Parks Fic: Unity (1/?)
Title: Unity
Pairing: Ben/Leslie
Word Count: About 2100 (this part)
Rating: PG for now.
Setting: Post-The Bubble (this part)
Summary: A collection of several moments that make up Leslie's ideas for the unity quilt.
Author's Note: I thought this was going to be a one-shot story that was about 2000 words, and lo and behold, part one alone got there. So I'm splitting it up into segments. This quilt has been on my mind since I saw the promo last week, so I think this was inevitable.
Part One
Summer is coming. Leslie can feel it in the warm breeze coming through her window, in the way the day's end seems to come slowly, bowing down to night more gracefully than in winter. The moon has just begun to filter through the window, dimly illuminating her bedroom in muted blues and grays, the colors and shadows playing off of Ben's face. His angles seem softer in this light, and he looks younger, more relaxed, as Leslie runs her hand through his hair.
They're lying in her bed together, mostly still undressed. Ben slipped his boxers back on when he went to the bathroom, and Leslie settled for a t-shirt and her underwear, but her legs are bare, stretched out in front of her and looking ghostly in the moonlight. Ben's cheek rests above the curve of her hip, his body angled across the bed in what looks like an uncomfortable position, but he's barely moved in the last half hour, apparently content to just lie still and stare at her.
Not that Leslie's complaining.
After a day spent thinking about how her new relationship bubble has been burst (well, no, not just burst--annihilated is more accurate), Leslie is surprised by how perfect everything seems tonight. It's an unparalleled moment. Not that her mother has chased off that many boyfriends, or even had the chance to, really, but it's the first time Leslie can remember that Marlene has openly approved of a man she's dating.
Really approved.
And of Ben. Not because Leslie had coached him and held his hand through a performance guaranteed to win her mother over, but because Ben was just being his wonderful, amazing self. It's oddly euphoric, this feeling that she's successfully jumped a hurdle that she wasn't even aware was in her path, and it makes her much less afraid of reality intruding in their lives.
Because, honestly, if Ben is still looking at her like he is right now after everything that happened today, maybe this time really will be different. Maybe weird quirks and bad days and her scary intensity, as many people have called it, isn't going to make him turn and run. Maybe this won’t be like all the other times, parting ways from someone who thinks she’s “a little too much” while she wonders when passion became such a bad quality to possess.
It’s the reality she’s used to. The truth of what happens when that relationship bubble pops. And though she’s suspected for a while now that Ben’s not like most of the other guys she’s dated, today proves that this is something special. That this could be sustainable beyond what she’s let herself imagine.
If they can just find some way to navigate Chris' rule.
"What are you smiling about?"
His voice is low, the cadence not disturbing to the virtual silence of the room, but it makes her body flush, heat pooling low in her abdomen. It reminds her of earlier, when he'd shown up at her house and she'd pulled him in for a kiss before he'd even said hello. She's not sure she's ever felt such omnipresent desire for another person in her life.
She’s pretty sure constant smiling is a side effect.
"This," she says, running her thumb over the rim of his ear. "Me and you. Mostly you."
"Mostly me, huh?"
"Yeah mostly you. Mostly. Don't get cocky."
"If you could see your smile, you'd be cocky too."
She tugs on his earlobe, a halfhearted chastisement that he ignores. She's not really complaining anyway. Can't when the memory of him standing up to her mom and publicly declaring their relationship still makes her toes curl. She loves his confidence as much as she loves him turning to putty in her hands, and the fact that she can have both is extremely gratifying.
She moves to run her finger along the bridge of his nose, over his eyebrow, down to his jawline, mapping the planes of his face: a continued exploration of learning Ben. For so long, she was limited to the only pieces of him she was allowed to see, the things that made her fall for him--his heart; how much he cares about the world around him; his smiles and his eyes; his sense of humor; the way he looks at her. But in the past few weeks, she's finally found out things she could only imagine before: how he kisses, how his body feels against hers, how to make him crazy with a single touch. The only problem is that each new thing she learns is coupled by the desire to know even more of him, insatiable greed to see all of him, inside and out.
The impulse is nothing she hasn’t felt a dozen times over, both before and after he kissed her for the first time. Lately, she’s been trying to repress it, holding back because it’s the kind of intensity she thinks overwhelms people, but it feels unnatural, silly, even, when she thinks about who Ben is and how much he’s seen of her already.
So she lets go. Thinks about how Ben faced her mom head on because of how much he cares about her, how much he wants this to work. Thinks about how much she wants it to work too, and stops holding back.
"Tell me something."
Ben stirs, blinking up at her with hooded eyes. "Hmm? What?"
"Tell me something about you. Something I don't know."
Ben frowns, his arm tensing a bit where it's slung over her legs, and her hand pauses its exploration of his face. In the dark, she can’t tell if he’s pondering or hesitating, and she bites her lip in the long stretch between her words and his. She won’t talk over him, won’t take it back or clarify or babble, no matter how much she wants to break the silence.
"Yesterday,” he says slowly, “Andy asked me for advice about how to convince April to learn to ride a bike. Apparently she doesn't know."
"Ben!" She ruffles his already disheveled hair, forcing herself to stay on track despite her piqued curiosity (how did April never learn to ride a bike?). "That's not what I mean! Come on," she prompts, jostling him a bit in her excitement. "You didn't just spring into existence when you got to Pawnee last year."
"I wouldn't be so sure."
Leslie rolls her eyes, sitting up straighter and nudging Ben from his resting place. She draws her legs under her so she's sitting cross-legged, and Ben flops onto his back, staring at the ceiling. His hesitance is unexpected, given some of the things he's already confessed to her--the wounds from his past that he's let her see. It brings out the pushier side of her nature, her need to prod into submission, and she has to remind herself that she has scars of her own still hidden from him. "Just," she says, leaning over and running a soothing hand along his chest, "I don't know. Tell me about your parents."
Ben barks a laugh, a bitter sound that hurts her heart, and she understands that she carelessly pressed a button she was trying to avoid. And maybe she should have known, given that she openly lied to him about her mother's identity today, but somehow she's surprised. She realizes that unconsciously, she imagined his family like a Norman Rockwell painting, whole and happy and picture perfect, an assumption that she's not wholly sure why she formed. An assumption that is clearly wrong.
"Sorry," she murmurs, an apology for an elusive number of things. But Ben shakes his head, rolling onto his side and reaching out to squeeze her knee. His hand is warm solace on her skin.
"No," he says. "No, I'm sorry. I'm acting ridiculous. It's just kind of a touchy subject, I guess."
"I get it."
"They--you know, they divorced when I was a little kid, but they never should have gotten married in the first place."
"Oh."
"I mean, it's been almost thirty years and they still can't be in the same room together. It's--It's kind of unbearable. And I just don't like talking about it."
Leslie nods, fiddling with the hem of her t-shirt, while Ben continues to stare at the invisible pattern his thumb is tracing against her knee. It feels like an oversight, not knowing this about him, even though there's no way she could have. It shifts the perspective in her mind, rearranging the puzzle pieces that make up this man who she cares about more than she even knows, and creating a new, more distinct picture.
"I think," says Ben, that hard edge of bitterness still lodged in his voice, "that the only thing they've agreed on in my entire life was grounding me after I got impeached."
She kisses him then, because she needs to and can--a soft peck of her lips before she rolls him onto his back again, wrapping her arms around him and laying her head on his chest. She can hear his heartbeat beneath her ear, grounding her, steadying her nerves.
Yes, their bubble has absolutely been annihilated, but there's something to say for this moment that Leslie can't put into words. It's a feeling in her chest, a compulsion born in her feelings for Ben, and it stirs her own demons.
"Did I ever tell you about my dad?" It's not really a question; she knows she hasn't.
"Leslie..."
She can hear it in his voice, all the things he's not saying: you don't have to do this and we can let this go and move on.
But she does have to.
And she can't let it go.
"He died when I was four," she says, taking comfort in the way Ben's arm comes around her back, his legs interlocking with hers until they're completely wrapped around one another. "He was hit by a drunk driver."
Except for the continued thumping of his heart, Ben stills against her. She wonders if his vision of her is changing too, if pieces of her are falling into place--things like the chart she carries in her purse and her careful diligence when they're making plans to go out. She presses her nose to his skin, breathing him in for a moment and reminding herself that this is okay.
It's Ben.
"I don't remember a lot about him. Like real memories. Ones that are all mine and not just stories I've been told. But there are a couple things."
"What?" He almost breathes the word, a quiet request like he wants to know but doesn’t want to push her, and Leslie nearly breaks, because maybe he’s trying to get this right just as much as she is. “What do you remember?”
"He always had candy in his pockets. He wore this orange and red checkered jacket, and no matter what time of year it was, I knew I could find candy in the pockets, even if it was in the closet."
She can feel Ben's smile as he presses his lips to the top of her head, hugging her more snugly in his arms. “What else?”
"Some nights my mom would be working late, and he'd let me stay up with him. I used to fall asleep in his lap watching basketball. And I remember him teaching me how to swing at the park. But that's it, Ben...That's all. Everything else I know is pieced together from stories and pictures."
She raises her head to look at him, and finds eyes that are soft and sympathetic, a gaze that nearly tears her apart because it shares her pain. And it gives her the push she needs to say the words she’s never spoken to anyone before. "I think the worst part is that I miss the idea of him more than I actually miss him.” She exhales, dropping her eyes for a second, and calming her nerves. “It took me a really long time to stop feeling guilty about that."
Ben raises his hands to her cheeks, running his thumbs over her skin and then lifting his head to kiss her. It's gentle and comforting, but beneath his tenderness lies something deeper--something Leslie can't quite acknowledge or explain. It comes from whatever eked out her reminiscence about her dad--something she can't remember sharing with any of her past boyfriends; it’s born of this need she feels to give and take that speaks more to what this relationship means than most other things.
Because tonight she can think about these things. In the warm summer evening, in the darkened shadows of her bedroom, she can trust Ben with these words and what they mean because he trusts her, and she won't think any more about the future or where they're going or how this relationship is ever going to work out.
Because tonight, outside of the bubble, anything seems possible.
Part Two