Fic: Fall at your Feet - Chapter 1/?
Title: Fall at your Feet
Author: missnumbat
Word count: ~2500
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don’t own it
Summary: High School AU - Don't go into the Woods Halloween trope.
Author’s Note: This is the first part of my one year late Halloween fic. It's based on the Don't go into the Woods trope. A huge thank you to my two wonderful beta's courtknees1 and beetsbearsbsg. I'm hoping to get the rest of this finished and published by the time the Halloween Challenge closes.
“Leslie, you have been bouncing around for forty minutes, can you please sit still for a minute? I’m trying to have a nap,” Ann said to the yellow haired ball of energy sitting next to her.
“Ann Meredith Perkins, how could you nap at a time like this?” Leslie asked. “We are in AUSTRALIA!”
Ann shook her head wearily. “I am trying to nap because we have just been on a plane for twenty hours and you spent the whole time wriggling around and talking so much that I couldn’t sleep.”
“I’m sorry Ann, I am just so excited to finally be here. I have wanted to visit Australia for so long. This is the best senior class trip ever!”
“You only decided that you wanted to visit once you heard about fairy bread.”
“It’s a sprinkle sandwich Ann, who wouldn’t want to try it?” Leslie’s bright blue eyes looked at Ann imploringly.
“The last thing you need right now is more sugar Les. Now please, please sit still so I can nap.”
A voice piped up from the seat behind Ann and Leslie. “You can come and seat next to me Ann. We can snuggle like li’l bunnies while you nap.”
“Ewwww, Tom,” Ann and Leslie said together.
“But seriously Leslie, if you don’t sit still I may be forced to sit with Tom,” Ann added. “Do you really want that on your conscience?”
“Ok, ok I’ll sit still,” Leslie grumbled, pulling out three Australian guidebooks from her bag. She picked out the one with the least amount of coloured sticky notes and settled into her seat. Ann rested her head against Leslie’s shoulder and fell asleep almost instantly.
Leslie read her guidebook for the next hour, taking occasional breaks to look out the window as the Australian country side flashed by. In the time she had been reading, the view has changed from suburbia to farmland, with big open paddocks and the occasional farm house slipping in and out of view. Leslie knew that they were heading for the bush, still some hours away.
As the scenery sped by, Leslie lost focus on the pages in front of her. Her head drooped against the window, slowly filling with images of herself sitting in a tent surrounded by koalas, followed by visions of being curled snugly in a kangaroo’s pouch as it bounded across the plains.
A giant ‘POP’ noise woke Leslie from her dreams of the native wildlife and she jerked upright, dropping her book under the seat in front of her.
“What happened?” Ann asked sleepily as she sat up and stretched.
Leslie didn’t answer, distracted by the sight of sleep-tousled brown hair that appeared over the top of the seat in front, followed by the scrunched up face of Ben Wyatt.
“Are you ok Les?” Ben said in a voice raspy with sleep.
“I’m fine Ben, I think we just blew a tyre,” Leslie responded, her heart starting to beat faster. She had been friends with Ben since he moved to Pawnee at the start of their senior year, but lately her heart had begun beating faster whenever he talked to her.
“I’m fine too Ben, thanks for asking,” Ann said rather grumpily.
Ben’s response was cut off by a loud gruff voice, “Alright everyone, listen up”.
As the bus slowly came to a halt, a silence settled over Leslie and her classmates.
Into the void, the gruff voice continued. “It appears we have blown a tyre. I am going to disembark from this bus to have a look. If you want to get off the bus to stretch your legs that is fine, but be warned, I will not come to look for you if get wander too far and get lost. Is that clear?”
“Yes Mr Swanson,” everyone responded in unison.
Leslie and Ann were the first ones off the bus. They were soon joined by their classmates, Chris, Andy, April, Jean-Ralphio, Tom, Donna and Ben. Everyone was standing together, chatting about the flight and the scenery, when they heard Mr Swanson let out a roar of rage.
“Dammit Jerry!”
Leslie and her friends looked on as Mr Swanson stormed up to the driver’s seat of the bus. “Jerry, you have driven us in the wrong direction. The tyre is blown and we don’t have a spare. I checked on the map to see where the nearest town is, and I discovered that we are in fact entirely lost. You took a wrong turn at the town we passed three hours ago, and now we are stuck in the middle of nowhere.”
“Ah, jeez. I’m sorry Ron. I don’t know what happened. I suppose I was watching these amazing landscapes go by, and thinking that I can’t wait to settle in and get out my paints, and, well, I must have gotten distracted.” Jerry looked more sheepish by the second. It soon became apparent why.
“Gross, Jerry! Was that a stress fart?” shouted Tom, wrinkling his nose. The other kids squealed and scrambled further from the bus.
“What are we going to do Mr Swanson?” Andy asked. “Do you need Burt Macklin, FBI to help out?”
“And do you need me to start murdering people one by one?” drawled April.
“Uh uh, no way, my daddy will be PISSED if I die out here!” cried Jean-Ralphio. He then literally started crying.
“QUIET!” Mr Swanson roared. “You are all going to get back on the bus and take your seats, while I come up with a plan of attack. GO!”
As Leslie turned to head back towards the bus, Ben walked up to her and handed her her guidebook.
“Here you go Leslie, you dropped this under my seat.”
Leslie blushed and looked down. “Thanks very much Benjamin- Ben.”
Ben grinned. “That’s alright Leslie-min. Leslie.” He turned and climbed the stairs to the bus, treating Leslie to a lingering look at his tiny flat butt. She’d found herself having a lot of confusing thoughts about Ben’s butt that year.
Once everyone was back on the bus, they began to discuss what would happen next. No one had any faith in Jerry to get them out of the situation, but they all trusted Mr Swanson to figure out what to do.
“Right kids, listen up,” Mr Swanson said as he clambered back on to the bus. “We have a blown a tyre and there is no spare. What kind of damn fools would hire a van to someone without a spare tyre I don’t know. “
Mr Swanson muttered something under his breath about a “damn socialist country” before raising his voice again and addressing the anxious teenagers.
“Jerry’s cell phone is not getting any reception. Can you all please pull out your phones and check to see if you have more luck.”
There was the sound of unzipping zips and rummaging as everyone searched for their cell phones.
There were groans as one person after another confirmed that they didn’t have any reception.
“Well, so much for modern technology,” Mr Swanson said, shaking his head wryly. “Since we have no chance of calling for help and Jerry seems to have taken us to the most deserted road in Australia...” He broke off his sentence to glare at Jerry. “The chances of anyone coming past to help us are slim.”
“We’re all going to dieeeee.” Tom wailed.
“That’s enough of that, son,” Mr Swanson said sternly. “We appear to be not too far from a park ranger’s cabin, so I suggest that we hike to that.”
He pulled out a map and held it up, pointing to a small dot in what looked like the middle of nowhere.
“This is the park ranger’s cabin,” Mr Swanson moved his finger and pointed to another location on the map. “As far as I can tell, this is where we are now. If we cut through the woods, we will be able to reach it within a few hours. They should have a telephone, so we will be able to get help to fix the tyre and then continue our journey.”
“Do we have to walk very far? I didn’t bring my custom hiking boots,” Tom whined.
“Enough!” Mr Swanson growled. “Yes, we will be walking, and I can’t guarantee we’ll get there tonight.”
Tom put his head in his hands and Jean-Ralphio reached over and patted his shoulder consolingly.
“I brought along supplies which will be adequate if we need to camp out overnight. We should reach the cabin by mid-morning tomorrow at the latest. It’s hard to judge using this map because it’s in kilometres. What’s wrong with the good old American imperial system?” Mr Swanson’s voice rose at the end of the sentence, and even Leslie knew not to point out the benefits of the metric system for fear of invoking Ron’s wrath.
“Pack only what you will need for the hike. We will lock everything else up in the bus. It should be safe enough,” Mr Swanson said. “I want you all ready to go and assembled outside the bus in 10 minutes.”
***
They’d been hiking for hours. Leslie could feel blisters forming on her heels, and she was struggling to keep her focus on Jean-Ralphio’s ridiculous conversation, rather than Ben’s cute butt walking in front of her.
She was relieved when she heard Mr Swanson shout, “Halt”.
Everyone slowly gathered around Mr Swanson in the failing light. The woods had thinned slightly and they were standing in a small clearing.
“This is as far as we are going to make it today. I have brought supplies for you all to set up a shelter. We only have enough supplies for two to a shelter, so everyone pair up and come and grab a cardboard box and a canvas sheet.”
Leslie didn’t even have to look at Ann to know that they would be pairing up. She walked forwards quickly and secured a cardboard box and canvas sheet, then went and stood next to her best friend.
Once Mr Swanson was left standing with a single cardboard box and canvas sheet at his feet, he started speaking again.
“Now that you all have your supplies, I want you to go set up your shelters. I will be setting mine up over there,” He pointed to a spot on the edge of the clearing. “I don’t care where you set up your shelter, as long as you can all see mine. I don’t want anyone set up out of sight of my shelter, is that clear?”
Grabbing his canvas sheet and cardboard box, Mr Swanson walked to the spot he had indicated and commenced setting up his shelter.
As Leslie bent to pick up her canvas sheet, she noticed that Jerry had somehow gotten tangled in his sheet and was having trouble unwrapping it from around his legs.
Leslie and Ann worked diligently to set up their shelter on the opposite end of the clearing to Mr Swanson’s. Neither of them was displeased when Ben and Chris choose to set up their shelter nearby.
After Leslie had put the finishing homely touches on their shelter, and Ann had made two big piles of leaves try to make their sleeping arrangements more comfortable, the two went for a walk to see how everyone else was doing.
Donna and April had finished their shelter and were sitting outside of it. Their shelter was as far away from the clearing as possible, while still being just within sight of Mr Swanson’s shelter.
Donna was polishing her model Mercedes and April was drawing disturbing pictures in the dirt with a stick.
“Have you heard anything about dinner?” Ann asked April.
As usual, April ignored Ann, so it was Donna who responded.
“Tom has been whining to Ron about being hungry. As soon as I heard Mr Swanson mention beef jerky, I was out. I am not eating that stuff.”
Andy came bounding up the group.
“I’m stuck sharing a shelter with Jerry. He is so funny. He was just telling me about his irritable bowel syndrome. It was hilarious.”
Ann clearly hadn’t paid any attention to her ex-boyfriend and was still fixated on the thought of dinner.
“Beef jerky?” she said, pulling a face. “I hope that isn’t all of the food that Mr Swanson has.”
“Don’t worry Ann, you bright eyed, bushy tailed...” Leslie began, momentarily distracted by the sight of Ben approaching. “Um, possum. I have emergency s’mores rations in my pack. There’ll be more than enough to go around.”
“You have emergency s’mores rations?” Ben asked, grinning slightly.
“I never leave home without them,” Leslie replied, her face feeling warm as Ben smiled at her.
Ann looked between Leslie and Ben and smiled knowingly.
“Everyone to the centre of the clearing,” Ron’s voice sounded out across the clearing.
Leslie cast one last look at Ben before they moved off to the clearing.
Once everyone had gathered around Ron, he assigned them all tasks. Leslie and Ann were assigned to fetch some water from a nearby stream. On the way back to the clearing, Leslie took a slight detour to their shelter and filled her jacket pockets with s’mores supplies.
By the time Leslie and Ann had returned from their second trip to the stream, Ron had a fire burning in the centre of the clearing. He had placed a kettle full of water over the fire and was handing out beef jerky, to the obvious disappointment of everyone.
Leslie pulled her s’mores rations out of her jacket and set to work. The beef jerky was forgotten at once, as everyone sat around making s’mores and chatting about what an adventure they were having.
After a couple of hours, Leslie and Ben were the last people left sitting around the camp fire. It was the first time that Leslie had been alone with Ben in a private setting since she had come to realise at the Harvest Festival that her feelings for him were more than just friendship. She was determined to take advantage of the opportunity and prolong her conversation with him.
Looking at Ben slyly from the corner of her eye, Leslie made her move. “I loved the way Danaerys set her dragons on those awful slave traders, didn’t you? Dracarys! I wish I had dragons to use at school. Then no one would talk over me in student council meetings.”
Ben’s eyes lit up.
They chatted about Game of Thrones until the fire died down. Leslie found herself hypnotised by the glowing embers, and when she tore her eyes away it was only to find Ben watching her with a startling intensity.
As their eye contact stretched on and on, a lull came over the conversation. Afraid that Ben would decide to call it a night, Leslie leaned a little closer and spoke.
“So Ben, I never asked you. How do you like living in Pawnee?”
Ben looked back into the coals for a minute before meeting her gaze squarely.
“Pawnee is a really special town. I love living there. And umm, I look forward to the moments in my day where I get to hang out with the town, and talk to the town about stuff.”
He looked away briefly and rubbed the back of his neck before returning his gaze to hers.
“The town has really nice blonde hair too, and has read a shocking number of political biographies for a town, which I like.“
Leslie could feel a smile spreading over her face as she looked into Ben’s cute face.
Ben continued, “I hope I’m not making you uncomfortable, but I feel like we should at least talk about it. It’s not just me, right?”
Leslie looked into Ben’s eyes and was about to respond that, no, it wasn’t just him, when a loud thump sound ruined the moment. Ben and Leslie whipped their heads around as the noise was followed by a scream of agony. They both leapt up and ran towards the sound, grabbing their torches as they went.
To be continued
Author: missnumbat
Word count: ~2500
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don’t own it
Summary: High School AU - Don't go into the Woods Halloween trope.
Author’s Note: This is the first part of my one year late Halloween fic. It's based on the Don't go into the Woods trope. A huge thank you to my two wonderful beta's courtknees1 and beetsbearsbsg. I'm hoping to get the rest of this finished and published by the time the Halloween Challenge closes.
“Leslie, you have been bouncing around for forty minutes, can you please sit still for a minute? I’m trying to have a nap,” Ann said to the yellow haired ball of energy sitting next to her.
“Ann Meredith Perkins, how could you nap at a time like this?” Leslie asked. “We are in AUSTRALIA!”
Ann shook her head wearily. “I am trying to nap because we have just been on a plane for twenty hours and you spent the whole time wriggling around and talking so much that I couldn’t sleep.”
“I’m sorry Ann, I am just so excited to finally be here. I have wanted to visit Australia for so long. This is the best senior class trip ever!”
“You only decided that you wanted to visit once you heard about fairy bread.”
“It’s a sprinkle sandwich Ann, who wouldn’t want to try it?” Leslie’s bright blue eyes looked at Ann imploringly.
“The last thing you need right now is more sugar Les. Now please, please sit still so I can nap.”
A voice piped up from the seat behind Ann and Leslie. “You can come and seat next to me Ann. We can snuggle like li’l bunnies while you nap.”
“Ewwww, Tom,” Ann and Leslie said together.
“But seriously Leslie, if you don’t sit still I may be forced to sit with Tom,” Ann added. “Do you really want that on your conscience?”
“Ok, ok I’ll sit still,” Leslie grumbled, pulling out three Australian guidebooks from her bag. She picked out the one with the least amount of coloured sticky notes and settled into her seat. Ann rested her head against Leslie’s shoulder and fell asleep almost instantly.
Leslie read her guidebook for the next hour, taking occasional breaks to look out the window as the Australian country side flashed by. In the time she had been reading, the view has changed from suburbia to farmland, with big open paddocks and the occasional farm house slipping in and out of view. Leslie knew that they were heading for the bush, still some hours away.
As the scenery sped by, Leslie lost focus on the pages in front of her. Her head drooped against the window, slowly filling with images of herself sitting in a tent surrounded by koalas, followed by visions of being curled snugly in a kangaroo’s pouch as it bounded across the plains.
A giant ‘POP’ noise woke Leslie from her dreams of the native wildlife and she jerked upright, dropping her book under the seat in front of her.
“What happened?” Ann asked sleepily as she sat up and stretched.
Leslie didn’t answer, distracted by the sight of sleep-tousled brown hair that appeared over the top of the seat in front, followed by the scrunched up face of Ben Wyatt.
“Are you ok Les?” Ben said in a voice raspy with sleep.
“I’m fine Ben, I think we just blew a tyre,” Leslie responded, her heart starting to beat faster. She had been friends with Ben since he moved to Pawnee at the start of their senior year, but lately her heart had begun beating faster whenever he talked to her.
“I’m fine too Ben, thanks for asking,” Ann said rather grumpily.
Ben’s response was cut off by a loud gruff voice, “Alright everyone, listen up”.
As the bus slowly came to a halt, a silence settled over Leslie and her classmates.
Into the void, the gruff voice continued. “It appears we have blown a tyre. I am going to disembark from this bus to have a look. If you want to get off the bus to stretch your legs that is fine, but be warned, I will not come to look for you if get wander too far and get lost. Is that clear?”
“Yes Mr Swanson,” everyone responded in unison.
Leslie and Ann were the first ones off the bus. They were soon joined by their classmates, Chris, Andy, April, Jean-Ralphio, Tom, Donna and Ben. Everyone was standing together, chatting about the flight and the scenery, when they heard Mr Swanson let out a roar of rage.
“Dammit Jerry!”
Leslie and her friends looked on as Mr Swanson stormed up to the driver’s seat of the bus. “Jerry, you have driven us in the wrong direction. The tyre is blown and we don’t have a spare. I checked on the map to see where the nearest town is, and I discovered that we are in fact entirely lost. You took a wrong turn at the town we passed three hours ago, and now we are stuck in the middle of nowhere.”
“Ah, jeez. I’m sorry Ron. I don’t know what happened. I suppose I was watching these amazing landscapes go by, and thinking that I can’t wait to settle in and get out my paints, and, well, I must have gotten distracted.” Jerry looked more sheepish by the second. It soon became apparent why.
“Gross, Jerry! Was that a stress fart?” shouted Tom, wrinkling his nose. The other kids squealed and scrambled further from the bus.
“What are we going to do Mr Swanson?” Andy asked. “Do you need Burt Macklin, FBI to help out?”
“And do you need me to start murdering people one by one?” drawled April.
“Uh uh, no way, my daddy will be PISSED if I die out here!” cried Jean-Ralphio. He then literally started crying.
“QUIET!” Mr Swanson roared. “You are all going to get back on the bus and take your seats, while I come up with a plan of attack. GO!”
As Leslie turned to head back towards the bus, Ben walked up to her and handed her her guidebook.
“Here you go Leslie, you dropped this under my seat.”
Leslie blushed and looked down. “Thanks very much Benjamin- Ben.”
Ben grinned. “That’s alright Leslie-min. Leslie.” He turned and climbed the stairs to the bus, treating Leslie to a lingering look at his tiny flat butt. She’d found herself having a lot of confusing thoughts about Ben’s butt that year.
Once everyone was back on the bus, they began to discuss what would happen next. No one had any faith in Jerry to get them out of the situation, but they all trusted Mr Swanson to figure out what to do.
“Right kids, listen up,” Mr Swanson said as he clambered back on to the bus. “We have a blown a tyre and there is no spare. What kind of damn fools would hire a van to someone without a spare tyre I don’t know. “
Mr Swanson muttered something under his breath about a “damn socialist country” before raising his voice again and addressing the anxious teenagers.
“Jerry’s cell phone is not getting any reception. Can you all please pull out your phones and check to see if you have more luck.”
There was the sound of unzipping zips and rummaging as everyone searched for their cell phones.
There were groans as one person after another confirmed that they didn’t have any reception.
“Well, so much for modern technology,” Mr Swanson said, shaking his head wryly. “Since we have no chance of calling for help and Jerry seems to have taken us to the most deserted road in Australia...” He broke off his sentence to glare at Jerry. “The chances of anyone coming past to help us are slim.”
“We’re all going to dieeeee.” Tom wailed.
“That’s enough of that, son,” Mr Swanson said sternly. “We appear to be not too far from a park ranger’s cabin, so I suggest that we hike to that.”
He pulled out a map and held it up, pointing to a small dot in what looked like the middle of nowhere.
“This is the park ranger’s cabin,” Mr Swanson moved his finger and pointed to another location on the map. “As far as I can tell, this is where we are now. If we cut through the woods, we will be able to reach it within a few hours. They should have a telephone, so we will be able to get help to fix the tyre and then continue our journey.”
“Do we have to walk very far? I didn’t bring my custom hiking boots,” Tom whined.
“Enough!” Mr Swanson growled. “Yes, we will be walking, and I can’t guarantee we’ll get there tonight.”
Tom put his head in his hands and Jean-Ralphio reached over and patted his shoulder consolingly.
“I brought along supplies which will be adequate if we need to camp out overnight. We should reach the cabin by mid-morning tomorrow at the latest. It’s hard to judge using this map because it’s in kilometres. What’s wrong with the good old American imperial system?” Mr Swanson’s voice rose at the end of the sentence, and even Leslie knew not to point out the benefits of the metric system for fear of invoking Ron’s wrath.
“Pack only what you will need for the hike. We will lock everything else up in the bus. It should be safe enough,” Mr Swanson said. “I want you all ready to go and assembled outside the bus in 10 minutes.”
***
They’d been hiking for hours. Leslie could feel blisters forming on her heels, and she was struggling to keep her focus on Jean-Ralphio’s ridiculous conversation, rather than Ben’s cute butt walking in front of her.
She was relieved when she heard Mr Swanson shout, “Halt”.
Everyone slowly gathered around Mr Swanson in the failing light. The woods had thinned slightly and they were standing in a small clearing.
“This is as far as we are going to make it today. I have brought supplies for you all to set up a shelter. We only have enough supplies for two to a shelter, so everyone pair up and come and grab a cardboard box and a canvas sheet.”
Leslie didn’t even have to look at Ann to know that they would be pairing up. She walked forwards quickly and secured a cardboard box and canvas sheet, then went and stood next to her best friend.
Once Mr Swanson was left standing with a single cardboard box and canvas sheet at his feet, he started speaking again.
“Now that you all have your supplies, I want you to go set up your shelters. I will be setting mine up over there,” He pointed to a spot on the edge of the clearing. “I don’t care where you set up your shelter, as long as you can all see mine. I don’t want anyone set up out of sight of my shelter, is that clear?”
Grabbing his canvas sheet and cardboard box, Mr Swanson walked to the spot he had indicated and commenced setting up his shelter.
As Leslie bent to pick up her canvas sheet, she noticed that Jerry had somehow gotten tangled in his sheet and was having trouble unwrapping it from around his legs.
Leslie and Ann worked diligently to set up their shelter on the opposite end of the clearing to Mr Swanson’s. Neither of them was displeased when Ben and Chris choose to set up their shelter nearby.
After Leslie had put the finishing homely touches on their shelter, and Ann had made two big piles of leaves try to make their sleeping arrangements more comfortable, the two went for a walk to see how everyone else was doing.
Donna and April had finished their shelter and were sitting outside of it. Their shelter was as far away from the clearing as possible, while still being just within sight of Mr Swanson’s shelter.
Donna was polishing her model Mercedes and April was drawing disturbing pictures in the dirt with a stick.
“Have you heard anything about dinner?” Ann asked April.
As usual, April ignored Ann, so it was Donna who responded.
“Tom has been whining to Ron about being hungry. As soon as I heard Mr Swanson mention beef jerky, I was out. I am not eating that stuff.”
Andy came bounding up the group.
“I’m stuck sharing a shelter with Jerry. He is so funny. He was just telling me about his irritable bowel syndrome. It was hilarious.”
Ann clearly hadn’t paid any attention to her ex-boyfriend and was still fixated on the thought of dinner.
“Beef jerky?” she said, pulling a face. “I hope that isn’t all of the food that Mr Swanson has.”
“Don’t worry Ann, you bright eyed, bushy tailed...” Leslie began, momentarily distracted by the sight of Ben approaching. “Um, possum. I have emergency s’mores rations in my pack. There’ll be more than enough to go around.”
“You have emergency s’mores rations?” Ben asked, grinning slightly.
“I never leave home without them,” Leslie replied, her face feeling warm as Ben smiled at her.
Ann looked between Leslie and Ben and smiled knowingly.
“Everyone to the centre of the clearing,” Ron’s voice sounded out across the clearing.
Leslie cast one last look at Ben before they moved off to the clearing.
Once everyone had gathered around Ron, he assigned them all tasks. Leslie and Ann were assigned to fetch some water from a nearby stream. On the way back to the clearing, Leslie took a slight detour to their shelter and filled her jacket pockets with s’mores supplies.
By the time Leslie and Ann had returned from their second trip to the stream, Ron had a fire burning in the centre of the clearing. He had placed a kettle full of water over the fire and was handing out beef jerky, to the obvious disappointment of everyone.
Leslie pulled her s’mores rations out of her jacket and set to work. The beef jerky was forgotten at once, as everyone sat around making s’mores and chatting about what an adventure they were having.
After a couple of hours, Leslie and Ben were the last people left sitting around the camp fire. It was the first time that Leslie had been alone with Ben in a private setting since she had come to realise at the Harvest Festival that her feelings for him were more than just friendship. She was determined to take advantage of the opportunity and prolong her conversation with him.
Looking at Ben slyly from the corner of her eye, Leslie made her move. “I loved the way Danaerys set her dragons on those awful slave traders, didn’t you? Dracarys! I wish I had dragons to use at school. Then no one would talk over me in student council meetings.”
Ben’s eyes lit up.
They chatted about Game of Thrones until the fire died down. Leslie found herself hypnotised by the glowing embers, and when she tore her eyes away it was only to find Ben watching her with a startling intensity.
As their eye contact stretched on and on, a lull came over the conversation. Afraid that Ben would decide to call it a night, Leslie leaned a little closer and spoke.
“So Ben, I never asked you. How do you like living in Pawnee?”
Ben looked back into the coals for a minute before meeting her gaze squarely.
“Pawnee is a really special town. I love living there. And umm, I look forward to the moments in my day where I get to hang out with the town, and talk to the town about stuff.”
He looked away briefly and rubbed the back of his neck before returning his gaze to hers.
“The town has really nice blonde hair too, and has read a shocking number of political biographies for a town, which I like.“
Leslie could feel a smile spreading over her face as she looked into Ben’s cute face.
Ben continued, “I hope I’m not making you uncomfortable, but I feel like we should at least talk about it. It’s not just me, right?”
Leslie looked into Ben’s eyes and was about to respond that, no, it wasn’t just him, when a loud thump sound ruined the moment. Ben and Leslie whipped their heads around as the noise was followed by a scream of agony. They both leapt up and ran towards the sound, grabbing their torches as they went.
To be continued