(A/N): Leo and Jo discuss Influencing, trust, and Leo telling Jo that he didn't want to have to kill her to protect Jerremyah. Leo references (in his thoughts) some stuff about Jo and Danniel's lives before they were turned, that they have told him 'off screen' ('off page'?), and some stuff about Dahrya that we didn't see them talk about as well.

Leo

Soon after Shari had finished feeding, and I had had Jo send the deer on its way, Herc volunteered to take Shari back home while Jo stayed behind to keep me company as I took my turn hunting.

I suspected that there were some ulterior motives behind this decision- especially given the rather pointed look Herc gave Jo before he left- but I refused to be the one to bring it up first.

Herc left with a quick, 'buena suerte' to Jo, and 'hasta pronto' to me, and Shari gave me another hug before they departed.

Jo trailed behind me idly as I tracked down a deer, and I drank from it before sending it on its way. I noticed that Jo had zoned out, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, and decided to find another deer- Influencing it to do various things, increasing in oddness until I finally managed to catch Jo's attention.

"Leo... what the fuck?" I paused in my bastardization of a waltz with the deer, and met her incredulous gaze.

"I'll have you know that Dama here is an excellent partner, and I won't hear a bad word said about her admittedly unsteady footwork." I watched as her face screwed up- bewildered, but also trying not to laugh- and I lowered the deer's front legs so it could stand with all four hooves on the ground.

I bent so I could make proper eye contact with it, and slipped into Sensory Alert so that I could Influence it again.

"You can go, Sweetheart. When you get to the treeline, my control over you will break. Thank you for your time, and good luck out there." The deer turned away, walking calmly to the edge of the clearing we were in. The second its hind quarters passed into the treeline, I felt my Influence over it dissipate, and it picked up speed as its mind became its own once again.

I turned back to Jo, and she was watching me with an almost... dared I say awed expression?

"What?" She shook her head slightly, gesturing in the direction the deer had gone.

"You spoke to it." I blinked in surprise, then shifted my weight between my feet a bit uncomfortably.

"Um... yep, sure did." I replied, sort of awkwardly, and Jo's eyebrows furrowed as she seemed to reconsider what I had done in comparison to my reaction.

"Why? I mean, you don't have to do that. In fact, you've encouraged me not to speak out loud when I Influenced a deer in the past." Ugh, Jo was way more observant than I gave her credit for- at least when she wasn't zoned out.

It was normal for young vampires to zone out, or hyper focus on something, but I had noticed in the past that Jo seemed more prone to doing so than Danniel did- I suspected maybe it was something to do with the differences between their lives before they had been turned.

Danniel was the only child of a single mother; it had just been him and his mum for the majority of his life. Jo on the other hand, I knew had five siblings, both parents, and one set of grandparents living under the same roof as her- not to mention the countless aunts, uncles and cousins coming and going constantly. She had readily admitted that she came from a bustling, noisy household, and I assumed that she had had to learn to block out things that might cause sensory overload at a young age, and it was part of the reason she was so prone to unintentionally blocking out sensory input all together.

"You're right." I admitted, and almost laughed at the pleased look that always appeared on Jo's face whenever I said that. "It's not necessary to speak out loud when Influencing an animal, like a deer. It does make it easier to get them to do exactly what you want them to though, which is a lot more important when it comes to more mentally complex creatures- like humans." She was nodding along with what I was saying until I got to the last part.

"And is that... something you feel like you need to practice for?" I pursed my lips, trying not to let it show on my face that I already had practice with that.

Sure, I had admitted to Lisbet that I had Influenced someone before, in front of Jo, Danniel, Herc and Shari- though Shari wasn't exactly paying attention at the time- but there was a big difference between Influencing someone in order to feed, and Influencing someone to forget that you and four of your closest friends are animagi.

Not that anyone in the Clan knew that I had experience drinking from a human directly, either, but I could have pulled a Dahrya, and had to Influence someone to forget that they had seen me in Sensory Alert- or 'Vamp Face', as Dahrya had once called it. I had found out since then that she hadn't known the official term for Influencing either- I guess not having a vampire mentor around meant that she'd had to just make some things up as she went along.

From what she had told me, her mother had made sure she knew what she was from a young age- which, I guess meant that her mother must have been aware of what Greygorry was when they slept together, or at least soon after- but other than Hunters, most humans weren't privy to the- mostly- agreed upon terms used by the vampire species as a whole, which meant that Dahryras' mother obviously didn't have all that much information to offer her.

"Not... immediately. I would like to be prepared if the need were to arise, though." Jo hesitated, before nodding.

"That... makes sense. Should I...?" I winced, lifting my hand to rub the back of my neck a bit sheepishly.

"Well, to be honest... I was mostly just talking to the deer because I like doing it." Jo raised her eyebrows, and I shrugged. "It shouldn't hurt anything, if you speak your intentions while Influencing, but you shouldn't get too into the habit of it, just in case you end up depending on it too much to be able to get the job done without it." Jo's eyebrows furrowed, and she nodded, rather seriously.

"And needing to speak out loud while Influencing is a weakness, right?" I gave her an openly proud smile, and enjoyed watching her preen under the weight of it.

"Right on. Can you tell me some reasons why it might be a weakness?" Her lips pursed, and I knew it was because she was trying to concentrate.

"Because... Making noise might give your position away." I nodded, gesturing for her to continue. "And... Um...?" I smiled at her, letting her know I wasn't disappointed by her not knowing.

"While humans can't comprehend what we say when Influencing, other vampires can, and if they hear exactly what you're Influencing someone to do, it's a lot easier for them to overwrite it, or undo it completely." Jo nodded, showing that she understood. "It also won't just give your location away, it would also make it really obvious, even to regular humans, that you're doing something abnormal. And, it might be seen as a sign of weakness by other vampires." She grimaced at this, and I wasn't sure whether it was because of the mention of other vampires potentially perceiving her as weak, or if it was something to do with the way she had looked at me with almost awe when she had first seen me speak to the deer.

"They... Do you think that maybe... the older vampires sometimes don't teach us stuff that they should be teaching us? And for the record, I don't just mean me and Danniel, I'm talking about you, too, Leo." Well, this was an uncomfortable subject.

"Absolutely." She seemed surprised that I admitted this so easily, but I continued. "Of course, that probably comes from a position of them having been forced to learn certain things before they were ready- or knowing someone who was." Jo frowned.

"So you think... what? They're trying to protect us?" I shrugged.

"I've found that that's generally the reason the people around me refuse to let me do things." The look on Jo's face seemed half amused, half exasperated.

"Usually, with you, it's warranted." I rolled my eyes at her, trying to hide the fact I was secretly touched by the sentiment.

"Typically with vampires, it's up to their sire to teach them everything they need to know in order to function to their full potential, over their first few decades of life- death?" I shrugged. "Of course, I wasn't turned, so I don't have a sire, and yours is- well..." I glanced pointedly in the direction of the estate, where I knew Jerremyah was. "A deadbeat." I considered it for a second, then chuckled. "Heh. Deadbeat." The look Jo gave me wasn't quite a glare- clearly she didn't think my pun was all that funny, but she appreciated the insult to Jerremyah nonetheless.

"Speaking of my relationship with my sire..." Uh oh, this can't end well. "I think that we need to talk about what happened earlier." Right. "What you said." What I said? I wasn't the one that threatened to challenge a vampire much older and stronger than me to mortal combat!

"Why do I have the feeling that what you want to talk about isn't going to be the fact that I told you that you can't fight Jerremyah, but the part after that?" Jo leveled me with a look, and I sighed. "You missed any chance you may have had." Her eyebrows shot up.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I crossed my arms over my chest.

"I hope you know by now that if I had thought you had a shot in hell of beating him, I would have sided with you." Her jaw dropped, and I continued before she could voice her shock. "Before Jerremyah was in talks of joining the clan, before I knew what he meant to Lisbet- you know I would have your back, if I didn't think it was an outright suicide mission for the whole clan." Jo's jaw clacked shut, and she stared at me for a second.

"You said you would kill me if I attacked Jerremyah." I nodded rather firmly.

"And I would." She jolted like I had slapped her. "If you attacked Jerremyah, not only would you be going against my instructions, but flouting the rules of the Clan- the rules that keep us all alive- and attempting to kill Lisbet's-" Let's be honest, we all knew he was her mate, even if neither of them had said it out loud so far. "Worse half, I would have no choice but to kill you. Not because of any sort of clan law, but because you-" My body cut me off, as my instinct to push my emotions down reared its ugly head. "Because you're not just clan... You're my friend, and I love you-" She jolted again, her face splitting open at my admission. "-and you would be endangering not just your own life, but the survival of the whole clan." Jo was staring at me in a way I had never seen from her before.

"Leo..." I lowered my head, but kept my eyes on her- against almost every instinct in my body telling me to avoid her gaze. The only instinctive part of me telling me to keep my eye on her was the vampire part of me, telling me that she was a threat- but, as always, I ignored that voice.

She took a step toward me, and I fought the urge to retreat.

"Man, I'm just admitting to everyone that I love them today." I half joked, and Jo's eyebrows furrowed- clearly confused- before she seemed to remember what I had told her and Herc about how I had kidnapped Shari and left Lisbet alone to talk to Jerremyah.

"I can't imagine how hard that must be for you." I started to smile, before I realised that her comment wasn't the slightest bit sarcastic or joking like I had originally thought.

"I... what?" Jo gave me a look that wasn't quite pity, more like... sad understanding?

"Herc brought up an idea to me earlier," I nodded, urging her to go on. What did Herc have to do with this? "He mentioned that maybe you had a rather different perspective to the rest of us, because you haven't exactly had the most stable life so far-" Ah. No, I wouldn't call it 'stable'. "-and that maybe you've never been able to trust someone the way we all trust you."

Oof, she wasn't pulling punches, was she? Herc had given her the ammunition, and she was firing it- and hitting that bloody bullseye.

"I trust my friends." She cocked her head at me.

"But they're human," What is that supposed to mean? "Which is very different to trusting a vampire."

...True, but what was she getting at?

"Your whole life, the people who were supposed to take care of you, let you down." I opened my mouth, then closed it again as I realised I had nothing I could really say to dispute that.

"I don't see you point." I managed to get out, and Jo pursed her lips.

"Leo... I can't promise that I can put aside my issues with Jerremyah, or that I can forgive Danniel or Lisbet for lying to me about Jerremyah being my sire right away- but I can promise to you that I will try my hardest not to let you down."

(A/N): Leo: *dancing with the deer*

Jo: *zoned out*

Leo: 'You come here often?'

Jo: *zones back in* 'What the fuck?!'

Translations: 'Buena suerta' means 'Good luck', and 'Hasta pronto' means 'See you soon', both in Spanish.

Dama comes from 'Dama Dama' the scientific name of the Fallow Deer, one of the six deer species native to the UK, and the most populous.

The other title I considered for this chapter was 'Deadbeat', but I thought this one was better, despite it not really having anything to do with the chapter itself.