Parks Fic: Ransom (4/?)
Title: Ransom (4/?)
Pairing: Ben/Leslie
Rating: PG-13 (this part)/R (overall)
Timeline: Season 5. No spoilers for anything that hasn't aired.
Author's Note: Thank you to everyone for the feedback. This chapter is basically filled with a lot of gooey fluff. Enjoy.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
The first day Ben returns to Pawnee, it’s raining.
It’s the type of rain that is impervious to an umbrella, flying at you sideways and seemingly defying gravity, making it impossible not to get soaked. Leslie’s making her best attempt, of course. She has an umbrella, her jeans are tucked into her rain boots and she’s wearing an oversized, neon green rain poncho that she bought at an amusement park gift shop when she was sixteen. It barely helps. Her hands, face and neck are wet, the water and humidity in the air are causing her neatly crafted curls to frizz, and from the knee down, her jeans are now soaked. That’s not so much the fault of the rainstorm, though, as it is Andy’s tendency to jump in puddles. By the time they enter the airport, Leslie is damp and Andy, who did nothing to shield himself, is positively drenched. His solution, of course, is to shake himself off like a dog, leaving a dangerously wet floor in his wake.
They head to baggage claim, even though Leslie knows neither Ben nor April checked a bag-pragmatic Ben who won’t even pack his car to the brim for a six month relocation, certainly won’t schlep a full suitcase home for a weekend. He’d even teased her a bit when she’d been in D.C. a few weeks ago for bringing a whole extra bag just for souvenirs. She’d gotten the last laugh, though, by stuffing it to the gills by the end of her trip while Ben just stared at her. “Are you going to buy souvenirs every time you’re here?” he’d asked her in a slightly incredulous tone. Leslie hadn’t bothered to dignify the question with a response.
Really, who goes on a trip and doesn’t buy souvenirs?
“It was necessary,” she’d told him later, after she’d gotten home and distributed tokens to all of her friends. “After Ron bungled the Leslie Knope Employment Enjoyment Summerslam Grill Jam Fun-splosion.” Ben had looked at her thoughtfully, correctly reading the ambivalence in her face-guilt at not being there to run the event herself and annoyance that Ron had made such a mess of it-but, at the time, not knowing the other half of her frustration; her worry over her own failures and insecurities. Altogether, the trip had left her feeling wrung out and tired, and as good as it had been to see Ben, there’d been too many other distractions weighing her down to truly enjoy it. Even once her rare dark mood had passed and her energy returned tenfold, it had been partially spurred by how antsy she felt to see Ben again.
Leslie isn’t patient. She hates waiting. And the worst thing about this long distance relationship is that she’s asked to do both constantly. To not be able to touch or kiss or even talk to Ben any time she wants to is a physical hardship: an ache she can feel in her bones. Each day that passes, that ache grows a little stronger, and she’s become almost manic in her attempts to keep it at bay.
Today, minutes away from putting her arms around Ben’s slender frame and hugging him so tight he can’t breathe, she’s almost bursting out of her skin. It’s to the point where she’s going spontaneously combust the moment she actually gets to touch him.
She and Andy wander over to the screens listing arrivals, Leslie scanning the columns in search of flight 2021 while Andy drips on the floor. Her eyes have just settled over the word “early” when arms wrap around her from behind and a soft kiss lands on her neck, brushing away droplets of water that still cling to her skin. “You’re not exactly hard to find in this thing,” Ben murmurs against her skin, and Leslie grins as she turns in his arms, ignoring the crisp rustling of the plastic poncho as she does. He’s smiling at her, the little lines around his eyes crinkling, and Leslie can barely contain herself. Recklessly, she drops her umbrella, throws her arms around him and pulls him down so she can kiss him properly-long and slow and deep, her tongue brushing past his lips and drawing him out. She can feel Ben hesitate for just a moment before leaning into her. His nose presses against her cheek, thumb brushing that sensitive patch of skin behind her ear, but just as Leslie pulls him closer, he breaks away, cognizant of the crowd surrounding them even as Leslie wants to forget their existence. “Hi,” he says, giving her chaste peck on the lips and then stepping back to grasp her hand. Leslie has to resist the urge to tackle him to the ground.
“Hi.” She squeezes his hands and lets her eyes graze over his body with open desire. There’s no use in pretense, not when she wants him so badly. Ben lifts an eyebrow, clearly able to read her thoughts, but instead of dragging her away to make out somewhere, he picks up her umbrella and wraps an arm around her shoulders. Nearby, April is climbing Andy like a tree, legs wrapped around his waist and mouth glued to his, and Leslie feels the slightest twinge of jealousy. Surprisingly, Ben just rolls his eyes and reaches out to poke April’s thigh with the tip of the umbrella.
April groans as she turns her head toward them even as Andy continues to slobber over her cheek, jaw and neck. “What?” she growls.
“Do you want to wait until we’re home maybe?” quips Ben.
April glares at him, and then as deliberately as she can, slithers down Andy’s body until he lets out an audible moan. It attracts more than a couple stares, but both of them seem oblivious. April grabs Andy’s hand and drags him through the airport, and Ben and Leslie trail behind them.
“Were you waiting long?” asks Leslie, eyes unable to not follow the other couple-April’s hand slipping into Andy’s back pocket; Andy leaning down to nuzzle April’s neck and nearly walking into an elderly woman; their inability to stop groping one another in public. Leslie twinges uncomfortably, and it isn’t until she feels Ben’s eyes on her that she realizes she wasn’t listening. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“Are you okay? You seem distracted.”
She is. She’s with her boyfriend for the first time in weeks and they’re still over an hour from her house and they’re stuck with one of the least reserved couples on the planet and all she wants to do is jump his bones. It’s very, very distracting.
“I just want to get home,” she says by way of explanation. Ben can infer the rest.
Outside, they huddle under the umbrella together and make a stilted dash to the short term parking garage. By the time they get to the car, Andy already has April pressed up against the door as they make out, and Leslie takes an unusual pleasure in unlocking the car and watching them jump at the audible beep. She opens the trunk and pulls out a towel for April and Andy to sit on for the ride home, tossing it to Andy before he gets into the car. Frustrated, she strips off her poncho, and in the flurry of green plastic, nearly misses the slight change in Ben’s eyes when he notices she’s wearing his shirt. A purposeful choice on her part, a blatant reminder of promises made between then, she’s disappointed when nothing happens beyond Ben’s sly acknowledgment.
Leslie frowns, her irritation palpable at this point. She’s tired of subtlety; she’s tired of waiting; something needs to happen now. It’s infuriating, how much of the control rests in his hands, and she wonders if he’s torturing her on purpose. He knows how impatient she is.
She places the poncho in her trunk along with her umbrella. April and Andy have moved their make out session to the back seat, still touching each other like they can’t get enough, and Leslie barely has hope that they’ll show enough restraint to not do anything explicit in the car on the way home. Ben’s staring them like maybe he has the same worry, watching as April peels off Andy’s rain-soaked shirt. She tosses it away and it hits the back window with a slap, and something in Leslie finally breaks. She raises a fist to knock against the back window and end this nonsense when Ben surprises her by catching her by the elbow. “Ben!” she protests.
“Come on,” he says, grabbing her umbrella again and shutting the trunk.
“Come on where? Ben, they’re basically five minutes away from having sex in my car!”
“I know. Do you have the keys?” Leslie frowns, not really listening to Ben and making an attempt to pull free of his grip when Andy starts on the buttons of April’s shirt. “Les,” he says, squeezing her arm a bit to get her attention. Reluctantly, she turns toward him. “Do you have the keys?”
“Yeah, but Ben-“
“Come on.”
“I’m not-Ben, we have to-“ Leslie continues to argue, struggling a bit against Ben, who has now moved both hands to her shoulders and is forcibly guiding her out of the parking garage. “Andy and April are not going to have sex in my car! We haven’t even had sex in my car! If anyone is going to have sex in my car, it’s going to be us!”
“We can correct that sometime if you really want to,” says Ben dryly. “But not tonight.”
Leslie crosses her arms, feeling somewhat petulant. Just once, she’d like to be the irresponsible adult who doesn’t have any qualms about groping her boyfriend in public. Or, conversely, she’d like April and Andy to be adults and actually wait until they’re home to rip each other’s clothes off. Why do they always, always get to be reckless and she never does? She can feel herself sliding dangerously close to a temper tantrum-it’s a fight not to let the words, “It’s not fair,” fall from her lips-so she closes her mouth and pouts instead.
Ben seems to trust her not to run back to the car and try to stop Andy and April; he lets her go to open the umbrella, and then slings one arm low around her waist. Despite herself, Leslie leans into him as they step out into the downpour again, enjoying the way his warm body feels pressed up against hers. It’s nice, having that closeness with Ben that she doesn’t get from a computer monitor.
She still wants him to tear her clothes off, though.
They head over to the taxis, and Ben leans down to say something to the driver as Leslie climbs in the back. When Ben finally gets in, setting the sopping umbrella on the floor, he doesn’t hesitate to wrap an arm around her shoulders and pull her close. “Where are we going?” she asks.
“It’s a surprise.”
Leslie would complain about having to wait for one more thing, but Ben hands start to move, trailing up and down her arm, along her collarbone, over her neck-soft, light brushes that send a shiver down her spine and render her speechless. It’s not enough, not even close, but it’s something, and the contact relieves a little bit of the tension that has been building for weeks.
By the time the cab stops, she feels better.
The building they pull up next to has an awning outside, so Leslie makes a run for it as Ben pays the driver. He joins her, umbrella open again, and grabs her hand as they walk a little way down the block. The memory comes back to Leslie slowly, filtered a bit by time, but by the time they reach their actual destination, she’s put together what’s going on.
“You planned this,” she accuses, turning to face him as they enter the restaurant.
“Yeah," he admits. "Well, I planned this. April and Andy…I mean, I didn’t realize when I asked April to keep him busy that she’d…” Ben shudders a bit and shakes his head. “We’ll get your car cleaned. Professionally.”
Leslie can’t stop her grin from overtaking her face as Ben gives the hostess his name and they’re immediately led into the restaurant. She’s completely underdressed-ridiculously so in her galoshes and her boyfriend’s shirt unbuttoned over an old tank top, standing next to Ben, who is still in a suit because he went straight from work to the airport-but she couldn’t care less. She loves Ben; loves that he’s sneaky; loves the way he’s smiling at her, delighted and a little bit smug. She wants to kiss his stupid face so bad.
But it can wait.
“I wish it wasn’t raining,” says Ben as they sit down. Immediately, she hooks her ankle around his, unable to forfeit some kind of contact. “I wanted to sit outside like we did last year.”
“It’s okay,” she says, trying not to still her anticipation. “This is perfect.”
Ben’s eyes shine, pleased, and he reaches for her hand. “Number five on your list,” he says, running his thumb over her knuckles in a horribly distracting way. “Kiss you someplace I wanted to but couldn’t at the time. Leslie, if you knew how long that list was…”
“I know. Mine too.”
The look on his face, that surprise and pleasure and absolute adoration for her, makes her stomach turn over. God, she hopes he never stops looking at her like that. “I’ve gotten to cover a lot of that list. Pretty much every place in City Hall. Your house. My house. J.J’s.”
“Yep.” She waggles her eyebrows at the memory, and Ben laughs. “But,” he continues, “this is one place we’ve never been back to, and it’s also the straw that broke the camel’s back. Leslie, that night here…When you said you liked me, too…I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kiss anyone as badly as I wanted to kiss you at that moment. And I have never wanted to punch someone as much as I wanted to punch Chris when he walked into this restaurant.”
She’s heard this before. Wrapped up in her sheets and Ben’s arms that first weekend together, he’d whispered confessions against her skin, a litany of wishes and what ifs that had made her feel powerful and vulnerable at the same time. She’d been so uncertain then about the future, even as everything about Ben felt so right. Now, though, there’s nostalgia to the memory; an ease in the knowledge that this isn’t a fleeting moment but one in a long list of times they’ll spend together.
“But Chris isn’t here now,” says Ben, moving closer to her, his knee grazing hers under the table.
“No.”
“And I have another confession.” His hand finds her cheek, thumb stroking her skin, and Leslie bites her lip. “I am completely, ridiculously, madly in love with you, Leslie Knope. And I wanted to know…” He leans in, nose brushing over hers, and Leslie holds her breath. “It’s not just me, right?”
Leslie shakes her head imperceptibly, her words coming out on a sigh. “No, it’s not just you.”
This time, Ben’s lips are on hers as soon as the words leave her mouth.
Part Five