(A/N): Continuing on from the last chapter, with Danniel trying to convince Leo to not be upset about having to leave, and Lisbet giving some backstory about her, and Jerremyah, and Greygorry, and Jerremyah and Greygorry's relationship, and how she and Jerremyah met. I wrote this chapter and the last one in eleven hours- five hours for the last one, six hours for this one. As I'm about to upload this, I just finished writing chapter 350- which is supposed to be uploaded on 19/3. A word of warning that certain characters in future chapters are going to act pretty uncharacteristically unlikable- they WILL return to normal, whatever normal is for them.

Lisbet

Getting Leo to leave hadn't been that hard- he had been too confused by our strange reactions to argue as much as he usually would have, and luckily, since it had been Danniel who had elected to go with him to the Folley's, all it had taken was a pointed look, and he started to stir Leo up, encouraging him to be excited about spending some time alone, away from home.

"We can take some pop and some of the leftovers, maybe have a picnic or something. C'mon, it'll be great!" That's what I meant when I said that each of the Twins had their own unique relationship with Leo- Danniel always tried to make sure Leo didn't get discouraged, and didn't feel like he was being excluded- which, unfortunately, he was, right now.

"...Mm, yeah, okay." He didn't sound all that enthusiastic, but I think he was mostly just too focused on trying to figure out what was going on with Greygorry, Jerremyah and I to put any effort into seeming excited about his little 'boys trip' with Danniel.

"...I'll get the stuff together, then we'll get going, yeah?" Leo nodded absently to Danniel's offer, and the older boy disappeared, using his vampire speed to fetch something to put their supplies in. I locked eyes with Leo, trying to let him know with my eyes that this wasn't about him- Well. It was, in fact, about him- but it wasn't about him. The conversation was going to be centered around him, but it wasn't going to be contingent on him or his reactions in any way.

"You have your pendant, use it if anything happens. Anything." He nodded, again not really looking like he was paying attention, and I pursed my lips. "Leo." He snapped back to attention, and I intentionally softened my gaze, wanting to be gentle with him- even though I knew not only was Jerremyah watching me intently now, but so was Greygorry. "...Danniel will have your back. Stay with him." He hesitated for a second, appearing touched by that fact, and Danniel popped back into the room, toting a cardboard box in his arms, with possibly the ugliest orange blanket I had ever seen folded up in it- clearly, he was leaning hard into the picnic idea.

"Yeah, absolutely!" He whizzed past us, pulling the fridge door open hard enough to make the whole thing rock against the tiled floor, before pulling a startled face and immediately trying to settle it, but only half succeeding. "What do you think, turkey or beef?" Leo just stared at him, and when Danniel glanced back at him over his own shoulder, he shrugged. "Right, right, clearly the answer is both!" He slipped the two containers of sliced meat into the cardboard box, along with a jar of mayonnaise, and started piling can after can of pop into the box as well.

"I think a dozen cans is enough, Danniel." Jo piped up, and Danniel scoffed lightly, but did stop pulling pop from the refrigerator.

"Oh, sure, for just Leo maybe! I may not have to eat, but I definitely still need my fizzy drink! If there was ever a vampire that could survive on fizzy pop, it'd be me, for sure!" I couldn't help but share the amused, fond look that Leo shot in Danniel's direction- clearly Danniel's plan to chatter incessantly until Leo was sufficiently distracted was working just as well as he thought it would.

"I'm sure Jerremyah would say the same about honey, apparently." Jerremyah looked vaguely surprised at Leo dragging him into the situation, and Greygorry huffed out a laugh.

"I thought you smelled like honey." Or, more like honey than usual, at least. Jerremyah always smelled at least a little bit like honey, but that wasn't surprising to me, considering his fondness for it. It may have seemed a little bit unusual to people like Leo, and probably the Twins, who were born in the past two decades, but at the point when Jerremyah was born, in the early 1500's, sugar was much too expensive to be commonly available, so honey was the most popular sweetener of the time.

It wasn't typically something servants were provided with, however, and Jerremyah had taken it upon himself to procure some- and ended up taking the full brunt of his masters wrath across his back in the form of a flogging. It may have been the first time he had been whipped, but I also knew it hadn't been the last- and at this point, I could probably trace the lines of his scars even with my eyes closed, through his shirt.

"I always smell like honey." Jerremyah muttered lazily, rubbing a thumb across the inside of Grey's wrist, and I knew it was a pale substitute for what Jerremyah really wanted to be doing right now, but couldn't- because not only did we have a fraught conversation to get through before that point, but I knew that whatever Jerremyah was thinking about inevitably involved us. Us, as in, all three of us. And while Grey and I were still on good terms- very good terms- I was still trying to distance myself from Jerremyah- and unfortunately, having Grey around wasn't going to make that any easier.

You would think it would, because it would distract Jerremyah away from teasing me, but the teasing was never the most dangerous thing about him- the most provocative. Jerremyah had always been rather affectionate with Greygorry, not only physically, but verbally, and it was incredibly alluring to see him act that way with someone other than me- from the outside, looking in. I hadn't been jealous of their relationship in over three hundred years- their romantic or sexual relationship, anyway- I knew Jerremyah wasn't in love with Greygorry, and vice versa.

They loved each other, sure- they were best friends, the closest two people could be- the closest two vampires could be, without becoming mates. I had always thought it was incredibly lucky that they hadn't bonded in that manner before I had met Jerremyah, considering they had known each other for over twenty years at that point, and had been... involved, pretty much that whole time. I say 'involved', not because I was trying to censor it, but because there was no other word for it- sure, they'd started shagging pretty much the second they had met, but it was more than that. There was a bond there even I couldn't replicate, and if there was anything I was jealous about, it was that.

"Mm, yeah." Greygorry murmured, rubbing his stubbled cheek against Jerremyah's- Jerremyah had mostly kept his facial hair at roughly the same length the entire time I had known him- or, well... I could admit that it was probably since I had said that I preferred it short, but not shaved. Greygorry, however, preferred the way his own facial hair looked shaved, but never actually managed to keep his face clean shaven for very long. He got much too distracted to care about the way his facial hair looked, and it was easier to just let it go. It was one of the few things they fought about- the fact that Greygorry sometimes got so caught up in something that he put everything else in front of his own wellbeing, and when Jerremyah tried to pull him away from whatever he was doing, he usually put up a fight.

Jerremyah had been a vampire for almost a hundred years before he had met Greygorry, and yet, the younger vampire had always had much better control, even when they had met, and Greygorry was a new vampire of only a decade. Then again, they had led very different lives as humans, and had been turned under very different circumstances. Though- I eyed Greygorry- most people weren't turned for the same reasons Greygorry had been. I definitely wasn't. Jerremyah would have been perfectly suited for it- and even after he had been turned, he had been offered a position with Greygorry's sire, but in the end he hadn't taken it- and I was eternally grateful for that fact, considering we almost certainly wouldn't have met if he had taken her offer.

She probably wouldn't have wanted to part with him in order for him to take the assignment that had led to us meeting that day in Norfolk, and I very much doubted our paths would have crossed any other way- and even if they had, I doubted I would have looked twice at him- alright, maybe I wouldn't have looked three times- simply because of the way I had been expected to act at the time, given my station. I had certainly looked at him more than once when we had first met, but that had been acceptable, because I had been supposed to be his guide- I hadn't known, at the time, that the side of Jerremyah I knew, was very different to the one most other people experienced. He had had to act a certain way to blend in, and I- well. I won't lie- I had been attracted to him. More attracted than I had ever been to anyone- a fact that had horrified me at the time.

Young ladies like I had been at the time weren't supposed to experience that kind of attraction, and that's before you took in my role as a novitiate, and Jerremyah's- supposed- role as a deacon. Every time Greygorry referred to me as 'Sister', something deep in my chest ached- not for the life I could have lived, as part of the church, but for the reason I had joined the church in the first place- my mother.

"You grab the bread, I'll grab the knife and the plates." Danniel said, pulling me out of my thoughts, and Leo reached past me to grab the loaf of bread from the breadbox on the counter, pulling it back and cradling it to his chest, like it was something precious.

"Got it." His voice was quiet, and it made me nervous- he was clearly uncomfortable with the fact that he didn't know what was going on, but I was hopeful that Danniel would do his job, and cheer him up.

"Alright, you ready to go?" Leo hesitated, glancing back at me- and when I gave him an encouraging nod, he turned back to Danniel and shrugged.

"I... guess." Danniel mimicked his shrug, and bumped Leo's shoulder with his own as he came over, so that Leo could deposit the bread in the box he carried- but Leo didn't put the bread in the box. He continued to hold it, like he needed it. I felt bad for making him worry, but there was nothing I could do about it, that wouldn't just make him feel worse.

"Have fun." Leo nodded weakly, glancing at the others, who gave him reassuring looks- even if they, themselves, didn't know what was going on.

"Yeah." Danniel shifted the box into one arm, grabbing Leo's forearm with his now free hand, and starting to tug him from the room.

"We will! Try not to fuck your boys, over there!" I practically squawked in outrage, and my swing for Danniel was only slowed by the sound of Leo's laughter erupting out of him, just enough to miss the younger vampire as he sped from the room- only briefly having to drag Leo, before he got the memo and followed him by his own volition.

I heard the crack of Danniel disapparating them as they reached the boundary line of the estate grounds, and I turned to Jerremyah and Greygorry with a fond, but exasperated sigh.

"I guess that means it's time to talk about this."

(A/N): Greygorry: 'I bet you'll be-'

Lisbet: 'Language!'

Jerremyah: 'I like threesomes.'

Lisbet: 'Language!'

Danniel: 'Try not to fuck your boys, over there!'

Lisbet: 'God. DAMMIT. Danniel!'