Holiday Fic! (Part Five)
This is for whimsical_irony, who gave me the following prompt: "Leslie Knope throws the Parks department her annual Non-denominational Mid-December Winter Fun-time Festival." Features most of the ensemble in the background, but this is mostly Ann and Ben. I hope you like it.
Snowcastles
“So what is this exactly?”
Ann looked up, surprised; she hadn’t heard Ben creep up next to her. Actually, she wasn’t aware he was here, even though it shouldn’t have been all that shocking; he’d been popping up at everything lately, which she guessed made sense given that he worked with Leslie, but Ann still wasn’t used to his nearly constant presence. Even worse, wherever Ben was, Chris almost always followed, so the second her brain registered that Ben was actually here, she instinctively scanned the lot for Chris. There were plenty of people milling around-an even better turnout than last year’s Non-denominational Mid-December Winter Fun-time Festival-but Ann didn’t notice her ex trembling with enthusiasm among the crowd. Slowly, her gaze fell back on Ben, who was looking at her less obliviously than she wished. If he knew she was worried about her ex being there, though, he didn’t comment on it.
“Leslie told me I had to come,” he prompted, necessarily, Ann supposed, since apparently she’d forgotten how to have a conversation. “She said it would be the best winter celebration of my life.”
Ann kicked herself. Focus, Perkins. “I’ve heard more ridiculous exaggerations,” she said. “I mean, how many winter festivals have you been to before?”
Ben shrugged. “Fifteen? Sixteen? Winter was kind of a big deal in Minnesota.”
“Yeah. I bet. But you didn’t have Leslie.”
“No.” A smile broke out on Ben’s face, this bashful sort of look that Ann wasn’t entirely sure he was aware of, and he glanced over to where Leslie stood on her makeshift stage. Huh. Well that was an interesting development. “No. This is the only place in the world lucky enough to have Leslie.”
Ann smirked-couldn’t quite help herself when confronted by a man so obviously lovesick over her best friend-and crossed her arms. “Maybe you should tell her that.”
Ben snapped, almost as if coming out of a trance, glancing over at her and turning a bit pink. “Oh, uh…I’m sure she, uh, knows…that…”
Leslie was utterly oblivious, if the past few weeks’ chorus of Do you think he likes me, Ann? Do you? Ann, what do you think? was any indication. But at least now Ann had a little more to go on when answering.
Ben was still stammering, hemming and hawing about nothing, and Ann took a tiny bit of pity on him. “So this,” she interrupted as Ben eyed her gratefully, “is Leslie’s snow sculpture contest.”
“Snow sculpture?”
“Last year we had to build animals out of snow. Best one gets a prize.”
“And this year?”
Ann shrugged. “Leslie hasn’t announced it yet. But no doubt it will be something I fail spectacularly at. Last year’s squirrel was a disaster.”
“Oh. You don’t team up with Leslie?”
That was probably the least subtle question Ann had ever heard. The implication-the shy thought that Leslie might be up for grabs as a partner if Ann didn’t claim her-was glaringly obvious. “She and Ron are the judges,” said Ann knowingly. “But you can work with me if you want.”
“Oh I didn’t-I wasn’t-” He paused and let out a long sigh, his breath visible in the air for a moment. “Sure. Let’s work together.”
“Great.”
“Great.”
The theme, as Leslie announced it, turned out to be “mixing the best of both seasons-the fun of summer and the joy of winter” by making snow sandcastles. It was a name Leslie stuck by even after Tom rightly pointed out that they were really making snow castles with no sand involved.
“They’re modeled after sandcastles,” Leslie insisted. A snowball might have been lobbed in Tom’s direction.
Andy actually took the name to heart, running home to get some buckets and shovels, and using them to scoop up the snow and actually make something resembling a sandcastle. He put April in charge of digging the moat, but she spent most of the time creating what looked like snow Dracula to stand on top of the castle.
Chris, who had shown up late, ended up partnering with Jerry, and between Chris’ pontificating and Jerry’s ineptitude, seemed to have accomplished nothing. Ann was more than a little delighted by this. Tom and Jean-Ralphio, meanwhile, couldn’t seem to agree on a design, and finally settled on building the highest tower they could, arguing that towers were most powerful than castles anyway.
And Ann…Well, Ann had no artistic ability and only the most basic snowman making skills. And Ben. Ben, who looked at the snow skeptically and declared, “It’s not really the best snow for building a castle. It’s too soft.”
He was probably right, if Jean-Ralphio’s crying over the third collapse of his tower was any indication, but it was too practical an observation given that they were both adults playing in the snow. “We just have to build something,” Ann argued. “It doesn’t have to be perfect.”
“But isn’t the point to win?”
Ann stared at him. She was suddenly struck by the fact that either he and Leslie were perfect for one another or else they were going to become the most terrifyingly competitive couple in the world.
“Well isn’t it?”
“I guess?”
Ben frowned, tentatively rolling the snow into a ball and tossing it in the air. It immediately fell apart. “Do you have any ice cube trays at your house?”
“Yes. But why-”
“Can you go get them? And bring a watering can with water.”
“Uh…Sure.” She stood up, dusting the snow from her pants, and watching Ben further experiment with the snow. If nothing else, at least she’d have a few minutes to warm up.
When she returned, Ben looked up eagerly, reaching out for the trays and immediately scooping and packing snow tightly into each square and then sprinkling some of the water over the tray. Ann watched skeptically, but after a few minutes, Ben had nearly two dozen tiny snow squares. “We can use them like blocks,” he reasoned as Ann knelt down next to him. “Build the castle.”
“Okay.”
It worked reasonably well, even if Ben insisted on decreasing the area of the base so they’d have time to finish. In the couple of hours allotted for them to build, she and Ben managed to construct the tiniest snow castle ever: a square sculpture that vaguely resembled something out of a medieval history book. It was ugly as hell, but neat and well built. Next to Tom and Jean-Ralphio’s abandoned tower-they’d left forty minutes ago after Jean-Ralphio tripped into their latest attempt-and Andy’s collapsing bucket towers, it looked downright spectacular.
“Solid construction,” Ron declared when he and Leslie arrived for the judging, “for something useless made of frozen water.”
“It’s not very sandcastle-ly,” said Leslie with a frown. “And it’s kind of small.”
“You didn’t name size as part of the requirements,” argued Ben.
“Yeah. But it has to be aesthetically pleasing. It’s kind of muddy.”
That had been Ann’s idea, when some of the cubes still wouldn’t hold together. Mixing in a little mud had made it more sound. “Ours is one of the few that’s actually finished and standing.”
Leslie nodded. “Don’t get me wrong, Ann. It’s much cuter than your squirrel was.” She looked at Ben, almost conspiratorially, like she was letting him in on a secret. “Ann’s not so good at making art because she is art.”
“Leslie, this is a well-built, pretty historically accurate castle. Things I would think you’d appreciate.”
“I do. Just not in a snow sandcastle contest.”
“That name really doesn’t make any sense.”
Their argument went on for another ten minutes or so, a back and forth that was both dizzying and intense and ricocheted into territory that made little sense, until finally Ann interrupted to remind Leslie she had other castles to judge.
“This is a great castle,” Ben insisted again after Leslie left.
“Uh-huh. Great castle. But we’re not going to win.”
Ben scowled.
Ann was right, of course. They didn’t win (really had no chance given that Donna half-drew, half-built Li’l Sebastian in front of a castle), but Leslie awarded them a special ribbon for best construction.
“You keep it,” said Ann, rolling her eyes at the ambivalent mix of annoyance and thrill on Ben’s face. “Let it be a reminder that you and Leslie are both a little insane.”
“We’re not-”
“You are. And that’s why this’ll probably work out.” She clapped him on the shoulder as he gave her a curious look, laughing at him just a bit. “Come on. Leslie wants to go to J.J.’s. You should come.”
Neither Ben or Leslie would argue about that.
kyrieanne prompted the first embarrassing moment after Ben and Leslie moved in together. My first thought for this bordered on a sickening level of fluff, so after a lot of brainstorming, I came up with this instead. Enjoy.
Sleep Patterns
Once every few months, Leslie sleeps like the dead.
It’s always one of the least restful nights for Ben.
Really, it makes no sense. Leslie is so active most nights: up late working (sometimes in their room because it’s been too many nights falling asleep without her and he insists), rambling in her sleep, rolling or even, occasionally, kicking when she’s restless and too full of thoughts. The reprieve from this-the rare nights she falls asleep on the couch and he has to half-carry her to bed, the nights she sleeps without disturbing him once-is oddly unnerving. He feels on edge, overly conscious of her stillness and caught off guard by the silence.
It shouldn’t be unsettling, but it is. A disturbance in what has become their normal.
This is one of those nights.
Leslie had been half-asleep before she’d gotten into bed, stripping down to her underwear and barely finding the energy to pull a t-shirt over her head. By the time he’d gotten done in the bathroom, she was gone: a motionless lump under the covers.
In the little over an hour since they went to bed, Ben has only managed to drift off into an uneasy sleep once, snoozing only minutes before nothing in particular jarred him awake. Now he lies still, willing his body to relax and remember that Leslie is alive and well next to him, even if she hasn’t wrapped her body around his while they sleep in the way he’s gotten used to. Just because it feels like he’s sleeping next to a lifeless body, doesn’t mean he actually is.
It works. Kind of. He can feel his eyes getting heavier, his body growing calm under the warm sheets. But just as he’s starting to fall into that world of asleep and awake again, he feels her move. Still half-awake, he’s perturbed by the sudden, unexpected sign of life; in all the time they’ve shared a bed, he can’t remember Leslie actually moving on a night like this. He blinks open a sleepy eye at the clock and groans-he really isn’t going to get any sleep tonight-and her name half-falls out of his mouth as he rolls over to look at her. But to his surprise, she’s already out of bed and out the door to the hall
For half a moment, he wonders if he was wrong-that tonight is not one of those nights (a thought that does not sit right given how she’s been acting up until now), and then he hears it. There’s a crash-a sudden, disturbing break in the stillness-and his heart seems to stop beating and plunge into his stomach simultaneously. He bolts out of bed, groping in the dark for the still unfamiliar hall light switch, and is nearly blinded when the lights come on. It takes a minute for his senses to catch up with him, a minute before he’s able to see Leslie, lying at the base of the staircase.
Ben nearly falls down the stairs himself in the lifetime it takes him to get to her, and collapses next to her without the usual protest from his knees. “Leslie? Leslie?”
Is that his voice? It sounds way too calm to be his voice.
“Leslie!”
Leslie groans, almost a whimper, and covers her face with both hands. “Ow.”
“Are you okay?” He feels the compulsory need to pull her into his arms, but he can’t tell how badly she’s hurt and doesn’t want to make anything worse. A voice in the back of his mind is persistently screaming about not moving a person until you can ascertain their injuries, but his arms itch to touch her and see for himself. “Leslie, are you okay?”
“Uh huh.”
“Did you hurt anything? Can you move?”
She parts her fingers, eyes peeping out to look at him and then shutting. “I’m fine,” she says, her voice slightly muffled by her hands. “Just a little bruised.”
Touching her is unstoppable, then. He reaches out and runs a hand over her head, thumb brushing her forehead, and she sighs and lowers her hands. Her cheeks are flushed and she shakes her head self-deprecatingly. “I forgot where I was.”
“What?”
“I forgot we were in the new house,” she says, sitting up and rolling her eyes at herself. “There were fewer stairs in my old house, and I was half-asleep and forgot where I was…”
Ben, whose body is nearly shaking in relief, can’t help the low chuckle that escapes, even as Leslie reaches out and slaps his shoulder. “Sorry,” he apologizes, aware that half of the need to laugh is a release from the near heart attack he just had. The other half, well… “This kind of makes up for all the times you laughed at me for falling in your house, though.”
“I never laughed.”
“There was giggling.”
“Only that one time when you got all twisted in those old sweaters and thought someone was attacking you. I mean, come on. That was kind of hilarious.”
“Yeah. Until I hit my head on the door frame, it was a hoot.”
Leslie smiles, holding out her hands as Ben stands so he can tug her off of the floor. Once she’s upright, she groans, rubbing her ass gently and rolling her eyes. “I’m going to sore for a few days.”
“I’m just glad you didn’t break your neck. I’ve gotten kind of attached to you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” Ben leans down and kisses her, leaning his forehead into hers and exhaling. He suddenly feels like he could sleep for a month. “Now maybe you’ll take this as a sign that you should get more sleep.”
Leslie pulls back, patting his chest lightly and shaking her head. “Nah.”
And the last one! This is for shornt, who is basically getting unspecified holiday fluff. And this might honestly be the fluffiest one of all? Just saying. I hope you like it.
The Laws of Christmas
For all of the positive points about Christmas trees, nothing tops the fact that Ben spends an inordinate amount of time crawling under it. Watering it, fiddling with the toy train, sweeping up stray pine needles, and, tonight, arranging and rearranging presents because he has some compulsive need to make it look perfect. If you ask Leslie, wrapped gifts under a lighted tree automatically means perfection, but Ben insists that there’s a way to optimize this. She doesn’t complain, though, because she’ll take any excuse to have this view of his cute butt, even if he’s moving the same gift for the tenth time.
She perches on the arm of the couch, not bothering to pretend she’s not staring, and takes a large bite of a cookie. Crumbs sprinkle onto the lap of her bathrobe, and she absentmindedly brushes them onto the floor. Ben stretches forward, lunging for something just out of reach under the tree and giving her an inadvertent show, and Leslie grins.
“Honey-” He sounds a bit frustrated, fingertips brushing the present he’s looking for, but not quite reaching. “-Do you have the tape? I think the corner of this present is coming loose.”
Leslie pops the rest of the cookie into her mouth as Ben manages to catch the ribbon of the gift and tug it toward his hand. Reluctantly, she stands up and moves behind him, leaning forward so her arms are draped around his neck. As adorable as this whole borderline OCD thing is, she’s going to have to draw a line somewhere. It’s already two in the morning, and re-wrapping gifts that will be torn apart in a matter of hours seems ridiculous.
“Sweetie, no one is more shocked than I am that these words are coming out of my mouth, but I think it’s time we go to bed.”
“Yeah, no, I know. I just need to fix this. And maybe get a new bow for this one because I kind of just smashed it-”
“You know, as my head elf, I appreciate how meticulous you are. But if Santa says the presents look good, then I think we’re done here.”
“Yeah, but…Wait-Why do you get to be Santa?”
Leslie steps back as Ben cranes his neck to look at her, a little aghast that he even has to ask. Of course she’s Santa. “Uh, I have the hat.”
Ben eyes the Santa hat she’s wearing like he might be planning a coup, and Leslie continues, hurriedly. “And I ate all the cookies. Which reminds me, you still have to eat those stupid carrots you insisted we leave out for the reindeer.”
“I thought I was the elf.”
Leslie sticks out her tongue, but privately thinks that if he wants to leave the carrots and allow her to debunk this myth that reindeer like them, he’s welcome to do so. “And,” she finishes, hands fumbling at the tie of her robe and pulling it open, “I’m dressed for the part.”
Ben’s eyes go a bit wide as she gives him a sneak peek of his first Christmas present. Judging by that look, the gifts under the tree are as good as forgotten. “I don’t remember Santa wearing that much red lace,” he murmurs. He finally gets off of his knees and steps toward her just as Leslie closes and reties the robe.
“Santa has a lot of surprises up her sleeve. But you have to come to bed first.”
“Really? Because I would think Santa would have no qualms about doing it in front of the Christmas tree. That’s practically Christmas law.”
Ben’s hand is wandering, pulling aside the top of her robe and running a finger along the edge of her bra, and Leslie sighs. “Christmas law?”
“You know…Cookies for Santa, stockings hung by the fireplace, sex in front of the tree…It’s all in the rulebook somewhere.”
“Oh is it?”
“As head elf, I would know.”
As head elf, he’s insanely capable with his lips and tongue, and Leslie cranes her neck to give him better access. Above their heads, she hears pattering, an indication that certain persons are far from visions of sugarplums dancing through heads, but she allows herself another moment to indulge in her husband’s seduction skills before she pulls back. “Here’s another reason I’m Santa,” she says, putting her hands on his cheeks and forcing him to focus. As single-minded as he is, he keeps trying to lean in and capture her lips. “I know that a certain person is awake right now.”
Ben’s eyes drift to the ceiling just as there’s a particularly violent creak of the floorboard, and he groans. “This is your fault, Santa.”
“Yeah. Like you never got overeager on Christmas Eve.”
“Never.” He leans in and kisses her cheek. And maybe her lips a few times. But really, who can blame him?
“You go,” she prods, nudging him gently. “If I leave you down here alone, you’ll get sucked into another present spiral.”
“I don’t-”
“And you need to get upstairs so you can finish unwrapping me.”
That puts an end to the protests. He plants a sloppy kiss at the corner of her mouth and heads for the stairs as Leslie makes one last inspection of their handiwork and starts to shut off the lights.
“Daddy!” she hears a little voice gasp as she blows out the candles they lit earlier. “I thought you were Santa Claus!”
“Nope. Not me.” There’s a rush of giggles from the stairs, and then Leslie hears Ben’s footsteps ascending, solid and heavy and reassuring. “Come on,” he says. “You know Santa can’t come if you’re out of bed. It’s in the rulebook.”
God, he really is the best head elf.
Thank you so much to everyone who left such encouraging feedback while I was writing these. It was great motivation to keep going even when I felt on the verge of Christmas fluff overload. :) I'm going to try to pop in before NYE with Secret Li'l Sebastian fic, but this is just about it until 2013. Happy holidays!
Snowcastles
“So what is this exactly?”
Ann looked up, surprised; she hadn’t heard Ben creep up next to her. Actually, she wasn’t aware he was here, even though it shouldn’t have been all that shocking; he’d been popping up at everything lately, which she guessed made sense given that he worked with Leslie, but Ann still wasn’t used to his nearly constant presence. Even worse, wherever Ben was, Chris almost always followed, so the second her brain registered that Ben was actually here, she instinctively scanned the lot for Chris. There were plenty of people milling around-an even better turnout than last year’s Non-denominational Mid-December Winter Fun-time Festival-but Ann didn’t notice her ex trembling with enthusiasm among the crowd. Slowly, her gaze fell back on Ben, who was looking at her less obliviously than she wished. If he knew she was worried about her ex being there, though, he didn’t comment on it.
“Leslie told me I had to come,” he prompted, necessarily, Ann supposed, since apparently she’d forgotten how to have a conversation. “She said it would be the best winter celebration of my life.”
Ann kicked herself. Focus, Perkins. “I’ve heard more ridiculous exaggerations,” she said. “I mean, how many winter festivals have you been to before?”
Ben shrugged. “Fifteen? Sixteen? Winter was kind of a big deal in Minnesota.”
“Yeah. I bet. But you didn’t have Leslie.”
“No.” A smile broke out on Ben’s face, this bashful sort of look that Ann wasn’t entirely sure he was aware of, and he glanced over to where Leslie stood on her makeshift stage. Huh. Well that was an interesting development. “No. This is the only place in the world lucky enough to have Leslie.”
Ann smirked-couldn’t quite help herself when confronted by a man so obviously lovesick over her best friend-and crossed her arms. “Maybe you should tell her that.”
Ben snapped, almost as if coming out of a trance, glancing over at her and turning a bit pink. “Oh, uh…I’m sure she, uh, knows…that…”
Leslie was utterly oblivious, if the past few weeks’ chorus of Do you think he likes me, Ann? Do you? Ann, what do you think? was any indication. But at least now Ann had a little more to go on when answering.
Ben was still stammering, hemming and hawing about nothing, and Ann took a tiny bit of pity on him. “So this,” she interrupted as Ben eyed her gratefully, “is Leslie’s snow sculpture contest.”
“Snow sculpture?”
“Last year we had to build animals out of snow. Best one gets a prize.”
“And this year?”
Ann shrugged. “Leslie hasn’t announced it yet. But no doubt it will be something I fail spectacularly at. Last year’s squirrel was a disaster.”
“Oh. You don’t team up with Leslie?”
That was probably the least subtle question Ann had ever heard. The implication-the shy thought that Leslie might be up for grabs as a partner if Ann didn’t claim her-was glaringly obvious. “She and Ron are the judges,” said Ann knowingly. “But you can work with me if you want.”
“Oh I didn’t-I wasn’t-” He paused and let out a long sigh, his breath visible in the air for a moment. “Sure. Let’s work together.”
“Great.”
“Great.”
The theme, as Leslie announced it, turned out to be “mixing the best of both seasons-the fun of summer and the joy of winter” by making snow sandcastles. It was a name Leslie stuck by even after Tom rightly pointed out that they were really making snow castles with no sand involved.
“They’re modeled after sandcastles,” Leslie insisted. A snowball might have been lobbed in Tom’s direction.
Andy actually took the name to heart, running home to get some buckets and shovels, and using them to scoop up the snow and actually make something resembling a sandcastle. He put April in charge of digging the moat, but she spent most of the time creating what looked like snow Dracula to stand on top of the castle.
Chris, who had shown up late, ended up partnering with Jerry, and between Chris’ pontificating and Jerry’s ineptitude, seemed to have accomplished nothing. Ann was more than a little delighted by this. Tom and Jean-Ralphio, meanwhile, couldn’t seem to agree on a design, and finally settled on building the highest tower they could, arguing that towers were most powerful than castles anyway.
And Ann…Well, Ann had no artistic ability and only the most basic snowman making skills. And Ben. Ben, who looked at the snow skeptically and declared, “It’s not really the best snow for building a castle. It’s too soft.”
He was probably right, if Jean-Ralphio’s crying over the third collapse of his tower was any indication, but it was too practical an observation given that they were both adults playing in the snow. “We just have to build something,” Ann argued. “It doesn’t have to be perfect.”
“But isn’t the point to win?”
Ann stared at him. She was suddenly struck by the fact that either he and Leslie were perfect for one another or else they were going to become the most terrifyingly competitive couple in the world.
“Well isn’t it?”
“I guess?”
Ben frowned, tentatively rolling the snow into a ball and tossing it in the air. It immediately fell apart. “Do you have any ice cube trays at your house?”
“Yes. But why-”
“Can you go get them? And bring a watering can with water.”
“Uh…Sure.” She stood up, dusting the snow from her pants, and watching Ben further experiment with the snow. If nothing else, at least she’d have a few minutes to warm up.
When she returned, Ben looked up eagerly, reaching out for the trays and immediately scooping and packing snow tightly into each square and then sprinkling some of the water over the tray. Ann watched skeptically, but after a few minutes, Ben had nearly two dozen tiny snow squares. “We can use them like blocks,” he reasoned as Ann knelt down next to him. “Build the castle.”
“Okay.”
It worked reasonably well, even if Ben insisted on decreasing the area of the base so they’d have time to finish. In the couple of hours allotted for them to build, she and Ben managed to construct the tiniest snow castle ever: a square sculpture that vaguely resembled something out of a medieval history book. It was ugly as hell, but neat and well built. Next to Tom and Jean-Ralphio’s abandoned tower-they’d left forty minutes ago after Jean-Ralphio tripped into their latest attempt-and Andy’s collapsing bucket towers, it looked downright spectacular.
“Solid construction,” Ron declared when he and Leslie arrived for the judging, “for something useless made of frozen water.”
“It’s not very sandcastle-ly,” said Leslie with a frown. “And it’s kind of small.”
“You didn’t name size as part of the requirements,” argued Ben.
“Yeah. But it has to be aesthetically pleasing. It’s kind of muddy.”
That had been Ann’s idea, when some of the cubes still wouldn’t hold together. Mixing in a little mud had made it more sound. “Ours is one of the few that’s actually finished and standing.”
Leslie nodded. “Don’t get me wrong, Ann. It’s much cuter than your squirrel was.” She looked at Ben, almost conspiratorially, like she was letting him in on a secret. “Ann’s not so good at making art because she is art.”
“Leslie, this is a well-built, pretty historically accurate castle. Things I would think you’d appreciate.”
“I do. Just not in a snow sandcastle contest.”
“That name really doesn’t make any sense.”
Their argument went on for another ten minutes or so, a back and forth that was both dizzying and intense and ricocheted into territory that made little sense, until finally Ann interrupted to remind Leslie she had other castles to judge.
“This is a great castle,” Ben insisted again after Leslie left.
“Uh-huh. Great castle. But we’re not going to win.”
Ben scowled.
Ann was right, of course. They didn’t win (really had no chance given that Donna half-drew, half-built Li’l Sebastian in front of a castle), but Leslie awarded them a special ribbon for best construction.
“You keep it,” said Ann, rolling her eyes at the ambivalent mix of annoyance and thrill on Ben’s face. “Let it be a reminder that you and Leslie are both a little insane.”
“We’re not-”
“You are. And that’s why this’ll probably work out.” She clapped him on the shoulder as he gave her a curious look, laughing at him just a bit. “Come on. Leslie wants to go to J.J.’s. You should come.”
Neither Ben or Leslie would argue about that.
kyrieanne prompted the first embarrassing moment after Ben and Leslie moved in together. My first thought for this bordered on a sickening level of fluff, so after a lot of brainstorming, I came up with this instead. Enjoy.
Sleep Patterns
Once every few months, Leslie sleeps like the dead.
It’s always one of the least restful nights for Ben.
Really, it makes no sense. Leslie is so active most nights: up late working (sometimes in their room because it’s been too many nights falling asleep without her and he insists), rambling in her sleep, rolling or even, occasionally, kicking when she’s restless and too full of thoughts. The reprieve from this-the rare nights she falls asleep on the couch and he has to half-carry her to bed, the nights she sleeps without disturbing him once-is oddly unnerving. He feels on edge, overly conscious of her stillness and caught off guard by the silence.
It shouldn’t be unsettling, but it is. A disturbance in what has become their normal.
This is one of those nights.
Leslie had been half-asleep before she’d gotten into bed, stripping down to her underwear and barely finding the energy to pull a t-shirt over her head. By the time he’d gotten done in the bathroom, she was gone: a motionless lump under the covers.
In the little over an hour since they went to bed, Ben has only managed to drift off into an uneasy sleep once, snoozing only minutes before nothing in particular jarred him awake. Now he lies still, willing his body to relax and remember that Leslie is alive and well next to him, even if she hasn’t wrapped her body around his while they sleep in the way he’s gotten used to. Just because it feels like he’s sleeping next to a lifeless body, doesn’t mean he actually is.
It works. Kind of. He can feel his eyes getting heavier, his body growing calm under the warm sheets. But just as he’s starting to fall into that world of asleep and awake again, he feels her move. Still half-awake, he’s perturbed by the sudden, unexpected sign of life; in all the time they’ve shared a bed, he can’t remember Leslie actually moving on a night like this. He blinks open a sleepy eye at the clock and groans-he really isn’t going to get any sleep tonight-and her name half-falls out of his mouth as he rolls over to look at her. But to his surprise, she’s already out of bed and out the door to the hall
For half a moment, he wonders if he was wrong-that tonight is not one of those nights (a thought that does not sit right given how she’s been acting up until now), and then he hears it. There’s a crash-a sudden, disturbing break in the stillness-and his heart seems to stop beating and plunge into his stomach simultaneously. He bolts out of bed, groping in the dark for the still unfamiliar hall light switch, and is nearly blinded when the lights come on. It takes a minute for his senses to catch up with him, a minute before he’s able to see Leslie, lying at the base of the staircase.
Ben nearly falls down the stairs himself in the lifetime it takes him to get to her, and collapses next to her without the usual protest from his knees. “Leslie? Leslie?”
Is that his voice? It sounds way too calm to be his voice.
“Leslie!”
Leslie groans, almost a whimper, and covers her face with both hands. “Ow.”
“Are you okay?” He feels the compulsory need to pull her into his arms, but he can’t tell how badly she’s hurt and doesn’t want to make anything worse. A voice in the back of his mind is persistently screaming about not moving a person until you can ascertain their injuries, but his arms itch to touch her and see for himself. “Leslie, are you okay?”
“Uh huh.”
“Did you hurt anything? Can you move?”
She parts her fingers, eyes peeping out to look at him and then shutting. “I’m fine,” she says, her voice slightly muffled by her hands. “Just a little bruised.”
Touching her is unstoppable, then. He reaches out and runs a hand over her head, thumb brushing her forehead, and she sighs and lowers her hands. Her cheeks are flushed and she shakes her head self-deprecatingly. “I forgot where I was.”
“What?”
“I forgot we were in the new house,” she says, sitting up and rolling her eyes at herself. “There were fewer stairs in my old house, and I was half-asleep and forgot where I was…”
Ben, whose body is nearly shaking in relief, can’t help the low chuckle that escapes, even as Leslie reaches out and slaps his shoulder. “Sorry,” he apologizes, aware that half of the need to laugh is a release from the near heart attack he just had. The other half, well… “This kind of makes up for all the times you laughed at me for falling in your house, though.”
“I never laughed.”
“There was giggling.”
“Only that one time when you got all twisted in those old sweaters and thought someone was attacking you. I mean, come on. That was kind of hilarious.”
“Yeah. Until I hit my head on the door frame, it was a hoot.”
Leslie smiles, holding out her hands as Ben stands so he can tug her off of the floor. Once she’s upright, she groans, rubbing her ass gently and rolling her eyes. “I’m going to sore for a few days.”
“I’m just glad you didn’t break your neck. I’ve gotten kind of attached to you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” Ben leans down and kisses her, leaning his forehead into hers and exhaling. He suddenly feels like he could sleep for a month. “Now maybe you’ll take this as a sign that you should get more sleep.”
Leslie pulls back, patting his chest lightly and shaking her head. “Nah.”
And the last one! This is for shornt, who is basically getting unspecified holiday fluff. And this might honestly be the fluffiest one of all? Just saying. I hope you like it.
The Laws of Christmas
For all of the positive points about Christmas trees, nothing tops the fact that Ben spends an inordinate amount of time crawling under it. Watering it, fiddling with the toy train, sweeping up stray pine needles, and, tonight, arranging and rearranging presents because he has some compulsive need to make it look perfect. If you ask Leslie, wrapped gifts under a lighted tree automatically means perfection, but Ben insists that there’s a way to optimize this. She doesn’t complain, though, because she’ll take any excuse to have this view of his cute butt, even if he’s moving the same gift for the tenth time.
She perches on the arm of the couch, not bothering to pretend she’s not staring, and takes a large bite of a cookie. Crumbs sprinkle onto the lap of her bathrobe, and she absentmindedly brushes them onto the floor. Ben stretches forward, lunging for something just out of reach under the tree and giving her an inadvertent show, and Leslie grins.
“Honey-” He sounds a bit frustrated, fingertips brushing the present he’s looking for, but not quite reaching. “-Do you have the tape? I think the corner of this present is coming loose.”
Leslie pops the rest of the cookie into her mouth as Ben manages to catch the ribbon of the gift and tug it toward his hand. Reluctantly, she stands up and moves behind him, leaning forward so her arms are draped around his neck. As adorable as this whole borderline OCD thing is, she’s going to have to draw a line somewhere. It’s already two in the morning, and re-wrapping gifts that will be torn apart in a matter of hours seems ridiculous.
“Sweetie, no one is more shocked than I am that these words are coming out of my mouth, but I think it’s time we go to bed.”
“Yeah, no, I know. I just need to fix this. And maybe get a new bow for this one because I kind of just smashed it-”
“You know, as my head elf, I appreciate how meticulous you are. But if Santa says the presents look good, then I think we’re done here.”
“Yeah, but…Wait-Why do you get to be Santa?”
Leslie steps back as Ben cranes his neck to look at her, a little aghast that he even has to ask. Of course she’s Santa. “Uh, I have the hat.”
Ben eyes the Santa hat she’s wearing like he might be planning a coup, and Leslie continues, hurriedly. “And I ate all the cookies. Which reminds me, you still have to eat those stupid carrots you insisted we leave out for the reindeer.”
“I thought I was the elf.”
Leslie sticks out her tongue, but privately thinks that if he wants to leave the carrots and allow her to debunk this myth that reindeer like them, he’s welcome to do so. “And,” she finishes, hands fumbling at the tie of her robe and pulling it open, “I’m dressed for the part.”
Ben’s eyes go a bit wide as she gives him a sneak peek of his first Christmas present. Judging by that look, the gifts under the tree are as good as forgotten. “I don’t remember Santa wearing that much red lace,” he murmurs. He finally gets off of his knees and steps toward her just as Leslie closes and reties the robe.
“Santa has a lot of surprises up her sleeve. But you have to come to bed first.”
“Really? Because I would think Santa would have no qualms about doing it in front of the Christmas tree. That’s practically Christmas law.”
Ben’s hand is wandering, pulling aside the top of her robe and running a finger along the edge of her bra, and Leslie sighs. “Christmas law?”
“You know…Cookies for Santa, stockings hung by the fireplace, sex in front of the tree…It’s all in the rulebook somewhere.”
“Oh is it?”
“As head elf, I would know.”
As head elf, he’s insanely capable with his lips and tongue, and Leslie cranes her neck to give him better access. Above their heads, she hears pattering, an indication that certain persons are far from visions of sugarplums dancing through heads, but she allows herself another moment to indulge in her husband’s seduction skills before she pulls back. “Here’s another reason I’m Santa,” she says, putting her hands on his cheeks and forcing him to focus. As single-minded as he is, he keeps trying to lean in and capture her lips. “I know that a certain person is awake right now.”
Ben’s eyes drift to the ceiling just as there’s a particularly violent creak of the floorboard, and he groans. “This is your fault, Santa.”
“Yeah. Like you never got overeager on Christmas Eve.”
“Never.” He leans in and kisses her cheek. And maybe her lips a few times. But really, who can blame him?
“You go,” she prods, nudging him gently. “If I leave you down here alone, you’ll get sucked into another present spiral.”
“I don’t-”
“And you need to get upstairs so you can finish unwrapping me.”
That puts an end to the protests. He plants a sloppy kiss at the corner of her mouth and heads for the stairs as Leslie makes one last inspection of their handiwork and starts to shut off the lights.
“Daddy!” she hears a little voice gasp as she blows out the candles they lit earlier. “I thought you were Santa Claus!”
“Nope. Not me.” There’s a rush of giggles from the stairs, and then Leslie hears Ben’s footsteps ascending, solid and heavy and reassuring. “Come on,” he says. “You know Santa can’t come if you’re out of bed. It’s in the rulebook.”
God, he really is the best head elf.
Thank you so much to everyone who left such encouraging feedback while I was writing these. It was great motivation to keep going even when I felt on the verge of Christmas fluff overload. :) I'm going to try to pop in before NYE with Secret Li'l Sebastian fic, but this is just about it until 2013. Happy holidays!