(A/N): Long ass chapter, woo! This is the longest chapter by almost double, and while it has a lot of Lisbet explaining things that have happened throughout the story to Jerremyah, there's also quite a bit of... not that. It's one of my favorite chapters, because it's the first chapter of true Lismyah/Jerrebet (let me know if you guys have a preference for their ship name, because I really can't choose).
Also, if you're going to review my story with discrepancies, please have your private messaging open, so I can reply to you privately. If your private messaging isn't open, and I feel the need to reply to you, I WILL reply to you publicly, in a chapter (usually the next one after you reviewed, if it's an old chapter).
Lisbet
Leo had been hesitant to leave me alone with Jerremyah. Not reluctant, not once I had convinced him it was truly what I wanted- not that I particularly wanted to have the conversation we were about to, but it was disinclined to be put off any longer- but I think he was concerned that Jerremyah might jump me the second we were truly alone. It wasn't something he needed to worry about; Jerremyah had never been the one to do the 'jumping' in our relationship, he was much more predisposed to incite me to do so instead- which unfortunately I was all too willing to fall for in the past. Or the present, apparently.
"If we're going to have this conversation, I'm going to need you to agree to give me respite for as long as it takes." Even if I didn't know Jerremyah as well as I did, his lack of teasing comment or salaciously quirked eyebrow at this stipulation revealed his uneasiness without him having to say a word.
"If we're going to have this conversation, you're going to have to be completely honest with me- you can't hide things from me just because we're no longer together." But we are together. We're standing no more than ten feet apart, separated only by a rug and a trunk, and despite the fact that the designation of our relationship has changed, the feelings clearly haven't. "No sugar coating things because you think I might be hurt by it." He sounded as if he was expecting to be hurt by it- as if someone had already punched him in the gut.
"...I'll tell you as much as I can without compromising anyone else's trust. I can promise you I'll be as honest about my emotions as I know how to be, whether I think it might hurt you or not." He considered me for a second, then nodded.
"I guess that's all I can ask for." You could ask for a lot more, I'd probably give it to you. Oh, maybe not immediately, but eventually, inevitably, I would relent, and give what was requested of me, just like I always have.
As if sensing the besotted turn my thoughts had taken, the floorboards in the hall creaked, a purposeful signal from Leo to show he was approaching the room we were in once again. I turned to face the open doorway, in an attempt to hide from Jerremyah in case my thoughts started showing on my face, and I was stunned to see Shari slung easily across Leo's shoulders in a fireman's carry.
Leo made eye contact with me the second it was possible, a move I knew was intentional so he could check how uncomfortable Jerremyah was making me in case he needed to provide me with an exit, before he seemed to decide I was handling the situation as well as could be expected of me- and probably only because Jerremyah had agreed to the ceasefire I had proposed. Leo was always making sure other peoples boundaries were being respected, probably because- much like Jerremyah- his had been violated entirely too many times.
"We'll be off then, if you don't need anything." While Leo's expression was relaxed and easy-going, Shari's was dazedly disgruntled- she hadn't quite recovered from her catatonic episode earlier, but clearly she was aware enough to know that she was being manhandled in a way she would typically find unacceptable, and was getting ready to start seething about it.
"Uh... no. No, we don't need anything." He seemed to hear the odd tone of my voice, and tilted his head- it was a move he used sometimes, to urge someone to continue speaking, and it usually worked, just as it did now. "Leo... why are you carrying Shari like that?" He glanced to the side, like he wanted to glance over his shoulder at her, but knew that all that turning his head would do was press his face into the side of her thigh, and thought better of it.
His shoulders moved and Shari moved with them, and I thought it was odd that he was struggling trying to shrug under her weight, because even if we weren't comparing her to some of the things I had seen him lift in the past she was still rather light, before I realised he wasn't struggling to lift her at all- he was being careful not to hurt her; to dig his shoulders into her chest, or dislodge her from her undesired perch.
"Oh, well... You asked so nicely for privacy." Now it was my turn to wait for him to elaborate. "I need to talk to Shari about something anyway." I felt my gaze soften, knowing it was probably about the offer Hercules had made her a few nights ago- and also knowing Leo probably wouldn't be able to be content with either outcome, if the options were Shari leaving, or suffering if she stayed.
I eyed him a bit more pointedly and he sighed, rolling his eyes at me in an exasperated sort of way. "She's not being the most accommodating at the moment, so I had to take matters into my own hands." Ah. At least that explained the fact he was carrying her; I just hoped she didn't lash out at him if she managed to fully regain consciousness. Leo didn't deserve that, and even more, there was always a risk that he would take it personally- you never knew with Leo, exactly how his brain worked.
Sometimes it made sense, and one plus two came out as three- and sometimes it came out as purple. It wasn't always obvious how or why he came to the conclusion he did, but it was never exactly wrong, once you learned what sort of information he was working off of. I might be working off the assumption that one is simply one and two is simply two, and add them together to make three, but Leo might have been told that one is blue and two is red- and when he adds them together, et voila: purple. Neither answer is wrong, but when you don't know the reasoning behind it, Leo's decisions can sometimes seem to come a bit out of left field.
So, maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised that when I asked Leo for privacy, he had decided to sling Shari over his shoulder like a particularly displeased milkmaid's yoke in order to make sure there was no one left around who might possibly overhear our sensitive conversation.
"Well, if you don't manage to have a productive conversation with Shari, make sure you go meet up with Danniel or Herc and Jo- I don't want you two out there alone." I cut him off before he could inevitably protest. "Not because I don't think you're capable of defending yourself, but because I know Shari isn't going to be able to defend herself-" The fact that Shari didn't dispute this showed just how out of it she was. "-and I know you. I don't want you risking your life to protect her, when you could have been safer amongst Clan." Leo's tiny smile betrayed the fact he was touched by the sentiment- both that I wanted him safe, and that the members of his clan would fight to keep him safe if it came down to it.
"Right, thanks mum." He said it sarcastically, but a stab of complicated emotion speared me in the chest even as I heard Jerremyah choke behind me, drawing Leo's attention to him over my shoulder. He had shown clear confusion about the way Jerremyah had reacted to a few things before he had gone to see Shari, and the confusion was making a reappearance now. "I'll... leave you to it, I guess." He didn't move, glancing between us again, and I moved forward to pat him on the arm.
"It's okay, you can go. If you leave now, you might be able to intercept the hunting party before they get within accidental eavesdropping distance." I was giving him a task; an excuse; a reason to leave other than just doing what I asked and leaving us alone, since I knew Leo chafed at the idea of following anything he perceived at an order.
"Neat. Catch you later, then." Leo nodded to Jerremyah over my shoulder, and with that, he simply turned and left. I didn't move to face Jerremyah until I heard Leo close the front door behind him, and when I did, he looked at me like he was seeing a ghost.
"He has better hearing than you'd think... I'll tell you when he should be out of hearing range." Jerremyah simply nodded, and I'll admit that even after Leo's departing footsteps had well and truly faded, I took an extra minute or two to attempt to steel myself. "Okay."
Jerremyah didn't immediately speak, like I had expected. He didn't bombard me with questions or criticize my decisions- he simply stared at me for a good minute or so, like he was rifling through my brain as if it were a filing cabinet, trying to find the folder that held the information he wanted to know, because he knew I was resistant to giving it to him. When he did speak, it wasn't accusing or angry- more than anything he simply seemed curious, and maybe slightly sad.
"I thought you said you didn't want a kit?" He said it in that delicate way he ever so rarely used- I usually found that tone quite tantalizing, but clearly it didn't have the same effect when it was being employed on me.
It was a fair question. The last time we had discussed it, that's the answer I had given to the question Jerremyah had asked every decade or so for roughly three hundred years- and I had relentlessly avoided for almost as long. When I had finally felt the need to supply him with a definitive answer, he had accepted it- but while it hadn't been the main reason for our falling out, it certainly hadn't felt entirely unrelated.
"I didn't." Jerremyah clearly took note of my use of the past tense here.
"...What changed? Was it- was this before, or... Or after? Is it just because he's-" He cut himself off, but I knew what he was thinking, yet couldn't bring himself to say out loud.
"It's not just because it's convenient that he needs me." I considered that sentiment for a second, before snorting at the thought. "There's not a damn thing about Leo that could be considered convenient." The corner of Jerremyah's lips quirked up in a poor imitation of a smile.
"Sounds like someone I know." If he had been in the right frame of mind, he would have teased me, likely about how 'convenient' he could make it for me, but he wasn't, and the respite I had demanded was still in effect.
"Jer, to be completely honest, I'm not entirely sure when Leo became... an option. When he became more than just another kid, to me. Certainly not at the very beginning, when I almost killed him." Jerremyah flinched, and momentarily looked torn between his 'hatred' for Leo as a 'half breed', and his- usually well hidden- inherent desire to protect those he considered vulnerable. "You would have thought that was very brave of him, by the way- he didn't even hesitate. I was pretending to work with Jonothan at the time, who had attacked a close friend of Leo's while trying to track him down. Leo had sent him running after the previous attack and asked Nicholai and Shari to patrol the area in case he came back, but when I entered the situation, it was because he had brokered a deal with Leo's mother, Cipicia Joannis." Jerremyah's eyebrows dropped, and I winced, trying to think ahead of time what exactly Leo wouldn't want Jerremyah to know, and what Jerremyah had to know- not just to understand why my relationship with Leo was different, but to know who to protect Leo from if it came down to it- because even if he had actually hated him, I knew for a fact Jerremyah would do everything in his power to keep Leo safe now that he knew how I really felt towards him.
"Leo intercepted us outside of his friends' house, just like Jonothan knew he would. Leo- well, I'll get into it later, about the friend. It's... not entirely necessary for this part of the story." Jerremyah briefly looked bemused, before he shrugged.
"Okay...?" We hadn't told him about Elaine and her family yet because we weren't sure we could trust him- well, the others weren't sure we could trust him. I knew Jerremyah better than anyone, and I knew that, while in his right mind, he would probably be less of a threat to Elaine than I would be- because despite his prickish posturing, Jerremyah lived for a white knight moment, and even before he found out the biggest threat to Elaine's family was her father, he would be quite eager to protect anyone he thought needed it- but that was while he was in his right mind, which we currently couldn't guarantee he would stay in, and there was no way Leo would want Jerremyah to know even the slightest bit of information about Elaine before we found a way to fix his self control issues.
Which, considering that I had seen the aftermath of one of Jerremyah's over indulgences more times than I could count- hell, I had almost been one- I was absolutely, one hundred percent on board. Even putting aside the fact that Elaine's death would completely decimate Leo, I had seen Jerremyah openly bawl over the bodies of those who hadn't made it too many times to run the risk of letting him loose in a situation I wasn't sure we could control.
Not to mention the 'lucky' few who had survived the transformation into a vampire. I had taken on the responsibility of finding them surrogate sires- there were parts of himself Jerremyah was only capable of sharing with me, after all- and shepherding them to their new homes, and clearly after we had parted ways, Jerremyah had done the same once he had turned the Twins.
Of course Jerremyah was their sire. No doubt Nicholai knew that, considering he had been my contact for many years to help find clans willing to take on new vampires- all turned by Jerremyah- but Jo expressing the desire to kill her sire was worrisome. If she caught him in the wrong mood- well, there were two wrong moods I was worried about in particular.
In one, he killed her- of course he would kill her. He was older, stronger- not just for his age, Jerremyah had always been uncannily strong in general, maybe it was a result of the kind of labor he had been forced to do when he was human- not to mention better trained. It wouldn't matter whether Jo was part of the clan- if Jerremyah was, and she attacked him, only for him to cut her down, there would be no recourse. You didn't attack another member of the clan, or your life was forfeit- and if you weren't a member of the clan, and you attacked a clan member- it was the responsibility of any clan member to defend the clan, to the death if need be.
In the other mood, however... Jerremyah would most likely let her kill him. He would see it as fair recompense for the pain he had caused, and the life- or lack thereof- he had inflicted upon her. These moods were much rarer in general, but when he was around something that made him feel guilty- like a vampire he had sired and then abandoned- they tended to increase in frequency.
"Anyway, I ended up shoving Leo through a window." Jerremyah blinked once, and then a second time. He opened his mouth, looking like he wanted to say something, but then he shut it again, so I continued. "I could smell the blood immediately." I hadn't know him at the time, so it hadn't affected me, but when I thought back on it- on the pain I had inflicted on that thirteen year old boy who must have been terrified as he prepared to put his life between Elaine and her family and Jonothan and I- the guilt made me feel physically ill.
It was part of the reason it had felt so awkward for me to visit the Folley's with Leo- to sit on their floral printed couch, and play nice with Elaine's mother, Audrey, knowing that I had shoved the young man sitting next to me through their bathroom window when he had been barely a teenager. To know that Elaine, their daughter and sister respectively, who had also been barely a teenager, had been forced to cover up the fact that they were under attack, and she was mopping her best friend- and crush's- blood up off the floor.
"He told the friend he was fine, and jumped back out the window to intercept us again- pulling the glass fragment out of his side when he was back on the ground." Jerremyah's eyes widened, but I continued before he could react much further. "He was losing blood fast, and he knew it, but he distracted us until Nicholai and Shari showed up. Nicholai, of course, went after Jonothan-" Jerremyah rolled his eyes.
"Those two always were predictable." You can say that again.
"Shari put herself between Leo and I- as far as she knew, I was working with Jonothan. Leo was bleeding so bad he was barely on his feet, and my scent was the only one on him. I knew he wouldn't survive much longer without intervention, and Jonothan would keep them busy long after he had bled out, so I did the only thing I could think of that would keep him alive- I threw Shari aside, and I bit him." Jerremyah sucked in a ragged breath, before he dragged a hand down his face, ending at scrubbing his jaw with the palm of his hand in a gesture I had seen him do a thousand times before.
"So that's why the bite mark is on his neck. I thought- earlier- you were touching it for protective reasons-" I cut him off.
"I was touching it for protective reasons." He eyed me warily, and then nodded, a signal for me to continue with the story. "He passed out, obviously." Jerremyah nodded again. Of course he passed out, the pain inflicted by a bite from another vampire- at least when it wasn't the bite from a bonded mate- was well established throughout the vampire community. Those that decided to test it typically didn't try in twice. "I was supposed to get Leo back to the safe house- dead or alive-" The words hurt just to say. "Alive was preferred, but not required, so... when Shari got close again, I-" I looked at Jerremyah, and the pain in his eyes matched the pain in my chest. "I threatened to break his neck."
It shouldn't have affected me at the time, but it would have- snapping that boys neck, even if I didn't know him the way I have come to in the past few years. "Shari backed off, obviously, and I managed to negotiate with Nicholai to let Jonothan and I apparate away with his son." I winced. "I didn't know at the time what Cipicia was like- how she treated him. If I had, I would never have let Jonothan give Leo to her. I thought it was curious that Cipicia would go through all this trouble to get her son back- from a father who clearly cared about him- only to allow the contract to proceed whether he was dead or alive- but it was only when I sought out Nicholai after the deal had been concluded that I found out what sort of monster Leo's mother really is."
I suspect Jerremyah already knew what I meant- he had suffered through more than his fair share of monstrous legal guardians before he had reached maturity, though from what he had told me, none had been anywhere as close to the pure evil that Cipicia Joannis exhibited when Leo was involved.
"I went back to Jonothan- found out which house of Cipicia's she'd had him deliver Leo to- and I influenced a house elf to allow me access to the house." I think the house elf had wanted to let me in, if I'm being honest, but couldn't because of the orders it had been given- it probably could have apparated out of my grasp before I managed to get it under my control, but it hadn't.
"We bypassed all of the external wards, and by the time I had caught up with them, Leo's sister had freed him from his chains without their mother knowing." I saw Jerremyah's eyebrows twitch at the mention of Mia, but considering she technically lived here, I figured it was reasonably safe for him to know she existed. "I heard her use the cruciatus curse on him-" Jerremyah entire body spasmed, and I could tell he wanted to say something, but I kept going, knowing it only got worse from here.
"I was stuck outside the door by the internal blood wards- I wasn't part of the Joannis family, so I had to obliterate the barrier manually- and just before I broke through, Cipicia forced a poisonous concoction down Leo's throat." I barely hesitated, but Jerremyah saw even that.
"What... What poison?" I winced. We had known the main ingredient since he was first poisoned- but without telling Jerremyah that Leo was quarter veela, I couldn't explain to Jerremyah that Cipicia had tricked us into thinking that the reason Leo was in so much pain was because of the vampire blood that was so clearly present in his system. We had tested Leo's blood when he had started showing symptoms at the end of the next school year, but we had never managed to identify the other ingredients with one hundred percent certainty.
"We're only about eighty five percent sure, but we think it was Verbena-" Jerremyah sucked in shocked breath- Verbena, or Vervain as it was now more commonly known, was the main thing a lot of hunters used to identify, weaken and torture vampires, and as such, pretty much every vampire over a certain age was well acquainted with the stuff- and knew just how fucking agonising it was. "-Dead Man's Blood-" Jerremyah hissed in a breath. "-and Silver Root." This time, Jerremyah legitimately hissed. His fangs were extended and his eyes were dark- he was in what we called 'Sensory Alert'.
"What. The. Fuck?!" I was inclined to agree with him- even without the vampire blood, the mix of three components, two of which that were extremely harmful to vampires and one that was only mildly less so, was the kind of overkill that typically came with its own mushroom cloud, but I kept my cool a lot easier, since I had had much longer to come to terms with it.
"It was slow acting-" Jerremyah huffed something under his breath too low for even me to be sure I heard correctly, but sounded suspiciously like, 'Yeah, I'll just bet it was.' "She told him at the time that she wanted to make a deal with him, and just under a year later, she made good on that promise. Leo was starting to feel the effects of the poison, so in exchange for the cure, he was supposed to agree to attend some pureblood, blood supremacist, rich tosser parties in order to maintain the lie that he was human, and their family was intact. She forced him to attend a gala before she would give him the cure- threatening to slaughter his friends if he went back on his end of the deal once he had taken the antidote." I braced myself for Jerremyah's reaction.
"The cure was worse. The cure... It was Holy Water." Jerremyah lost the few remaining marbles he had at that- if Vervain was used to weaken vampires, then Holy Water was used to incapacitate them. If Vervain was used to torture vampires, then Holy Water was used to ravage them.
"What the fuck. What the fucking fuck? What-" I cut him off before he could continue with his expletive filled tirade.
"It didn't affect him like regular Holy Water- if any other vampire had drank it, it would have burned through them like molten lava. Hell, if Leo had drank it at any other time, it probably would have been the same story- we think the ingredients from the poison had fused with his body so thoroughly by that point, that when he drank the Holy Water, it simply bonded with the poison and forced it from his body." Jerremyah mostly looked disgusted, but also maybe a little begrudgingly intrigued.
"The first poisoning had him writhing in pain for a week- screaming until he lost his voice, then continuing to silently scream without it, until his throat healed enough for his voice to come back, and the process repeated itself." I should know, considering I had been alone with him for the first little bit of it, before I had brought him back to Nicholai and Shari.
They'd clearly been on edge when I got there, having smelt me long before I arrived since I hadn't wanted to risk apparating with Leo- still managing to writhe in my arms, despite my tight grip- and clearly recognising his screams of pain long before they had been able to smell him. They ran out to meet me- or, to meet Leo, I guess, and to eliminate the threat to him- and I had told them what Cipicia had done. Shari had been the one to remove my wand- she had refused to let Nicholai anywhere near me, one of the only times I had ever seen her give him an order- but considering that they had thought I was working for Jonothan, it made sense.
I think we all knew that eventually the odd little war between the two Ellwood brothers would end up with one of them killing the other- and Shari, especially, knew Nicholai didn't have it in him to kill Jonothan.
Once I was disarmed, Nicholai took Leo from my arms- with Shari breathing down my neck in case I decided to strike out once Nicholai had his hands full- and I followed them into the house, telling them everything else. How I was a spy, and I was only pretending to work with Jonothan in order to be able to report back everything he was doing in order to declare his stance in the upcoming war- as always, whatever stance that opposed Nicholai's, was the stance Jonothan favored. Jerremyah hadn't been exaggerating when he had said they were predictable.
It had taken Leo waking up, and upon seeing me immediately declaring me his savior, for Nicholai and Shari to believe at least that part of my story, and to begin- begrudgingly- to trust me.
"When he took the cure, he threw up whatever blood he had drank most recently, that he hadn't been able to absorb because of the poison in his system. That was it." I gave him a pointed look. "Leo took the cure only a few days before you met him- when you dropped the Twins off." Jerremyah's eyebrows shot up, before immediately dropping again as he scowled.
"You mean to tell me that only a few days before I spat on the floor 'at his feet', the kid had been forced to drink Holy Water to cure himself of a poison his own mother had given him?" His mouth twisted, and I knew he was about to make a joke in an attempt to reign in the murderous tension in the air. "I'm glad he didn't decide to spit back- talk about spitting fire." I half heartedly rolled my eyes at him, and crossed my arms over my chest.
"I've always respected Leo's tenacity- after the worst of the pain from the initial poisoning had past, he did something incredible. I can't say what, but it... It was a feat most adult witches and wizards wouldn't dream of attempting, and Leo did it while barely being able to remain upright." Leo wouldn't want me to tell Jerremyah he was an animagus. Hell, as far as I could tell, he only thought Shari knew- but it would have been impossible for us not to hear it.
Nicholai had obviously known the whole way along- apparently Shari had come to him after the first time she had snooped and found books on the animagus transformation in Leo's bag, and- being an animagus herself- she proposed the idea of guiding Leo through the process so he didn't botch the whole thing too badly. Nicholai hadn't really approved of Leo wanting to go through the grueling procedure so young, but since it was clear that Leo- having inherited his fathers' Ellwood stubbornness- was going to complete the exercise whether he had experienced help or not, Nicholai begrudgingly agreed to let Shari lend her assistance- as long as he could convey his clear displeasure through Shari telling Leo they needed to keep it a secret from him.
Not the most emotionally intelligent way to handle things, but Nicholai always had felt the need to make things more complicated than they had any real reason to be.
"He... He has this group of friends. They're all very close, and they've proven time and time again that they truly want nothing but the best for him. Because of this, Leo has always done everything in his power to keep them safe and happy- even if it means putting his own well-being at risk." I took a deep breath in. "In the past he has chosen to hide certain parts of himself from them- and from the world in general- in order to preserve the idealised version of himself that he thinks he needs to be for people- even his closest friends- to like him." I raised my eyes to Jerremyah's, but wasn't met with the understanding I had secretly hoped for.
While Leo hid parts of himself in order to be well liked, Jerremyah had always chosen to put forth the most unlikable facets of his personality so that no one would ever want to get closer to him.
"I haven't always respected his wishes in that department, or to keep his friends separate from the clan due to his concern for their safety, and Leo was understandably upset with me for going behind his back-" Which I had unintentionally gotten in the habit of doing in the centuries I had spent managing Jerremyah's fraught interpersonal relationships, but I wasn't going to say that out loud. "But when nothing bad ever came of it, he eventually forgave me- not without a little ribbing about it, of course, but that's par for the course with Leo and I." I worried my bottom lip between my teeth, anxious now that telling him about Elaine was pretty much unavoidable.
"Lizzy..." It was one of a few nicknames Jerremyah had once regularly called me, and the first he had come up with after we had met, but it still made my heart clench to hear it. When I didn't respond, he took a careful step towards me, his expression open in a way I hadn't seen it in years. I could tell he wanted to comfort me- clearly he could tell I was nervous- but I knew that if he closed the distance between us, there was no telling what I would allow him to get away with.
"I told you earlier I would get into it about Leo's friend later, because it wasn't really necessary at the time. It's necessary now." He blinked, obviously a little perturbed that having to tell him about a particular friend of Leo's was what had caused me to become so apprehensive, but it wasn't really anything to do with Elaine herself, was it? It was about the depth of Leo's feelings for her, and the danger someone knowing about them could bring.
"Her name is Elaine." There was no point in not telling him her name- it would only make it harder to talk about her, and considering that anyone that had already proven themselves to be willing to go through Leo's friends to get to him- Cipicia and Jonothan- already knew about her existence and had in fact previously used the threat of violence against her to try to keep Leo in check, it wasn't worth gagging myself.
Jerremyah, for his part, already seemed to think he'd put some of the pieces together, and the half smirk he wore looked almost... proud?
"Of course. I'm sure she's lovely." He was making assumptions about Leo and Elaine's relationship that weren't exactly right, but... they also weren't exactly wrong, so I didn't correct him outright.
"They met the day after he started Hogwarts, and she was the first person he told about being half vampire." Well, technically, I knew he had told James even before that, but he hadn't believed it until well after, so it didn't really count, did it? And James had told Remus, so that didn't count as Leo telling Remus either, right? The whole timeline of Leo's friends finding out what he was was way too confusing. "She- Elaine's- Honestly, she's been fantastic." Jerremyah looked surprised by this, and I suppose it wasn't unwarranted. Most people didn't react well to finding out that someone they knew was secretly a vampire- I certainly hadn't when I had found out what Jerremyah was.
"Even after having been bitten by Jonothan, and having her home attacked a second time by vampires- one of which being me- Elaine didn't even hesitate to come visit Leo here while he was recovering from the poison. She chose to help me go behind Leo's back in order to bring her in to test how the Twins control was coming along; because as she said, Leo had tried to keep it from her, so she would return the favor." I smiled. "Elaine has always been more than willing to go toe to toe with Leo when he needs it, but most of the time she's the only person Leo feels he can be himself around."
Something in Jerremyah's gaze almost imperceptibly softened, and if I hadn't already been making eye contact with him in an attempt to get the message across, I definitely would have missed it.
"Every time I see them interact, it's like I'm getting a glimpse at who Leo truly is- and every time I do, it becomes harder and harder for me to ignore the already almost irresistible urge to help shape him into the wonderful young man I know he's going to be anyway, even without my help." Jerremyah's expression was a pained one, but I couldn't let hurting his feelings worry me, considering he had told me- practically begged me- to be honest with him, even if I thought it would hurt him.
"Originally, Shari was sort of Leo's... 'surrogate mother', I suppose you might call it. But when Nicholai died, Shari- well. You saw her, earlier. She's barely conscious half the time, when she's not keening that is- not that I blame her." No. If I had had to watch Jerremyah be cut down in front of me- by his own brother, in front of his son, no less- I have no doubt I would be even more of a mess than Shari had been the past few months. Jerremyah looked like he felt the same way, and I had to force myself to look away from him, considering I knew the mate he was thinking about losing was, invariably, me.
It had always been me for Jerremyah. Even if we slept with other people- though, we preferred to sleep with other people with each other- It had been over three hundred years since I had even entertained the notion that Jerremyah might have feelings of the romantic variety for someone other than me.
Sometimes it felt like Jerremyah had a finite pool of love to give, and that when we had met he had poured its entire contents into my waiting hands because he didn't want anyone else to be graced with it; even if he knew they would inevitably overflow.
I had a feeling though, if I had agreed to raising kits with him, a second pool would have sprung up, seemingly out of thin air. Pfft, out of thin air my behind- that shit was sourced by an ancient underground spring, older than the Earth itself. And, being of a paternal nature, would flow infinitely for however many kits I might have blessed him with.
"I guess that's when I stepped into the role of-" I would not- could not- bring myself to say 'mother'. Not when pertaining to Leo, not without his permission. I had called him 'my little boy' in a letter to Elaine, and even that was a crossing of boundaries I shouldn't have let myself indulge in. "-Aunt." It was the best I could do. It was what Leo had referred to me as, both to Audrey, and earlier today to Jerremyah, though I knew he had been trying to provoke him- just like I knew he was only teasing me when he had called me 'mum' earlier, something that had nearly knocked me off my feet to hear coming from his mouth- and had clearly impacted Jerremyah almost as heavily.
"Was it-" He cut himself off, and when he was silent for a few seconds, I couldn't resist peeking back up at him- and what I saw damn near broke my heart. He looked... the only word that could possibly come close to describing it was unmoored. Drifting endlessly on a tumultuous sea with not a shore in sight, alone and afraid and hopeless.
I had never seen such a look on Jerremyah's face- I hadn't thought it was capable of making that sort of expression, if I'm completely honest. I felt the desire to reach out to comfort him almost as if it were a physical being in the room with us, and I wished that Leo could have stolen that away with him when he left, much like he had Shari.
"Was it me?" His voice cracked, echoing the silent cracking of my heart into a million pieces in my chest. "Was I-?" I could almost hear the thoughts as they swirled through his head. Was I... not what you wanted as a partner to raise a kit with? Was I... not good enough? Was I... not enough, in general?
That sentiment broke my resolve, and without any hesitation, I was across the room in a split second. I put one hand on the back of his neck, pulling his face to the junction of my neck and my shoulder- a place it had been more times than I could ever hope to count- and my other arm swept around him to rest down the column of his spine, pulling him in close and keeping him there exactly like I knew I shouldn't.
"No." He melted into my embrace the same way he always did, and I could tell he was fighting the urge to scent me the way he normally did instinctively, and knew he was only refraining from doing so because the respite was still in effect. But damn, did I wish he would throw that stupid respite idea in the trash where it belonged. I didn't want peace from Jerremyah- I wanted everything but peace. "My decision about not wanting to have kits had nothing to do with you personally, Jer." Jerremyah's lips accidentally brushed my collarbone as he pulled back, and it took all of my cast iron will not to arch my fucking back and push myself as close as possible to him.
"But it did have something to do with me." He had that look in his eye, like he thought he already knew what I was going to say, and I didn't like it, even as his position putting a small amount of distance between our faces made me desperate to pull his face back down- into a kiss this time.
"You did ask me not to sugar coat things, so- yes, part of my decision was influenced by your... inconsistency when it comes to self-control." He blinked, like he hadn't expected me to be quite so upfront about it, but he had asked me to be completely honest so, possibly for the first time in our long, long relationship, I was. "It was a smaller part than it probably should have been, if I'm truthful. As I said at the time, I didn't like the idea of raising a kit because the entire foundation is based on finding a child- or otherwise dependent individual- and taking them in to raise as our own. When you specifically start looking for someone that needs help, for reasons other than just out of the kindness of your heart, I feel it starts to get a bit... icky, morally." Jerremyah didn't look like he disagreed.
"No, right, yeah. But..." But, if it wasn't a problem? If the individual that needed help was someone we already knew, somebody that we didn't specifically look for, and had no better option?
"I've always wanted kids, as you know. And Leo-" Jerremyah cut me off.
"Does he know?" I eyed him warily, trying to determine whether he was truly asking what I thought he was asking, before my wariness turned into weariness.
"No- And he can never know. It would shatter him... and he's still got cracks from what happened to Nicholai. We can't tell him."
(A/N): See? And this is why I love them.
also
Leo: *walks in with Shari on his shoulders*
Lisbet: 'Um... whatcha got there?'
Leo: 'A smoothie.'
Also, as I was re-reading through this chapter as I was about to post it, I added some more to it, so it's even long that it was originally. It was 6,666 words originally, and now it's 7,037 words long, without the authors notes.