fic: golden days of yore, leslie/ben, pg
title: Golden Days of Yore
pairing: Leslie/Ben
rating: PG
words: 1525
notes: I'm awful at this Christmas fic thing, I'm really sorry. I wanted to maximize my tiny bit of productivity, so instead of trying to tackle each prompt, I made some of them into one fic. We've got season 3 angst for ashisfriendly, drunk Christmas shenanigans for ryeloza, buying a Christmas tree for americnxidiot, and first married Christmas for c00kie. My apologies to stillscape for not including her prompt, but I couldn't figure out how to fit it in the fic in a way I liked, and I hope she likes this anyway. I also got a few non-Parks prompts, and I don't know that I'll get around to them. This took me long enough. I hope everyone likes this either way, and merry Christmas to all <3
He shouldn’t have come to this party.
Of course, Chris didn’t give him much of a choice. As soon as Leslie invited them to the parks department Christmas party, Chris accepted on both of their behalfs. Of course, Chris was invited to every other department’s party as well, so while he got to rotate around, Ben was sitting in the corner of parks, trying his hardest to not notice the red dot Leslie drew on the tip of her nose.
“I’m Rudolph!” she had gleefully announced when he’d arrived, though between the nose and the antlers, it was unmistakable.
And Leslie had gifts, mountains of gifts, for every person in the department. Personalized, thoughtful, probably expensive gifts.
He’d toiled for hours in the Eagleton mall, trying to think of just one thing to give her that wouldn’t be weird. That wouldn’t say “Oh hey, I’m crazy about you, and I think you might possibly like me too, and I definitely decided to stay because of you, and also Merry Christmas.”
He actually wrote that on a card before throwing it in the garbage.
And with the mistletoe hung in the dead center of the room, Ben was going to stay in the corners as much as possible. Even if Donna was holding her spot under it, while Andy simultaneously tried to pull his new wife underneath.
“Why are you hiding?” Leslie asked, plopping into the seat next to him. Damnit, she looks so cute with that nose, and he’s terrified of doing something stupid.
“Oh, I don’t know, I guess--”
“Merry Christmas!” she exclaims, holding out a present wrapped in gaudy, glittery candy cane paper.
Under the watch of her happy gaze, he carefully opens the present, unfolding the corners gently. She’s practically shaking in excitement and with an impatient huff, she reaches over and rips the paper violently. It’s a framed ad for the Harvest Festival, the one with the tagline he thought up in their brainstorming session.
“So you can forget about Ice Town,” she explains, grinning. “A project you succeeded at.”
And it’s stupid and he feels like such a lame ass, but his eyes sting a little bit. He smiles gratefully at her before she throws her arms around his neck, squeezing in a hug.
“Merry Christmas, Ben!”
He watches her return to the rest of the party, bouncing across the room. And in the middle, briefly, she passes under the mistletoe and he thinks, maybe…
But all too soon the moment’s gone, and he’s still rooted to his chair, on the edge of it all.
---
It’s late when Leslie stumbles out of Donna’s car, shouting a quick thank you for the ride before launching into a loud rendition of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.”
“Leslie?”
She whips around so fast the almost slides in the snow, and oh man, the snow looks so great, she just wants to roll in it and make a snow angel. Maybe Ben will make one with her? She jogs over to his car with a fistful of snow, throwing it into the air like confetti. His face does that stupid squinty thing that makes her want to kiss his dumb nose as the flakes hit his skin.
“Ben! You’re here! I’m still Knope 2012, did you know??”
He catches her as she bounces into him, and finally a smile breaks on his face. He looks a lot better that way, Leslie will never understand why he doesn’t smile always. It makes her chest all warm and she wants to be warmer so she snuggles into his chest, which is the warmest.
“I had an inkling,” he says, but even though his smile it sounds kinda sad. She doesn’t like when Ben is sad, not ever. “I’ve been waiting for you in the car, I uh, don’t have a key.”
Leslie starts giggling because she can’t help it, he guessed one of his Christmas presents and usually that upsets her but for some reason it doesn’t. They’re supposed to exchange presents on Christmas proper, but a little early isn’t a bad thing.
“C’mon,” she beckons, pulling him by his collar to the front door. He’s definitely confused, but at least he can unlock her door when she fails to get the key in. Keys are hard. Ben’s good at them. It’s the perfect present, probably.
“You get one early!” she exclaims once she’s inside, grabbing it from under one of her trees.
He kisses her before he even opens it, which is nice. Kissing Ben again is nice. It’s the best Christmas present of all, she thinks.
Once he stops kissing her long enough to get the present open, she squeals in delight as his eyebrow quirks up.
“A Joe Biden key chain?”
“It’s a really important key!”
---
“This tree looks fine,” Ben sighs, holding out a sturdy evergreen.
“Fine for the bedroom, maybe, but we need to focus on the living room. Big! Green! Something you might see in the White House. Aha!”
Leslie calls him over from behind a sea of pine needles. Once he navigates his way through the twisting paths between trees, he finds Leslie with the biggest tree he’s ever seen, one that far dwarfs his small fiance.
He smiles a bit to himself; ‘fiance.’ It’s been a little over a month, but the word still makes both of them giddy. And the fact that they’re buying trees (multiple, of course, though Ben talked Leslie down to three instead of six) for their house, well. Maybe he’ll let four trees slide.
“It’s perfect,” she whispers, reaching over to take his hand. “Can’t you just imagine opening presents by it on Christmas morning? Almost everything I got you could fit under it.”
He feels his face pale, trying to think of how many presents he’s gotten her so far.
“And it’ll fit all of my ornaments for that room, and it’s strong enough to hold my grandma’s old star on the top.” He feels her fingers tighten around his, and his breath catches in his throat as he steals a glance at her.
Leslie is always enthralled with the world around her, but he’ll never tire of watching her face when it happens. Especially not when he can feel the cold band of her engagement ring against his skin, chilled from the December air.
When her head leans to rest on his shoulder, he has to concede; it’s a great tree.
“Have them bag it,” he says, kissing briefly along her hairline. “It’ll look awesome.”
“Great!” Leslie perks up immediately, pulling herself from him. “Only five more to go!”
“Leslie, we agreed…”
“If you’re marrying me, you have to accept that I have a system for Christmas. Besides, don’t you like the idea for a Star Wars tree?”
“Okay, but do we really need trees in the bathrooms?”
---
Their old grandfather clock gently chimes 5am as Leslie puts the finishing touches on Ben’s stocking, full of his favorite chocolate and handmade Li’l Sebastian ornaments. It’s still very early, the grey of the morning all that’s filtering through the window shades. They’d agreed on 7 for opening presents after the 4am fiasco of last year, but she doesn’t know if she can contain herself until then.
She retreats back to bed, where Ben’s face is smushed into his pillow, his arms flung widely around him in her absence. Leaving her slippers on the rug she quietly slides back into her side, settling against him with an arm curled around his chest.
“Are you humming ‘Jingle Bells’?” Ben asks sleepily, not ten minutes later.
“Oh, sorry.”
Ben sits up a little to look at his alarm clock and flops back into bed dramatically.
“Les, we talked about this, you promised.”
“I’m trying!”
Without warning, Ben pushes her on her back, covering her body with his own, heavy with sleep. She yelps as he snuggles his face into her neck, arms tightening around her.
“Go. To. Sleep. For me.”
“How can you sleep?” she asks incredulously, trying to elbow him in the ribs. “It’s the first Christmas we’re married, isn’t that exciting?!” She feels his mouth smile against her before puckering into a soft kiss.
“‘Course, babe.”
“Can we pleeeeeeease start Christmas? You can go back to sleep right after. I’ll let you, I promise.”
“No you won’t.” He’s still smiling as he sits up, wiping the sleep from his eyes. She loves him in the morning like this, voice all gravely and hair insane. She leans in and gives him a quick kiss.
“I’ll get the coffee and cookies!”
Grabbing them off her bedside table, she carefully slips her rings back on her finger, first engagement and then the wedding band. Second nature now, ten months later.
By the time she’s gathered a platter full of iced sugar cookies and coffee with whipped cream, Ben is asleep on the couch, his stocking in his lap.
She kisses his cheek and lets him sleep. It’s Christmas. She can wait an extra five minutes for her husband.
(Or, well, four and a half. He might be her husband but she can only compromise so much.)
pairing: Leslie/Ben
rating: PG
words: 1525
notes: I'm awful at this Christmas fic thing, I'm really sorry. I wanted to maximize my tiny bit of productivity, so instead of trying to tackle each prompt, I made some of them into one fic. We've got season 3 angst for ashisfriendly, drunk Christmas shenanigans for ryeloza, buying a Christmas tree for americnxidiot, and first married Christmas for c00kie. My apologies to stillscape for not including her prompt, but I couldn't figure out how to fit it in the fic in a way I liked, and I hope she likes this anyway. I also got a few non-Parks prompts, and I don't know that I'll get around to them. This took me long enough. I hope everyone likes this either way, and merry Christmas to all <3
He shouldn’t have come to this party.
Of course, Chris didn’t give him much of a choice. As soon as Leslie invited them to the parks department Christmas party, Chris accepted on both of their behalfs. Of course, Chris was invited to every other department’s party as well, so while he got to rotate around, Ben was sitting in the corner of parks, trying his hardest to not notice the red dot Leslie drew on the tip of her nose.
“I’m Rudolph!” she had gleefully announced when he’d arrived, though between the nose and the antlers, it was unmistakable.
And Leslie had gifts, mountains of gifts, for every person in the department. Personalized, thoughtful, probably expensive gifts.
He’d toiled for hours in the Eagleton mall, trying to think of just one thing to give her that wouldn’t be weird. That wouldn’t say “Oh hey, I’m crazy about you, and I think you might possibly like me too, and I definitely decided to stay because of you, and also Merry Christmas.”
He actually wrote that on a card before throwing it in the garbage.
And with the mistletoe hung in the dead center of the room, Ben was going to stay in the corners as much as possible. Even if Donna was holding her spot under it, while Andy simultaneously tried to pull his new wife underneath.
“Why are you hiding?” Leslie asked, plopping into the seat next to him. Damnit, she looks so cute with that nose, and he’s terrified of doing something stupid.
“Oh, I don’t know, I guess--”
“Merry Christmas!” she exclaims, holding out a present wrapped in gaudy, glittery candy cane paper.
Under the watch of her happy gaze, he carefully opens the present, unfolding the corners gently. She’s practically shaking in excitement and with an impatient huff, she reaches over and rips the paper violently. It’s a framed ad for the Harvest Festival, the one with the tagline he thought up in their brainstorming session.
“So you can forget about Ice Town,” she explains, grinning. “A project you succeeded at.”
And it’s stupid and he feels like such a lame ass, but his eyes sting a little bit. He smiles gratefully at her before she throws her arms around his neck, squeezing in a hug.
“Merry Christmas, Ben!”
He watches her return to the rest of the party, bouncing across the room. And in the middle, briefly, she passes under the mistletoe and he thinks, maybe…
But all too soon the moment’s gone, and he’s still rooted to his chair, on the edge of it all.
---
It’s late when Leslie stumbles out of Donna’s car, shouting a quick thank you for the ride before launching into a loud rendition of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.”
“Leslie?”
She whips around so fast the almost slides in the snow, and oh man, the snow looks so great, she just wants to roll in it and make a snow angel. Maybe Ben will make one with her? She jogs over to his car with a fistful of snow, throwing it into the air like confetti. His face does that stupid squinty thing that makes her want to kiss his dumb nose as the flakes hit his skin.
“Ben! You’re here! I’m still Knope 2012, did you know??”
He catches her as she bounces into him, and finally a smile breaks on his face. He looks a lot better that way, Leslie will never understand why he doesn’t smile always. It makes her chest all warm and she wants to be warmer so she snuggles into his chest, which is the warmest.
“I had an inkling,” he says, but even though his smile it sounds kinda sad. She doesn’t like when Ben is sad, not ever. “I’ve been waiting for you in the car, I uh, don’t have a key.”
Leslie starts giggling because she can’t help it, he guessed one of his Christmas presents and usually that upsets her but for some reason it doesn’t. They’re supposed to exchange presents on Christmas proper, but a little early isn’t a bad thing.
“C’mon,” she beckons, pulling him by his collar to the front door. He’s definitely confused, but at least he can unlock her door when she fails to get the key in. Keys are hard. Ben’s good at them. It’s the perfect present, probably.
“You get one early!” she exclaims once she’s inside, grabbing it from under one of her trees.
He kisses her before he even opens it, which is nice. Kissing Ben again is nice. It’s the best Christmas present of all, she thinks.
Once he stops kissing her long enough to get the present open, she squeals in delight as his eyebrow quirks up.
“A Joe Biden key chain?”
“It’s a really important key!”
---
“This tree looks fine,” Ben sighs, holding out a sturdy evergreen.
“Fine for the bedroom, maybe, but we need to focus on the living room. Big! Green! Something you might see in the White House. Aha!”
Leslie calls him over from behind a sea of pine needles. Once he navigates his way through the twisting paths between trees, he finds Leslie with the biggest tree he’s ever seen, one that far dwarfs his small fiance.
He smiles a bit to himself; ‘fiance.’ It’s been a little over a month, but the word still makes both of them giddy. And the fact that they’re buying trees (multiple, of course, though Ben talked Leslie down to three instead of six) for their house, well. Maybe he’ll let four trees slide.
“It’s perfect,” she whispers, reaching over to take his hand. “Can’t you just imagine opening presents by it on Christmas morning? Almost everything I got you could fit under it.”
He feels his face pale, trying to think of how many presents he’s gotten her so far.
“And it’ll fit all of my ornaments for that room, and it’s strong enough to hold my grandma’s old star on the top.” He feels her fingers tighten around his, and his breath catches in his throat as he steals a glance at her.
Leslie is always enthralled with the world around her, but he’ll never tire of watching her face when it happens. Especially not when he can feel the cold band of her engagement ring against his skin, chilled from the December air.
When her head leans to rest on his shoulder, he has to concede; it’s a great tree.
“Have them bag it,” he says, kissing briefly along her hairline. “It’ll look awesome.”
“Great!” Leslie perks up immediately, pulling herself from him. “Only five more to go!”
“Leslie, we agreed…”
“If you’re marrying me, you have to accept that I have a system for Christmas. Besides, don’t you like the idea for a Star Wars tree?”
“Okay, but do we really need trees in the bathrooms?”
---
Their old grandfather clock gently chimes 5am as Leslie puts the finishing touches on Ben’s stocking, full of his favorite chocolate and handmade Li’l Sebastian ornaments. It’s still very early, the grey of the morning all that’s filtering through the window shades. They’d agreed on 7 for opening presents after the 4am fiasco of last year, but she doesn’t know if she can contain herself until then.
She retreats back to bed, where Ben’s face is smushed into his pillow, his arms flung widely around him in her absence. Leaving her slippers on the rug she quietly slides back into her side, settling against him with an arm curled around his chest.
“Are you humming ‘Jingle Bells’?” Ben asks sleepily, not ten minutes later.
“Oh, sorry.”
Ben sits up a little to look at his alarm clock and flops back into bed dramatically.
“Les, we talked about this, you promised.”
“I’m trying!”
Without warning, Ben pushes her on her back, covering her body with his own, heavy with sleep. She yelps as he snuggles his face into her neck, arms tightening around her.
“Go. To. Sleep. For me.”
“How can you sleep?” she asks incredulously, trying to elbow him in the ribs. “It’s the first Christmas we’re married, isn’t that exciting?!” She feels his mouth smile against her before puckering into a soft kiss.
“‘Course, babe.”
“Can we pleeeeeeease start Christmas? You can go back to sleep right after. I’ll let you, I promise.”
“No you won’t.” He’s still smiling as he sits up, wiping the sleep from his eyes. She loves him in the morning like this, voice all gravely and hair insane. She leans in and gives him a quick kiss.
“I’ll get the coffee and cookies!”
Grabbing them off her bedside table, she carefully slips her rings back on her finger, first engagement and then the wedding band. Second nature now, ten months later.
By the time she’s gathered a platter full of iced sugar cookies and coffee with whipped cream, Ben is asleep on the couch, his stocking in his lap.
She kisses his cheek and lets him sleep. It’s Christmas. She can wait an extra five minutes for her husband.
(Or, well, four and a half. He might be her husband but she can only compromise so much.)