Fic: A Kiss is Still a Kiss
Title: A Kiss is Still a Kiss
Rating: PG-13, maybe a light R.
Word count: 4,800
Pairing: Leslie/Ben
Summary: Soulmates AU. Although, if you squint and tilt your head just so, you might be able to fit this into canon, I don’t know.
Timeline: 3x10, picks up mid-episode, sometime after the incident where Leslie kisses Tom.
A/N: This is for shornt, who sent me the prompt for advent. Merry Christmas three months late! Episode AUs are in season year-round, though, right? Thanks to saucydiva for the beta and for being her usual sparkly self, etc.
Ben was so busy casually positioning himself against the door frame to Leslie’s office, he didn’t notice her desk was empty until he opened his mouth.
Before he could subtly slip away, Tom looked up from his station nearby.
“Ben Bag, my man, you back for deets?”
“Huh?”
“What went down between Leslie and me? I want to make sure you didn’t get the wrong idea earlier.” Tom leaned back in his chair, putting his hands behind his head and wincing. “Surprisingly mad kissing skillz aside, I’m not into her like that, at all. Not even a teensy bit.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t think … why would I …” Ben stammered, wondering why Tom seemed to be going out of his way to reassure him of this. Had Tom picked up on his crush? Ben hadn’t realized he was being that obvious. But it was actually kind of nice that Tom would be concerned about his feelings in light of-
“I mean, gross, right?” Tom shuddered theatrically with his whole body, and Ben realized this conversation had nothing to do with his feelings. “First of all, there’s the age difference. I only date women who are at least two years younger than me. Gotta keep the upper hand in the relationship. And then there’s the brand names …”
“Brand names?”
“Exactly. You noticed too, huh? She’s like a walking ad for … nothing. Nothing at all. How can you go through life without taking a stand?”
Ben furrowed his brow defensively. “Well, I wouldn’t say …”
“No, I know, she’s my friend too. I like having her around. She’s like … one of those Yo Gabba Gabba puppets. Entertaining, sure, but you don’t want to have sex with one, am I right?”
“Ummmm …” Ben started backing toward the doorway again. He really wasn’t comfortable with the direction this conversation was headed. He didn’t want to agree with Tom, but he didn’t exactly want to give away the fact that yes, actually, he would very much like to have sex with Leslie Knope. Not that it was just about the sex-he wanted to date her too, to have a real relationship hopefully, if only …
He could feel his ears start to burn. Luckily Tom was too busy pulling something up on his computer to notice.
“Dude, get over here, you have to check this out.”
Oh, thank god-a change of subject. Something work-related, probably. Ben walked over to Tom’s computer and leaned forward to look at the screen.
He swallowed audibly.
“That’s, er … that’s, um … should we be looking at this?”
Leslie’s bright blue eyes stared out from the screen. “Well-read blonde enjoys the sweeter things in life,” the headline read. Ben couldn’t help but smile a little. It was a good description of her … although something struck him as odd about it. It didn’t quite sound like her voice, not like something she would actually write while describing herself. He wondered fleetingly if someone had helped her write the profile. Maybe this hadn’t been her idea?
What if it was?
Before reading on, his eyes darted toward the door, feeling like he was about to be caught. Leslie could walk in at any moment. Whoever’s idea this was, looking at it felt like such an invasion of her privacy. And yet, now he couldn’t seem to make himself look away.
Seemingly oblivious to the impropriety, Tom was chuckling. “I can’t believe Chris thought that kiss was legit. Can you imagine? Tom Haverford, connoisseur of the ladies, matched up with someone who enjoys … ‘jammin’on my planner.’”
Ben laughed affectionately. Now that sounded like his Leslie.
Tom snorted, once again misinterpreting Ben’s response. “Crazy, I know. Makes no sense. Maybe I should call their helpdesk. Must be something glitchy with their software.”
Ben nodded agreeably. “Yeah, yeah … probably something wonky in the algorithm.”
“Thanks, man. Hey, maybe you’d have better luck. You want me to help set it up? There’s gotta be someone in Pawnee who’s into warlords and calculators and all that nerd stuff.”
“Oh, thanks, um, maybe later,” Ben demurred, nervous that Tom would make the obvious connection about who that might be. Not that Leslie was necessarily into calculators. Not that he was into calculators-at least, not in the sense that he’d bond with a romantic partner over one. “Okay!” Ben clapped his Padfolio against his chest and started scooting backward toward the door. “I should probably get back to work now.”
“Suit yourself.” Tom shrugged, and Ben high-tailed it back to his office as fast as he could.
--
Back at his desk, Ben tried to concentrate on his work, but bits and pieces of Leslie’s dating profile kept floating back to him, derailing his train of thought. His mind toyed with the new tokens of information, turning them over and over, examining them in various lights, seeing how they fit with what he knew about her.
Turtles were condescending, for example. He tried to make sense of that distinction, wondering if it had something to do with their hard outer shells, or if the opinion stemmed perhaps from a bad childhood experience, or even if it was somehow linked to her initial impressions of him, which thankfully had changed over time. Not that he was a turtle.
No, it made no sense. And yet, it sounded like her. He felt very strongly that was definitely a detail Leslie herself had chosen to include about herself.
She had made that profile.
The realization hit him with a dull thud, smack in the middle of his chest, and pushed the breath out of his lungs.
This was the larger background detail that he’d been trying to ignore, even though it was glaringly obvious. Leslie wasn’t his Leslie at all, not even a little bit-she was an attractive, single woman who was actively looking to date. And she wasn’t just trying to date him-how could he have assumed that? No, she was trying to date people. People she was going to meet, and who would inevitably be charmed by her intelligence and her positivity and her ambition and …
And most importantly, people who weren’t forbidden from dating her.
He cringed inwardly at the ambiguous way he’d rejected her invitation to JJ’s, like he couldn’t get away from her fast enough-how must that have seemed? Surely she knew about the rule after what had happened with Tom, but she didn’t know that he knew about the rule. What if she thought he actually wasn’t interested?
Just as Ben was starting to panic, Chris jogged in from the adjoining office and handed him a printout.
“Ben, would you make sure this goes in Leslie Knope’s personnel file?”
Ben glanced at the sheet, which appeared to be a full write-up of the kissing incident with Tom, and stood up to stop Chris from jogging back out of the room.
“Um … is this really necessary? I talked it over with Tom”-Ben chose his words carefully, letting Chris think that it might have been a boss-employee-style conversation, instead of the embarrassing thing it actually had been-“and it seemed clear to me that it was a one-time thing. There’s no romantic attachment there.”
Chris raised his eyebrows. “Ben, you know we need to have a report on file for any incidents in case of future complaints or legal proceedings. In this case, the evidence was clear. They were kissing. I witnessed it first-hand, and I drew the only reasonable conclusion. I wrote a fair report.”
“That’s not … there are other reasons people kiss. You kissed me last week just because I took the job, and we’re not …” Ben regrouped, his frustration rising at his boss’s inflexibility on this issue. “Look, Leslie is one of our best, brightest, hardest-working employees … it’s hardly fair to tarnish her record because of something like this.”
He meant what he said about what Leslie deserved, really and truly meant it, but at the same time his gut lurched against the irony in the situation. She’d gotten into trouble for this entirely fictional romantic entanglement, after he’d taken care-made a fool of himself, to be honest-to protect her from the consequences of a legitimate relationship. At least, the one he hoped they might have if the circumstances would ever allow it.
“You seem to feel very strongly about this,” Chris said amiably, oblivious to his friend’s inner turmoil. “Since you met with Tom, I will leave it to you to revise the report as you see fit.”
Ben nodded, even as he was tempted to “revise” the report straight into the shredder.
Chris was still jogging in place, looking thoughtful. “Leslie is one of our finest employees, and I’m sure she would not have acted in this way if not for her strong feelings for Tom Haverford.” Ben bit back the urge to correct him again on that, and Chris continued. “I can’t change my rules willy-nilly just because I appreciate her myriad professional contributions, but perhaps I should say something to her again, to soften my earlier remarks.”
Ben pursed his lips noncommittally, until he had a sudden burst of inspiration. “Yeah, yeah,” he agreed, trying to sound casual. “Actually, maybe you could even mention the conversation we had a few days ago … so she knows the policy applies equally to everyone. So she knows you’re not singling her out, you know, specifically.”
“That is an excellent idea, Ben!” Chris pointed enthusiastically at him. “I will mention it to her when I see her at the cook-off. Are you going to be there?”
If Leslie was going to be there, Ben definitely was, but he tried not to show that level of eagerness to Chris. “The cook-off? Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. Okay, sure, I’ll try to stop by, you know, if I think of it.”
“Excellent,” Chris said, speeding up his in-place jogging like he was preparing for takeoff. “There will be a patented Traeger turkey burger with your name on it!” With that, he shot out of the room.
When he was sure Chris was gone, Ben tossed the report onto his desk and rested his forehead against his palms, squeezing his eyes shut momentarily.
Well, that was that. Chris was going to tell Leslie that Ben had wanted to go out with her. Well, not her specifically-Chris didn’t know that detail-but Leslie would put it together. And then …
And then what?
--
Ben was trying to focus on swallowing his mouthful of weird turkey burger and on following Jerry’s long, detailed story about his weekend, but his eyes kept drifting over to where Chris was talking to Leslie.
If she hadn’t already figured it out before, Leslie would definitely know-right about … now, judging from her expression-exactly why Ben had turned her down. And that he had wanted-really, really wanted-to ask her out himself, if only, if only …
Her eyes met his across the courtyard, and there was definitely understanding in them, and maybe a few other things as well. His vision started to blur around the edges, so that only her face was in focus, the rest of the world momentarily melting away. She looked … honestly, she was looking at him just the way he’d been hoping she’d someday look at him.
His heart quickened noticeably, his grip tightened on his paper plate, and he made a point of nodding at whatever Jerry was prattling on about.
Now she was walking toward him, and he slid away from Jerry to focus on her. He made a joke about the chutney, and she laughed like it was funnier than it actually had been.
“Hey, I never got a chance to tell you my ideas,” she said, her face tilted up at him at an angle that seemed promisingly un-business-like. “Do you want to go someplace, talk about ’em?”
“Yeah! Yeah, I’d love to. Um … let me just get some actual food, and then …”
He trailed off momentarily, trying to think of where they should go. It had to be someplace in the building. But someplace where they might be alone together for a while, to talk. Someplace she would like …
Her favorite place in the world.
“You know that wildflower mural on the second floor?” he blurted out, before he could think it through any further.
“Yeah,” she murmured, her eyes flickering happily with recognition.
The wallflower mural was on his mind because he’d seen it on her dating profile, and he felt a slight pang of guilt over using information he’d acquired that way. But thinking of her even having a dating profile made spending this quality time with her seem all the more urgent, and he couldn’t think of a more perfect place-at least, not one they were actually allowed to go to.
“Do you want to meet there?” he pressed forward.
She nodded, looking as giddy as he felt. “Yeah. Sounds good.”
--
On the bench by the wildflower mural, the conversation flowed freely as the evening deepened and the building emptied out and quieted around them. It was as promising a first date as he’d ever been on-except for the fact that it wasn’t, and couldn’t be, a date.
In a comfortable pause, Ben glanced down and noticed how tantalizingly close Leslie’s fingers had drifted to his. His pinkie twitched involuntarily toward hers, the only outward manifestation of his overwhelming desire to get closer to her. He briefly toyed with the idea of giving in to the urge, in just this one small way … just moving a few millimeters, and brushing her finger with his …
“It’s so funny that you picked this bench,” Leslie’s voice pierced his reverie. “I just love this mural. I honestly think it’s my favorite place in the entire world.”
“I know it is,” Ben said without thinking, then flinched when he saw her tilting her head questioningly at him, remembering that wasn’t something he was supposed to know. “I saw your dating profile,” he admitted sheepishly, making a snap decision that it was better to come clean than to keep that from her.
“Oh,” she said, looking suddenly troubled. She cast a nervous sideways glance at Ben and then looked away again, frowning. “It was Ann’s idea. She thought it would be good if I … if I kept my options open, I guess.”
Ben didn’t like the sound of Leslie keeping her options open, given that most of those options wouldn’t be him, and he wasn’t exactly a viable option.
“How did you see it?” she said. “You’re not on Hoosier Mates … are you?”
Noticing her wide eyes, it occurred to Ben she might be worried about the same thing he was. “No, no, I’m not, I’m not on any dating sites,” he quickly clarified. “Tom had it open, because of, you know, the thing, and I didn’t know what he was showing me until it was too late, and then … I’m really sorry. I feel like I invaded your privacy, and I should have looked away .”
Leslie shook her head, brushing aside his apology. “It’s okay. When you asked me here, I just thought … it made me happy to think we both like the same place.”
“I do like it here,” Ben told her, honestly. “Those first months in Pawnee, I remember seeing you sitting here a lot, before you got so busy with the festival. It made me happy finding out, you know, that it meant so much to you.”
Of all the places in city hall, this was actually one of the spots he most associated with Leslie. During the government shutdown, he used to see her here almost every day, bent over a binder or a notebook, scribbling furiously or lost in thought. Often when he walked by, she’d pop up and run after him with some sort of argument or idea or plea, and as awkward as some of those run-ins had been, he probably made more than a few extra trips to the copy machine on the other side of the building that summer.
His office wasn’t nearby anymore, but he still thought of her every time he passed this bench. Could he confess that much right now, though? This was such a weird place they were in, where there seemed to be mutual feelings, but none of them were openly acknowledged, and neither could act on them anyway.
The bit he said out loud, though, seemed to make her happy. “Well, I’m glad you suggested it,” she said.
“Me too. I felt bad about this morning, you know, when you … and I …” He trailed off, gesturing vaguely.
“Fled into an office that wasn’t yours?” Leslie supplied helpfully, a warm smile teasing at the corners of her mouth.
“Yeah. That. Um, yeah, anyway …” Ben gulped, and lowered his voice. “I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”
She eyed him searchingly, her eyes darting around his facial features as if she was looking for some answer before it seemed she found whatever she was looking for and met his gaze more steadily. A moment followed where they were just staring into each other’s eyes, and he wondered if she felt the same powerful ache and longing that he did. If they weren’t who they were, if they weren’t out in the open in a City Hall hallway, this would probably be the moment when he put his hands in her hair and kissed her.
Just as he had convinced himself that he wasn’t alone in this, her expression shifted into something else entirely … something fierce and determined, something almost professional.
Before he had a chance to be disappointed, she stood up, grabbing Ben’s hand just long enough to give him a gentle tug.
“Come on,” she said.
“Where are we going?” Ben asked, thoroughly confused.
“Your old office. Nobody’s moved in there yet, right?” Leslie stretched her neck to look both ways down the hallway and then crouched down partially, as if she thought that made her less visible during the short trip.
“No … it’s just storage right now …” Ben mumbled, hurrying after her, slightly dazed, ducking himself for no good reason at all.
Inside Room 214, Leslie shut the door, and Ben scrambled for the light switch, acutely aware of the dangers of being in a dark office alone with Leslie right now. Why were they even here?
He found the switch. The light bulb flickered ominously for a few seconds and then went out, plunging them right back into darkness.
“The light’s not working. Maybe we shouldn’t …” He trailed off as he realized Leslie had already moved away from the doorway.
“Just give me a minute. This won’t take long,” her voice called from across the room. “Come here.”
After a moment, his eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering in from the hallway, and he spotted her sitting on the corner of his old desk, tracing her fingers over a piece of paper hanging on the wall. As he moved closer, carefully stepping over boxes of Pawnee government paraphernalia, he noticed it was the organizational chart. The seemingly innocuous document reminded him simultaneously of their early disagreements, of how far they’d come since then, of the reasons they couldn’t be together now.
As he was standing next to her, momentarily riveted by this piece of paper, she rotated on the corner of the desk so that she was facing him, one knee landing on either one of his sides.
“Ben …” she said. He stared down at her, realizing how close they were, but unable to move, unable to breathe normally. She gazed intently back up at him, seemingly unperturbed by their sudden proximity. “Did you really visit the snow globe museum?”
It took him a moment to answer, partly because the question took him by surprise, and partly because of the breathing thing.
“Of course, I-”
Before he got more than three words out, her hands reached the back of his neck, and the slight surprising pressure there made him stumble clumsily down toward her. They bumped noses, painfully, further disorienting him. Leslie giggled and squeezed him between her knees, which helped his balance if not his presence of mind, and then she was kissing him.
And the rest of Pawnee vanished in an instant, organizational charts be damned.
It was tentative at first, as they discerned details like how to best align their noses and how much to open their mouths, but kissing Leslie Knope quickly started to feel like the most natural thing on earth. As the kiss deepened, their bodies shifted into a more comfortable embrace. His arms slid around her back to support her weight as he leaned in to her. She began to move her hands over him in a frantic exploration, her fingers running tantalizing trails down his neck and back, over his shoulders and chest and stomach, and sooner than he expected reaching around to squeeze his butt.
As the kiss intensified, he rubbed his hands up and down her back, but couldn’t really let go of her there without putting them off-balance. Frustrated, he tilted her back onto the desk, just to free up his hands for their own exploration.
His body partially covering hers now, he pushed aside her jacket to reach under the edge of her shirt. After reveling for a while in just the feel of the smooth skin at her waist, he made his way slowly up her side to brush his thumb experimentally against the side of her bra.
Leslie groaned against his mouth and arced into him, so that his thigh pressed between her legs.
“Leslie,” he murmured, feeling around for her shirt buttons, with no real goal other than just to be closer to her.
Just then, a light suddenly flickered on, illuminating them in their reckless state. Leslie gasped and froze, and Ben lurched off of her, stumbling in the darkness and landing in what felt like a box of open three-pronged binders. His eyes squeezed shut against the unexpected brightness and the horror of being caught.
But when he forced them open, the door was still closed, and City Hall remained silent around them.
After a moment, the light fixture buzzed and flickered before going off again.
“That light bulb, playing tricks on us,” Leslie exhaled, scooting off the edge of the desk and rearranging her shirt. “Maintenance really should take care of that.”
“Yeah,” Ben agreed, extracting himself from the box with as much dignity as possible and trying to get his breathing under control again. He moved a couple steps away from Leslie, tucking in the back of his shirt and attempting to smooth down his hair. “Sorry about … all that.”
Leslie tossed him an alluringly flirtatious grin. “Why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything.” She bent down to put back on her heels, which she’d apparently lost at some point.
“I did some things,” Ben pointed out, leaving unspoken all the things he still wanted to do with her, now more than ever. But the interruption had been like a cold glass of water thrown on them, reminding him of their surroundings, their circumstances. “But you know … we shouldn’t …”
Leslie moved closer to him again, and Ben stilled, but all she did was place a finger against his mouth. “I know about the rules,” she said. “You might have heard I got written up today for kissing a city employee.”
“I know …” Ben said mournfully.
“It only seems fair that if a report is going in my permanent personnel file, that I actually get to kiss someone today, right?”
“I suppose … yeah, that seems fair.” Ben laughed feebly, as he thought about how ridiculously unfair this situation seemed. His eyes flickered involuntarily, longingly, down to her mouth again.
Leslie’s eyes did the same, but then she took a resolute step back, toward the door. In the light coming in from the hallway, he could see the flush lingering on her skin. “Thank you for that. Sorry it got a little out of hand.”
Ben rubbed the back of his neck with his fingers, feeling the unnatural heat of his own skin. “Don’t be. I’m not … I’m not sorry,” he said quietly.
“Me neither,” Leslie admitted, almost inaudibly, giving him a small, slightly sad smile. With that, she ducked her head, opened the door, and disappeared rather rapidly down the hallway.
Ben braced himself against the doorway, took several long, steadying breaths as he listened to her footsteps disappearing into the distance, and then did the same.
--
Stopping by his actual office to pick up his jacket and keys, Ben paused by his desk, eying the report Chris had given him on the incident with Leslie and Tom.
He winced at Chris’s description of the “passionate” kiss Leslie and Tom had supposedly shared in the hallway and the instructions they had been given to “cease and desist all romantic contact on or off of city property.”
Impulsively, he reached for a pencil and crossed out Tom’s name and wrote in his own; the revision certainly made it a more accurate account of the day. In spite of everything, the sight of it-this official government document saying he and Leslie made out-made him smile a little. Staring at the page, he let himself briefly imagine a scenario in which they threw caution to the wind and accepted whatever consequences might come.
But an assistant city manager wasn’t the same as an assistant, and a defiant romance wasn’t the same as a momentary smooch in the hallway. And what they’d just been doing in his old office-what he’d wanted to do if the malfunctioning light bulb hadn’t brought him back to his senses-was definitely something else.
They wouldn’t get a slap on the wrist, another write-up in their files. They’d almost certainly get fired.
Ben shoved the report into the paper shredder and sank into the chair, promising himself he’d file a more accurate version in the morning-one that depicted Leslie’s kiss with Tom as the joke it had been: a momentary lapse in judgment, maybe, but not a violation of city code. He’d have to leave off any reference to their own off-the-record interlude, which they couldn’t acknowledge, officially or otherwise.
He’d thought spending more time with her would make him feel better somehow about their chances, but sitting here alone after hours, he felt more confused than ever. The kiss had been amazing, up until the moment he’d fallen into a box, and Leslie had made clear she was interested in him. But she also knew their situation. With prospects like these, would she really set everyone else aside and hold out for him?
His cell phone buzzed, interrupting his thoughts. So much for my soulmate, the screen read, and Ben blinked at the pessimistic answer appearing out of nowhere.
It took a beat for Ben to realize it was a text from Tom and had nothing to do with him. By that time, Tom had already sent a followup:
Leslie deleted her profile, so we’re no longer attached at the hip cyberwise! The sentence was followed by an emoticon that looked like a breakdancing monkey.
Ben blinked and set down the phone. Leslie had deleted her dating profile?
As he thought about why she might have done that, Ben smiled to himself, feeling lighter than he had all day.
The phone buzzed again with a message from Tom: You should see my new soulmate-level hottie. Should I shoot you a pic?
Ben smiled as he typed in a quick message to Tom and hit send: No, thanks, I’m good!
He shut down his computer, collected his things, and set off for home finally. For the rest of the night, he didn’t think about any of the obstacles they’d face before ever getting together or what might happen in the meantime. Instead, he let his thoughts linger on that kiss-all that it had been, all it had made him feel, all that he still wanted.
If she was thinking any of that along with him, it just might be enough … for now.
Rating: PG-13, maybe a light R.
Word count: 4,800
Pairing: Leslie/Ben
Summary: Soulmates AU. Although, if you squint and tilt your head just so, you might be able to fit this into canon, I don’t know.
Timeline: 3x10, picks up mid-episode, sometime after the incident where Leslie kisses Tom.
A/N: This is for shornt, who sent me the prompt for advent. Merry Christmas three months late! Episode AUs are in season year-round, though, right? Thanks to saucydiva for the beta and for being her usual sparkly self, etc.
Ben was so busy casually positioning himself against the door frame to Leslie’s office, he didn’t notice her desk was empty until he opened his mouth.
Before he could subtly slip away, Tom looked up from his station nearby.
“Ben Bag, my man, you back for deets?”
“Huh?”
“What went down between Leslie and me? I want to make sure you didn’t get the wrong idea earlier.” Tom leaned back in his chair, putting his hands behind his head and wincing. “Surprisingly mad kissing skillz aside, I’m not into her like that, at all. Not even a teensy bit.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t think … why would I …” Ben stammered, wondering why Tom seemed to be going out of his way to reassure him of this. Had Tom picked up on his crush? Ben hadn’t realized he was being that obvious. But it was actually kind of nice that Tom would be concerned about his feelings in light of-
“I mean, gross, right?” Tom shuddered theatrically with his whole body, and Ben realized this conversation had nothing to do with his feelings. “First of all, there’s the age difference. I only date women who are at least two years younger than me. Gotta keep the upper hand in the relationship. And then there’s the brand names …”
“Brand names?”
“Exactly. You noticed too, huh? She’s like a walking ad for … nothing. Nothing at all. How can you go through life without taking a stand?”
Ben furrowed his brow defensively. “Well, I wouldn’t say …”
“No, I know, she’s my friend too. I like having her around. She’s like … one of those Yo Gabba Gabba puppets. Entertaining, sure, but you don’t want to have sex with one, am I right?”
“Ummmm …” Ben started backing toward the doorway again. He really wasn’t comfortable with the direction this conversation was headed. He didn’t want to agree with Tom, but he didn’t exactly want to give away the fact that yes, actually, he would very much like to have sex with Leslie Knope. Not that it was just about the sex-he wanted to date her too, to have a real relationship hopefully, if only …
He could feel his ears start to burn. Luckily Tom was too busy pulling something up on his computer to notice.
“Dude, get over here, you have to check this out.”
Oh, thank god-a change of subject. Something work-related, probably. Ben walked over to Tom’s computer and leaned forward to look at the screen.
He swallowed audibly.
“That’s, er … that’s, um … should we be looking at this?”
Leslie’s bright blue eyes stared out from the screen. “Well-read blonde enjoys the sweeter things in life,” the headline read. Ben couldn’t help but smile a little. It was a good description of her … although something struck him as odd about it. It didn’t quite sound like her voice, not like something she would actually write while describing herself. He wondered fleetingly if someone had helped her write the profile. Maybe this hadn’t been her idea?
What if it was?
Before reading on, his eyes darted toward the door, feeling like he was about to be caught. Leslie could walk in at any moment. Whoever’s idea this was, looking at it felt like such an invasion of her privacy. And yet, now he couldn’t seem to make himself look away.
Seemingly oblivious to the impropriety, Tom was chuckling. “I can’t believe Chris thought that kiss was legit. Can you imagine? Tom Haverford, connoisseur of the ladies, matched up with someone who enjoys … ‘jammin’on my planner.’”
Ben laughed affectionately. Now that sounded like his Leslie.
Tom snorted, once again misinterpreting Ben’s response. “Crazy, I know. Makes no sense. Maybe I should call their helpdesk. Must be something glitchy with their software.”
Ben nodded agreeably. “Yeah, yeah … probably something wonky in the algorithm.”
“Thanks, man. Hey, maybe you’d have better luck. You want me to help set it up? There’s gotta be someone in Pawnee who’s into warlords and calculators and all that nerd stuff.”
“Oh, thanks, um, maybe later,” Ben demurred, nervous that Tom would make the obvious connection about who that might be. Not that Leslie was necessarily into calculators. Not that he was into calculators-at least, not in the sense that he’d bond with a romantic partner over one. “Okay!” Ben clapped his Padfolio against his chest and started scooting backward toward the door. “I should probably get back to work now.”
“Suit yourself.” Tom shrugged, and Ben high-tailed it back to his office as fast as he could.
--
Back at his desk, Ben tried to concentrate on his work, but bits and pieces of Leslie’s dating profile kept floating back to him, derailing his train of thought. His mind toyed with the new tokens of information, turning them over and over, examining them in various lights, seeing how they fit with what he knew about her.
Turtles were condescending, for example. He tried to make sense of that distinction, wondering if it had something to do with their hard outer shells, or if the opinion stemmed perhaps from a bad childhood experience, or even if it was somehow linked to her initial impressions of him, which thankfully had changed over time. Not that he was a turtle.
No, it made no sense. And yet, it sounded like her. He felt very strongly that was definitely a detail Leslie herself had chosen to include about herself.
She had made that profile.
The realization hit him with a dull thud, smack in the middle of his chest, and pushed the breath out of his lungs.
This was the larger background detail that he’d been trying to ignore, even though it was glaringly obvious. Leslie wasn’t his Leslie at all, not even a little bit-she was an attractive, single woman who was actively looking to date. And she wasn’t just trying to date him-how could he have assumed that? No, she was trying to date people. People she was going to meet, and who would inevitably be charmed by her intelligence and her positivity and her ambition and …
And most importantly, people who weren’t forbidden from dating her.
He cringed inwardly at the ambiguous way he’d rejected her invitation to JJ’s, like he couldn’t get away from her fast enough-how must that have seemed? Surely she knew about the rule after what had happened with Tom, but she didn’t know that he knew about the rule. What if she thought he actually wasn’t interested?
Just as Ben was starting to panic, Chris jogged in from the adjoining office and handed him a printout.
“Ben, would you make sure this goes in Leslie Knope’s personnel file?”
Ben glanced at the sheet, which appeared to be a full write-up of the kissing incident with Tom, and stood up to stop Chris from jogging back out of the room.
“Um … is this really necessary? I talked it over with Tom”-Ben chose his words carefully, letting Chris think that it might have been a boss-employee-style conversation, instead of the embarrassing thing it actually had been-“and it seemed clear to me that it was a one-time thing. There’s no romantic attachment there.”
Chris raised his eyebrows. “Ben, you know we need to have a report on file for any incidents in case of future complaints or legal proceedings. In this case, the evidence was clear. They were kissing. I witnessed it first-hand, and I drew the only reasonable conclusion. I wrote a fair report.”
“That’s not … there are other reasons people kiss. You kissed me last week just because I took the job, and we’re not …” Ben regrouped, his frustration rising at his boss’s inflexibility on this issue. “Look, Leslie is one of our best, brightest, hardest-working employees … it’s hardly fair to tarnish her record because of something like this.”
He meant what he said about what Leslie deserved, really and truly meant it, but at the same time his gut lurched against the irony in the situation. She’d gotten into trouble for this entirely fictional romantic entanglement, after he’d taken care-made a fool of himself, to be honest-to protect her from the consequences of a legitimate relationship. At least, the one he hoped they might have if the circumstances would ever allow it.
“You seem to feel very strongly about this,” Chris said amiably, oblivious to his friend’s inner turmoil. “Since you met with Tom, I will leave it to you to revise the report as you see fit.”
Ben nodded, even as he was tempted to “revise” the report straight into the shredder.
Chris was still jogging in place, looking thoughtful. “Leslie is one of our finest employees, and I’m sure she would not have acted in this way if not for her strong feelings for Tom Haverford.” Ben bit back the urge to correct him again on that, and Chris continued. “I can’t change my rules willy-nilly just because I appreciate her myriad professional contributions, but perhaps I should say something to her again, to soften my earlier remarks.”
Ben pursed his lips noncommittally, until he had a sudden burst of inspiration. “Yeah, yeah,” he agreed, trying to sound casual. “Actually, maybe you could even mention the conversation we had a few days ago … so she knows the policy applies equally to everyone. So she knows you’re not singling her out, you know, specifically.”
“That is an excellent idea, Ben!” Chris pointed enthusiastically at him. “I will mention it to her when I see her at the cook-off. Are you going to be there?”
If Leslie was going to be there, Ben definitely was, but he tried not to show that level of eagerness to Chris. “The cook-off? Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. Okay, sure, I’ll try to stop by, you know, if I think of it.”
“Excellent,” Chris said, speeding up his in-place jogging like he was preparing for takeoff. “There will be a patented Traeger turkey burger with your name on it!” With that, he shot out of the room.
When he was sure Chris was gone, Ben tossed the report onto his desk and rested his forehead against his palms, squeezing his eyes shut momentarily.
Well, that was that. Chris was going to tell Leslie that Ben had wanted to go out with her. Well, not her specifically-Chris didn’t know that detail-but Leslie would put it together. And then …
And then what?
--
Ben was trying to focus on swallowing his mouthful of weird turkey burger and on following Jerry’s long, detailed story about his weekend, but his eyes kept drifting over to where Chris was talking to Leslie.
If she hadn’t already figured it out before, Leslie would definitely know-right about … now, judging from her expression-exactly why Ben had turned her down. And that he had wanted-really, really wanted-to ask her out himself, if only, if only …
Her eyes met his across the courtyard, and there was definitely understanding in them, and maybe a few other things as well. His vision started to blur around the edges, so that only her face was in focus, the rest of the world momentarily melting away. She looked … honestly, she was looking at him just the way he’d been hoping she’d someday look at him.
His heart quickened noticeably, his grip tightened on his paper plate, and he made a point of nodding at whatever Jerry was prattling on about.
Now she was walking toward him, and he slid away from Jerry to focus on her. He made a joke about the chutney, and she laughed like it was funnier than it actually had been.
“Hey, I never got a chance to tell you my ideas,” she said, her face tilted up at him at an angle that seemed promisingly un-business-like. “Do you want to go someplace, talk about ’em?”
“Yeah! Yeah, I’d love to. Um … let me just get some actual food, and then …”
He trailed off momentarily, trying to think of where they should go. It had to be someplace in the building. But someplace where they might be alone together for a while, to talk. Someplace she would like …
Her favorite place in the world.
“You know that wildflower mural on the second floor?” he blurted out, before he could think it through any further.
“Yeah,” she murmured, her eyes flickering happily with recognition.
The wallflower mural was on his mind because he’d seen it on her dating profile, and he felt a slight pang of guilt over using information he’d acquired that way. But thinking of her even having a dating profile made spending this quality time with her seem all the more urgent, and he couldn’t think of a more perfect place-at least, not one they were actually allowed to go to.
“Do you want to meet there?” he pressed forward.
She nodded, looking as giddy as he felt. “Yeah. Sounds good.”
--
On the bench by the wildflower mural, the conversation flowed freely as the evening deepened and the building emptied out and quieted around them. It was as promising a first date as he’d ever been on-except for the fact that it wasn’t, and couldn’t be, a date.
In a comfortable pause, Ben glanced down and noticed how tantalizingly close Leslie’s fingers had drifted to his. His pinkie twitched involuntarily toward hers, the only outward manifestation of his overwhelming desire to get closer to her. He briefly toyed with the idea of giving in to the urge, in just this one small way … just moving a few millimeters, and brushing her finger with his …
“It’s so funny that you picked this bench,” Leslie’s voice pierced his reverie. “I just love this mural. I honestly think it’s my favorite place in the entire world.”
“I know it is,” Ben said without thinking, then flinched when he saw her tilting her head questioningly at him, remembering that wasn’t something he was supposed to know. “I saw your dating profile,” he admitted sheepishly, making a snap decision that it was better to come clean than to keep that from her.
“Oh,” she said, looking suddenly troubled. She cast a nervous sideways glance at Ben and then looked away again, frowning. “It was Ann’s idea. She thought it would be good if I … if I kept my options open, I guess.”
Ben didn’t like the sound of Leslie keeping her options open, given that most of those options wouldn’t be him, and he wasn’t exactly a viable option.
“How did you see it?” she said. “You’re not on Hoosier Mates … are you?”
Noticing her wide eyes, it occurred to Ben she might be worried about the same thing he was. “No, no, I’m not, I’m not on any dating sites,” he quickly clarified. “Tom had it open, because of, you know, the thing, and I didn’t know what he was showing me until it was too late, and then … I’m really sorry. I feel like I invaded your privacy, and I should have looked away .”
Leslie shook her head, brushing aside his apology. “It’s okay. When you asked me here, I just thought … it made me happy to think we both like the same place.”
“I do like it here,” Ben told her, honestly. “Those first months in Pawnee, I remember seeing you sitting here a lot, before you got so busy with the festival. It made me happy finding out, you know, that it meant so much to you.”
Of all the places in city hall, this was actually one of the spots he most associated with Leslie. During the government shutdown, he used to see her here almost every day, bent over a binder or a notebook, scribbling furiously or lost in thought. Often when he walked by, she’d pop up and run after him with some sort of argument or idea or plea, and as awkward as some of those run-ins had been, he probably made more than a few extra trips to the copy machine on the other side of the building that summer.
His office wasn’t nearby anymore, but he still thought of her every time he passed this bench. Could he confess that much right now, though? This was such a weird place they were in, where there seemed to be mutual feelings, but none of them were openly acknowledged, and neither could act on them anyway.
The bit he said out loud, though, seemed to make her happy. “Well, I’m glad you suggested it,” she said.
“Me too. I felt bad about this morning, you know, when you … and I …” He trailed off, gesturing vaguely.
“Fled into an office that wasn’t yours?” Leslie supplied helpfully, a warm smile teasing at the corners of her mouth.
“Yeah. That. Um, yeah, anyway …” Ben gulped, and lowered his voice. “I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”
She eyed him searchingly, her eyes darting around his facial features as if she was looking for some answer before it seemed she found whatever she was looking for and met his gaze more steadily. A moment followed where they were just staring into each other’s eyes, and he wondered if she felt the same powerful ache and longing that he did. If they weren’t who they were, if they weren’t out in the open in a City Hall hallway, this would probably be the moment when he put his hands in her hair and kissed her.
Just as he had convinced himself that he wasn’t alone in this, her expression shifted into something else entirely … something fierce and determined, something almost professional.
Before he had a chance to be disappointed, she stood up, grabbing Ben’s hand just long enough to give him a gentle tug.
“Come on,” she said.
“Where are we going?” Ben asked, thoroughly confused.
“Your old office. Nobody’s moved in there yet, right?” Leslie stretched her neck to look both ways down the hallway and then crouched down partially, as if she thought that made her less visible during the short trip.
“No … it’s just storage right now …” Ben mumbled, hurrying after her, slightly dazed, ducking himself for no good reason at all.
Inside Room 214, Leslie shut the door, and Ben scrambled for the light switch, acutely aware of the dangers of being in a dark office alone with Leslie right now. Why were they even here?
He found the switch. The light bulb flickered ominously for a few seconds and then went out, plunging them right back into darkness.
“The light’s not working. Maybe we shouldn’t …” He trailed off as he realized Leslie had already moved away from the doorway.
“Just give me a minute. This won’t take long,” her voice called from across the room. “Come here.”
After a moment, his eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering in from the hallway, and he spotted her sitting on the corner of his old desk, tracing her fingers over a piece of paper hanging on the wall. As he moved closer, carefully stepping over boxes of Pawnee government paraphernalia, he noticed it was the organizational chart. The seemingly innocuous document reminded him simultaneously of their early disagreements, of how far they’d come since then, of the reasons they couldn’t be together now.
As he was standing next to her, momentarily riveted by this piece of paper, she rotated on the corner of the desk so that she was facing him, one knee landing on either one of his sides.
“Ben …” she said. He stared down at her, realizing how close they were, but unable to move, unable to breathe normally. She gazed intently back up at him, seemingly unperturbed by their sudden proximity. “Did you really visit the snow globe museum?”
It took him a moment to answer, partly because the question took him by surprise, and partly because of the breathing thing.
“Of course, I-”
Before he got more than three words out, her hands reached the back of his neck, and the slight surprising pressure there made him stumble clumsily down toward her. They bumped noses, painfully, further disorienting him. Leslie giggled and squeezed him between her knees, which helped his balance if not his presence of mind, and then she was kissing him.
And the rest of Pawnee vanished in an instant, organizational charts be damned.
It was tentative at first, as they discerned details like how to best align their noses and how much to open their mouths, but kissing Leslie Knope quickly started to feel like the most natural thing on earth. As the kiss deepened, their bodies shifted into a more comfortable embrace. His arms slid around her back to support her weight as he leaned in to her. She began to move her hands over him in a frantic exploration, her fingers running tantalizing trails down his neck and back, over his shoulders and chest and stomach, and sooner than he expected reaching around to squeeze his butt.
As the kiss intensified, he rubbed his hands up and down her back, but couldn’t really let go of her there without putting them off-balance. Frustrated, he tilted her back onto the desk, just to free up his hands for their own exploration.
His body partially covering hers now, he pushed aside her jacket to reach under the edge of her shirt. After reveling for a while in just the feel of the smooth skin at her waist, he made his way slowly up her side to brush his thumb experimentally against the side of her bra.
Leslie groaned against his mouth and arced into him, so that his thigh pressed between her legs.
“Leslie,” he murmured, feeling around for her shirt buttons, with no real goal other than just to be closer to her.
Just then, a light suddenly flickered on, illuminating them in their reckless state. Leslie gasped and froze, and Ben lurched off of her, stumbling in the darkness and landing in what felt like a box of open three-pronged binders. His eyes squeezed shut against the unexpected brightness and the horror of being caught.
But when he forced them open, the door was still closed, and City Hall remained silent around them.
After a moment, the light fixture buzzed and flickered before going off again.
“That light bulb, playing tricks on us,” Leslie exhaled, scooting off the edge of the desk and rearranging her shirt. “Maintenance really should take care of that.”
“Yeah,” Ben agreed, extracting himself from the box with as much dignity as possible and trying to get his breathing under control again. He moved a couple steps away from Leslie, tucking in the back of his shirt and attempting to smooth down his hair. “Sorry about … all that.”
Leslie tossed him an alluringly flirtatious grin. “Why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything.” She bent down to put back on her heels, which she’d apparently lost at some point.
“I did some things,” Ben pointed out, leaving unspoken all the things he still wanted to do with her, now more than ever. But the interruption had been like a cold glass of water thrown on them, reminding him of their surroundings, their circumstances. “But you know … we shouldn’t …”
Leslie moved closer to him again, and Ben stilled, but all she did was place a finger against his mouth. “I know about the rules,” she said. “You might have heard I got written up today for kissing a city employee.”
“I know …” Ben said mournfully.
“It only seems fair that if a report is going in my permanent personnel file, that I actually get to kiss someone today, right?”
“I suppose … yeah, that seems fair.” Ben laughed feebly, as he thought about how ridiculously unfair this situation seemed. His eyes flickered involuntarily, longingly, down to her mouth again.
Leslie’s eyes did the same, but then she took a resolute step back, toward the door. In the light coming in from the hallway, he could see the flush lingering on her skin. “Thank you for that. Sorry it got a little out of hand.”
Ben rubbed the back of his neck with his fingers, feeling the unnatural heat of his own skin. “Don’t be. I’m not … I’m not sorry,” he said quietly.
“Me neither,” Leslie admitted, almost inaudibly, giving him a small, slightly sad smile. With that, she ducked her head, opened the door, and disappeared rather rapidly down the hallway.
Ben braced himself against the doorway, took several long, steadying breaths as he listened to her footsteps disappearing into the distance, and then did the same.
--
Stopping by his actual office to pick up his jacket and keys, Ben paused by his desk, eying the report Chris had given him on the incident with Leslie and Tom.
He winced at Chris’s description of the “passionate” kiss Leslie and Tom had supposedly shared in the hallway and the instructions they had been given to “cease and desist all romantic contact on or off of city property.”
Impulsively, he reached for a pencil and crossed out Tom’s name and wrote in his own; the revision certainly made it a more accurate account of the day. In spite of everything, the sight of it-this official government document saying he and Leslie made out-made him smile a little. Staring at the page, he let himself briefly imagine a scenario in which they threw caution to the wind and accepted whatever consequences might come.
But an assistant city manager wasn’t the same as an assistant, and a defiant romance wasn’t the same as a momentary smooch in the hallway. And what they’d just been doing in his old office-what he’d wanted to do if the malfunctioning light bulb hadn’t brought him back to his senses-was definitely something else.
They wouldn’t get a slap on the wrist, another write-up in their files. They’d almost certainly get fired.
Ben shoved the report into the paper shredder and sank into the chair, promising himself he’d file a more accurate version in the morning-one that depicted Leslie’s kiss with Tom as the joke it had been: a momentary lapse in judgment, maybe, but not a violation of city code. He’d have to leave off any reference to their own off-the-record interlude, which they couldn’t acknowledge, officially or otherwise.
He’d thought spending more time with her would make him feel better somehow about their chances, but sitting here alone after hours, he felt more confused than ever. The kiss had been amazing, up until the moment he’d fallen into a box, and Leslie had made clear she was interested in him. But she also knew their situation. With prospects like these, would she really set everyone else aside and hold out for him?
His cell phone buzzed, interrupting his thoughts. So much for my soulmate, the screen read, and Ben blinked at the pessimistic answer appearing out of nowhere.
It took a beat for Ben to realize it was a text from Tom and had nothing to do with him. By that time, Tom had already sent a followup:
Leslie deleted her profile, so we’re no longer attached at the hip cyberwise! The sentence was followed by an emoticon that looked like a breakdancing monkey.
Ben blinked and set down the phone. Leslie had deleted her dating profile?
As he thought about why she might have done that, Ben smiled to himself, feeling lighter than he had all day.
The phone buzzed again with a message from Tom: You should see my new soulmate-level hottie. Should I shoot you a pic?
Ben smiled as he typed in a quick message to Tom and hit send: No, thanks, I’m good!
He shut down his computer, collected his things, and set off for home finally. For the rest of the night, he didn’t think about any of the obstacles they’d face before ever getting together or what might happen in the meantime. Instead, he let his thoughts linger on that kiss-all that it had been, all it had made him feel, all that he still wanted.
If she was thinking any of that along with him, it just might be enough … for now.