FF: Things We're Not Doing (Leslie/Ben)
Title: Things We're Not Doing
Fandom: Parks and Recreation
Pairing: Leslie/Ben
Word Count: ~4,500
Rating: Hard R/NC-17 (seriously not kidding)
Timeline: Up through 3x14 "Road Trip"
Author's Note: Yeah ummmm, so this happened. I have absolutely no explanation except the nbckink comm is like crack. This is a response to this prompt which wanted Ben/Leslie phone sex starting from an alternate ending to "Road Trip" where Ben doesn't kiss Leslie in his office and instead calls to say they really shouldn't let anything happen, but it backfires when the conversation about what they can and can't do get's a little too explicit.
It starts, as so many disasters in Ben’s life seem to, with the purest of intentions. Yeah, yeah, he knows-roads to hell, etc. etc.
Cliches are clichés for a reason.
Believe him, he knows.
Still he just- he can’t get Leslie’s face out of his head. Not that this is a new sensation, it’s been weeks since he’s gone to sleep without replaying some tiny, inconsequential moment with her over and over, until he’s practically memorized it, cataloged it, added it to his growing collection. And there’s a part of him that worries that there’s something vaguely unhealthy about it, about this absolute fixation, this near obsession. That thinks the way he watches her, makes excuses to watch her, means he might have stumbled onto some heretofore undiscovered voyeuristic aspect to his personality.
But every so often she catches him and smiles at him like she knows, like she likes it, and that’s all the excuse he needs not to stop.
Tonight is different though. Tonight isn’t about spinning a full-blown fantasy out of a fragment. Tonight isn’t about a fantasy at all. It’s about almosts and maybes and cold-hard reality. It’s about the fact he’d come so close to kissing her tonight he can practically taste her on his lips. It’s about the fact that he didn’t.
It’s about the look on Leslie’s face when she realized what had almost happened.
He hadn’t meant to do it. He’d lain awake on Chris’s couch the night before and given himself a sharp mental dressing-down about how it was one thing to be willing to put his own career at stake, but not Leslie’s, how he couldn’t be selfish like that, how he couldn’t, wouldn’t initiate anything more.
And then she’d come to give him the receipts and god if having her all to himself for the first time since she admitted that he wasn’t alone in the way he felt, didn’t blow every resolution straight to hell for a split second.
But just a split second.
Just long enough for him to take a half step forward, for Leslie to read the intention on his face.
And the look she’d given him-that heartbreaking mix of anticipation and absolute terror-had stopped him dead in his tracks.
But that’s not the look that’s haunting him now.
No it’s the one that came later, when she glanced back over her shoulder just before leaving.
The one that said she wished he’d done it anyway, that said she wouldn’t have pushed him away.
Ben sits down on the edge of his bed with a sigh and stares down at his phone. At Leslie’s number highlighted in his contacts. He wants to call her. Wants to apologize for what he almost did, for what he didn’t do. Wants her to tell him why he has to put it all out his head. Wants her to tell him he doesn’t have to.
It’s late and everything’s still and quiet in that way that makes things seems a little less real, a little less grounded. It’s taken him weeks to get used to how quiet Pawnee gets in comparison to Indy, but that’s okay he has his secret weapon in the form of two very loud, very immature roommates who never let the silence last too long.
Sure enough there’s the sound of a slap and a disturbingly imperious “Unhand me!” penetrating through the walls, followed by the clatter of a chase through what sounds like the kitchen, and some giggling that is definitely Andy.
Ben drops his head in his hands with a groan.
This has been going on for over a week now. They have to get a new game soon, don’t they? Please let them get a new game soon. A quieter, confined to the bedroom on the other side of the house game.
Why did he ever think rooming with newlyweds when he has been essentially consigned to celibacy was a good idea?
Briefly he considers going out there and asking them to keep it down, but no, he can’t. Andy and April are happy and together and so in love it’s simultaneously painful and wonderful to witness (and sometimes a little unsettling but that’s April in general). And he is absolutely not going to be the fucking asshole who takes even one iota of that away from them.
Still, he goes over and pushes his mostly closed bedroom door all the way shut with enough force to be a gentle suggestion.
It has no effect.
Ben drops his head to the hand still resting on the doorframe, and sighs. Thinks about how right now he wishes he were more like Andy, a little more naïve, a little less practical. Wishes he were more like April, a little more assertive, a little less concerned with other people’s opinions.
Just a little more someone else and a little less him.
Fuck it.
He calls her.
---
Leslie’s in the middle of getting changed when her phone rings. She stripped off her shirt and shrugged out of her bra when the screen on her blackberry lights up at her from where she tossed it down on the bed.
The sight of Ben’s name there makes her panic and she instinctively scrambles to cover up. Because she can’t talk to him half-naked. That would be- Well she doesn’t know what it would be, but she knows she can’t do it, so she hurries to get re-dressed only her fingers aren’t obeying her orders and she can’t make the clasp on her bra cooperate and she doesn’t want him to go to voicemail and think she’s ignoring his call, so finally she abandons her bra and yanks her button-down back-on, clutching it closed with one hand while she hits the answer-key with the other.
“Hello-” It comes out breathless and excited, and there’s a surprised pause on Ben’s end before he responds.
“Hey, it’s me- I mean it’s Ben- Ben Wyatt. I mean-” There’s another pause and muffled curse and Leslie sits down on the edge of her bed with a smile.
“Hello Ben Wyatt. It’s Leslie Knope from the Parks Department.”
He laughs into the phone, rueful and embarrassed and more than a little charmed, says softly, “Hello Leslie Knope from the Parks Department.”
She didn’t know it was possible for her name to sound like that.
For a moment they don’t seem to know how to continue, and the silence is just about to make a hard left turn from shy to awkward when Ben asks, “Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“No. Why?”
“Just, um, your voice when you picked up the phone. You sounded kind of out-of-breath. I didn’t know if I was interrupting something.”
“Oh, no, I was just getting undressed.” Oh god she can’t believe she just said that out loud.
“Oh.” He doesn’t say anything else and in the silence she swears she can feel him processing that piece of information, conjuring a visual, and Leslie feels her cheeks flush in a way that isn’t entirely due to embarrassment.
“So you’re-” he starts, voice hoarse, then coughs and regroups. “Do you, um, need a second to finish?”
“No. I’m good.”
She meant it as a simple response to his question, meant it to be matter-a-fact, a simple ‘no I’m now fully dressed and able to talk to you like the completely platonic colleagues we are.’
It does not come out that way.
It comes out low and intimate. Comes out like temptation, like sin. Like someone else entirely.
And she’s about provide an explanation, clarification, but there’s a hitch in Ben’s breathing that tells her whatever her intentions, his current thoughts are in no way platonic or collegial. And the sound of it, of him coming a little bit undone from something as simple as what she said, as her voice, makes her feel powerful in a way she hasn’t since she braided her hair and kidnapped a painting.
So she doesn’t say anything, just lies back on her bed and imagines what he might be imagining.
“Ben?”
“Yeah?”
“Was there something you wanted?”
To talk about. Her mind adds a split second too late. Were three extra words so much to ask? Was there something you wanted to talk about? Oh god, seriously, what is wrong with her? It’s like some demon has taken over her voice. This is Ann’s fault. She’s not entirely sure how, but it is definitely Ann’s fault with her Al Green songs and inappropriate conversational topics. Like when would asking him about his penis not be awkward anyway?
Except right now it doesn’t seem like that much of a non-sequitor.
And she should really stop this, but she’s been left aching ever since that moment in his office when he almost kissed her and then didn’t. And maybe, just maybe, she wants to torture him a little bit, make sure he regrets it.
It’s a horrible thought. He completely doesn’t deserve it. And she’s just moving to sit back up and stop teasing him for sins beyond his control, when Ben responds.
“I wanted to kiss you today.”
It shouldn’t hit her the way it does. It’s not exactly a startling revelation or a sexually explicit detail. But something about the way he says it like a confession, like a dirty secret, makes everything inside her catch fire.
She falls back against the bed, the hand that had been holding her shirt closed flying up to rest over her heart, feeling the insistent needy tattoo against her palm.
“I would have let you.”
Ben sucks in a sharp breath, lets out a strained mirthless laugh. “God I wish-”
He breaks off, doesn’t finish, but she knows what he was going to say anyway. It’s the same things she wishes for, wishes they’d figured this out earlier before it became forbidden, wishes the rules didn’t exist, wishes they were the type of people who didn’t care. Just wishes.
“Have you um-” he coughs, “have you ever wished you could be someone else?”
“No. Not really-”
“Of course not,” he laughs.
And it could be biting but she can hear the real affection in his voice, and it makes the next part spill out from her unbidden, “Not until, you know, recently.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Leslie-”
“Don’t,” she whispers. Because as much as she loves the way her name sounds on his lips, that quiet, raw need that no one’s ever had for her before, she kind of hates hearing it right now, because it brings too much baggage, reminds her of all the things she is that she doesn’t want to be at this moment. Doesn’t want to be Leslie Knope from the Parks Department who believes ‘cool kids make the rules they don’t break them.’ She wants to be someone else, anyone else.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I mean don’t say my name, pretend I’m someone else.”
Ben swallows. “I don’t, um-”
“Please. Just if I wasn’t me and you weren’t you and we weren’t in this awful mess. What would you do?”
It's like a damn breaking.
“I would have kissed you weeks ago.”
“I would have made out with you at the restaurant in Indy.”
“I wouldn’t be relying on Jerry’s imagination for fantasy material.”
That makes her laugh a little, because god it’s so wrong that Jerry’s name is coming up right now, but she tries to fight it back, because she doesn’t want to lose the moment. “So you did look.”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“No. No, I um, I wanted you to.” And she can’t believe what she’s going to say next, but she really wants to know. “Did you like it?”
Ben’s response comes in the form of a groan. “God, yes. I spent a week trying to figure out how accurate it was. I was so grateful he painted over it.”
“Why?!” She’s indignant now. She thought it was beautiful. Didn’t he think it was beautiful?
There’s a pause and then an abashed, “I didn’t want anyone else to see you like that.”
She blinks and smiles, teases him. “You were jealous?”
“Yes.” He bites it out, flat and unapologetic and more than a little bit possessive and oh god whatever levity had been there has pretty much gone out the window to be replaced by something electric and all-consuming.
“Want to know a secret?”
“What?”
“He didn’t paint over it. He made a copy. I still have the original.” For some reason the memory of that, the thrill of pulling one over on Marcia Langman makes her a little more daring and she pushes her shirt open, exposing her breasts. The cool air of her overhead fan makes her nipples pebble and she instinctively brings her hands up to cover them. Then forces herself to drop them because if Diaphena can do it, why can’t she?
“Where?”
“Hmmm?”
“Where’s the original?”
“Oh um, I brought it home.”
“Where in your house?”
It seems like kind of a strange question, except she realizes Ben’s still fixated on the idea of who else might get to see it, and she absolutely should be more upset about that, and she will be, tomorrow, when she’s Leslie again and not this other person who finds this newly discovered possessive streak incredibly hot.
“My bedroom. It’s leaning up against the wall.” She turns her head. “I can actually see it right now.”
And yes she may have just inadvertently on purpose informed him of her location. Because when she’s not Leslie, she is totally sneaky.
---
Ben closes his eyes and tries to make a decision about whether he really wants to ask what he’s about to. Because up until now they’ve basically been skirting this without fully crossing over. It’s not that this is new territory for him. He’s lived too much time on the road to not have experimented with intimacy through technology on the more than one occasion, but it’s never exactly gone well. It’s always wound up feeling artificial and a little forced, and usually things didn’t last very long beyond that.
It is absolutely not the way he wants to start something with Leslie.
Except she’s not Leslie right now, is she? And even if she was this feels more real than anything he’s done in ages, in person or otherwise.
And then the entire decision making process proves to be a moot point because the siren on the other end of the line who stole Leslie’s voice, suddenly says, “You could make a comparison right now if you were here. Art and muse.”
Shit. He is lost. Absolutely spectacularly lost.
“Do it for me.”
It comes out rough, like a command, like he actually has some kind of control over the situation right now. And that’s just about the most ridiculous idea ever, except Leslie’s breath hitches and there’s a small sigh, and he knows she’s doing exactly that. God that thought is so intoxicating.
He closes his eyes and envisions the Leslie in Jerry’s Painting and the vibrant flesh blood reality side by side. Pictures her bare from the waist up, lying on her bed, like some beautiful pagan offering, touching herself because he told her to. And even though he’s been half hard since she asked him if there was anything he wanted in that voice that promised he could have everything he wanted, it’s this thought that snaps the last threads of his control bringing him fully erect with a throbbing, undeniable need.
Still he doesn’t touch himself. Doesn’t even strip off his shirt. Just toes off his shoes and unzips the fly of his pants to relieve a little of the pressure and lies down on the bed. Let’s himself get lost in every breath and moan and oh, she’s making, not wanting to miss a single one.
“God you’re beautiful,” he whispers.
That makes her laugh a little. “You can’t see me.”
“It doesn’t matter. Just the sound of you.”
“Oh.” Then, “Are you-?”
“No, not yet.”
“I’d like you to.”
That’s all the invitation he needs. His hands fly up to his tie, scrambling with the knot (when did these things get so hard to undo?). Finally with a little growl of frustration he gets it loose enough to jerk over his head and flings it across the room.
Leslie laughs. “You okay?”
“Yeah, just it was fighting me.”
That makes her laugh harder as if the absurdity of the entire situation has just hit her. “God, I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“We’re not, remember?”
“Right, of course not, because we wouldn’t.”
“No, we wouldn’t.” He closes his eyes and lies back down, starts to slowly unbutton his shirt, just one button at a time, the way he imagines Leslie might if they were a normal everyday couple making love for the first time. Thinks about what Andy said in the bar about roleplay. “You gotta dream up some weird scenario like you’re her boss and sex is forbidden because she works for you.”
And if he lets himself think of it like that for just tonight, thinks of this whole awful situation as just a persona he’s put on, a fantasy of his choosing, it actually becomes tantalizing, becomes exciting. Because in a fantasy he’d be bold. He’d be daring. He’d say fuck it and take what he wanted.
And he’s been quiet too long because she whispering in his name in his ear. “Ben-?”
“No,” he rasps, “Not Ben remember?”
That gets him a shuddering exhale, “So who, then?”
“Someone who’d kiss you if you showed up alone in his office late at night.”
Her breath catches, “Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Even if we might get fired?” she counters obviously picking up on the game.
“Even then. If I got you alone, nothing would stop me.” He pauses midway down the row of buttons, and asks, “And you? Who are you?”
“Someone who would have kissed you back.”
“Good.”
---
Leslie lays there, fingers trailing idly over the swell of her breasts, listening to the rustle of fabric as Ben continues getting undressed. And even though there’s still a part of her that keeps waiting for the whole thing to feel ridiculous, the fantasy of it, the opportunity to be these daring other people who wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of being together is too powerful.
“Are you someone who thinks about doing more than kissing me in the office?”
That makes him stop whatever he was doing. “Constantly.”
“Where?”
“It would be easier to tell you where I haven’t thought about doing things to you.”
She moves her hand back down to her breast. “My office?”
“Yes.”
“It has a lot of windows.”
“I’d close the blinds.”
She frowns, “I have to work there, every day. I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it.”
“I know.” There it is again, that possessive chord in his voice that makes something undeniably feminine inside her want to curl up on his lap and lick his jaw.
Yeah, okay, she needs to take a little control back here. “I think I like your office better. Right there in your chair. I’d come in while Chris was on his lunchtime run and lock the door. Does your door lock?”
“Ye- um Yes,” his voice is strangled now his breathing labored, god was that what she sounded like? She understands why he said it was beautiful. She could listen to him unravel all night.
“So I’d lock your door and climb onto to your lap and take you right there. You wouldn’t get any work done for days.”
“I’d have to move to a conference room.”
She moves her hand lower, unzips her pants. Dips her fingers beneath her panties and gasps, “I’d have to join you.”
“How- oh- How many are there in City Hall?”
“Twelve.”
He groans. “How many lock?”
“Four.”
“What do you think? Four days to cover them all? Locking and unlocking?”
“I bet we could do it in three.” She lifts her hips to shuck her pants and underwear entirely in one rough swift motion. The way they would have to if they were stealing a quickie. “There’s one up on floor two that no one ever uses because it’s so small. It would be our favorite.”
“I’d start keeping you late at work. I’d make up projects for you to work on just to have the excuse to be alone with you.”
“That-” her fingers skitter across her clit causing sparks to run through her body, and she pants out, “That would be an abuse of power.”
“It would be. I wouldn’t care.”
God something that wrong should not sound as hot as it does. She slips one finger inside, then another, urges him on, “What else? Is there anyplace else?”
“The bench in front of the sunflower mural.”
“It’s right out in the open!”
“I’d take you there late at night on a federal holiday. Thanksgiving maybe. Strip you down and kiss every inch of you until you’d forgotten the name of every park in Pawnee.”
“You’d miss dinner.”
“I’d eat.”
Oh, god, she trembles at the thought, caught between turned on and terrified. “I don’t know if I’d-”
“Are you someone who trusts me?”
There’s only one answer to that question. She moans, “Yes.”
“That bench would be your favorite place in the entire world.”
Leslie can’t even find her voice to tell him it already is. Just whimpers and shifts a little so her thumb can find her clit again, as her other hand moves to her breast. And god she’s so close. So close.
Ben keeps talking like he knows, like he’s urging her on. Trying to push her off the cliff. “There’s a file room in the back hall of the wing where the City Manager’s office is, you know which one I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s old records storage. Only three people have keys. I’m one of them. I’d text in the middle of the work day and it wouldn’t matter what you were doing, who you were talking to, you’d find a way out of it. You’d come because I wanted you. Because I asked. Wouldn’t you?” his voice slips a little on the last two words, becomes softer, needier, becomes Ben again.
And that’s what pushes her over. Because they’re not other people, and he’s not just a fantasy, because she can tell these aren’t all new ideas, aren’t thought up on the spur of the moment, this is him, this is her Ben imagining this, wanting her in this way.
“Yes,” It’s exhaled on a small cry, that’s almost a sob, almost a laugh, and then she’s trembling and coming down and sighing it all over again. “Yes.”
“Good,” he whispers, “I don’t think I could stand it if you didn’t.”
His voice is still tense, still taut with need, and she wants to do what he did, make him come undone with her words, because she told him to, wants to own this one little piece of him if nothing else. She closes her eyes and tries to think, tries to come up with something. Finally hits on it.
“You missed one.”
“Hmmm?”
“A place you missed a place. At least you missed one of my places.”
That makes him moan and his breathing go ragged. Obviously finding the thought of her thinking about this as arousing as she found it coming from him. “You have a- a place?”
“I have lots of places, all over Pawnee.” And she doesn’t actually, because she’s never been that inventive or adventurous, but he’s inspired her and she’s pretty sure she’s going to start collecting them. Why not get started now? She’s nothing if not creative. “There’s a spot on the golf course that you can sneak off into the trees and no one can see you. We could hide in the snowglobe museum until it closes and shake them all and then do it right there against the wall like the rebels we are. My mother has keys to the high-school, I could show you my senior year civics classroom.”
He groans at the last one. Yeah she’s filing that away for later. But for right now she refocuses on this specific fantasy.
“But I was talking about a place in City Hall. You missed a place in City-Hall.”
“Where?” He’s close now, she can tell it.
“Chris’s desk. You’d kiss me after Chris kept us apart for so long. You’d kiss me right there in the middle of your office right where Chris could see if he was there. But he’s not. He’s not there to stop us this time and after so long we’d be desperate. I’d start to pull you back towards your office, but you’d have work, lots of important files you couldn’t mess up. And Chris’s desk would be clear, just the way it is always is, right?”
“Right.”
“And you’d protest, you’d say we can’t, but I’d walk over and sit down on Chris’s desk and spread my legs and crook my finger and you’d come wouldn’t you? You’d come because I wanted you? Because you can’t stand not being with me a second longer than necessary?”
“God, Les-” he bites off the name just in time, trying to keep to the rules.
“It’s okay,” she whispers, “It’s my fantasy. Say my name.”
“Leslie.”
“Tell me you’d come. Ben, tell me you’d come if I asked.”
“Yes.”
---
They’re quiet in the aftermath. Lie there together and completely separate. Listening to each other breathe, trying to think of what to say. Not really coming up with anything.
Finally she finds her voice, and biting back tears, says, “This probably shouldn’t happen again.”
“I thought it didn’t happen this time.” Ben whispers.
“No, right, of course. We can’t. We wouldn’t.”
“So it’s a good thing we didn’t,” he pauses, offers a tentative follow up, “Isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she sighs, “It’s a good thing we didn’t.”
---
He barely gets through work the next day. Whatever they did or didn’t do last night, there’s not a place in City Hall that’s safe for him anymore. Chris actually calls an impromptu meeting with the city planner in the second floor conference room Leslie promised would be their favorite, and Ben can’t tell you one word that was said.
And he should be running away, should fleeing the moment it’s appropriate to do so, but he glances out the office window and can see Leslie’s car still there in the parking lot, and he finds himself lingering. Like he’s compelled by some unseen force to wait. Exactly for what he doesn’t know.
His answer comes at eight when the rest of the building is silent and Leslie shows up in his doorway, saying the exact same words as yesterday, “Chris just wanted me to drop off these receipts” and handing him an empty envelope and a few blank sheets of paper.
Ben Wyatt does not kiss Leslie Knope in his office.
He would never do that.
She would never let him.
It’s okay.
Ben Wyatt went home at five.
He’s someone else right now.
Fandom: Parks and Recreation
Pairing: Leslie/Ben
Word Count: ~4,500
Rating: Hard R/NC-17 (seriously not kidding)
Timeline: Up through 3x14 "Road Trip"
Author's Note: Yeah ummmm, so this happened. I have absolutely no explanation except the nbckink comm is like crack. This is a response to this prompt which wanted Ben/Leslie phone sex starting from an alternate ending to "Road Trip" where Ben doesn't kiss Leslie in his office and instead calls to say they really shouldn't let anything happen, but it backfires when the conversation about what they can and can't do get's a little too explicit.
It starts, as so many disasters in Ben’s life seem to, with the purest of intentions. Yeah, yeah, he knows-roads to hell, etc. etc.
Cliches are clichés for a reason.
Believe him, he knows.
Still he just- he can’t get Leslie’s face out of his head. Not that this is a new sensation, it’s been weeks since he’s gone to sleep without replaying some tiny, inconsequential moment with her over and over, until he’s practically memorized it, cataloged it, added it to his growing collection. And there’s a part of him that worries that there’s something vaguely unhealthy about it, about this absolute fixation, this near obsession. That thinks the way he watches her, makes excuses to watch her, means he might have stumbled onto some heretofore undiscovered voyeuristic aspect to his personality.
But every so often she catches him and smiles at him like she knows, like she likes it, and that’s all the excuse he needs not to stop.
Tonight is different though. Tonight isn’t about spinning a full-blown fantasy out of a fragment. Tonight isn’t about a fantasy at all. It’s about almosts and maybes and cold-hard reality. It’s about the fact he’d come so close to kissing her tonight he can practically taste her on his lips. It’s about the fact that he didn’t.
It’s about the look on Leslie’s face when she realized what had almost happened.
He hadn’t meant to do it. He’d lain awake on Chris’s couch the night before and given himself a sharp mental dressing-down about how it was one thing to be willing to put his own career at stake, but not Leslie’s, how he couldn’t be selfish like that, how he couldn’t, wouldn’t initiate anything more.
And then she’d come to give him the receipts and god if having her all to himself for the first time since she admitted that he wasn’t alone in the way he felt, didn’t blow every resolution straight to hell for a split second.
But just a split second.
Just long enough for him to take a half step forward, for Leslie to read the intention on his face.
And the look she’d given him-that heartbreaking mix of anticipation and absolute terror-had stopped him dead in his tracks.
But that’s not the look that’s haunting him now.
No it’s the one that came later, when she glanced back over her shoulder just before leaving.
The one that said she wished he’d done it anyway, that said she wouldn’t have pushed him away.
Ben sits down on the edge of his bed with a sigh and stares down at his phone. At Leslie’s number highlighted in his contacts. He wants to call her. Wants to apologize for what he almost did, for what he didn’t do. Wants her to tell him why he has to put it all out his head. Wants her to tell him he doesn’t have to.
It’s late and everything’s still and quiet in that way that makes things seems a little less real, a little less grounded. It’s taken him weeks to get used to how quiet Pawnee gets in comparison to Indy, but that’s okay he has his secret weapon in the form of two very loud, very immature roommates who never let the silence last too long.
Sure enough there’s the sound of a slap and a disturbingly imperious “Unhand me!” penetrating through the walls, followed by the clatter of a chase through what sounds like the kitchen, and some giggling that is definitely Andy.
Ben drops his head in his hands with a groan.
This has been going on for over a week now. They have to get a new game soon, don’t they? Please let them get a new game soon. A quieter, confined to the bedroom on the other side of the house game.
Why did he ever think rooming with newlyweds when he has been essentially consigned to celibacy was a good idea?
Briefly he considers going out there and asking them to keep it down, but no, he can’t. Andy and April are happy and together and so in love it’s simultaneously painful and wonderful to witness (and sometimes a little unsettling but that’s April in general). And he is absolutely not going to be the fucking asshole who takes even one iota of that away from them.
Still, he goes over and pushes his mostly closed bedroom door all the way shut with enough force to be a gentle suggestion.
It has no effect.
Ben drops his head to the hand still resting on the doorframe, and sighs. Thinks about how right now he wishes he were more like Andy, a little more naïve, a little less practical. Wishes he were more like April, a little more assertive, a little less concerned with other people’s opinions.
Just a little more someone else and a little less him.
Fuck it.
He calls her.
---
Leslie’s in the middle of getting changed when her phone rings. She stripped off her shirt and shrugged out of her bra when the screen on her blackberry lights up at her from where she tossed it down on the bed.
The sight of Ben’s name there makes her panic and she instinctively scrambles to cover up. Because she can’t talk to him half-naked. That would be- Well she doesn’t know what it would be, but she knows she can’t do it, so she hurries to get re-dressed only her fingers aren’t obeying her orders and she can’t make the clasp on her bra cooperate and she doesn’t want him to go to voicemail and think she’s ignoring his call, so finally she abandons her bra and yanks her button-down back-on, clutching it closed with one hand while she hits the answer-key with the other.
“Hello-” It comes out breathless and excited, and there’s a surprised pause on Ben’s end before he responds.
“Hey, it’s me- I mean it’s Ben- Ben Wyatt. I mean-” There’s another pause and muffled curse and Leslie sits down on the edge of her bed with a smile.
“Hello Ben Wyatt. It’s Leslie Knope from the Parks Department.”
He laughs into the phone, rueful and embarrassed and more than a little charmed, says softly, “Hello Leslie Knope from the Parks Department.”
She didn’t know it was possible for her name to sound like that.
For a moment they don’t seem to know how to continue, and the silence is just about to make a hard left turn from shy to awkward when Ben asks, “Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“No. Why?”
“Just, um, your voice when you picked up the phone. You sounded kind of out-of-breath. I didn’t know if I was interrupting something.”
“Oh, no, I was just getting undressed.” Oh god she can’t believe she just said that out loud.
“Oh.” He doesn’t say anything else and in the silence she swears she can feel him processing that piece of information, conjuring a visual, and Leslie feels her cheeks flush in a way that isn’t entirely due to embarrassment.
“So you’re-” he starts, voice hoarse, then coughs and regroups. “Do you, um, need a second to finish?”
“No. I’m good.”
She meant it as a simple response to his question, meant it to be matter-a-fact, a simple ‘no I’m now fully dressed and able to talk to you like the completely platonic colleagues we are.’
It does not come out that way.
It comes out low and intimate. Comes out like temptation, like sin. Like someone else entirely.
And she’s about provide an explanation, clarification, but there’s a hitch in Ben’s breathing that tells her whatever her intentions, his current thoughts are in no way platonic or collegial. And the sound of it, of him coming a little bit undone from something as simple as what she said, as her voice, makes her feel powerful in a way she hasn’t since she braided her hair and kidnapped a painting.
So she doesn’t say anything, just lies back on her bed and imagines what he might be imagining.
“Ben?”
“Yeah?”
“Was there something you wanted?”
To talk about. Her mind adds a split second too late. Were three extra words so much to ask? Was there something you wanted to talk about? Oh god, seriously, what is wrong with her? It’s like some demon has taken over her voice. This is Ann’s fault. She’s not entirely sure how, but it is definitely Ann’s fault with her Al Green songs and inappropriate conversational topics. Like when would asking him about his penis not be awkward anyway?
Except right now it doesn’t seem like that much of a non-sequitor.
And she should really stop this, but she’s been left aching ever since that moment in his office when he almost kissed her and then didn’t. And maybe, just maybe, she wants to torture him a little bit, make sure he regrets it.
It’s a horrible thought. He completely doesn’t deserve it. And she’s just moving to sit back up and stop teasing him for sins beyond his control, when Ben responds.
“I wanted to kiss you today.”
It shouldn’t hit her the way it does. It’s not exactly a startling revelation or a sexually explicit detail. But something about the way he says it like a confession, like a dirty secret, makes everything inside her catch fire.
She falls back against the bed, the hand that had been holding her shirt closed flying up to rest over her heart, feeling the insistent needy tattoo against her palm.
“I would have let you.”
Ben sucks in a sharp breath, lets out a strained mirthless laugh. “God I wish-”
He breaks off, doesn’t finish, but she knows what he was going to say anyway. It’s the same things she wishes for, wishes they’d figured this out earlier before it became forbidden, wishes the rules didn’t exist, wishes they were the type of people who didn’t care. Just wishes.
“Have you um-” he coughs, “have you ever wished you could be someone else?”
“No. Not really-”
“Of course not,” he laughs.
And it could be biting but she can hear the real affection in his voice, and it makes the next part spill out from her unbidden, “Not until, you know, recently.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Leslie-”
“Don’t,” she whispers. Because as much as she loves the way her name sounds on his lips, that quiet, raw need that no one’s ever had for her before, she kind of hates hearing it right now, because it brings too much baggage, reminds her of all the things she is that she doesn’t want to be at this moment. Doesn’t want to be Leslie Knope from the Parks Department who believes ‘cool kids make the rules they don’t break them.’ She wants to be someone else, anyone else.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I mean don’t say my name, pretend I’m someone else.”
Ben swallows. “I don’t, um-”
“Please. Just if I wasn’t me and you weren’t you and we weren’t in this awful mess. What would you do?”
It's like a damn breaking.
“I would have kissed you weeks ago.”
“I would have made out with you at the restaurant in Indy.”
“I wouldn’t be relying on Jerry’s imagination for fantasy material.”
That makes her laugh a little, because god it’s so wrong that Jerry’s name is coming up right now, but she tries to fight it back, because she doesn’t want to lose the moment. “So you did look.”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“No. No, I um, I wanted you to.” And she can’t believe what she’s going to say next, but she really wants to know. “Did you like it?”
Ben’s response comes in the form of a groan. “God, yes. I spent a week trying to figure out how accurate it was. I was so grateful he painted over it.”
“Why?!” She’s indignant now. She thought it was beautiful. Didn’t he think it was beautiful?
There’s a pause and then an abashed, “I didn’t want anyone else to see you like that.”
She blinks and smiles, teases him. “You were jealous?”
“Yes.” He bites it out, flat and unapologetic and more than a little bit possessive and oh god whatever levity had been there has pretty much gone out the window to be replaced by something electric and all-consuming.
“Want to know a secret?”
“What?”
“He didn’t paint over it. He made a copy. I still have the original.” For some reason the memory of that, the thrill of pulling one over on Marcia Langman makes her a little more daring and she pushes her shirt open, exposing her breasts. The cool air of her overhead fan makes her nipples pebble and she instinctively brings her hands up to cover them. Then forces herself to drop them because if Diaphena can do it, why can’t she?
“Where?”
“Hmmm?”
“Where’s the original?”
“Oh um, I brought it home.”
“Where in your house?”
It seems like kind of a strange question, except she realizes Ben’s still fixated on the idea of who else might get to see it, and she absolutely should be more upset about that, and she will be, tomorrow, when she’s Leslie again and not this other person who finds this newly discovered possessive streak incredibly hot.
“My bedroom. It’s leaning up against the wall.” She turns her head. “I can actually see it right now.”
And yes she may have just inadvertently on purpose informed him of her location. Because when she’s not Leslie, she is totally sneaky.
---
Ben closes his eyes and tries to make a decision about whether he really wants to ask what he’s about to. Because up until now they’ve basically been skirting this without fully crossing over. It’s not that this is new territory for him. He’s lived too much time on the road to not have experimented with intimacy through technology on the more than one occasion, but it’s never exactly gone well. It’s always wound up feeling artificial and a little forced, and usually things didn’t last very long beyond that.
It is absolutely not the way he wants to start something with Leslie.
Except she’s not Leslie right now, is she? And even if she was this feels more real than anything he’s done in ages, in person or otherwise.
And then the entire decision making process proves to be a moot point because the siren on the other end of the line who stole Leslie’s voice, suddenly says, “You could make a comparison right now if you were here. Art and muse.”
Shit. He is lost. Absolutely spectacularly lost.
“Do it for me.”
It comes out rough, like a command, like he actually has some kind of control over the situation right now. And that’s just about the most ridiculous idea ever, except Leslie’s breath hitches and there’s a small sigh, and he knows she’s doing exactly that. God that thought is so intoxicating.
He closes his eyes and envisions the Leslie in Jerry’s Painting and the vibrant flesh blood reality side by side. Pictures her bare from the waist up, lying on her bed, like some beautiful pagan offering, touching herself because he told her to. And even though he’s been half hard since she asked him if there was anything he wanted in that voice that promised he could have everything he wanted, it’s this thought that snaps the last threads of his control bringing him fully erect with a throbbing, undeniable need.
Still he doesn’t touch himself. Doesn’t even strip off his shirt. Just toes off his shoes and unzips the fly of his pants to relieve a little of the pressure and lies down on the bed. Let’s himself get lost in every breath and moan and oh, she’s making, not wanting to miss a single one.
“God you’re beautiful,” he whispers.
That makes her laugh a little. “You can’t see me.”
“It doesn’t matter. Just the sound of you.”
“Oh.” Then, “Are you-?”
“No, not yet.”
“I’d like you to.”
That’s all the invitation he needs. His hands fly up to his tie, scrambling with the knot (when did these things get so hard to undo?). Finally with a little growl of frustration he gets it loose enough to jerk over his head and flings it across the room.
Leslie laughs. “You okay?”
“Yeah, just it was fighting me.”
That makes her laugh harder as if the absurdity of the entire situation has just hit her. “God, I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“We’re not, remember?”
“Right, of course not, because we wouldn’t.”
“No, we wouldn’t.” He closes his eyes and lies back down, starts to slowly unbutton his shirt, just one button at a time, the way he imagines Leslie might if they were a normal everyday couple making love for the first time. Thinks about what Andy said in the bar about roleplay. “You gotta dream up some weird scenario like you’re her boss and sex is forbidden because she works for you.”
And if he lets himself think of it like that for just tonight, thinks of this whole awful situation as just a persona he’s put on, a fantasy of his choosing, it actually becomes tantalizing, becomes exciting. Because in a fantasy he’d be bold. He’d be daring. He’d say fuck it and take what he wanted.
And he’s been quiet too long because she whispering in his name in his ear. “Ben-?”
“No,” he rasps, “Not Ben remember?”
That gets him a shuddering exhale, “So who, then?”
“Someone who’d kiss you if you showed up alone in his office late at night.”
Her breath catches, “Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Even if we might get fired?” she counters obviously picking up on the game.
“Even then. If I got you alone, nothing would stop me.” He pauses midway down the row of buttons, and asks, “And you? Who are you?”
“Someone who would have kissed you back.”
“Good.”
---
Leslie lays there, fingers trailing idly over the swell of her breasts, listening to the rustle of fabric as Ben continues getting undressed. And even though there’s still a part of her that keeps waiting for the whole thing to feel ridiculous, the fantasy of it, the opportunity to be these daring other people who wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of being together is too powerful.
“Are you someone who thinks about doing more than kissing me in the office?”
That makes him stop whatever he was doing. “Constantly.”
“Where?”
“It would be easier to tell you where I haven’t thought about doing things to you.”
She moves her hand back down to her breast. “My office?”
“Yes.”
“It has a lot of windows.”
“I’d close the blinds.”
She frowns, “I have to work there, every day. I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it.”
“I know.” There it is again, that possessive chord in his voice that makes something undeniably feminine inside her want to curl up on his lap and lick his jaw.
Yeah, okay, she needs to take a little control back here. “I think I like your office better. Right there in your chair. I’d come in while Chris was on his lunchtime run and lock the door. Does your door lock?”
“Ye- um Yes,” his voice is strangled now his breathing labored, god was that what she sounded like? She understands why he said it was beautiful. She could listen to him unravel all night.
“So I’d lock your door and climb onto to your lap and take you right there. You wouldn’t get any work done for days.”
“I’d have to move to a conference room.”
She moves her hand lower, unzips her pants. Dips her fingers beneath her panties and gasps, “I’d have to join you.”
“How- oh- How many are there in City Hall?”
“Twelve.”
He groans. “How many lock?”
“Four.”
“What do you think? Four days to cover them all? Locking and unlocking?”
“I bet we could do it in three.” She lifts her hips to shuck her pants and underwear entirely in one rough swift motion. The way they would have to if they were stealing a quickie. “There’s one up on floor two that no one ever uses because it’s so small. It would be our favorite.”
“I’d start keeping you late at work. I’d make up projects for you to work on just to have the excuse to be alone with you.”
“That-” her fingers skitter across her clit causing sparks to run through her body, and she pants out, “That would be an abuse of power.”
“It would be. I wouldn’t care.”
God something that wrong should not sound as hot as it does. She slips one finger inside, then another, urges him on, “What else? Is there anyplace else?”
“The bench in front of the sunflower mural.”
“It’s right out in the open!”
“I’d take you there late at night on a federal holiday. Thanksgiving maybe. Strip you down and kiss every inch of you until you’d forgotten the name of every park in Pawnee.”
“You’d miss dinner.”
“I’d eat.”
Oh, god, she trembles at the thought, caught between turned on and terrified. “I don’t know if I’d-”
“Are you someone who trusts me?”
There’s only one answer to that question. She moans, “Yes.”
“That bench would be your favorite place in the entire world.”
Leslie can’t even find her voice to tell him it already is. Just whimpers and shifts a little so her thumb can find her clit again, as her other hand moves to her breast. And god she’s so close. So close.
Ben keeps talking like he knows, like he’s urging her on. Trying to push her off the cliff. “There’s a file room in the back hall of the wing where the City Manager’s office is, you know which one I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s old records storage. Only three people have keys. I’m one of them. I’d text in the middle of the work day and it wouldn’t matter what you were doing, who you were talking to, you’d find a way out of it. You’d come because I wanted you. Because I asked. Wouldn’t you?” his voice slips a little on the last two words, becomes softer, needier, becomes Ben again.
And that’s what pushes her over. Because they’re not other people, and he’s not just a fantasy, because she can tell these aren’t all new ideas, aren’t thought up on the spur of the moment, this is him, this is her Ben imagining this, wanting her in this way.
“Yes,” It’s exhaled on a small cry, that’s almost a sob, almost a laugh, and then she’s trembling and coming down and sighing it all over again. “Yes.”
“Good,” he whispers, “I don’t think I could stand it if you didn’t.”
His voice is still tense, still taut with need, and she wants to do what he did, make him come undone with her words, because she told him to, wants to own this one little piece of him if nothing else. She closes her eyes and tries to think, tries to come up with something. Finally hits on it.
“You missed one.”
“Hmmm?”
“A place you missed a place. At least you missed one of my places.”
That makes him moan and his breathing go ragged. Obviously finding the thought of her thinking about this as arousing as she found it coming from him. “You have a- a place?”
“I have lots of places, all over Pawnee.” And she doesn’t actually, because she’s never been that inventive or adventurous, but he’s inspired her and she’s pretty sure she’s going to start collecting them. Why not get started now? She’s nothing if not creative. “There’s a spot on the golf course that you can sneak off into the trees and no one can see you. We could hide in the snowglobe museum until it closes and shake them all and then do it right there against the wall like the rebels we are. My mother has keys to the high-school, I could show you my senior year civics classroom.”
He groans at the last one. Yeah she’s filing that away for later. But for right now she refocuses on this specific fantasy.
“But I was talking about a place in City Hall. You missed a place in City-Hall.”
“Where?” He’s close now, she can tell it.
“Chris’s desk. You’d kiss me after Chris kept us apart for so long. You’d kiss me right there in the middle of your office right where Chris could see if he was there. But he’s not. He’s not there to stop us this time and after so long we’d be desperate. I’d start to pull you back towards your office, but you’d have work, lots of important files you couldn’t mess up. And Chris’s desk would be clear, just the way it is always is, right?”
“Right.”
“And you’d protest, you’d say we can’t, but I’d walk over and sit down on Chris’s desk and spread my legs and crook my finger and you’d come wouldn’t you? You’d come because I wanted you? Because you can’t stand not being with me a second longer than necessary?”
“God, Les-” he bites off the name just in time, trying to keep to the rules.
“It’s okay,” she whispers, “It’s my fantasy. Say my name.”
“Leslie.”
“Tell me you’d come. Ben, tell me you’d come if I asked.”
“Yes.”
---
They’re quiet in the aftermath. Lie there together and completely separate. Listening to each other breathe, trying to think of what to say. Not really coming up with anything.
Finally she finds her voice, and biting back tears, says, “This probably shouldn’t happen again.”
“I thought it didn’t happen this time.” Ben whispers.
“No, right, of course. We can’t. We wouldn’t.”
“So it’s a good thing we didn’t,” he pauses, offers a tentative follow up, “Isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she sighs, “It’s a good thing we didn’t.”
---
He barely gets through work the next day. Whatever they did or didn’t do last night, there’s not a place in City Hall that’s safe for him anymore. Chris actually calls an impromptu meeting with the city planner in the second floor conference room Leslie promised would be their favorite, and Ben can’t tell you one word that was said.
And he should be running away, should fleeing the moment it’s appropriate to do so, but he glances out the office window and can see Leslie’s car still there in the parking lot, and he finds himself lingering. Like he’s compelled by some unseen force to wait. Exactly for what he doesn’t know.
His answer comes at eight when the rest of the building is silent and Leslie shows up in his doorway, saying the exact same words as yesterday, “Chris just wanted me to drop off these receipts” and handing him an empty envelope and a few blank sheets of paper.
Ben Wyatt does not kiss Leslie Knope in his office.
He would never do that.
She would never let him.
It’s okay.
Ben Wyatt went home at five.
He’s someone else right now.