(A/N): Lisbet reacts to Leo calling Jerremyah her mate. She ponders morality, and trying to instill in a child a good moral compass. Leo explains a little about a tiny part of his life, back when he lived with his mother and stepfather.

Lisbet

"...we should get to healing Jerremyah- wouldn't want to keep your mate waiting in pain any longer than necessary."

I blinked- temporarily freezing as I took in exactly what Leo had just said. He had referred to Jerremyah as my mate- which, in itself, wasn't that odd. We hadn't exactly been subtle, but... Leo would never guess about something like that, which could only mean one of two things.

Either Jerremyah had taken it upon himself to declare it to Leo- which didn't sound like something he was likely to do, with our relationship the way it was right now- or... Leo had, for whatever reason, decided to ask him outright. But if Jerremyah had told him to direct his questions to me, it must have been after confirming our matehood- but I had no idea what sort of questions Leo would ask that would make Jerremyah feel like he had to leave it to me to answer, especially if he had already answered that particular one.

Unless Jerremyah just hadn't felt like fielding Leo's questions- but, given the way I had seen him looking at him earlier, I didn't think that was likely, either. Jerremyah was, after all, of the two of us, the one that had been the most eager to raise a child. Not that I thought Jerremyah would be taking on that sort of role- or that Leo would ever tolerate such a thing!

But... he needed as many role models as he could get- and while Jerremyah would undoubtedly argue that he wasn't the best candidate... I wasn't sure I agreed- and not just because he was my soulmate. Jerremyah was... different, to most people.

Nicholai had been all about the black and white, that there were only two options- Good, and Evil. Because of this, I had found that a lot of us had tried to instill in Leo those stringent definitions of morality- even if that wasn't quite the way we saw the world, ourselves. Jerremyah, however... Jerremyah was all about shades of grey, and... bringing light, from his place in the shadows.

Maybe, with Jerremyah around, Leo would learn that dipping a toe into anything other than the light that blinds most of us, wouldn't be the end of the world... and maybe, just maybe... Jerremyah would learn that even saints have shadows, and he wasn't stuck in the dark just by virtue of his very existence. He could leave- had left, before, and never even noticed. I thought that maybe they could teach other some desperately needed lessons. I hoped that that was the case.

Leo seemed to take in my surprise, and his eyebrows furrowed, before he glanced at Jerremyah- but Jerremyah seemed to be too distracted trying to rub some of the rapidly drying blood from his face to notice. I tapped his foot with my hand, and his eyes snapped to me- and then to Leo, when I tilted my head ever so slightly in his direction. He caught Leo's eye, and rather deliberately, shrugged. For fu- that's not any sort of answer, Jer!

I reached out and put my hand on Leo's cheek, once again. He looked a little surprised by this, but when I angled my head towards Jerremyah, rolled my eyes and nodded, he seemed to understand. He was also clearly trying to hide his grin, at my exasperated reaction.

At this point, Grey returned to the kitchen, and when I turned to look at him, I saw him carrying four bottles of liquor. Three of them were filled with varying shades of amber liquid- the Blishen's Firewhisky that Grey and I both well knew was Jerremyah's favorite, plus a slightly darker one I figured was the Bochet. There was a more red toned one, that's label was covered in graphics of flames and skulls, that I knew had to be the Capsicumel, and besides those, there was a much lighter liquor, that could only be the Metheglin- if Greygorry had found everything that Leo had mentioned, and hadn't brought back any surprises.

"Oh! Did you find everything okay?" Leo put the glass of water on the table beside Jerremyah, and used his vampire speed to reach Greygorry's side, so he could take two of the bottles off of his hands. "Here- on the counter. Don't want to smash them if anyone starts flailing about." By 'anyone', we all knew he meant Jerremyah.

"Easy as pie. Nicholai always was a bit pedantic about his labeling- I didn't even need to use his index card system." 'Index card system'? God, I guess he really was a little bit pedantic, wasn't he? Grey followed Leo dutifully over to the counter, and they deposited their bottles there.

As I watched, Leo spun the cap off the bottle of Firewhisky with two fingers, at the same time he reached up into one of the cupboards to fetch... a tea cup? Sure enough, he poured a healthy amount of the liquor into the cup- but as he did so, I noticed that the way he held the bottle was rather strange.

He had his left hand gripping the bottom end of the bottle in his palm, and his other hand bracing it from underneath. It was odd, that he felt like he needed two hands, when, as a vampire, he was extremely unlikely to drop it- and even less likely to not be able to catch it before it hit the ground.

"Leo?" His head bobbed to show that he was listening. "Why are you holding the bottle like that?" His movements paused for a second, and I felt his surprise at my question, before he returned to closing the bottle again. When he turned to face me, I knew I wouldn't like the answer- and I knew that he knew I wouldn't, either. He left the bottle on the counter, but slunk over with the teacup, leaving it beside the glass of water as he came to my side.

I didn't like the look on his face- it was the same look he'd worn just before he had told us about his birth, and the way his grandfather had treated his mother. I... still didn't know quite how to feel about that. It was horrible, and if it had happened to anyone else, I would have been outraged, but... this was Cipicia. She'd lost any right to my sympathy when she had- well, I guess, when I had found out, that she had ever hurt him. Poisoning him may have been my first experience with it, but it certainly hadn't been Leo's.

"So... I guess I should start by saying that it's habit. It's... it's a bit different when it's a bottle of Firewhisky, instead of a bottle of wine, or a decanter of brandy, but I guess it... stuck with me." But... why had Leo handled enough bottles of wine- or decanters of brandy- in order to form a habit? "The... the brandy was less common. I was only expected to pour for my- stepfather, when the House Elves weren't welcome- which wasn't often." He- what? "My mother didn't like to see the House Elves outside of the 'public' spaces of the house, so, when we weren't in one of those, it was usually my responsibility to keep her glass full." He shrugged like it was nothing.

"Leo-" He cut me off, but honestly, I didn't know what I would have said after that.

"She preferred red wine, but when she drank it, she got... unpredictable." Oh. "She wasn't much better on white wine... and if I tried to short pour her, she didn't take kindly to it. I tried watering it down a few times, but she always knew- unless she was too drunk to notice, but... at that point, it was more beneficial to just... push her over that edge." He shook his head, looking a little sad. "'She can't hurt us, if she's unconscious.'" It took me a second to realise what was odd about that statement, but when I did... Oof.

It was present tense, and he said 'us', not 'me'. He must have been quoting something he had said to Mia, before Cipicia had thrown him out.

It was utterly heart wrenching, and I didn't know what to do about it- how to comfort him, if he would even accept it- but luckily, I didn't have to ponder it for too long, because Leo did something I would never have expected of him. Something that made my heart swell in my chest.

He shuffled forward, and buried his head in my shoulder.

(A/N): Anyone: 'Why are you doing that?'

Leo: *realises that it's something he picked up from his abusive childhood*

Leo: 'Uh... I guess I'm just quirky like that.'

Also, Leo is holding the bottle strangely because it's kind of hard to hold it the way he's used to when the bottle doesn't have a punt (the indent on the bottom of a bottle of wine.) There's something called 'the proctologist's grip', which is a way that some people like to hold wine bottles (typically people trying to be super fancy, but there's no actual reason to do so). Leo still holds the bottle with two hands, because the last time he poured bottles of alcohol, he was small enough to NEED to use two hands- especially because if he were to drop a bottle, he probably would have been punished for it.