Something about empty parking lots has always fascinated Leah. Sometimes the markings on the pavement would be faded, making it harder to accurately park your car, sometimes there would be none at all or they would be pristine and new. Fog hangs around the lamps in billowing clouds, Leah's breath is visible in front of her as she slowly walks through the vast and empty plane. Where is the end? She can't see where things start or stop, the streetlights seemingly only ever illuminating her immediate surroundings.

It's not cold. The air has a purple tinge to it while more fog gathers around her. Someone stands at the edge of the cone of light cast down over her. Leah looks at the face of the person, they definitely have a face, but their features are..moving? Sometimes there, sometimes not, she couldn't tell you how the person looked if you asked her. Their stare was burning nonetheless as they looked down on her. When did she sit down?

They get closer, the fog gives way around them. Every step in Leah's direction pushes up the heat in her throat. The air around them is calm, fear is absent in Leah's heart. The heat rises closer towards a threshold of being too much, comfort turning into burns and pain. Pressure builds in her chest, anchoring her to the ground. Maybe five more steps and the person towers over her. A force behind her bends her back forward, it's unrelenting, no matter how much she pushes back against it. More heat rushes through her, her mouth opens to gasp but the sound is far away.

The veil of the dream lifts as Leah cracks open an eye as she realizes her own vocalization woke her up. A solid thirty seconds pass before she's adjusted to the dim grey light in the room around her. The pressure and heat are still there to her dismay even after waking up from a dream, that you could only describe as strange.
Her gasp may have woken her up, but certainly not the two hundred pounds of Jacob rolled on top of her. His shallow breath presses his chest into Leah's back in a slow and steady rhythm, his arm prevents her from rolling out under him to get a gulp of air into her lungs. The curious part of her brain wants to see his sleeping face, see him completely unaware of his surroundings, opposite to the awake Jacob that has his eyes everywhere and is on high alert all the time. Leah's sure she's seen him in states that only his family would ever be able to see, but there's still a twinge of wanting more of him alone for herself.

After her eyes have adjusted to her surroundings, her ears are next. Subdued whistles of birds float through the window, the gray sheen that accompanies the low light around them signals the early hours of the morning. She hears no footsteps, or any other particular noise for that matter, through the wooden door she's currently facing against her will. Trying to crane up her head to get more air into her lungs ends in the top of her head bumping into Jacob's chin, his beard tangling into her hair.

She tries a big sigh at first, trying to gently raise Jacob out of his slumber, but to no avail. For a moment she thinks to just give it another moment, savouring the situation a bit more. But her lungs are starting to burn with the lack of air flowing into them.

"Jacob."

Oh Jesus, her voice sounds rough. The pictures of the night before flicker through her mind, the Father and Faith, her crying and Jacob rocking her. The skin on her face feels tight, and now that she thinks of it, her eyes are probably swollen as well.

Said man is still sleeping like a rock. To add insult to injury, his leg swings over Leah's trapping not only her upper body, but all of her now. This would all be really comforting and cozy, if he weren't so god damn heavy.

"Jake. I can't breathe."

Not the nickname, nor the louder voice get to him. Leah has no choice but to wiggle under him, trying to move whatever body part she can. That does get him to shift around, his big sigh grazing the top of her head, but he's still not quite there yet.
Leah's afraid to speak any louder, she doesn't want anyone outside the room hearing her in there, even though the chance of someone walking by there at this hour is slim, it can't be any later than 5 am.

She manages to pull an arm out under him to gently squeeze his hand next to her.

"Jake, please, I'm struggling here."

His hand envelops hers, and finally, he shifts a bit back. Leah takes a big breath and her lungs scream in relief. A rumble goes through Jacob as he pulls back, she can't tell if he's finally woken up or not.

Leah suffers the full consequences of her actions as she tries to free herself fully. Jacob's new position has him rolled back onto her shoulder, effectively crushing it.

"Jake, hey, come on, this hurts."

The pain searing through her left side pitches her voice up and makes it louder in the process.

"Call me Jake one more time, see what happens." he grumbles as his weight lifts off of Leah.

He has no intention of staying separated though, pulling Leah right alongside him by her shoulders. Her head lands on his chest with a low thud, his hand immediately sneaking around her back and pulling her flush to his side. The throbbing in her shoulder slowly subsides as she cranes her head again to look at him. His eyes are closed as far as Leah can tell in the dim light. He's feigning sleep, she knows, the stoic lines in his face have returned.

A glance out of the window reveals a light stream of rain coming down, something Leah didn't notice while she was fighting for life under Jacob. The soft patters on the window threaten to lull her to sleep again, as does the heat Jacob emits. His body is like a furnace under her, which would explain why she had gotten so hot, even in her dream.

Jacob cracks one eye open as she turns her head back to him, which reminds her:

"You don't like Jake?"

His eye closes again, as if he's seen enough. He lightly shrugs, his voice is laced with sleep as he answers her.

"Never cared for it. Never seen the point in shortenin' my name, Jacob's alright."

Before Leah can ponder over his answer, his upper body lifts alongside her on top of him. Her heart involuntarily sinks as she thinks he's about to get up, but then he takes hold of her leg and swings it over his own, tucking her closer to him.

With his back on the bed again, his hand finds the top of her head to stroke her hair again, and all of a sudden they end up in the position they fell asleep in.

A flush creeps over her cheeks, now that fatigue isn't clawing at her brain the reality of the situation breaks over her like a wave. The silence hangs over her like a sword and to make herself feel better she just whispers the first thing that comes to her mind.

"You know, being crushed by you was not how I imagined sleeping in a bed with you for the first time."

Leah practically hears the corners of his mouth curl upwards.

"Not my fault you're so damn tiny."

"M' not tiny, I am a full grown woman." she mumbles while turning her face into his chest to hide her cheeks getting redder by the second.

"Okay, whatever you say, tiny full grown woman."

Leah doesn't answer him again and the silence returns. For a while it's just both of their shallow breaths and the sound of the rain. She sure as hell isn't going to fall asleep again, not when her heart is still beating two hundred miles an hour because of the man under her. His hand continues to stroke her, his other one eventually joining in, drawing circles onto her ribcage. In that moment, Leah realizes she will never ever get used to this, not the affection, not the physical contact, nothing. Every single time Jacob looks at her, her insides are on fire, every touch makes her want to vibrate out of her skin.

And yet Jacob seems so nonchalant about it, his heart is still beating at the same steady pace it did when her head first came to lay on his chest.

"C'mere."

His words pull Leah out of her thoughts as he pulls her up to him with his hands under her armpits like she's a kid. For a second her whole upper half hovers over Jacob as he scoots back against the headboard, propping himself up before pulling her on top of him again. His hand gently presses her head into the crook of his neck and Leah's thoughts are too scrambled for her to think about what she's doing when her legs straddle him. She just chalks it up to her wanting to get out of the awkward position of half laying on him. But nothing is said, he just accepts her doing it.

The kisses he peppers over her forehead are light, but scratchy. Leah giggles at a particularly rough one as her nose scrunches along with it. Jacob pauses for a second, a question on his face. She can't help it when she looks up to him, he just looks so damn kissable. They exchange two long smooches and Leah melds against him in his arms.

His grip tightens around her as she lays her head back down, like he's afraid that she'll slip out of his embrace if he's not careful.

"You smell so nice angel.", his voice is hushed over her.

Okay, that's... something. Does she? He wouldn't lie to her, but she just can't imagine how, miles away from the nearest bottle of perfume or scented lotion.

"I do?"

It is a genuine question on her end, Eden's Gate took away her care about those things, appearance, clothes, status. 'Come as you are' is still written on the sign outside of the church.

"Mhm, so goddamn sweet. You always have."

Her eyes widen a bit at the honest statement but her mouth also curls into a tiny smile. Now that she thinks about it, his scent was also the first thing she noticed when she stepped into the very room she's laying in for the first time. She was so different back then, the Leah in her memories is one she barely even recognizes anymore.

A deep inhale on his end underlines his words, any other time someone, even Jacob, would smell her hair would creep her out to no end, but the gesture is sort of sweet in this context.

With sleep out of the question completely now, something else that has lingered in Leah's mind ever since the first time she met Jacob in his room comes to the surface.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Not that I'm complaining, but why do you have this huge bed all to yourself?"

"I'm not by myself right now, am I?", he chuckles. Not really the answer Leah was expecting.

She huffs as she lifts her head up to his face, prepared to quip something at him. HIs expression stops her. They faintest hint of somber flashes behind his eyes, a stranger surely wouldn't have picked up on it. So Leah just looks at him, unable to say anything further.

"Never really had a comfortable bed to lay my head down at night for the most part of my life, figured now's the time for it."

At that, Leah has to swallow. She fears she's ruined the close atmosphere between them by prodding somewhere she shouldn't, even though her question really came from somewhere innocent. Just as she averts her eyes he continues.

"And also, maybe, if I ever had a nice lady sleeping in here with me, there'd be enough space."

Jacob and his everlasting trove of cheesy humor. Leah can't suppress a chuckle.

"Yes, clearly you care about me having space."

His answer is another onslaught of kisses, some on her face, some on her lips. It doesn't take long before the kisses turn heavier, more focused coaxing a different type of reaction out of Leah. The sour thought that Jacob's just doing this to distract from the former topic of conversation vanishes as the atmosphere between them shifts.
The rain outside picks up and Jacob pushes himself further up the headboard into an almost sitting position, Leah's mouth follows his, pulling herself up by his shoulders.

He takes the opportunity presented to him as Leah's mouth ever so slightly opens and when their tongues meet it's not frantic or heated. It's gentle and warm, no urgency is anywhere between them as their hands roam each other's body with lazily gliding fingers.

"Just can't help it angel-", he says in between kisses.

"Not when you're this close, all mine to hold."

His own words spur him on, there's something else in his eyes when he pulls back to flip them both over. This kind of heaviness on her is more than welcomed, it brings along a safeness with it, something she desperately craves. Where Jacob's hands are planted by the sides of her head, Leah's hands can't get enough as her own fire licks the inside of her belly. Not an inch of his back goes unexplored, her fingers tracing every curve and dip, mapping out and memorizing.

Something inside Leah cracks when their chests connect as Jacob moves from his hands to his elbows, no more space left between them. Urgency is still absent from the two, a tentative hand comes to rest on Leah's left cheek. They're not racing towards something together, opting for slow, almost drawn out touches and kisses and if she had to die right now she wouldn't mind quite as much.

There's a familiar pressure on her thigh as Jacob shifts above her. But it's not his belt buckle, that one is scraping along her stomach right now.
The feeling brings a sudden halt to her actions, just for a second but it's nonetheless a freeze reaction she doesn't want, not right now, please not now. Her head feels fine, why is her body doing this right now.

He doesn't fail to notice, of course he notices, ever the vigilant man he is, much to Leah's dismay. She's fine, she wants to carry on, please just keep going, this is good. The fire turns into just small glowing embers as Jacob lifts his head and looks at her tentatively, a hint of concern in his eyes and Leah wants to drown in the white sheets and never return.