(A/N): Continuing the conversation, from Leo saying that everything was easier with Elaine. Alternate titles for this chapter are 'Hormonal Teenage Idiots' and 'Scratching An Itch'.

Jerremyah

It was a lot for him to admit something like that- for him to feel like he was able to admit something like that, especially when we'd just been... well, sort of poking fun at him. We weren't seriously making fun of him, but it was still- he knew we were amused, and willing to make jokes about the subject, and yet... he'd told us anyway. He trusted us not to take the piss out of him- at least about this, right now. It meant a lot to me to know that, even if I also knew that it was more to do with Lisbet, than it was with me.

"Everything, huh?" I asked as I pulled my face out of his shoulder, doing my best to sound sincere, rather than my default teasing. I wasn't sure if I'd managed it, but I suspect Leo would've blushed the way that he was doing, whether I'd succeeded or not.

"Well..." He hesitated, then his face scrunched slightly, and he shrugged. "I think so, yeah. Just about." He seemed almost as surprised by this answer as Lisbet and I were, but also a bit sheepish- not like he was ashamed of the truth, but at how easy it was to confess.

"Oh, Leo..." Was Lisbet's predictable, but no less sweet response, before she pressed a kiss to the highest point of his cheekbone. "Have you told her that?"

He blinked and his face scrunched up again, but I knew it had nothing to do with the kiss, and everything to do with the question. "No? Why would I?" For the first time, Lisbet looked openly disappointed- something that I, personally, thought might be a mistake, but I hoped that Leo could tell the difference between this sort of disappointment and a more real, tangible- irredeemable- sort of disappointment. Immediately, he began to look a little... wary, but Lisbet pushed on nonetheless, brushing the tips of her fingers over his hair.

"Because girls like to hear that sort of thing." She told him, and he eyed her dubiously.

"How would you know?" She cocked a brow at him, the corner of her lips twitching as she struggle not to smirk.

"Because," She started, meaningfully. "I may be a woman now, but I was a girl, once upon a time." He flushed. "It may have been quite a long time ago, but I think I still remember most of the key points." At this, he looked almost... ashamed of himself? It was more than mere embarrassment, and I think maybe he felt bad for reminding her of the fact that she wasn't human, and hadn't been for centuries. As if she hadn't come to terms with that almost as long ago.

"Sorry." He said quickly, and even though she'd tilted her head to the side to try to urge him to elaborate, he pushed past the whole thing rather succinctly. "But Elaine isn't-" He cut himself off, hesitating slightly. "I don't think Elaine likes that kind of thing." He sounded unsure of himself, now. "I mean, she's never asked me for... and she's not exactly..." I huffed out a laugh, unintentionally, and was forced to throw my lot into the conversation, when Leo turned his head to eye me almost as warily as he had Lisbet.

"Sounds like a match made in heaven," I teased as lightly as possible, and his flush grew in intensity once more. "Look, Leo- she's not going to ask. If you've made it as clear to her as you've tried to make it to us, you don't like talking about your feelings-" He nodded quickly, proving my theory for me. "-and you have to understand that, well... I mean, she's the same age as you, right?" He shrugged, then nodded again.

"She's twenty-four days older than me, but yeah. The same age." I shot Lisbet a look as subtly as I could- one that screamed, 'Good Lord, he's gone on her!'- before lifting a shoulder in a half-arsed attempt at a shrug.

"So, you're the same age- why do you seem to think that she's not just as much a hormonal, teenage idiot as you are?" His eyebrows drew downwards, and I rushed to clarify, before he got mad at me for 'insulting' Elaine. "As much an idiot as we all were at that age- as I was, for sure, and I don't doubt that Lizzy was, too-"

He cut me off with a squeeze of his hand around mine, and in the second or two before he filled the gap that I'd left in the conversation, I barely had the time to wonder whether he was genuinely using our signal, or was just taking advantage of it to force a break to my rambling. "Elaine isn't an idiot," He said, but he didn't sound angry, just... as though he was trying to gently correct me? Which- wasn't that a trip. "She's one of the smartest people I know- emotionally, and... uh... everything else." I squinted at him- not because I doubted him, necessarily, but more because I thought he might be being influenced by his infatuation with her.

"Still," I said, as kindly as I could- which probably wasn't kind enough, in the long run. "Teenagers are dumb. They're meant to be dumb," I told him, using the fact that I knew he was concerned with the way he was 'supposed' to act- and feel- to get my point across. "You're kids- and while you're capable of a lot of things, most people aren't going to expect you to be able to think and act like a rational adult at all times. Bloody hell, I've met people who are thousands of years old, and not a single one of them is rational all the time." He was clearly pondering this. "Elaine may be more rational than the rest of you, but I'm sure she still-"

"I never said she was rational," The corner of his lips had curved upward, letting us see a lovely little half-smile. "Not an idiot, yes. Rational?" He shrugged. "Depends on how dumb I've been, lately." I glanced at Lisbet rather meaningfully.

"I've found that's generally the deciding factor for most of the women in my life, too." She rolled her eyes at me. No... at the both of us. Leo was just as much part of this as I was.

"Well maybe if you boys weren't so 'dumb', we wouldn't have to act 'irrationally'. Speaking of which-" Leo cut her off, nuzzling her cheek with a grin.

"Don't take this out on me- I never said you were irrational. In fact, I never said Elaine was irrational, either. Maybe she doesn't act entirely rationally sometimes, but... well," He huffed quietly, and I wondered whether he was actually frustrated, or if he was just playing at it to hide the real reason behind his hesitation. There was none of that peppery scent that typically accompanied frustration, but maybe he was- maybe it was only mild frustration, or maybe my nose just wasn't at its best, today. "Sometimes I deserve it." He flushed, and his jaw worked around nothing for a second, like he wanted to splutter, but was forcing himself not to.

"Uh oh," Lisbet said, clearly fighting back a grin. "What's that about?" His blush darkened, quite a bit.

"...I..." He was obviously having trouble getting the words out. Forming the words too, probably. "...'deserve' isn't quite... the right word?" She arched a brow, and he dipped his head a little. She allowed it- not just because she wanted to him the opportunity to regulate his emotions, but also because even with his head lowered, he wasn't avoiding her. He was sweeping his forehead across the side of her jaw, but I wasn't sure whether he was trying to reassure her, or himself. "It's... I guess... 'earned', is a better word?" We let him sit with this for a second, mostly just to see if he'd change his mind again.

"How so?" She asked softly, and when he was quiet for another minute, I tried my hand at getting an answer out of him.

"Because you don't feel like you 'deserve' things, but if you feel like you've 'earned' them, it makes it burn a little less?" He jolted, and Lisbet flashed me a look that was somehow both grateful, and reproachful.

"I-" He lifted his head, eyeing me suspiciously, before he relaxed a little- for no apparent reason. "I don't know if 'burn' is how I'd describe that particular sensation." He muttered darkly, which- wasn't a denial. In fact, it was pretty damning. The look Lisbet sent my way this time was reluctantly impressed- not because she didn't want to be impressed by me, but because she didn't enjoy the subject matter.

"And how would you describe it?" He narrowed his eyes at her, clearly more than aware of how she was trying to dig for more information- for more emotion- but she didn't seem bothered by his reaction in the least. "Oh come on, you know I had to ask." He half-glared at her, but slowly, the irritation drained from his eyes.

"I don't know," He huffed, still playing at annoyed, even if we could all tell he really wasn't- even without having to rely on his scent in order to figure it out. "An itch?" Lisbet's eyebrows furrowed- and as he continued, mine weren't far behind. "A distracting, maddening sensation that's impossible to ignore, but once you give in and start paying attention to it- once you start scratching, it's hard to stop- and eventually, you end up going too far, and putting a hole in yourself." Were we still talking about him feeling like he didn't deserve anything?

I squeezed his hand, and there was a moment- a moment that was much scarier than it should've been- where he was completely still. And then, he squeezed me back. "And you don't... feel like you deserve Elaine being irrational about you?" It was a bit of a cop out- more or less a change of subject- but I had the feeling that he was on the verge of getting overwhelmed again, and I didn't know how else to steer us away from that, so I did the only thing I knew would work. Leo looked relieved, which was to be expected, but also like... if I didn't know better, I would've said he was ever so slightly disappointed, too.

"I..." He took a second to figure out how to convert his thoughts into words. "I feel like I don't deserve the reasons behind that irrationality. She acts 'irrationally' because she cares about me- because I'm her friend, and she... loves me. I don't- I feel like I don't deserve that. Or... love in general."

(A/N): Oh by the way, I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but Leo is the youngest of all of his friends. His birthday is the latest in the year, other than Sirius's, but Sirius is the oldest, since he was born November 3rd 1959. This means he's only about three months younger than Brooke, who was born August 21st, 1959. The rest of the group were born in 1960- Lily on January 30th, Remus March 10th, James March 27th, Peter July 20th, and Elaine July 22nd.

All canon characters have their canonical birth dates, except for Peter, who apparently doesn't have one. Yes, I unintentionally made him two days older than Elaine, let's not talk about it. I did originally have Sirius's birthday written down as November 28th, 1959, which makes sense since apparently JK only came out with it a while after the series ended, so I probably made up my own and somehow got pretty close. I should probably work on a calendar of Into The Fire birthdays at some point, just for my own reference, but... eh...

Also, Leo eyeing Jerremyah suspiciously near the end there was him being unsure and being like, '...is Jerremyah using legilimency on me?' and then eventually deciding, '...nah, he's just agonisingly perceptive.'