fic: i dont wanna get over you, r
title: I Don't Wanna Get Over You
author:
shornt
pairing: Leslie/Ben
rating: R (a strong R, mind you)
words: 5306
notes: Consider this a sort of... experimentation. Really late a few nights ago I asked fairytiger to give me a prompt. She gave me "fuck buddies." So... this is what happened. The majority of it was written when I was half asleep on various nights past midnight, so it's a bit messy and stream-of-conscious-ish, but I liked it that way. Thanks to her for the constant assurance that this was not, in fact, crap.
Once it’s a few months in, being broken up starts to feel... more like a technicality, than an actual, solid situation.
It’s not that easy to stay away.
They were good for a while, actually. It’s not like the break up didn’t really fucking hurt. It’s not like Leslie didn’t feel like her heart was gonna fall out her butt because she was definitely ass-over-heels over this guy and wasn’t even aware of the magnitude of that until he was breaking up with her in the sweetest, most wonderful way possible.
Even his breaking up is wonderful.
And it was frail, the first few weeks. A lot of tip toeing, a lot of awkward, stilted conversations with pathetic attempts at tension-cracking humor. And glances; lots of stolen glances. Lots of looking to him in a crowd, and seeing him beam back. Lots of catching his eye across crowded rooms.
And lots of crying, if she’s being honest. And she’s not usually a crier. It took Ann many, many pancakes and hugs to get Leslie through those few weeks.
Then everything got kind of blurry again.
The campaign was stressful; it was more pressure than Leslie had ever felt in her life. She’d never been watched every day, in her job and elsewhere, so closely. She had to have an answer for everything, and it had to be a calculated answer, and it had to be the right one. And having a smile on her face at all times had never seemed like a chore, but suddenly she just felt so tired, all the time. Three hours a night was frequently becoming one or two, as she stayed up late into the night planning ahead for speeches and watching back the tapes of other appearances, scrutinizing everything she’d done and trying to correct it.
She didn’t like having an Image. That’s how she thought of it, with a capital I. That’s how it sounds coming out of Barnes’s mouth. “Image,” like it was this big deciding thing that made or broke you. But who ever heard of a Christmas present being amazing just because the wrapping was bought at an expensive store? Whatever’s inside might still be crappy, and frankly, Leslie’s a fan of homemade wrapping and a thoughtful gift.
Or something like that. It’s like 5am and she’s just settling down for the night, give her a break.
Anyway, this is when she thinks about it. It’s a pretty large contributing factor to the less-sleep-than-usual situation. That lost hour is usually the only time of the day she lets herself think about him in excess.
And no matter how many times she reminds herself during the day that it’s over, they’re broken up and it’s because she owes it to herself to advance her career, to live her dreams... it’s in these moments where she can’t find that finality. She can’t find that true feeling like it’s done, can’t think of a time where one day she might be able to look at him and not feel... like this.
She doesn’t want that day to come.
That’s what makes it so easy for things to go wrong.
---
It starts off innocently enough. Barnes has let her have a little more wiggle room once the Winter Jamboree is already in motion, because it’s the holidays and he’s not a complete monster. Sure, she has a lot scheduled starting on the second of January, but for now, she’s got a week to relax and sleep.
So, naturally, she pushes Ann into having a Christmas party instead.
It actually takes place on the 27th, to accommodate everyone’s schedules, so there’s a weird feeling of the holiday being over but trying desperately to hang on to the season (and really, with an impending New Year’s Bash at the Snakehole, is this even necessary?). Ann’s tree is getting a little droopy and she’s already put some decorations away, much to Leslie’s dismay, but she still gets the Christmas albums back out and hangs mistletoe over the doorway.
Leslie spends a lot of the party eying it suspiciously.
But then Donna breaks out a bottle of Bailey’s and Leslie’s drink ends up half alcohol, half hot chocolate, which is really an amazing mix and she downs two of them before she can blink.
Ben shows up a little late, having just gotten back from Partridge that morning. He’s looking exhausted and a bit weary of more Christmas and it makes Leslie just want to run her hands through his hair and melt into him, not for the first time, before she has to scold herself.
But the alcohol is starting to do more of the talking.
She’s not drunk, per say, but maybe just over the edge into “buzzed.” Enough to let herself watch him freely, without glancing around to see who might notice. There’s a bit of a dance competition going on in the living room between Donna, Tom, and Chris, and Andy and April are mixing weird drinks in the kitchen while Ron attempts to carve a ham. Leslie’s been clinging to Ann all night, but when she has to go help with the food, she’s stranded to fend for her own.
Ben has just been watching the dancing in some mixture of horror and amusement, and she tries not to over-think it when she sits next to him. It’s probably too close for two people who really should not be around each other right now, but it’s nice to feel his thigh press against her own and really, she’s -- fuck, she’s missed him so much.
“How’s the campaign?” he asks politely, as if they didn’t still work in the same building and have the same friends. As if he wasn’t in the crowd every time she made a public appearance, as if his DVR wasn’t full of her on Pawnee Today and Ya Heard with Perd.
“Well... it’s not what I expected,” she admits, shrugging with a lopsided smile. And she doesn’t want to get into it, wants to keep this night Christmasy and cheery, but he’s already giving her that look, like he knows her better than she knows herself (and maybe he does, who knows), and it comes out of her in fragments and unhinged thoughts; how she expected her heart to matter more, how she’s blown her last two paychecks on new pant suits, how little she’d actually gotten to help with the Winter Jamboree even though she was still supposed to put her name on it.
“It’s supposed to help with the polls or something, I don’t know,” she says, resting her cheek in her hand. “It feels kind of dirty.”
“Politics aren’t the cleanest,” he says, and she knows that he gets it. It’s why she’s almost called him every week, why she’s been telling him half-stories when they’re around each other in person. He’s the one person she knows she can confide with about this, and also the one person she probably shouldn’t be around right now.
Long story short, they have two more drinks, each a little more alcohol than hot chocolate.
Long story short, she ends up kissing him on the back porch.
So it’s a little cold and a lot of stupid. Leslie can’t fully remember how they ended up out there, she just knows that she went outside without her coat on and Ben followed with it on his arm. He held it out to her, and instead of taking it, she just grabbed him by the lapels and pulled him in.
It’s kind of sloppy and awkward, and she realizes that he’s dropped her coat in the snow. But whatever. His tongue slips into her mouth and that’s it, she’s a goner. She probably couldn’t stop if she tried, so she just slides her hands into his hair and tries to pull him closer, to feel more of him, because god, it’s been months.
And, weirdly enough, it finally feels like her brain has shut up. It’s just focused on Ben and his mouth and his hands, holding her to him like she’ll freeze to death if he lets go. But she’s not worrying, she’s not thinking too much, she just... feels.
But it doesn’t last forever and eventually she finds herself waking up on Ann’s couch the next morning, not entirely sure when Ben left and what else happened the night before.
And she smiles, a little, thinking about it. She doesn’t panic about what it means. They were kind of drunk and it happened, and it was nice and it made her feel good and of course she wanted to do it more, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to.
She turns the Christmas music back on, which makes Ann groan as it wakes her up.
“Christmas is over, Les,” she yells from the bedroom.
---
New Years makes things worse.
(Or better, depending on when you ask her)
She’s settled into this little holiday bubble, where she’s letting herself forget her duties and the meetings she has soon, forgetting the rules and Image and the campaign. She maybe calls Ben a few times, but it’s fine, it’s not a big deal. They actually manage to talk like normal human beings and it’s nice, and she pretends like it was an accident when she asks him to tell her a story and falls asleep with the phone next to her ear.
Ann keeps asking her if she's okay with increasing worry, but Leslie hasn't felt this at ease since the spring.
And maybe its kind of a scary ease.
The Snakehole is packed, mostly with kids around April's age, who are shouting hip hop lyrics and ordering too many cosmos. But hey, it’s 2012 in a few hours and they're young and the world’s supposed to end in December, so have at it.
She dances a bit with Ann and ends up squished into a booth between her and Ben. And it's not a big deal, at first. Everybody is doing rounds of shots and it feels warm, nice to be sandwiched between her friends.
But when she excuses herself to the bathroom, he's waiting for her in the hall when she's done. He looks like he isn't sure why he followed her, and she wants to kiss that dumb bewildered look off his face. So she does.
"Leslie, what are we--" he tried to mumble against her lips, though his hands creep up her waist.
"Just come on," she groans, grabbing his wrist and pulling him to the dance floor. Its ten minutes until midnight and no one could see them if they tried, and no one around then cares about Pawnee politics. She just grabs his hands and dances like a goof, giggles so much she thinks her stomach might cramp up.
When the countdown begins, she pushes him into a dark corner and kisses him even though the kids are only on "five." But it seems like a good way to enter the year.
Judging by the way he takes her bottom lip between his, she thinks he probably agrees.
---
They don't talk about it when they leave the party without saying goodbye to anyone. Leslie isn't letting herself think - once she thinks, this becomes decidedly less appealing. So instead of thinking, she concentrates on the buttons of his shirt, slides it off his shoulders and chucks it somewhere in her living room.
He looks dazed, like he's not entirely sure how he got here and why he's staying, and its adorable and infuriating and really, he needs to start on her shirt now before she has to spell it out.
They end up topless on her couch, which is weirdly thrilling. They used to make out here, sure, but they never had sex there, so when he starts to pull himself up en route to her bedroom, she pulls him back on top of her and licks his jaw and starts undoing his pants.
She might be a little scared of what the bedroom means.
When they're finally undressed, things are frantic and rushed, like they have to do this now before they realize what's happening and call judgment on it. But oh god, there's something really different about this. The way he holds her hands above her head, doesn't wait for permission before thrusting into her, runs his tongue down her neck when she throws her head back.
Its harder, more electric, and she's never felt so turned on in her life.
It doesn't last the longest, since they haven't been together like this since the trees began to turn gold, and they somehow end up in a sweaty heap on the floor.
For some reason, its hilarious and she can't stop laughing. And then he can't stop touching her and maybe she ends up on top of him, holding his hands down this time in mock-revenge (though he doesn't seem to mind; at least not when she's rocking back and forth on top of him like this).
They do find their way back onto the couch before she ends up falling asleep, curled into him to avoid sliding off.
She doesn't think of anything. Not the fact that she'll be waking up to a new year, that it’s an election year and her name is on the ballot, that being with the guy next to her is basically the one thing that could bring it all down.
---
She sleeps for eight hours and is more than a little disoriented when she wakes up under a blanket, all stretched out and taking up the entire couch.
Wait, couch? And she's naked?
Fuck.
She finds him fully dressed in the kitchen, which makes her pull the blanket around herself tighter.
"Um..."
"We probably shouldn't--"
"Not that it wasn't great--"
"I'm just not sure if--"
So yeah, it’s weird. But if Leslie thinks about it, it's only weird because she feels like it's supposed to be.
"I slept better last night than I have since... ever," she admits.
"You are a light sleeper," he says with a little smile.
“It was nice,” she says, avoiding looking at him when she suddenly remembers she’s wearing nothing more than a blanket. If there was ever a time to feel way too vulnerable, it would be now.
“It was.” He nods, smiles down at the table. Then his brow furrows. “But what--”
“What if we just like.. see what happens?” He looks at her, confused. “Like, we can’t date, but I... I don’t want to not... be with you.”
“See what happens?”
“Just don’t... think about it too much.”
Ben heads home on uncertain terms, looking a bit bewildered and not entirely comfortable with their undefinable tryst. Leslie’s just happy he’s not entirely out of the picture.
She can’t lie; she wants to do it again.
---
It doesn’t happen again for two weeks. And nothing is on purpose. She’s been so busy that she hasn’t even run into him, even though she’s losing that hour of sleep again.
"Oh hey," he mumbles, standing in the take-out line at JJs while Leslie is leaving a dinner meeting with Barnes.
"Hey," she answers, a little too casually. She's blatantly looking at his mouth, she can tell. And Barnes is still in the building -- Stop that, Leslie.
"Um, how are you--"
"What are you doing tonight?"
He's clearly caught off-guard, his eyes widening and darting around them.
"I just don't get a lot of free time lately," she fibs a little. Truth is, all her free time is filled by Ann, but she can make a little pocket of time. "Just to talk, like normal? I hardly get to just talk to people. Outside of work."
"Uh, are you sure?"
"Yes," she presses.
--
He grabs his take-out container and they end up wandering to Ramsett Park, sharing bites of his fries on a park bench.
"I'm just so stressed, lately," she confides, wiping some ketchup off her coat sleeve. "Its been a little rough."
"I know," he says, and she realizes he can relate.
"Did you ever feel like your life was being taken away from you, a little bit?"
"Sometimes. But, you know, I was just a kid. I just did whatever and hoped it worked. Obviously not the best strategy."
"But you won," she reminds him, and he lets out a bitter chuckle. "I would have voted for you."
"Leslie, what are we doing?" He looks at her like a life line, but she knows she isn't ready to answer that yet. She can't. Once she thinks about it, it's gone. So instead, she leans in and kisses him.
And it sort of breaks her heart, how quickly he responds. His fingers run through her hair, but after a prolonged moment, he pulls back.
"Don't", she says quickly, covering his mouth with a finger. "Please don't. I just, you, you're here, and its, it sucks without-- I mean, Ben--" She feels her eyes start to burn with tears she didn't anticipate and her hand grasps for his, squeezes too hard.
"Okay," he whispers. "I think, maybe, we should get you home."
She doesn't let go of his hand the entire walk. And maybe he pulls her into shadows under trees, smiling like he's keeping a secret, just to kiss her. He holds her face in his hands like she might break, searches her face to make sure she's okay, then takes her hand and pulls her back on their route.
She knows this is a dumb idea. She knows he knows this, too. But weirdly, what should feel so crazy is making her feel sane. Even though she kind of feels like she’s floating, she also feels grounded. Like everything else in life is running circles around her, but Ben’s still there to grab her hand and anchor her, and he isn’t supposed to be there but it’s so much worse when he isn’t.
When they finally stumble through her front door, punch-drunk and giddy, he tries to pull her up to her bedroom again. But she pulls him to the kitchen, mumbling something into his mouth about needing a drink. Before she can get a glass of water (she wasn’t lying, she really is thirsty), he pushes her back to the counter, lifting her on top of it.
It ends up rushed, her shirt still on and his pants around his ankles, and her head hurts when she smacks it against the cabinets. He thrusts into her like there’s a time limit, kisses her over and over like he has to stockpile them now. She’s just trying her best to hold on.
It’s after, when they somehow make it back to the couch, when he ends up falling asleep on top of her somehow, that she realizes this could turn into a problem. But she’s way too sleepy to care.
And she definitely doesn’t care when he wakes her up at some random hour of the night and slides down her body, trailing kisses that make her jolt. He goes down on her lazily, for a really long time, like he could sit there and lap at her all day. She just bunches her fingers in his hair and forgets that this is twenty times more complicated than they’re treating it. She doesn’t mind losing the extra hour this way.
She feels relaxed than she’s felt in months, as she drifts off to sleep in his arms. And she dreams of winning, of standing behind a podium grinning with him smiling back at her, like it could be that easy.
---
So it starts to become a regular thing.
They try really, really hard not to talk about it. They set boundaries without discussing them; it’s never in a bed and it’s never planned. They don’t go out to dinner and they don’t tell each other about their day beforehand. It just... kind of happens that way.
When Leslie has a shaky first public debate, she texts him and they end up against the wall in her foyer, her hands trying to clutch his sweaty back as they move together.
They end up leaving City Hall at the same time and after their hands brush against each other in the parking lot, they end up fucking in the backseat of his Saturn (Leslie gets a bruise on the back of her head from the door handle).
Things start to melt together until she realizes that she has no idea what’s going on in his life; she doesn’t know how work’s going, if he’s still helping out Tom, if he’s even voting for her in this election. But she can clearly remember the look on his face when she surprised him by giving him head on the bean bag chair in his living room (Andy and April were, mercifully, passed out at a party across town).
It’s not exactly the best arrangement she’s ever thought of.
---
Between doubling her efforts at Parks (which is apparently possible, much to the shock of her coworkers), barreling forward with the campaign, and occasionally screwing her ex-boyfriend, she thankfully hasn’t had much time to accidentally spill the beans to Ann. They’ve been reduced to catching up over the phone in the few quiet moments of the day; driving home from work, taking a morning walk.
So really, it should come as no surprise when Ann captures her for a night, with promises of The American President on rental dvd and all the pancakes Leslie could ever eat.
And really, once Ann cracks out the margarita mix, it should come as no surprise that Leslie slips.
“You’re sleeping with Ben??” Ann snaps, suddenly seeming a lot more sober than she previously had been.
“It’s not a big deal,” Leslie mumbles, realizing her mistake. She covers her face with her hand. “Really. Don’t make this, like, a thing.”
“It’s a huge thing!” Ann yells, a little louder than necessary. “Leslie, you can’t just have sex with your ex-boyfriend when you can’t even date him.”
“I’m a grown lady!” she fights back, her head feeling a little heavy, and yeah. She might have overdone it on the margaritas. “It’s fine, really.”
“When I am sober, we are going to have a talk about this,” Ann promises, and thankfully drops the subject before promptly falling asleep.
They wake up in cramped positions on the floor, and the shame hits Leslie at the same time the hangover does.
“Owww,” she whines, the sunlight stinging her eyes.
“I didn’t forget that I need to talk to you,” Ann says right away, although it ends up taking her almost an hour to remember exactly what they need to talk about.
“Okay, how did this happen?” she asks once the coffee’s brewed and Leslie has dumped half her sugar jar into it.
“It just... did. We kissed at the Christmas party--”
“Where was I?”
“I don’t know, Ann. Do we have to talk about this?”
“Yes,” Ann asserts, looking at her sternly. “Leslie, you’re right back where you can’t be. You know you can’t be with him while you’re running for office.”
“We’re not dating...”
“Is just having sex with him really any better?”
Leslie thinks on it. She’s been trying so hard to shut this out, to not think of it as an issue. She missed Ben and this way she got to have him, sort of, even if it tended to be rushed and covert.
But she knows it hasn’t been the same. She misses doing more with him than just fucking; she misses throwing popcorn at him while they watch documentaries, misses going to the park with him after hours just to sit on the swings, misses actually talking to him in bed, instead of just avoiding words to make things less messy.
“I miss him,” she admits, not looking Ann in the eye. “I just, I felt so crappy without him. I was hardly sleeping--”
“To be fair, you rarely sleep much.”
“Worse than usual,” Leslie confides, and Ann’s eyebrows raise. “And, I don’t know, I just sleep better with him, and it just feels so good, and--”
“You can’t, though,” Ann repeats, though she sounds more sympathetic now. “Maybe you can find a way to be with him after the election, but Leslie, you can’t right now.”
Leslie doesn’t know what else she can do but admit defeat.
“I know.” She exhales heavily, feeling everything inside her deflate.
“You’re going to end it, right?”
---
She doesn’t end it. At least, not right away.
After leaving Ann’s, she spends her whole day actually cleaning her house. It’s the only thing she can think of that doesn’t involve her job or her campaign or Ben. It’s just the mess that is her life, but she’s able to clean it. Sort of.
Well, she clears off the dining room table, anyway.
She’s so on edge that she jumps about a foot in the air when there’s a quiet knock on her back door. And it’s Ben, of course it is, with something suspiciously like silly string in his hair.
“Andy called for open war,” he explains simply, the corner of his mouth lifting in a half smile. “Figured I’d go looking for a safe house.” His eyes are questioning.
“Well, come on in,” she says, unsteady. She wasn’t prepared for this, though she’s hardly ever prepared for when they end up together. But this is different. She’s too aware, too nervous. She knows this is wrong.
“So, what are you up to?”
And she hears it; the hollowness to his voice. Like he knows the words don’t mean much, anymore. And she realizes he’s been talking to her that way for a while.
She knows, truly, that they’re fucking this up way more than they need to.
“Ben...” she chokes out, suddenly feeling a lump in her throat. And she shuts her eyes because there are probably tears coming too, and looking at him makes everything harder.
He’s at her side in a split second, his hand warm and solid on her arm. Stupid, considerate Ben. He steadies her like he thinks she might be suffering from exhaustion, which isn’t too far off.
“Leslie, are you alright?”
She just launches herself at him because she doesn’t know what else to do. She wraps her arms around his neck, forces his mouth open with her tongue, starts to pull at his shirt before he even gets his bearings.
“Les--” he whispers against her, a hand moving up to stroke her hair, slowing her down. He searches her face, looking for an answer. She’s not willing to give it yet; she thinks he probably knows anyway.
Everything goes wrong.
They end up in her bedroom, where they haven’t slept together since before they broke up. He undresses her slowly, taking his time to pay attention to every inch of skin. It feels like ages of his hands, on her waist, over the plane of her stomach, on her breasts, between her legs. She fumbles with his boxers, stroking him softly, feeling his lips against her neck.
When he finally slides into her, she just clutches him, feels him move against her. The way he moves is almost lazy; he takes his time, makes it last, and he knows. She realizes this is probably their last time; she knows he can tell. Of course he knows.
When they’re done, it’s his turn to clutch her, tightly against him like he’s afraid to let go. And she understands. This is all they have, and when they wake up in the morning, they might have nothing.
“Ben...” she whispers.
“I know.”
He just holds her tighter.
---
The next morning, she wakes up alone. She knows better than to think he’s left her, but it’s still jarring to not have to disentangle her limbs from his.
She slips into a robe and sure enough, he’s already sipping a cup of coffee in her kitchen, flipping through the morning’s issue of the Pawnee Journal. His eyes flick up the second he hears her footsteps; the look in his eyes catches her right away.
“I’m sorry,” she chokes out, and he’s taken her in his arms before the first tear falls down her cheek.
“Me too.”
They don’t say much else. She doesn’t cry forever (though it may feel like it), and he kisses her on the forehead on his way out.
And that’s that.
---
They don’t talk for two months.
Leslie asks Ann to be some sort of bizarre body guard, because Leslie’s stopped trusting herself when it comes to Ben. And even though Ann is in support of this, would be the best body guard in the world, it ends up being unnecessary. Ben doesn’t go looking for her.
Time slips away fast, and it’s suddenly election night and there are way too many people crowded in front of the television in Ann’s living room.
Ben isn’t there. Leslie pretends not to notice.
She’s so busy pretending that she nearly misses when her name is read by Perd Hapley on screen, a landslide win for the last seat on the Pawnee City Council. She doesn’t even have time to process what that means before Ann has flung herself around her, and suddenly she’s the middle of a massive crowd of bodies, being hugged from every angle and Andy’s started singing loudly and she even catches Ron toasting her from a quiet corner in all the commotion.
“You’ll be a damn good councilwoman,” he says loudly, raising his glass to her.
Everyone’s in high spirits, figuratively and literally, but all she needs is a moment to herself to savor this. She won. Her very first election and she did it, she’s in the City Council, and everything’s going to change and this is huge and really, she needs to sit down.
It’s so crazy inside that no one notices when she slips out the back door. She walks to the edge of Ann’s lawn, to the fence separating the yard from Lot 48. Her fingers grip the chain links and she promises in her mind, you’ll be a park soon...
“Congratulations,” she hears his voice behind her, and she should be surprised but she isn’t. She exhales like she’s been waiting all night.
“Thanks,” she says, and she can’t conceal her grin. When she turns to him, he has the same goofy look on his face. “When did you get here?”
“Ah, I’ve been sitting in my car the whole time.”
She turns back to the lot; her stomach is going a lot of flipping around and it won’t settle, and when he ends up hugging her from behind, it practically does a somersault.
“I wanted to come in,” he says quietly against her temple. “But I--”
“Shh,” she chides him, just wanting this. This weird feeling of possibility and change and his arms around her waist and everything, she just wants everything. She still doesn’t know how to have everything, but whatever, this is her moment. Ann’s sure to find her soon and she’s relishing a minute unguarded.
“I almost called you, like, twenty--”
“Really, Ben,” she says on a giggle, gripping his hands. “Just shut up for a little while.”
Truthfully, there’s a million things she wants to say. But they can wait.
author:
shornt
pairing: Leslie/Ben
rating: R (a strong R, mind you)
words: 5306
notes: Consider this a sort of... experimentation. Really late a few nights ago I asked fairytiger to give me a prompt. She gave me "fuck buddies." So... this is what happened. The majority of it was written when I was half asleep on various nights past midnight, so it's a bit messy and stream-of-conscious-ish, but I liked it that way. Thanks to her for the constant assurance that this was not, in fact, crap.
Once it’s a few months in, being broken up starts to feel... more like a technicality, than an actual, solid situation.
It’s not that easy to stay away.
They were good for a while, actually. It’s not like the break up didn’t really fucking hurt. It’s not like Leslie didn’t feel like her heart was gonna fall out her butt because she was definitely ass-over-heels over this guy and wasn’t even aware of the magnitude of that until he was breaking up with her in the sweetest, most wonderful way possible.
Even his breaking up is wonderful.
And it was frail, the first few weeks. A lot of tip toeing, a lot of awkward, stilted conversations with pathetic attempts at tension-cracking humor. And glances; lots of stolen glances. Lots of looking to him in a crowd, and seeing him beam back. Lots of catching his eye across crowded rooms.
And lots of crying, if she’s being honest. And she’s not usually a crier. It took Ann many, many pancakes and hugs to get Leslie through those few weeks.
Then everything got kind of blurry again.
The campaign was stressful; it was more pressure than Leslie had ever felt in her life. She’d never been watched every day, in her job and elsewhere, so closely. She had to have an answer for everything, and it had to be a calculated answer, and it had to be the right one. And having a smile on her face at all times had never seemed like a chore, but suddenly she just felt so tired, all the time. Three hours a night was frequently becoming one or two, as she stayed up late into the night planning ahead for speeches and watching back the tapes of other appearances, scrutinizing everything she’d done and trying to correct it.
She didn’t like having an Image. That’s how she thought of it, with a capital I. That’s how it sounds coming out of Barnes’s mouth. “Image,” like it was this big deciding thing that made or broke you. But who ever heard of a Christmas present being amazing just because the wrapping was bought at an expensive store? Whatever’s inside might still be crappy, and frankly, Leslie’s a fan of homemade wrapping and a thoughtful gift.
Or something like that. It’s like 5am and she’s just settling down for the night, give her a break.
Anyway, this is when she thinks about it. It’s a pretty large contributing factor to the less-sleep-than-usual situation. That lost hour is usually the only time of the day she lets herself think about him in excess.
And no matter how many times she reminds herself during the day that it’s over, they’re broken up and it’s because she owes it to herself to advance her career, to live her dreams... it’s in these moments where she can’t find that finality. She can’t find that true feeling like it’s done, can’t think of a time where one day she might be able to look at him and not feel... like this.
She doesn’t want that day to come.
That’s what makes it so easy for things to go wrong.
---
It starts off innocently enough. Barnes has let her have a little more wiggle room once the Winter Jamboree is already in motion, because it’s the holidays and he’s not a complete monster. Sure, she has a lot scheduled starting on the second of January, but for now, she’s got a week to relax and sleep.
So, naturally, she pushes Ann into having a Christmas party instead.
It actually takes place on the 27th, to accommodate everyone’s schedules, so there’s a weird feeling of the holiday being over but trying desperately to hang on to the season (and really, with an impending New Year’s Bash at the Snakehole, is this even necessary?). Ann’s tree is getting a little droopy and she’s already put some decorations away, much to Leslie’s dismay, but she still gets the Christmas albums back out and hangs mistletoe over the doorway.
Leslie spends a lot of the party eying it suspiciously.
But then Donna breaks out a bottle of Bailey’s and Leslie’s drink ends up half alcohol, half hot chocolate, which is really an amazing mix and she downs two of them before she can blink.
Ben shows up a little late, having just gotten back from Partridge that morning. He’s looking exhausted and a bit weary of more Christmas and it makes Leslie just want to run her hands through his hair and melt into him, not for the first time, before she has to scold herself.
But the alcohol is starting to do more of the talking.
She’s not drunk, per say, but maybe just over the edge into “buzzed.” Enough to let herself watch him freely, without glancing around to see who might notice. There’s a bit of a dance competition going on in the living room between Donna, Tom, and Chris, and Andy and April are mixing weird drinks in the kitchen while Ron attempts to carve a ham. Leslie’s been clinging to Ann all night, but when she has to go help with the food, she’s stranded to fend for her own.
Ben has just been watching the dancing in some mixture of horror and amusement, and she tries not to over-think it when she sits next to him. It’s probably too close for two people who really should not be around each other right now, but it’s nice to feel his thigh press against her own and really, she’s -- fuck, she’s missed him so much.
“How’s the campaign?” he asks politely, as if they didn’t still work in the same building and have the same friends. As if he wasn’t in the crowd every time she made a public appearance, as if his DVR wasn’t full of her on Pawnee Today and Ya Heard with Perd.
“Well... it’s not what I expected,” she admits, shrugging with a lopsided smile. And she doesn’t want to get into it, wants to keep this night Christmasy and cheery, but he’s already giving her that look, like he knows her better than she knows herself (and maybe he does, who knows), and it comes out of her in fragments and unhinged thoughts; how she expected her heart to matter more, how she’s blown her last two paychecks on new pant suits, how little she’d actually gotten to help with the Winter Jamboree even though she was still supposed to put her name on it.
“It’s supposed to help with the polls or something, I don’t know,” she says, resting her cheek in her hand. “It feels kind of dirty.”
“Politics aren’t the cleanest,” he says, and she knows that he gets it. It’s why she’s almost called him every week, why she’s been telling him half-stories when they’re around each other in person. He’s the one person she knows she can confide with about this, and also the one person she probably shouldn’t be around right now.
Long story short, they have two more drinks, each a little more alcohol than hot chocolate.
Long story short, she ends up kissing him on the back porch.
So it’s a little cold and a lot of stupid. Leslie can’t fully remember how they ended up out there, she just knows that she went outside without her coat on and Ben followed with it on his arm. He held it out to her, and instead of taking it, she just grabbed him by the lapels and pulled him in.
It’s kind of sloppy and awkward, and she realizes that he’s dropped her coat in the snow. But whatever. His tongue slips into her mouth and that’s it, she’s a goner. She probably couldn’t stop if she tried, so she just slides her hands into his hair and tries to pull him closer, to feel more of him, because god, it’s been months.
And, weirdly enough, it finally feels like her brain has shut up. It’s just focused on Ben and his mouth and his hands, holding her to him like she’ll freeze to death if he lets go. But she’s not worrying, she’s not thinking too much, she just... feels.
But it doesn’t last forever and eventually she finds herself waking up on Ann’s couch the next morning, not entirely sure when Ben left and what else happened the night before.
And she smiles, a little, thinking about it. She doesn’t panic about what it means. They were kind of drunk and it happened, and it was nice and it made her feel good and of course she wanted to do it more, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to.
She turns the Christmas music back on, which makes Ann groan as it wakes her up.
“Christmas is over, Les,” she yells from the bedroom.
---
New Years makes things worse.
(Or better, depending on when you ask her)
She’s settled into this little holiday bubble, where she’s letting herself forget her duties and the meetings she has soon, forgetting the rules and Image and the campaign. She maybe calls Ben a few times, but it’s fine, it’s not a big deal. They actually manage to talk like normal human beings and it’s nice, and she pretends like it was an accident when she asks him to tell her a story and falls asleep with the phone next to her ear.
Ann keeps asking her if she's okay with increasing worry, but Leslie hasn't felt this at ease since the spring.
And maybe its kind of a scary ease.
The Snakehole is packed, mostly with kids around April's age, who are shouting hip hop lyrics and ordering too many cosmos. But hey, it’s 2012 in a few hours and they're young and the world’s supposed to end in December, so have at it.
She dances a bit with Ann and ends up squished into a booth between her and Ben. And it's not a big deal, at first. Everybody is doing rounds of shots and it feels warm, nice to be sandwiched between her friends.
But when she excuses herself to the bathroom, he's waiting for her in the hall when she's done. He looks like he isn't sure why he followed her, and she wants to kiss that dumb bewildered look off his face. So she does.
"Leslie, what are we--" he tried to mumble against her lips, though his hands creep up her waist.
"Just come on," she groans, grabbing his wrist and pulling him to the dance floor. Its ten minutes until midnight and no one could see them if they tried, and no one around then cares about Pawnee politics. She just grabs his hands and dances like a goof, giggles so much she thinks her stomach might cramp up.
When the countdown begins, she pushes him into a dark corner and kisses him even though the kids are only on "five." But it seems like a good way to enter the year.
Judging by the way he takes her bottom lip between his, she thinks he probably agrees.
---
They don't talk about it when they leave the party without saying goodbye to anyone. Leslie isn't letting herself think - once she thinks, this becomes decidedly less appealing. So instead of thinking, she concentrates on the buttons of his shirt, slides it off his shoulders and chucks it somewhere in her living room.
He looks dazed, like he's not entirely sure how he got here and why he's staying, and its adorable and infuriating and really, he needs to start on her shirt now before she has to spell it out.
They end up topless on her couch, which is weirdly thrilling. They used to make out here, sure, but they never had sex there, so when he starts to pull himself up en route to her bedroom, she pulls him back on top of her and licks his jaw and starts undoing his pants.
She might be a little scared of what the bedroom means.
When they're finally undressed, things are frantic and rushed, like they have to do this now before they realize what's happening and call judgment on it. But oh god, there's something really different about this. The way he holds her hands above her head, doesn't wait for permission before thrusting into her, runs his tongue down her neck when she throws her head back.
Its harder, more electric, and she's never felt so turned on in her life.
It doesn't last the longest, since they haven't been together like this since the trees began to turn gold, and they somehow end up in a sweaty heap on the floor.
For some reason, its hilarious and she can't stop laughing. And then he can't stop touching her and maybe she ends up on top of him, holding his hands down this time in mock-revenge (though he doesn't seem to mind; at least not when she's rocking back and forth on top of him like this).
They do find their way back onto the couch before she ends up falling asleep, curled into him to avoid sliding off.
She doesn't think of anything. Not the fact that she'll be waking up to a new year, that it’s an election year and her name is on the ballot, that being with the guy next to her is basically the one thing that could bring it all down.
---
She sleeps for eight hours and is more than a little disoriented when she wakes up under a blanket, all stretched out and taking up the entire couch.
Wait, couch? And she's naked?
Fuck.
She finds him fully dressed in the kitchen, which makes her pull the blanket around herself tighter.
"Um..."
"We probably shouldn't--"
"Not that it wasn't great--"
"I'm just not sure if--"
So yeah, it’s weird. But if Leslie thinks about it, it's only weird because she feels like it's supposed to be.
"I slept better last night than I have since... ever," she admits.
"You are a light sleeper," he says with a little smile.
“It was nice,” she says, avoiding looking at him when she suddenly remembers she’s wearing nothing more than a blanket. If there was ever a time to feel way too vulnerable, it would be now.
“It was.” He nods, smiles down at the table. Then his brow furrows. “But what--”
“What if we just like.. see what happens?” He looks at her, confused. “Like, we can’t date, but I... I don’t want to not... be with you.”
“See what happens?”
“Just don’t... think about it too much.”
Ben heads home on uncertain terms, looking a bit bewildered and not entirely comfortable with their undefinable tryst. Leslie’s just happy he’s not entirely out of the picture.
She can’t lie; she wants to do it again.
---
It doesn’t happen again for two weeks. And nothing is on purpose. She’s been so busy that she hasn’t even run into him, even though she’s losing that hour of sleep again.
"Oh hey," he mumbles, standing in the take-out line at JJs while Leslie is leaving a dinner meeting with Barnes.
"Hey," she answers, a little too casually. She's blatantly looking at his mouth, she can tell. And Barnes is still in the building -- Stop that, Leslie.
"Um, how are you--"
"What are you doing tonight?"
He's clearly caught off-guard, his eyes widening and darting around them.
"I just don't get a lot of free time lately," she fibs a little. Truth is, all her free time is filled by Ann, but she can make a little pocket of time. "Just to talk, like normal? I hardly get to just talk to people. Outside of work."
"Uh, are you sure?"
"Yes," she presses.
--
He grabs his take-out container and they end up wandering to Ramsett Park, sharing bites of his fries on a park bench.
"I'm just so stressed, lately," she confides, wiping some ketchup off her coat sleeve. "Its been a little rough."
"I know," he says, and she realizes he can relate.
"Did you ever feel like your life was being taken away from you, a little bit?"
"Sometimes. But, you know, I was just a kid. I just did whatever and hoped it worked. Obviously not the best strategy."
"But you won," she reminds him, and he lets out a bitter chuckle. "I would have voted for you."
"Leslie, what are we doing?" He looks at her like a life line, but she knows she isn't ready to answer that yet. She can't. Once she thinks about it, it's gone. So instead, she leans in and kisses him.
And it sort of breaks her heart, how quickly he responds. His fingers run through her hair, but after a prolonged moment, he pulls back.
"Don't", she says quickly, covering his mouth with a finger. "Please don't. I just, you, you're here, and its, it sucks without-- I mean, Ben--" She feels her eyes start to burn with tears she didn't anticipate and her hand grasps for his, squeezes too hard.
"Okay," he whispers. "I think, maybe, we should get you home."
She doesn't let go of his hand the entire walk. And maybe he pulls her into shadows under trees, smiling like he's keeping a secret, just to kiss her. He holds her face in his hands like she might break, searches her face to make sure she's okay, then takes her hand and pulls her back on their route.
She knows this is a dumb idea. She knows he knows this, too. But weirdly, what should feel so crazy is making her feel sane. Even though she kind of feels like she’s floating, she also feels grounded. Like everything else in life is running circles around her, but Ben’s still there to grab her hand and anchor her, and he isn’t supposed to be there but it’s so much worse when he isn’t.
When they finally stumble through her front door, punch-drunk and giddy, he tries to pull her up to her bedroom again. But she pulls him to the kitchen, mumbling something into his mouth about needing a drink. Before she can get a glass of water (she wasn’t lying, she really is thirsty), he pushes her back to the counter, lifting her on top of it.
It ends up rushed, her shirt still on and his pants around his ankles, and her head hurts when she smacks it against the cabinets. He thrusts into her like there’s a time limit, kisses her over and over like he has to stockpile them now. She’s just trying her best to hold on.
It’s after, when they somehow make it back to the couch, when he ends up falling asleep on top of her somehow, that she realizes this could turn into a problem. But she’s way too sleepy to care.
And she definitely doesn’t care when he wakes her up at some random hour of the night and slides down her body, trailing kisses that make her jolt. He goes down on her lazily, for a really long time, like he could sit there and lap at her all day. She just bunches her fingers in his hair and forgets that this is twenty times more complicated than they’re treating it. She doesn’t mind losing the extra hour this way.
She feels relaxed than she’s felt in months, as she drifts off to sleep in his arms. And she dreams of winning, of standing behind a podium grinning with him smiling back at her, like it could be that easy.
---
So it starts to become a regular thing.
They try really, really hard not to talk about it. They set boundaries without discussing them; it’s never in a bed and it’s never planned. They don’t go out to dinner and they don’t tell each other about their day beforehand. It just... kind of happens that way.
When Leslie has a shaky first public debate, she texts him and they end up against the wall in her foyer, her hands trying to clutch his sweaty back as they move together.
They end up leaving City Hall at the same time and after their hands brush against each other in the parking lot, they end up fucking in the backseat of his Saturn (Leslie gets a bruise on the back of her head from the door handle).
Things start to melt together until she realizes that she has no idea what’s going on in his life; she doesn’t know how work’s going, if he’s still helping out Tom, if he’s even voting for her in this election. But she can clearly remember the look on his face when she surprised him by giving him head on the bean bag chair in his living room (Andy and April were, mercifully, passed out at a party across town).
It’s not exactly the best arrangement she’s ever thought of.
---
Between doubling her efforts at Parks (which is apparently possible, much to the shock of her coworkers), barreling forward with the campaign, and occasionally screwing her ex-boyfriend, she thankfully hasn’t had much time to accidentally spill the beans to Ann. They’ve been reduced to catching up over the phone in the few quiet moments of the day; driving home from work, taking a morning walk.
So really, it should come as no surprise when Ann captures her for a night, with promises of The American President on rental dvd and all the pancakes Leslie could ever eat.
And really, once Ann cracks out the margarita mix, it should come as no surprise that Leslie slips.
“You’re sleeping with Ben??” Ann snaps, suddenly seeming a lot more sober than she previously had been.
“It’s not a big deal,” Leslie mumbles, realizing her mistake. She covers her face with her hand. “Really. Don’t make this, like, a thing.”
“It’s a huge thing!” Ann yells, a little louder than necessary. “Leslie, you can’t just have sex with your ex-boyfriend when you can’t even date him.”
“I’m a grown lady!” she fights back, her head feeling a little heavy, and yeah. She might have overdone it on the margaritas. “It’s fine, really.”
“When I am sober, we are going to have a talk about this,” Ann promises, and thankfully drops the subject before promptly falling asleep.
They wake up in cramped positions on the floor, and the shame hits Leslie at the same time the hangover does.
“Owww,” she whines, the sunlight stinging her eyes.
“I didn’t forget that I need to talk to you,” Ann says right away, although it ends up taking her almost an hour to remember exactly what they need to talk about.
“Okay, how did this happen?” she asks once the coffee’s brewed and Leslie has dumped half her sugar jar into it.
“It just... did. We kissed at the Christmas party--”
“Where was I?”
“I don’t know, Ann. Do we have to talk about this?”
“Yes,” Ann asserts, looking at her sternly. “Leslie, you’re right back where you can’t be. You know you can’t be with him while you’re running for office.”
“We’re not dating...”
“Is just having sex with him really any better?”
Leslie thinks on it. She’s been trying so hard to shut this out, to not think of it as an issue. She missed Ben and this way she got to have him, sort of, even if it tended to be rushed and covert.
But she knows it hasn’t been the same. She misses doing more with him than just fucking; she misses throwing popcorn at him while they watch documentaries, misses going to the park with him after hours just to sit on the swings, misses actually talking to him in bed, instead of just avoiding words to make things less messy.
“I miss him,” she admits, not looking Ann in the eye. “I just, I felt so crappy without him. I was hardly sleeping--”
“To be fair, you rarely sleep much.”
“Worse than usual,” Leslie confides, and Ann’s eyebrows raise. “And, I don’t know, I just sleep better with him, and it just feels so good, and--”
“You can’t, though,” Ann repeats, though she sounds more sympathetic now. “Maybe you can find a way to be with him after the election, but Leslie, you can’t right now.”
Leslie doesn’t know what else she can do but admit defeat.
“I know.” She exhales heavily, feeling everything inside her deflate.
“You’re going to end it, right?”
---
She doesn’t end it. At least, not right away.
After leaving Ann’s, she spends her whole day actually cleaning her house. It’s the only thing she can think of that doesn’t involve her job or her campaign or Ben. It’s just the mess that is her life, but she’s able to clean it. Sort of.
Well, she clears off the dining room table, anyway.
She’s so on edge that she jumps about a foot in the air when there’s a quiet knock on her back door. And it’s Ben, of course it is, with something suspiciously like silly string in his hair.
“Andy called for open war,” he explains simply, the corner of his mouth lifting in a half smile. “Figured I’d go looking for a safe house.” His eyes are questioning.
“Well, come on in,” she says, unsteady. She wasn’t prepared for this, though she’s hardly ever prepared for when they end up together. But this is different. She’s too aware, too nervous. She knows this is wrong.
“So, what are you up to?”
And she hears it; the hollowness to his voice. Like he knows the words don’t mean much, anymore. And she realizes he’s been talking to her that way for a while.
She knows, truly, that they’re fucking this up way more than they need to.
“Ben...” she chokes out, suddenly feeling a lump in her throat. And she shuts her eyes because there are probably tears coming too, and looking at him makes everything harder.
He’s at her side in a split second, his hand warm and solid on her arm. Stupid, considerate Ben. He steadies her like he thinks she might be suffering from exhaustion, which isn’t too far off.
“Leslie, are you alright?”
She just launches herself at him because she doesn’t know what else to do. She wraps her arms around his neck, forces his mouth open with her tongue, starts to pull at his shirt before he even gets his bearings.
“Les--” he whispers against her, a hand moving up to stroke her hair, slowing her down. He searches her face, looking for an answer. She’s not willing to give it yet; she thinks he probably knows anyway.
Everything goes wrong.
They end up in her bedroom, where they haven’t slept together since before they broke up. He undresses her slowly, taking his time to pay attention to every inch of skin. It feels like ages of his hands, on her waist, over the plane of her stomach, on her breasts, between her legs. She fumbles with his boxers, stroking him softly, feeling his lips against her neck.
When he finally slides into her, she just clutches him, feels him move against her. The way he moves is almost lazy; he takes his time, makes it last, and he knows. She realizes this is probably their last time; she knows he can tell. Of course he knows.
When they’re done, it’s his turn to clutch her, tightly against him like he’s afraid to let go. And she understands. This is all they have, and when they wake up in the morning, they might have nothing.
“Ben...” she whispers.
“I know.”
He just holds her tighter.
---
The next morning, she wakes up alone. She knows better than to think he’s left her, but it’s still jarring to not have to disentangle her limbs from his.
She slips into a robe and sure enough, he’s already sipping a cup of coffee in her kitchen, flipping through the morning’s issue of the Pawnee Journal. His eyes flick up the second he hears her footsteps; the look in his eyes catches her right away.
“I’m sorry,” she chokes out, and he’s taken her in his arms before the first tear falls down her cheek.
“Me too.”
They don’t say much else. She doesn’t cry forever (though it may feel like it), and he kisses her on the forehead on his way out.
And that’s that.
---
They don’t talk for two months.
Leslie asks Ann to be some sort of bizarre body guard, because Leslie’s stopped trusting herself when it comes to Ben. And even though Ann is in support of this, would be the best body guard in the world, it ends up being unnecessary. Ben doesn’t go looking for her.
Time slips away fast, and it’s suddenly election night and there are way too many people crowded in front of the television in Ann’s living room.
Ben isn’t there. Leslie pretends not to notice.
She’s so busy pretending that she nearly misses when her name is read by Perd Hapley on screen, a landslide win for the last seat on the Pawnee City Council. She doesn’t even have time to process what that means before Ann has flung herself around her, and suddenly she’s the middle of a massive crowd of bodies, being hugged from every angle and Andy’s started singing loudly and she even catches Ron toasting her from a quiet corner in all the commotion.
“You’ll be a damn good councilwoman,” he says loudly, raising his glass to her.
Everyone’s in high spirits, figuratively and literally, but all she needs is a moment to herself to savor this. She won. Her very first election and she did it, she’s in the City Council, and everything’s going to change and this is huge and really, she needs to sit down.
It’s so crazy inside that no one notices when she slips out the back door. She walks to the edge of Ann’s lawn, to the fence separating the yard from Lot 48. Her fingers grip the chain links and she promises in her mind, you’ll be a park soon...
“Congratulations,” she hears his voice behind her, and she should be surprised but she isn’t. She exhales like she’s been waiting all night.
“Thanks,” she says, and she can’t conceal her grin. When she turns to him, he has the same goofy look on his face. “When did you get here?”
“Ah, I’ve been sitting in my car the whole time.”
She turns back to the lot; her stomach is going a lot of flipping around and it won’t settle, and when he ends up hugging her from behind, it practically does a somersault.
“I wanted to come in,” he says quietly against her temple. “But I--”
“Shh,” she chides him, just wanting this. This weird feeling of possibility and change and his arms around her waist and everything, she just wants everything. She still doesn’t know how to have everything, but whatever, this is her moment. Ann’s sure to find her soon and she’s relishing a minute unguarded.
“I almost called you, like, twenty--”
“Really, Ben,” she says on a giggle, gripping his hands. “Just shut up for a little while.”
Truthfully, there’s a million things she wants to say. But they can wait.