, out of sorts.

The need you buried deep

The secrets that you keep are ever ready

Are you ready?

(The Pretender)

TBC