fic: lover i'll be home, leslie/ben, pg13
title: Lover I'll Be Home
author:
shornt
pairing: Leslie/Ben
rating: PG13
words: ~700
notes: This is just... a really weird little thing I wrote when I was in a mood. I don't even know. I'm posting it because I don't like not writing a lot, but like, this is all weirdly wordy fluff. Thanks to fairytiger for handholding/nagging and americnxidiot for encouraging/nagging.
When she’s curled up against him in bed, that’s when she feels it the most.
It’s not just because he’s the only person she’s ever been able to do this with. She’s fidgety, and constantly thinking, and always in motion. If you looked at Leslie Knope on a timeline, you’d see a blur, because she never sits and always presses forward. Never dwells, always turns the page. There’s just not enough time to relax, to close her eyes, to take a deep breath and smell the maple syrup before inhaling it. She’s constantly trying to find the twenty fifth hour of the day, and even though it never materializes, she always manages to get that extra hour of productivity in anyway.
And yet, burrowed in the crook of Ben’s shoulder, she’s still. She’s grounded and supported and letting someone else envelope her, care for her, tether her to earth. She counts his breaths as they counter with hers and listens to his sighs, catalogues the stubble on his jaw and maps his ribs with her fingers. She doesn’t mind resting with him.
When she twines herself further around him, he tightens his arms right back, lets her leg wrap around his knee and her nose rub against the skin of his throat.
Sometimes she’s running, and he’s jogging right behind her, gladly playing catch-up. He’ll be the John to her Abigail, and he’ll smile, and he’ll push his hands under her shirt while whispering words transcribed from old letters to books against her collarbone. She offers her hand, and he gladly accepts and gives more, gives all of himself over.
But she likes when he tugs back, when he wraps around her and holds her in the moment, asks that she stop running ahead and sometimes tread back and take a break. She likes that he doesn’t give up when she gets restless and keeps wandering ahead, that he smiles when she pushes but isn’t afraid to say no when he means it.
She likes that he let her take charge and waited to pull back, let their first time be a flurry of touch and feeling and excitement before requesting their second be slow, drawn out, careful. She likes that he doesn’t mind debating her, lets himself get exasperated but never enough to stop. And she likes that sometimes he’s right, likes how she learns with his lips trailing lazily up her thigh, palms gently pressing against her hipbones.
Loves it, really. All of it. All of him.
With her ear resting above his heartbeat and his hand gently curled over her waist, that’s when she’s absolutely certain that she’s irrevocably, head-over-heels, decidedly in love with Ben Wyatt.
When he’s a Skype message or static phone call away, that’s a different story.
Long distance is grasping for straws, is living on the notes of his voice and the muted cadence of his breath. It’s wishing the blue light reflecting in his eyes wouldn’t distort the full picture, hoping he can still decipher her face on the other end. It’s falling asleep next to technology instead of his weight, curling up with pillows and quilts that don’t grasp back. It’s fingers that aren’t long enough and whimpers too low to catch through a speaker.
It, well, sucks, because she can’t find a better word for it.
When she finally sees him, the glimpses between the weeks of waiting and struggling and missed calls, it’s desperate and wanton and joyful. She clings more, pulls, and he’s along for the ride, just happy to touch again, just happy to get swept up in her. And everything’s a blur again because there’s never enough time, and she can’t find her twenty-fifth hour with him so she has to make every one mean something.
Maybe she gets a little less sleep and a little more crazed, her mind wandering off and forgetting to return. But it’s not like he won’t be back to remind her later. It isn’t like he’s not assuring her of that every day, that he loves her, that he wants her, that he’ll be home soon.
She doesn’t mind wrapping herself in blankets until he’s home.
author:
shornt
pairing: Leslie/Ben
rating: PG13
words: ~700
notes: This is just... a really weird little thing I wrote when I was in a mood. I don't even know. I'm posting it because I don't like not writing a lot, but like, this is all weirdly wordy fluff. Thanks to fairytiger for handholding/nagging and americnxidiot for encouraging/nagging.
When she’s curled up against him in bed, that’s when she feels it the most.
It’s not just because he’s the only person she’s ever been able to do this with. She’s fidgety, and constantly thinking, and always in motion. If you looked at Leslie Knope on a timeline, you’d see a blur, because she never sits and always presses forward. Never dwells, always turns the page. There’s just not enough time to relax, to close her eyes, to take a deep breath and smell the maple syrup before inhaling it. She’s constantly trying to find the twenty fifth hour of the day, and even though it never materializes, she always manages to get that extra hour of productivity in anyway.
And yet, burrowed in the crook of Ben’s shoulder, she’s still. She’s grounded and supported and letting someone else envelope her, care for her, tether her to earth. She counts his breaths as they counter with hers and listens to his sighs, catalogues the stubble on his jaw and maps his ribs with her fingers. She doesn’t mind resting with him.
When she twines herself further around him, he tightens his arms right back, lets her leg wrap around his knee and her nose rub against the skin of his throat.
Sometimes she’s running, and he’s jogging right behind her, gladly playing catch-up. He’ll be the John to her Abigail, and he’ll smile, and he’ll push his hands under her shirt while whispering words transcribed from old letters to books against her collarbone. She offers her hand, and he gladly accepts and gives more, gives all of himself over.
But she likes when he tugs back, when he wraps around her and holds her in the moment, asks that she stop running ahead and sometimes tread back and take a break. She likes that he doesn’t give up when she gets restless and keeps wandering ahead, that he smiles when she pushes but isn’t afraid to say no when he means it.
She likes that he let her take charge and waited to pull back, let their first time be a flurry of touch and feeling and excitement before requesting their second be slow, drawn out, careful. She likes that he doesn’t mind debating her, lets himself get exasperated but never enough to stop. And she likes that sometimes he’s right, likes how she learns with his lips trailing lazily up her thigh, palms gently pressing against her hipbones.
Loves it, really. All of it. All of him.
With her ear resting above his heartbeat and his hand gently curled over her waist, that’s when she’s absolutely certain that she’s irrevocably, head-over-heels, decidedly in love with Ben Wyatt.
When he’s a Skype message or static phone call away, that’s a different story.
Long distance is grasping for straws, is living on the notes of his voice and the muted cadence of his breath. It’s wishing the blue light reflecting in his eyes wouldn’t distort the full picture, hoping he can still decipher her face on the other end. It’s falling asleep next to technology instead of his weight, curling up with pillows and quilts that don’t grasp back. It’s fingers that aren’t long enough and whimpers too low to catch through a speaker.
It, well, sucks, because she can’t find a better word for it.
When she finally sees him, the glimpses between the weeks of waiting and struggling and missed calls, it’s desperate and wanton and joyful. She clings more, pulls, and he’s along for the ride, just happy to touch again, just happy to get swept up in her. And everything’s a blur again because there’s never enough time, and she can’t find her twenty-fifth hour with him so she has to make every one mean something.
Maybe she gets a little less sleep and a little more crazed, her mind wandering off and forgetting to return. But it’s not like he won’t be back to remind her later. It isn’t like he’s not assuring her of that every day, that he loves her, that he wants her, that he’ll be home soon.
She doesn’t mind wrapping herself in blankets until he’s home.