fic: bleeding sunshine (PG)
Title: bleeding sunshine (in autumn, something’s always falling)
Pairing: Leslie/Ben
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4683
Summary: When he first steps out of his car at the City Hall building in Pawnee, Indiana, Ben Wyatt is thinking two things: one, this town is too damn sunny, and two, time to ruin some people's lives. (From “The Master Plan” to “Time Capsule” and pure imagination after that.)
When he first steps out of his car at the City Hall building in Pawnee, Indiana, Ben Wyatt is thinking two things: one, this town is too damn sunny, and two, time to ruin some people's lives.
Cards on the table, Ben hates his job. Sure, he understands the importance of it. He's not eighteen anymore and he doesn't have the illusion that money grows on trees and would be best put to use to make indoor winter sports complexes. He understands that this is something he needs to do to prove that he's responsible. Good Lord, at this point, he's still a joke to his own parents.
What he definitely isn’t thinking is that Pawnee is about to turn his life upside down in the form of one tiny, loud, insane, and absolutely lovely individual.
+++
When he first meets Leslie Knope, Ben is thinking two things: one, you're probably going to lose your job, and two, it's not because of me.
He has to repeat the second part to himself daily. He knows he's just a middleman. He didn't cause the budget deficit, and he won't be the one signing off on her severance package. He has to hold a hard exterior in these situations, though, in order to keep from feeling like a villain.
This job fuels his cynicism. Sure, most of the time he’s stopping unnecessary spending.
But there are some times when he has to shut down programs that people love. He hates seeing those few people who mean well disappointed, but it’s his job.
“Do you have a second?”
+++
“You’re a jerk,” Leslie spits at him. Her cheeks are pink and her sentences are short and sharp. She’s really pissed.
Truth be told, it’s kind of hot.
“I didn’t cause these problems, Ms. Knope,” he says, repeating what he’s said to a hundred other people in the past five years, “your government did.”
He’s not the villain, but she makes him feel like one.
+++
When Ben leaves City Hall and goes back to his hotel room after his first day of work, he’s thinking two things: one, he feels rotten all over, and two, he knows it’s Leslie Knope’s fault.
People are always getting mad at him for cutting their budgets. He’s a state auditor - fielding death threats is a part of the job. He’s never really let it bother him until now.
Chris calls him and asks if he’s going to some girl named April’s birthday party. Ben has no clue what he’s talking about at first, but then he remembers something about an April on the payroll for the Parks department and he thinks to ask:
“Will Leslie Knope be there?”
+++
“Get out of here,” Leslie snaps at him.
He knows she’s drunk, but he also knows she means everything she’s saying. She really thinks it’s all his fault. She’s wrong, but he guesses she needs someone to blame and, hey, he’ll be leaving in a month if everything goes according to plan.
He goes back to his hotel room and tries to be blasé about her being so upset at him for being blasé, but he can’t quite manage it.
Ben doesn’t sleep much that night.
+++
When Ben tells Leslie who he is, he’s thinking two things: one, he never tells anyone this so soon after meeting them, and two, he’s never cared before that someone understands why he does what he does.
“I mean, you want to run for office, don’t you?” he says it without thinking. He somehow just knew. Her tenacity, her passion - she wouldn’t be wasting it in local government unless she thought it was a stepping stone.
There’s a comfort to having a beer with Leslie that he hadn’t expected. She’s so easy when she’s relaxed and he can’t help but love it a bit.
“Whoomp! There it is,” she sings, sunlight streaming through the window to highlight her smile.
And suddenly, Leslie Knope is under his skin.
And he knows he has to fire her.
+++
When Ben tells Ron that every department is losing a Leslie Knope, he’s thinking two things: one, the words coming out of his mouth are a lie, and two, he’s only trying to get rid of her because he feels like he has to.
He’s impressed that Leslie has affected Ron Swanson so much that he’ll stand up for her job when the guy wishes they could privatize government.
“Right now she is single-handedly putting on a concert for this city’s kids,” Ron says.
That one takes Ben by surprise. “She’s doing what?”
+++
Ben expects her to fight him. He expects the concert to go on despite his intervention. So when he learns that Freddy Spaghetti, whoever the hell he is, isn’t coming, it doesn’t seem right. Leslie’s supposed to win this one.
And suddenly he’s sitting in his car and calling this crazy children’s singer and offering the guy money he doesn’t have because it’ll make some woman he's only just met happy.
Ben Wyatt is losing it.
+++
“There’s going to be a lot of pain ahead.”
He has to bring up the negative because that’s who he’s become. Realistic Mr. Wyatt, always focusing on the dark side.
But Leslie stops him, reaching down and pulling him up into the light.
“Just for one moment,” she says, squinting into the sun, “enjoy the fact that you provided a service for people. And they love it.”
He jokes and smiles and stares at her when she walks away from him, wondering how she does that - how she wakes up in the morning and sees the beauty in everything - how she holds such a large amount of idealism on her shoulders.
Cynicism is a crutch for him, and he’s in awe of Leslie’s balance.
+++
When she takes Ron’s place in the EBTF meetings, Ben is thinking two things: one, she’s going to make his job a million times harder, and two, he really doesn’t mind at all.
He feels lighter around her, which is odd because she represents everything he’s come to fix. She and her department are figuratively weighing him down, tying him to this silly little town.
+++
“Ben Wyatt,” he hears he voice at the end of another day of bleeding budgets and feels his heart beating little harder.
“Hi, Leslie,” he says calmly, continuing to gather his things.
“I was just thinking,” she says, smiling that smile that hides absolutely nothing, “I know we got off to a bad start, but you don’t know a lot of people in town. So maybe you’d like to have dinner with me tonight? I know the best place in town.”
Ben knows this is part of a plan, but she’s just so damn cute and he really does spend all of his time outside of work alone.
It couldn’t hurt to give in this once, could it?
Later, when she’s diving into a stack of waffles drenched in whipped cream at JJ’s Diner and telling him all her plans for Lot 48, Ben is thinking one thing: This woman’s going to be the death of me.
+++
After dinner/breakfast, she forces him into walking to Ramsett Park. It’s closed (which he knows she thinks is his fault), but there’s a bench outside the gate and she sits on it, sighs, and tells him about what would be happening right now in the park if it weren’t closed.
“When I was a kid, the parks were just the best place in the world to me,” she says. And it’s so sweet how genuine she is. She really just wants every kid in Pawnee to have the childhood she did.
“What was Partridge like?” she asks. It surprises him a bit. They don’t usually talk about his personal life. It’s usually all parks all the time with Leslie Knope since that one beer at 10:30 a.m. the second day he knew her.
“Oh, you know, small town. Smaller than Pawnee, actually,” he says. “It was nice, though. Quiet, but not weird -”
“Pawnee’s not weird,” Leslie interjects. But Ben gives her a look, and she assents. “Okay, well, it’s unique. I think that’s nice.”
“Yeah, I think that’s nice, too,” Ben says. He realizes it’s the first time he’s said anything nice about Pawnee. He hasn’t really thought too much about the town itself. He’s mostly been focused on the budget, but he guesses it’s not all that bad.
Leslie seems quite pleased with herself.
He knows what she’s doing, and he should stop her. Yes, the park is lovely, but it doesn’t change the amount of money in Pawnee’s budget.
He lets her ramble on about the events they usually put on for kids in the park because it's summertime, and yet Leslie smells like hot chocolate, and he finds that terribly intoxicating. He’s not thinking straight anymore.
+++
When they get to her budget, it's always on the tip of his tongue to tell her it's not his fault. Honestly, Leslie, if it were up to me, you would have all the money in the world. He can't say it out loud because it's ridiculous and undermines his authority and would probably weird out everyone else in the EBTF meeting.
A part of him really wants to give into her every request because he admires her. All her passion, her drive, her optimism - she's him when he was eighteen. Hell, she's him now if he was ever honest with himself.
Ben stays up for seventy-two hours one weekend in early August figuring out how to not eliminate the Parks department. He winds up finding the money for continuing current Park maintenance. The library will be seeing more cuts than expected.
He has an urge to call Leslie when he finally cracks it, but it’s 2:53 a.m. and he can’t admit to her how hard he’s trying to save her job.
He knows if Chris were here alone, nothing would get cut. But he also knows if it was anyone but him, Leslie Knope would be firing up her resume right now.
Well, he should give Leslie more credit. She could probably charm the pants off of most state auditors.
Charm the pants off? Ben realizes it’s time to go to sleep without calling Leslie.
This is getting dangerously inappropriate.
+++
He hates that Chris always sets him up as the bad guy in front of Leslie. He also hates that Leslie still hates him. Maybe she’d feel different if he told her how hard he worked just to not eliminate her department.
He knows it’s just been a rough first couple of days back, and that she’s tired of disgruntled citizens yelling at her about something that’s out of her hands. (Maybe she should try his job for a week.) But it’s not fair to him. They got along over the summer, when he was still the state auditor. Maybe that was all faked; maybe it was just her schmoozing to get what she wanted.
Ben is thinking one thing: He wishes it had all been real.
+++
“Have any plans for tonight, Ben?” Chris asks as they’re wrapping up for the day.
“Nope,” he answers instantly. Really, what is there to do in Pawnee? Especially when everyone in the town hates you for cutting their services.
“Well, I am going on a date with the lovely Ann Perkins.”
Ben frowns at this information. “I thought she said no.”
“She called me and said she changed her mind,” Chris says. “Isn’t that fantastic?”
“She changed her mind?”
Ben knows women don’t change their minds just like that. He’s been living that fact all summer.
Someone else changed Ann’s mind, and Ben knows who it was.
+++
Ben sits in his car on Pine Street, and thinks two things: one, he’s actually kind of surprised at Leslie sinking this low, and two, he’s a bit angry with her.
It’s probably because he’d been working up this ideal image of her, fighting the good fight and all that. He never imagined she’d turn to pimping out her best friend in hopes that it would inflate her department’s budget. It’s all so wrong, so unethical, so un-Leslie.
He knows she’s desperate, and he has left her hanging about whether her department has been reinstated permanently or not. Maybe if he was honest with her and told her how hard he’s working to not eliminate her department, she wouldn’t have done this. But he can’t do that. He can’t show favoritism. He can’t let her know that her sweetness and her dragging him to Ramsett Park over the summer worked.
Especially not now when she’s back to calling him a jerk because he didn’t do exactly what she wanted.
He watches Chris and Ann enter the restaurant, then watches Leslie get out of her car and follow them less than thirty seconds later.
She is not that sneaky.
+++
The Harvest Festival really is a decent idea. It’s going to cost some money, but if they can work mostly with donations of businesses who want the exposure, it is financially viable.
He’s not just saying yes to appease Leslie.
Really.
+++
She’s sick and he has an overwhelming urge to take care of her. It’s crazy, he knows. They’re only co-workers. In fact, they’re temporary co-workers.
He keeps glancing over at her in the passenger seat of his car. She’s leaning her head against the glass and her eyes keep falling closed and then popping back open.
Suddenly, she sits straight up and yells, “Stop the car.”
“What? What is it?” he asks, concerned, but more eager to get her to the hospital than give into her request.
“Benji, stop the car,” she says.
“Leslie, we’re going to the hospital,” Ben says.
“No,” she whines. “I’m not sick.”
“Uhh, I think every doctor is going to disagree with you on that one.”
She groans and leans her head back against the window. “You’re the worst.”
“Yeah, mean Ben, I know,” he says, mostly to himself. He doesn’t expect her to respond, thinking she’s fallen asleep.
“Mmph, no, not mean,” she sighs heavily. “Nice Benji.”
He knows he shouldn’t be flattered when it sounds like she’s talking to a dog. Plus, she’s completely delirious with fever. But he can’t lie; he likes hearing something nice from her every once in a while.
+++
She’s called him three times and Ben’s thinking two things: one, it’s not at all surprising, and two, he’s a little insulted.
This presentation really isn’t that hard. He knows how important it is to her, and he’s hardly planning on screwing it up.
+++
Wow.
Ben hardly has words.
Leslie is just -
Wow.
+++
After he answers questions and talks to the businesses agreeing to participate, Ben finds out Tom’s taken Leslie back to the hospital already. He realizes he probably should let her rest tonight.
He stops at the store on the way back to his hotel room. He makes her chicken soup in his kitchenette.
So what?
+++
When Chris tells him they have a new assignment, he feels as if all the air has left the room. It returns within seconds when Chris suggests they stay, and suddenly the words are leaping out of his mouth,
"Yes, definitely."
And he realizes he can't remember the last time he was so eager about something.
And he knows that Chris is just in love with Ann Perkins. He should be constantly rolling his eyes at that, but he can't seem to get them off of a certain blonde these days.
+++
Ben’s rubbing his eyes at a public forum, and he’s thinking two things: one, there is absolutely no reason he should be there right now, and two, he understands why Leslie loves this town.
Ben never thought he would wind up liking Pawnee, but it's happened. The charisma and dedication of its citizens about an almost non-existent issue somehow grabs him. And he understands why Leslie loves it here. This place is so her. Crazy and passionate and sunny.
“You’re leaving soon,” she says, and it breaks his heart a little how she says it so easily. He keeps his cool exterior, but deep down he wishes she was sorry, wishes she would miss him when he’s gone.
“Can I blame you in the press?”
Ben smiles and thinks two things: one, he’s not sure how soon he is leaving because he knows both he and Chris would rather it be later, and two, he would probably do anything for this woman.
But he just says, “Sure.”
+++
Chris and Ann break up, and no one’s really sure why. Ben has a theory that Ann just wasn’t perfect enough for the great Chris Traeger. It’s a shame because she’s a nice girl and could have really grounded Chris. Or, at least, tried to.
What Ben is really focused on, though, is that this means Chris has no reason to stay in Pawnee. He’s terrified that he’s going to walk into the office and see Chris packing up all their stuff and telling him they’re driving back to Indianapolis.
What he doesn’t expect is being blamed for Ann’s heartbreak.
“Hey, Wyatt,” Leslie shouts at him as he’s walking down the hall.
He stops and lets her catch up with him. She’s walking in her quick, furious manner that she gets when she’s really upset. He tentatively asks, “What’s up, Leslie?”
“What did you do?” she asks instantly.
Ben frowns. “What are you talking about?”
She sighs heavily like she can’t believe he isn’t keeping up with her. “Why did Chris break up with Ann?”
“Uh, I think that’s between Chris and Ann,” he says, but Leslie won’t hear it.
“Ann is so pretty and nice,” Leslie says. “And she did the breaking up with her last two boyfriends, so it doesn’t make any sense.”
“What makes you think I had anything to do with it?”
“Because Chris is so nice, and you’re---” She stops. She’s been pretty good about not insulting him lately. She probably doesn’t want to ruin her streak.
“Mean?” Ben offers. Leslie doesn’t say anything, just stares at him with her upset face. “Look, Leslie, I’m sorry you’re upset, but I really don’t have anything to do with this.”
He turns to walk away and he hears Leslie’s heels clicking after him.
“Can’t you just---“
Ben sighs and turns around. “What?”
“Could you maybe ask him why he broke up with her?” She says it all so fast that it comes out like one word.
“Leslie, it’s really none of my business,” Ben says.
“But it doesn’t make any sense. They were so happy.”
“Look, Leslie, Chris always seems happy,” he says. “That doesn’t mean everything’s perfect all the time.”
Leslie frowns, clearly unsatisfied with that answer. She seems to be debating between two things to ask and decides on, “Is it going to affect our budget?”
Ben raises his eyebrows. “No,” he says instantly. “Chris is a lot of things, but he’s not that unprofessional. Your budget will be whatever there’s money for.”
Leslie looks a little relieved, but he knows she’s still upset about her friend. And she should be. Ann’s a great woman. She’s not undeserving of Chris or anything.
Sometimes, things just don’t work out. Life’s like that, Ben knows.
What does work out is that Chris says they won’t leave Pawnee until after the Harvest Festival.
+++
A week before the festival, Ben gets a call around 2 a.m. and it’s Leslie panicking about something he can’t quite understand.
“What do you mean they won’t have blue?”
“The cotton candy vendors,” Leslie whines. “I just found out they only sell pink cotton candy. It’s a disaster.”
“You found this out at 1:57 a.m.?”
“Uh, yeah, Ben, I did,” she snaps. “After looking through their proposal, which you approved.”
“You said I should approve it. I only looked at it to make sure you weren’t doing something ridiculous like spending a million dollars on cotton candy.”
He can hear her rolling her eyes over the phone.
“Obviously you don’t understand how important this is,” Leslie says. “Have you ever been to a carnival where they only sell pink cotton candy? It’s just depressing.”
Ben rubs his eyes. “Look, Leslie, I’m sorry, but they only thing I can suggest is asking them if they can make blue as well. If for some weird reason they can’t, you’re just going to have to deal with it.”
“Ugh. You’re going to have to deal with it!”
Ben frowns. “…what?”
She sighs audibly. “Never mind. Sorry.”
Suddenly Ben realizes it isn’t about the cotton candy. This is about her job, the jobs of her friends. She dove into this project, but now she’s terrified something’s going to go wrong.
Ben’s kind of flattered she called him to freak out. He knows that Ann would have talked to her comfortingly for an hour, or maybe invited her over for hot chocolate, and that sounds much preferable to trying to explain the significance of cotton candy pigment to and out-of-towner.
But she called him.
“Leslie,” Ben starts gently, trying not to let too much of a smile creep into his voice. “The festival’s going to be fine. Better than that. It’s going to be great. You’ve got it all planned out, and you’ve got a bunch of people standing behind you.”
“You’re right,” she says. It surprises him. That she gives in so soon. His comforting voice must be better than he gives himself credit for.
“Get some sleep, Leslie,” he says.
“You too,” she says. As Ben goes to hang up the phone, he hears, “Hey Ben?”
He puts the phone back to his ear. “Yeah?”
“Thank you for that.”
+++
They’re at the Snakehole Lounge and some ridiculous hip hop music is playing and Ben is thinking two things: one, if it weren’t for Leslie, he wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this, and two, there’s nowhere else he’d rather be right now.
He’s sitting in a rounded booth and drinking beer. Leslie’s dancing with Ann. It’s crowded, but Ben can see her blond-turned-blue-from-the-black-lights hair flashing between other people’s heads every once in a while.
He stares at his beer and wonders, who is he kidding? He’s never going to be anything more than Mean Ben, the state auditor, to her. What is he even trying to---
“Hello,” he hears. Ben looks up to see Leslie smiling down at him. “What are you doing over her alone?”
“Not much of a dancer,” Ben says, smiling back.
“You sure? I can ask them to play your song,” she teases, sliding into the booth next to him.
“Ha ha, very funny.”
She grins at him, and the tilts her head to the side. “Ben, can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” he says.
“Why did you run for mayor?” she asks. “You know, when you were eighteen?”
Ben usually hates talking about it. It’s ridiculous and embarrassing, but Leslie clearly just wants to know and he’s getting awful at denying her anything. “Partly because of a bet,” he says. “And partly because I thought I could make a difference.”
“Why’d you get into to government?”
“Because I wanted to make a difference,” Leslie says immediately. She takes a breath - or maybe stifles a hiccup, he’s not quite sure - and then she adds, “And I guess because I thought it would impress my mom.”
“Ah,” Ben says. It explains a lot. Dedication and drive usually stem from withholding parents.
Leslie looks at him like he knows something she doesn’t. “What?”
“Nothing,” he says. “I just understand what it’s like to try to impress your parents. Mine are still disappointed about the mayor thing.”
“Really?” Leslie frowns.
“Yeah,” Ben shrugs. “It was embarrassing for them.”
“Well, if you were my son, I’d be proud,” Leslie says. It’s sweet, and kind of weird if he thinks about it for more than a second, which he doesn’t because Leslie seems to have moved closer to him in the booth and it takes over all his attention.
Maybe he’s buzzing more than he thinks (how many beers has he had?), but he leans in toward her almost without thinking. He’s inches from her lips, and it would be so easy to give in to the urge to kiss her. She’s been rather friendly tonight, in a way that reminds him of how she acted over the summer when she tried to charm him into giving her department more money. But tonight there’s no ulterior motive. How can there be? He’s been giving her everything he can. They’re celebrating, and she’s just being her charming self. No purpose, just Leslie.
But it would be unprofessional and, even if he didn’t wind up regretting it, she probably would. Maybe she was willing to let her unofficially-affiliated-with-the-Parks department friend go on a date with a man in exchange for money, but Leslie would never risk her own reputation. And it’s not like she even-
But she’s not moving away. In fact, she seems to be getting closer. Not fully bridging the gap, but indicating she’d approve of the advance.
He breathes in her breath and it’s like sunshine pouring into his lungs. It burns him, but he’s been simmering for weeks, maybe months in her heat, so he’s developed immunity.
“Leslie,” he startles when he hears her name shouted from across the bar. It’s Ann. She’s drunk - more drunk than Leslie and way more drunk than Ben - and stumbling toward their table. Leslie pulls away from Ben immediately and straightens herself out in her seat, giving her best friend her full attention.
Ben slips out shortly afterward.
He didn’t even kiss her, and it keeps him up all night.
+++
The Harvest Festival goes on without any major hitches.
It’s autumn and Pawnee is still too damn sunny for the disposition he’s held for the last fifteen plus years, but it makes Leslie’s hair shine like the halo she rightly deserves and Ben thinks that it’s just fine for now.
She notices him and waves him to come over, out from under the shade of a tree.
“Ben Wyatt,” she says, her smile as brilliant as ever.
“Leslie.”
“You should be proud of yourself, Ben,” she says. “I know how hard you worked to make this happen.”
“No, Leslie, this was all you,” Ben says. And he means it. He’s never met someone who works as hard as Leslie to pull off an event like this.
Leslie shakes her head. “No,” she says. “It started as my project. But I couldn’t have done it without everyone in my department. And I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Ben opens his mouth to object once more. He didn’t do anything. Really.
“No, Benji, I know you didn’t have to help me at all. It’s really not your job. But you did, and this,” she gestures around herself at the festival, “is the result. I know it’s not Ice Town, but you should be proud.”
Ben smiles and he thinks she’s the only person who can make him laugh, even feel good, about Ice Town.
“Do you want to?” He nods his head at the Ferris wheel next to them, and she smiles.
At the top, Ben feels like he’s eighteen again. He feels full of hope and promise and doesn’t mind the unnatural sunshine in his eyes.
He takes Leslie’s hand and laces his fingers with hers, knowing they’re both blushing like teenagers and not minding at all.
+++
Chris leaves; Ben stays.
The government of Pawnee is terrible at budgeting. They could use a consultant.
Indianapolis is little too cold at this time of the year anyway.
.
.
.
End.
Pairing: Leslie/Ben
Rating: PG
Word Count: 4683
Summary: When he first steps out of his car at the City Hall building in Pawnee, Indiana, Ben Wyatt is thinking two things: one, this town is too damn sunny, and two, time to ruin some people's lives. (From “The Master Plan” to “Time Capsule” and pure imagination after that.)
When he first steps out of his car at the City Hall building in Pawnee, Indiana, Ben Wyatt is thinking two things: one, this town is too damn sunny, and two, time to ruin some people's lives.
Cards on the table, Ben hates his job. Sure, he understands the importance of it. He's not eighteen anymore and he doesn't have the illusion that money grows on trees and would be best put to use to make indoor winter sports complexes. He understands that this is something he needs to do to prove that he's responsible. Good Lord, at this point, he's still a joke to his own parents.
What he definitely isn’t thinking is that Pawnee is about to turn his life upside down in the form of one tiny, loud, insane, and absolutely lovely individual.
+++
When he first meets Leslie Knope, Ben is thinking two things: one, you're probably going to lose your job, and two, it's not because of me.
He has to repeat the second part to himself daily. He knows he's just a middleman. He didn't cause the budget deficit, and he won't be the one signing off on her severance package. He has to hold a hard exterior in these situations, though, in order to keep from feeling like a villain.
This job fuels his cynicism. Sure, most of the time he’s stopping unnecessary spending.
But there are some times when he has to shut down programs that people love. He hates seeing those few people who mean well disappointed, but it’s his job.
“Do you have a second?”
+++
“You’re a jerk,” Leslie spits at him. Her cheeks are pink and her sentences are short and sharp. She’s really pissed.
Truth be told, it’s kind of hot.
“I didn’t cause these problems, Ms. Knope,” he says, repeating what he’s said to a hundred other people in the past five years, “your government did.”
He’s not the villain, but she makes him feel like one.
+++
When Ben leaves City Hall and goes back to his hotel room after his first day of work, he’s thinking two things: one, he feels rotten all over, and two, he knows it’s Leslie Knope’s fault.
People are always getting mad at him for cutting their budgets. He’s a state auditor - fielding death threats is a part of the job. He’s never really let it bother him until now.
Chris calls him and asks if he’s going to some girl named April’s birthday party. Ben has no clue what he’s talking about at first, but then he remembers something about an April on the payroll for the Parks department and he thinks to ask:
“Will Leslie Knope be there?”
+++
“Get out of here,” Leslie snaps at him.
He knows she’s drunk, but he also knows she means everything she’s saying. She really thinks it’s all his fault. She’s wrong, but he guesses she needs someone to blame and, hey, he’ll be leaving in a month if everything goes according to plan.
He goes back to his hotel room and tries to be blasé about her being so upset at him for being blasé, but he can’t quite manage it.
Ben doesn’t sleep much that night.
+++
When Ben tells Leslie who he is, he’s thinking two things: one, he never tells anyone this so soon after meeting them, and two, he’s never cared before that someone understands why he does what he does.
“I mean, you want to run for office, don’t you?” he says it without thinking. He somehow just knew. Her tenacity, her passion - she wouldn’t be wasting it in local government unless she thought it was a stepping stone.
There’s a comfort to having a beer with Leslie that he hadn’t expected. She’s so easy when she’s relaxed and he can’t help but love it a bit.
“Whoomp! There it is,” she sings, sunlight streaming through the window to highlight her smile.
And suddenly, Leslie Knope is under his skin.
And he knows he has to fire her.
+++
When Ben tells Ron that every department is losing a Leslie Knope, he’s thinking two things: one, the words coming out of his mouth are a lie, and two, he’s only trying to get rid of her because he feels like he has to.
He’s impressed that Leslie has affected Ron Swanson so much that he’ll stand up for her job when the guy wishes they could privatize government.
“Right now she is single-handedly putting on a concert for this city’s kids,” Ron says.
That one takes Ben by surprise. “She’s doing what?”
+++
Ben expects her to fight him. He expects the concert to go on despite his intervention. So when he learns that Freddy Spaghetti, whoever the hell he is, isn’t coming, it doesn’t seem right. Leslie’s supposed to win this one.
And suddenly he’s sitting in his car and calling this crazy children’s singer and offering the guy money he doesn’t have because it’ll make some woman he's only just met happy.
Ben Wyatt is losing it.
+++
“There’s going to be a lot of pain ahead.”
He has to bring up the negative because that’s who he’s become. Realistic Mr. Wyatt, always focusing on the dark side.
But Leslie stops him, reaching down and pulling him up into the light.
“Just for one moment,” she says, squinting into the sun, “enjoy the fact that you provided a service for people. And they love it.”
He jokes and smiles and stares at her when she walks away from him, wondering how she does that - how she wakes up in the morning and sees the beauty in everything - how she holds such a large amount of idealism on her shoulders.
Cynicism is a crutch for him, and he’s in awe of Leslie’s balance.
+++
When she takes Ron’s place in the EBTF meetings, Ben is thinking two things: one, she’s going to make his job a million times harder, and two, he really doesn’t mind at all.
He feels lighter around her, which is odd because she represents everything he’s come to fix. She and her department are figuratively weighing him down, tying him to this silly little town.
+++
“Ben Wyatt,” he hears he voice at the end of another day of bleeding budgets and feels his heart beating little harder.
“Hi, Leslie,” he says calmly, continuing to gather his things.
“I was just thinking,” she says, smiling that smile that hides absolutely nothing, “I know we got off to a bad start, but you don’t know a lot of people in town. So maybe you’d like to have dinner with me tonight? I know the best place in town.”
Ben knows this is part of a plan, but she’s just so damn cute and he really does spend all of his time outside of work alone.
It couldn’t hurt to give in this once, could it?
Later, when she’s diving into a stack of waffles drenched in whipped cream at JJ’s Diner and telling him all her plans for Lot 48, Ben is thinking one thing: This woman’s going to be the death of me.
+++
After dinner/breakfast, she forces him into walking to Ramsett Park. It’s closed (which he knows she thinks is his fault), but there’s a bench outside the gate and she sits on it, sighs, and tells him about what would be happening right now in the park if it weren’t closed.
“When I was a kid, the parks were just the best place in the world to me,” she says. And it’s so sweet how genuine she is. She really just wants every kid in Pawnee to have the childhood she did.
“What was Partridge like?” she asks. It surprises him a bit. They don’t usually talk about his personal life. It’s usually all parks all the time with Leslie Knope since that one beer at 10:30 a.m. the second day he knew her.
“Oh, you know, small town. Smaller than Pawnee, actually,” he says. “It was nice, though. Quiet, but not weird -”
“Pawnee’s not weird,” Leslie interjects. But Ben gives her a look, and she assents. “Okay, well, it’s unique. I think that’s nice.”
“Yeah, I think that’s nice, too,” Ben says. He realizes it’s the first time he’s said anything nice about Pawnee. He hasn’t really thought too much about the town itself. He’s mostly been focused on the budget, but he guesses it’s not all that bad.
Leslie seems quite pleased with herself.
He knows what she’s doing, and he should stop her. Yes, the park is lovely, but it doesn’t change the amount of money in Pawnee’s budget.
He lets her ramble on about the events they usually put on for kids in the park because it's summertime, and yet Leslie smells like hot chocolate, and he finds that terribly intoxicating. He’s not thinking straight anymore.
+++
When they get to her budget, it's always on the tip of his tongue to tell her it's not his fault. Honestly, Leslie, if it were up to me, you would have all the money in the world. He can't say it out loud because it's ridiculous and undermines his authority and would probably weird out everyone else in the EBTF meeting.
A part of him really wants to give into her every request because he admires her. All her passion, her drive, her optimism - she's him when he was eighteen. Hell, she's him now if he was ever honest with himself.
Ben stays up for seventy-two hours one weekend in early August figuring out how to not eliminate the Parks department. He winds up finding the money for continuing current Park maintenance. The library will be seeing more cuts than expected.
He has an urge to call Leslie when he finally cracks it, but it’s 2:53 a.m. and he can’t admit to her how hard he’s trying to save her job.
He knows if Chris were here alone, nothing would get cut. But he also knows if it was anyone but him, Leslie Knope would be firing up her resume right now.
Well, he should give Leslie more credit. She could probably charm the pants off of most state auditors.
Charm the pants off? Ben realizes it’s time to go to sleep without calling Leslie.
This is getting dangerously inappropriate.
+++
He hates that Chris always sets him up as the bad guy in front of Leslie. He also hates that Leslie still hates him. Maybe she’d feel different if he told her how hard he worked just to not eliminate her department.
He knows it’s just been a rough first couple of days back, and that she’s tired of disgruntled citizens yelling at her about something that’s out of her hands. (Maybe she should try his job for a week.) But it’s not fair to him. They got along over the summer, when he was still the state auditor. Maybe that was all faked; maybe it was just her schmoozing to get what she wanted.
Ben is thinking one thing: He wishes it had all been real.
+++
“Have any plans for tonight, Ben?” Chris asks as they’re wrapping up for the day.
“Nope,” he answers instantly. Really, what is there to do in Pawnee? Especially when everyone in the town hates you for cutting their services.
“Well, I am going on a date with the lovely Ann Perkins.”
Ben frowns at this information. “I thought she said no.”
“She called me and said she changed her mind,” Chris says. “Isn’t that fantastic?”
“She changed her mind?”
Ben knows women don’t change their minds just like that. He’s been living that fact all summer.
Someone else changed Ann’s mind, and Ben knows who it was.
+++
Ben sits in his car on Pine Street, and thinks two things: one, he’s actually kind of surprised at Leslie sinking this low, and two, he’s a bit angry with her.
It’s probably because he’d been working up this ideal image of her, fighting the good fight and all that. He never imagined she’d turn to pimping out her best friend in hopes that it would inflate her department’s budget. It’s all so wrong, so unethical, so un-Leslie.
He knows she’s desperate, and he has left her hanging about whether her department has been reinstated permanently or not. Maybe if he was honest with her and told her how hard he’s working to not eliminate her department, she wouldn’t have done this. But he can’t do that. He can’t show favoritism. He can’t let her know that her sweetness and her dragging him to Ramsett Park over the summer worked.
Especially not now when she’s back to calling him a jerk because he didn’t do exactly what she wanted.
He watches Chris and Ann enter the restaurant, then watches Leslie get out of her car and follow them less than thirty seconds later.
She is not that sneaky.
+++
The Harvest Festival really is a decent idea. It’s going to cost some money, but if they can work mostly with donations of businesses who want the exposure, it is financially viable.
He’s not just saying yes to appease Leslie.
Really.
+++
She’s sick and he has an overwhelming urge to take care of her. It’s crazy, he knows. They’re only co-workers. In fact, they’re temporary co-workers.
He keeps glancing over at her in the passenger seat of his car. She’s leaning her head against the glass and her eyes keep falling closed and then popping back open.
Suddenly, she sits straight up and yells, “Stop the car.”
“What? What is it?” he asks, concerned, but more eager to get her to the hospital than give into her request.
“Benji, stop the car,” she says.
“Leslie, we’re going to the hospital,” Ben says.
“No,” she whines. “I’m not sick.”
“Uhh, I think every doctor is going to disagree with you on that one.”
She groans and leans her head back against the window. “You’re the worst.”
“Yeah, mean Ben, I know,” he says, mostly to himself. He doesn’t expect her to respond, thinking she’s fallen asleep.
“Mmph, no, not mean,” she sighs heavily. “Nice Benji.”
He knows he shouldn’t be flattered when it sounds like she’s talking to a dog. Plus, she’s completely delirious with fever. But he can’t lie; he likes hearing something nice from her every once in a while.
+++
She’s called him three times and Ben’s thinking two things: one, it’s not at all surprising, and two, he’s a little insulted.
This presentation really isn’t that hard. He knows how important it is to her, and he’s hardly planning on screwing it up.
+++
Wow.
Ben hardly has words.
Leslie is just -
Wow.
+++
After he answers questions and talks to the businesses agreeing to participate, Ben finds out Tom’s taken Leslie back to the hospital already. He realizes he probably should let her rest tonight.
He stops at the store on the way back to his hotel room. He makes her chicken soup in his kitchenette.
So what?
+++
When Chris tells him they have a new assignment, he feels as if all the air has left the room. It returns within seconds when Chris suggests they stay, and suddenly the words are leaping out of his mouth,
"Yes, definitely."
And he realizes he can't remember the last time he was so eager about something.
And he knows that Chris is just in love with Ann Perkins. He should be constantly rolling his eyes at that, but he can't seem to get them off of a certain blonde these days.
+++
Ben’s rubbing his eyes at a public forum, and he’s thinking two things: one, there is absolutely no reason he should be there right now, and two, he understands why Leslie loves this town.
Ben never thought he would wind up liking Pawnee, but it's happened. The charisma and dedication of its citizens about an almost non-existent issue somehow grabs him. And he understands why Leslie loves it here. This place is so her. Crazy and passionate and sunny.
“You’re leaving soon,” she says, and it breaks his heart a little how she says it so easily. He keeps his cool exterior, but deep down he wishes she was sorry, wishes she would miss him when he’s gone.
“Can I blame you in the press?”
Ben smiles and thinks two things: one, he’s not sure how soon he is leaving because he knows both he and Chris would rather it be later, and two, he would probably do anything for this woman.
But he just says, “Sure.”
+++
Chris and Ann break up, and no one’s really sure why. Ben has a theory that Ann just wasn’t perfect enough for the great Chris Traeger. It’s a shame because she’s a nice girl and could have really grounded Chris. Or, at least, tried to.
What Ben is really focused on, though, is that this means Chris has no reason to stay in Pawnee. He’s terrified that he’s going to walk into the office and see Chris packing up all their stuff and telling him they’re driving back to Indianapolis.
What he doesn’t expect is being blamed for Ann’s heartbreak.
“Hey, Wyatt,” Leslie shouts at him as he’s walking down the hall.
He stops and lets her catch up with him. She’s walking in her quick, furious manner that she gets when she’s really upset. He tentatively asks, “What’s up, Leslie?”
“What did you do?” she asks instantly.
Ben frowns. “What are you talking about?”
She sighs heavily like she can’t believe he isn’t keeping up with her. “Why did Chris break up with Ann?”
“Uh, I think that’s between Chris and Ann,” he says, but Leslie won’t hear it.
“Ann is so pretty and nice,” Leslie says. “And she did the breaking up with her last two boyfriends, so it doesn’t make any sense.”
“What makes you think I had anything to do with it?”
“Because Chris is so nice, and you’re---” She stops. She’s been pretty good about not insulting him lately. She probably doesn’t want to ruin her streak.
“Mean?” Ben offers. Leslie doesn’t say anything, just stares at him with her upset face. “Look, Leslie, I’m sorry you’re upset, but I really don’t have anything to do with this.”
He turns to walk away and he hears Leslie’s heels clicking after him.
“Can’t you just---“
Ben sighs and turns around. “What?”
“Could you maybe ask him why he broke up with her?” She says it all so fast that it comes out like one word.
“Leslie, it’s really none of my business,” Ben says.
“But it doesn’t make any sense. They were so happy.”
“Look, Leslie, Chris always seems happy,” he says. “That doesn’t mean everything’s perfect all the time.”
Leslie frowns, clearly unsatisfied with that answer. She seems to be debating between two things to ask and decides on, “Is it going to affect our budget?”
Ben raises his eyebrows. “No,” he says instantly. “Chris is a lot of things, but he’s not that unprofessional. Your budget will be whatever there’s money for.”
Leslie looks a little relieved, but he knows she’s still upset about her friend. And she should be. Ann’s a great woman. She’s not undeserving of Chris or anything.
Sometimes, things just don’t work out. Life’s like that, Ben knows.
What does work out is that Chris says they won’t leave Pawnee until after the Harvest Festival.
+++
A week before the festival, Ben gets a call around 2 a.m. and it’s Leslie panicking about something he can’t quite understand.
“What do you mean they won’t have blue?”
“The cotton candy vendors,” Leslie whines. “I just found out they only sell pink cotton candy. It’s a disaster.”
“You found this out at 1:57 a.m.?”
“Uh, yeah, Ben, I did,” she snaps. “After looking through their proposal, which you approved.”
“You said I should approve it. I only looked at it to make sure you weren’t doing something ridiculous like spending a million dollars on cotton candy.”
He can hear her rolling her eyes over the phone.
“Obviously you don’t understand how important this is,” Leslie says. “Have you ever been to a carnival where they only sell pink cotton candy? It’s just depressing.”
Ben rubs his eyes. “Look, Leslie, I’m sorry, but they only thing I can suggest is asking them if they can make blue as well. If for some weird reason they can’t, you’re just going to have to deal with it.”
“Ugh. You’re going to have to deal with it!”
Ben frowns. “…what?”
She sighs audibly. “Never mind. Sorry.”
Suddenly Ben realizes it isn’t about the cotton candy. This is about her job, the jobs of her friends. She dove into this project, but now she’s terrified something’s going to go wrong.
Ben’s kind of flattered she called him to freak out. He knows that Ann would have talked to her comfortingly for an hour, or maybe invited her over for hot chocolate, and that sounds much preferable to trying to explain the significance of cotton candy pigment to and out-of-towner.
But she called him.
“Leslie,” Ben starts gently, trying not to let too much of a smile creep into his voice. “The festival’s going to be fine. Better than that. It’s going to be great. You’ve got it all planned out, and you’ve got a bunch of people standing behind you.”
“You’re right,” she says. It surprises him. That she gives in so soon. His comforting voice must be better than he gives himself credit for.
“Get some sleep, Leslie,” he says.
“You too,” she says. As Ben goes to hang up the phone, he hears, “Hey Ben?”
He puts the phone back to his ear. “Yeah?”
“Thank you for that.”
+++
They’re at the Snakehole Lounge and some ridiculous hip hop music is playing and Ben is thinking two things: one, if it weren’t for Leslie, he wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this, and two, there’s nowhere else he’d rather be right now.
He’s sitting in a rounded booth and drinking beer. Leslie’s dancing with Ann. It’s crowded, but Ben can see her blond-turned-blue-from-the-black-lights hair flashing between other people’s heads every once in a while.
He stares at his beer and wonders, who is he kidding? He’s never going to be anything more than Mean Ben, the state auditor, to her. What is he even trying to---
“Hello,” he hears. Ben looks up to see Leslie smiling down at him. “What are you doing over her alone?”
“Not much of a dancer,” Ben says, smiling back.
“You sure? I can ask them to play your song,” she teases, sliding into the booth next to him.
“Ha ha, very funny.”
She grins at him, and the tilts her head to the side. “Ben, can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” he says.
“Why did you run for mayor?” she asks. “You know, when you were eighteen?”
Ben usually hates talking about it. It’s ridiculous and embarrassing, but Leslie clearly just wants to know and he’s getting awful at denying her anything. “Partly because of a bet,” he says. “And partly because I thought I could make a difference.”
“Why’d you get into to government?”
“Because I wanted to make a difference,” Leslie says immediately. She takes a breath - or maybe stifles a hiccup, he’s not quite sure - and then she adds, “And I guess because I thought it would impress my mom.”
“Ah,” Ben says. It explains a lot. Dedication and drive usually stem from withholding parents.
Leslie looks at him like he knows something she doesn’t. “What?”
“Nothing,” he says. “I just understand what it’s like to try to impress your parents. Mine are still disappointed about the mayor thing.”
“Really?” Leslie frowns.
“Yeah,” Ben shrugs. “It was embarrassing for them.”
“Well, if you were my son, I’d be proud,” Leslie says. It’s sweet, and kind of weird if he thinks about it for more than a second, which he doesn’t because Leslie seems to have moved closer to him in the booth and it takes over all his attention.
Maybe he’s buzzing more than he thinks (how many beers has he had?), but he leans in toward her almost without thinking. He’s inches from her lips, and it would be so easy to give in to the urge to kiss her. She’s been rather friendly tonight, in a way that reminds him of how she acted over the summer when she tried to charm him into giving her department more money. But tonight there’s no ulterior motive. How can there be? He’s been giving her everything he can. They’re celebrating, and she’s just being her charming self. No purpose, just Leslie.
But it would be unprofessional and, even if he didn’t wind up regretting it, she probably would. Maybe she was willing to let her unofficially-affiliated-with-the-Parks department friend go on a date with a man in exchange for money, but Leslie would never risk her own reputation. And it’s not like she even-
But she’s not moving away. In fact, she seems to be getting closer. Not fully bridging the gap, but indicating she’d approve of the advance.
He breathes in her breath and it’s like sunshine pouring into his lungs. It burns him, but he’s been simmering for weeks, maybe months in her heat, so he’s developed immunity.
“Leslie,” he startles when he hears her name shouted from across the bar. It’s Ann. She’s drunk - more drunk than Leslie and way more drunk than Ben - and stumbling toward their table. Leslie pulls away from Ben immediately and straightens herself out in her seat, giving her best friend her full attention.
Ben slips out shortly afterward.
He didn’t even kiss her, and it keeps him up all night.
+++
The Harvest Festival goes on without any major hitches.
It’s autumn and Pawnee is still too damn sunny for the disposition he’s held for the last fifteen plus years, but it makes Leslie’s hair shine like the halo she rightly deserves and Ben thinks that it’s just fine for now.
She notices him and waves him to come over, out from under the shade of a tree.
“Ben Wyatt,” she says, her smile as brilliant as ever.
“Leslie.”
“You should be proud of yourself, Ben,” she says. “I know how hard you worked to make this happen.”
“No, Leslie, this was all you,” Ben says. And he means it. He’s never met someone who works as hard as Leslie to pull off an event like this.
Leslie shakes her head. “No,” she says. “It started as my project. But I couldn’t have done it without everyone in my department. And I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Ben opens his mouth to object once more. He didn’t do anything. Really.
“No, Benji, I know you didn’t have to help me at all. It’s really not your job. But you did, and this,” she gestures around herself at the festival, “is the result. I know it’s not Ice Town, but you should be proud.”
Ben smiles and he thinks she’s the only person who can make him laugh, even feel good, about Ice Town.
“Do you want to?” He nods his head at the Ferris wheel next to them, and she smiles.
At the top, Ben feels like he’s eighteen again. He feels full of hope and promise and doesn’t mind the unnatural sunshine in his eyes.
He takes Leslie’s hand and laces his fingers with hers, knowing they’re both blushing like teenagers and not minding at all.
+++
Chris leaves; Ben stays.
The government of Pawnee is terrible at budgeting. They could use a consultant.
Indianapolis is little too cold at this time of the year anyway.
.
.
.
End.