Parks Fic: Groffle the Awful Waffle
Title: Groffle the Awful Waffle
Pairing: Ben/Leslie
Rating: PG
Author's Note: I wrote this last night, and apparently it wasn’t enough. But can there really be too much fic about Groffle the Awful Waffle? Probably, but here’s more anyway.
It’s William Barnes who first suggests Leslie write a children’s book to bolster her education credentials. It’s meant to be a piggyback off of her book on Pawnee, and Leslie accepts the challenge enthusiastically despite the fact that William and Elizabeth nix her immediate idea for a story about the founding fathers’ breakfast habits.
“Take some time to brainstorm,” Elizabeth says gently. “You didn’t come up with the first book overnight.”
Leslie doesn’t bother to correct her. She just takes the criticism and comes up with a couple dozen more ideas, turning to Ann to bounce ideas off of. Ann proves to be as discerning as her campaign advisers, though, and by the end, Leslie collapses against the couch feeling somewhat discouraged.
“You can do this, Leslie,” Ann assures her. “Just write about something you love.” Leslie opens her mouth to protest, but Ann preempts her. “But not the founding fathers. And maybe think about turning the main characters into cute animals or something.”
Cute animals are overdone, in Leslie’s opinion, but Ann makes a good point. A little whimsy never hurt anyone. So maybe instead of writing a book about people eating breakfast, she should write a book about breakfast foods…eating people? No. That’s not right. But it’s a place to start.
She settles on a waffle for the main character and considers making the waffle’s best friend a bowl of whipped cream, but even she can admit that there’s some logistical problems there. Would the bowl have legs? A face? She thinks about changing the story to one about flatware, but that sounds awful even to her.
The whole thing is a lot more difficult than Leslie ever anticipated. She’s not used to feeling stifled creatively, and it’s frustrating. No matter how many waffles she eats as inspiration, she can’t seem to come up with a plot.
It doesn’t help that things are unraveling a bit at work.
She’s in the middle of working with Tom to set up a meet ‘n’ greet with local businesses, but it’s proving harder than usual to keep Tom from careening out of control. He’s spinning out more frequently, and it takes a lot of energy to keep him on task. Ron is being less than helpful as well, refusing to pitch in at all with the Zorpies’ latest prediction of the end of the world, even though they both know he’ll be on hand to capitalize off of them. And on top of everything, she’s trying to oversee the start of the fall rec center classes-the first they’ve been able to offer since the government shutdown-and Ben’s been dodging her attempts to meet with him about it, either responding with brusque emails or referring her to Chris. It’s like he’s avoiding her or something.
If she’s honest, that’s the thought keeping her up at night. When she gets into bed and pulls out her notes on the book, she finds it impossible to concentrate on the adventures of a waffle when she’s thinking about Ben-missing Ben and wanting Ben and trying to come up with a way to keep Ben from pulling away completely. She’s spiraling a bit, maybe, but considering how much of the day she spends pushing all of those thoughts and feelings aside, it’s not surprising that it has to come out sometime.
An outlet, she decides on a particularly low night. That’s what I need. She’s staring at a sketch she made of a waffle with a strawberry top hat, but her mind is replaying the moment she saw Ben today and he actually ducked down another hall to avoid her. All of this pent up emotion is a distraction. She needs to release it somehow.
She taps her pen against her drawing, and comes to a decision. After all, it’s not like she’s managed to come up with another idea. And Ann did tell her to write about something she loves.
Thinking of Ben, Leslie sets pen to paper and drafts Groffle the Awful Waffle in one sitting. Amazingly, she does feel better when she finishes, at least in the sense that she’s finally accomplished what was beginning to feel like an insurmountable task. The fact that her own ending has her in tears might fall on the opposite end of that spectrum, though.
Still, she ends up showing it to William and Elizabeth. They read it with identical, concentrated frowns, and neither of them cry when they finish. “It’s…interesting, Leslie,” says Elizabeth, not entirely unkindly. “Although a happy ending might be more appropriate.”
Barnes simply looks at her and says, “Why don’t we turn your Model UN event into a photo op. instead?”
Strangely, Leslie doesn’t feel defeated by their pessimism. She takes Elizabeth’s advice, going home and drafting a new, happy ending-one that makes her cry even harder-and then puts Groffle aside. It isn’t until after everything has unraveled, until after Ben takes her in his arms and kisses her breathless, until she’s suspended from work and looking for something to fill her time, that she picks up the manuscript again.
She edits. Polishes. Types a good copy. Wraps it up and sets it under the Christmas tree.
Christmas morning, Leslie manages to make it to 4am before prodding Ben awake. He grumbles a bit as she pokes at his ribs and kisses along his jaw, but finally he rolls out of bed, keeping a loose grip on her hips as she guides him downstairs and pushes him onto the couch.
“Did Santa come?” he yawns as he wraps his arms around her thighs, cradling the bottom of her ass with his forearms and laying his head against her stomach. She smiles and runs her fingers through his hair.
“Santa will get you some coffee if you promise not to fall back asleep.”
“I’ll try.”
Ben is slow to release his grip on her, but eventually she finds her way into the kitchen and makes some coffee. When she returns, he accepts the cup gratefully, sipping it as Leslie begins to sort through the presents, hunting for her book. She feels like she’s been waiting months to show him this, and really, maybe she has. “Here,” she says, handing Ben the flat box. She sits down next to him and curls into his side, lets her eyes flit from his face to his hands as he slowly undoes the wrapping and pulls out her book.
“Groffle the Awful Waffle,” he reads, and she can hear the smile in his voice before she actually sees it. “You wrote this?”
“Barnes thought it would bolster my education initiative,” explains Leslie, ignoring the way Ben still winces at the ashes of her old campaign. “We had some creative differences, though.” She pulls the book from his hands and opens it; Ben wraps an arm around her shoulders and takes another sip of his coffee. She nudges him a little. “Read,” she prompts.
“Groffle the Awful Waffle hadn’t always been awful,” Ben begins. His voice still has that sleepy, gruff quality, and Leslie snuggles closer at the sound of it. “When he was young, he used to go to the Syrup River and dream of one day crossing over the bridge to Sugarland. You see, Groffle lived in Fiberville, a land devoid of sugar. All his life, Groffle had imagined going someplace where the whipped cream flowed freely and all breakfast foods wore strawberry top hats, but Groffle’s friends made fun of his dream. Even Groffle’s best friend, Stan Puffin the Bran Muffin, thought Groffle was crazy. After all, what was sugar compared to wholesome fiber? Groffle was so discouraged, he began to doubt that Sugarland was anything special.
“One day, Stan told Groffle that they’d been invited to Sugarland to teach the citizens about the joys of fiber. Groffle finally had the chance to cross the Syrup River! Unfortunately, Groffle had forgotten his dream, and as he and Stan entered Sugarland, all he could see was boring, grain-lined streets. ‘Just another town,’ Groffle thought, glumly. ‘I was wrong. There’s nothing special here.’”
Ben pauses in his recitation, and Leslie turns her face up curiously. “Why’d you stop?” she asks. “It’s just getting to the good part. Groffle is about to meet Chorffle the Cheerful Waffle and Barry Bacon and-”
She’s cut off by Ben’s lips pressing to hers. He kisses her gently, one hand coming up to cradle her face, his warm thumb swiping over her cheekbone. He pulls back, kissing her cheekbone and the tip of her nose, and then wordlessly goes back to the book. He reads the rest without interruption-through Groffle’s argument with Chorffle over the merits of whipped cream; through the annual Sugar Festival where Groffle finally realizes the importance of sweet things; through Stan Puffin forcing Groffle to return to Fiberville-and by the time he gets to Groffle’s return to Sugarland and Chorffle’s election as mayor, Leslie finds herself tearing up again.
They’re quiet for a few minutes when Ben finishes. She buries her face in his chest, letting the tears she can’t stop leak out and darken the gray fabric of his shirt; Ben runs his hand through her hair absentmindedly, every so often pressing a kiss to the top of her head. It’s too much, remembering how frustrated and hopeless she’d felt when she’d first wrote this; how close they’d come to letting this ending only exist in fiction. It’s too much to be here with him now and know that everything is finally okay.
“You know,” Ben eventually says, his voice low but steady, “I think you should publish it anyway.”
“Really?”
“Definitely. It’s…It’s a great story.”
Yeah, Leslie thinks, hugging him tighter. It is.