Push You Out, Pull You Back In || Jasper and Leona
When Leona didn’t want to be in the company of others, she sought out comfort in Jasper. And when she couldn’t sleep at night, she texted or called him all the while praying as the phone rang that he would be awake. When Leona couldn’t stand to go to therapy, mainly because she couldn’t be bothered with reliving her latest nightmare, she would text Jasper and try to convince him to play hooky together. In all honestly, Leona had never considered herself someone who had an abundance of friends: when in the military, you couldn’t. Sure, she wanted to look after and protect her fellow soldiers, but she’d lost friends in combat and, at some point, she’d stopped growing close to those who fought by her side. In hindsight, if she’d known how fucked up she’d be once the accident happened and she woke out of the coma, maybe she would’ve tried to get to know them better. Maybe she wouldn’t have shrugged off the newbies in her squadron by sticking to those she knew. Maybe she would’ve tried harder, somehow, to save them. One thing she had realized was that survivor’s guilt, and the trauma that came along, was a fucking bitch. Living in the same block as Jasper was a blessing in disguise. First, it fed to her found laziness post-military, and it meant that she could easily stroll over to his flat in an oversized jumper without a second glance in her direction. After she spent an aggravated ten seconds digging around in her pocket for the key to his front door, Leona slipped inside and toed off her shoes by the front door. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to steal your belongings, just coming to sleep with you,” Leona called out with an air of sarcasm in laced in her tone. Before she made way to his room, Leona stopped in the kitchen and stole a glass from the cabinet only to fill it with tap water. Pills were a bitch, but she knew if she didn’t take them before sleep it would only create a catastrophe in the morning. Padding down the hall to his bedroom, Leona peeked her head inside with a quiet smile before she crept in, no longer hesitant when it came to Jasper. “Also, secondly, I totally forgot to bring food. So you’ll have to deal with hangry me, yeah?”
@jasperreynolds