Fic: One Day We Will Fall
Title: One Day We Will Fall
Pairing: Ben/Leslie
Word Count: 2800
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Summary: Five times Ben wanted to kiss Leslie (but didn't)
Author's Note: Um...I asked for people to prompt me "5 times" fic because I was bored and figured I'd write a couple tiny drabbles. And then courtknees1 gave me this prompt, and apparently I had a lot more to say than I thought. So instead of about 500 words, you get 2800. Because I just can't shut up, apparently.
One
The week before the Harvest Festival, they’re pulling late nights. Everyone is, really, but he and Leslie are always the last ones to leave, Ben leaning against the wall while Leslie locks up the department for the night. It’s a routine they fall into as effortlessly as breathing in and out: officially shutting out work for the evening and walking to their cars together. Five minutes where they belong to nothing and no one but each other.
And sure, he’s exhausted. It’s undeniable even just to look at him. But there’s a thread of exhilaration that underscores it, and by the end of the day, he’s a little punchy. Reactions seem prolonged; things that shouldn’t be funny are hilarious; his inhibitions are lowered and he stares when he shouldn’t, lets himself imagine things he usually reserves for the privacy of his hotel room, acts a little too open with his emotions. Even that knowledge-that he shouldn’t-has an undercurrent of danger that makes him more reckless, one that gets stronger and stronger as the week goes on, until knowing he shouldn’t turns into but what would happen if I did?
That’s what he’s thinking Thursday. Walking alongside Leslie down dim corridors as she alludes to some fantastic surprise she has for everybody, he’s busy forgetting all the reasons that he shouldn’t.
Outside, the pavement is wet, red and yellow and brown leaves sticking sickly to the ground, and the air is chilly, like summer has finally conceded to autumn after a long, ungraceful exit. The turning seasons always make him feel nostalgic for no reason, and fall in particular is ripe with dumb, emotional remembrances of childhood birthdays and bumpy school bus rides and pumpkin picking and life-ruining elections. But it’s not until his eyes turn from the bright moon to Leslie that he shivers.
“I didn’t even realize it rained,” she laughs. “Did you?”
“No.” The word gets caught and he clears his throat. “No. I didn’t notice.”
Leslie looks at him curiously, her eyes searching his face, and he knows he’s lost any control over his face. Knows he’s lost in his admiration for her-everything he’s always liked about her and everything she is right in this moment. Out on the street, a car drives by. The familiar sound of water sloshing under a tire fills the prolonged silence, and he can see Leslie become aware of the fact that they’re standing there staring at one another.
“We-We should go,” she says in this quiet voice that shatters him. She’s still puzzling him out, like she can’t or won’t put the pieces together, and she offers him a tiny smile. “It’s cold out here.”
He wishes he had a jacket to offer her. Something he could wrap around her shoulders, an excuse to lean in close, but it was too warm this morning.
Fall didn’t quite come soon enough.
Two
He loses track of her for awhile after they flee Orin, but for the first time in several weeks, it’s not accompanied by that weightiness he’s been feeling. That hyper-awareness of her ebbs a bit because he’s staying in Pawnee, and suddenly, he has all the time in the world
Not that he isn’t happy when she finds him again. Not that something inside of him doesn’t still light up when she smiles and tugs his beer out of his hand, saying, “Dance with me, Ben. Come on. Dance with me.”
And he’s not drunk enough for this-isn’t even tipsy like he suspects she is-but it’s Leslie and she’s smiling and the song is the sort he can get away with swaying to, probably. So he lets her drag him to the middle of the room, bopping along to the music with a wildness that Chris would envy. It’s uncomfortable, like he feels every eye in the room on him, and he thinks it would be less obvious if he just moved but then he would be dancing and that would be even worse…
It’s the most ridiculous cycle of self-consciousness.
“Be-en,” she whines, moving closer and tripping in the process. He catches her by the elbow, blinking in surprise as she groans and abruptly kicks off her heels, shoes flying across the room. One comes precariously close to hitting a lamp, but she doesn’t notice. Just lifts her arms, wrapping them around his neck and pulling at him like she wants him to rest his head on her shoulder or something, but good lord, she is tiny without those ridiculous heels, and he has to stoop uncomfortably for her to reach, and nothing about this works.
Gently, he untangles her hands and lowers them to his shoulders, and then wraps his own arms around her waist, hands spanning her ribcage. It’s not really less awkward-he still can’t do any more than sway in time to the music-but he feels less like a hunchback.
“Sorry,” says Leslie. Her eyes are wide and unfocused, searching all the parts of his face at once. “I’m too short.”
“You’re perfect,” he says, and he can feel the back of his neck flush. For a second, his eyes drop to her lips, and he hears her breath hitch like maybe she’s anticipating something, but…
He doesn’t.
Instead he drops his head, catching sight of her bare feet, each toenail painted a different, bright color, and smiles.
Three
Somehow she talks him into playing Santa for an hour at the annual Christmas tree lighting. Andy hands off the suit to him, and when he comes out, Leslie’s laughing because it hangs like a sack off his thin frame. Even the beard seems to droop unnecessarily, like it knows he wasn’t meant for this role.
She gives him a pillow to stuff under his coat. It does nothing to fill out any other part of him and looks kind of stiff and lumpy, but Leslie just giggles and directs him to the chair. “Your public awaits, Santa.” And then she’s gone, and he’s left alone with an elf whose sullenness rivals April’s on a good day and a score of little kids with runny noses.
One of them kicks him in the stomach. He’s suddenly very grateful for the padding.
“Having fun yet?”
After an hour of holding strangers’ children on his lap, being poked and prodded like an experiment, and being coughed on multiple times, it’s possibly the most excited he’s ever been to hear her voice, which says a lot. The kid currently on his lap picks his nose and wipes it on the beard, and Ben can’t hide his disgust. Doesn’t even try, really.
“It’s time for Santa to take a break,” Leslie says mercifully, and Ben nearly kicks the kid off his lap in his eagerness to get out of this situation. Before he can, though, Leslie leans over, one hand finding his shoulder so she can balance herself as she moves her mouth close to his ear. He can’t move, can’t even breathe, and his heart beats wildly at the feeling of her warm breath against his neck.
“Just one more request, Santa,” she says, voice so low that no one else in the world can hear her. It’s shockingly intimate given that they have an audience of dozens of children and their parents. It feels like being on the edge of a precipice, like whatever she whispers next will topple them both from this ledge they’ve been balancing on
“This year, I’d like-” And before she can finish, he turns his head, not thinking, just needing to catch her eye. It stops her short, her eyes widening, and her cheeks, already pink from the cold, flush even deeper.
“What do you want, Leslie?”
She sucks in a breath, a sharp sound that cuts through the noise around them, and he starts to lean forward, ready to forget everything else around them, when she pulls back.
It feels like a slap to the face. Even though her eyes flit to the crowd, reminding him of their audience, even though she warily eyes the beard that they both just watched a kid wipe his nose on, he has his own wish for Christmas and right now that’s all he cares about.
“A sled,” she finishes abruptly, suddenly loud enough for everyone to hear. “I would like a sled, Santa, because, you know…There’s snow. And for snow you need a sled, right? Right. Okay, great!” She turns, pushing at his shoulder, prodding him out of the chair, and addresses their audience. “Santa will be back in ten minutes, everyone!”
He’s already ripping off the beard, not ready to let this go, but as she pulls him back to the tent where they’re changing, Jerry’s already there, too stupidly joyous about taking over as Santa, and the opportunity is gone.
Maybe it was never even there.
Four
“Ben!”
Leslie bursts into his office like a whirlwind, energy far beyond what he feels at this point in February. It’s been too many dreary days melting into one another, too much rain and not enough snow, weather rejoicing in monotony.
Or maybe he’s just in a terrible mood.
One or the other.
“Morning,” he says, and it comes out more like he feels and less like he intends, and Leslie immediately raises an eyebrow like she can discern him in one word. The thought somehow makes him both giddy and annoyed at once, and no less grumpy. “What can I do for you?”
That earns him a frown. Which, as far as Leslie’s expressions go, does nothing to temper his attraction to her. She’s still so fucking pretty, eyes bright and alert and assessing, hair perfectly curled and unmussed, nearly glowing because she’s wearing pink today and it’s so damn flattering.
God damn it.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He rubs a hand over his face. “Just tired.” That’s true. If anything, his body seems to be growing less accustomed to his motel room, not more, and really, why is he still living there? It’s a question he doesn’t know how to answer-doesn’t want to over-analyze right now either-and so he shrugs it aside. “What’s up?”
Leslie gives him a look like she wants to prod further, but he’s glad when she shakes it off and says instead, “Well, you know it’s Valentine’s Day.”
Yes. He knows. As Chris spent all of yesterday urging him to join him on a double date tonight-a way to get over his so-called “infatuation” with a City Hall employee-Ben is beyond aware of that fact. He’s not sure if it’s more or less torturous to be reminded of it by Leslie. “Uh-huh.”
“I was just wondering what you’re doing tonight.”
“What?”
“Oh, well, just, you know-” She takes a deep breath, tripping over herself to explain, and he can’t quite bring himself to hope anything. “We’re hosting a dance tonight. A Valentine’s Day dance.”
“How very middle school of you.”
Jesus. He’s such a dick. Such a fucking asshole. Such a-
“It’s fun,” says Leslie, brushing aside his comment even though he can see the hurt in her eyes now. “I just stopped by to see if you wanted to-if you were planning to come.”
He stares at her. Reads every emotion on her face, plain as day. The lingering sting of his words and the confusion and anxiety and the tiniest hint of hope, and before he realizes what he’s doing, he stands up and steps toward her, hands trembling with fear or anger or frustration, he doesn’t fucking know. But maybe Leslie does, because she jerks her head sharply and takes a step back, stopping him in his tracks.
This time, her eyes are filled with disappointment, and Ben has sense enough to realize he’s come within a heartbeat of ruining any chance he’s ever had with her.
“Sorry,” he mutters, dropping back into his seat. “Sorry. I’m having a bad day and taking it out on you, and…I-I probably shouldn’t come tonight. I just…I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she says. It’s not. Not really. But he glances at her, and thinks somehow, miraculously, maybe it will be.
Five
For April’s birthday, he offers to be the designated driver for her and Andy, and he spends the night soberly observing an event at which one year ago, he wasn’t even welcome.
It’s a marked improvement.
Leslie is there, of course. Laughing tipsily, dancing with Ann, singing a slightly off-key “duet” with Andy (as they’re both singing different songs, he’s not sure it qualifies), and the whole time, shooting him looks and smiles that make him feel happier than he’s been in a long while. Whatever is still unsaid between them, there’s an undercurrent of understanding now that gives him hope. Whatever obstacles remain, things aren’t as desperate as he once thought.
Yeah. It’s infinitely better than last year.
They all leave together, most of the Parks Department stumbling out into the parking lot, and Ben has to hold open the door for Andy because he’s too busy serenading April to figure out how the handle works. It’s a mess of distractions, a long battle to get the newlyweds into the car, and maybe it’s why he doesn’t notice that Ann has strapped Leslie into the front seat of his car until he moves to get into the car himself.
“You can drive her, right?” asks Ann, who, he is realizing, is not nearly as drunk as he thought. “It’s on your way.”
“Uh…Yeah. No problem.”
“Great.” Ann leans back into the car and says something he can’t hear to Leslie, and then pulls back and gives him a little wave. It makes something in him tighten, a tension he thought had finally left him, and he has to remind himself that Leslie’s drunk and his roommates are sitting in the back seat and nothing is going to happen.
“Oh hey, Ben,” says Leslie when he gets in the car. She smiles hugely, eyes falling shut, and he has to remind himself to breathe. “What’re you doing here?”
“Driving you home.”
“Oh. That’s sweet. You’re sweet.”
Nothing. Nothing is going to happen.
For once in their lives, Andy and April actually prove helpful, using the car ride as an excuse to vociferously make out. Leslie finds this both gross and amusing, somehow, laughing and simultaneously begging them to stop for most of the ride to her house. It’s a decent distraction from the way her blouse dips a little lower than usual and her cheeks are flushed and how much he desperately wants to kiss her. When he finally stops the car in front of her house, he reaches over to unbuckle her seatbelt and firmly reminds Andy and April to stay in the car.
He locks the car doors anyway.
Leslie’s halfway to her door, fumbling through her purse and veering erratically through her front yard, and it’s without thought that Ben takes a firm hold of her elbow to guide her to the house. When they get to the front door, she still hasn’t found her keys, and she giggles wildly, slumping against the wall and sliding to the ground
“Let’s just sleep out here. It’s too nice to go inside.”
“It’s still too cold,” he disagrees, pulling her purse away and searching blindly for anything that feels like keys.
“No. It’s warm. And perfect. Look at the stars.”
Ben glances up for a second, but he barely registers the sky. His fingers brush against the edge of a key, and he pulls them out to a halfhearted round of applause from his audience. “Come on, Leslie,” he urges, unlocking the door and pushing it open. “You can’t stay out here all night.”
She laughs, holding out her arms to him, and he hesitates for a second before he leans down, gripping her upper arms and pulling her to her feet. She stumbles into him, hands fisting his shirt, and it’s a long moment as her eyes crawl up from his chest to meet his.
“Hi,” she whispers.
Ben smiles. But he kind of wants to cry. “Hi,” he whispers back. He lets one hand find her cheek, brushing her hair back, and she pushes up on her tiptoes, unsteady and a little unsure, and it’s that, more than anything, that makes him pull back.
“Come on,” he says, unable to stop himself from pressing a quick kiss to her temple. She’s warm and soft beneath his lips, and he’s about to break. About to fall so hard that nothing will hold him back.
But it won’t be tonight.