Fic: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Title: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Fandom: Parks and Recreation
Pairing: April/Chris (+ April/Andy, Chris/Jen Barkley, the barest hint of Leslie/Ben)
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ~3200
Summary: It's January 2014, a Saturday night. April Ludgate-Dwyer gives Chris Traeger a call.
Notes: Big thank you to saucydiva for the beta/moral support with this pairing! To avoid confusion: In this fic, Ron is Assistant City Manager after all. Leslie is the new Parks Director. The title is of course shamelessly pinched from Alan Sillitoe. Written for the crackfic challenge in Government Shutdown. Comments are literally fantastic. No seriously. I do mean that.
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
"Come over," she says without preamble. It's Saturday night, 8:30, and he only just got to the phone in time. It was ringing off the hook when he came in from a light 10k. Even though Chris always runs a little faster in the winter and is-of course-fastidious about putting on gloves, his fingertips are red and slightly numb against the cell phone's plastic.
"Andy?" he asks, careful to keep his tone neutral. It's a touchy subject with April. He's known her to read all kinds of things into the way he says her husband's name.
"Some kind of police survival camp or whatever. Gonna last all weekend though," she says impatiently. Impatience. At least it's better than the self-righteous anger she's levelled at him before, for not minding his own business, or the profound sadness that can be brought on by her awareness of her own guilt combined with the overall stuckness of the situation. Or her unwillingness to unstick it.
"Okay. When?"
"Now. Oh hey, and bring a bottle of white."
The line goes dead. April doesn't wait for a reply, because they both know he's got nowhere else to go on a Saturday night, has, in fact, been hoping she would call. His own girlfriend refuses to set foot in Pawnee again. Plus, Jen is so busy and has made her priorities so crystal clear that they see each other once every three months, if that, and always in Washington. What goes on in between in the beds of the countless hotel rooms she occupies from coast to coast, Chris doesn't know. Doesn't want to know either. But he knows she knows how to get exactly what she wants, loves Jen for her frankness and her self-assurance in fact, and so he can imagine. He'll keep on loving her regardless.
He takes a detour to Kroger's to get the wine, because although Food 'n' Stuff is on the way, the one time he showed up with a five-dollar bottle of wine, April looked at him with disdain.
"Is this a joke?" she said. "You run this entire city and you can't bring by a decent wine. Chris."
"April," he smiled, trying to defuse the situation, "I didn't know you cared!"
"Well, I do, okay. If I wanted to hang around drinking stupid cheap booze I could- I mean, what's the- what's the point, otherwise?" She gave a shrug, somewhere between vicious and helpless.
"Then I will-of course-bring an excellent bottle next time," he said, and he kissed her to make sure she understood he'd understood. It wasn't really about the wine.
But he never again bought wine that cost less than fifteen bucks.
Tonight it's a bottle of Pinot Gris from Alsace at $22.95 plus tax, because they haven't seen each other in a week and a half, except in city hall, which doesn't count. They sit at the kitchen counter and April pours them each a glass. She takes a small sip and holds it in her mouth. Her swallow is slow, deliberate, audible, and she cracks a smile.
"I like this," she says.
"Good, I'm glad." He beams at her, fondly. "So. Have you eaten?"
"Nah."
"Apriiil. Good nutrition is very important," he scolds as he rises almost automatically to check the contents of the fridge and pantry. What's edible-in Chris's admittedly somewhat narrow definition of the word-are a couple of onions, white cabbage, raisins, half a bell pepper, rice (barely-it's not brown rice), and a bag of pine nuts he's sure Ben must have forgotten to take when he moved out. It's a surprisingly good loot. Thankfully, he always carries a bag of 25 essential spices with him, too, so he whips them up a quick meal that could, without boasting, be dubbed Nouveau Indian. April watches and although she throws in a snarky comment here and there ("You have to put the salt in after the water starts boiling, god, even I know that." To which he says, "Really, I think the difference is minimal." And, "It's not even really Indian food if you don't roast your own spices." Which he counters with, "I did roast them. And then I crushed them in this enormous mortar I got in Punjab-literally the greatest place on earth to go on vacation, by the way-and then I vacuum-packed them a week ago. They're fresh and roasted and flavourful and you're gonna love 'em."), she's looking pleased.
Over dinner, the conversation turns to work. The youngest deputy director in city hall history holds her job by special dispensation of the city manager and she is required to check in with his and Ron's office periodically. Technically with Ron's, because Parks and other non-essential services are under the assistant city manager's supervision. But the man's advice is never not coloured by his politics, which is why April usually prefers to go to Chris instead. The ethics of the situation are so murky, he can't see his hand in front of his face. He cannot blow the whistle on himself either, though he seriously considered that, once, after the first night. But he can't do it, not without revealing things about April to the world that it's not his place to reveal, and so they keep on fumbling in the dark somehow.
The important thing is that she's finally living up to her potential, he tells himself. And since Chris rarely has to pull rank to get her to comply with the check-in regulation anymore, he can almost make himself believe it, too.
"So, I told Leslie an ice-skating rink on Lot 48 is a total waste of money when there's a frozen lake four blocks over in Wamapokestone Park," she says almost excitedly. Certainly not listlessly, at least. He smiles.
"That was an excellent call, yes."
Leslie Knope has been known to come up with the odd harebrained scheme when city council affairs get the best of her and the time she can devote to the city's parks is cut short. April likes to joke that Leslie is the new Ron, but with to-do-lists.
"And Tom's insisting that simulcasting the tree-lighting on internet radio is a Great Pawnee Tradition when really it's just dumb."
"People seem to enjoy that." She's right of course, but if he doesn't at least give her a half-hearted argument, April is going to accuse him of pandering-not without reason, he has to admit. Chris actually enjoys her enviable ability to cut right through to the heart of the matter. He likes it, too, when she calls him out on sugarcoating things when he should be putting his foot down.
"It's silly. For four years they've been carting all their equipment over there when we could just record a promo clip in their studio beforehand. That's all it is. Tom's just being kind of a dick about it."
Tom Haverford may indeed never recover from being leapfrogged by April and has, consequently, turned into a less than pleasant co-worker.
"Noted. We'll keep it in mind for next time. April Ludgate," -he's careful never to call her by her full legal last name, the one he filed the paperwork for her to get; April's reactions to it are volatile now- "you are literally the most amazing government emplo-"
"Oh, shut up!" she exclaims, but cracks a grin.
"Listen- What I am saying is, you run a tight ship. Good job."
"Thanks." A smile this time, a genuine one.
"Superstar."
"Oh my god Chris-" A note of warning in her voice again.
Then they're both laughing, and it's good. Being with April feels, at times like these, almost perfect. If you discount all the overwhelmingly persuasive reasons why they shouldn't be doing this at all. She drags him over to the bedroom to shut him up about how incredible she really is-and they shut their brains to all but the immediate sensations.
Shut them thoroughly. Meticulously. Protractedly. And, finally, ecstatically.
After, she's lying half across him, her face buried in his chest. Chris runs a hand through her hair, thinking how it is unlike Jen's curly locks, which are always styled to perfection.
He is almost asleep when April raises her head. "Hey, do you think it's possible to be, y'know, happy? In a relationship. Long-term, I mean."
"Mhhh. I … " He rubs his hand across her back. "Well, yes, I am certain it is."
"Name one."
"What?"
"Name one couple where that's true. One couple that's been together for over two years and they're still happy, both of them. As stupidly, incandescently happy or whatever as the day they met." She has shifted off him and onto her elbow. Her eyes are boring into his, daring him to meet the challenge.
"Ben and Leslie."
"Oh, come on!"
"I have-literally-never seen two people more perfectly matched in my life."
"Well, maybe. Maybe. But Leslie's not happy, Chris. What are you talking about? Ben's never going to move back from DC and she's never going to run for Congress either, no matter what your girlfriend says."
"Leslie loves Washington. They do see each other every other week-"
"Uh huh. That's the only reason you think they're perfect. You see Jen once every blue moon, so obviously you would."
It's true. He knows it's true. At the same time, it seems unfair, for April to be arguing about these relationships almost in the abstract, his own included. Like she is using them to prove a point.
"This is turning into literally the most depressing conversation I've ever had," he says, deflecting.
"Whatever. My point is, I think Leslie would totally much rather start a family. In 'the greatest town in the world'."
He sighs. "Jerry has a wife and three beautiful daughters and he seems perfectly h-"
"Eh. Disqualified! Jerry's disqualified."
"Okay, fair enough."
There's a pause. Then April leans over and kisses him. Her nipples graze over his pectoral muscles as she climbs on top of him again, trying to wash away this conversation and what it was really about, which isn't Ben and Leslie or even Jen and Chris.
When he wakes the next morning, April's already up. She's drinking coffee and letting herself be yelled at by Rachel Maddow on her laptop. Her interest in current events is one of those things Chris loves about her. Likes about her. April is allergic to the other L-word, even if Chris only uses it the way he uses it to refer to most people-because he genuinely loves most people.
In any case, he suspects that interest has always been there, but it took her spending the night in his bed to let him see it. Things have certainly changed since that first night. Barriers have crumbled, for better or for worse.
"Good morning!"
"'Morning."
He pours himself a cup of hot water and joins her on the couch. She hits space to pause the video.
"It's the first month of the year and they're already going on about stupid midterm elections."
"That surprises you?"
"What? No. It's just stupid. It fucking annoys me. The political dis- Never mind. Who cares."
"No, go ahead."
"The political discourse is totally broken. In this country."
"It is," he nods.
"Yeah, whatever. I don't know why I give a shit. The laugh's on me, isn't it. Why should I care?"
"Well. Would now be a good time to mention that I brought you last week's Economist?"
"Thanks," April says the way only she can. With a mixture of the sullen, the sarcastic and the genuinely grateful. She reads The Economist the way other people look at porn. With the pretence that she's only doing it this one time, that she doesn't really mean it, whatever 'it' means, that she's doing it almost ironically; and, of course, she won't let anybody see but him.
She pushes him down on the couch and starts kissing him-his bicep, his bare chest, his yet-unshaven throat. It feels different, with the pale winter sunlight streaming through the blinds and no alcohol coursing through their systems. It's not that she isn't the most incredible woman he knows, because she is. It's not that she isn't as beautiful in the daylight as she was the night before, because she is, in her youth, if anything, even lovelier now.
It's that he's clear-headed and the light is cold and bright and provides everything in the room, including the two people on the sofa, with an outline that's clear-cut and terrifying. He is reminded of the first time they kissed, although that was late at night after they'd gone to see a movie without Andy, who claimed he wanted to "study", so nobody knows what he actually did except eat an entire glass of Nutella and half a jar of marshmallow fluff. In any case, they went to the movie and then, for reasons he can't recall and that don't matter now, two blocks over to his house where they found a bottle of red. A particularly nice bottle of red wine, which he had planned to take with him to Washington that weekend before Jen had called and cancelled ("Sorry, I gotta go to Houston and meet this guy. Whatever, it'll be a drag," she'd said, but she'd sounded thrilled about it). April insisted on trying the wine and Chris couldn't think of a particularly compelling reason not to. His motives were pure-she was married to Andy, who was a great guy, he himself was dating Jen, they were friends. They drank the wine and April kissed him. He was drunk enough that he couldn't think of a particularly compelling reason not to do that, either. But when they pulled apart, they trembled with the weight and the shock and the thrill of what had happened; and there was that sensation, that sensation of falling, the rush of it, and the disembodiment, as if he were watching the two of them come crashing down from a great height and although he realized then that he had the power to stop the fall, he already knew he wouldn't. All he, all they both wanted was more.
That's kind of how he feels right now, too. It's months later, they're still falling, and the hard winter sun is illuminating just how high up they are and just how deep that fall is. April seems to feel it, too.
"We should stop this", she says.
He hides his face in her neck. "This?" he tries.
"Dude, you know what I'm talking about."
He sits up with a sigh. Chris doesn't like to contemplate what they're doing. He has learned to ignore the feelings of guilt and remorse for the most part-extra high dosages of passionflower and kava kava take care of the rest. He is a little afraid he might be developing a tolerance to their effects. Is it possible for an herbal remedy habit to lead to lethal overdose?
And April increasingly brings this up. Her navel-gazing hits home all the worse for his avoidance of it. It gets him down to the point where he goes to his herbalist after and requests she rub three times the recommended dose of bee pollen paste around his gums, until not only his mouth feels like a spaceship but his entire body. It's not exactly cheap to keep doing that either.
"I think you're right. Maybe we should stop."
"But we're not going to." She holds his gaze, steadily. He's unable to look away.
"No. Not unless that's what you want of course."
"Why are you doing it anyway?"
"I guess I- It … it radically improves my mood. This. To be with you, April Ludgate."
"Mine too," she says, softening. He leans over and kisses her, because that's what they do, and because it's true. He does enjoy her, thoroughly, in all ways, even when all they do is quarrel. Being with her sharpens his mind. They are, they have become, each other's whetstones.
"You think Jen's doing the same?" she asks after a while.
"I have no illusions on that count."
"Mh." She bites her lip. The problem is of course that Jen is highly unlikely ever to find out, since she won't come to Pawnee. Even if she did find out, she probably wouldn't care very much. Andy is a different story. He's bumbling his way through the Pawnee Police Academy with little hope of ever graduating. But it is easy for April to hide from him whatever she wants to hide from him. Too easy. Which is really the crux of the matter.
"April, what is it you really want?"
"I … I don't know. God!" She slumps back against the sofa cushion. "I guess what I want is not to be in this situation. Like, at all."
He sends a small prayer to whoever's listening because she's not likely to take what he's about to say very well at all. "You are allowed to leave, you know."
"Like hell!"
"Don't get me wrong, Andy is…" He waits for her to attack him, but she just keeps on glaring. Not at him, just in general. "… he's great. He's a fantastic guy. Nevertheless-"
"-you don't know what you're talking about, Chris. Besides, I love him! Andy. Love Andy." Her exclamation has the sound of a child protesting against the just discovered unfairness of the world.
Chris feels like someone should tell April that, sometimes, love is not enough. That that's what she needs to hear most of all, that it might help her move on or at least come to terms with these wildly conflicting emotions she's experiencing as love and responsibility fight their battle with understimulation and boredom. Perhaps the someone who tells her even should be him. Maybe that's his purpose here, in her life and in her bed, the positive influence he should be. The words won't come though. He doesn't have the heart. He feels like a child himself, wanting everything to work out fine in the end, the way it does in better stories than his own.
"Okay," he says instead, hating himself a little for his cowardice, his stubborn inability to face anything head-on.
"I do. You don't think I do, but I really do. I care about what happens to him. I'm just … I- oh fuck, I'm so bored."
"I know. "
"Oh wow, you didn't tell me when you became a marriage counsellor, Chris."
He gives her a look.
"Sorry. Just … whatever. Sorry," she says and gives him a kiss. It tastes bitter, of the coffee.
Hours later, when he leaves April to go for his usual lunchtime ten miles, Chris steps out of her front door and is temporarily blinded by the sun's glitter on the snow. He jogs away from the house at a leisurely trot. With each step his eyes get more used to the brightness. The warm air in his lungs gets replaced by the biting cold. His mind is a blank, his head clear. He flashes a smile; the whiteness of his teeth matches that of the freshly fallen snow.
---------
Sequel: Beginning Again
Fandom: Parks and Recreation
Pairing: April/Chris (+ April/Andy, Chris/Jen Barkley, the barest hint of Leslie/Ben)
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ~3200
Summary: It's January 2014, a Saturday night. April Ludgate-Dwyer gives Chris Traeger a call.
Notes: Big thank you to saucydiva for the beta/moral support with this pairing! To avoid confusion: In this fic, Ron is Assistant City Manager after all. Leslie is the new Parks Director. The title is of course shamelessly pinched from Alan Sillitoe. Written for the crackfic challenge in Government Shutdown. Comments are literally fantastic. No seriously. I do mean that.
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
"Come over," she says without preamble. It's Saturday night, 8:30, and he only just got to the phone in time. It was ringing off the hook when he came in from a light 10k. Even though Chris always runs a little faster in the winter and is-of course-fastidious about putting on gloves, his fingertips are red and slightly numb against the cell phone's plastic.
"Andy?" he asks, careful to keep his tone neutral. It's a touchy subject with April. He's known her to read all kinds of things into the way he says her husband's name.
"Some kind of police survival camp or whatever. Gonna last all weekend though," she says impatiently. Impatience. At least it's better than the self-righteous anger she's levelled at him before, for not minding his own business, or the profound sadness that can be brought on by her awareness of her own guilt combined with the overall stuckness of the situation. Or her unwillingness to unstick it.
"Okay. When?"
"Now. Oh hey, and bring a bottle of white."
The line goes dead. April doesn't wait for a reply, because they both know he's got nowhere else to go on a Saturday night, has, in fact, been hoping she would call. His own girlfriend refuses to set foot in Pawnee again. Plus, Jen is so busy and has made her priorities so crystal clear that they see each other once every three months, if that, and always in Washington. What goes on in between in the beds of the countless hotel rooms she occupies from coast to coast, Chris doesn't know. Doesn't want to know either. But he knows she knows how to get exactly what she wants, loves Jen for her frankness and her self-assurance in fact, and so he can imagine. He'll keep on loving her regardless.
He takes a detour to Kroger's to get the wine, because although Food 'n' Stuff is on the way, the one time he showed up with a five-dollar bottle of wine, April looked at him with disdain.
"Is this a joke?" she said. "You run this entire city and you can't bring by a decent wine. Chris."
"April," he smiled, trying to defuse the situation, "I didn't know you cared!"
"Well, I do, okay. If I wanted to hang around drinking stupid cheap booze I could- I mean, what's the- what's the point, otherwise?" She gave a shrug, somewhere between vicious and helpless.
"Then I will-of course-bring an excellent bottle next time," he said, and he kissed her to make sure she understood he'd understood. It wasn't really about the wine.
But he never again bought wine that cost less than fifteen bucks.
Tonight it's a bottle of Pinot Gris from Alsace at $22.95 plus tax, because they haven't seen each other in a week and a half, except in city hall, which doesn't count. They sit at the kitchen counter and April pours them each a glass. She takes a small sip and holds it in her mouth. Her swallow is slow, deliberate, audible, and she cracks a smile.
"I like this," she says.
"Good, I'm glad." He beams at her, fondly. "So. Have you eaten?"
"Nah."
"Apriiil. Good nutrition is very important," he scolds as he rises almost automatically to check the contents of the fridge and pantry. What's edible-in Chris's admittedly somewhat narrow definition of the word-are a couple of onions, white cabbage, raisins, half a bell pepper, rice (barely-it's not brown rice), and a bag of pine nuts he's sure Ben must have forgotten to take when he moved out. It's a surprisingly good loot. Thankfully, he always carries a bag of 25 essential spices with him, too, so he whips them up a quick meal that could, without boasting, be dubbed Nouveau Indian. April watches and although she throws in a snarky comment here and there ("You have to put the salt in after the water starts boiling, god, even I know that." To which he says, "Really, I think the difference is minimal." And, "It's not even really Indian food if you don't roast your own spices." Which he counters with, "I did roast them. And then I crushed them in this enormous mortar I got in Punjab-literally the greatest place on earth to go on vacation, by the way-and then I vacuum-packed them a week ago. They're fresh and roasted and flavourful and you're gonna love 'em."), she's looking pleased.
Over dinner, the conversation turns to work. The youngest deputy director in city hall history holds her job by special dispensation of the city manager and she is required to check in with his and Ron's office periodically. Technically with Ron's, because Parks and other non-essential services are under the assistant city manager's supervision. But the man's advice is never not coloured by his politics, which is why April usually prefers to go to Chris instead. The ethics of the situation are so murky, he can't see his hand in front of his face. He cannot blow the whistle on himself either, though he seriously considered that, once, after the first night. But he can't do it, not without revealing things about April to the world that it's not his place to reveal, and so they keep on fumbling in the dark somehow.
The important thing is that she's finally living up to her potential, he tells himself. And since Chris rarely has to pull rank to get her to comply with the check-in regulation anymore, he can almost make himself believe it, too.
"So, I told Leslie an ice-skating rink on Lot 48 is a total waste of money when there's a frozen lake four blocks over in Wamapokestone Park," she says almost excitedly. Certainly not listlessly, at least. He smiles.
"That was an excellent call, yes."
Leslie Knope has been known to come up with the odd harebrained scheme when city council affairs get the best of her and the time she can devote to the city's parks is cut short. April likes to joke that Leslie is the new Ron, but with to-do-lists.
"And Tom's insisting that simulcasting the tree-lighting on internet radio is a Great Pawnee Tradition when really it's just dumb."
"People seem to enjoy that." She's right of course, but if he doesn't at least give her a half-hearted argument, April is going to accuse him of pandering-not without reason, he has to admit. Chris actually enjoys her enviable ability to cut right through to the heart of the matter. He likes it, too, when she calls him out on sugarcoating things when he should be putting his foot down.
"It's silly. For four years they've been carting all their equipment over there when we could just record a promo clip in their studio beforehand. That's all it is. Tom's just being kind of a dick about it."
Tom Haverford may indeed never recover from being leapfrogged by April and has, consequently, turned into a less than pleasant co-worker.
"Noted. We'll keep it in mind for next time. April Ludgate," -he's careful never to call her by her full legal last name, the one he filed the paperwork for her to get; April's reactions to it are volatile now- "you are literally the most amazing government emplo-"
"Oh, shut up!" she exclaims, but cracks a grin.
"Listen- What I am saying is, you run a tight ship. Good job."
"Thanks." A smile this time, a genuine one.
"Superstar."
"Oh my god Chris-" A note of warning in her voice again.
Then they're both laughing, and it's good. Being with April feels, at times like these, almost perfect. If you discount all the overwhelmingly persuasive reasons why they shouldn't be doing this at all. She drags him over to the bedroom to shut him up about how incredible she really is-and they shut their brains to all but the immediate sensations.
Shut them thoroughly. Meticulously. Protractedly. And, finally, ecstatically.
After, she's lying half across him, her face buried in his chest. Chris runs a hand through her hair, thinking how it is unlike Jen's curly locks, which are always styled to perfection.
He is almost asleep when April raises her head. "Hey, do you think it's possible to be, y'know, happy? In a relationship. Long-term, I mean."
"Mhhh. I … " He rubs his hand across her back. "Well, yes, I am certain it is."
"Name one."
"What?"
"Name one couple where that's true. One couple that's been together for over two years and they're still happy, both of them. As stupidly, incandescently happy or whatever as the day they met." She has shifted off him and onto her elbow. Her eyes are boring into his, daring him to meet the challenge.
"Ben and Leslie."
"Oh, come on!"
"I have-literally-never seen two people more perfectly matched in my life."
"Well, maybe. Maybe. But Leslie's not happy, Chris. What are you talking about? Ben's never going to move back from DC and she's never going to run for Congress either, no matter what your girlfriend says."
"Leslie loves Washington. They do see each other every other week-"
"Uh huh. That's the only reason you think they're perfect. You see Jen once every blue moon, so obviously you would."
It's true. He knows it's true. At the same time, it seems unfair, for April to be arguing about these relationships almost in the abstract, his own included. Like she is using them to prove a point.
"This is turning into literally the most depressing conversation I've ever had," he says, deflecting.
"Whatever. My point is, I think Leslie would totally much rather start a family. In 'the greatest town in the world'."
He sighs. "Jerry has a wife and three beautiful daughters and he seems perfectly h-"
"Eh. Disqualified! Jerry's disqualified."
"Okay, fair enough."
There's a pause. Then April leans over and kisses him. Her nipples graze over his pectoral muscles as she climbs on top of him again, trying to wash away this conversation and what it was really about, which isn't Ben and Leslie or even Jen and Chris.
When he wakes the next morning, April's already up. She's drinking coffee and letting herself be yelled at by Rachel Maddow on her laptop. Her interest in current events is one of those things Chris loves about her. Likes about her. April is allergic to the other L-word, even if Chris only uses it the way he uses it to refer to most people-because he genuinely loves most people.
In any case, he suspects that interest has always been there, but it took her spending the night in his bed to let him see it. Things have certainly changed since that first night. Barriers have crumbled, for better or for worse.
"Good morning!"
"'Morning."
He pours himself a cup of hot water and joins her on the couch. She hits space to pause the video.
"It's the first month of the year and they're already going on about stupid midterm elections."
"That surprises you?"
"What? No. It's just stupid. It fucking annoys me. The political dis- Never mind. Who cares."
"No, go ahead."
"The political discourse is totally broken. In this country."
"It is," he nods.
"Yeah, whatever. I don't know why I give a shit. The laugh's on me, isn't it. Why should I care?"
"Well. Would now be a good time to mention that I brought you last week's Economist?"
"Thanks," April says the way only she can. With a mixture of the sullen, the sarcastic and the genuinely grateful. She reads The Economist the way other people look at porn. With the pretence that she's only doing it this one time, that she doesn't really mean it, whatever 'it' means, that she's doing it almost ironically; and, of course, she won't let anybody see but him.
She pushes him down on the couch and starts kissing him-his bicep, his bare chest, his yet-unshaven throat. It feels different, with the pale winter sunlight streaming through the blinds and no alcohol coursing through their systems. It's not that she isn't the most incredible woman he knows, because she is. It's not that she isn't as beautiful in the daylight as she was the night before, because she is, in her youth, if anything, even lovelier now.
It's that he's clear-headed and the light is cold and bright and provides everything in the room, including the two people on the sofa, with an outline that's clear-cut and terrifying. He is reminded of the first time they kissed, although that was late at night after they'd gone to see a movie without Andy, who claimed he wanted to "study", so nobody knows what he actually did except eat an entire glass of Nutella and half a jar of marshmallow fluff. In any case, they went to the movie and then, for reasons he can't recall and that don't matter now, two blocks over to his house where they found a bottle of red. A particularly nice bottle of red wine, which he had planned to take with him to Washington that weekend before Jen had called and cancelled ("Sorry, I gotta go to Houston and meet this guy. Whatever, it'll be a drag," she'd said, but she'd sounded thrilled about it). April insisted on trying the wine and Chris couldn't think of a particularly compelling reason not to. His motives were pure-she was married to Andy, who was a great guy, he himself was dating Jen, they were friends. They drank the wine and April kissed him. He was drunk enough that he couldn't think of a particularly compelling reason not to do that, either. But when they pulled apart, they trembled with the weight and the shock and the thrill of what had happened; and there was that sensation, that sensation of falling, the rush of it, and the disembodiment, as if he were watching the two of them come crashing down from a great height and although he realized then that he had the power to stop the fall, he already knew he wouldn't. All he, all they both wanted was more.
That's kind of how he feels right now, too. It's months later, they're still falling, and the hard winter sun is illuminating just how high up they are and just how deep that fall is. April seems to feel it, too.
"We should stop this", she says.
He hides his face in her neck. "This?" he tries.
"Dude, you know what I'm talking about."
He sits up with a sigh. Chris doesn't like to contemplate what they're doing. He has learned to ignore the feelings of guilt and remorse for the most part-extra high dosages of passionflower and kava kava take care of the rest. He is a little afraid he might be developing a tolerance to their effects. Is it possible for an herbal remedy habit to lead to lethal overdose?
And April increasingly brings this up. Her navel-gazing hits home all the worse for his avoidance of it. It gets him down to the point where he goes to his herbalist after and requests she rub three times the recommended dose of bee pollen paste around his gums, until not only his mouth feels like a spaceship but his entire body. It's not exactly cheap to keep doing that either.
"I think you're right. Maybe we should stop."
"But we're not going to." She holds his gaze, steadily. He's unable to look away.
"No. Not unless that's what you want of course."
"Why are you doing it anyway?"
"I guess I- It … it radically improves my mood. This. To be with you, April Ludgate."
"Mine too," she says, softening. He leans over and kisses her, because that's what they do, and because it's true. He does enjoy her, thoroughly, in all ways, even when all they do is quarrel. Being with her sharpens his mind. They are, they have become, each other's whetstones.
"You think Jen's doing the same?" she asks after a while.
"I have no illusions on that count."
"Mh." She bites her lip. The problem is of course that Jen is highly unlikely ever to find out, since she won't come to Pawnee. Even if she did find out, she probably wouldn't care very much. Andy is a different story. He's bumbling his way through the Pawnee Police Academy with little hope of ever graduating. But it is easy for April to hide from him whatever she wants to hide from him. Too easy. Which is really the crux of the matter.
"April, what is it you really want?"
"I … I don't know. God!" She slumps back against the sofa cushion. "I guess what I want is not to be in this situation. Like, at all."
He sends a small prayer to whoever's listening because she's not likely to take what he's about to say very well at all. "You are allowed to leave, you know."
"Like hell!"
"Don't get me wrong, Andy is…" He waits for her to attack him, but she just keeps on glaring. Not at him, just in general. "… he's great. He's a fantastic guy. Nevertheless-"
"-you don't know what you're talking about, Chris. Besides, I love him! Andy. Love Andy." Her exclamation has the sound of a child protesting against the just discovered unfairness of the world.
Chris feels like someone should tell April that, sometimes, love is not enough. That that's what she needs to hear most of all, that it might help her move on or at least come to terms with these wildly conflicting emotions she's experiencing as love and responsibility fight their battle with understimulation and boredom. Perhaps the someone who tells her even should be him. Maybe that's his purpose here, in her life and in her bed, the positive influence he should be. The words won't come though. He doesn't have the heart. He feels like a child himself, wanting everything to work out fine in the end, the way it does in better stories than his own.
"Okay," he says instead, hating himself a little for his cowardice, his stubborn inability to face anything head-on.
"I do. You don't think I do, but I really do. I care about what happens to him. I'm just … I- oh fuck, I'm so bored."
"I know. "
"Oh wow, you didn't tell me when you became a marriage counsellor, Chris."
He gives her a look.
"Sorry. Just … whatever. Sorry," she says and gives him a kiss. It tastes bitter, of the coffee.
Hours later, when he leaves April to go for his usual lunchtime ten miles, Chris steps out of her front door and is temporarily blinded by the sun's glitter on the snow. He jogs away from the house at a leisurely trot. With each step his eyes get more used to the brightness. The warm air in his lungs gets replaced by the biting cold. His mind is a blank, his head clear. He flashes a smile; the whiteness of his teeth matches that of the freshly fallen snow.
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Sequel: Beginning Again