(A/N): Some light foreshadowing, and some... not so light, foreshadowing.

Jerremyah

My already poor opinion of Nicholai wasn't improving any, and the more Leo talked, the more I regretted not getting to punch that gloomy, self-righteous prick in the face one last time. It was bad enough to not realise that the young boy newly in your care- your son- was in need of comforting, especially when you were as socially inept as Nicholai was- but he, like all of us, possessed incredibly heightened senses. There was no possible way that Nicholai hadn't been able to hear Leo crying in the bathroom- and didn't the thought of that tug at the heartstrings something fierce? The fact that he'd admitted to doing so as readily as he had meant one of two things- either he was finally feeling comfortable enough around us to tell us that sort of thing, or he'd only said it because he hadn't realised it was a big deal. I knew which option I'd place a bet on, if pressed, and it wasn't the former.

"Was there ever a point where you did want to talk to him?" I asked curiously- and only partially wryly, since I figured Leo probably didn't enjoy it when I acted on my enmity for his father.

He hesitated, thinking his answer through for a few seconds- before clearly considering whether he should say anything at all. "Sometimes. Not about that, though." He said quietly, and I wasn't entirely sure he was still only referring to drinking blood for the first- and second- time.

"I can't say I much felt like talking to him, either." I said mostly just for something to say, something might have any chance of easing the tension, if not cheering him up.

"That's because the only time you two interacted, you antagonised the hell out of each other. A tradition you started, need I remind you." I shrugged at Lisbet's pointed- yes, reminder.

"And he always rose to the occasion to finish." Not to mention all the other times he'd 'risen to the occasion to finish'- I certainly wasn't going to bring that up anywhere Leo might be able to hear it. "My opinion of Nicholai aside," My low, low opinion. "He and Grey were good friends, so if there's anyone you should talk to about your father, it's him." By the look on his face, I guessed that Leo wasn't particularly eager to do so.

"Maybe later," He said, and I couldn't help the way the corner of my lips quirked up at his noncommittal tone- and at the fact that he wasn't even trying to disguise it. "If I wanted to learn more about the kind of man my father was, I'd ask Herc. Or read his journals." Probably not the best idea, considering what he might find written on those pages- things Nicholai certainly didn't want him to know, or else he would've told him himself. For once, I agreed with him- or at the very least, I respected Lisbet's decision not to tell him, just yet.

"Alright," I told him, about as agreeably as I was ever capable. "I just want you to remember that the option is available to you, if you ever feel like talking to someone that actually has a favorable view of him. And..." It took me a second to get the words out, as distasteful as they were to me. "I would hazard to say that Grey knew him best, so if anyone has an accurate grasp of who Nicholai was, it's him." Leo cocked an eyebrow, his expression quite dry at my partial rephrasing of my earlier assertion.

"So you're saying you're wrong, for having a poor opinion of him?" I pursed my lips in an attempt to restrain my reactive grimace. At least if he was poking fun at me, he probably wasn't too upset by my prodding.

"I'm saying," I said slowly, deliberately, which only made the corner of his lips twitch in clear amusement. "That Nicholai showed Grey a very different side of himself than he showed me- of course, the same is true for me and Grey. I suppose it's true for everyone, in a way, isn't it?" He hesitated, then nodded.

"I suppose," He agreed lightly, and fell silent for a minute. We let him, least of all because we knew that moments of silence usually preluded him allowing us insight. "It wasn't... we didn't get along, at first. I resented him quite a bit, and I think he... he didn't know how to handle me. I was difficult," The corner of his lips twitched up again, but this time it was a bit hollow as he called back to what Lisbet had said earlier. "Intentionally difficult, sometimes, even. Still, he never... he never blamed me for that, I don't think. He was patient, and gentle enough, but I don't think it was in his nature to be warm, so to speak." His nature didn't matter- he had a kid to take care of, he should've stepped up! Sure, he'd taken Leo in- and subsequently saved him from his parents- but... would it've killed him to show the boy some goddamn compassion?

Evidently it'd killed him anyway- but if Khal's prediction was anything to go by, then he'd already known that something like that was coming to him. He'd already known that Jonothan was going to kill him eventually- but whether that was just an educated guess, or a prior prediction that I wasn't aware of, I wasn't sure. Clearly, he'd chosen the 'sooner' option- and the 'someone he loved' that he'd died to protect, was Leo- his son. And yet, he'd made no attempt to comfort him.

That made no sense to me, personally- not to say I thought it was out of character or anything, but it didn't... I couldn't understand how someone would- I'd barely known him for three days, and yet I was already helpless not to cleave to the urge to comfort him. Although... maybe that said more about the difference between us than anything else- the fact that Nicholai never much cared about any offspring he might've begotten, whereas I... the thought of having a child to call my own would've kept me awake at night, if I hadn't already been awake for a myriad of other reasons.

"You were a child," It was half reminder, half reassurance. Not an excuse- he didn't need to be excused. "And I'm sure in your eyes, he was the root cause of just about every bad thing that'd happened in your life up to that point, so it only makes sense that you'd be less than eager to make nice with him." He frowned, and I thought he was going to take issue with my saying 'in your eyes', but apparently, that wasn't what he was objecting to.

"Not every bad thing... just the big ones." The plural threw me, and I filed it away for later, before focusing on what I could currently handle.

"So... at what point did blood start tasting good to you?" He hesitated, then tilted his head to the side.

"Hard to say. If I'm being completely honest, I'm not sure if it ever actually tasted bad, or if it was just a mentality thing- I didn't want to drink blood, I thought it repulsive, and so it was. Either that, or something about being only half vampire, and thus the more human side of me not being equipped to drink it, at first." Immediately, I didn't like the implication of that.

"Why do I have the feeling you're about to say something along the lines of, 'I get more vampire- and thus less human- as I age'?" Lisbet shot me a sharp, scolding look, as Leo blinked.

"Jer-"

He interrupted her chastising with a shrug. "I mean, it's true, isn't it?" Now it was Lisbet's turn to blink, as she realised I was on to something. "I become more vampire and less human, right up until my sixteenth birthday- when I go through the change. One way or another, it ends." His transition, or... his life?

"Why?" His eyebrows furrowed, and I clarified. "Why do you think that becoming more vampire, means you'll be less human?" He tilted his head again, looking bemused.

"Because that's how fractions work? Percentages? Becoming more of one thing, automatically makes you less of the other. If my fifty percent vampire ticks up to sixty, seventy, eighty percent-" I cut him off.

"Seventy-five." He paused, staring at me for a second with his mouth slightly open, like he was confused by why I'd picked this particular number to draw the line at.

"...what?" I squeezed his hand, not really caring whether he'd think it was the signal, now that I was too worried about cheering him up- or at least comforting him.

"Seventy-five percent's the maximum amount of vampire you could ever be, even if it takes over every last morsel-" My eyes flicked to Lisbet, then quickly back to Leo, who'd clearly made the connection between morsel and Morsol much like I had. "-of your human side- which still wouldn't erase your humanity, by the way." He blinked. "You're quarter Veela, after all... and not even your vampire side can take that from you."

(A/N): Leo: *exists*

Jerremyah: 'Baby.'

Lisbet: 'My little boy.'

Jerremyah: 'Gamin.'

Lisbet: 'Mon petit garçon.'

Jerremyah: 'Oui, ton petit garçon.'

Lisbet: *side eye*

Lisbet: '...notre petit garçon.'

Jerremyah: '...' *blushes*

Translations (French):

Gamin. = Kid/kiddo (Jerremyah)

Mon petit garçon. = My little boy/baby boy (Lisbet)

Oui, ton petit garçon = Yes, your little boy/baby boy (Jerremyah)

Notre petit garçon. = Our baby boy. ('...our baby boy.') (Lisbet)

Grammatical notes:

Me and Grey - While I was editing this chapter, I saw this line and changed it to 'Grey and I'. Then I thought to myself- A, does Jerremyah know that that's incorrect (probably?), and B, does he give a fuck? (definitely not) so I kept it as 'me and Grey'. I considered changing it to 'Grey and me', but I figured that since he's mimicking his previous sentence about 'Nicholai and Grey', he's keeping the names in the same orientation and just swapping himself out for Nicholai, so Jerremyah, AKA 'me', would still be first, leaving me with 'me and Grey'.

It've - So apparently 'it've' isn't quite correct, since 'it've' is a contraction of 'it have' and everyone says that's incorrect because it should either be 'it has' or 'it would have' (someone even said 'I have'), but none of that applies to the sentence I'm trying to write, which is 'would it have' which is grammatically correct (?) but is absolutely not something I think Jerremyah would say, in this particular circumstance.

On to something - It seems like both 'onto something' and 'on to something' are appropriate ways to write this idiom, but I chose 'on to' instead of 'onto' because I felt like you are 'on' to something, as in, your state is 'on', because of something else, rather than you are 'onto' something, which to mean more means that you are 'on top of something'. Again, both seem to be accurate, this version just makes more sense to me, personally.

By the way, the next two chapters are going to be Amelia Rochester chapters, and I don't THINK they should have much information about/an impact on Leo's side of the story, at least not at this point, so if you're someone who hates that particular story line, feel free to skip it, it shouldn't affect your reading of this story in any way. It does mean that you won't see a chapter for another six days, though (should be 3/09/23, I think). I didn't intend to put them out one after the other, but I wrote one, then immediately had the motivation to write the next one (which is pretty rare for me), so I went with it. Ideally I would have slotted another chapter between them, but it's taking a bit longer to write than I would have liked, so I don't think that's happening.