Asking for her Hand
A story for the Leslie/Ben Halloween challenge.
Asking For Her Hand
Prompt-You Look Like You've Seen a Ghost
Characters: Ben/Leslie
Rating: A light Pg 13
Summery- Ben and Leslie go to a graveyard
Spoilers- Up through the last episode.
Oh and a HUGE thanks to Bowlsohard for starting this prompt and betaing all while in the middle of the Hurricane. She's a freaking awesome lifesaver.
How the hell did he end up here?
It’s the question that he keeps asking himself every couple of minutes on the walk over to an eerie graveyard on Halloween. She thought it would be a really great Halloween activity- celebrating the night of the living dead with the (hopefully non-living) dead. And when she sensed his apprehension she had promised him that they would only stay one hour. He kept opening his mouth to voice the obvious question and then he would catch sight of his fiancés eager face beaming up at him. Fiance.... he still couldn’t fathom it. His fiancé was the same doe-eyed woman who once peer pressured him out of a bar. He was going to marry the woman who once made him listen to two hours of whale noises. He was going to wake up every morning to the woman who once threatened to withhold sex if he didn’t try oreos on top of waffles. He was going to have children with the woman who was the first person to ever tell him that his dreams mattered. Just thinking about their established future together turned him into Benji Wyatt- the boy who could do anything. So yeah... at this point she could have asked him to dance naked down at the Buldge and he would have done it for her.
But it was still a graveyard. And it was still Halloween. Ben knew the classic gender roles- a man was supposed to protect his woman. When a woman is in trouble, in barges in her manly lover with a machete. A machete used for something other than cutting budgets. And Ben wanted to be that to Leslie. But honestly- Ben knew he wasn’t that kind of guy. Once he was awoken by an odd sound at three in the morning. He took three minutes making a pro/con list of why he should leave the safety of his room before he grabbed his bedside lamp(it was either that or his light saber) and tiptoed out to the main room. April and Andy soon followed to find a lamp shattered on the ground, Ben hiding behind the couch, and a raccoon running out the window. And that wasn’t his only indicator that he wasn’t cut out for anything slightly scary. He still had nightmares about the haunted house he attended when he was nine. He peed his pants when the clown popped out at him. Why would anyone pay good money to be scared shitless? Or peeless? Nope, Ben is not, and was never a fan of Halloween.
Yet there he was. At Pawnee’s grave yard. Where the fog made it so one couldn’t see their feet walking, and the only sounds one could hear were those same feet making contact with the leaves on the ground. Great. The moon above them was gold, round, and full. But it wasn’t giving off much light, and they were surrounded in misty darkness. Leaves would blow past them, as if trying to escape the graveyard as well. Was that a phone ringing he just heard behind him? As his head whipped to the side he almost missed Leslies whisper.
“I come here a lot.”
“Why?”
She just shrugged and they kept walking. She seemed sure of their destination, veering them left, and he let her lead them without question. But they were definitely moving farther away from the big central mausoleum , inching towards the spread out graves on outskirts of the graveyard. There were small tombstones by the ominous looking forest. Can a forest look unhappy? When he glanced at the bushes by the trees he heard rustling and jumped.
“It’s probably just a raccoon.” Her face was calm and steady. Even in the darkness he can see that she is unmoved. Great.
Has he turned into that man that his fiancé has to protect? He is going to marry a woman that would probably have no fear about grabbing a baseball bat, or even one of her planning binders to go to battle for the household. She would leave paper cuts and plastic marks on the attackers face, screaming about how important it is to have both red and blue cotton candy at the annual Shakespeare event because that’s the binder she’s hitting him with. And it’s important for him to know it. He might be able to educate other prisoners in jail about the ethics of candy coloring.
At one point she dusts off a headstone, and sits on it. And Ben’s imagination can see the CNN headline- Girl sits down in a Graveyard, making herself easy prey. But to prove his manliness he sits down next to her, and wraps an arm around her for warmth. He hopes she mistakes his shivering for cold, although it’s surprisingly warm outside for this time of night. Ben started planning an escape route, just in case anything happened. The easiest part of the fence to jump would be to the left of where they are . They would just have to jump one headstone that they are facing. Then, as Ben took a closer look at the headstone, things started fitting into place. He ran his finger along the name.
Robert Knope
“Is this your dad?”
She nodded. At that moment Ben felt the need to pull her into his lap. She did without question and nuzzled her face into his chest. He could feel her breathing in and out, and her fingers started to fiddle with the zipper of his coat. “I miss him. I wish he could meet you.”
“I wish I could meet him too. Do you think that he would approve?”
“I don’t know. He might have a problem with the fact that you don’t like Sarah McLaughlin.”
He pulled apart from her and quirked an eyebrow. “Oh really. Was he a big fan of hers?”
“Oh the biggest. But honestly, I think he would. Approve I mean. He would want me to be with someone like you.”
“A sexy strong elf boy with the aggression of a hummingbird?”
“Exactly. I’m so glad you get me.” She looked up at the golden moon shining down on them, her face back to being pressed against his chest. “Someone that always makes me feel like taking chances.”
Ron’s words come to his mind. “Like jumping off cliffs?”
“Like jumping off cliffs. Like secretly dating my boss. Like running for President. My father always encouraged me in my passions. I think he would want me to be with someone that makes me feel brave enough to take risks. And a man who makes me feel secure enough to handle failure. But I totally won’t fail.”
“No you won’t.” He agreed as he played with a strand of her hair.
“Especially not with you here.” She murmured into his beige coat. It goes silent, and suddenly the graveyard didn’t seem so scary to Ben. It seemed almost tranquil.
“Tell me about him.” He thought he might have gone too far until she responded.
“Well you know my mom?”
“Yes…” He was scared for the response.
“Well he was like the opposite of her.”
“Good, I don’t think I could have handled both of them. One of them was enough to reduce me to a shoe carrying idiot.” They both laughed and she ran a finger up his chest.
“Yes, and it would have been awkward to watch both of them hit on you.”
“Ha ha.” He smiles, pressing a kiss to her temple.
“Well he liked to wear plaids.”
“My type of man.”
“Yes, but not like formal work plaids, but like grungy plaids. He taught in a local middle school and his favorite thing to do was mix chemicals together that made big reactions. Once he set this bush on fire and…”
9:32
“Do you know why your mom and he divorced?” He asked when the conversation had fallen into a comfortable silence again. It was so easy, sitting in a graveyard talking about the man that had made Leslie who she was. And getting to know this little piece of her made him fall in love with her all over again.
“Um… neither of them really talked about it growing up. But from what I can tell he was willing to do anything to make it work and she wasn’t.” Ben just nodded because he was unsure of what to say. “Even after they divorced he still helped her with every campaign or project she ever worked on. He was there for every meeting. He always tried to take care of her, of us. He always told me “You take care of the people that matter to you. It’s not a feeling Leslie, it’s an action.”
Well now Ben knows where she gets it. “He also used to say ‘Salads are a conspiracy thought up by thin people’ but I don’t think those were his own words. I’m pretty sure he got that idea from Joe down the street.”
9:45
“Whenever he was proud of me, he would give me buttons.”
“Buttons?”
“I have a box full of buttons. Big buttons, button pins that say things on them, small buttons, wooden buttons, bright buttons.” He just continued to look at her, baffled.
“Yeah, I never understood it. It’s one of those things I wish I had asked him. But you know, I’ve thought about it a lot and I think that a button can symbolize a lot of things.” His mind goes to his Knope button, “Yet it also has the power to keep things together. I don’t know. Maybe he just liked buttons and wanted to share that with me. But anytime I did something he supported, or was proud of-“
“Such as?”
“Like when I stood up to the third grade bully, when I broke up with my high school sweetheart that he never liked, when I ordered a introductory pamphlet from his old alma mater, when I threw away a salad, anything really. I would receive a button. He would just hand it to me and walk away.”
“And you never asked?”
She fixed him with a serious look. “You don’t question heart felt gestures.”
9:58
“So did you get your love of reading from your dad as well?”
“My dad loved romance novels.”
“Really?” He asked, a bit surprised.
“Yup!”
“You mean real romance novels. Not historical biographies where it mentions the persons love life?” He clarified.
“Real romance novels. And not those trashy ones Ann likes to read either. They weren’t about innocent renaissance ladies getting seduced by pirates. It never had the phrase “unguarded vagina” in it.” She sighs when he gives her a confused look. “Let’s just say JK Rowling’s new adult book was not about wizards as much as it was about defying the amount of times one person could have sex in a night.”
“I’d like to test that theory some time.” When she gives him a dirty smile he has to clear his throat to remind them where they are. It isn’t a good idea to have sex on her father’s grave. “So he liked romance novels.”
“Yes. Everything from Jane Austen to Nicholas Sparks.”
“Hm. Did he ever talk you into reading them?”
“No I was never into that stuff. But he would always tell me the plots. He would rant and rave about how love was a choice, and whether or not those characters proved or disproved this. He argued about his thesis on love more than my mother ever argued about anything.’
10:05
“He once took me surfing.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, my top came off and we never went again.”
They both sat in silence thinking about this information.
10:??. He stopped keeping track.
While listening Leslie go on about a time when her dad chased a raccoon out of the house, Ben looked up the sky. He never thought of himself as someone that really believed in life beyond death. And he had never gone as far as to try to communicate with the undead. Maybe it was her warm body against his. Maybe it was the fact that in one night he had gotten to know someone better, someone that he would never meet. Maybe it’s because he would never get the chance to thank the man in person. But regardless of Ben’s philosophy, he focused his thoughts toward the air above him.
Thank you Robert he thought, Thank you for her. I know it sounds corny, but I will do everything in my power to take care of her, no matter what it takes. I know I don’t know you, but I know that’s what you would have done. I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to meet you. I hope I will make you proud. I really love your daughter.
At that moment, Ben felt something go down his spine. He tried to shift, but Leslie’s body was still curled up in his, her head up against his heart. She didn’t seem to notice the shift in energy around them and kept talking about the raccoon attack. Ben felt something tap him on the arm, and looked down to see that Leslies hands were both in his jacket pockets and hadn’t moved. At that moment he heard something that sounded like a pin dropping the gravestone next to them. Ben looked over Leslies head, and felt his heart stop mid beat. There, in the middle of the gravestone was a small shiny red button. A button that hadn’t been there before.
Feeling that something was different, Leslie looked up at Ben concerned.
“Ben?” She didn’t get an answer because his eyes were focused, trying to confirm that what he was seeing was real. “Are you okay, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Ben shook his head. A ghost indeed. He looked up the sky again.
Thank you.
“Ben?” He looked down at her and kissed her softly on the side of the mouth.
“Yes. I am perfect. Sorry. What happened with the raccoon after it gruesomely attacked your next door neighbors dog?”
And as Leslie took in a big breathe, that he knew was going to sustain her for the rest of the story, he found himself once again lost in her infectious smile. Ben knew. He loved this woman. It might not have started out as a choice but he would always choose to. He had even braved more than an hour of the graveyard for her. If she asked him to he would stay all night.
Ben Wyatt might not be the manliest guy, but he would do anything for this woman. And that was enough.
Asking For Her Hand
Prompt-You Look Like You've Seen a Ghost
Characters: Ben/Leslie
Rating: A light Pg 13
Summery- Ben and Leslie go to a graveyard
Spoilers- Up through the last episode.
Oh and a HUGE thanks to Bowlsohard for starting this prompt and betaing all while in the middle of the Hurricane. She's a freaking awesome lifesaver.
How the hell did he end up here?
It’s the question that he keeps asking himself every couple of minutes on the walk over to an eerie graveyard on Halloween. She thought it would be a really great Halloween activity- celebrating the night of the living dead with the (hopefully non-living) dead. And when she sensed his apprehension she had promised him that they would only stay one hour. He kept opening his mouth to voice the obvious question and then he would catch sight of his fiancés eager face beaming up at him. Fiance.... he still couldn’t fathom it. His fiancé was the same doe-eyed woman who once peer pressured him out of a bar. He was going to marry the woman who once made him listen to two hours of whale noises. He was going to wake up every morning to the woman who once threatened to withhold sex if he didn’t try oreos on top of waffles. He was going to have children with the woman who was the first person to ever tell him that his dreams mattered. Just thinking about their established future together turned him into Benji Wyatt- the boy who could do anything. So yeah... at this point she could have asked him to dance naked down at the Buldge and he would have done it for her.
But it was still a graveyard. And it was still Halloween. Ben knew the classic gender roles- a man was supposed to protect his woman. When a woman is in trouble, in barges in her manly lover with a machete. A machete used for something other than cutting budgets. And Ben wanted to be that to Leslie. But honestly- Ben knew he wasn’t that kind of guy. Once he was awoken by an odd sound at three in the morning. He took three minutes making a pro/con list of why he should leave the safety of his room before he grabbed his bedside lamp(it was either that or his light saber) and tiptoed out to the main room. April and Andy soon followed to find a lamp shattered on the ground, Ben hiding behind the couch, and a raccoon running out the window. And that wasn’t his only indicator that he wasn’t cut out for anything slightly scary. He still had nightmares about the haunted house he attended when he was nine. He peed his pants when the clown popped out at him. Why would anyone pay good money to be scared shitless? Or peeless? Nope, Ben is not, and was never a fan of Halloween.
Yet there he was. At Pawnee’s grave yard. Where the fog made it so one couldn’t see their feet walking, and the only sounds one could hear were those same feet making contact with the leaves on the ground. Great. The moon above them was gold, round, and full. But it wasn’t giving off much light, and they were surrounded in misty darkness. Leaves would blow past them, as if trying to escape the graveyard as well. Was that a phone ringing he just heard behind him? As his head whipped to the side he almost missed Leslies whisper.
“I come here a lot.”
“Why?”
She just shrugged and they kept walking. She seemed sure of their destination, veering them left, and he let her lead them without question. But they were definitely moving farther away from the big central mausoleum , inching towards the spread out graves on outskirts of the graveyard. There were small tombstones by the ominous looking forest. Can a forest look unhappy? When he glanced at the bushes by the trees he heard rustling and jumped.
“It’s probably just a raccoon.” Her face was calm and steady. Even in the darkness he can see that she is unmoved. Great.
Has he turned into that man that his fiancé has to protect? He is going to marry a woman that would probably have no fear about grabbing a baseball bat, or even one of her planning binders to go to battle for the household. She would leave paper cuts and plastic marks on the attackers face, screaming about how important it is to have both red and blue cotton candy at the annual Shakespeare event because that’s the binder she’s hitting him with. And it’s important for him to know it. He might be able to educate other prisoners in jail about the ethics of candy coloring.
At one point she dusts off a headstone, and sits on it. And Ben’s imagination can see the CNN headline- Girl sits down in a Graveyard, making herself easy prey. But to prove his manliness he sits down next to her, and wraps an arm around her for warmth. He hopes she mistakes his shivering for cold, although it’s surprisingly warm outside for this time of night. Ben started planning an escape route, just in case anything happened. The easiest part of the fence to jump would be to the left of where they are . They would just have to jump one headstone that they are facing. Then, as Ben took a closer look at the headstone, things started fitting into place. He ran his finger along the name.
Robert Knope
“Is this your dad?”
She nodded. At that moment Ben felt the need to pull her into his lap. She did without question and nuzzled her face into his chest. He could feel her breathing in and out, and her fingers started to fiddle with the zipper of his coat. “I miss him. I wish he could meet you.”
“I wish I could meet him too. Do you think that he would approve?”
“I don’t know. He might have a problem with the fact that you don’t like Sarah McLaughlin.”
He pulled apart from her and quirked an eyebrow. “Oh really. Was he a big fan of hers?”
“Oh the biggest. But honestly, I think he would. Approve I mean. He would want me to be with someone like you.”
“A sexy strong elf boy with the aggression of a hummingbird?”
“Exactly. I’m so glad you get me.” She looked up at the golden moon shining down on them, her face back to being pressed against his chest. “Someone that always makes me feel like taking chances.”
Ron’s words come to his mind. “Like jumping off cliffs?”
“Like jumping off cliffs. Like secretly dating my boss. Like running for President. My father always encouraged me in my passions. I think he would want me to be with someone that makes me feel brave enough to take risks. And a man who makes me feel secure enough to handle failure. But I totally won’t fail.”
“No you won’t.” He agreed as he played with a strand of her hair.
“Especially not with you here.” She murmured into his beige coat. It goes silent, and suddenly the graveyard didn’t seem so scary to Ben. It seemed almost tranquil.
“Tell me about him.” He thought he might have gone too far until she responded.
“Well you know my mom?”
“Yes…” He was scared for the response.
“Well he was like the opposite of her.”
“Good, I don’t think I could have handled both of them. One of them was enough to reduce me to a shoe carrying idiot.” They both laughed and she ran a finger up his chest.
“Yes, and it would have been awkward to watch both of them hit on you.”
“Ha ha.” He smiles, pressing a kiss to her temple.
“Well he liked to wear plaids.”
“My type of man.”
“Yes, but not like formal work plaids, but like grungy plaids. He taught in a local middle school and his favorite thing to do was mix chemicals together that made big reactions. Once he set this bush on fire and…”
9:32
“Do you know why your mom and he divorced?” He asked when the conversation had fallen into a comfortable silence again. It was so easy, sitting in a graveyard talking about the man that had made Leslie who she was. And getting to know this little piece of her made him fall in love with her all over again.
“Um… neither of them really talked about it growing up. But from what I can tell he was willing to do anything to make it work and she wasn’t.” Ben just nodded because he was unsure of what to say. “Even after they divorced he still helped her with every campaign or project she ever worked on. He was there for every meeting. He always tried to take care of her, of us. He always told me “You take care of the people that matter to you. It’s not a feeling Leslie, it’s an action.”
Well now Ben knows where she gets it. “He also used to say ‘Salads are a conspiracy thought up by thin people’ but I don’t think those were his own words. I’m pretty sure he got that idea from Joe down the street.”
9:45
“Whenever he was proud of me, he would give me buttons.”
“Buttons?”
“I have a box full of buttons. Big buttons, button pins that say things on them, small buttons, wooden buttons, bright buttons.” He just continued to look at her, baffled.
“Yeah, I never understood it. It’s one of those things I wish I had asked him. But you know, I’ve thought about it a lot and I think that a button can symbolize a lot of things.” His mind goes to his Knope button, “Yet it also has the power to keep things together. I don’t know. Maybe he just liked buttons and wanted to share that with me. But anytime I did something he supported, or was proud of-“
“Such as?”
“Like when I stood up to the third grade bully, when I broke up with my high school sweetheart that he never liked, when I ordered a introductory pamphlet from his old alma mater, when I threw away a salad, anything really. I would receive a button. He would just hand it to me and walk away.”
“And you never asked?”
She fixed him with a serious look. “You don’t question heart felt gestures.”
9:58
“So did you get your love of reading from your dad as well?”
“My dad loved romance novels.”
“Really?” He asked, a bit surprised.
“Yup!”
“You mean real romance novels. Not historical biographies where it mentions the persons love life?” He clarified.
“Real romance novels. And not those trashy ones Ann likes to read either. They weren’t about innocent renaissance ladies getting seduced by pirates. It never had the phrase “unguarded vagina” in it.” She sighs when he gives her a confused look. “Let’s just say JK Rowling’s new adult book was not about wizards as much as it was about defying the amount of times one person could have sex in a night.”
“I’d like to test that theory some time.” When she gives him a dirty smile he has to clear his throat to remind them where they are. It isn’t a good idea to have sex on her father’s grave. “So he liked romance novels.”
“Yes. Everything from Jane Austen to Nicholas Sparks.”
“Hm. Did he ever talk you into reading them?”
“No I was never into that stuff. But he would always tell me the plots. He would rant and rave about how love was a choice, and whether or not those characters proved or disproved this. He argued about his thesis on love more than my mother ever argued about anything.’
10:05
“He once took me surfing.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, my top came off and we never went again.”
They both sat in silence thinking about this information.
10:??. He stopped keeping track.
While listening Leslie go on about a time when her dad chased a raccoon out of the house, Ben looked up the sky. He never thought of himself as someone that really believed in life beyond death. And he had never gone as far as to try to communicate with the undead. Maybe it was her warm body against his. Maybe it was the fact that in one night he had gotten to know someone better, someone that he would never meet. Maybe it’s because he would never get the chance to thank the man in person. But regardless of Ben’s philosophy, he focused his thoughts toward the air above him.
Thank you Robert he thought, Thank you for her. I know it sounds corny, but I will do everything in my power to take care of her, no matter what it takes. I know I don’t know you, but I know that’s what you would have done. I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to meet you. I hope I will make you proud. I really love your daughter.
At that moment, Ben felt something go down his spine. He tried to shift, but Leslie’s body was still curled up in his, her head up against his heart. She didn’t seem to notice the shift in energy around them and kept talking about the raccoon attack. Ben felt something tap him on the arm, and looked down to see that Leslies hands were both in his jacket pockets and hadn’t moved. At that moment he heard something that sounded like a pin dropping the gravestone next to them. Ben looked over Leslies head, and felt his heart stop mid beat. There, in the middle of the gravestone was a small shiny red button. A button that hadn’t been there before.
Feeling that something was different, Leslie looked up at Ben concerned.
“Ben?” She didn’t get an answer because his eyes were focused, trying to confirm that what he was seeing was real. “Are you okay, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Ben shook his head. A ghost indeed. He looked up the sky again.
Thank you.
“Ben?” He looked down at her and kissed her softly on the side of the mouth.
“Yes. I am perfect. Sorry. What happened with the raccoon after it gruesomely attacked your next door neighbors dog?”
And as Leslie took in a big breathe, that he knew was going to sustain her for the rest of the story, he found himself once again lost in her infectious smile. Ben knew. He loved this woman. It might not have started out as a choice but he would always choose to. He had even braved more than an hour of the graveyard for her. If she asked him to he would stay all night.
Ben Wyatt might not be the manliest guy, but he would do anything for this woman. And that was enough.