(A/N): So, this is new. We're visiting Jerremyah, this time in 1966, because who better to visit for the Valentine's Day chapter than Jerremyah- especially an overprotective Jerremyah whose relationship is, sadly, coming to a (temporary) end? As I've mentioned, I originally had other plans for the VD chapter, but since none of the others really panned out the way I wanted them to, I wrote this one special, instead. It takes place about an hour after Khal left to take Evie home, and Grey left with Nicholai, as Jerremyah explains, and it features a post-sex Lismyah/Jerrebet (which is distinctly less disturbing than a post-coital Cipicia and Sebastien- I don't have a ship name for that for a reason). It isn't explicit, but Jerremyah does specifically mention orgasms having been had, and briefly describes the method in which Lisbet might prefer their sex to happen right now- AKA, tenderly, rather than 'harder'. Also, it's kind of funny that chapter 566 ended up being set in 1966. It's not really that big of a coincidence, considering I do those every four chapters now, but still, I thought it was cool.
Trigger Warnings: Brief references to Jerremyah having been suicidal/having suicidal ideations before he was turned, but it's pretty much just that. Uh, jealousy and possessiveness, basically? Jerremyah reacts badly to something unexpectedly, because his vampire instincts are running rampant (which we know from chapters that take place in the future is because he doesn't actually believe Khal's prediction about them getting a kit, and is feeling more protective over Lisbet because he expects her to be the only good thing he ever has, so obviously he feels the need to protect her more strongly than ever before), and other people have to deal with the consequences/manage him a bit.
January 16th, 1966
Jerremyah
After Khal had disapparated with Evie, and Grey had left to make sure Nicholai didn't fall down a well on his way home, or something- if only- Lisbet and I retreated to our bedroom to regroup. Alone. In the wake of Khal's awful, 'what if', prediction. Which is to say, we had sex again, and both gained several new bite marks- claims. "Do you really think we'll be finding a kit of our own, soon?" She asked in a breathy voice- breathy from incredulity, not her recent orgasms, unfortunately- and I buried my face in her neck again in an attempt to at least muffle my groan, since I couldn't stifle it completely.
"Lisabetta, my love- there isn't much point dwelling on the subject," I told her... for about the fortieth time since Khal had delivered his prediction. "Whatever's going to happen is going to happen, riling ourselves up thinking about it isn't going to help anyone." This wasn't the first time I had told her as much, either- which I'm well aware was an ironic role reversal, considering how long I had been bugging her about wanting a kit, before she had finally shut the idea down for 'moral reasons'.
"I know, I know, but- I can't stop thinking about it." This was also a statement she had taken to cycling through... which I took a little offense to, given how much effort I had put into trying to make her lose the ability to think coherently. I had succeeded at least three times already, but clearly I needed to try harder- or more tenderly, as she tended to prefer in times like these. I started kissing up her neck again, paying particularly close attention to my claiming bite there, and she huffed a laugh, even if it did come out a bit more affected than I knew she would have liked. "Again?" She asked fondly, but without surprise- this was, after all, not an uncommon occurrence for me- then threw me off entirely by asking, "What do you think they'll be like?" This was a new question, and one I didn't know how to answer. Or.. want to, really.
I paused my ministrations to groan again, scenting the underside of her jaw gently before collapsing back on top of her. She didn't complain or even seem to notice, since the weight of my body was inconsequential to her, but she did hitch one of her legs a little further so my 'knobbly knees', as she liked to call them, didn't press into her quite so firmly. "They'll be great. Of course they'll be great, they'll be ours- can we stop talking about this, now?" She hummed quietly.
"Mm, yeah, but what- Their personality. Their looks. Their story. What do you think they'll be like? You can't tell me you don't have theories- not you." 'Not you', as in: Not my mate, who wanted a kit so badly he badgered me for the better part of three hundred years about it. She had a point- and I'm sure if I had had it in me to believe Khal as wholeheartedly as she obviously did, I would have been able to endure formulating theories about our future kit. As it was, though...
"Lis, I really don't-" She cut me off.
"Come on, Jer! Humor me, here!"
That was the last thing I wanted to do right now, but since I had never been able to deny Lisbet anything- or wanted to- I found myself giving in, anyway. "I don't know, love," I told her honestly, and she must have heard my hesitation because she didn't try to prompt me again, just yet. "I used to think about it constantly, even before..." I trailed off, and as she rubbed a comforting hand up and down my back, I knew she thought I meant before I had met her, rather than before I had become a vampire, which was what I actually meant. I had been thinking about it since before I knew what a kit was- even when I had thought life may not be worth living, my mind had often distracted itself with the prospect of family; future, not past. "It's painful," I said as plainly as I could manage, and felt her body tense against mine. "I can't- Thinking about it ahead of time will only make me more desperate, and... I don't need to be any more desperate, Lis; I'm sure you agree." She nodded weakly, contemplatively.
"I- I don't mean to cause you pain, My Heart. You know the last thing I want is to hurt you, but I-" She paused, taking in and holding an unnecessary breath. "I find myself hopeful- truly, wonderfully hopeful- for the first time since..." Her lips pursed and her brow furrowed, as though she was thinking quite hard. "I haven't wanted a child as long as you have, kit or otherwise, so I can't say that's the reason, exactly, but I... This is a big step for us. For our relationship. When you turned me, when we officially became mates, when we got married the first time- those were all big steps. This is the first big step since then, and I think maybe... one of the biggest, overall. Even if I put aside the actual- The- The kit of it all, it's still... It's big." I nodded, folding my arms over her chest so I could prop my head up to be able to watch her face- my favorite part of her, and not by a narrow margin… albeit because I adored it so fiercely, not because I found the rest of her in any way lacking.
"I know," I acknowledged softly. "It's- not scary, exactly, but... Well, it makes me anxious, to say the least." Though whether that was anxious as in excited, or anxious as in nervous, even I didn't know.
She leaned forward to press her lips to mine far too briefly for my liking. "We'll be okay," She told me gently. "We've been through worse than anything a kit can throw at us... anything parenthood can throw at us." This was much more firm. "As long as we're solid before we find them, we can handle it, I know it. Speaking of whi-"
There was a knock on the door, and she and I shared a look- Grey must be back. I grabbed my wand from the side table and removed the silencing charm- my silencing charm, anyway; Nuria insisted on having permanent silencing charms embedded into the very bones of her hideouts, so she didn't have to risk enduring hearing anything 'private', should we forget to cast one of our own. By design, her spells didn't block everything, though- not cries for help, expressions of genuine, distressed pain, or a handful of phrases such as: "You can come in."
The door opened and closed, and Grey was sitting on the edge of the bed kicking his shoes off before my brain even really caught up to the fact that he was there. When it did, though... Lisbet's head snapped up, and Grey froze as an unbidden growl tore out of my throat. "...Jer?" She asked cautiously- not because she thought there was a chance of me hurting her, but because she didn't know what had caused it. I wasn't sure, either.
"Do I... Should I leave?" Grey asked gingerly, quietly, as though he was trying not to risk drawing further ire from me. I hated it- Grey should never have felt like I was a danger to him, especially when he hadn't done anything to deserve it. "Is he- Lis, is he looking at me? Solely, at me, or are his eyes flicking back and forth between us?" It was an odd question, and one I knew the answer to... but couldn't tell him, because I couldn't get it out past the growl.
"Both," She told him quickly, concisely, which was true. "Why, what's- What do you think is going on?"
Grey didn't respond to her, but instead, addressed me directly. "Jer, I'm going to stand up now and move away; over to the dresser. I'll- When I reach the dresser, I'll turn to face you... okay?" I did my best to confirm, but only managed to make a noise in the back of my throat- able to be heard through the growling, but not necessarily understood. "Alright, here I go." Almost everything inside me honed in on his movement, and I watched keenly as he slowly moved away, the burning tension in my chest easing slightly with every step he took. The best I felt was when he reached the dresser- the furthest point away- but before he turned around; when he finally did, a spike of possessiveness coursed through me, and I leaned further over Lisbet's body in a futile attempt to cover her. "Well, that answers that question," Grey said with a minor sort of dark amusement, and I felt my brows draw together.
"...what question?" I asked him wearily, now that I had the ability, and he huffed out a laugh that was about as dark as I would expect.
"Whether you considered me a threat to you, or in general, or specifically a threat to Lisbet- to your relationship." I blinked- Grey, a threat? "You're jealous... that's new."
Jealous? Of Grey? Of Grey, with Lisbet? That- I tried to deny it, even internally, but found that something inside me was preventing me from doing so. Huh. "That is new," I concurred, and felt Lisbet shift beneath me as though she was uncomfortable- with this revelation, not the fact that I was covering her. Well, not with my body over top of hers, but perhaps with my protective stance- possessive, stance. "Do you think it could've been Khal's... Do you think what he said, could've caused it?" Grey tilted his head to the side, clearly contemplating this before he shrugged.
"Something he said, yes." That... didn't sound like he was agreeing with me, oddly enough. "Clothes won't help, will they?" I didn't even have the time to think about it, before he shook his head. "Yeah, I didn't think so." Oi, let me answer for myself, you smarmy prick!
"We were talking about our kit," Lisbet said so softly that I felt like covering her again- though whether that was to protect her, or to preserve her emotional modesty, I couldn't figure out. "He was having trouble with it, and I was reassuring him... do you think that could have something to do with it?"
Grey frowned slightly, keeping his eyes on the wall directly across from him, over our heads- likely because he didn't want to risk triggering my protective instincts, again. "Possibly." Well, that was infuriatingly vague.
"Did you send Dickolai off alright? Give him a kiss and cuddle for his troubles, and hightail it out of there before he could submit you to some sort of snoozefest Hunter lecture, so you could come back to the other, fun, vampires?" He rolled his eyes at me, as if he was used to this; he should be, considering how long Nicholai and I had been at odds.
"Yeah, Jer, that's exactly what I did." He paused, then adjusted the subject. "About Evie- what are you thinking?" That was a complicated question, even if I had known exactly what he was asking. And, knowing Grey as well as I did, I knew he never just asked a question for the fun of it; he always had some sort of agenda. "Is she going to turn, do you think?" As I said: Complicated. "Khal certainly seems to be taking an interest in her."
Hm... he was, wasn't he? "She said she couldn't, but... She wants to, you can tell she wants to. She just... doesn't want to leave her sister. I feel sorry for her." Sorry, because even I wasn't selfish enough to voice the fact that I also felt jealous- jealous that she had someone so precious to her that she felt she had to stay human for their benefit... which was something I had never had.
"I'm sure if she could just talk to her, explain what was happening, her sister would tell her to make the choice for herself-" Grey snorted bitterly. "-but that's not what I want to talk about," Lisbet said, and I felt her smile where the corner of her mouth rested against my cheek. Or, I suppose, where my cheek rested against her mouth. "What do you think about this whole, 'demigod' thing?"
(A/N): This isn't quite 'the start of the end' for Lisbet and Jerremyah's relationship- this iteration of it, anyway- since we know from St Vampentine's Day that Lisbet was already growing tired of Jerremyah being extra protective, but it is basically the start of the drop-off point, where things started to take a more sharp decline toward the end. Jerremyah was already exhibiting signs of over-protectiveness, but this is basically where he starts doubling down, and Lisbet slowly gets more and more sick of it as time goes on. A weird thing to focus on in a Valentine's Day chapter, but… y'know. I love me some Lismyah/Jerrebet, and I can't help myself, even when the romance ends up being quite sad.
Grey snorted bitterly at the end there because he doesn't think Lisbet's optimism on the subject is warranted, given the fact that he was in a pretty similar situation with Gautier (and the rest of his family, but mostly Gautier), and Gautier was awful to him about it. Grey obviously assumes that Vi would do the same, though whether that's true or not, remains to be seen. Or… not.
Jerremyah asks Grey whether he thinks Khal's wayward prediction of him and Lisbet getting caught and killed by the Hunters could have caused his flare up of protectiveness, and Grey says, 'something he said, yes', because as we know, Grey doesn't believe that it was this that caused it, but rather, the fact that Jerremyah didn't believe Khal's prediction about them finding a kit. Hence why when Lisbet asks if it could be about their conversation about their future kit, Grey says, 'possibly'. He's already harboring that theory.
Grey says 'clothes won't help, will they?' and then answers for himself with, 'no, I didn't think so', because even though Jerremyah doesn't realise it, he was actually being pretty obvious with his reactions, and Grey can read him like an open book. This is also because he knows it's very much not about the fact that Lisbet is naked, but the fact that Grey is, essentially, invading their (/Jerremyah's) territory. He could leave, which would help on the jealousy front, but I think he knows that it would make Jerremyah sad to realise that his friend leaving HELPED, because that's the last thing Jerremyah would want. Jerremyah's getting extra frustrated by Grey being vague because he's already on edge by him invading their space- his instincts are basically screaming, 'say what you need to say and get out', and Jerremyah's like, 'what the hell, instincts, this is GREY. Y'know, our BEST FRIEND, Grey?' and his instincts are like, 'don't care. Get him out, get him out, get him out, get him-' And as we know, Jerremyah's instincts are already quite a bit stronger than most other vampire's.
Also, the reason Grey felt so comfortable joining them in bed (well, he would've been, if he hadn't paused to take his shoes off, because Lisbet and Jerremyah insist on such things), is because he does that a lot. Normally, they're all very happy about it, which is why Jerremyah growling at him this time came as such a shock. As Grey says, Jerremyah also isn't typically a very jealous person (other than when it comes to Wilde, as previously established), though he does get a bit… sad about it. Basically, he's not like, 'what are you doing with this other person?!' he's more like, '...of course you're with another person. Why would you want ME, when you could want THEM?'. For the most part, Lisbet has trained him out of this (trained him to believe in her and not worry that she'll leave him, because she's reassured him enough that she loves him, and ONLY him), but this time Jerremyah's legitimately jealous, which is odd for him.
Jerremyah saying he made Lisbet 'lose the ability to think coherently at least three times already' isn't necessarily saying that he made her orgasm three times in the last hour (on top of their earlier bout after Khal's unfortunate prediction, which I'm going to say was at least another two), but is only saying that he made her completely incapable of coherent thought at least three times, which could mean either he made her stop thinking without having to make her orgasm, or Lisbet can sometimes think coherently during orgasms, in which case he gave her more than that. Anyway, you can interpret that comment however you want.
Lisbet's cut off 'speaking of which' was meant to be her trying to broach the subject of his recent over-protectiveness, but it sort of got brought up anyway, albeit in a different manner than intended.
Also, Lisbet's, 'We've been through worse than anything a kit can throw at us... anything parenthood can throw at us', is hilarious, considering all the shit Leo has/is currently putting them through/will put them through, and how much they're struggling with it. I don't think you two understand how much parenthood is going to destroy you, and how much you're going to love the fact that it does.
I finished writing chapter 692 and 693, and picked a topic/pov(/time period) for 694- or whatever chapter it ends up being, which might just be chapter 700 if I can make it special in the way I want it to (depending on whether I can steer my characters in that direction this chapter, or if I need to do another one in this time period to follow up this one). I've got a list of topics/povs I want to cover between 690 and 701, some of which I've already done, but I'm pretty sure I'm writing them out of order at this point. Also, we're going to reach 1 million words quite a bit sooner than expected (approximately chapter 670, now, whereas I thought it was going to be 684) because I originally calculated it without the Author's Notes for a lot of the yet to be uploaded chapters, and obviously without all the edits I have made to previous chapters since that calculation.