You're Leslie Knope
Spoilers: through Premiere of Season 4.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of this.
PG-13 for some references to sex.
Ben's POV for the Season 4 Premiere, basically.
Please let me know if you notice any errors; they bug me a lot and I'd rather fix them. Comments are the greatest thing ever.
He doesn't notice until the third time they sleep together. Maybe it had happened before, and he'd just slept through it in a cloud of endorphins and happiness, but this time she gestures and hits him in the face. He wakes up in a flurry of blond hair and bedsheets. She's still sound asleep although she's muttering something, and he listens for a few moments before he figures out what she's saying. She's making a speech. A campaign speech, for god's sake. It's not clear what she's running for, she is talking about raccoons a lot, but the rest of it is a bit incoherent. Definitely a campaign speech, though. She asks for his vote next Tuesday.
He lies there and listens, thinking, Of all the strange habits she might have... this is the most perfect. After a while she gets quieter, and he drifts off again, his arm around her waist and his face in her curls.
_____________
But lately the speeches have changed. They wake him up more often, now, because they're louder. And clearer. And better. God, they're so much better. They're always for City Council now, not for student council or school board or Secretary-General of the UN, and she's talking about the issues of the day, the issues that will shape the next municipal election in this city. She's talking about continuing the work that she's started since the city went bankrupt, about building Pawnee's future while avoiding the mistakes of the past. She talks about the need for people to work together, even if they don't see eye to eye on everything, about how that's the essence of community, to find common ground.
Even though he begins to see what it means, he can't help it, he's charmed by it. He's inspired by it. He's pleased to hear her talk about fiscal responsibility along with all the grander visions, thinks he can take some small credit for that, maybe.
And it helps him understand why she's been distracted lately, why she's been working so hard on documents that he hasn't seen cross his desk at city hall, why she sometimes stares intently at him before kissing him, hard.
And it definitely explains why the guy from the ladies' yacht club was the one talking to her the night of the horse funeral.
It's exactly what she should do. And, in turn, he knows exactly what he has to do. He just can't bring himself to do it quite yet.
"I'm Leslie Knope," she begins.
Yes, that's who you are. You're Leslie Knope. And he brings his hand up to the hair on the pillow and feels it slip through his fingers, silky soft.
_____________
The day he hears that he has a niece, he is feeling buoyant, even though in the back of his mind he knows he'll be dragged down soon enough. He buys Leslie a treat at the donut store on impulse, knowing it's a bit crazy, knowing she'll love it. How many more chances will he get to do something like this for her?
And when she bursts into tears at the sight of it, he knows how many: none. She's run out of time, and she never really had any options, and now she's going to need his help.
He lets her lie to him about why she's crying (she blames it on her love of eclairs) and lets her take him home and lets her pretend everything is fine, and because they both so fiercely want to make each other - and themselves - believe that, it really is kind of fine. But because there is the undercurrent, things have a bit of an edge, they're intense, and the sex is powerful in the darkness. She doesn't make any speeches in her sleep that night, and Ben listens to her silence and knows what he'd rather hear, in spite of everything.
In the morning, they're in her sunny kitchen, eating bacon and eggs and toast and, because Ben gets to have some of his strange habits accommodated, fruit. It's routine and nice - and surreal. Strangely, Ben feels like they're going to be doing this forever, filling up each other's coffee and trading the sections of the paper back and forth, all these habits they've developed in just a few weeks.
So, despite himself, when they get up to clear away the dishes, he wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her body in against his and kisses her long and deeply and waits for her to say they don't have time, they have to get to work, but she doesn't, and he knows why she doesn't. And so he leads her into her bedroom where they are slower and more leisurely and more thorough than they usually would be on a weekday morning.
"Ben?"
"Mmm."
"Uh... nothing. That was... that was a nice way to start the day." She nestles into the hollow of his neck and kisses his chest.
"Yeah." He's decided nothing will let him not enjoy this, so he grins down at her. "But we better get moving. Even normal people are starting their day by this hour." She laughs a little at this; he thought he was a morning person, but by the time he gets up she's always way ahead of him.
"And I have some extra things to do today," he adds.
He's got a gap in his schedule in the middle of the day and he thinks he can get that button made at the printshop. He was in there last week, and talked to them about his idea, but he wasn't ready to have anything so tangible quite yet. Not that he is now, either, but.
"Yeah, me too, some extra things going on."
Ben almost sighs at that, but stops himself. He kisses her again, and takes himself out of the warmth of her bed toward the shower. There, while he's alone for a few minutes, he lets the sadness flow over him, along with the water.
_____________
He watches her run out of the restaurant, and thinks, Shit. He texts her, and phones her, and waits a little bit, but then pays the bill for the untouched glasses of wine, and goes home. A couple of hours later, she sends him a quick text to say "Sorry. Raccoon emergency. Not dead in car crash or anything. Will explain." He doesn't really know what to text back, but eventually types "Good luck with the raccoons. Let me know when you have a chance to talk."
And then he waits some more, until she comes into his office, and they are both as ready as they'll ever be to do this.
He reaches for the box, which has been sitting on his desk all day.
_____________
After Leslie leaves his office, Ben takes care of some busywork, files some papers, clears out some emails. He wants as little as possible of the empty evening to stretch out in front of him, and he wants to avoid Andy and April for a while longer.
Once he gets out to his car, though, he realizes he wants to talk to someone, so he calls his brother. Ben listens to him talk about the baby, and then he talks about how much he admires his wife for having gone through labour with such tenacity, for nursing the baby, for being so strong at doing things that only she can do right now.
Ben asks, "Don't you feel left out, sometimes, a little bit?"
"Honestly? Yeah, definitely, sometimes. It's weird to be so close to something but so absolutely goddamn peripheral to it, you know? Especially during labour, jesus. But every time I think that I feel like a whiny asshole, so I try to suppress that feeling as much as possible," Paul laughs. "And, I just try to do what I can do."
And then he is talking about the baby again, and how tired he is, and he sounds so happy. Ben closes his eyes, leans his head against the seat, and lets the words wash over him. He takes a deep breath, sitting alone in the dark parking lot, and then he smiles.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of this.
PG-13 for some references to sex.
Ben's POV for the Season 4 Premiere, basically.
Please let me know if you notice any errors; they bug me a lot and I'd rather fix them. Comments are the greatest thing ever.
He doesn't notice until the third time they sleep together. Maybe it had happened before, and he'd just slept through it in a cloud of endorphins and happiness, but this time she gestures and hits him in the face. He wakes up in a flurry of blond hair and bedsheets. She's still sound asleep although she's muttering something, and he listens for a few moments before he figures out what she's saying. She's making a speech. A campaign speech, for god's sake. It's not clear what she's running for, she is talking about raccoons a lot, but the rest of it is a bit incoherent. Definitely a campaign speech, though. She asks for his vote next Tuesday.
He lies there and listens, thinking, Of all the strange habits she might have... this is the most perfect. After a while she gets quieter, and he drifts off again, his arm around her waist and his face in her curls.
_____________
But lately the speeches have changed. They wake him up more often, now, because they're louder. And clearer. And better. God, they're so much better. They're always for City Council now, not for student council or school board or Secretary-General of the UN, and she's talking about the issues of the day, the issues that will shape the next municipal election in this city. She's talking about continuing the work that she's started since the city went bankrupt, about building Pawnee's future while avoiding the mistakes of the past. She talks about the need for people to work together, even if they don't see eye to eye on everything, about how that's the essence of community, to find common ground.
Even though he begins to see what it means, he can't help it, he's charmed by it. He's inspired by it. He's pleased to hear her talk about fiscal responsibility along with all the grander visions, thinks he can take some small credit for that, maybe.
And it helps him understand why she's been distracted lately, why she's been working so hard on documents that he hasn't seen cross his desk at city hall, why she sometimes stares intently at him before kissing him, hard.
And it definitely explains why the guy from the ladies' yacht club was the one talking to her the night of the horse funeral.
It's exactly what she should do. And, in turn, he knows exactly what he has to do. He just can't bring himself to do it quite yet.
"I'm Leslie Knope," she begins.
Yes, that's who you are. You're Leslie Knope. And he brings his hand up to the hair on the pillow and feels it slip through his fingers, silky soft.
_____________
The day he hears that he has a niece, he is feeling buoyant, even though in the back of his mind he knows he'll be dragged down soon enough. He buys Leslie a treat at the donut store on impulse, knowing it's a bit crazy, knowing she'll love it. How many more chances will he get to do something like this for her?
And when she bursts into tears at the sight of it, he knows how many: none. She's run out of time, and she never really had any options, and now she's going to need his help.
He lets her lie to him about why she's crying (she blames it on her love of eclairs) and lets her take him home and lets her pretend everything is fine, and because they both so fiercely want to make each other - and themselves - believe that, it really is kind of fine. But because there is the undercurrent, things have a bit of an edge, they're intense, and the sex is powerful in the darkness. She doesn't make any speeches in her sleep that night, and Ben listens to her silence and knows what he'd rather hear, in spite of everything.
In the morning, they're in her sunny kitchen, eating bacon and eggs and toast and, because Ben gets to have some of his strange habits accommodated, fruit. It's routine and nice - and surreal. Strangely, Ben feels like they're going to be doing this forever, filling up each other's coffee and trading the sections of the paper back and forth, all these habits they've developed in just a few weeks.
So, despite himself, when they get up to clear away the dishes, he wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her body in against his and kisses her long and deeply and waits for her to say they don't have time, they have to get to work, but she doesn't, and he knows why she doesn't. And so he leads her into her bedroom where they are slower and more leisurely and more thorough than they usually would be on a weekday morning.
"Ben?"
"Mmm."
"Uh... nothing. That was... that was a nice way to start the day." She nestles into the hollow of his neck and kisses his chest.
"Yeah." He's decided nothing will let him not enjoy this, so he grins down at her. "But we better get moving. Even normal people are starting their day by this hour." She laughs a little at this; he thought he was a morning person, but by the time he gets up she's always way ahead of him.
"And I have some extra things to do today," he adds.
He's got a gap in his schedule in the middle of the day and he thinks he can get that button made at the printshop. He was in there last week, and talked to them about his idea, but he wasn't ready to have anything so tangible quite yet. Not that he is now, either, but.
"Yeah, me too, some extra things going on."
Ben almost sighs at that, but stops himself. He kisses her again, and takes himself out of the warmth of her bed toward the shower. There, while he's alone for a few minutes, he lets the sadness flow over him, along with the water.
_____________
He watches her run out of the restaurant, and thinks, Shit. He texts her, and phones her, and waits a little bit, but then pays the bill for the untouched glasses of wine, and goes home. A couple of hours later, she sends him a quick text to say "Sorry. Raccoon emergency. Not dead in car crash or anything. Will explain." He doesn't really know what to text back, but eventually types "Good luck with the raccoons. Let me know when you have a chance to talk."
And then he waits some more, until she comes into his office, and they are both as ready as they'll ever be to do this.
He reaches for the box, which has been sitting on his desk all day.
_____________
After Leslie leaves his office, Ben takes care of some busywork, files some papers, clears out some emails. He wants as little as possible of the empty evening to stretch out in front of him, and he wants to avoid Andy and April for a while longer.
Once he gets out to his car, though, he realizes he wants to talk to someone, so he calls his brother. Ben listens to him talk about the baby, and then he talks about how much he admires his wife for having gone through labour with such tenacity, for nursing the baby, for being so strong at doing things that only she can do right now.
Ben asks, "Don't you feel left out, sometimes, a little bit?"
"Honestly? Yeah, definitely, sometimes. It's weird to be so close to something but so absolutely goddamn peripheral to it, you know? Especially during labour, jesus. But every time I think that I feel like a whiny asshole, so I try to suppress that feeling as much as possible," Paul laughs. "And, I just try to do what I can do."
And then he is talking about the baby again, and how tired he is, and he sounds so happy. Ben closes his eyes, leans his head against the seat, and lets the words wash over him. He takes a deep breath, sitting alone in the dark parking lot, and then he smiles.