may we stay lost on our way home (1/1)
Title: may we stay lost on our way home
Author: office_bluth
Pairing: April/Ben; implied April/Andy and Ben/Leslie
Rating: R
Word Count: 8147
Summary: They spent their summer distracting each other, and all she ever wanted from him was the knowledge that he wasn’t and never would be Andy.
Author's Note: This is my first ever Parks and Rec fic, and, naturally, it's about my newfound pairing obsession. Many, many thanks to the lovely dearygirl for being an awesome beta and a beautiful tropical fish. This starts during The Master Plan, then continues into the summer the government is shut down.
Sometimes she’s sent up to his office, mostly to drop off some forms from the parks department that no one wants to give him. He’s sort of hated down there these days, since he’s kind of the poster boy for everything Leslie hates and if Leslie hates something, then everyone else who works with her will hate it, too.
Whenever Tom or Leslie has something they need Ben to see, April’s the one who runs it upstairs. Normally she’d complain, or take the folders to appease them and throw them into her bottom drawer when no one’s watching, but everyone’s so tense these days about the budget reviews that she’ll take any opportunity to get away from Leslie’s wide eyes and Ron’s maniacal grin - besides, it’s fun to annoy Ben. Plus, it gives her an excuse to walk by the shoeshine station, even though it’s all the way on the wrong side of the building, but Andy never notices that. His whole face lights up when he sees her, ready to share some new idea or game with her, and she knows there’s no way he’d ever ask her why she’s there. Still, she brings the folders with her, just in case.
Plus, April hasn’t really been around Ben much, but Leslie’s been all frowny and super quiet ever since he showed up, and while April kind of likes the silence, she knows it’s not Leslie. And if Leslie can’t do anything to show this guy how much of a jerk he is, then April’s just going to have to do it for her.
A week before everything goes wrong, Andy shows her his homemade potato gun. When she goes up to Ben’s office, she has exploded potato all over her. She expects him to say something to her, for his face to pinch and tilt like it does when he looks at Leslie, but he doesn’t even move his eyes from his computer.
“Thanks,” he says automatically. “You can just put them on the desk. Thanks.”
She always puts them on his desk, but usually he at least looks at her. Then she gets to make a show out of it: rolling her eyes, throwing it down, stomping out of his office like being in there another second will make her sick. But when he’s not looking, she doesn’t get to have fun. So she opens the folder, picking up a piece of paper and waving it between her thumb and index finger until he finally looks up at her.
“Something wrong?” he asks, rubbing a hand over his face. April frowns.
“You look tired,” she notes. “Maybe you should go home and just sleep for a really long time and never come back here. Ever.”
He pauses halfway through fixing his tie. “With the documents. Something wrong with the documents?”
She scowls. “I don’t know. I don’t know what any of this stuff says. It’s all super boring.”
His face falls, the expression something she can’t quite place. “Is there something wrong with it or not?”
April runs her tongue over her teeth, trying to figure him out. She’s never really talked to Ben much besides their brief interactions in his office, but no one’s ever really said anything bad about him that didn’t have to do with what he was doing to their department. Leslie’s the only one who seems to genuinely hate him, but Leslie hates anything that interferes with her job; no one else seems to know him very well. But anyone with stupid spiky hair and stupid skinny ties and tired eyes that look as if they’d rather be anywhere else but in a small office in Pawnee, Indiana, doesn’t get to talk to April like that. He doesn’t seem to like his job any more than April likes hers - and he makes Leslie upset, so screw him.
“Leslie just needs you to sign something,” she says finally, handing him a form with a snap of her wrist. He takes it from her, scribbling his name before giving it back to her. April bends her knee and curtsies, glaring at him.
“Thanks so much.” She rolls her eyes as she turns her back to him. “Was that so freaking hard?”
“Sorry?”
April grins before turning back to him, putting on her usual scowl. “What?”
He leans forward, jabbing the pen in his hand to punctuate his words. “You know, you can hate your job all you want, but if you come in here, you need to -“
Then his eyes tighten. “What’s all over you?”
“Potato guts,” she answers, tugging at the hem of her shirt. She’s pleased to see that momentarily quiets him.
“Why are you covered in potato?” Ben asks, his face slowly pinching. April feels a jolt run through her. She’s winning.
But she doesn’t show her satisfaction; she busies herself with combing the ends of her hair, inspecting each strand. “Andy made a potato gun and he tried to shoot Kyle with it, but it exploded and now we’re both covered in potato.”
Her voice stays flat, as if Ben should have expected that answer. He nods silently, as if absorbing her story, then smacks his pen onto the desk with such force that April jumps. “You know what?” he yells, something on his neck bulging out. “You’re a child. I don’t really care if you want to work for the government forever, but if you keep acting like this, no one will care if you do. You’re unorganized, you’re rude to everyone, and you’re covered in potato. Start doing your job, or don’t ever come into my office again.”
Another jolt runs through her, but this one feels different somehow. For some reason, she doesn’t feel smug or even angry at him; she’s actually kind of…endeared. But she rolls her eyes again. “Whatever. Like I care.”
“Get out,” he tells her, getting back to work. She leaves his office, her stomach turning and her frown etched into her face. It’s the best mood she’s been in all week.
- - -
Two nights later, there’s a very good chance she’s ruined everything with Andy, so when she finds a pathetic-looking Ben sitting on the curb outside the Snakehole Lounge, she smoothes down her pink dress and sits next to him.
She can tell he’s surprised, but he doesn’t say anything to her at first, just hands her a crumpled napkin without looking at her. “Happy birthday” is scribbled on it in pen, the marks jagged like they were traced over a few times.
“I figured I should get you something,” he says, his mouth twisted into a smirk. “But I didn’t know what you like, so.”
“I don’t like anything,” she answers immediately. But her fingers tighten around the napkin and she sets it carefully onto the concrete next to her. “But thanks.”
He lets out a short bark of laughter. “Right. April Ludgate, the girl who doesn’t care about anything. How silly of me.”
“I care about things,” she says without any fire in her voice. Mostly she’s just surprised that he knows her name. “I really like sleeping and thinking about death and -“
Ben shakes his head, finally looking at her. “Come on. One more. I bet you can’t name three things that you like.”
That’s not true. She likes Andy - but she can’t say that, because she spent all night letting Jean freaking Ralphio hang all over her. So she just shrugs. “I like Leslie. She can be okay sometimes.”
“Leslie.” Ben lets his head fall, his forehead resting against his knees. “You know, you must be a pretty shitty person if the woman who apparently likes everyone and everything hates your guts.”
April doesn’t know how to respond to that, and he seems to know that. He smiles apologetically at her. “Sorry. You don’t care about any of this. I’m sure you’ve been spending your whole life looking forward to spending your twenty-first birthday sitting outside a club with some pathetic loser. God. You should be going out and having fun with your friends.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” she says, biting her lip. “You are a loser. God, I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”
She fixes her dress like she’s about to stand up, but she doesn’t move. Ben smiles at his feet. “Yeah, you do.”
He’s right. He knows her name and he knows that her birthday was awful, and it takes her by surprise. But she has no idea how to tell him that, if she could tell him at all. So she just shrugs limply and says, “Whatever, I saw all my friends tonight. And I didn’t have that much fun, so I might as well end my night with the same amount of suckiness.”
She doesn’t mean to offend him with that, not really, so she’s relieved when he laughs softly. But he doesn’t say anything, so she glances at him to make sure he’s not revving up for another rant about how much he doesn’t want her around. He’s just watching her, this calm look on his face as he takes her in.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you the other day,” he says, leaning over slightly like they’ve got some secret to share. “That wasn’t fair of me. I really don’t care what you do at work, or what foods you get all over you. I had just gotten some…not great news, and - Well, I wasn’t having the best day.”
“I don’t care,” she says with a shrug, and she means it. She thinks he can tell she means it, too, because he looks sort of surprised, and she’s just so happy about the fact that she got the lame budget guy to yell at her and then apologize for it that she sort of leans over and kisses him.
He immediately jumps back, his eyebrows knitted in confusion. “What are you doing?”
“Whatever,” she says with a grimace. “Just go with it. Don’t be so lame.”
He’s not what she wants, but she doesn’t mind too much. This time when she leans in, he meets her halfway and gently brings his hand to her face, running his fingers over her jaw. Then he sucks her in like a tornado, their chests pressed close and their mouths suddenly desperate, her hands clawing at his stupid, stupid tie as her tongue fights his for dominance.
But he doesn’t fold to her. Andy would never treat her like this; he’d worship her and kiss her the way she’d want to be kissed. Ben can kiss her the way he wants to because she means nothing to him, and that makes her so happy that she actually has to pull away to get her breath back.
But he can’t know that he had the upper hand, even momentarily, so she forces a frown and says, “That was terrible. Seriously, go practice on your pillow, or something, or -“
“Oh, shut up,” he growls, and this time, he starts it.
They wind up in his car, and even though her dress gets unzipped and his shirt’s halfway off, she decides she’s not going to sleep with him. She started this weird little game and she wants to be the one that ends it, so she digs her nails into the back of his neck when his hand starts traveling down her side.
“Um, ow,” he says, rubbing the spot where she hurt him.
“I’m not having sex with you. Not in your stupid car with side airbags that a mom would drive.” No, not good enough. “And your hair looks stupid.”
Ben laughs into her shoulder, gently kissing her skin. “Whatever you say, April. This was enough of a distraction from my pathetic problems, so if you want me to drive you home -“
He keeps talking, but she can only focus on one thing he said. A distraction. She likes that. It’s not that she likes him, or actually wants anything from him - he’s just a distraction. A guy that isn’t Andy, who can kiss her like he doesn’t care about her and keep her from thinking about what she threw away earlier that night.
When he parks in front of her house, he hesitates before turning to her. “Look, this probably wasn’t - I mean, I don’t usually - I just don’t want you to think that -“
She rolls her eyes. “Oh my God. Don’t ruin it.” She grabs her bag and opens the door, slamming it shut behind her just because she can.
“Hey, April?” She turns around, heaving a huge sigh. Ben’s leaning towards the window, looking much better than he had when she found him on that curb. “Happy birthday,” he says simply.
She bites her lip. “Thanks,” she says, not sure what else to say. Something passes between them - she’s not sure what, but she can feel it. Then Ben breaks it, pressing his lips together and smiling, before rolling up the window and putting the car into drive.
She doesn’t know what makes her smile more: the look on his face as he stared at her through the open window or the bruise that’ll undoubtedly form on his neck from when she let her teeth catch his skin too sharply.
- - -
She sort of stays away from him after that, not really because she’s intentionally trying to avoid him, but because the parks department is in total anti-Ben mode. Apparently something happened with him and Leslie at April’s party - she doesn’t know what, but it reminds her of when he called her a distraction, and the memory is so delicious that she almost smiles at a joke Tom makes.
Then she gets so angry that she locks Jerry in the supply closet.
But then she sees Ben and Leslie walking into the building together, and they both look pretty happy. After that, Leslie doesn’t seem to mind Ben so much - she runs things up to his office herself, so April doesn’t have a reason to go anywhere near him. She can go back to ignoring her work now; everything’s finally going her way.
And then, a week after Ben yells at April and kicks her out of his office, he shuts them down.
It’s everything she’s ever wanted: she doesn’t have to go to work or see Jerry’s stupid face or feel a pang of something whenever Andy comes around. But she sees Leslie coming back from the bathroom with red eyes and April knows there’s nothing funny about this. He hurt Leslie again, which means April hates him again. So she goes to tell him that.
Ben’s not in his office when April gets there, so she sits in his chair and waits. Ten minutes later, he still hasn’t returned, and she’s getting bored.
April sighs, knocking over Ben’s pencil cup. It doesn’t feel as good as she’d hoped, so she presses on his stapler until it jams. There. That’s a little better.
Suddenly, she hears footsteps in the hallway. She sits up a little, her eyes narrowing in anticipation. Someone’s approaching. April holds her gaze, ready to set it on Ben and make him cry like a little girl.
“Hey, Mr. Wyatt, I was wondering -“ Crap. Someone from the transportation department. He looks confused to see April there. “Oh, I’m sorry. Do you know where Ben Wyatt is?”
April bares her teeth and hisses. The man’s face pales, and he immediately steps out of the room, presumably getting far, far away from her.
And then Ben’s there, frowning as he looks into the hallway. Finally, he notices her, his face pinching in that way she loves. “Oh. I was wondering why some guy was running away from my office. I should have known you’d be here.”
Her mouth twitches. “That’s really nice,” she says, feeling flattered. “But I still hate you.”
His shoulders shake like he’s laughing, but no sound comes out. “Right. Of course you do. Everyone in this town hates me.”
April sighs. “I know. I’m so jealous.”
Ben tilts his head, obviously not expecting that. He approaches the desk, running his fingers along the edge and looking at anything that isn’t her. “Look, I’m, um. I should apologize for what happened. I’m not -“
“Stop talking,” she says, bored now. Leave it to Ben to ruin the most entertaining conversation she’s had in months. “Don’t talk about it. Or about anything. I hate your voice. And your hair. And you.”
His hand flies to his hair, his face defensive. “Gee. Thanks. Do you usually make out with people you hate?”
She shrugs. “No, but you were there and it was my birthday and - whatever. I just did it, okay? Can you shut up about it?”
She combs through her hair with her fingers, just to give herself something to look at besides Ben. But he doesn’t let it go. “No, that’s not it,” he says. “You didn’t just kiss me because I was there. You kissed me because you were sad, too - Let me guess. The guy you wore that pink dress for didn’t want to kiss you?”
“Shut up,” she snaps, narrowing her eyes at him. He knows absolutely nothing about her. He’s just some jerk with a stupid job that makes him think he’s important. He doesn’t know anything about April or Pawnee or Leslie, and he’s not even smart enough to realize that he doesn’t have the right to be a dick to them.
“I didn’t like you before because I don’t like anyone,” she says, getting up from his chair and kicking it against the wall. “But now I really don’t like you, ‘cause you’re an asshole and you made Leslie cry.”
Something in his face changes. “Leslie cried?”
“Duh,” she says with a roll of her eyes. Before leaving, she steals his scissors and knocks a pile of folders to the floor. She doesn’t want to go back downstairs and watch everyone freak out over the shutdown, but she really, really wants to get away from Ben’s stupid elf face. So she sucks it up and lets Leslie give her a long lecture about honor and integrity, and she helps her boss pack up her desk, and she almost forgets about the sadness in Ben’s eyes when she brought up Leslie.
- - -
For a while she thinks maybe things are finally going to happen with Andy, but whatever, she wasn’t expecting much. He can be with Ann if he wants. April doesn’t care.
- - -
April doesn’t know how, but Leslie ends up on the committee to figure out the budget.
She learns this when Leslie shows up at her house at seven in the morning and says she needs an assistant. She closes the door in Leslie’s face, but somehow, she winds up going, glued to Leslie’s side with a notepad and a clicky pen.
Representatives from every department meet in one of the larger conference rooms in the building, a room that’s dark and way too hot. There’s a large table in the front of the room where Ben and Chris sit, always looking worriedly at their huge pile of notes.
Of course, Leslie immediately runs to a seat in the front row, then gestures for April to come join her. After a few days of April spitefully sitting in the back row, they compromise and start sitting in the middle. She’s not a very good assistant - Leslie looks over April’s notes at the end of the first week, tries not to frown, and tells April that she appreciates creativity, but maybe there are other, more productive, things she could focus on besides what Ron would look like as a woman.
(Still, she catches Leslie giggling at the drawing later.)
Ben doesn’t look at her once, not that she wants him to. He’s the worst, and thanks to him, April has to get up at six-thirty every morning of her summer and write down Leslie’s daily attack points. She barely even remembers what happened the night of her birthday. He had been nice to her; so what?
One day, she’s working on an illustration of Jerry as a goldfish when she hears Leslie calling her name. April glances up, her scowl already in place.
“They just called for lunch,” Leslie says in a rush. “I need you to bring this to Ben for me.”
She tries to hand April a binder - Leslie’s proposed budget that April typed up the week before. She doesn’t move to take it. “No. You do it.”
“I can’t,” Leslie says with a sigh. “The intern working for him and Chris recognizes me now and won’t let me anywhere near their office. I need you to do it. Please.” She wiggles the binder into April’s hands. “It needs to go directly to Ben, okay? Not to his intern, not on his desk. Directly in Ben’s hands. Got it?”
April sighs in response.
“Thank you!” Leslie calls as April leaves the conference room. “You’re a beautiful beam of light in these dark times!”
April stomps her feet the whole way and when she gets off the crowded elevator, she presses every single button. The insults hurled her way as the doors close are almost enough to make her smile.
But then she sees Ben outside his office and she’s scowling again.
“Hey,” she calls when she’s halfway down the hallway. “I’m supposed to give this to you.”
Ben turns to her, looking confused. “April? What are you doing here?”
Her jaw twitches. “I’m just dropping this off for Leslie. Here.”
She holds it out for him, and to her surprise, he takes it without protest. “I thought you were ignoring her,” April says without thinking.
Ben’s face falls. “What? I’m not ignoring her. I’m just slammed with work all the time.” He looks as if he’s going to say more, but then he shakes his head. “What are you even doing here? Shouldn’t you be doing non-government things?”
April shrugs. “Leslie needed an assistant.”
Ben looks surprised. “You mean you’ve been working here all summer? I haven’t seen you once. I had no idea you were still around.”
He looks her up and down, so quickly she doesn’t even think he realizes he does it. Her eye twitches. She’s been staring at him for three weeks, bored out of her mind, and he didn’t even know she was there? That’s so…hot.
That thought is so disturbing, even for her. She’s never really been around guys who had their own thing going on; the boys she dated in high school and college were all happy to along with whatever she wanted from them, and Andy…Well, he’s not Ben. Ben has his own life, and he doesn’t need her, and that thought is intoxicating. She needs to get away from him, now.
“Okay, bye,” she chokes out. She whirls around, not fast enough to avoid seeing his little smirk, getting as far away from him as soon as possible.
She hears him say something, but she doesn’t slow down to hear what it is.
- - -
A few days later, Ben approaches Leslie at lunch to talk about her budget proposal. It takes them less than ten minutes to start screaming at each other.
Even though this is a weekly occurrence, she knows Leslie’s bothered by it. She barely speaks the rest of the day, not even when the committee asks for opinions on whether or not the library’s request to open another branch should be approved.
When they end for the day, April glances at Leslie; she’s perched on the edge of her chair, her eyes locked on Ben.
“I should apologize,” she says. “He’s an ass, but he’s just doing his job. And he read the proposal I gave him, even though he didn’t need to. Maybe -“
She stops herself suddenly. “No,” she says quietly. “He’s an ass. But maybe I was an ass to him.”
Leslie grabs April’s shoulder. “April? Was I an ass?”
When April doesn’t respond, Leslie asks again. And again. And again. “Oh my God,” April says finally. “I’ll go talk to him. Okay?”
Leslie’s whole face glows. “April Ludgate, you are the best assistant ever.” She playfully pokes April’s arm. “I’m gonna get you a certificate saying that. Ooh, no - a mug!”
April scurries away, trying to get away from her boss’ loud voice. She passes Ron in the hallway, leaning against a wall and looking as if he’s trying very hard not to fall asleep.
“Leslie’s happy,” she says as she passes him. “Make it stop.”
He merely grunts in response.
This time, Ben’s already in his office when she gets there. She closes the door behind her; his head jerks up when he hears it, a frantic look in his eyes.
“Hi,” she says, leaning against the door.
“Hi,” he repeats. Apparently it takes all of his energy, because he immediately drops his head into his hands. “Do you need something? Because I’m kind of having a terrible day, and the last thing I need is for you to get mad at me for something I can’t figure out.”
He just gets her. April shrugs, staring at the ceiling. “I’m Leslie’s assistant. My job is to annoy you when she can’t.”
Ben scoffs at that. “Right. Great. So you came on behalf of Leslie Knope to continue telling me why I’m a spineless jerk?”
That had been April’s favorite part of their argument. She starts walking over to his desk, her fingers toying with the bottom button on her shirt. “No. I mean, you are. But that’s not why I’m here.”
She pauses when she reaches his desk, then walks around it. She can see him clench up, but he doesn’t push her away when she turns his chair around and straddles him.
He angles his body into hers when she finally kisses him, her nails sharp around his wrists. She can feel him moving, trying to touch her, but she won’t let go.
“I’m supposed to be annoying you,” she reminds him. “Also, you’re kind of gross, so don’t touch me. If you touch me, I’m gonna leave.”
His eyes are heavy on hers. After a minute, he nods, just a bare flick of his chin. Good. Her eyes move down to his lips briefly before she kisses him again, her back arching as she presses into him.
She knows how to do this. She knows how to toy with people that don’t matter to her. And he absolutely does not matter to her. He’s a jerk to Leslie sometimes, and he’s not Andy, and that alone is enough to make her hate him.
She pops his buttons one by one, slowly moving her hand down his chest. He squirms a little when she reaches the bottom, needing something to press against him. But she doesn’t give him that satisfaction, not yet.
She stands up just long enough to slide her leggings and panties down her legs, and when she resumes her position on his lap, his hands snake up her legs and gently settle on her thighs.
She glares at him, then loosens his tie and lifts it over his head. Soon, his hands are tied behind the chair and she’s grabbing a condom from her purse, ripping the package open with her teeth as she frees him from his boxers.
She strokes him once or twice before sliding it on, then settles back on top of him, guiding him to her entrance.
When they begin rocking against each other, it’s fast and messy and she doesn’t look him in the eyes once. But he knows when to speed up and he doesn’t fuck her like he likes her, and that’s all April wants.
She rides him until she feels his thighs clench, her fingers wrapped tight in his hair, then he mutters something that she can barely hear. Then his hips move even faster against her, and soon she has to bite down on his shoulder, because there’s no way she’d ever give him the satisfaction of crying out.
She’s on her feet almost immediately, smoothing down her hair and fixing her shirt. Ben’s just kind of breathing, not really looking at her or at anything, really. So she figures it’s as good a time as any to discuss why she came up here in the first place.
“Leslie’s sorry,” April says as she pulls up her leggings and moves to untie his hands. Ben looks at her in surprise, then glances down at his unbuttoned shirt.
She closes the door on her way out, trying to glare at him through the glass. It doesn’t work.
- - -
It sort of becomes a thing, but it’s more of an occasional indulgence than a routine. As the summer rages on, tensions in that conference room get higher and higher, and she’s sort of become an expert on when Ben’s getting too stressed out.
He’s always stressed out, of course, but some days, when Leslie just won’t let go or when some other stupid department representative won’t shut up, she can see his shoulders clench and his face harden, and she knows that, as soon as they’re done, he’s going to touch her wrist as she walks by or give her that look that she knows means she’s waiting until everyone leaves the room.
It always happens in the building. Usually it’s in his office, either on the desk or the chair, though she’s pushed him onto his knees in a few bathroom stalls and become quite familiar with most of the supply closest around the conference room. She doesn’t have his phone number, so even if she wants to see him outside of their stolen moments in the office, she can’t.
Leslie’s figured out that her ideas are considered more seriously if she’s not constantly beating everyone over the head, so she builds her plans slowly throughout the week. She barely speaks at all on Mondays, and then every Friday includes a forty-minute Powerpoint presentation and an impassioned speech that April can see sets Ben’s whole body on edge.
One Tuesday, he takes her on a tour of the accounting department and she’s so bored that she blows him just to make him stop talking about math. He does that sometimes - he’ll talk to her like he knows her, like maybe they’re kind of friends. They’re not, of course, but the only person she wants to see is the person she’s refusing to see, despite his many texts and phone calls, so when Ben wants to talk for a few minutes before ripping her clothes off, she doesn’t really mind.
It’s not always like that, though. One week, he looks at her as soon as Leslie concludes her Powerpoint and mouths “now”. April tries to hide her grin as she murmurs to her boss that she needs to go to the bathroom, then slinks out along the back wall.
He follows a minute or two later, and soon he has her curling into the wall of one of the hallways on the opposite side of the building, his fingers tugging her hair as he takes her from behind. He doesn’t kiss her, doesn’t even try.
Exactly a week later, after they’re let out for the day, he tells her to follow him. He leads her to the parks department and slowly undresses her against the door to Leslie and Tom’s office, and winds up fucking her against it with his eyes closed.
She’s kind of curious after that, so she pays attention over the next two or so weeks. There’s never a pattern to when he asks her to stay or what he wants to do; the first Monday that she keeps track, he fingers her on his desk and then pulls up her panties for her, smiling and waving as he points her towards the door. The next Monday, nothing. But he always wants her on Fridays, and he doesn’t even bother saying hello to her before his lips are on her skin.
It doesn’t make sense at first, but as she studies him, she notices how flustered he gets whenever Leslie stands up in the conference room. He’ll sigh sometimes, make a comment about how thorough she is, but April can see his shoulders tense up and his legs cross underneath the desk whenever Leslie goes on and on about budget cuts.
Soon she learns that Leslie’s impassioned Friday presentations mean April will wind up on her knees, or pressed roughly against the carpet, or hissed at every time she tries to speak, and whenever she sees Ben’s eyes darken as he stares at Leslie, she finds herself crossing her legs to get a little relief.
She stops wearing underwear on Fridays, and she doesn’t even bother waiting for his signal. She slips out of the room five minutes before they’re let go for the weekend and is waiting in his office when he gets up there, his tie always balled up in his hand.
But he’s not the only one calling the shots. She’ll slip a note into the folder Leslie makes her hand him every morning telling him where to meet her during their morning break. She almost always writes those notes the night before, when her phone tells her she has three voicemails and they’re all from the only guy that’s ever hurt her.
Andy calls a lot, and she never picks up. Instead, she takes it out on Ben, calling him names and acting bored and letting her nails cut his back. He doesn’t seem too bothered, though. He’ll tug her hair and look at her like he knows exactly what she’s doing, and it’s this weird mix of exhilarating and infuriating, but she never knows which one to choose.
- - -
He finds her in the hallway one day. She’s getting a drink from the water fountain and then, suddenly, he’s there. He waits until she straightens, then he tells her they need to talk.
She’s figured this moment would have to come, but she didn’t really think it would be like this. Still, she follows him to an empty office, her bored expression ready.
Ben sits on one of the uncomfortable chairs facing the desk, his thumb idly tracing the curve of the armrest. “We came up with a draft. The first budget proposal.”
Oh. That’s not what she expected. She sighs. “So?”
“So,” he repeats sharply, “we’re gonna present it tomorrow. And I’m worried that she - That it’ll just upset everyone even more.”
She doesn’t care. She really, truly doesn’t care. But she knows that he only cares about one person in that room, and he must be even more tired of Leslie’s ever-changing opinion of him than April is of watching it all unfold.
“Great,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’m glad that the only break I’ll get for the next two hours was wasted talking about work. I heard someone brought in doughnuts.”
“Blow me,” Ben snaps.
April shrugs as she opens the door. “Would have been a better use of my time.”
“Clever,” he calls after her. “But that’s you, right? You always have a comeback. No matter what, you’re always ready to show everyone exactly what’s wrong with them. Did you ever think that maybe everyone else is fine and you’re the one with the problem?”
She stops. When she glances over her shoulder, he’s gone still, like he’s waiting for her reaction. She walks back into the room, dropping to her knees in front of him.
He jumps when she reaches for his fly. “I wasn’t - I shouldn’t have said that. I wasn’t serious when I told you to blow me. I have to get back.”
She frowns at his right kneecap. “Then don’t complain to me about your stupid presentation. I can make you stop worrying about it, if you’d just shut up.”
They both know this isn’t about the presentation, not really. She knows why he’s nervous about it, and something weird in her brain wants to let him know that she knows, that she sees the way he looks at Leslie. Despite what he might think, April has feelings, and knows how much it sucks to like someone you can’t have. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t try to apologize for what he said, so she tries again. This time, he doesn’t stop her. She unzips his pant, tugging at them to make him lift up his hips. When he does, she slides his pants down to his knees, then moves his boxers out of her way.
She takes him with one hand, pumping a few times before lowering her mouth to him. Ben lets out a soft noise of approval, shifting around on his seat. She licks him from hilt to tip, running her tongue over the slit. Then she takes him deeper, wrapping one hand around his base to hold him still.
She’s never really liked doing this for other guys, but she loves watching stupid, uptight Ben slowly relax. It’s like a small win for her in their weird power struggle every time she makes him come.
“Hurry up,” he whispers. “They can’t start without me.”
April rolls her eyes and continues moving up and down, his hips rising to meet her. “Seriously, April,” he says, sounding like it’s taking a great deal of effort, “hurry.”
Just for that, she goes slowly, suctioning her cheeks and letting her tongue glide over him as she moves. It doesn’t take long before he’s cursing at her, his thighs flexed, and she decides it’s time to stop playing.
So she starts moving faster, letting her free hand drift to his balls. She squeezes gently, trying not to smirk when she hears him hiss at her.
“Come the fuck on,” he snaps at her. With one final pump, she sends him over the edge. He lets out a strangled sort of cry, and April mentally gives herself a point.
After they let out for the day, he returns the favor in a supply closet. When she leaves the building, long after everyone else has left, there’s another car in the lot besides hers and Ben’s. Leslie. Crap.
April clears her throat, then walks over and taps on the window. Leslie’s startled, but she rolls down the window and smiles. “April? What are you still doing here?”
“Ben needed someone to set up for another meeting,” she lies easily. “I thought you left.”
Leslie shakes her head. She pauses before saying, “No, I couldn’t go home just yet. I’m just - I’m getting worried about the budget. I feel like they’re not taking me seriously, and if they don’t take me seriously, then we can’t -“
She stops, her eyebrows knitted. April sighs. Then she tells Leslie about Ben’s proposal. She knows she shouldn’t - Ben told her in confidence, not because he really trusts her, but because he knows she can keep her mouth shut when it comes to him.
But she knows Leslie needs one last chance, and that’s more important than Ben’s opinion of his fuck buddy. April gets in her car and drives off before he leaves the building.
- - -
He’s staring at her throughout the presentation the next day. She refuses to look at him, but from the quick glances she allows herself, she knows he doesn’t take his eyes off her.
She’s surprised - the parks department actually doesn’t get screwed over. From the way Leslie’s preening next to her, April figures whatever she said to Ben must have worked.
She tries to run out a few minutes before they’re dismissed for the day, but Ben clears his throat when he sees her standing. “Will everyone please take their seats? We’ll be done in a minute.”
She scowls at him, but he doesn’t back down. With a twitch of his eyebrows, he motions for her to sit, then smiles so fleetingly she’s not even sure if it happened at all.
April takes her seat, crossing her arms and finally returning his gaze. “Thank you,” he says, then addresses the room. “Thank you, everyone. Let’s call it a day.”
Her mouth twitches.
She gets up again, murmuring a goodbye to Leslie. She hears him clear his throat as she passes his table.
“Ms. Ludgate,” Ben says pleasantly. “May I have a word?”
She barely stops. “About what?”
He smirks, looking her up and down. “Insubordination.”
That gets her attention. She sighs, then moves closer to the table. Ben looks around at the occupied room, then writes something on a Post-It and hands it to her.
“Eight o’clock,” he tells her. “Don’t be late.”
- - -
She shows up at nine.
It takes her a while to find his room. She avoids the front desk, instead taking the elevator up to his floor and wandering around until she finds what she guesses has been his home since he arrived in Pawnee three months ago.
She knocks on the door twice, blowing a bubble with her gum as soon as he opens the door.
He looks pissed. “I didn’t think you were coming,” he says, opening the door wide enough to let her in.
She shrugs, setting down her bag by the door. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t going to.”
It takes him a minute to get it. “Oh. Classy.” He rolls his eyes and sits on the bed.
For the first time, April feels uncomfortable around him. “Why am I here?” she asks. “I don’t want to know where you live. This is sad. You’re, like, forty, and you’re living in a hotel.”
Ben blinks. “I’m thirty-five.”
“Same difference.” She leans against the wall, her arms folded across her chest. “Seriously. Why am I here?”
Suddenly, Ben’s face hardens. “You know why. Why the hell would you tell Leslie about my proposal?”
April shrugs. “I don’t know. I didn’t think it was a secret. Does it matter?”
“Bullshit,” he snaps, standing up. “You know what you did, because you know how she is. Thanks to you, Leslie Knope showed up at my door last night and wouldn’t leave until I said I’d listen to her idea.”
“Technically you don’t have a door,” April notes as she studies her nails. “That’s the hotel’s door.”
“Shut. Up,” he hisses, advancing on her. “You think you’re fooling everybody, don’t you? You think that everyone believes you don’t give a fuck about anything but yourself, but everyone’s onto you.”
He narrows his eyes. “You love your job. You love Pawnee, you love the parks department, and you love Leslie Knope.”
She wants to square her jaw and stare him down and say the same to him, but she can’t. He can insult her all he wants, but talking about the people they really want is off-limits. Mentioning Leslie and letting him know that she knows is an automatic end to whatever they’ve been doing all summer.
But then again, the summer’s almost over. She grabs a tissue and spits her gum into it. “I do like Pawnee,” she says. “I like it here. Because even though I don’t care about anything, Leslie cares enough to make up for it. So, you know what, I’d say I’m sorry for telling her about your stupid budget plan, but I’m not, because I actually tell people the important stuff.”
“Fuck you.” He doesn’t make a move towards her this time, but she can still feel something buzzing in the air, something pulling them together. “You don’t know anything about me, April. Don’t act like you’ve got this whole honest-but-bitchy thing figured out, because I know that you haven’t been sleeping with me all summer just because you’ve been bored.” She glares at him, challenging him to continue.
“I could hear you sometimes, when I’d go down to the parks department. You and Potato Guy doing stupid shit together.” Suddenly he stands, then before she can react, he slams against her, one hand on the wall and the other on her hip, boxing her in.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Ben talking about Andy sets her teeth on edge; she wants him to stop, because he has no right to talk about her like he knows what’s going on in her mind, but she knows he won’t.
“Just tell me,” he hisses in her ear, a wandering hand making its way up her skirt. She squirms as his fingers brushes the cotton between her legs, embarrassed at the heat he can undoubtedly feel. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that every time you sucked my dick or bent over on my desk, you weren’t imagining you were fucking someone else.”
They’ve made no secret of the fact that they’ve been using each other all summer, but he won’t be the first one to admit exactly what she’s distracting him from. He underestimates her. She’s not folding first. “It’s just you,” she says with no emotion behind it. “I really, really like fucking you, Ben.”
He kisses her hard, an angry mix of teeth against her lip and his tongue trying to take charge. For once, she lets him.
Because she knows why he’s upset, and it’s not because he couldn’t get rid of Leslie. It’s because he had Leslie that close to his bed and he couldn’t do anything about it.
Without warning, he slides her skirt down, then pulls her shirt over her head. Her bra and underwear go next, and as she stands naked before him, he takes a step back. “Lay down,” he tells her. When she doesn’t move, he tries again, his voice lower. “Lay. Down.”
Finally, she obliges, lying down on the bed. Ben stays standing, grabbing her hips and pulling her to the edge of the bed. Then he runs an appreciative hand up her side, running over her stomach and finally cupping her breast, but he doesn’t say anything to her. Either he doesn’t have time or he finds it pointless to undress himself. He frees himself from his boxers, stroking himself a few times before grabbing a condom from the bedside table and rolling it on.
He enters her slowly, sliding to the hilt and then out again, grabbing her hips and pulling her down against him in time to his own movements. She wants to enjoy it, but she can’t, not when he’s completely dressed and squeezing his eyes shut like he doesn’t want to admit to himself that she’s actually there.
He moves sharply, increasing his pace whenever he damn well feels like it. He fucks her like he wants her out of his system, like she means nothing to him. She thinks about it, and she’s not upset that they finally crossed that line and called each other out. She’s done with him, too. They spent their summer distracting each other, and all she ever wanted from him was the knowledge that he wasn’t and never would be Andy. So she doesn’t care if he keeps all of his clothes on and bruises her hips, because she knows he’d never do that to Leslie.
They come quietly, and just like that, the tension between them is gone. She can’t be angry at him; despite what she wants to tell herself, he does know her, just a little bit. Maybe she and the stupid jerk with terrible hair who made Leslie cry aren’t so different.
But she doesn’t know what to say to let him know that it’s okay. He sort of stands awkwardly over her for a moment, then bends and kisses her. Not on the lips, but on the neck. “I guess I should feel special,” he murmurs, not moving away. “The girl who hates everyone and everything actually likes me.”
“I don’t like you,” she responds automatically. But he just gives her that same sad smile, then finally moves away from her to hand April her clothes. And just like that, she knows that they’re okay.
- - -
Everything has to end, and April’s never been one to mourn.
The task force has been reaching an agreement on Ben’s proposal, and when even Leslie stops coming up with a daily list of talking points, April knows they’re all getting their jobs back soon. Ben starts smiling more and waving goodbye to Leslie when she leaves for the day, and April knows their stupid thing is really over.
So she comes home on a Thursday and books a ticket to Venezuela. The next day, she sleeps late and it’s the first time in weeks the mere anticipation of a Friday doesn’t make her stomach flip.
Author: office_bluth
Pairing: April/Ben; implied April/Andy and Ben/Leslie
Rating: R
Word Count: 8147
Summary: They spent their summer distracting each other, and all she ever wanted from him was the knowledge that he wasn’t and never would be Andy.
Author's Note: This is my first ever Parks and Rec fic, and, naturally, it's about my newfound pairing obsession. Many, many thanks to the lovely dearygirl for being an awesome beta and a beautiful tropical fish. This starts during The Master Plan, then continues into the summer the government is shut down.
Sometimes she’s sent up to his office, mostly to drop off some forms from the parks department that no one wants to give him. He’s sort of hated down there these days, since he’s kind of the poster boy for everything Leslie hates and if Leslie hates something, then everyone else who works with her will hate it, too.
Whenever Tom or Leslie has something they need Ben to see, April’s the one who runs it upstairs. Normally she’d complain, or take the folders to appease them and throw them into her bottom drawer when no one’s watching, but everyone’s so tense these days about the budget reviews that she’ll take any opportunity to get away from Leslie’s wide eyes and Ron’s maniacal grin - besides, it’s fun to annoy Ben. Plus, it gives her an excuse to walk by the shoeshine station, even though it’s all the way on the wrong side of the building, but Andy never notices that. His whole face lights up when he sees her, ready to share some new idea or game with her, and she knows there’s no way he’d ever ask her why she’s there. Still, she brings the folders with her, just in case.
Plus, April hasn’t really been around Ben much, but Leslie’s been all frowny and super quiet ever since he showed up, and while April kind of likes the silence, she knows it’s not Leslie. And if Leslie can’t do anything to show this guy how much of a jerk he is, then April’s just going to have to do it for her.
A week before everything goes wrong, Andy shows her his homemade potato gun. When she goes up to Ben’s office, she has exploded potato all over her. She expects him to say something to her, for his face to pinch and tilt like it does when he looks at Leslie, but he doesn’t even move his eyes from his computer.
“Thanks,” he says automatically. “You can just put them on the desk. Thanks.”
She always puts them on his desk, but usually he at least looks at her. Then she gets to make a show out of it: rolling her eyes, throwing it down, stomping out of his office like being in there another second will make her sick. But when he’s not looking, she doesn’t get to have fun. So she opens the folder, picking up a piece of paper and waving it between her thumb and index finger until he finally looks up at her.
“Something wrong?” he asks, rubbing a hand over his face. April frowns.
“You look tired,” she notes. “Maybe you should go home and just sleep for a really long time and never come back here. Ever.”
He pauses halfway through fixing his tie. “With the documents. Something wrong with the documents?”
She scowls. “I don’t know. I don’t know what any of this stuff says. It’s all super boring.”
His face falls, the expression something she can’t quite place. “Is there something wrong with it or not?”
April runs her tongue over her teeth, trying to figure him out. She’s never really talked to Ben much besides their brief interactions in his office, but no one’s ever really said anything bad about him that didn’t have to do with what he was doing to their department. Leslie’s the only one who seems to genuinely hate him, but Leslie hates anything that interferes with her job; no one else seems to know him very well. But anyone with stupid spiky hair and stupid skinny ties and tired eyes that look as if they’d rather be anywhere else but in a small office in Pawnee, Indiana, doesn’t get to talk to April like that. He doesn’t seem to like his job any more than April likes hers - and he makes Leslie upset, so screw him.
“Leslie just needs you to sign something,” she says finally, handing him a form with a snap of her wrist. He takes it from her, scribbling his name before giving it back to her. April bends her knee and curtsies, glaring at him.
“Thanks so much.” She rolls her eyes as she turns her back to him. “Was that so freaking hard?”
“Sorry?”
April grins before turning back to him, putting on her usual scowl. “What?”
He leans forward, jabbing the pen in his hand to punctuate his words. “You know, you can hate your job all you want, but if you come in here, you need to -“
Then his eyes tighten. “What’s all over you?”
“Potato guts,” she answers, tugging at the hem of her shirt. She’s pleased to see that momentarily quiets him.
“Why are you covered in potato?” Ben asks, his face slowly pinching. April feels a jolt run through her. She’s winning.
But she doesn’t show her satisfaction; she busies herself with combing the ends of her hair, inspecting each strand. “Andy made a potato gun and he tried to shoot Kyle with it, but it exploded and now we’re both covered in potato.”
Her voice stays flat, as if Ben should have expected that answer. He nods silently, as if absorbing her story, then smacks his pen onto the desk with such force that April jumps. “You know what?” he yells, something on his neck bulging out. “You’re a child. I don’t really care if you want to work for the government forever, but if you keep acting like this, no one will care if you do. You’re unorganized, you’re rude to everyone, and you’re covered in potato. Start doing your job, or don’t ever come into my office again.”
Another jolt runs through her, but this one feels different somehow. For some reason, she doesn’t feel smug or even angry at him; she’s actually kind of…endeared. But she rolls her eyes again. “Whatever. Like I care.”
“Get out,” he tells her, getting back to work. She leaves his office, her stomach turning and her frown etched into her face. It’s the best mood she’s been in all week.
- - -
Two nights later, there’s a very good chance she’s ruined everything with Andy, so when she finds a pathetic-looking Ben sitting on the curb outside the Snakehole Lounge, she smoothes down her pink dress and sits next to him.
She can tell he’s surprised, but he doesn’t say anything to her at first, just hands her a crumpled napkin without looking at her. “Happy birthday” is scribbled on it in pen, the marks jagged like they were traced over a few times.
“I figured I should get you something,” he says, his mouth twisted into a smirk. “But I didn’t know what you like, so.”
“I don’t like anything,” she answers immediately. But her fingers tighten around the napkin and she sets it carefully onto the concrete next to her. “But thanks.”
He lets out a short bark of laughter. “Right. April Ludgate, the girl who doesn’t care about anything. How silly of me.”
“I care about things,” she says without any fire in her voice. Mostly she’s just surprised that he knows her name. “I really like sleeping and thinking about death and -“
Ben shakes his head, finally looking at her. “Come on. One more. I bet you can’t name three things that you like.”
That’s not true. She likes Andy - but she can’t say that, because she spent all night letting Jean freaking Ralphio hang all over her. So she just shrugs. “I like Leslie. She can be okay sometimes.”
“Leslie.” Ben lets his head fall, his forehead resting against his knees. “You know, you must be a pretty shitty person if the woman who apparently likes everyone and everything hates your guts.”
April doesn’t know how to respond to that, and he seems to know that. He smiles apologetically at her. “Sorry. You don’t care about any of this. I’m sure you’ve been spending your whole life looking forward to spending your twenty-first birthday sitting outside a club with some pathetic loser. God. You should be going out and having fun with your friends.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” she says, biting her lip. “You are a loser. God, I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”
She fixes her dress like she’s about to stand up, but she doesn’t move. Ben smiles at his feet. “Yeah, you do.”
He’s right. He knows her name and he knows that her birthday was awful, and it takes her by surprise. But she has no idea how to tell him that, if she could tell him at all. So she just shrugs limply and says, “Whatever, I saw all my friends tonight. And I didn’t have that much fun, so I might as well end my night with the same amount of suckiness.”
She doesn’t mean to offend him with that, not really, so she’s relieved when he laughs softly. But he doesn’t say anything, so she glances at him to make sure he’s not revving up for another rant about how much he doesn’t want her around. He’s just watching her, this calm look on his face as he takes her in.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you the other day,” he says, leaning over slightly like they’ve got some secret to share. “That wasn’t fair of me. I really don’t care what you do at work, or what foods you get all over you. I had just gotten some…not great news, and - Well, I wasn’t having the best day.”
“I don’t care,” she says with a shrug, and she means it. She thinks he can tell she means it, too, because he looks sort of surprised, and she’s just so happy about the fact that she got the lame budget guy to yell at her and then apologize for it that she sort of leans over and kisses him.
He immediately jumps back, his eyebrows knitted in confusion. “What are you doing?”
“Whatever,” she says with a grimace. “Just go with it. Don’t be so lame.”
He’s not what she wants, but she doesn’t mind too much. This time when she leans in, he meets her halfway and gently brings his hand to her face, running his fingers over her jaw. Then he sucks her in like a tornado, their chests pressed close and their mouths suddenly desperate, her hands clawing at his stupid, stupid tie as her tongue fights his for dominance.
But he doesn’t fold to her. Andy would never treat her like this; he’d worship her and kiss her the way she’d want to be kissed. Ben can kiss her the way he wants to because she means nothing to him, and that makes her so happy that she actually has to pull away to get her breath back.
But he can’t know that he had the upper hand, even momentarily, so she forces a frown and says, “That was terrible. Seriously, go practice on your pillow, or something, or -“
“Oh, shut up,” he growls, and this time, he starts it.
They wind up in his car, and even though her dress gets unzipped and his shirt’s halfway off, she decides she’s not going to sleep with him. She started this weird little game and she wants to be the one that ends it, so she digs her nails into the back of his neck when his hand starts traveling down her side.
“Um, ow,” he says, rubbing the spot where she hurt him.
“I’m not having sex with you. Not in your stupid car with side airbags that a mom would drive.” No, not good enough. “And your hair looks stupid.”
Ben laughs into her shoulder, gently kissing her skin. “Whatever you say, April. This was enough of a distraction from my pathetic problems, so if you want me to drive you home -“
He keeps talking, but she can only focus on one thing he said. A distraction. She likes that. It’s not that she likes him, or actually wants anything from him - he’s just a distraction. A guy that isn’t Andy, who can kiss her like he doesn’t care about her and keep her from thinking about what she threw away earlier that night.
When he parks in front of her house, he hesitates before turning to her. “Look, this probably wasn’t - I mean, I don’t usually - I just don’t want you to think that -“
She rolls her eyes. “Oh my God. Don’t ruin it.” She grabs her bag and opens the door, slamming it shut behind her just because she can.
“Hey, April?” She turns around, heaving a huge sigh. Ben’s leaning towards the window, looking much better than he had when she found him on that curb. “Happy birthday,” he says simply.
She bites her lip. “Thanks,” she says, not sure what else to say. Something passes between them - she’s not sure what, but she can feel it. Then Ben breaks it, pressing his lips together and smiling, before rolling up the window and putting the car into drive.
She doesn’t know what makes her smile more: the look on his face as he stared at her through the open window or the bruise that’ll undoubtedly form on his neck from when she let her teeth catch his skin too sharply.
- - -
She sort of stays away from him after that, not really because she’s intentionally trying to avoid him, but because the parks department is in total anti-Ben mode. Apparently something happened with him and Leslie at April’s party - she doesn’t know what, but it reminds her of when he called her a distraction, and the memory is so delicious that she almost smiles at a joke Tom makes.
Then she gets so angry that she locks Jerry in the supply closet.
But then she sees Ben and Leslie walking into the building together, and they both look pretty happy. After that, Leslie doesn’t seem to mind Ben so much - she runs things up to his office herself, so April doesn’t have a reason to go anywhere near him. She can go back to ignoring her work now; everything’s finally going her way.
And then, a week after Ben yells at April and kicks her out of his office, he shuts them down.
It’s everything she’s ever wanted: she doesn’t have to go to work or see Jerry’s stupid face or feel a pang of something whenever Andy comes around. But she sees Leslie coming back from the bathroom with red eyes and April knows there’s nothing funny about this. He hurt Leslie again, which means April hates him again. So she goes to tell him that.
Ben’s not in his office when April gets there, so she sits in his chair and waits. Ten minutes later, he still hasn’t returned, and she’s getting bored.
April sighs, knocking over Ben’s pencil cup. It doesn’t feel as good as she’d hoped, so she presses on his stapler until it jams. There. That’s a little better.
Suddenly, she hears footsteps in the hallway. She sits up a little, her eyes narrowing in anticipation. Someone’s approaching. April holds her gaze, ready to set it on Ben and make him cry like a little girl.
“Hey, Mr. Wyatt, I was wondering -“ Crap. Someone from the transportation department. He looks confused to see April there. “Oh, I’m sorry. Do you know where Ben Wyatt is?”
April bares her teeth and hisses. The man’s face pales, and he immediately steps out of the room, presumably getting far, far away from her.
And then Ben’s there, frowning as he looks into the hallway. Finally, he notices her, his face pinching in that way she loves. “Oh. I was wondering why some guy was running away from my office. I should have known you’d be here.”
Her mouth twitches. “That’s really nice,” she says, feeling flattered. “But I still hate you.”
His shoulders shake like he’s laughing, but no sound comes out. “Right. Of course you do. Everyone in this town hates me.”
April sighs. “I know. I’m so jealous.”
Ben tilts his head, obviously not expecting that. He approaches the desk, running his fingers along the edge and looking at anything that isn’t her. “Look, I’m, um. I should apologize for what happened. I’m not -“
“Stop talking,” she says, bored now. Leave it to Ben to ruin the most entertaining conversation she’s had in months. “Don’t talk about it. Or about anything. I hate your voice. And your hair. And you.”
His hand flies to his hair, his face defensive. “Gee. Thanks. Do you usually make out with people you hate?”
She shrugs. “No, but you were there and it was my birthday and - whatever. I just did it, okay? Can you shut up about it?”
She combs through her hair with her fingers, just to give herself something to look at besides Ben. But he doesn’t let it go. “No, that’s not it,” he says. “You didn’t just kiss me because I was there. You kissed me because you were sad, too - Let me guess. The guy you wore that pink dress for didn’t want to kiss you?”
“Shut up,” she snaps, narrowing her eyes at him. He knows absolutely nothing about her. He’s just some jerk with a stupid job that makes him think he’s important. He doesn’t know anything about April or Pawnee or Leslie, and he’s not even smart enough to realize that he doesn’t have the right to be a dick to them.
“I didn’t like you before because I don’t like anyone,” she says, getting up from his chair and kicking it against the wall. “But now I really don’t like you, ‘cause you’re an asshole and you made Leslie cry.”
Something in his face changes. “Leslie cried?”
“Duh,” she says with a roll of her eyes. Before leaving, she steals his scissors and knocks a pile of folders to the floor. She doesn’t want to go back downstairs and watch everyone freak out over the shutdown, but she really, really wants to get away from Ben’s stupid elf face. So she sucks it up and lets Leslie give her a long lecture about honor and integrity, and she helps her boss pack up her desk, and she almost forgets about the sadness in Ben’s eyes when she brought up Leslie.
- - -
For a while she thinks maybe things are finally going to happen with Andy, but whatever, she wasn’t expecting much. He can be with Ann if he wants. April doesn’t care.
- - -
April doesn’t know how, but Leslie ends up on the committee to figure out the budget.
She learns this when Leslie shows up at her house at seven in the morning and says she needs an assistant. She closes the door in Leslie’s face, but somehow, she winds up going, glued to Leslie’s side with a notepad and a clicky pen.
Representatives from every department meet in one of the larger conference rooms in the building, a room that’s dark and way too hot. There’s a large table in the front of the room where Ben and Chris sit, always looking worriedly at their huge pile of notes.
Of course, Leslie immediately runs to a seat in the front row, then gestures for April to come join her. After a few days of April spitefully sitting in the back row, they compromise and start sitting in the middle. She’s not a very good assistant - Leslie looks over April’s notes at the end of the first week, tries not to frown, and tells April that she appreciates creativity, but maybe there are other, more productive, things she could focus on besides what Ron would look like as a woman.
(Still, she catches Leslie giggling at the drawing later.)
Ben doesn’t look at her once, not that she wants him to. He’s the worst, and thanks to him, April has to get up at six-thirty every morning of her summer and write down Leslie’s daily attack points. She barely even remembers what happened the night of her birthday. He had been nice to her; so what?
One day, she’s working on an illustration of Jerry as a goldfish when she hears Leslie calling her name. April glances up, her scowl already in place.
“They just called for lunch,” Leslie says in a rush. “I need you to bring this to Ben for me.”
She tries to hand April a binder - Leslie’s proposed budget that April typed up the week before. She doesn’t move to take it. “No. You do it.”
“I can’t,” Leslie says with a sigh. “The intern working for him and Chris recognizes me now and won’t let me anywhere near their office. I need you to do it. Please.” She wiggles the binder into April’s hands. “It needs to go directly to Ben, okay? Not to his intern, not on his desk. Directly in Ben’s hands. Got it?”
April sighs in response.
“Thank you!” Leslie calls as April leaves the conference room. “You’re a beautiful beam of light in these dark times!”
April stomps her feet the whole way and when she gets off the crowded elevator, she presses every single button. The insults hurled her way as the doors close are almost enough to make her smile.
But then she sees Ben outside his office and she’s scowling again.
“Hey,” she calls when she’s halfway down the hallway. “I’m supposed to give this to you.”
Ben turns to her, looking confused. “April? What are you doing here?”
Her jaw twitches. “I’m just dropping this off for Leslie. Here.”
She holds it out for him, and to her surprise, he takes it without protest. “I thought you were ignoring her,” April says without thinking.
Ben’s face falls. “What? I’m not ignoring her. I’m just slammed with work all the time.” He looks as if he’s going to say more, but then he shakes his head. “What are you even doing here? Shouldn’t you be doing non-government things?”
April shrugs. “Leslie needed an assistant.”
Ben looks surprised. “You mean you’ve been working here all summer? I haven’t seen you once. I had no idea you were still around.”
He looks her up and down, so quickly she doesn’t even think he realizes he does it. Her eye twitches. She’s been staring at him for three weeks, bored out of her mind, and he didn’t even know she was there? That’s so…hot.
That thought is so disturbing, even for her. She’s never really been around guys who had their own thing going on; the boys she dated in high school and college were all happy to along with whatever she wanted from them, and Andy…Well, he’s not Ben. Ben has his own life, and he doesn’t need her, and that thought is intoxicating. She needs to get away from him, now.
“Okay, bye,” she chokes out. She whirls around, not fast enough to avoid seeing his little smirk, getting as far away from him as soon as possible.
She hears him say something, but she doesn’t slow down to hear what it is.
- - -
A few days later, Ben approaches Leslie at lunch to talk about her budget proposal. It takes them less than ten minutes to start screaming at each other.
Even though this is a weekly occurrence, she knows Leslie’s bothered by it. She barely speaks the rest of the day, not even when the committee asks for opinions on whether or not the library’s request to open another branch should be approved.
When they end for the day, April glances at Leslie; she’s perched on the edge of her chair, her eyes locked on Ben.
“I should apologize,” she says. “He’s an ass, but he’s just doing his job. And he read the proposal I gave him, even though he didn’t need to. Maybe -“
She stops herself suddenly. “No,” she says quietly. “He’s an ass. But maybe I was an ass to him.”
Leslie grabs April’s shoulder. “April? Was I an ass?”
When April doesn’t respond, Leslie asks again. And again. And again. “Oh my God,” April says finally. “I’ll go talk to him. Okay?”
Leslie’s whole face glows. “April Ludgate, you are the best assistant ever.” She playfully pokes April’s arm. “I’m gonna get you a certificate saying that. Ooh, no - a mug!”
April scurries away, trying to get away from her boss’ loud voice. She passes Ron in the hallway, leaning against a wall and looking as if he’s trying very hard not to fall asleep.
“Leslie’s happy,” she says as she passes him. “Make it stop.”
He merely grunts in response.
This time, Ben’s already in his office when she gets there. She closes the door behind her; his head jerks up when he hears it, a frantic look in his eyes.
“Hi,” she says, leaning against the door.
“Hi,” he repeats. Apparently it takes all of his energy, because he immediately drops his head into his hands. “Do you need something? Because I’m kind of having a terrible day, and the last thing I need is for you to get mad at me for something I can’t figure out.”
He just gets her. April shrugs, staring at the ceiling. “I’m Leslie’s assistant. My job is to annoy you when she can’t.”
Ben scoffs at that. “Right. Great. So you came on behalf of Leslie Knope to continue telling me why I’m a spineless jerk?”
That had been April’s favorite part of their argument. She starts walking over to his desk, her fingers toying with the bottom button on her shirt. “No. I mean, you are. But that’s not why I’m here.”
She pauses when she reaches his desk, then walks around it. She can see him clench up, but he doesn’t push her away when she turns his chair around and straddles him.
He angles his body into hers when she finally kisses him, her nails sharp around his wrists. She can feel him moving, trying to touch her, but she won’t let go.
“I’m supposed to be annoying you,” she reminds him. “Also, you’re kind of gross, so don’t touch me. If you touch me, I’m gonna leave.”
His eyes are heavy on hers. After a minute, he nods, just a bare flick of his chin. Good. Her eyes move down to his lips briefly before she kisses him again, her back arching as she presses into him.
She knows how to do this. She knows how to toy with people that don’t matter to her. And he absolutely does not matter to her. He’s a jerk to Leslie sometimes, and he’s not Andy, and that alone is enough to make her hate him.
She pops his buttons one by one, slowly moving her hand down his chest. He squirms a little when she reaches the bottom, needing something to press against him. But she doesn’t give him that satisfaction, not yet.
She stands up just long enough to slide her leggings and panties down her legs, and when she resumes her position on his lap, his hands snake up her legs and gently settle on her thighs.
She glares at him, then loosens his tie and lifts it over his head. Soon, his hands are tied behind the chair and she’s grabbing a condom from her purse, ripping the package open with her teeth as she frees him from his boxers.
She strokes him once or twice before sliding it on, then settles back on top of him, guiding him to her entrance.
When they begin rocking against each other, it’s fast and messy and she doesn’t look him in the eyes once. But he knows when to speed up and he doesn’t fuck her like he likes her, and that’s all April wants.
She rides him until she feels his thighs clench, her fingers wrapped tight in his hair, then he mutters something that she can barely hear. Then his hips move even faster against her, and soon she has to bite down on his shoulder, because there’s no way she’d ever give him the satisfaction of crying out.
She’s on her feet almost immediately, smoothing down her hair and fixing her shirt. Ben’s just kind of breathing, not really looking at her or at anything, really. So she figures it’s as good a time as any to discuss why she came up here in the first place.
“Leslie’s sorry,” April says as she pulls up her leggings and moves to untie his hands. Ben looks at her in surprise, then glances down at his unbuttoned shirt.
She closes the door on her way out, trying to glare at him through the glass. It doesn’t work.
- - -
It sort of becomes a thing, but it’s more of an occasional indulgence than a routine. As the summer rages on, tensions in that conference room get higher and higher, and she’s sort of become an expert on when Ben’s getting too stressed out.
He’s always stressed out, of course, but some days, when Leslie just won’t let go or when some other stupid department representative won’t shut up, she can see his shoulders clench and his face harden, and she knows that, as soon as they’re done, he’s going to touch her wrist as she walks by or give her that look that she knows means she’s waiting until everyone leaves the room.
It always happens in the building. Usually it’s in his office, either on the desk or the chair, though she’s pushed him onto his knees in a few bathroom stalls and become quite familiar with most of the supply closest around the conference room. She doesn’t have his phone number, so even if she wants to see him outside of their stolen moments in the office, she can’t.
Leslie’s figured out that her ideas are considered more seriously if she’s not constantly beating everyone over the head, so she builds her plans slowly throughout the week. She barely speaks at all on Mondays, and then every Friday includes a forty-minute Powerpoint presentation and an impassioned speech that April can see sets Ben’s whole body on edge.
One Tuesday, he takes her on a tour of the accounting department and she’s so bored that she blows him just to make him stop talking about math. He does that sometimes - he’ll talk to her like he knows her, like maybe they’re kind of friends. They’re not, of course, but the only person she wants to see is the person she’s refusing to see, despite his many texts and phone calls, so when Ben wants to talk for a few minutes before ripping her clothes off, she doesn’t really mind.
It’s not always like that, though. One week, he looks at her as soon as Leslie concludes her Powerpoint and mouths “now”. April tries to hide her grin as she murmurs to her boss that she needs to go to the bathroom, then slinks out along the back wall.
He follows a minute or two later, and soon he has her curling into the wall of one of the hallways on the opposite side of the building, his fingers tugging her hair as he takes her from behind. He doesn’t kiss her, doesn’t even try.
Exactly a week later, after they’re let out for the day, he tells her to follow him. He leads her to the parks department and slowly undresses her against the door to Leslie and Tom’s office, and winds up fucking her against it with his eyes closed.
She’s kind of curious after that, so she pays attention over the next two or so weeks. There’s never a pattern to when he asks her to stay or what he wants to do; the first Monday that she keeps track, he fingers her on his desk and then pulls up her panties for her, smiling and waving as he points her towards the door. The next Monday, nothing. But he always wants her on Fridays, and he doesn’t even bother saying hello to her before his lips are on her skin.
It doesn’t make sense at first, but as she studies him, she notices how flustered he gets whenever Leslie stands up in the conference room. He’ll sigh sometimes, make a comment about how thorough she is, but April can see his shoulders tense up and his legs cross underneath the desk whenever Leslie goes on and on about budget cuts.
Soon she learns that Leslie’s impassioned Friday presentations mean April will wind up on her knees, or pressed roughly against the carpet, or hissed at every time she tries to speak, and whenever she sees Ben’s eyes darken as he stares at Leslie, she finds herself crossing her legs to get a little relief.
She stops wearing underwear on Fridays, and she doesn’t even bother waiting for his signal. She slips out of the room five minutes before they’re let go for the weekend and is waiting in his office when he gets up there, his tie always balled up in his hand.
But he’s not the only one calling the shots. She’ll slip a note into the folder Leslie makes her hand him every morning telling him where to meet her during their morning break. She almost always writes those notes the night before, when her phone tells her she has three voicemails and they’re all from the only guy that’s ever hurt her.
Andy calls a lot, and she never picks up. Instead, she takes it out on Ben, calling him names and acting bored and letting her nails cut his back. He doesn’t seem too bothered, though. He’ll tug her hair and look at her like he knows exactly what she’s doing, and it’s this weird mix of exhilarating and infuriating, but she never knows which one to choose.
- - -
He finds her in the hallway one day. She’s getting a drink from the water fountain and then, suddenly, he’s there. He waits until she straightens, then he tells her they need to talk.
She’s figured this moment would have to come, but she didn’t really think it would be like this. Still, she follows him to an empty office, her bored expression ready.
Ben sits on one of the uncomfortable chairs facing the desk, his thumb idly tracing the curve of the armrest. “We came up with a draft. The first budget proposal.”
Oh. That’s not what she expected. She sighs. “So?”
“So,” he repeats sharply, “we’re gonna present it tomorrow. And I’m worried that she - That it’ll just upset everyone even more.”
She doesn’t care. She really, truly doesn’t care. But she knows that he only cares about one person in that room, and he must be even more tired of Leslie’s ever-changing opinion of him than April is of watching it all unfold.
“Great,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’m glad that the only break I’ll get for the next two hours was wasted talking about work. I heard someone brought in doughnuts.”
“Blow me,” Ben snaps.
April shrugs as she opens the door. “Would have been a better use of my time.”
“Clever,” he calls after her. “But that’s you, right? You always have a comeback. No matter what, you’re always ready to show everyone exactly what’s wrong with them. Did you ever think that maybe everyone else is fine and you’re the one with the problem?”
She stops. When she glances over her shoulder, he’s gone still, like he’s waiting for her reaction. She walks back into the room, dropping to her knees in front of him.
He jumps when she reaches for his fly. “I wasn’t - I shouldn’t have said that. I wasn’t serious when I told you to blow me. I have to get back.”
She frowns at his right kneecap. “Then don’t complain to me about your stupid presentation. I can make you stop worrying about it, if you’d just shut up.”
They both know this isn’t about the presentation, not really. She knows why he’s nervous about it, and something weird in her brain wants to let him know that she knows, that she sees the way he looks at Leslie. Despite what he might think, April has feelings, and knows how much it sucks to like someone you can’t have. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t try to apologize for what he said, so she tries again. This time, he doesn’t stop her. She unzips his pant, tugging at them to make him lift up his hips. When he does, she slides his pants down to his knees, then moves his boxers out of her way.
She takes him with one hand, pumping a few times before lowering her mouth to him. Ben lets out a soft noise of approval, shifting around on his seat. She licks him from hilt to tip, running her tongue over the slit. Then she takes him deeper, wrapping one hand around his base to hold him still.
She’s never really liked doing this for other guys, but she loves watching stupid, uptight Ben slowly relax. It’s like a small win for her in their weird power struggle every time she makes him come.
“Hurry up,” he whispers. “They can’t start without me.”
April rolls her eyes and continues moving up and down, his hips rising to meet her. “Seriously, April,” he says, sounding like it’s taking a great deal of effort, “hurry.”
Just for that, she goes slowly, suctioning her cheeks and letting her tongue glide over him as she moves. It doesn’t take long before he’s cursing at her, his thighs flexed, and she decides it’s time to stop playing.
So she starts moving faster, letting her free hand drift to his balls. She squeezes gently, trying not to smirk when she hears him hiss at her.
“Come the fuck on,” he snaps at her. With one final pump, she sends him over the edge. He lets out a strangled sort of cry, and April mentally gives herself a point.
After they let out for the day, he returns the favor in a supply closet. When she leaves the building, long after everyone else has left, there’s another car in the lot besides hers and Ben’s. Leslie. Crap.
April clears her throat, then walks over and taps on the window. Leslie’s startled, but she rolls down the window and smiles. “April? What are you still doing here?”
“Ben needed someone to set up for another meeting,” she lies easily. “I thought you left.”
Leslie shakes her head. She pauses before saying, “No, I couldn’t go home just yet. I’m just - I’m getting worried about the budget. I feel like they’re not taking me seriously, and if they don’t take me seriously, then we can’t -“
She stops, her eyebrows knitted. April sighs. Then she tells Leslie about Ben’s proposal. She knows she shouldn’t - Ben told her in confidence, not because he really trusts her, but because he knows she can keep her mouth shut when it comes to him.
But she knows Leslie needs one last chance, and that’s more important than Ben’s opinion of his fuck buddy. April gets in her car and drives off before he leaves the building.
- - -
He’s staring at her throughout the presentation the next day. She refuses to look at him, but from the quick glances she allows herself, she knows he doesn’t take his eyes off her.
She’s surprised - the parks department actually doesn’t get screwed over. From the way Leslie’s preening next to her, April figures whatever she said to Ben must have worked.
She tries to run out a few minutes before they’re dismissed for the day, but Ben clears his throat when he sees her standing. “Will everyone please take their seats? We’ll be done in a minute.”
She scowls at him, but he doesn’t back down. With a twitch of his eyebrows, he motions for her to sit, then smiles so fleetingly she’s not even sure if it happened at all.
April takes her seat, crossing her arms and finally returning his gaze. “Thank you,” he says, then addresses the room. “Thank you, everyone. Let’s call it a day.”
Her mouth twitches.
She gets up again, murmuring a goodbye to Leslie. She hears him clear his throat as she passes his table.
“Ms. Ludgate,” Ben says pleasantly. “May I have a word?”
She barely stops. “About what?”
He smirks, looking her up and down. “Insubordination.”
That gets her attention. She sighs, then moves closer to the table. Ben looks around at the occupied room, then writes something on a Post-It and hands it to her.
“Eight o’clock,” he tells her. “Don’t be late.”
- - -
She shows up at nine.
It takes her a while to find his room. She avoids the front desk, instead taking the elevator up to his floor and wandering around until she finds what she guesses has been his home since he arrived in Pawnee three months ago.
She knocks on the door twice, blowing a bubble with her gum as soon as he opens the door.
He looks pissed. “I didn’t think you were coming,” he says, opening the door wide enough to let her in.
She shrugs, setting down her bag by the door. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t going to.”
It takes him a minute to get it. “Oh. Classy.” He rolls his eyes and sits on the bed.
For the first time, April feels uncomfortable around him. “Why am I here?” she asks. “I don’t want to know where you live. This is sad. You’re, like, forty, and you’re living in a hotel.”
Ben blinks. “I’m thirty-five.”
“Same difference.” She leans against the wall, her arms folded across her chest. “Seriously. Why am I here?”
Suddenly, Ben’s face hardens. “You know why. Why the hell would you tell Leslie about my proposal?”
April shrugs. “I don’t know. I didn’t think it was a secret. Does it matter?”
“Bullshit,” he snaps, standing up. “You know what you did, because you know how she is. Thanks to you, Leslie Knope showed up at my door last night and wouldn’t leave until I said I’d listen to her idea.”
“Technically you don’t have a door,” April notes as she studies her nails. “That’s the hotel’s door.”
“Shut. Up,” he hisses, advancing on her. “You think you’re fooling everybody, don’t you? You think that everyone believes you don’t give a fuck about anything but yourself, but everyone’s onto you.”
He narrows his eyes. “You love your job. You love Pawnee, you love the parks department, and you love Leslie Knope.”
She wants to square her jaw and stare him down and say the same to him, but she can’t. He can insult her all he wants, but talking about the people they really want is off-limits. Mentioning Leslie and letting him know that she knows is an automatic end to whatever they’ve been doing all summer.
But then again, the summer’s almost over. She grabs a tissue and spits her gum into it. “I do like Pawnee,” she says. “I like it here. Because even though I don’t care about anything, Leslie cares enough to make up for it. So, you know what, I’d say I’m sorry for telling her about your stupid budget plan, but I’m not, because I actually tell people the important stuff.”
“Fuck you.” He doesn’t make a move towards her this time, but she can still feel something buzzing in the air, something pulling them together. “You don’t know anything about me, April. Don’t act like you’ve got this whole honest-but-bitchy thing figured out, because I know that you haven’t been sleeping with me all summer just because you’ve been bored.” She glares at him, challenging him to continue.
“I could hear you sometimes, when I’d go down to the parks department. You and Potato Guy doing stupid shit together.” Suddenly he stands, then before she can react, he slams against her, one hand on the wall and the other on her hip, boxing her in.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Ben talking about Andy sets her teeth on edge; she wants him to stop, because he has no right to talk about her like he knows what’s going on in her mind, but she knows he won’t.
“Just tell me,” he hisses in her ear, a wandering hand making its way up her skirt. She squirms as his fingers brushes the cotton between her legs, embarrassed at the heat he can undoubtedly feel. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that every time you sucked my dick or bent over on my desk, you weren’t imagining you were fucking someone else.”
They’ve made no secret of the fact that they’ve been using each other all summer, but he won’t be the first one to admit exactly what she’s distracting him from. He underestimates her. She’s not folding first. “It’s just you,” she says with no emotion behind it. “I really, really like fucking you, Ben.”
He kisses her hard, an angry mix of teeth against her lip and his tongue trying to take charge. For once, she lets him.
Because she knows why he’s upset, and it’s not because he couldn’t get rid of Leslie. It’s because he had Leslie that close to his bed and he couldn’t do anything about it.
Without warning, he slides her skirt down, then pulls her shirt over her head. Her bra and underwear go next, and as she stands naked before him, he takes a step back. “Lay down,” he tells her. When she doesn’t move, he tries again, his voice lower. “Lay. Down.”
Finally, she obliges, lying down on the bed. Ben stays standing, grabbing her hips and pulling her to the edge of the bed. Then he runs an appreciative hand up her side, running over her stomach and finally cupping her breast, but he doesn’t say anything to her. Either he doesn’t have time or he finds it pointless to undress himself. He frees himself from his boxers, stroking himself a few times before grabbing a condom from the bedside table and rolling it on.
He enters her slowly, sliding to the hilt and then out again, grabbing her hips and pulling her down against him in time to his own movements. She wants to enjoy it, but she can’t, not when he’s completely dressed and squeezing his eyes shut like he doesn’t want to admit to himself that she’s actually there.
He moves sharply, increasing his pace whenever he damn well feels like it. He fucks her like he wants her out of his system, like she means nothing to him. She thinks about it, and she’s not upset that they finally crossed that line and called each other out. She’s done with him, too. They spent their summer distracting each other, and all she ever wanted from him was the knowledge that he wasn’t and never would be Andy. So she doesn’t care if he keeps all of his clothes on and bruises her hips, because she knows he’d never do that to Leslie.
They come quietly, and just like that, the tension between them is gone. She can’t be angry at him; despite what she wants to tell herself, he does know her, just a little bit. Maybe she and the stupid jerk with terrible hair who made Leslie cry aren’t so different.
But she doesn’t know what to say to let him know that it’s okay. He sort of stands awkwardly over her for a moment, then bends and kisses her. Not on the lips, but on the neck. “I guess I should feel special,” he murmurs, not moving away. “The girl who hates everyone and everything actually likes me.”
“I don’t like you,” she responds automatically. But he just gives her that same sad smile, then finally moves away from her to hand April her clothes. And just like that, she knows that they’re okay.
- - -
Everything has to end, and April’s never been one to mourn.
The task force has been reaching an agreement on Ben’s proposal, and when even Leslie stops coming up with a daily list of talking points, April knows they’re all getting their jobs back soon. Ben starts smiling more and waving goodbye to Leslie when she leaves for the day, and April knows their stupid thing is really over.
So she comes home on a Thursday and books a ticket to Venezuela. The next day, she sleeps late and it’s the first time in weeks the mere anticipation of a Friday doesn’t make her stomach flip.