Fic: Consolidation in Seven Parts
Title: Consolidation in Seven Parts
Author: jncar
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~12,500
Summary: For the Behind Closed Doors Challenge at leslie_ben. Fills the prompt: “4.Consolidation: How do we get from the high drama of their reunion to them working together as a team again? What was that like in private? From the night after Smallest Park and The Trial of Leslie Knope → The Comeback Kid.” Ben’s perspective.
Author’s Note: Let me apologize in advance for being that girl. You know, the girl who, when given the chance to write some fun sexy-time scenes just had to surround her 3,000 words of sexy times with 9,000 words of relationship issues and introspection? Yeah. That’s me. Sorry. I’m compulsively long-winded. Even in my author’s notes. (Oh, and I recycled/tweaked a ficlet I posted a few months ago for the first section of this fic, so if it feels familiar, that's why.)
I’ll be out of town with limited internet access all weekend, but I’m excited to talk Behind Closed Doors with you all when I get back! And much thanks to shornt for her encouraging words and hand-holding when I wrote explicit sex (which I still feel terribly self-conscious about). Thanks!
1: After the Park
He's probably going to get fired for this.
The thought doesn't hit him until about a half an hour after Leslie falls asleep. The room is quiet and peaceful; he hears nothing but the soft sound of her breath.
This is the first time he's ever watched her fall asleep. Sometimes-in those days that felt so far away yesterday and feel so very close tonight-he'd woken up in the middle of the night and listened to her sleep-mumbling, but he'd always been the one to fall asleep first. Until tonight.
That's how he knows just how emotionally draining this week must have been for her.
For both of them, really.
When he went to meet her in that park he'd never imagined that she'd throw caution to the wind like this. He'd never imagined she'd be more afraid of losing him than she was of losing her job, her reputation, her campaign . . . of losing Pawnee.
A part of him bitterly wishes she'd made this choice four months ago so he didn't have to go through the torture of their separation. But the more rational part of him knows that sometimes you have to lose something to realize how much it means to you.
So here they are.
He feels like his whole body rises and falls with the rhythm of her breath.
And he's probably going to get fired.
In a way he's been waiting for this for most of a year. He's been balancing on the edge of a precipice, waiting for Leslie to say the word so he could jump. Maybe that's why he never put many personal items in his office. He never thought of it as permanent. Not as long as the Leslie possibility existed. He'd been ready to lose his job the very first time he took her in his arms and kissed her. But he knew even then that she was worth the risk.
Before that amazing first month was out she'd told him that he was worth the risk, too. At least, the risk to her job. What she doesn't know-what he's never wanted to explain to her-is that her job was never at as much risk as his. She never would have gotten more than a slap on the wrist. The rule they'd chosen to flaunt wasn't created to prevent subordinates from buying favors with sex (that was one result of the rule, but not the intent). No-the rule primarily existed to protect subordinates from bosses who wanted to coerce them into sex with threats or bribe them into sex with special favors. And it existed to protect the public from corrupt officials who chose to grant favors based on sexual relationships.
The rule existed to protect subordinates. And the public. From officials who had affairs with their employees. From people like him.
He'd never wanted to explain that to her. He still doesn't plan to. Let her have the comfort of believing they'll be treated-and punished-equally as they move forward with this.
No. When he first kissed her, the risk had mostly been his. He never would have done it, otherwise.
They'd been together for just over a month when her nighttime mumblings evolved into something more than just mumblings and he discovered that her ambitions of "someday" had morphed into "today." That's when he'd realized that she had just as much at stake as he did. Maybe even more at stake.
He'd thought she could never love him as much as she loved Pawnee. He couldn't let himself be the reason Pawnee never loved her back.
That was more than she should have to risk. Probably-he'd reluctantly admitted to himself-more than she'd be willing to risk.
And after a few horrible days of deliberation, he'd started designing a campaign logo in his spare time and went shopping for buttons.
Yet, months later, here they are. In her bed.
God, he hopes she doesn't regret this in the morning.
He closes his eyes and takes a few deep, slow breaths. When he opens them, she's still there. It really did happen. She really did choose him.
What now?
In the cold light of day, will she still choose him over city council? He's still not sure he can forgive himself if he's what costs her the election.
Is this really worth it? Is it?
She snorts and stirs, and then her eyes flutter open as she gasps. Her eyes lock on his and she sighs. A happy, contented sound.
"You're still here," she whispers.
"Where else would I be?"
She quirks her mouth in a tight-lipped smile, but the lines around her eyes speak of pain. "I've been having dreams that we were together again. But then I'd wake up alone. It really sucked."
He holds his breath for a moment as his fingertips trace the outline of her shoulder and then graze along her jaw before coming to rest on the tip of her chin.
She's so beautiful.
"I think sucked is an understatement," he whispers back, resolving never to tell her that he's been polishing up his résumé just in case cutting off contact with the Parks Department wasn't enough to ease the pain.
Her smile is real this time, lighting up her whole face. Her eyes shine like fireflies. "I'm happy. Really happy," she says.
His chest tightens. He lets out his breath slowly and his whole body starts to relax. Okay, then.
Now he knows. There's no going back, this time. No more doubting. Time to move forward and face whatever's coming.
He's probably going to get fired.
Her campaign might be over.
Things won't be perfect, and this relationship will be far from easy.
But life is happening. The life he dreamed of when he took a chance and kissed her all those months ago.
Come what may, they're in this together now.
"Me too," he whispers back. And he means it.
2: Trial Prep
"I think you've got it," he says. "Stick to your talking points. Be straightforward and honest. Don't try to waffle out of answering any of their questions. You'll be fine."
"Okay." She shifts a throw pillow out of her way and curls her legs up to sit on her knees as she faces him.
They're perched on the window seat in his bedroom. When he first moved in, it had been nothing more than a hard drywall ledge. However, once he'd purchased a few necessities for normal adult existence (a bed and a dresser, for starters) his eyes had started drifting to the ledge and his mind had been led into a flight of fancy involving a certain blonde co-worker sneaking in and out of that window late at night, complete with make-out sessions on the window seat. And making out on a hard drywall ledge would be no fun at all. So he purchased a whole set of color-coordinated cushions and throw pillows in the hope of someday making his fantasy a reality.
Leslie had only spent two nights in his room during their initial relationship (both while Andy and April were away at parties with Mouse Rat), and they hadn't made it to the window seat on either of those nights.
Over the past few days, Ben has been doing his best to make up for that deficiency. The making out was great. But there was only enough room for actual sex when she was sitting in his lap. Not that he had any complaints about that position. Or any position, really, as long as they could do it together.
"Let me practice my opening statement one more time," says Leslie, pulling a pillow into her lap and squeezing it like her life depends on it.
They've practiced this at least a dozen times already, but if this is what it takes for her to feel more comfortable with what they'll be facing tomorrow, Ben will gladly listen to it a dozen more times. "Go for it." He restrains himself from resting a hand on her thigh, because, apparently, she has trouble focusing when he's touching her. (Or so she told him a few hours ago when he was trying to review talking points for the hearing and giving her a back rub at the same time.)
She takes a deep breath. "I freely admit to the relationship, and I will not be fighting the charges that we violated Chris's rule. But we did nothing else wrong or unethical." She punctuates her statement with a nod.
"Perfect," Ben replies, finally letting not just one but both of his hands slide up her thighs. "Do it just like that in the morning and you'll get the whole hearing off on the right foot. If all goes well, you'll be done by lunch time." God he hopes he's right. Please let Chris go easy on them, for old-time's sake.
But the knot in his gut reminds him that Chris never does anything just for old time's sake. At least, not where government ethics are concerned. Still, he feels confident that the end result of Leslie's hearing will be the slap-on-the-wrist he first predicted all those months ago. The end of his own hearing, on the other hand . . . Well, he won't worry about that tonight.
Leslie's answering smile is strained. The past few days have been hard on them both, dealing with the ups of being reunited and sharing the good news with all their friends and the downs of worrying about what the hearings might bring. At least they have a whole gang of people ready to jump to their defense. Having so many people on his side is a new sensation for Ben, and while he knows that they're there more for Leslie than for him, it still feels kind of . . . magical.
She squeezes his hands and looks down. "I should probably go home. If I stay here I won't be able to stop talking and neither of us will get any sleep."
Ben nods. They certainly haven't been getting much sleep the past few nights, cuddled up beside each other, talking until the wee hours of the morning. And if they've ever needed a good night's sleep, they need it tonight.
So as much as he'd like to spend another night cuddled up together, instead he kisses her forehead and walks her out for what is only their second night apart since they reconciled.
Naturally, April shouts, "Ewww!" and covers her eyes as they step out of his room, loudly demanding to know whether or not they're naked. Ben supposes he'd better get used to this. He doesn't see it changing anytime soon.
He lets out a deep sigh as soon as he closes the door behind Leslie. He misses her already. If only there was something he could do to make this whole process easier for her.
And then it hits him-he has just the thing.
Back in his room he reaches under his bed to find the fluffy stuffed animal he tossed down there sometime early in August.
He pulls it out and shakes off the dust.
He ordered the plush re-creation of Li'l Sebastian a few days after the funeral, before he discovered Leslie's determination to run for office. But he didn't get the call from the toy store to let him know it was ready to pick up until five days after the break-up.
At first he'd thought about not picking it up. But since he'd paid in advance, it seemed a shame to let his money go to waste. He'd thought about saving it for a "Congratulations on your election" gift for Leslie. He'd thought about giving it to his niece for Christmas. He'd even thought about anonymously leaving it at the Li'l Sebastian memorial as a tribute to the dear departed beast. (Honestly, he still doesn't get it.)
Instead he'd brought it home, took a long look at the picture of him and Leslie together at the Harvest Festival that still hung over his desk, and ended up sleeping with the damn thing for over a week. Eventually he reminded himself that stuffed animals and imaginary friends do not (contrary to the belief of six-year-olds everywhere) make everything all better, and he'd chucked it under his bed. It's been there ever since.
If this doesn't lift Leslie's spirits before her hearing, nothing will.
After he finishes brushing the dust off, he tosses it in the dryer with a fabric softener sheet for a quick low-heat tumble, just to fluff and freshen it a bit. Finally he ends up back in his room touching up the mane and tail with his hair comb.
On the one hand he feels a little insane for combing the hair of a stuffed toy for his girlfriend, but on the other hand this seems downright normal in comparison to quitting his job of twelve years and settling down primarily to be near a woman who might only think of him as a pal, and it looks like the picture of perfect sanity when put up against publicly weeping in a Batman suit. (He doesn't think he'll ever live that one down.) So he keeps on combing until he gets it just right.
Before turning in he sets his alarm for five-forty-five. That ought to give him plenty of time to beat Leslie to city hall in the morning. Right?
But he doesn't beat her there. And the hearing isn't over by lunchtime. And when he sees George Williams walk into the council chambers, he realizes that there might be a lot more in store for Leslie than a slap on the wrist.
Unless he does something to stop it.
The instant he sees Chris and the ethics committee filing out of the room, he rises to his feet and heads straight for them.
It looks like he won't have to wait until tomorrow to learn the fate of his job, after all. Because he's about to take fate by the reigns and tell it exactly where to go.
3: There's Only One Way to Say . . .
Ben can't stop grinning the whole way to Ethel's house.
She loves him. Leslie loves him.
He'd already been pretty sure. (He certainly hoped she wouldn't put her career and future in jeopardy for a guy she just really really liked.) But hearing it read out loud from an official government document-well, that was pretty mind-blowingly incredible.
She didn't just tell him she loved him. She made sure her declaration was inscribed as part of the permanent record of the city she's dedicated her life to.
"I love him with all of my heart."
Holy god.
His heart races in his chest as he walks back to the car after escorting Ethel to her door, and as soon as he slides into the passenger seat he can't stop himself from reaching out to touch Leslie. From pulling her close. From kissing her mouth … her cheeks … her forehead … her mouth again …
"Your place or mine?" says Leslie when he dips down to her neck.
He doesn't like pulling back from her, but she does have a good point. They can't exactly make out in front of Ethel's house all night. "Uh, Andy and April are home. They're still not too great with the whole privacy thing, and I really don't want to have to worry about keeping our volume down tonight." No-his roommates are absolutely the last thing he wants to be thinking about when he finally gets Leslie alone.
Her grin sparkles in the moonlight. "My place, then." She shifts the car into drive and peels away from the curb at considerably faster than the speed limit.
He rests his hand on her thigh as they drive, lightly rubbing along the length of it, because he can't imagine not touching her right now. She babbles a little about Chris's apology and Tammy Swanson's aborted shenanigans and something about Jerry really being named "Gerry" (seriously?) and he smiles and nods and probably injects a few words of his own, though he'd be hard pressed to remember them later on. Because, really, all he can think about is Leslie's official declaration.
"I, Leslie Knope, love Ben Wyatt. I love him with all of my heart."
Yet, the more he replays the words in his mind, the more he wishes he'd heard them in Leslie's confident tones rather than Ethel's weathered and gravelly voice.
He wants to hear her say it.
As soon as they get inside and shuck their coats he circles his arms around her waist and draws her close, rocking a little in an almost-dance.
“So,” he says. “It sounds like there was some pretty interesting testimony today?”
“Yeah, that Jerry/Gerry thing still has me reeling,” she says, toying with his tie. From the twinkle in her eyes he’s pretty sure that she knows exactly what he’s doing.
He reaches up with one hand to pluck the hat from her head and tosses it onto the sofa. “That one is a doozy, but it’s not quite the part I had in mind.”
As he smooths out her rumpled hair, she finishes loosening his tie and slips it up over his head while she replies. “Well, April put on a good show. But we probably should have coached her a little more.” She starts in on his shirt buttons and he lets his hands trail along her hips until he reaches the front of her trousers.
“We should have done a lot of things better,” he murmurs, briefly wondering if a little more witness prep would have made any difference at all, and almost instantly concluding that it would not have. “But that still wasn’t the particular testimony I’m thinking of.” He unlatches her trousers and pulls the zipper down.
He tugs just a little and the trousers fall down around her ankles. Laughing, she steps back to kick them and her shoes off to the side. “Maybe you’re thinking of Tammy Swanson?” She steps back in to finish his buttons.
“Lord, no. I think of her as little as possible.”
Leslie finishes his buttons and pushes his shirt off his shoulders. Her small hand resting in the center of his chest makes it very hard to think about any woman other than the one standing right in front of him. His breath shakes a little as their eyes meet, and the need to kiss her suddenly outweighs his need to keep up his little game.
It’s the same kiss it’s always been-soft yet eager, with the sweet taste of her fruity lip gloss lingering on his tongue. But tonight that familiar kiss feels so much more . . . more . . . more something, he’s not quite sure what. Just more.
Because tonight, he knows.
“Mmmm,” she hums against his lips before leaning back and tugging his shirt the rest of the way off his arms. “I think the testimony that came in that private meeting of yours was the part that interested me the most,” she says, getting right to the point with both her words and her hands as she unbuckles his belt and unbuttons his pants.
He grins and helps her slide out of her blazer. “I don’t know. I think that the final page of testimony was the highlight.” He fingers the hem of her blouse while wiggling his feet out of his shoes.
“They were both pretty good,” she replies with a look in her eyes that makes him want to surrender immediately. But he was never one to go down without a fight.
After kicking his shoes aside he pulls her blouse off over her head and pulls Leslie tight against his body again, burying his face in her hair and breathing deep. She runs her hands over the bare strip of skin between his undershirt and his now-sagging pants, and he lets out a slow breath. He wants to do this forever-for the rest of his life, if she’ll have him.
“I just wish I got to hear it firsthand,” he murmurs before kissing her cheek and then her jaw and then moving down to her neck.
She sighs and leans into him, sliding her hands further up his back leaving a trail of warmth in their wake. “I still can’t believe what you did for me. No other guy I’ve ever been with would have done something like that.”
This is something that Ben has always found unfathomable. Why haven’t a dozen guys seen in her what he sees? Well-that bright side to that unanswerable question is that she was still free when he fell for her. A fact he’ll forever be grateful for. He lifts his head to look into her eyes. “I’d do it a hundred more times if I had to.” He pauses, his practical mind intruding on his romantic sentiments. “Though I do hope I never have to.”
“I’d do it for you, too,” she replies without hesitation. And when she says it, he actually believes it.
Suddenly his little game doesn’t seem to matter anymore, because no matter who says those three little words first, they’ll both win.
It’s been so long since he said these words to a woman other than his mother. He thought he’d be nervous, or even frightened. But he’s not. Not with Leslie.
“I love you.” It slides out of his lips as naturally as taking a breath.
“I love you, too,” she replies with shining eyes and soft smile.
The words settle over him like a warm blanket on a cold night. His whole chest swells with emotion. He’s still not entirely sure how he managed to win the heart of the most amazing woman he’s ever known, but he’ll never, ever, take it for granted.
He cradles her neck with his hand and kisses her with everything that’s in his heart. He kisses her like it’s the first time and the last. Like he’ll never do anything but this again.
She clings to his back with one hand, and uses the other to finish pushing his pants to the floor.
Ben smiles against her lips and kicks the pants out of the way before grabbing her hips and pulling her close, grinding against her. God, everything about this moment feels so amazingly good. Somewhere in the back of his mind he still knows that he just quit his job and he’ll have to deal with the fallout of that sometime soon, but right now all that seems to matter is making love to Leslie.
She stumbles backward a little under the force of his kisses, and he steadies her, backing her up against the nearby front door. She gasps as her warm skin hits the cool wood of the door.
Impulsively, Ben grasps her upper thighs and lifts her, bracing her against the door. Leslie laughs and follows his lead, wrapping her legs around his waist. “This is fun,” she says, grinning.
“Oh yeah?” He already feels slightly off balance, but if she’s into it there’s no way he’s backing down now.
“Yes,” she replies, grinning mischievously and sliding a hand down his shorts to pull his dick up over the elastic band.
He was hard before, and he gets even harder under her touch. “Wow. Okay.” So they’re actually doing this, now. He shifts his weight a little, edging her a little higher, trying to maneuver all the parts into place.
“Um, I think we have a problem,” he says, looking down to study the dilemma.
Leslie looks down, too. “I’m still wearing my panties.”
“Yeah.”
She tilts her head and meets his eyes with a raised eyebrow. “How did we miss that detail?”
“Not sure.” He shakes his head.
“Um-maybe if I tug on them little this way . . .” She wriggles her hand around her underwear, shifting and tugging. “. . . then maybe you could sneak into the side . . .” She tries to angle his dick past the obstacle in question, but the elastic immediately digs in, considerably dampening the potential pleasure.
Ben frowns. “I don’t think this is going to work. Clearly I didn’t think it through before acting.”
Leslie begins to laugh, and Ben can’t help but join her as he lowers her back to the ground. “Well, that was a pathetic attempt at sexual experimentation,” he says, running his fingers through his hair and tucking his bits and pieces back inside his shorts.
Still grinning, Leslie circles her arms around his neck. “You should know by now, I don’t need a lot of wild experimentation. I just need you.”
He wraps his arms arms around her waist, his embarrassment melting away. “I feel exactly the same way.”
“Then let’s head up to bed where we can do this thing for real. And then we can snuggle. I’m in the mood for lots of snuggling.” Her smile is soft and radiant.
His whole body feels light, like he’ll float away if he doesn’t keep his arms around her. “God, I love you.”
“I know,” she replies, sliding back a step to take his hand and lead him upstairs. “Me too.”
4: Poison
Ben heaves a sigh and tosses the latest issue of the Pawnee Journal down on the coffee table, adding it to the pile of local papers already sitting there. “Six days, now. Six days with our relationship and my resignation as the top story. When do you think they’ll finally move on? Next year, maybe?”
“Well, they did cover that kid going to the Olympics for an entire year,” replies Leslie with a shrug, linking her arm with his and snuggling a little closer to him on the couch. “And he wasn’t even competing. He literally just went to watch the Olympics.”
“Great,” he moans.
She shrugs again. “It is what it is. We knew this would happen and it won’t last forever. I’m sure something will come along soon to distract them.”
Ben admires her optimism. She’s been in a much better mood since she put together her citizen’s action group. At least one of them is. Ben’s taste of private-sector job hunting so far has been less than appetizing.
He frowns. “Wait a minute . . .” The full implications of her last statement start to dawn on him. “You aren’t planning on creating some kind of distraction, are you?”
Leslie grins. “My PCP team is proving to be very good at distracting people. And very good at blindly following orders. I’m sure I could come up with something.”
This is absolutely the last thing they need right now. Heaping another scandal on top of the one they already face will doom her campaign for sure. “Leslie . . .”
She continues to grin at him with a gleam in her eye. He stops himself. “You’re just kidding.”
“I got you.” She snickers triumphantly.
“Yes, you did.”
He’s relieved to see that it’s just her sense of humor acting up, rather than her thrown-together neighborhood militia. His eyes drift back to the stack of newspapers emblazoned with phrases like: “Resigns in Disgrace” and “Candidate Canoodles.”
He doesn’t know how many more days of this her campaign can afford to take.
“I know I’ve asked this already, but are William and Elizabeth really sure about this media-silence thing? I still think some sort of press release-or maybe an interview-”
“They were adamant I keep quiet until after the polling data comes in. And I have to respect their wishes.” Leslie parrots back the same response she’s been giving him all week.
Well, he had to try.
Leslie slides her hand along his thigh-an action that never fails to get him more than a little excited. “So,” she says, “we might not be able to distract the press tonight, but I can think of a few ways to distract ourselves.” She wags her eyebrows at him, and he grins.
Since their reunion, Leslie has made it abundantly clear just how much she missed the physical aspects of being with him, and he feels no shame at all in taking full advantage of the situation. “What did you have mind?”
She stares up at him through her eyelashes, putting on her most seductive face. “I think that John and Abigail have been apart for a very long time, and they’re ready for happy reunion.”
Ben can’t stop his eyes from going wide. Though they enjoyed some lighthearted role play several times during their initial relationship, this is the first time either of them have suggested it since their reunion. And this particular scenario-John and Abigail Adams separated by the Atlantic Ocean for two years during his work as a diplomat in France-hits very close to home.
Leslie drops her eyes and shakes her head. “Sorry. That was stupid. I wasn’t-”
Ben reaches out and lifts her chin. “Abigail,” he whispers, his voice thick with real emotion, “during this eternity apart from you I felt like a man adrift on the ocean without a single drop of fresh water to drink.”
The corners of Leslie’s mouth twitch up. “My dearest, most loved friend-without you I was a flower in the desert, wilting in the heat.”
Ben smiles back, his heart swelling in his chest. “It seems to me that what both of us need is a drink of water.”
Her eyes shine as she answers, “Exactly.”
Her kiss quenches his thirst better than any water ever could.
~.~.~
Ben still goes to his second interview at that accounting firm and when they make him an offer (a pretty good, one, too) he tells them he needs a day to think about it. Because even though the job doesn’t excite him, taking the offer would be the responsible thing to do and he’s been in the habit of doing the responsible thing for a very long time. Well-the habit’s been slipping a little lately. Make that a lot. And no, he does not decide against it because of Jean-Ralphio. But the longer he thinks, the more convinced he is that Leslie’s right: if it’s not really what he wants, he needs to take a month and see what else comes up. (Fine, so maybe Jean-Ralphio is right, too. But he will never admit it in public. Or in private. Or ever, anywhere, outside his own head.)
They’re disappointed when he calls to turn them down, but Ben can live with it. He feels anxious and reckless and a little dizzy when he hangs up the phone. But in a good way. (At least he thinks it’s good.)
The anxiety persists long enough that he literally jumps when his phone rings a few minutes later and he answers without checking the caller ID. “He-hello?” The phone nearly slips out of his fingers. He really needs to get a grip on himself.
“Hey, does Leslie have any of those over-sized campaign banners in her house?”
Ben blinks a few times and has to think for a moment to figure out that it’s Ann on the other end of the call, and why is she asking about campaign banners? “Uh, yeah. She has a few, I think.”
“Of course she does. Perfect. Do you have time to bring one over to city hall? Like, right now? I want to hang it up for our Parks Department Christmas party tonight.”
It seems like an odd choice of decoration to Ben, but he supposes he could see why it might make Leslie happy. And he was already on his way to her house for the evening, so why not? “Sure. I’ll be there in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
True to his word, he gets back to city hall in just over nineteen minutes, banner in hand. He grins when he sees the gingerbread model sitting just inside the Parks Department. “Oh my god,” he says as Ann approaches. “This is so cute.”
“I know, isn’t it?” she answers.
“Leslie’s going to love this. You guys are . . . wow. You guys are great.” He’s still struggling to find the perfect Christmas gift for Leslie and seeing this effort from her team isn’t making it any easier. But still, he’s glad for her. Glad that she’ll get this kind of treat from her friends.
“Thanks for the banner,” says Ann, taking it from his hands. “It’ll be the perfect way to announce our big surprise.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Bigger than this?” he gestures at the model. Because that’s going to be hard to top.
Ann grins and bounces on her heels. “Yes. We’re re-launching her campaign. All of us. Together. Isn’t it great?”
That’s when Ben starts to feel like the floor is sinking underneath his feet. “Why does her campaign need to be re-launched? What’s going on?”
Ann’s face falls. “You mean-she didn’t tell you?”
As Ann explains what happened with the poll and William and Elizabeth quitting and every person with campaign experience in Indiana turning down the job, Ben steps back and leans against the front counter, trying to steady himself so that the hole opening up in the floor doesn’t swallow him. Though, maybe he should let it.
This is all his fault. This is exactly what he’d been afraid of back in the summer, when he ended things. This is why he did it, damn it! And it hadn’t made one ounce of difference. The Ice Town Clown strikes again and another dream comes tumbling down.
Why is he thinking in rhyme? And is Ann still talking?
“What?”
“Oh-I figured it out,” says Ann, apparently answering her own question. “She probably didn’t tell you because you had that job interview this afternoon and she didn’t want to upset you before you went in.”
He gulps and nods. “Yeah. That’s-that’s probably why. She’s very thoughtful.”
“Yes. She is.” Ann frowns. “Are you okay? You look a little-”
“I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” He shakes his head. “This was a setback. But-uh-I can’t think of anything that’ll make her happier than having all of her friends running her campaign. This is really-really the best gift you could ever give her.” It blows his gift of sinking her to one percent in the polls right out of the water. God, that hole in the floor is getting even bigger. He thinks it’s starting to develop its own gravity well. He almost wonders why Ann isn’t falling into it, yet.
“Maybe you should sit down. I’ll get you a drink a of water.” Ann looks genuinely concerned, now. Crap. She shouldn’t be thinking about him right now. She needs to focus on Leslie. This is Leslie’s day. Leslie’s time. God damn it, this was supposed to be Leslie’s election to win.
He coughs and forces his body into a more upright position. He can handle this. “No. Nope. I’m good. Good good good. She’ll uh, be here soon. So you should just finish getting ready for the party, and, uh, I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”
“Hey Ben,” says Donna, strolling in. “You here for the party? We’re all picking out campaign jobs to announce. You gonna step up and manage this campaign for us? Because we don’t know what the hell we’re doing.”
“No!” Okay. That came out too strong. He coughs again, and Ann’s frown deepens. “Um, no. I-I-I think I need to talk to Leslie about that, first. Before I just-just-you know.”
Donna’s eyebrow shoots up. “Did you bump your head on the way in here, or something?”
“No.” He straightens his tie and lifts his chin. He’s got to pull himself together. “I’m fine. Perfectly fine. I’m leaving now. Good luck with the party-re-launch-thing.” He nods.
“You don’t want to stay?” asks Ann, still frowning. “You’re invited. You’ll always be invited to these things. You know that, right?”
Right. Of course. Great. “Um. Um. Tonight I think-” He thinks that if he stays here a second longer that black hole in the floor really will open up and swallow him, and probably the whole department along with him, leaving nothing but tattered ruins behind for Leslie to find. That’s what he did to her campaign already. He doesn’t intend to stick around and do it to her department, too. “I think this is a moment that you should all share with Leslie. Just the old gang. I’d only be in the way.”
Now Donna is frowning, too. “Ben-you really don’t look so good. Maybe you should sit down.”
“I’m fine,” he snaps. “And I’m leaving. Have fun. And . . . Goodbye.” He turns and scurries out of the department before they can think of a way to stop him, but his legs feel so weak that he doesn’t even make it around the corner before sinking into the nearest chair.
He sits there for several minutes, feeling nothing but the strength of that hole tugging at him-pulling him down into the blackness. Down, down, down . . .
He just gave up one of the best jobs he’s ever had to be with her. Because she’s worth it. But after this-this one percent debacle-things will change. She’s going to end up hating him for this. Maybe not tonight, but eventually. He was an idiot to think this would actually last. He’s not the the kind of guy who gets to live happily ever after. He never has been.
And in this case, it turns out he’s actually the poison apple that stopped the princess in her tracks. Now it’s up to the seven dwarves to get her up and going again. Well, them and the princess’s own natural pluck and never-say-die attitude. Lord knows there’s never been a woman who needs a Prince Charming to save her less than Leslie Knope.
After a few minutes of deep breathing he starts to get a grip on himself. (He hates to admit it, but the meditation breathing that Chris forced him to learn really does help, sometimes.) Maybe things aren’t so dire as he thought. Maybe Grumpy, Dopey, Happy and the gang can really pull off a miracle and bring Leslie’s campaign back to life. It’s not like she has any serious opponents to run against.
And maybe after giving her that first poison bite, he rolled off into a corner and magically transformed into an eighth dwarf. One that doesn’t work with the other dwarves, but still manages to make the princess happy when she gets home at the end of the day.
His analogy is falling apart faster than he can think it up, so he shakes his head and goes back to his slow breathing. He’s still out of work, but Leslie has a great job that she’ll get to go back to soon. He resigned in disgrace, but his resume is still impressive enough to yield good job offers, and eventually one of them will be worth accepting. Above all else, Leslie still has a devoted, loyal band of friends that will do anything to make her a contender again. And it’s up to him to step aside and let that happen. Because that’s what the extra dwarf does. He stays out of the way-just in case there’s still a trace of poison on him.
Leslie won’t hate him for this. Probably. Not if her friends can work the same sort of magic for her campaign that they did for the Harvest Festival. His fate is in their hands now. He just has to have faith.
When Leslie arrives on the scene a few minutes later, he gracefully steps aside and sends her in alone. He doesn’t belong here anymore and it’s time he got used to that.
~.~.~
It isn’t until he gets back to Leslie’s house that he realizes there’s no way on earth he’ll ever be able to top the Christmas gift her friends are giving her.
He sits in his car, staring at her dark house, wracking his brain for ideas and casting them aside one by one. The longer he sits stewing, staring at that dark house, the more frustrated he becomes. He’s really off to a bad start at being the eighth dwarf. He’s supposed to be the dwarf who keeps her happy at home while all the other dwarves are out running her campaign and god, he really needs to stop thinking about himself as a dwarf. He’s self-conscious enough about his height as it is. Maybe he needs to hang out with Tom more often, that might help with the height thing . . .
He shakes his head to clear away the distracting tangent and looks back up at the dark house. It wasn’t dark like this at Christmas time last year. He clearly remembers the vast array of lights outlining her windows, eaves and roof line as well as each and every tree and bush, not to be outdone by the 50% to scale light-up replica of Santa’s sleigh and eight tiny reindeer set up on her lawn. He’d been a little overwhelmed by it all when he showed up for her caroling party that year, back before he worked up the courage to tell her how he felt (though honestly she should have guessed something just by the fact that he willingly chose to attend a caroling party, because Ben simply does not sing). But this year, nothing. Not a single strand of twinkling lights. Between their reconciliation, the trial and everything that followed she must not have had time to set up her decorations. (He can’t imagine her forgoing them for any other reason.)
That’s it.
It’s hardly the greatest gift ever. But it’s something he can do immediately to stave off the return of the black hole from earlier. And it’ll be sure to put a smile on her face, if only for tonight.
Yet, more than an hour later he’s only managed to wrangle the sleigh and six reindeer (who knows what happened to the other two?) plus thirteen large rubber bins of other decorations out of the precarious labyrinth of container towers that is Leslie’s garage. (Ben really hopes a fourteenth bin turns up, because, although he’s not normally a superstitious man, today has been enough to make him want to cover all his bases.)
The sun long since went down, and he stares at the open bins sitting on the driveway in the dim light filtering out from the garage. He peers at them through the haze of his own breath freezing in the cold night air. Three of them are definitely full of the outdoor lights. But now that he’s looking at them, he realizes he has absolutely no idea how to hang Christmas lights on a house. Do you use nails, or are there some sort of proprietary hanging devices? And does he really need to check each strand for burned out bulbs, first, or is that just an urban myth?
He’s just lifted the first hopelessly tangled mass of lights out of a bin when Leslie pulls up and parks behind him.
Perfect timing.
He drops the lights back into their bin with a sigh and turns to wave and smile as Leslie steps out of her car.
“Hey, honey. What are you up to?” she asks, eyeing the bins with raised eyebrows.
Ben spreads his hands in defeat. “Well, like an idiot, I thought I could get your house decorated for you by the time you got home.”
She looks at him with a smug smile on her face. “You thought you could decorate the whole house in less than two hours? You’ve never hung Christmas lights before, have you?”
“Clearly not.” He shakes his head and turns back to array of bins and reindeer in front of him. So much for his Christmas surprise.
Leslie steps up beside him and wraps her arm around his waist, leaning into him. He feels better already. It still amazes him how quickly she can do that.
“Ted of Ted’s Lawn and Yard grew up just down the street from here,” she says in that tone of voice that announces she’s gone into anecdote-mode. “And when he started his business right out of high school with nothing but two lawn mowers and an old pickup truck, I was his first customer. When he added Christmas light installation to his list of services a year later, I let him use my house as his test house and it turned out so good he put a picture on his flyers. I’ve been hiring him every year since. And his business has really flourished. In fact, when I didn’t get around to calling him until after Thanksgiving, he was already fully booked for the season. But he referred me to his cousin Wally . . .”
“Wally? Do people seriously still name their kids Wally?” Ben can’t help but interject as he pulls Leslie a little closer. Why did he think she’d be upset with him? He can’t seem to remember.
“And Wally,” she continues unfazed, “is scheduled to come out and install my lights Monday morning. It takes about five hours for a team of two professionals, by the way.”
Of course it does.
She nudges him and looks up to meet his eyes. “But it was very sweet of you to try. It’s the thought that counts, right?”
“I hate that expression.”
“So do I,” she replies. “But it was still sweet. Thank you.”
He wonders if her smile will still make his heart leap like this in a year-or in five years. He really hopes it will. “You’re welcome.” He leans in for a soft kiss.
They hold each other for a minute before he works up the nerve to ask about the party.
“It was amazing. You should have been there. We had so much fun.”
“Yeah. Well . . .” He looks down at his feet. Having a serious discussion on the kind of negative impact he could have on the campaign would have dampened that fun considerably.
“Hey,” she says, “Ann told me that you freaked out a little when she told you about all the stuff with my campaign. I should have called you. I should have told you. I just didn’t know what to say.”
“It’s okay. I understand.” He understands perfectly. He hadn’t exactly been in a chatty mood when he was first informed of the motion to impeach him that had passed in Partridge city council.
“Did she also tell you that all my friends are stepping up to help run my campaign for me?” Her eyes glisten and her smile shines in the dim light. She’s still so full of hope and strength. If anyone can bounce back from this, it’s Leslie.
He nods. “She did. I think it’s fantastic. Now you can run the campaign your way, instead of following someone else’s orders. And everyone on your team will be committed one-hundred-percent. I’m really happy for you.”
Leslie squeezes her lips together and sucks in a deep breath through her nose before speaking again. “You don’t think you should be a part of it, do you?”
He’s glad she already guessed it, so he doesn’t have to break the bad news himself. He shakes his head. “No. I don’t think I should. Our relationship is the reason you’re polling at one percent, Leslie. Right now I’m-I’m poison to your campaign. I really wish I could help. I really, really do. But I think right now it would be best if I keep my distance. You get that, don’t you?”
She sighs and her shoulders slump. Some of the light goes out of her eyes. “I do. I do get it.” Her eyes flick back up to meet his. “I want you as a part of my team. But the last thing this campaign needs right now is more bad press. And-”
“And keeping me in the spotlight will do nothing but encourage the press to keep the scandal stories going. I need to stay out of it. At least for now.”
“Okay.” She looks down again. God, he hates seeing her disappointed like this. “You’re right. I hate it, but you’re right. For the time being, we’ll have to keep you out of the spotlight.”
Ben can feel the tug of that black hole again, so he reaches out to wrap his arms around Leslie. Maybe she’ll keep him from falling in. “It’s for the best,” he murmurs.
“I know,” she whispers back.
He clings to her, fighting to hold back the darkness. And wondering how the hell he’s going to get all those bins back into the garage without knocking something over. However, for that task, at least, he and Leslie can work as a team.
He’s not yet sure how he’ll stand not being on her team for anything else.
5: Things He Can Do
Flat on his back, Ben grips Leslie’s thighs where they curve into her ass and lifts his head ever-so-slightly at the same time, grinding her more intensely against his mouth. Thrills run through him when she responds with a suitably happy gasp and grips the headboard a little tighter.
He loves seeing her like this-her soft curves stretching up over his face, her breasts dangling above him, her exclamations of pleasure falling down on him like gifts from a goddess on high. Jerry has no idea how close to the mark he came with that ridiculous painting. Ben quickly pushes aside all thoughts of Jerry (who is really the absolute last thing he should be thinking about right now) and thrusts his tongue inside of her a few times before returning to her clit, sucking it between his lips and rolling his tongue across it as Leslie moans and arches her pelvis toward him, wordlessly asking for more.
She had her first official campaign meeting with her new team tonight.
They met at Ann’s house while he waited here on Leslie’s couch, flipping channels and trying not to think about all the advice he could give them and all the ways he could help. Naturally, he couldn’t think about anything else.
When she got home she tried to make small talk, only mentioning a few generalities about the meeting rather than delving into specifics and then quickly changing the subject. Ben knew she was was trying to avoid a touchy subject. Trying to spare his feelings.
Does she really expect to avoid talking about the campaign for the next five months, when it’ll be the center of her life? What the hell else are they supposed to talk about?
Even with her dodging the topic he could see the excitement and joy in her expression. He didn’t want to pick a fight. No-he wanted to keep that excitement going.
He can’t help her with work projects anymore. And he can’t help with her campaign. But this. This he can do.
As her exclamations begin to crescendo he’s as hard as he’s ever been and longing for release. But it’s not about him. Not now. So he focuses all his attention on every little touch-every maneuver of his tongue and lips and fingers-everything he can do to keep her riding her high.
A few moments later she reaches her peak, shuddering and crying out, her muscles going tense. He tries to hold her in place-to pull her in for more-but she squirms out of his hands and tumbles to the bed beside him, resting her head against his thigh and propping her feet up against the headboard as she grins at him.
Yes. It’s still there. That light in her eyes. The excitement. The joy.
How long can he make it last? And can he find a way to make her eyes shine brighter than they did after her campaign meeting? Even if he doesn’t manage it tonight, he intends to keep trying.
“Mmmm. God that was nice.” Her voice sounds rough and low and relaxed and he knows he did that to her.
Yes, this he can do. “You’re welcome.”
She rolls to angle her body toward him and reaches out to run her fingertips along his cock. Lord, that feels fantastic. But not yet. Tonight is still all about her.
He shifts away from her touch, sitting up and pulling her face up for a kiss. Making out with Leslie has been a thrill from the very first time, and he goes slow. No need to rush.
After a few minutes he lays her down on the bed and stretches out beside her. After another lingering kiss he dips his head to her breast and drags his tongue over her nipple before sucking it between his lips. She gasps when he slides a hand up between her legs.
“I thought it was your turn,” she says.
“I’m not done with you yet,” he replies before shifting his attention to her other nipple and sliding first two and then three fingers inside of her, slowly fucking her with his fingers and gently massaging her clit with his thumb at the same time.
She twists her fingers through his hair gasping and moaning his name as he kisses his way up and down her torso.
If he never finds anything better than a dull hum-drum job, it won’t matter. He’ll be a happy man as long as he’s the one who gets to do this to Leslie Knope.
It doesn’t take long to push her over the edge this time. By the time he gets back to her nipples she’s right on the verge. “I love you so much,” he murmurs.
“I love you. I love you,” she gasps out as he thrusts his fingers faster.
He pulls her nipple back into his mouth, lightly nipping with his teeth, and she tilts her hips up, thrusting against his hand. In an instant he feels her muscles tighten around his fingers and hears her cry out.
He’s never, ever going to get sick of this.
She’s sleepy, now, and he lets her curl up against him, her warm body wrapping around his as they exchange a few soft, short kisses.
He may never be her partner in anything but this, again. It’s a thought that sometimes keeps him up at night. He knows he’ll still love her, even if they can’t work together. But he has his moments of fear when he wonders if just this will be enough for her.
She makes a contented hum and smiles as she snuggles her cheek against his chest and he thinks that he’s being foolish.
She loves him. She chose him. He shouldn’t worry. Still-making this part as good as possible certainly won’t do any harm.
She runs her hand down his torso and wraps her fingers around his length. He’s already getting soft.
“You still haven’t had your turn,” she says.
He kisses her forehead. “Don’t worry about it. This was really good for me. I don’t need that every time. If you’re sleepy we can just cuddle. I really like this part-remember?”
“Yes,” she says, sitting up a little, “but I like that other part, too. I like all the parts.”
“Leslie, you don’t-”
But that’s when she bends down and her lips close around his cock, sucking him deep inside. And, as usual, that’s also when his brain shuts down to everything but the unbelievable pleasure.
His eyes close as he lies back, reveling in the sensation.
A few minutes later she shifts to straddle him, and he smiles up at her as his goddess slides down onto him, rocking up and down with an ethereal smile on her face.
How did he ever get so lucky?
He doesn’t last much longer, his final burst of pleasure leaving a wave of peace and happy exhaustion in its wake.
Leslie lies down on top of him, keeping their bodies joined. As he holds her close, he can’t imagine anything else on earth that could make him this happy.
A while later (he’s lost track of time) they manage to stumble to the bathroom and clean up before settling down for the night.
After they snuggle back under the covers, Leslie says, “Hey-I’m finally putting out a press release to address all the media stories about our relationship. I have a draft finished, but I was wondering if you could look it over and help me polish it up before I send it out. You wouldn’t mind, would you?”
Ben blinks in surprise, his brain waking back up a little. “Of course I wouldn’t mind. William and Elizabeth should have let you do this right after the trial. It’s about time.”
“Yes, they should have,” replies Leslie, unable to hide the note of bitterness in her voice. “But it’s never too late, right?”
“Right. I could look at it now, if you want.” Finally, something more he can do to help her. He’ll stay up all night, if she asks.
She shakes her head and squeezes his hand. “No. You’re tired. It can wait until morning.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
He lies staring at the ceiling, his mind spinning with all the ways to phrase things in a press release and brainstorming specific rebuttals to the information in the some of the news stories. “I don’t think I can sleep,” he admits softly after a few minutes.
“Me neither. Do you want to go work on it right now?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
They hop out of bed and head downstairs. Ben’s heart feels lighter than it has in days. Finally. This-this is something he can do.
Not done yet! Find the rest right here!
.
Author: jncar
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~12,500
Summary: For the Behind Closed Doors Challenge at leslie_ben. Fills the prompt: “4.Consolidation: How do we get from the high drama of their reunion to them working together as a team again? What was that like in private? From the night after Smallest Park and The Trial of Leslie Knope → The Comeback Kid.” Ben’s perspective.
Author’s Note: Let me apologize in advance for being that girl. You know, the girl who, when given the chance to write some fun sexy-time scenes just had to surround her 3,000 words of sexy times with 9,000 words of relationship issues and introspection? Yeah. That’s me. Sorry. I’m compulsively long-winded. Even in my author’s notes. (Oh, and I recycled/tweaked a ficlet I posted a few months ago for the first section of this fic, so if it feels familiar, that's why.)
I’ll be out of town with limited internet access all weekend, but I’m excited to talk Behind Closed Doors with you all when I get back! And much thanks to shornt for her encouraging words and hand-holding when I wrote explicit sex (which I still feel terribly self-conscious about). Thanks!
1: After the Park
He's probably going to get fired for this.
The thought doesn't hit him until about a half an hour after Leslie falls asleep. The room is quiet and peaceful; he hears nothing but the soft sound of her breath.
This is the first time he's ever watched her fall asleep. Sometimes-in those days that felt so far away yesterday and feel so very close tonight-he'd woken up in the middle of the night and listened to her sleep-mumbling, but he'd always been the one to fall asleep first. Until tonight.
That's how he knows just how emotionally draining this week must have been for her.
For both of them, really.
When he went to meet her in that park he'd never imagined that she'd throw caution to the wind like this. He'd never imagined she'd be more afraid of losing him than she was of losing her job, her reputation, her campaign . . . of losing Pawnee.
A part of him bitterly wishes she'd made this choice four months ago so he didn't have to go through the torture of their separation. But the more rational part of him knows that sometimes you have to lose something to realize how much it means to you.
So here they are.
He feels like his whole body rises and falls with the rhythm of her breath.
And he's probably going to get fired.
In a way he's been waiting for this for most of a year. He's been balancing on the edge of a precipice, waiting for Leslie to say the word so he could jump. Maybe that's why he never put many personal items in his office. He never thought of it as permanent. Not as long as the Leslie possibility existed. He'd been ready to lose his job the very first time he took her in his arms and kissed her. But he knew even then that she was worth the risk.
Before that amazing first month was out she'd told him that he was worth the risk, too. At least, the risk to her job. What she doesn't know-what he's never wanted to explain to her-is that her job was never at as much risk as his. She never would have gotten more than a slap on the wrist. The rule they'd chosen to flaunt wasn't created to prevent subordinates from buying favors with sex (that was one result of the rule, but not the intent). No-the rule primarily existed to protect subordinates from bosses who wanted to coerce them into sex with threats or bribe them into sex with special favors. And it existed to protect the public from corrupt officials who chose to grant favors based on sexual relationships.
The rule existed to protect subordinates. And the public. From officials who had affairs with their employees. From people like him.
He'd never wanted to explain that to her. He still doesn't plan to. Let her have the comfort of believing they'll be treated-and punished-equally as they move forward with this.
No. When he first kissed her, the risk had mostly been his. He never would have done it, otherwise.
They'd been together for just over a month when her nighttime mumblings evolved into something more than just mumblings and he discovered that her ambitions of "someday" had morphed into "today." That's when he'd realized that she had just as much at stake as he did. Maybe even more at stake.
He'd thought she could never love him as much as she loved Pawnee. He couldn't let himself be the reason Pawnee never loved her back.
That was more than she should have to risk. Probably-he'd reluctantly admitted to himself-more than she'd be willing to risk.
And after a few horrible days of deliberation, he'd started designing a campaign logo in his spare time and went shopping for buttons.
Yet, months later, here they are. In her bed.
God, he hopes she doesn't regret this in the morning.
He closes his eyes and takes a few deep, slow breaths. When he opens them, she's still there. It really did happen. She really did choose him.
What now?
In the cold light of day, will she still choose him over city council? He's still not sure he can forgive himself if he's what costs her the election.
Is this really worth it? Is it?
She snorts and stirs, and then her eyes flutter open as she gasps. Her eyes lock on his and she sighs. A happy, contented sound.
"You're still here," she whispers.
"Where else would I be?"
She quirks her mouth in a tight-lipped smile, but the lines around her eyes speak of pain. "I've been having dreams that we were together again. But then I'd wake up alone. It really sucked."
He holds his breath for a moment as his fingertips trace the outline of her shoulder and then graze along her jaw before coming to rest on the tip of her chin.
She's so beautiful.
"I think sucked is an understatement," he whispers back, resolving never to tell her that he's been polishing up his résumé just in case cutting off contact with the Parks Department wasn't enough to ease the pain.
Her smile is real this time, lighting up her whole face. Her eyes shine like fireflies. "I'm happy. Really happy," she says.
His chest tightens. He lets out his breath slowly and his whole body starts to relax. Okay, then.
Now he knows. There's no going back, this time. No more doubting. Time to move forward and face whatever's coming.
He's probably going to get fired.
Her campaign might be over.
Things won't be perfect, and this relationship will be far from easy.
But life is happening. The life he dreamed of when he took a chance and kissed her all those months ago.
Come what may, they're in this together now.
"Me too," he whispers back. And he means it.
2: Trial Prep
"I think you've got it," he says. "Stick to your talking points. Be straightforward and honest. Don't try to waffle out of answering any of their questions. You'll be fine."
"Okay." She shifts a throw pillow out of her way and curls her legs up to sit on her knees as she faces him.
They're perched on the window seat in his bedroom. When he first moved in, it had been nothing more than a hard drywall ledge. However, once he'd purchased a few necessities for normal adult existence (a bed and a dresser, for starters) his eyes had started drifting to the ledge and his mind had been led into a flight of fancy involving a certain blonde co-worker sneaking in and out of that window late at night, complete with make-out sessions on the window seat. And making out on a hard drywall ledge would be no fun at all. So he purchased a whole set of color-coordinated cushions and throw pillows in the hope of someday making his fantasy a reality.
Leslie had only spent two nights in his room during their initial relationship (both while Andy and April were away at parties with Mouse Rat), and they hadn't made it to the window seat on either of those nights.
Over the past few days, Ben has been doing his best to make up for that deficiency. The making out was great. But there was only enough room for actual sex when she was sitting in his lap. Not that he had any complaints about that position. Or any position, really, as long as they could do it together.
"Let me practice my opening statement one more time," says Leslie, pulling a pillow into her lap and squeezing it like her life depends on it.
They've practiced this at least a dozen times already, but if this is what it takes for her to feel more comfortable with what they'll be facing tomorrow, Ben will gladly listen to it a dozen more times. "Go for it." He restrains himself from resting a hand on her thigh, because, apparently, she has trouble focusing when he's touching her. (Or so she told him a few hours ago when he was trying to review talking points for the hearing and giving her a back rub at the same time.)
She takes a deep breath. "I freely admit to the relationship, and I will not be fighting the charges that we violated Chris's rule. But we did nothing else wrong or unethical." She punctuates her statement with a nod.
"Perfect," Ben replies, finally letting not just one but both of his hands slide up her thighs. "Do it just like that in the morning and you'll get the whole hearing off on the right foot. If all goes well, you'll be done by lunch time." God he hopes he's right. Please let Chris go easy on them, for old-time's sake.
But the knot in his gut reminds him that Chris never does anything just for old time's sake. At least, not where government ethics are concerned. Still, he feels confident that the end result of Leslie's hearing will be the slap-on-the-wrist he first predicted all those months ago. The end of his own hearing, on the other hand . . . Well, he won't worry about that tonight.
Leslie's answering smile is strained. The past few days have been hard on them both, dealing with the ups of being reunited and sharing the good news with all their friends and the downs of worrying about what the hearings might bring. At least they have a whole gang of people ready to jump to their defense. Having so many people on his side is a new sensation for Ben, and while he knows that they're there more for Leslie than for him, it still feels kind of . . . magical.
She squeezes his hands and looks down. "I should probably go home. If I stay here I won't be able to stop talking and neither of us will get any sleep."
Ben nods. They certainly haven't been getting much sleep the past few nights, cuddled up beside each other, talking until the wee hours of the morning. And if they've ever needed a good night's sleep, they need it tonight.
So as much as he'd like to spend another night cuddled up together, instead he kisses her forehead and walks her out for what is only their second night apart since they reconciled.
Naturally, April shouts, "Ewww!" and covers her eyes as they step out of his room, loudly demanding to know whether or not they're naked. Ben supposes he'd better get used to this. He doesn't see it changing anytime soon.
He lets out a deep sigh as soon as he closes the door behind Leslie. He misses her already. If only there was something he could do to make this whole process easier for her.
And then it hits him-he has just the thing.
Back in his room he reaches under his bed to find the fluffy stuffed animal he tossed down there sometime early in August.
He pulls it out and shakes off the dust.
He ordered the plush re-creation of Li'l Sebastian a few days after the funeral, before he discovered Leslie's determination to run for office. But he didn't get the call from the toy store to let him know it was ready to pick up until five days after the break-up.
At first he'd thought about not picking it up. But since he'd paid in advance, it seemed a shame to let his money go to waste. He'd thought about saving it for a "Congratulations on your election" gift for Leslie. He'd thought about giving it to his niece for Christmas. He'd even thought about anonymously leaving it at the Li'l Sebastian memorial as a tribute to the dear departed beast. (Honestly, he still doesn't get it.)
Instead he'd brought it home, took a long look at the picture of him and Leslie together at the Harvest Festival that still hung over his desk, and ended up sleeping with the damn thing for over a week. Eventually he reminded himself that stuffed animals and imaginary friends do not (contrary to the belief of six-year-olds everywhere) make everything all better, and he'd chucked it under his bed. It's been there ever since.
If this doesn't lift Leslie's spirits before her hearing, nothing will.
After he finishes brushing the dust off, he tosses it in the dryer with a fabric softener sheet for a quick low-heat tumble, just to fluff and freshen it a bit. Finally he ends up back in his room touching up the mane and tail with his hair comb.
On the one hand he feels a little insane for combing the hair of a stuffed toy for his girlfriend, but on the other hand this seems downright normal in comparison to quitting his job of twelve years and settling down primarily to be near a woman who might only think of him as a pal, and it looks like the picture of perfect sanity when put up against publicly weeping in a Batman suit. (He doesn't think he'll ever live that one down.) So he keeps on combing until he gets it just right.
Before turning in he sets his alarm for five-forty-five. That ought to give him plenty of time to beat Leslie to city hall in the morning. Right?
But he doesn't beat her there. And the hearing isn't over by lunchtime. And when he sees George Williams walk into the council chambers, he realizes that there might be a lot more in store for Leslie than a slap on the wrist.
Unless he does something to stop it.
The instant he sees Chris and the ethics committee filing out of the room, he rises to his feet and heads straight for them.
It looks like he won't have to wait until tomorrow to learn the fate of his job, after all. Because he's about to take fate by the reigns and tell it exactly where to go.
3: There's Only One Way to Say . . .
Ben can't stop grinning the whole way to Ethel's house.
She loves him. Leslie loves him.
He'd already been pretty sure. (He certainly hoped she wouldn't put her career and future in jeopardy for a guy she just really really liked.) But hearing it read out loud from an official government document-well, that was pretty mind-blowingly incredible.
She didn't just tell him she loved him. She made sure her declaration was inscribed as part of the permanent record of the city she's dedicated her life to.
"I love him with all of my heart."
Holy god.
His heart races in his chest as he walks back to the car after escorting Ethel to her door, and as soon as he slides into the passenger seat he can't stop himself from reaching out to touch Leslie. From pulling her close. From kissing her mouth … her cheeks … her forehead … her mouth again …
"Your place or mine?" says Leslie when he dips down to her neck.
He doesn't like pulling back from her, but she does have a good point. They can't exactly make out in front of Ethel's house all night. "Uh, Andy and April are home. They're still not too great with the whole privacy thing, and I really don't want to have to worry about keeping our volume down tonight." No-his roommates are absolutely the last thing he wants to be thinking about when he finally gets Leslie alone.
Her grin sparkles in the moonlight. "My place, then." She shifts the car into drive and peels away from the curb at considerably faster than the speed limit.
He rests his hand on her thigh as they drive, lightly rubbing along the length of it, because he can't imagine not touching her right now. She babbles a little about Chris's apology and Tammy Swanson's aborted shenanigans and something about Jerry really being named "Gerry" (seriously?) and he smiles and nods and probably injects a few words of his own, though he'd be hard pressed to remember them later on. Because, really, all he can think about is Leslie's official declaration.
"I, Leslie Knope, love Ben Wyatt. I love him with all of my heart."
Yet, the more he replays the words in his mind, the more he wishes he'd heard them in Leslie's confident tones rather than Ethel's weathered and gravelly voice.
He wants to hear her say it.
As soon as they get inside and shuck their coats he circles his arms around her waist and draws her close, rocking a little in an almost-dance.
“So,” he says. “It sounds like there was some pretty interesting testimony today?”
“Yeah, that Jerry/Gerry thing still has me reeling,” she says, toying with his tie. From the twinkle in her eyes he’s pretty sure that she knows exactly what he’s doing.
He reaches up with one hand to pluck the hat from her head and tosses it onto the sofa. “That one is a doozy, but it’s not quite the part I had in mind.”
As he smooths out her rumpled hair, she finishes loosening his tie and slips it up over his head while she replies. “Well, April put on a good show. But we probably should have coached her a little more.” She starts in on his shirt buttons and he lets his hands trail along her hips until he reaches the front of her trousers.
“We should have done a lot of things better,” he murmurs, briefly wondering if a little more witness prep would have made any difference at all, and almost instantly concluding that it would not have. “But that still wasn’t the particular testimony I’m thinking of.” He unlatches her trousers and pulls the zipper down.
He tugs just a little and the trousers fall down around her ankles. Laughing, she steps back to kick them and her shoes off to the side. “Maybe you’re thinking of Tammy Swanson?” She steps back in to finish his buttons.
“Lord, no. I think of her as little as possible.”
Leslie finishes his buttons and pushes his shirt off his shoulders. Her small hand resting in the center of his chest makes it very hard to think about any woman other than the one standing right in front of him. His breath shakes a little as their eyes meet, and the need to kiss her suddenly outweighs his need to keep up his little game.
It’s the same kiss it’s always been-soft yet eager, with the sweet taste of her fruity lip gloss lingering on his tongue. But tonight that familiar kiss feels so much more . . . more . . . more something, he’s not quite sure what. Just more.
Because tonight, he knows.
“Mmmm,” she hums against his lips before leaning back and tugging his shirt the rest of the way off his arms. “I think the testimony that came in that private meeting of yours was the part that interested me the most,” she says, getting right to the point with both her words and her hands as she unbuckles his belt and unbuttons his pants.
He grins and helps her slide out of her blazer. “I don’t know. I think that the final page of testimony was the highlight.” He fingers the hem of her blouse while wiggling his feet out of his shoes.
“They were both pretty good,” she replies with a look in her eyes that makes him want to surrender immediately. But he was never one to go down without a fight.
After kicking his shoes aside he pulls her blouse off over her head and pulls Leslie tight against his body again, burying his face in her hair and breathing deep. She runs her hands over the bare strip of skin between his undershirt and his now-sagging pants, and he lets out a slow breath. He wants to do this forever-for the rest of his life, if she’ll have him.
“I just wish I got to hear it firsthand,” he murmurs before kissing her cheek and then her jaw and then moving down to her neck.
She sighs and leans into him, sliding her hands further up his back leaving a trail of warmth in their wake. “I still can’t believe what you did for me. No other guy I’ve ever been with would have done something like that.”
This is something that Ben has always found unfathomable. Why haven’t a dozen guys seen in her what he sees? Well-that bright side to that unanswerable question is that she was still free when he fell for her. A fact he’ll forever be grateful for. He lifts his head to look into her eyes. “I’d do it a hundred more times if I had to.” He pauses, his practical mind intruding on his romantic sentiments. “Though I do hope I never have to.”
“I’d do it for you, too,” she replies without hesitation. And when she says it, he actually believes it.
Suddenly his little game doesn’t seem to matter anymore, because no matter who says those three little words first, they’ll both win.
It’s been so long since he said these words to a woman other than his mother. He thought he’d be nervous, or even frightened. But he’s not. Not with Leslie.
“I love you.” It slides out of his lips as naturally as taking a breath.
“I love you, too,” she replies with shining eyes and soft smile.
The words settle over him like a warm blanket on a cold night. His whole chest swells with emotion. He’s still not entirely sure how he managed to win the heart of the most amazing woman he’s ever known, but he’ll never, ever, take it for granted.
He cradles her neck with his hand and kisses her with everything that’s in his heart. He kisses her like it’s the first time and the last. Like he’ll never do anything but this again.
She clings to his back with one hand, and uses the other to finish pushing his pants to the floor.
Ben smiles against her lips and kicks the pants out of the way before grabbing her hips and pulling her close, grinding against her. God, everything about this moment feels so amazingly good. Somewhere in the back of his mind he still knows that he just quit his job and he’ll have to deal with the fallout of that sometime soon, but right now all that seems to matter is making love to Leslie.
She stumbles backward a little under the force of his kisses, and he steadies her, backing her up against the nearby front door. She gasps as her warm skin hits the cool wood of the door.
Impulsively, Ben grasps her upper thighs and lifts her, bracing her against the door. Leslie laughs and follows his lead, wrapping her legs around his waist. “This is fun,” she says, grinning.
“Oh yeah?” He already feels slightly off balance, but if she’s into it there’s no way he’s backing down now.
“Yes,” she replies, grinning mischievously and sliding a hand down his shorts to pull his dick up over the elastic band.
He was hard before, and he gets even harder under her touch. “Wow. Okay.” So they’re actually doing this, now. He shifts his weight a little, edging her a little higher, trying to maneuver all the parts into place.
“Um, I think we have a problem,” he says, looking down to study the dilemma.
Leslie looks down, too. “I’m still wearing my panties.”
“Yeah.”
She tilts her head and meets his eyes with a raised eyebrow. “How did we miss that detail?”
“Not sure.” He shakes his head.
“Um-maybe if I tug on them little this way . . .” She wriggles her hand around her underwear, shifting and tugging. “. . . then maybe you could sneak into the side . . .” She tries to angle his dick past the obstacle in question, but the elastic immediately digs in, considerably dampening the potential pleasure.
Ben frowns. “I don’t think this is going to work. Clearly I didn’t think it through before acting.”
Leslie begins to laugh, and Ben can’t help but join her as he lowers her back to the ground. “Well, that was a pathetic attempt at sexual experimentation,” he says, running his fingers through his hair and tucking his bits and pieces back inside his shorts.
Still grinning, Leslie circles her arms around his neck. “You should know by now, I don’t need a lot of wild experimentation. I just need you.”
He wraps his arms arms around her waist, his embarrassment melting away. “I feel exactly the same way.”
“Then let’s head up to bed where we can do this thing for real. And then we can snuggle. I’m in the mood for lots of snuggling.” Her smile is soft and radiant.
His whole body feels light, like he’ll float away if he doesn’t keep his arms around her. “God, I love you.”
“I know,” she replies, sliding back a step to take his hand and lead him upstairs. “Me too.”
4: Poison
Ben heaves a sigh and tosses the latest issue of the Pawnee Journal down on the coffee table, adding it to the pile of local papers already sitting there. “Six days, now. Six days with our relationship and my resignation as the top story. When do you think they’ll finally move on? Next year, maybe?”
“Well, they did cover that kid going to the Olympics for an entire year,” replies Leslie with a shrug, linking her arm with his and snuggling a little closer to him on the couch. “And he wasn’t even competing. He literally just went to watch the Olympics.”
“Great,” he moans.
She shrugs again. “It is what it is. We knew this would happen and it won’t last forever. I’m sure something will come along soon to distract them.”
Ben admires her optimism. She’s been in a much better mood since she put together her citizen’s action group. At least one of them is. Ben’s taste of private-sector job hunting so far has been less than appetizing.
He frowns. “Wait a minute . . .” The full implications of her last statement start to dawn on him. “You aren’t planning on creating some kind of distraction, are you?”
Leslie grins. “My PCP team is proving to be very good at distracting people. And very good at blindly following orders. I’m sure I could come up with something.”
This is absolutely the last thing they need right now. Heaping another scandal on top of the one they already face will doom her campaign for sure. “Leslie . . .”
She continues to grin at him with a gleam in her eye. He stops himself. “You’re just kidding.”
“I got you.” She snickers triumphantly.
“Yes, you did.”
He’s relieved to see that it’s just her sense of humor acting up, rather than her thrown-together neighborhood militia. His eyes drift back to the stack of newspapers emblazoned with phrases like: “Resigns in Disgrace” and “Candidate Canoodles.”
He doesn’t know how many more days of this her campaign can afford to take.
“I know I’ve asked this already, but are William and Elizabeth really sure about this media-silence thing? I still think some sort of press release-or maybe an interview-”
“They were adamant I keep quiet until after the polling data comes in. And I have to respect their wishes.” Leslie parrots back the same response she’s been giving him all week.
Well, he had to try.
Leslie slides her hand along his thigh-an action that never fails to get him more than a little excited. “So,” she says, “we might not be able to distract the press tonight, but I can think of a few ways to distract ourselves.” She wags her eyebrows at him, and he grins.
Since their reunion, Leslie has made it abundantly clear just how much she missed the physical aspects of being with him, and he feels no shame at all in taking full advantage of the situation. “What did you have mind?”
She stares up at him through her eyelashes, putting on her most seductive face. “I think that John and Abigail have been apart for a very long time, and they’re ready for happy reunion.”
Ben can’t stop his eyes from going wide. Though they enjoyed some lighthearted role play several times during their initial relationship, this is the first time either of them have suggested it since their reunion. And this particular scenario-John and Abigail Adams separated by the Atlantic Ocean for two years during his work as a diplomat in France-hits very close to home.
Leslie drops her eyes and shakes her head. “Sorry. That was stupid. I wasn’t-”
Ben reaches out and lifts her chin. “Abigail,” he whispers, his voice thick with real emotion, “during this eternity apart from you I felt like a man adrift on the ocean without a single drop of fresh water to drink.”
The corners of Leslie’s mouth twitch up. “My dearest, most loved friend-without you I was a flower in the desert, wilting in the heat.”
Ben smiles back, his heart swelling in his chest. “It seems to me that what both of us need is a drink of water.”
Her eyes shine as she answers, “Exactly.”
Her kiss quenches his thirst better than any water ever could.
~.~.~
Ben still goes to his second interview at that accounting firm and when they make him an offer (a pretty good, one, too) he tells them he needs a day to think about it. Because even though the job doesn’t excite him, taking the offer would be the responsible thing to do and he’s been in the habit of doing the responsible thing for a very long time. Well-the habit’s been slipping a little lately. Make that a lot. And no, he does not decide against it because of Jean-Ralphio. But the longer he thinks, the more convinced he is that Leslie’s right: if it’s not really what he wants, he needs to take a month and see what else comes up. (Fine, so maybe Jean-Ralphio is right, too. But he will never admit it in public. Or in private. Or ever, anywhere, outside his own head.)
They’re disappointed when he calls to turn them down, but Ben can live with it. He feels anxious and reckless and a little dizzy when he hangs up the phone. But in a good way. (At least he thinks it’s good.)
The anxiety persists long enough that he literally jumps when his phone rings a few minutes later and he answers without checking the caller ID. “He-hello?” The phone nearly slips out of his fingers. He really needs to get a grip on himself.
“Hey, does Leslie have any of those over-sized campaign banners in her house?”
Ben blinks a few times and has to think for a moment to figure out that it’s Ann on the other end of the call, and why is she asking about campaign banners? “Uh, yeah. She has a few, I think.”
“Of course she does. Perfect. Do you have time to bring one over to city hall? Like, right now? I want to hang it up for our Parks Department Christmas party tonight.”
It seems like an odd choice of decoration to Ben, but he supposes he could see why it might make Leslie happy. And he was already on his way to her house for the evening, so why not? “Sure. I’ll be there in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
True to his word, he gets back to city hall in just over nineteen minutes, banner in hand. He grins when he sees the gingerbread model sitting just inside the Parks Department. “Oh my god,” he says as Ann approaches. “This is so cute.”
“I know, isn’t it?” she answers.
“Leslie’s going to love this. You guys are . . . wow. You guys are great.” He’s still struggling to find the perfect Christmas gift for Leslie and seeing this effort from her team isn’t making it any easier. But still, he’s glad for her. Glad that she’ll get this kind of treat from her friends.
“Thanks for the banner,” says Ann, taking it from his hands. “It’ll be the perfect way to announce our big surprise.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Bigger than this?” he gestures at the model. Because that’s going to be hard to top.
Ann grins and bounces on her heels. “Yes. We’re re-launching her campaign. All of us. Together. Isn’t it great?”
That’s when Ben starts to feel like the floor is sinking underneath his feet. “Why does her campaign need to be re-launched? What’s going on?”
Ann’s face falls. “You mean-she didn’t tell you?”
As Ann explains what happened with the poll and William and Elizabeth quitting and every person with campaign experience in Indiana turning down the job, Ben steps back and leans against the front counter, trying to steady himself so that the hole opening up in the floor doesn’t swallow him. Though, maybe he should let it.
This is all his fault. This is exactly what he’d been afraid of back in the summer, when he ended things. This is why he did it, damn it! And it hadn’t made one ounce of difference. The Ice Town Clown strikes again and another dream comes tumbling down.
Why is he thinking in rhyme? And is Ann still talking?
“What?”
“Oh-I figured it out,” says Ann, apparently answering her own question. “She probably didn’t tell you because you had that job interview this afternoon and she didn’t want to upset you before you went in.”
He gulps and nods. “Yeah. That’s-that’s probably why. She’s very thoughtful.”
“Yes. She is.” Ann frowns. “Are you okay? You look a little-”
“I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” He shakes his head. “This was a setback. But-uh-I can’t think of anything that’ll make her happier than having all of her friends running her campaign. This is really-really the best gift you could ever give her.” It blows his gift of sinking her to one percent in the polls right out of the water. God, that hole in the floor is getting even bigger. He thinks it’s starting to develop its own gravity well. He almost wonders why Ann isn’t falling into it, yet.
“Maybe you should sit down. I’ll get you a drink a of water.” Ann looks genuinely concerned, now. Crap. She shouldn’t be thinking about him right now. She needs to focus on Leslie. This is Leslie’s day. Leslie’s time. God damn it, this was supposed to be Leslie’s election to win.
He coughs and forces his body into a more upright position. He can handle this. “No. Nope. I’m good. Good good good. She’ll uh, be here soon. So you should just finish getting ready for the party, and, uh, I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”
“Hey Ben,” says Donna, strolling in. “You here for the party? We’re all picking out campaign jobs to announce. You gonna step up and manage this campaign for us? Because we don’t know what the hell we’re doing.”
“No!” Okay. That came out too strong. He coughs again, and Ann’s frown deepens. “Um, no. I-I-I think I need to talk to Leslie about that, first. Before I just-just-you know.”
Donna’s eyebrow shoots up. “Did you bump your head on the way in here, or something?”
“No.” He straightens his tie and lifts his chin. He’s got to pull himself together. “I’m fine. Perfectly fine. I’m leaving now. Good luck with the party-re-launch-thing.” He nods.
“You don’t want to stay?” asks Ann, still frowning. “You’re invited. You’ll always be invited to these things. You know that, right?”
Right. Of course. Great. “Um. Um. Tonight I think-” He thinks that if he stays here a second longer that black hole in the floor really will open up and swallow him, and probably the whole department along with him, leaving nothing but tattered ruins behind for Leslie to find. That’s what he did to her campaign already. He doesn’t intend to stick around and do it to her department, too. “I think this is a moment that you should all share with Leslie. Just the old gang. I’d only be in the way.”
Now Donna is frowning, too. “Ben-you really don’t look so good. Maybe you should sit down.”
“I’m fine,” he snaps. “And I’m leaving. Have fun. And . . . Goodbye.” He turns and scurries out of the department before they can think of a way to stop him, but his legs feel so weak that he doesn’t even make it around the corner before sinking into the nearest chair.
He sits there for several minutes, feeling nothing but the strength of that hole tugging at him-pulling him down into the blackness. Down, down, down . . .
He just gave up one of the best jobs he’s ever had to be with her. Because she’s worth it. But after this-this one percent debacle-things will change. She’s going to end up hating him for this. Maybe not tonight, but eventually. He was an idiot to think this would actually last. He’s not the the kind of guy who gets to live happily ever after. He never has been.
And in this case, it turns out he’s actually the poison apple that stopped the princess in her tracks. Now it’s up to the seven dwarves to get her up and going again. Well, them and the princess’s own natural pluck and never-say-die attitude. Lord knows there’s never been a woman who needs a Prince Charming to save her less than Leslie Knope.
After a few minutes of deep breathing he starts to get a grip on himself. (He hates to admit it, but the meditation breathing that Chris forced him to learn really does help, sometimes.) Maybe things aren’t so dire as he thought. Maybe Grumpy, Dopey, Happy and the gang can really pull off a miracle and bring Leslie’s campaign back to life. It’s not like she has any serious opponents to run against.
And maybe after giving her that first poison bite, he rolled off into a corner and magically transformed into an eighth dwarf. One that doesn’t work with the other dwarves, but still manages to make the princess happy when she gets home at the end of the day.
His analogy is falling apart faster than he can think it up, so he shakes his head and goes back to his slow breathing. He’s still out of work, but Leslie has a great job that she’ll get to go back to soon. He resigned in disgrace, but his resume is still impressive enough to yield good job offers, and eventually one of them will be worth accepting. Above all else, Leslie still has a devoted, loyal band of friends that will do anything to make her a contender again. And it’s up to him to step aside and let that happen. Because that’s what the extra dwarf does. He stays out of the way-just in case there’s still a trace of poison on him.
Leslie won’t hate him for this. Probably. Not if her friends can work the same sort of magic for her campaign that they did for the Harvest Festival. His fate is in their hands now. He just has to have faith.
When Leslie arrives on the scene a few minutes later, he gracefully steps aside and sends her in alone. He doesn’t belong here anymore and it’s time he got used to that.
~.~.~
It isn’t until he gets back to Leslie’s house that he realizes there’s no way on earth he’ll ever be able to top the Christmas gift her friends are giving her.
He sits in his car, staring at her dark house, wracking his brain for ideas and casting them aside one by one. The longer he sits stewing, staring at that dark house, the more frustrated he becomes. He’s really off to a bad start at being the eighth dwarf. He’s supposed to be the dwarf who keeps her happy at home while all the other dwarves are out running her campaign and god, he really needs to stop thinking about himself as a dwarf. He’s self-conscious enough about his height as it is. Maybe he needs to hang out with Tom more often, that might help with the height thing . . .
He shakes his head to clear away the distracting tangent and looks back up at the dark house. It wasn’t dark like this at Christmas time last year. He clearly remembers the vast array of lights outlining her windows, eaves and roof line as well as each and every tree and bush, not to be outdone by the 50% to scale light-up replica of Santa’s sleigh and eight tiny reindeer set up on her lawn. He’d been a little overwhelmed by it all when he showed up for her caroling party that year, back before he worked up the courage to tell her how he felt (though honestly she should have guessed something just by the fact that he willingly chose to attend a caroling party, because Ben simply does not sing). But this year, nothing. Not a single strand of twinkling lights. Between their reconciliation, the trial and everything that followed she must not have had time to set up her decorations. (He can’t imagine her forgoing them for any other reason.)
That’s it.
It’s hardly the greatest gift ever. But it’s something he can do immediately to stave off the return of the black hole from earlier. And it’ll be sure to put a smile on her face, if only for tonight.
Yet, more than an hour later he’s only managed to wrangle the sleigh and six reindeer (who knows what happened to the other two?) plus thirteen large rubber bins of other decorations out of the precarious labyrinth of container towers that is Leslie’s garage. (Ben really hopes a fourteenth bin turns up, because, although he’s not normally a superstitious man, today has been enough to make him want to cover all his bases.)
The sun long since went down, and he stares at the open bins sitting on the driveway in the dim light filtering out from the garage. He peers at them through the haze of his own breath freezing in the cold night air. Three of them are definitely full of the outdoor lights. But now that he’s looking at them, he realizes he has absolutely no idea how to hang Christmas lights on a house. Do you use nails, or are there some sort of proprietary hanging devices? And does he really need to check each strand for burned out bulbs, first, or is that just an urban myth?
He’s just lifted the first hopelessly tangled mass of lights out of a bin when Leslie pulls up and parks behind him.
Perfect timing.
He drops the lights back into their bin with a sigh and turns to wave and smile as Leslie steps out of her car.
“Hey, honey. What are you up to?” she asks, eyeing the bins with raised eyebrows.
Ben spreads his hands in defeat. “Well, like an idiot, I thought I could get your house decorated for you by the time you got home.”
She looks at him with a smug smile on her face. “You thought you could decorate the whole house in less than two hours? You’ve never hung Christmas lights before, have you?”
“Clearly not.” He shakes his head and turns back to array of bins and reindeer in front of him. So much for his Christmas surprise.
Leslie steps up beside him and wraps her arm around his waist, leaning into him. He feels better already. It still amazes him how quickly she can do that.
“Ted of Ted’s Lawn and Yard grew up just down the street from here,” she says in that tone of voice that announces she’s gone into anecdote-mode. “And when he started his business right out of high school with nothing but two lawn mowers and an old pickup truck, I was his first customer. When he added Christmas light installation to his list of services a year later, I let him use my house as his test house and it turned out so good he put a picture on his flyers. I’ve been hiring him every year since. And his business has really flourished. In fact, when I didn’t get around to calling him until after Thanksgiving, he was already fully booked for the season. But he referred me to his cousin Wally . . .”
“Wally? Do people seriously still name their kids Wally?” Ben can’t help but interject as he pulls Leslie a little closer. Why did he think she’d be upset with him? He can’t seem to remember.
“And Wally,” she continues unfazed, “is scheduled to come out and install my lights Monday morning. It takes about five hours for a team of two professionals, by the way.”
Of course it does.
She nudges him and looks up to meet his eyes. “But it was very sweet of you to try. It’s the thought that counts, right?”
“I hate that expression.”
“So do I,” she replies. “But it was still sweet. Thank you.”
He wonders if her smile will still make his heart leap like this in a year-or in five years. He really hopes it will. “You’re welcome.” He leans in for a soft kiss.
They hold each other for a minute before he works up the nerve to ask about the party.
“It was amazing. You should have been there. We had so much fun.”
“Yeah. Well . . .” He looks down at his feet. Having a serious discussion on the kind of negative impact he could have on the campaign would have dampened that fun considerably.
“Hey,” she says, “Ann told me that you freaked out a little when she told you about all the stuff with my campaign. I should have called you. I should have told you. I just didn’t know what to say.”
“It’s okay. I understand.” He understands perfectly. He hadn’t exactly been in a chatty mood when he was first informed of the motion to impeach him that had passed in Partridge city council.
“Did she also tell you that all my friends are stepping up to help run my campaign for me?” Her eyes glisten and her smile shines in the dim light. She’s still so full of hope and strength. If anyone can bounce back from this, it’s Leslie.
He nods. “She did. I think it’s fantastic. Now you can run the campaign your way, instead of following someone else’s orders. And everyone on your team will be committed one-hundred-percent. I’m really happy for you.”
Leslie squeezes her lips together and sucks in a deep breath through her nose before speaking again. “You don’t think you should be a part of it, do you?”
He’s glad she already guessed it, so he doesn’t have to break the bad news himself. He shakes his head. “No. I don’t think I should. Our relationship is the reason you’re polling at one percent, Leslie. Right now I’m-I’m poison to your campaign. I really wish I could help. I really, really do. But I think right now it would be best if I keep my distance. You get that, don’t you?”
She sighs and her shoulders slump. Some of the light goes out of her eyes. “I do. I do get it.” Her eyes flick back up to meet his. “I want you as a part of my team. But the last thing this campaign needs right now is more bad press. And-”
“And keeping me in the spotlight will do nothing but encourage the press to keep the scandal stories going. I need to stay out of it. At least for now.”
“Okay.” She looks down again. God, he hates seeing her disappointed like this. “You’re right. I hate it, but you’re right. For the time being, we’ll have to keep you out of the spotlight.”
Ben can feel the tug of that black hole again, so he reaches out to wrap his arms around Leslie. Maybe she’ll keep him from falling in. “It’s for the best,” he murmurs.
“I know,” she whispers back.
He clings to her, fighting to hold back the darkness. And wondering how the hell he’s going to get all those bins back into the garage without knocking something over. However, for that task, at least, he and Leslie can work as a team.
He’s not yet sure how he’ll stand not being on her team for anything else.
5: Things He Can Do
Flat on his back, Ben grips Leslie’s thighs where they curve into her ass and lifts his head ever-so-slightly at the same time, grinding her more intensely against his mouth. Thrills run through him when she responds with a suitably happy gasp and grips the headboard a little tighter.
He loves seeing her like this-her soft curves stretching up over his face, her breasts dangling above him, her exclamations of pleasure falling down on him like gifts from a goddess on high. Jerry has no idea how close to the mark he came with that ridiculous painting. Ben quickly pushes aside all thoughts of Jerry (who is really the absolute last thing he should be thinking about right now) and thrusts his tongue inside of her a few times before returning to her clit, sucking it between his lips and rolling his tongue across it as Leslie moans and arches her pelvis toward him, wordlessly asking for more.
She had her first official campaign meeting with her new team tonight.
They met at Ann’s house while he waited here on Leslie’s couch, flipping channels and trying not to think about all the advice he could give them and all the ways he could help. Naturally, he couldn’t think about anything else.
When she got home she tried to make small talk, only mentioning a few generalities about the meeting rather than delving into specifics and then quickly changing the subject. Ben knew she was was trying to avoid a touchy subject. Trying to spare his feelings.
Does she really expect to avoid talking about the campaign for the next five months, when it’ll be the center of her life? What the hell else are they supposed to talk about?
Even with her dodging the topic he could see the excitement and joy in her expression. He didn’t want to pick a fight. No-he wanted to keep that excitement going.
He can’t help her with work projects anymore. And he can’t help with her campaign. But this. This he can do.
As her exclamations begin to crescendo he’s as hard as he’s ever been and longing for release. But it’s not about him. Not now. So he focuses all his attention on every little touch-every maneuver of his tongue and lips and fingers-everything he can do to keep her riding her high.
A few moments later she reaches her peak, shuddering and crying out, her muscles going tense. He tries to hold her in place-to pull her in for more-but she squirms out of his hands and tumbles to the bed beside him, resting her head against his thigh and propping her feet up against the headboard as she grins at him.
Yes. It’s still there. That light in her eyes. The excitement. The joy.
How long can he make it last? And can he find a way to make her eyes shine brighter than they did after her campaign meeting? Even if he doesn’t manage it tonight, he intends to keep trying.
“Mmmm. God that was nice.” Her voice sounds rough and low and relaxed and he knows he did that to her.
Yes, this he can do. “You’re welcome.”
She rolls to angle her body toward him and reaches out to run her fingertips along his cock. Lord, that feels fantastic. But not yet. Tonight is still all about her.
He shifts away from her touch, sitting up and pulling her face up for a kiss. Making out with Leslie has been a thrill from the very first time, and he goes slow. No need to rush.
After a few minutes he lays her down on the bed and stretches out beside her. After another lingering kiss he dips his head to her breast and drags his tongue over her nipple before sucking it between his lips. She gasps when he slides a hand up between her legs.
“I thought it was your turn,” she says.
“I’m not done with you yet,” he replies before shifting his attention to her other nipple and sliding first two and then three fingers inside of her, slowly fucking her with his fingers and gently massaging her clit with his thumb at the same time.
She twists her fingers through his hair gasping and moaning his name as he kisses his way up and down her torso.
If he never finds anything better than a dull hum-drum job, it won’t matter. He’ll be a happy man as long as he’s the one who gets to do this to Leslie Knope.
It doesn’t take long to push her over the edge this time. By the time he gets back to her nipples she’s right on the verge. “I love you so much,” he murmurs.
“I love you. I love you,” she gasps out as he thrusts his fingers faster.
He pulls her nipple back into his mouth, lightly nipping with his teeth, and she tilts her hips up, thrusting against his hand. In an instant he feels her muscles tighten around his fingers and hears her cry out.
He’s never, ever going to get sick of this.
She’s sleepy, now, and he lets her curl up against him, her warm body wrapping around his as they exchange a few soft, short kisses.
He may never be her partner in anything but this, again. It’s a thought that sometimes keeps him up at night. He knows he’ll still love her, even if they can’t work together. But he has his moments of fear when he wonders if just this will be enough for her.
She makes a contented hum and smiles as she snuggles her cheek against his chest and he thinks that he’s being foolish.
She loves him. She chose him. He shouldn’t worry. Still-making this part as good as possible certainly won’t do any harm.
She runs her hand down his torso and wraps her fingers around his length. He’s already getting soft.
“You still haven’t had your turn,” she says.
He kisses her forehead. “Don’t worry about it. This was really good for me. I don’t need that every time. If you’re sleepy we can just cuddle. I really like this part-remember?”
“Yes,” she says, sitting up a little, “but I like that other part, too. I like all the parts.”
“Leslie, you don’t-”
But that’s when she bends down and her lips close around his cock, sucking him deep inside. And, as usual, that’s also when his brain shuts down to everything but the unbelievable pleasure.
His eyes close as he lies back, reveling in the sensation.
A few minutes later she shifts to straddle him, and he smiles up at her as his goddess slides down onto him, rocking up and down with an ethereal smile on her face.
How did he ever get so lucky?
He doesn’t last much longer, his final burst of pleasure leaving a wave of peace and happy exhaustion in its wake.
Leslie lies down on top of him, keeping their bodies joined. As he holds her close, he can’t imagine anything else on earth that could make him this happy.
A while later (he’s lost track of time) they manage to stumble to the bathroom and clean up before settling down for the night.
After they snuggle back under the covers, Leslie says, “Hey-I’m finally putting out a press release to address all the media stories about our relationship. I have a draft finished, but I was wondering if you could look it over and help me polish it up before I send it out. You wouldn’t mind, would you?”
Ben blinks in surprise, his brain waking back up a little. “Of course I wouldn’t mind. William and Elizabeth should have let you do this right after the trial. It’s about time.”
“Yes, they should have,” replies Leslie, unable to hide the note of bitterness in her voice. “But it’s never too late, right?”
“Right. I could look at it now, if you want.” Finally, something more he can do to help her. He’ll stay up all night, if she asks.
She shakes her head and squeezes his hand. “No. You’re tired. It can wait until morning.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
He lies staring at the ceiling, his mind spinning with all the ways to phrase things in a press release and brainstorming specific rebuttals to the information in the some of the news stories. “I don’t think I can sleep,” he admits softly after a few minutes.
“Me neither. Do you want to go work on it right now?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
They hop out of bed and head downstairs. Ben’s heart feels lighter than it has in days. Finally. This-this is something he can do.
Not done yet! Find the rest right here!
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