fic: start a war (3/6?)
title: Start A War (3/6?)
author: shornt
pairing: Leslie/Ben
rating: PGish
words: ~4500
spoilers: Loosely based on a Mike Schur interview about season 4, but those were vague tidbits to begin with
notes: This continues to take me forever to write, so again, apologies for taking like a month per chapter. And again, thanks to fairytiger and cypanache for the handholding.
Part 1 | Part 2
Leslie’s a big-picture kind of person. True, she thinks in excessive detail, down to the smallest smiling child and the brightest wildflower in the field. But those are parts of a whole; a bustling festival to save a town, a large mural to adorn the walls of a historic building. You complete a large project and make all the details fall into place; you build a park so the kid down the street can stop playing in the alley, you run for mayor so you can be the one to decide how to handle the citizen requests.
Leslie goes big, and then she fills it in.
And Ben was part of a big picture, at first. Part of the world at City Hall, which suddenly meant part of the world she couldn't date. And somewhere along the line, the picture got smaller and smaller, until it was just her and Ben and how could she even go back to thinking in big terms when the little things made her feel the way they did?
Running for office enlarged the picture, but she can’t stop thinking of Ben in small details.
Silly things, like the way his plaid linen shirts would brush up against her in the kitchen. Or how he’d always pretend to pull the blanket away from her before they went to sleep. Or how he’d stop by her office in the middle of the day, just to smile at her when he knew she was having a bad day.
He doesn’t fit in her big picture anymore, but the little things, these small pieces, won’t go away. And there’s these hints of it; the glimmer in his eye, though much dimmer than before, when they accidentally pass in the hallway. The way his voice still sounds, tinged with affection she wants to burrow under, curl around herself like a blanket. But there’s these straight edges, this harshness to him, now. It’s not the same.
She knows she deserves it, she just forgot that Ben was capable of it.
Things aren’t going exactly how she pictured they would when she got to this point in her life. Even though holding office had been a dream of hers for years, really, she had fallen in love with the way her life was without it. She loved parks, loved creating, loved interacting with the town. But suddenly she’s worrying about image and carefully crafting her words and convincing people that she’s better, and it’s a weird color on her.
She had been really looking forward to the observatory. When she first started writing out the idea, her pen slide effortlessly across the page in excitement. Field trips, eclipse parties, equinox festivals (it sounded like a fun idea at the time). She wanted the kids of Pawnee to learn about the Big Dipper and the North Star. She wanted to be a part of it, she wanted to build it and watch Pawnee enjoy it.
When she finally gets a moment to breath, side by side on the corner of Elm and Harrington with Ann, she considers the papers in her hand. Canvassing is rough but she loves meeting the citizens, likes the connection of shaking a hand and returning a smile. But she’s used to canvassing for projects, for involvement in the community, for something new. This is just canvassing for herself.
Running for mayor apparently doesn’t include building.
From what she can tell, it means deferring decisions to City Council and making appearances to cut red ribbons with enlarged scissors. It means getting a dog that endears you to the town, and having someone else take care of it as you hit the golf course.
Leslie never wanted any of those things.
It hurts, to face the facts and see that things aren’t going to be the same. She’s not going to be able to leave to watch the little league baseball games that happen in the afternoon. She can’t spend all her time planning movie night at the park or listening to what parents want the town to provide for their kids.
She’s not going to be in the parks department if she wins, and that’s a hard thing to process.
She isn’t sure what she wants, anymore.
---
Barnes is pushing her, hard, to try to get corporate sponsorship. She meets with the CEO of Kernstens, who seems to want her to be some sort of empowered housewife, intent on backing her up if she gives the air of a girl-next-store motherly figure who just wants to bake for the town. She turns him down before JJ even gets the meals to their table.
She meets with Nick Newport Jr, who wants her to find a boyfriend and fast, because apparently being single means being unstable and he simply will not back a woman who doesn’t have a man to keep her in check when the time to make decisions comes. She leaves that meeting with a scowl.
Her head aches from all the ridiculous proposals people are making, and the only solace she can find in all of this is Ben. Ben’s the only one who knows how to do this, the only one who’s been there. And he’s the only one she left behind. And she knows it’s twisted, which is what made her avoid talking to him to begin with. But when he called her first, she couldn’t help but ask because really, she needs a hand to hold here.
Not literally, as much as she might want to, because she needs to grant them some semblance of boundaries here. But he’s helping her understand everything and it’s careful and delicate and she’s so grateful for it and so scared to break it.
When she finally announces once and for all that she wants to do this campaign on her own, a grassroots venture, Barnes’s face blanches and everyone starts shuffling their papers uncomfortably. But she holds her ground and when Ben tentatively stays behind to talk to her (she notices Ann hovering nearby, a protective gaze focused her way), he touches her arm and she can breath again.
“It’s not going to be easy but I think it’s the best thing for you.”
“Yeah.” But she isn’t convinced.
“Look, I went grassroots when I ran. Granted, Partridge is about a fifth the size of Pawnee, so the word of the local diner owner meant just about everything, but still. It’s best to look out for yourself.”
“I guess. We’ll... see?”
He smiles that ridiculous half smile, the one she wants to kiss senseless right off his face but she can’t, so she settles with a weird squeeze of his index and middle fingers. She drops them almost instantly.
“We will. And I’m looking out for you too, so.”
She doesn’t realize just how much comfort she finds in that.
---
Once she starts canvassing and printing up campaign signs and enlisting Tom to start thinking of television spots, she and Ben find some kind of common ground. They can go out to lunch every once in a while and never bump into each other’s legs under the table. They can make eye contact in the hall without flinching. It pushes her to give him the observatory, because she wants him to experience the same joy she gets from this kind of work. He deserves to create a part of Pawnee.
When he smiles at her in thanks, she shrugs and grins back. He’s going to love working on it. And she clings to that moment, grabs it with both hands and doesn’t pick up on his sudden weirdness later that day.
“For your Pawnee Today appearance, I was thinking you should go for the blue collar angle. Joan is going to want to make you look self-important so you’re going to have to get it across that you’re relatable.”
“Right,” Leslie says, nodding. They’re catching up while walking to their cars after work that evening, purposely walking slow to avoid the moment where she turns left and he veers right. But while they’d normally joke lightly about something that happened at work, he’s talking nothing but business. “William said something kind of like that.”
“He knows what he’s doing,” Ben assures her for the millionth time. And she knows that. Even though Barnes has different ideas of politics than her, he’s obviously still experienced and has lent a hand to almost half of city council. But she needs reassurance from a familiar face.
“You know I just like to ask.” Which is an understatement, considering Ben is almost permanently CC’ed into all of her email threads regarding the campaign.
“I know,” he says, and she can hear his smile through the words. But when she looks at him, he drops the smile immediately, shifting in this awkward way so he’s several respectable inches from her. “That’s me over there.” He points to the left and she lets go for the night, waves as they retreat to their cars, takes a breath once she’s behind the wheel.
She gets out her phone. Dinner tomorrow to talk about observatory plans? she texts him. When she gets an immediate reply, she looks over and realizes he’s still sitting in his car too, finding his bearings.
Maybe. Might be busy. Will email you. it reads. She frowns.
Being friends isn’t the easiest, but she tells herself that it’s better than the alternative.
It’s safe, for now.
---
He does email her in the morning, but it’s short and clipped and weakly turns down her offer of dinner. She wonders briefly if she’s overstepped the boundaries here, if she’s asking for way more than she deserves, but he had asked her out to lunch last Sunday and she figures maybe he’s just busy.
Either way, come lunchtime, she corners him in the courtyard.
“So the observatory,” she begins, her salad container hitting the metal table with a loud plink! “What ideas do you have?”
“Dunno,” he says, continuing to scribble on the padfolio in front of him without looking up. “I mean, I just got assigned to it yesterday, so--”
“That’s an entire day!” she exclaims incredulously, swinging her leg over the bench and taking a seat. “I already have an idea binder for it and everything, but I wanted to bounce around ideas and stuff.”
“Leslie,” he says with a strained sigh, and she notices the hint of dark circles beneath his eyes. “I still have my regular job. I can’t spend all my time just overseeing a parks project.”
She recoils as if he’d slapped her hand, and shakes her head. He has to be kidding, right?
“I had Chris give you the project because I thought you’d want it,” she says, trying to remain upbeat. “I don’t know, you loved working on the festival so much... I mean, I was going to give you my binder anyway, I just thought you might have some ideas?” He hangs his head lower, runs a hand across his face. When he finally looks at her, she’s a bit startled to see the defeat behind his eyes.
“I do want it,” he admits, and his eyes flick down to her lips for an alarming second and she suddenly feels self conscious. “I’m just busy now, I have a lot of other departments to deal with. The observatory’s going to happen, but it’s going to take time either way.”
“I know,” she says, looking away. “I just want to make sure you still get it off the ground and--”
“Dammit, Leslie,” he suddenly growls, and her eyes widen. “This isn’t your project now. You gave it up.”
“I told Chris I still wanted to work on it,” she tries to defend, more than apprehensive because Ben doesn’t get angry like this. Not anymore, not for a long time.
“You can’t take charge of this,” he tells her, putting his pen away and moving to get up. “If you thought I was a good person to head the project, then let me do it my way.”
“Ben, why are you getting so angry about this?”
“Because you can’t control everything!” he snaps. She feels a light burn at her eyes because she has no idea what’s going on, why he’s suddenly so upset at her wanting to help. But his anger quickly subsides and he runs a hand down his face again. “I’m sorry. I have to -- I just have to go, alright?”
She watches him leave with what she’s sure is a gobsmacked look on her face. It’s still a parks project, and she’s still in parks... doesn’t she still have some say? But she hardly has time to think about it before her phone buzzes and she has to argue with Tom that, no, leopard print leg warmers are not an item she needs in her closet for canvassing.
“Look, I know what I respond to, and animal print is always on that list.”
“Tom...”
---
“And he just left?” Ann asks, settling on her couch next to Leslie with a plate of Oreos. Leslie grabs three right away, shoving the first into her mouth whole.
“He hasn’t responded to either of my texts I’ve sent him, or the email from William about being interviewed by Perd Hapley next week. And I’d asked him to dinner tonight and he said no.”
“You asked him to dinner?” Ann questions skeptically, pausing in her channel surfing.
“Yeah, to go over stuff with the observatory and everything. I just wanted to make sure it was going alright. But he hasn’t even started!” She bites into the second Oreo roughly, brushing the crumbs from her mouth.
“Sorry I just keep asking questions here, but why did you give him the project, again?”
“I don’t really have the time to lead it,” she says with a sigh. “I mean, this mayor stuff is taking up a lot more time than I thought. Ron had to lead a public forum the other day and from what I hear, it did not go over well, and the high school can’t afford to replace the chairs.”
“I don’t even want to know,” Ann deadpans, but quickly moves on. “But I mean, it sounds like you don’t trust Ben. You put him in charge, right?”
“It’s... it’s not that,” she answers, though she feels a bit shaky saying it out loud. “I trust Ben. I do. Just, he loved the Harvest Festival. I thought he’d love this in the same way, too.”
“I think he loved something else a bit more.” Ann gives Leslie a pointed look.
“Stop,” she warns, looking at the tv. “Ann...”
“Just because you guys aren’t together now isn’t going to make everything go away. If you want him to do this project, let him. He handles that and you handle your campaign. There’s a reason you gave the project away.”
“I still care about it, though. It’s just tough.”
“You still care about him.” Leslie flinches, because really, does Ann have x-ray vision into her head?
“Maybe.”
“You did break up with him, Les. You can’t expect everything to be patched up right now.”
“He told me he wanted to help me with things,” she insists around a mouthful of another cookie. “He didn’t have to, we could have continued avoiding each other. Right?”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Ann says with a sigh, getting up to put the cookies back in the kitchen. Leslie quickly steals two more before they’re out of reach. “Has he been like this since you broke up?”
“No, which is why it’s weird. I mean it was awkward being around each other at first, but I expected that. But then it was fine for a while. I mean, we could talk like we used to and it wasn’t weird. We even went out to lunch a few times.”
“I still think that’s odd, you know.”
“It wasn’t, though. But he’s acting just, really kind of short-tempered. Like he did when he first came here. Why wouldn’t he want to go to dinner? I mean, if he hasn’t started the observatory yet--”
“Leslie,” Ann says gently, sitting back down and grabbing Leslie’s shoulders. “Do you think you might be trying to date Ben without actually dating him?”
“No!” she answers too quickly, and she flinches when Ann raises an eyebrow. “Am I?”
“You broke up with him for a reason,” Ann says evenly. “I think you both need a little more space.”
“I guess,” Leslie says, trailing off. She isn’t doing that, right? Except... the idea of loosening the reigns is a bit scary. If she doesn’t have Ben to turn to for advice, where does she go? But she doesn’t say this to Ann. She just nods and sits back, chews thoughtfully on another bite of Oreo. “I miss him,” she mumbles.
“Just be careful,” Ann warns.
---
It’s not until after the conversation with Ann that Leslie starts to realize she’s losing her grip.
The election is still a few months away, but it’s barely taken any time for her to see less of her office and more of Barnes’. And with that, she continues to forward Ben more and more emails. He replies in a highly professional capacity, stops going into any personal details even when she offers them. She asks about the observatory and he doesn’t reply. But she needs him so she doesn’t stop, won’t let up.
In person, it’s a lot trickier. For the next few days he goes in and out of moods. They go to lunch at his favorite Pawnee burger joint on Wednesday but he ignores her texts later that night. She shucks it off as remaining tension from the break up. That’s something she can understand. As long as he keeps turning around and helping her out anyway, she’ll put up with it. She has to.
But the lines start to blur a little too much.
He’s waiting for her two days later, when she’s finished taping Pawnee Today. Joan spent twenty minutes criticizing her pants suit (“Banana Republic? I don’t know about the rest of Pawnee, but that doesn’t sound very American to me.”) and their last ten minutes digging up the old Dexhart scandal (“You’ve been known to possibly canoodle with members of the city government...”) and Leslie can’t take it anymore. When she cameras click off, she leaves the set without shaking Joan’s hand, disappearing into the studio’s single bathroom.
“Leslie?” she hears him call through the door, knocking gently. She takes a deep breath and pops the lock, moving into the corner when he enters and shuts the door behind him. And instead of explaining, instead of trying to reason with logic or plan her next move, she throws her arms around his neck and collapses into him. “Hey, it wasn’t that bad...”
“It was,” she whispers, burying his face in his shoulder. He smells the same as before, feels the same, and it’s not like she expected him to be a different person, but it startles her. It feels so much like it used to. If she can forget, for just a minute--
“You’ll be fine,” he encourages her, and she feels him try to shift away. It just makes her cling to him harder.
Dexhart may not get reelected, but he got to hold office through his scandals. Why can’t it be the same for her? Why can’t she have everything?
“Let’s talk about this,” Ben tries, and she knows he wants her to let go. It’s this stilted give and take, where he lets her step so far before he retreats back farther. But she’s scared to let him go, scared that next time will be the time that makes this stop.
“I don’t want to talk right now,” she says, but his hands are gently pushing her waist away and she pulls back without letting go. “This sucks, okay? A lot of this sucks. A lot of trying to be mayor sucks. I don’t know--”
“But think of the payoff,” he tells her, physically removing her hands from around his neck. She instantly feels alone.
“Which is what? God, I don’t even know anymore.”
“You’re not having doubts,” he states, and she jumps a little at how it isn’t even a question. “You can’t be.”
“I... might be. A little.” He sighs loudly, runs a hand through his hair. She sees his mouth set in a straight line and she bursts. “I’m still going to do it! Jeez, am I allowed to worry a little?”
“You worried about this for an entire summer and ended it,” he says, motioning between them. She shrinks back. “Is this what it was? Worth taking a leap until you realize it isn’t what you expected?”
“Ben, no -- what?”
“I can’t do this here,” he says between gritted teeth, looking around the small bathroom. “I can’t.” He leaves her dazed, again, and she can’t ignore it this time. This is something bigger than she wanted to admit. But she steels herself against the sink, because really, he can’t want to argue about this now. Not when she has so much else to worry about.
By the time she cleans up and gets to her car, his is gone. Her heart is still pounding so she white-knuckles it home, taking out her frustration on the gas pedal. She comes to a full, abrupt stop in the middle of her road when she realizes Ben’s car is parked in front. He’s leaning against it, waiting for her.
Dammit, this is seriously happening right now.
He looks over at her and his jaw’s set, his eyebrows raised. She knows she can’t avoid it. She pulls into her driveway and parks. There’s this weird silence as she calmly gets out of the car to go to her front door, him following her without a word. But the second the door shuts behind him, she turns.
“What the hell is this all about?” she asks. “You said you’d help me with my campaign. You said you would.”
“Yes, Leslie, but helping with your campaign doesn’t mean-- it doesn’t mean we’re together again.” He balls his fists, looking around for something to lean against, but they’re in her foyer and she’s blocking his way into the rest of her house.
“I know we’re not together, Ben,” she says, her mind fleetingly going back to the conversation with Ann. “I think out of anyone, I know that.”
“No, you don’t,” Ben asserts. “You don’t know, because that doesn’t mean we still hang out all the time, and it doesn’t mean you get to text me at three am because you had a dream about losing the election, and it doesn’t mean that I have to hold you in bathrooms when things go wrong.”
“Look, I can’t do this alone, and--”
“Then you should have thought this through more.” His voice, strong and sharp, feels like daggers. “An entire summer wasn’t long enough?”
“Ben, either way,” she tries, knowing her voice is cracking. “We can’t. We couldn’t. Not if I’m--”
“And now you don’t even know if you’d like being mayor,” he continues, interrupting her again. “So what are we doing? I’m not your consolation prize if you lose, Leslie.”
He’s not backing down this time. She’s used to him retreating within himself, holding his cool around her. She’s used to him giving in. But he isn’t and she won’t say it out loud but she knows he’s right, deep down. She’s... she’s really fucked this up, hasn’t she?
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, afraid to look at him. “Ben, I--”
“I got a job offer,” he says evenly, and her head snaps up. “In Indianapolis.”
“You,” she begins, slowly, “were-- what? What job?”
“A higher position in the budgeting office.”
“But--”
“It’s higher pay and no moving around. It’s the job I was trying to get to begin with.”
“Oh.”
“But...” And he finally shows vulnerability, looks to her like she’s an answer he can’t find.
“When did you find out?”
“A little over a week ago.”
“Right.” And finally it all falls into place. His moods, his reluctance to be around her. He’s known about this. He’s known and hasn’t told her. And she knows she has no right to be angry, it’s not her place, but she can’t help it. “So?”
“What are we?” he asks roughly, his defenses going back up. “This, the two of us... what are you expecting, here?”
“I don’t know,” she admits, her voice feeling worn. She’s tired and utterly lost. “Ben, I can’t just... I have to run. I have to. It’s not perfect, but...”
“I can’t just wait forever,” he says, quiet and intense. “I can’t do that.”
“So, what, you’re just going to leave?” And she feels desperate because she can’t let him go. She can’t imagine finishing this without him. “What about the observatory, and-- I need you here, Ben--”
“You broke up with me,” he nearly yells. “You can’t tell me that you need me and tell me we can’t be together in the same breath. Which is it?”
She doesn’t have an answer. She’s been avoiding the question for weeks, she knows it, but she still can’t answer it. He nods, irritated.
“I think I’m going to take the job. I think... I think it’ll be best for both of us.”
She just nods because what else can she do, at this point? This thing can’t be fixed, not now. And she realizes in the back of her mind that she always imagined them getting back together, that the breakup was this temporary thing so she could try something new. But he’s right. She can’t string him along. She can’t expect him to want the same things.
And she’s startled when, instead of leaving, he takes her face in his hands and kisses her. But it’s different than any other kiss; it’s not pleading, it’s not searching, it’s not even desperate. It is, in the most obvious and fitting way, a goodbye.
She opens her mouth under his, her hands circling his wrists because she knows the moment they let go is the last time.
He doesn’t drag it out, pulling away after a few prolonged moments, kissing her gently on the forehead. She wonders if she looks as defeated, as worn, as him. She lets him go.
---
He doesn’t say a word to her over the next week.
By Friday, his office is cleared out.
By Sunday, he’s gone.
author: shornt
pairing: Leslie/Ben
rating: PGish
words: ~4500
spoilers: Loosely based on a Mike Schur interview about season 4, but those were vague tidbits to begin with
notes: This continues to take me forever to write, so again, apologies for taking like a month per chapter. And again, thanks to fairytiger and cypanache for the handholding.
Part 1 | Part 2
Leslie’s a big-picture kind of person. True, she thinks in excessive detail, down to the smallest smiling child and the brightest wildflower in the field. But those are parts of a whole; a bustling festival to save a town, a large mural to adorn the walls of a historic building. You complete a large project and make all the details fall into place; you build a park so the kid down the street can stop playing in the alley, you run for mayor so you can be the one to decide how to handle the citizen requests.
Leslie goes big, and then she fills it in.
And Ben was part of a big picture, at first. Part of the world at City Hall, which suddenly meant part of the world she couldn't date. And somewhere along the line, the picture got smaller and smaller, until it was just her and Ben and how could she even go back to thinking in big terms when the little things made her feel the way they did?
Running for office enlarged the picture, but she can’t stop thinking of Ben in small details.
Silly things, like the way his plaid linen shirts would brush up against her in the kitchen. Or how he’d always pretend to pull the blanket away from her before they went to sleep. Or how he’d stop by her office in the middle of the day, just to smile at her when he knew she was having a bad day.
He doesn’t fit in her big picture anymore, but the little things, these small pieces, won’t go away. And there’s these hints of it; the glimmer in his eye, though much dimmer than before, when they accidentally pass in the hallway. The way his voice still sounds, tinged with affection she wants to burrow under, curl around herself like a blanket. But there’s these straight edges, this harshness to him, now. It’s not the same.
She knows she deserves it, she just forgot that Ben was capable of it.
Things aren’t going exactly how she pictured they would when she got to this point in her life. Even though holding office had been a dream of hers for years, really, she had fallen in love with the way her life was without it. She loved parks, loved creating, loved interacting with the town. But suddenly she’s worrying about image and carefully crafting her words and convincing people that she’s better, and it’s a weird color on her.
She had been really looking forward to the observatory. When she first started writing out the idea, her pen slide effortlessly across the page in excitement. Field trips, eclipse parties, equinox festivals (it sounded like a fun idea at the time). She wanted the kids of Pawnee to learn about the Big Dipper and the North Star. She wanted to be a part of it, she wanted to build it and watch Pawnee enjoy it.
When she finally gets a moment to breath, side by side on the corner of Elm and Harrington with Ann, she considers the papers in her hand. Canvassing is rough but she loves meeting the citizens, likes the connection of shaking a hand and returning a smile. But she’s used to canvassing for projects, for involvement in the community, for something new. This is just canvassing for herself.
Running for mayor apparently doesn’t include building.
From what she can tell, it means deferring decisions to City Council and making appearances to cut red ribbons with enlarged scissors. It means getting a dog that endears you to the town, and having someone else take care of it as you hit the golf course.
Leslie never wanted any of those things.
It hurts, to face the facts and see that things aren’t going to be the same. She’s not going to be able to leave to watch the little league baseball games that happen in the afternoon. She can’t spend all her time planning movie night at the park or listening to what parents want the town to provide for their kids.
She’s not going to be in the parks department if she wins, and that’s a hard thing to process.
She isn’t sure what she wants, anymore.
---
Barnes is pushing her, hard, to try to get corporate sponsorship. She meets with the CEO of Kernstens, who seems to want her to be some sort of empowered housewife, intent on backing her up if she gives the air of a girl-next-store motherly figure who just wants to bake for the town. She turns him down before JJ even gets the meals to their table.
She meets with Nick Newport Jr, who wants her to find a boyfriend and fast, because apparently being single means being unstable and he simply will not back a woman who doesn’t have a man to keep her in check when the time to make decisions comes. She leaves that meeting with a scowl.
Her head aches from all the ridiculous proposals people are making, and the only solace she can find in all of this is Ben. Ben’s the only one who knows how to do this, the only one who’s been there. And he’s the only one she left behind. And she knows it’s twisted, which is what made her avoid talking to him to begin with. But when he called her first, she couldn’t help but ask because really, she needs a hand to hold here.
Not literally, as much as she might want to, because she needs to grant them some semblance of boundaries here. But he’s helping her understand everything and it’s careful and delicate and she’s so grateful for it and so scared to break it.
When she finally announces once and for all that she wants to do this campaign on her own, a grassroots venture, Barnes’s face blanches and everyone starts shuffling their papers uncomfortably. But she holds her ground and when Ben tentatively stays behind to talk to her (she notices Ann hovering nearby, a protective gaze focused her way), he touches her arm and she can breath again.
“It’s not going to be easy but I think it’s the best thing for you.”
“Yeah.” But she isn’t convinced.
“Look, I went grassroots when I ran. Granted, Partridge is about a fifth the size of Pawnee, so the word of the local diner owner meant just about everything, but still. It’s best to look out for yourself.”
“I guess. We’ll... see?”
He smiles that ridiculous half smile, the one she wants to kiss senseless right off his face but she can’t, so she settles with a weird squeeze of his index and middle fingers. She drops them almost instantly.
“We will. And I’m looking out for you too, so.”
She doesn’t realize just how much comfort she finds in that.
---
Once she starts canvassing and printing up campaign signs and enlisting Tom to start thinking of television spots, she and Ben find some kind of common ground. They can go out to lunch every once in a while and never bump into each other’s legs under the table. They can make eye contact in the hall without flinching. It pushes her to give him the observatory, because she wants him to experience the same joy she gets from this kind of work. He deserves to create a part of Pawnee.
When he smiles at her in thanks, she shrugs and grins back. He’s going to love working on it. And she clings to that moment, grabs it with both hands and doesn’t pick up on his sudden weirdness later that day.
“For your Pawnee Today appearance, I was thinking you should go for the blue collar angle. Joan is going to want to make you look self-important so you’re going to have to get it across that you’re relatable.”
“Right,” Leslie says, nodding. They’re catching up while walking to their cars after work that evening, purposely walking slow to avoid the moment where she turns left and he veers right. But while they’d normally joke lightly about something that happened at work, he’s talking nothing but business. “William said something kind of like that.”
“He knows what he’s doing,” Ben assures her for the millionth time. And she knows that. Even though Barnes has different ideas of politics than her, he’s obviously still experienced and has lent a hand to almost half of city council. But she needs reassurance from a familiar face.
“You know I just like to ask.” Which is an understatement, considering Ben is almost permanently CC’ed into all of her email threads regarding the campaign.
“I know,” he says, and she can hear his smile through the words. But when she looks at him, he drops the smile immediately, shifting in this awkward way so he’s several respectable inches from her. “That’s me over there.” He points to the left and she lets go for the night, waves as they retreat to their cars, takes a breath once she’s behind the wheel.
She gets out her phone. Dinner tomorrow to talk about observatory plans? she texts him. When she gets an immediate reply, she looks over and realizes he’s still sitting in his car too, finding his bearings.
Maybe. Might be busy. Will email you. it reads. She frowns.
Being friends isn’t the easiest, but she tells herself that it’s better than the alternative.
It’s safe, for now.
---
He does email her in the morning, but it’s short and clipped and weakly turns down her offer of dinner. She wonders briefly if she’s overstepped the boundaries here, if she’s asking for way more than she deserves, but he had asked her out to lunch last Sunday and she figures maybe he’s just busy.
Either way, come lunchtime, she corners him in the courtyard.
“So the observatory,” she begins, her salad container hitting the metal table with a loud plink! “What ideas do you have?”
“Dunno,” he says, continuing to scribble on the padfolio in front of him without looking up. “I mean, I just got assigned to it yesterday, so--”
“That’s an entire day!” she exclaims incredulously, swinging her leg over the bench and taking a seat. “I already have an idea binder for it and everything, but I wanted to bounce around ideas and stuff.”
“Leslie,” he says with a strained sigh, and she notices the hint of dark circles beneath his eyes. “I still have my regular job. I can’t spend all my time just overseeing a parks project.”
She recoils as if he’d slapped her hand, and shakes her head. He has to be kidding, right?
“I had Chris give you the project because I thought you’d want it,” she says, trying to remain upbeat. “I don’t know, you loved working on the festival so much... I mean, I was going to give you my binder anyway, I just thought you might have some ideas?” He hangs his head lower, runs a hand across his face. When he finally looks at her, she’s a bit startled to see the defeat behind his eyes.
“I do want it,” he admits, and his eyes flick down to her lips for an alarming second and she suddenly feels self conscious. “I’m just busy now, I have a lot of other departments to deal with. The observatory’s going to happen, but it’s going to take time either way.”
“I know,” she says, looking away. “I just want to make sure you still get it off the ground and--”
“Dammit, Leslie,” he suddenly growls, and her eyes widen. “This isn’t your project now. You gave it up.”
“I told Chris I still wanted to work on it,” she tries to defend, more than apprehensive because Ben doesn’t get angry like this. Not anymore, not for a long time.
“You can’t take charge of this,” he tells her, putting his pen away and moving to get up. “If you thought I was a good person to head the project, then let me do it my way.”
“Ben, why are you getting so angry about this?”
“Because you can’t control everything!” he snaps. She feels a light burn at her eyes because she has no idea what’s going on, why he’s suddenly so upset at her wanting to help. But his anger quickly subsides and he runs a hand down his face again. “I’m sorry. I have to -- I just have to go, alright?”
She watches him leave with what she’s sure is a gobsmacked look on her face. It’s still a parks project, and she’s still in parks... doesn’t she still have some say? But she hardly has time to think about it before her phone buzzes and she has to argue with Tom that, no, leopard print leg warmers are not an item she needs in her closet for canvassing.
“Look, I know what I respond to, and animal print is always on that list.”
“Tom...”
---
“And he just left?” Ann asks, settling on her couch next to Leslie with a plate of Oreos. Leslie grabs three right away, shoving the first into her mouth whole.
“He hasn’t responded to either of my texts I’ve sent him, or the email from William about being interviewed by Perd Hapley next week. And I’d asked him to dinner tonight and he said no.”
“You asked him to dinner?” Ann questions skeptically, pausing in her channel surfing.
“Yeah, to go over stuff with the observatory and everything. I just wanted to make sure it was going alright. But he hasn’t even started!” She bites into the second Oreo roughly, brushing the crumbs from her mouth.
“Sorry I just keep asking questions here, but why did you give him the project, again?”
“I don’t really have the time to lead it,” she says with a sigh. “I mean, this mayor stuff is taking up a lot more time than I thought. Ron had to lead a public forum the other day and from what I hear, it did not go over well, and the high school can’t afford to replace the chairs.”
“I don’t even want to know,” Ann deadpans, but quickly moves on. “But I mean, it sounds like you don’t trust Ben. You put him in charge, right?”
“It’s... it’s not that,” she answers, though she feels a bit shaky saying it out loud. “I trust Ben. I do. Just, he loved the Harvest Festival. I thought he’d love this in the same way, too.”
“I think he loved something else a bit more.” Ann gives Leslie a pointed look.
“Stop,” she warns, looking at the tv. “Ann...”
“Just because you guys aren’t together now isn’t going to make everything go away. If you want him to do this project, let him. He handles that and you handle your campaign. There’s a reason you gave the project away.”
“I still care about it, though. It’s just tough.”
“You still care about him.” Leslie flinches, because really, does Ann have x-ray vision into her head?
“Maybe.”
“You did break up with him, Les. You can’t expect everything to be patched up right now.”
“He told me he wanted to help me with things,” she insists around a mouthful of another cookie. “He didn’t have to, we could have continued avoiding each other. Right?”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Ann says with a sigh, getting up to put the cookies back in the kitchen. Leslie quickly steals two more before they’re out of reach. “Has he been like this since you broke up?”
“No, which is why it’s weird. I mean it was awkward being around each other at first, but I expected that. But then it was fine for a while. I mean, we could talk like we used to and it wasn’t weird. We even went out to lunch a few times.”
“I still think that’s odd, you know.”
“It wasn’t, though. But he’s acting just, really kind of short-tempered. Like he did when he first came here. Why wouldn’t he want to go to dinner? I mean, if he hasn’t started the observatory yet--”
“Leslie,” Ann says gently, sitting back down and grabbing Leslie’s shoulders. “Do you think you might be trying to date Ben without actually dating him?”
“No!” she answers too quickly, and she flinches when Ann raises an eyebrow. “Am I?”
“You broke up with him for a reason,” Ann says evenly. “I think you both need a little more space.”
“I guess,” Leslie says, trailing off. She isn’t doing that, right? Except... the idea of loosening the reigns is a bit scary. If she doesn’t have Ben to turn to for advice, where does she go? But she doesn’t say this to Ann. She just nods and sits back, chews thoughtfully on another bite of Oreo. “I miss him,” she mumbles.
“Just be careful,” Ann warns.
---
It’s not until after the conversation with Ann that Leslie starts to realize she’s losing her grip.
The election is still a few months away, but it’s barely taken any time for her to see less of her office and more of Barnes’. And with that, she continues to forward Ben more and more emails. He replies in a highly professional capacity, stops going into any personal details even when she offers them. She asks about the observatory and he doesn’t reply. But she needs him so she doesn’t stop, won’t let up.
In person, it’s a lot trickier. For the next few days he goes in and out of moods. They go to lunch at his favorite Pawnee burger joint on Wednesday but he ignores her texts later that night. She shucks it off as remaining tension from the break up. That’s something she can understand. As long as he keeps turning around and helping her out anyway, she’ll put up with it. She has to.
But the lines start to blur a little too much.
He’s waiting for her two days later, when she’s finished taping Pawnee Today. Joan spent twenty minutes criticizing her pants suit (“Banana Republic? I don’t know about the rest of Pawnee, but that doesn’t sound very American to me.”) and their last ten minutes digging up the old Dexhart scandal (“You’ve been known to possibly canoodle with members of the city government...”) and Leslie can’t take it anymore. When she cameras click off, she leaves the set without shaking Joan’s hand, disappearing into the studio’s single bathroom.
“Leslie?” she hears him call through the door, knocking gently. She takes a deep breath and pops the lock, moving into the corner when he enters and shuts the door behind him. And instead of explaining, instead of trying to reason with logic or plan her next move, she throws her arms around his neck and collapses into him. “Hey, it wasn’t that bad...”
“It was,” she whispers, burying his face in his shoulder. He smells the same as before, feels the same, and it’s not like she expected him to be a different person, but it startles her. It feels so much like it used to. If she can forget, for just a minute--
“You’ll be fine,” he encourages her, and she feels him try to shift away. It just makes her cling to him harder.
Dexhart may not get reelected, but he got to hold office through his scandals. Why can’t it be the same for her? Why can’t she have everything?
“Let’s talk about this,” Ben tries, and she knows he wants her to let go. It’s this stilted give and take, where he lets her step so far before he retreats back farther. But she’s scared to let him go, scared that next time will be the time that makes this stop.
“I don’t want to talk right now,” she says, but his hands are gently pushing her waist away and she pulls back without letting go. “This sucks, okay? A lot of this sucks. A lot of trying to be mayor sucks. I don’t know--”
“But think of the payoff,” he tells her, physically removing her hands from around his neck. She instantly feels alone.
“Which is what? God, I don’t even know anymore.”
“You’re not having doubts,” he states, and she jumps a little at how it isn’t even a question. “You can’t be.”
“I... might be. A little.” He sighs loudly, runs a hand through his hair. She sees his mouth set in a straight line and she bursts. “I’m still going to do it! Jeez, am I allowed to worry a little?”
“You worried about this for an entire summer and ended it,” he says, motioning between them. She shrinks back. “Is this what it was? Worth taking a leap until you realize it isn’t what you expected?”
“Ben, no -- what?”
“I can’t do this here,” he says between gritted teeth, looking around the small bathroom. “I can’t.” He leaves her dazed, again, and she can’t ignore it this time. This is something bigger than she wanted to admit. But she steels herself against the sink, because really, he can’t want to argue about this now. Not when she has so much else to worry about.
By the time she cleans up and gets to her car, his is gone. Her heart is still pounding so she white-knuckles it home, taking out her frustration on the gas pedal. She comes to a full, abrupt stop in the middle of her road when she realizes Ben’s car is parked in front. He’s leaning against it, waiting for her.
Dammit, this is seriously happening right now.
He looks over at her and his jaw’s set, his eyebrows raised. She knows she can’t avoid it. She pulls into her driveway and parks. There’s this weird silence as she calmly gets out of the car to go to her front door, him following her without a word. But the second the door shuts behind him, she turns.
“What the hell is this all about?” she asks. “You said you’d help me with my campaign. You said you would.”
“Yes, Leslie, but helping with your campaign doesn’t mean-- it doesn’t mean we’re together again.” He balls his fists, looking around for something to lean against, but they’re in her foyer and she’s blocking his way into the rest of her house.
“I know we’re not together, Ben,” she says, her mind fleetingly going back to the conversation with Ann. “I think out of anyone, I know that.”
“No, you don’t,” Ben asserts. “You don’t know, because that doesn’t mean we still hang out all the time, and it doesn’t mean you get to text me at three am because you had a dream about losing the election, and it doesn’t mean that I have to hold you in bathrooms when things go wrong.”
“Look, I can’t do this alone, and--”
“Then you should have thought this through more.” His voice, strong and sharp, feels like daggers. “An entire summer wasn’t long enough?”
“Ben, either way,” she tries, knowing her voice is cracking. “We can’t. We couldn’t. Not if I’m--”
“And now you don’t even know if you’d like being mayor,” he continues, interrupting her again. “So what are we doing? I’m not your consolation prize if you lose, Leslie.”
He’s not backing down this time. She’s used to him retreating within himself, holding his cool around her. She’s used to him giving in. But he isn’t and she won’t say it out loud but she knows he’s right, deep down. She’s... she’s really fucked this up, hasn’t she?
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, afraid to look at him. “Ben, I--”
“I got a job offer,” he says evenly, and her head snaps up. “In Indianapolis.”
“You,” she begins, slowly, “were-- what? What job?”
“A higher position in the budgeting office.”
“But--”
“It’s higher pay and no moving around. It’s the job I was trying to get to begin with.”
“Oh.”
“But...” And he finally shows vulnerability, looks to her like she’s an answer he can’t find.
“When did you find out?”
“A little over a week ago.”
“Right.” And finally it all falls into place. His moods, his reluctance to be around her. He’s known about this. He’s known and hasn’t told her. And she knows she has no right to be angry, it’s not her place, but she can’t help it. “So?”
“What are we?” he asks roughly, his defenses going back up. “This, the two of us... what are you expecting, here?”
“I don’t know,” she admits, her voice feeling worn. She’s tired and utterly lost. “Ben, I can’t just... I have to run. I have to. It’s not perfect, but...”
“I can’t just wait forever,” he says, quiet and intense. “I can’t do that.”
“So, what, you’re just going to leave?” And she feels desperate because she can’t let him go. She can’t imagine finishing this without him. “What about the observatory, and-- I need you here, Ben--”
“You broke up with me,” he nearly yells. “You can’t tell me that you need me and tell me we can’t be together in the same breath. Which is it?”
She doesn’t have an answer. She’s been avoiding the question for weeks, she knows it, but she still can’t answer it. He nods, irritated.
“I think I’m going to take the job. I think... I think it’ll be best for both of us.”
She just nods because what else can she do, at this point? This thing can’t be fixed, not now. And she realizes in the back of her mind that she always imagined them getting back together, that the breakup was this temporary thing so she could try something new. But he’s right. She can’t string him along. She can’t expect him to want the same things.
And she’s startled when, instead of leaving, he takes her face in his hands and kisses her. But it’s different than any other kiss; it’s not pleading, it’s not searching, it’s not even desperate. It is, in the most obvious and fitting way, a goodbye.
She opens her mouth under his, her hands circling his wrists because she knows the moment they let go is the last time.
He doesn’t drag it out, pulling away after a few prolonged moments, kissing her gently on the forehead. She wonders if she looks as defeated, as worn, as him. She lets him go.
---
He doesn’t say a word to her over the next week.
By Friday, his office is cleared out.
By Sunday, he’s gone.