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Hope - Ben/Leslie on election night.
Wedding Plans - Ann and Leslie discuss the wedding.
Anniversary - The anniversary of the events of Smallest Park (requested by thisbuildinghasfeelings)
Move Out Already - Leslie/Ben cuddling (requested by galentines)
Christmas Lights - Leslie decides to decorate for Christmas the minute Thanksgiving ends.
Coat Season - Leslie looks for her gloves.
Six Miles - Ben and Leslie make out in the cab on the way home after "Ben's Parents" (requested by ballroompink)
Gone Awry - Ben gets trapped on the roof putting up Christmas lights (requested by ohlittlerachel)
Lighter than Air - NC-17 continuation of "Six Miles" (cab make-out fic)
Hope
“Are you okay?”
Leslie nods, swiping her hand over each of her cheeks, her eyes still shimmering with tears, and turns to him with a shaky smile. “You know how sometimes you can feel like a firework?”
“Uh-”
“Like you’re just so happy that you could explode, but it’s the kind of explosion that’s beautiful and exciting and reminds everyone of Independence Day and is so awesome you can hardly stand it.”
Ben is pretty sure he hasn’t stopped smiling since he got down on one knee this afternoon, but if it’s possible, his smile grows now. It’s about as accurate a description he’s heard for how he feels at this moment-how he’s pretty sure he’s going to feel for the whole rest of his life. “Yeah. Yeah, I know that feeling.”
“That’s how I feel right now. I mean, I thought this was going to be the worst election day ever. Not that election day can ever be bad, but you know…I woke up this morning thinking you weren’t coming back. It kind of put a damper on things.”
He reaches for her hand, brushing his thumb over her knuckles. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She shifts, crawling into his lap and looping her arms around his neck. They’re both in various states of undress-honestly, Ben can barely remember the election coverage because he spent most of the night making out with Leslie or staring at Leslie or thinking about all the various other things he wants to do with Leslie (said things they’d kind of been in the middle of until the ill-timed announcement of Obama’s win when Leslie became, understandably, distracted). Now the blanket that was on her lap slithers to the floor, and the chilly November night makes goosebumps rise on her bare skin. Immediately, Ben settles his hands on her thighs and rubs them over her skin. “This was definitely the best election night ever. Nothing’s going to compare until I’m elected president.”
“Of course.”
She cocks her head, smiling at him in a way that makes him feel warm inside and out. “There’s nothing more hopeful than an election. But this one especially…”
“Leslie, nothing gives me more hope for my future than the fact that you agreed to marry me. Not even the presidential election.”
“God, you say the best stuff.” She kisses him, a slow but brief movement that he tries to capture and extend, groaning a bit when she pulls away from him. “You know, four years ago I was watching the election alone.”
He nods, hearing but not understanding, more concerned with getting back to their earlier activities. He tries to lean forward and kiss her again, but she puts her hands on his cheeks, holding him back.
“That night,” she says quietly, dropping her eyes, “it was all about hope. Maybe more so than any other election. And I remember sitting there watching Obama speak for the first time as the President-Elect, and feeling…” She trails off for a moment, one hand coming to rest over his heart, and when she looks back at him, she’s on the verge of tears again. “I mean, I had a job I loved and I was happy, but I couldn’t help thinking that night, would it really be wrong to hope for just a little more…?”
She takes a deep breath. Ben brushes her hair away from her cheek, waiting while she composes herself, thinking about his own life four years ago, how he’d basically be unrecognizable to that version of himself now. His whole life is better, so much better, than he ever could have dreamed back then.
“And now,” says Leslie, laughing a little and crying at the same time. “Now I have Ann, beautiful best friend Ann, and the best coworkers in the world and two jobs I love and you, and it’s more…Ben, it’s more than I ever really thought I’d have. And I’m just so, so, so, so unbelievably happy-”
He cuts her off. Doesn’t mean to, but actually cannot wait another second to kiss Leslie. This time, though, she melts into him-kisses him like maybe she can’t stop herself either. The news still flickers in the background, a low murmur of cheers and the dulcet overtones of the news anchors, but for the two of them, there are no more words. Nothing else that can be said to explain how much this night means.
Wedding Plans
”These shows are stressing me out.”
“Leslie-”
“I mean, first of all, that woman just spent $26000 on a wedding dress. Is that normal? That can’t be normal! How is that dress even worth $26000? There’s barely any fabric-the top is see-through!”
“Les-”
“And I had no idea that there were so many different types of wedding dresses. Princess? Mermaid? Mermaid, Ann? All I can picture is standing there with seashells over my boobs, and the last thing I need is to attract seagulls when I’m trying to get married. Ben doesn’t like birds, Ann. They freak him out, and I don’t want him to run away because our wedding has turned into a Hitchcock movie-”
“Yeah, but-”
“Oh, and this show! This is the worst! What does David Tutera have against the color green? Green is spring and grass and parks and dragons, sometimes, and-”
Ann reaches out and puts a hand over Leslie’s mouth, holding up the pointer finger of her other hand in warning. “Leslie,” she says, calm and authoritative, “take a deep breath.”
Leslie obeys-maybe her heart is racing a little bit now that she stops to think about it (thank god for beautiful nurse Ann)-and Ann lowers her hand. “Okay, first of all, I warned you about these shows. They’re over the top and manufactured for drama. Planning your wedding isn’t going to be like reality TV. David Tutera won’t be involved at all.”
“I don’t understand what he has against drinking beer either…” Leslie mutters.
“You don’t need a David Tutera. You plan huge events all the time. You planned the Harvest Festival! This definitely can’t be any harder than that.”
“That’s true.”
“And I promise, I will not let you try on any dress that is $26000 or see-through. Or,” she adds, almost as an afterthought, “one with seashell boobs. Although you should know that’s not what a mermaid cut means.”
“And you won’t suddenly decide to hate me forever or threaten to stop being friends with me because you have to wear a bridesmaid dress?”
“Absolutely not. Leslie, you could make me wear a trash bag, and I would do it for you and not complain.”
“Oh Ann, even a trash bag would look fantastic on a beautiful parakeet like you.”
“Thank you?”
Leslie sighs. “I don’t know why this is stressing me out so much.”
“Well watching wedding shows for eight hours straight is certainly not helping.”
“I mean, it’s just not something I’ve spent a lot of time planning in my head. And I want it to be perfect. Beyond perfect.”
“It will be. I promise.”
Leslie reaches out for Ann’s hands, clasping them in hers and staring into her eyes with typical Leslie, stress-induced intensity. “Ann,” she says, as seriously as if they’re about to make vows themselves, “as my maid of honor, best friend and fashion guru, you have to help me decide what would be appropriate wedding-wear. Promise me, Ann.”
“Leslie, whenever you want, I will be there to help you pick out a wedding dress. I promise. And you will look gorgeous.”
“Thank you.” She smiles, and then abruptly drops Ann’s hands and reaches for her padfolio, abandoned on the table. “Now I was thinking, instead of a veil, what about a big, red, floppy hat?”
Anniversay
“What did you do?”
Ben shrugs, feigning modesty; his eyes are lit up, though, letting her know that he’s secretly thrilled-with his surprise or her reaction or probably both. Leslie squeezes his hand and steps closer to give him a soft kiss.
It’s cold, near freezing on this November evening, but Ben hadn’t protested when Leslie suggested they celebrate this particular anniversary with a picnic in their park. Not that anyone could argue that there’s anything more romantic than a nighttime picnic with good food and plenty of stargazing.
And making out.
Lots of making out.
Especially since Ben has gone and done this, and she kind of wants to jump his bones right now.
“This is perfect,” says Leslie, reaching out and running her fingers over the bright red ribbon Ben has wrapped around the perimeter of the tiny park. It’s sealed with a large, cheerful bow, just the way she envisioned it one year ago-everything she had planned before she tried to sabotage her own project; before Ben decided to fight her passive aggressiveness with his own; before everything very nearly went to hell. “Except for-”
“Some over-sized ceremonial scissors?”
“God,” sighs Leslie, staring in awe at the large scissors Ben has produced from their picnic basket, “I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted you more than I do right now.”
Ben grins, wrapping one arm around her waist and pulling her close. “I just thought that it’s about time we dedicate this park properly.”
“Yes.” Leslie nods, thinking back to last year, when they nearly dedicated this park in a much less appropriate way. When Ben’s arms were around her for the first time in months, and she’d never felt so wholly loved in her life. Somehow-she’s not sure how it’s actually possible-she thinks she loves him even more now than she did then. “Absolutely.”
They fumble with the scissors for a minute, hands over hands, trying to find the best way to hold them together. When they finally position them at the ribbon, Ben is behind her, almost hugging her as they prepare to cut. “The Smallest Park in Indiana,” he says, his breath warming her cheek.
“Our park.”
“Our park.”
This time, they cut the ribbon together.
Move Out Already
They’re doing it again.
In the past year, April has overheard a lot of stuff. Ben and Leslie are over here all the time because Ben thinks Leslie’s house is terrifying or something, and despite being old and lame, they have sex.
A lot of sex.
It’s kind of hard to ignore, being in the same confined space with them. A space with stupidly thin walls that make it impossible not to hear Leslie’s giggling and Ben’s gross sex noises and not know exactly what’s going on. Whatever. April can deal with that. Especially because it’s fun to do impressions of what she overhears and watch Ben ooze embarrassment like an infected pustule.
What she can’t deal with is this.
They’re on her couch, Ben lying on his back, Leslie mostly draped over his body with her head resting on his chest, watching some old black and white movie together. One of Leslie’s hands rests over Ben’s heart and he’s covered it with his own, his other trailing lightly over her skin where her shirt has bunched up in the back.
Ugh. Their cuddling has always been bad, but since they got engaged, it’s downright unbearable. She keeps walking in on them all over the house: Leslie sitting on Ben’s lap; the two of them wrapped around each other all the time; holding hands while they eat breakfast; making out in the laundry room. There’s something uncomfortably intimate about it that April hates, like actually having to see their love take a physical form. It’s a monster taking over her house and ravaging everything in sight, making it unsafe to leave the confines of her bedroom.
Andy thinks it’s sweet.
He’s wrong.
“This part makes me crazy,” Leslie says, all soft and not at all like her real voice. “I always thought it was pretty wimpy of Ilsa to have Rick make the choice for her. You’d think she’d have bigger things to worry about.”
Ben smiles and kisses the top of her head. “Fighting fascism?”
“Exactly.”
Leslie shifts, lifting her head so she can look at Ben. April waits for her to notice that she’s come in the room, but Leslie’s too busy gazing. “You know, my favorite part is already over.”
“Yeah?”
She nods. “When they sing ‘La Marseillaise’ in spite of the Nazis. It’s the heart of the movie.”
“Most people would say the love triangle.”
Leslie wrinkles her nose. “Ew, no way. I don’t get nearly as emotional when Ilsa gets on the plane.” Ben smiles, brushing a bit of her hair aside, as Leslie says, “Anyway, my point is, maybe we should just make out now.”
And before April can blink, they’re all over each other, kissing with a lot of tongue while Ben’s hands start to wander, and yeah, she definitely can’t take much more of this. She flicks on the lights, annoyed when Leslie merely pauses for a second to say, “Hey April,” before she goes back to sucking Ben’s face.
“God,” April groans, stomping back toward her bedroom. “Move out already!”
Christmas Lights
“Oh my god.”
Ben stops short in the doorway, looking at the remains of their formerly neat living room, not quite sure he hasn’t entered the Twilight Zone. How the hell did this happen? He doesn’t like to throw around the word literally-too many years with Chris-but he literally just left the room to get a piece of pie, and somehow in the three minutes he was gone, Christmas has exploded in their living room. Various Santas and snowmen stare up at him with jolly eyes; several strands of garland litter the floor; there’s even a miniature Christmas tree and a toy train already set up in the corner of the room. Not for the first time, he wonders if Leslie can secretly move at the speed of light. “Leslie…?”
His fiancée is buried waist deep in a cardboard box, and as he calls her name, she catapults backward in surprise, tipping over the box as she goes. She spills onto the floor, tangled in a web of Christmas lights, and blinks up at him, slightly dazed.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“What…” He looks around the room again, not quite sure which of the dozen questions he wants to ask, and settles for: “…is going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what is all this, Leslie?”
“Christmas.”
Ben raises an eyebrow. “We just finished Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Yeah…” There is an implied what’s your point? attached to that acquiescence that both confuses the hell out of him and makes him want to kiss her senseless. It’s an ambivalence he’s come to expect from Leslie. “I always put up decorations on Thanksgiving night. I mean, not last year, obviously, because we were at your place, but it’s tradition, Ben! It’s the official start of the holiday season!”
“It’s November 22.”
“Which just means we get a whole extra week of Christmas this year!”
“Uh huh.”
Leslie smiles, amused despite of (or maybe because of) his skepticism, and sits up, starting to untangle herself from the lights. Ben sets his pie on top of one of the other boxes and kneels down to help her. “At least promise me you’re not proposing we go climb on the roof to put up lights tonight.”
“What? Of course not.”
“Good.”
“These are the indoor lights!”
Ben stops short, trying to mentally calculate how many feet of lights are wrapped around Leslie-how many more lie in a knot on the floor and in the box. At his pause, Leslie furrows her brow. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those people that only believe Christmas lights are for outside.”
“You mean like for the tree, right?”
“Yeah. And the fireplace. And maybe a few of the bookshelves. And around the frame of the bed.”
“The bed?”
“Of course. It’s Christmas.”
“Um…”
Leslie finishes pulling off the lights and crawls toward the box, fishing out another strand. “I don’t see the point of confining Christmas to one part of the house. And the lights are the best part! Except for the tree. And the cookies. But there’s something magical about Christmas lights, you know?…Like you can’t look at them and feel sad. It’s impossible.”
Ben leans in and kisses her, slow and soft, and as he pulls back, he takes her hand and presses his lips to her knuckles as well. “That’s how I feel when I look at you.”
The sincerity in his voice lessens how corny the words are, and Leslie ducks her head, smiling and blushing and rolling her eyes. It’s insanely cute.
“Fine,” he says. “You’ve convinced me. We can put lights up in every room if you want.”
“Yay!”
“But seriously, Les-You have to explain one thing.”
“Yeah?”
“How the hell did you get all this stuff out here so fast?”
Leslie grins mischievously, leaning in to give him another quick kiss. “Christmas is a magical time, Ben. Anything is possible.”
Yeah, he thinks.
At least it is with Leslie Knope around.
Coat Season
“Your hands are freezing.”
Ben squeezes her fingers, and it’s more the sting of his warm hands than anything else that tells her he’s correct. In fact, she might have bypassed cold and went straight to numb, which would explain why she didn’t notice. “Yeah,” she agrees, dropping his hands and shoving hers into her pockets. “Hang on…I might have gloves.”
“You might?”
Leslie ignores him, digging around in the pockets of her coat. It’s only just now that the weather has taken a turn toward winter (about time if you ask her, since it’s nearly Christmastime, and snow is practically a requirement), and in her hurry to leave this morning, she’d flung on a coat but hadn’t been able to find her gloves. Which means there’s a good chance she accidentally left them in her coat pockets last year.
“Here,” she says, pulling out her right hand. A large number of papers, some change and a button almost spill over, but she manages to dump them into Ben’s outstretched hand without losing any cargo. “Hold this for a second.”
“O…kay.” He stares down at his hand and then at her, an incredulous look that grows more convincing when her left hand produces a similar load. “Leslie, what is all this? Why is there so much garbage in your pockets?”
“Garbage?” She digs back in-really, deep pockets are an advantage in coats-and comes out with a pair of scissors. Whoops. That’s actually a bit dangerous. “This isn’t garbage.”
“Um…Yeah. It is.” He sits down, depositing her findings into his lap, and opens up a folded piece of paper. “This is a J.J.’s receipt. From last January. And you paid cash…Les, you don’t even need this for record keeping. Why is this in your pocket?”
Leslie raises an eyebrow. Is he serious? He looks kind of serious…actually, more like he’s kind of concerned, which would be sweet if it wasn’t so unnecessary. “This is the best part of coat season, Ben.”
“What is?”
“The artifacts. You know, digging through last year’s stuff and remembering what you were doing on a particular day. It’s like an actual walk down memory lane.”
“Okay,” he says, more acknowledgement than agreement, which is a little frustrating, to be honest. “And then what?”
“What?”
“What do you do with the stuff after your walk down memory lane?”
“Oh…Well…Scrapbook it, maybe. If it’s worth keeping. Or…you know…Throw it out?”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“Because this movie stub is from three years ago.”
“I must have missed that one.”
“And this list: ‘Christmas Presents’-When is this one from exactly?”
“Pfsh…Last year, I’m sure.”
“Really? Because Ron, Jerry and Donna are just about the only names I recognize on this list. Not even Ann is on here.”
“Typo.”
“It’s handwritten.”
Leslie reaches out and snatches it from his hand, folding it and putting it back into her pocket, at which point Ben gives her an accusatory look. Without warning, he pulls her forward and digs both of his hands into her pockets, upending everything that’s still inside-a considerable amount of paper, a few Tootsie rolls, a rubber ducky, three marbles, a small glass unicorn…
“Oh hey,” she says, reaching out and taking the unicorn. “I remember this. My ex-boyfriend gave me this for my birthday-” She shuts her mouth, realizing what she’s just admitted, and Ben grins triumphantly.
“Ah ha! I knew it! Leslie, your hoarding is going to a new level here. It’s time to clean out your coat pockets.”
She sighs. Maybe he has a point. After all, those Tootsie Rolls might be dangerous to consume at this point. She can’t even remember the last time she ate a Tootsie Roll. And now that she’s thinking about it, there probably aren’t gloves in these pockets because she didn’t have room to keep them there. “Fine. You win.”
God, he looks smug when he’s right. He’s so infuriating sometimes. “Great,” he says, gathering up all the papers and depositing everything else back into her hands. He heads over to the garbage can, and Leslie has to fight the compulsion to tackle him and steal back the paper; she quells the urge by stuffing all of her other belongings back in her pockets.
“Happy now?” she asks as he returns to her side.
“Slightly less concerned, at least.”
She huffs a bit and sticks her hand into his coat pocket, since it is still freezing outside and hers still have a considerable amount of junk in them. Immediately, her fingers run over something soft, and she pulls it out. “What the hell?”
Ben glances down at her; in her hand lies her mitten-the very one she was looking for this morning. He raises an eyebrow and digs into his other pocket, producing its mate and handing it to her. “Right…” he says, as she tugs on her gloves and shakes her head. “You might have asked me to hold on to those for your last year.”
“Because my pockets were too full.”
“Probably.”
She pulls him down by his jacket and kisses him firmly. “You see?” she says. “This is why we make a good team.”
Ben nods and gives her another quick kiss.
“But you’re still going to have to clean out your other coats, Leslie.”
Six Miles
In the seven years that Jim has been driving a taxi, he’s seen a lot of crazy shit; driven a lot of desperately horny people home. He pretty much figured he was beyond the point of being surprised anymore.
But tonight is a whole new ballgame.
Setting aside the fact that he’s made the easiest two hundred bucks of his life, the real kicker is that he’s met the only two people in the world who are apparently going to pay to make out in a taxi. It’s the kind of thing no one asks permission for, usually just falling into the back seat slightly intoxicated and going to town.
The thought doesn’t even seem to have crossed the minds of these two. Which he should of figured, he thinks, given that the guy paid him a hundred bucks just to sit outside a house for a few hours. It’s kind of a sucker’s move. So really, maybe he shouldn’t be surprised that he was able to squeeze another hundred out of them, but he is.
They get their mileage out of it, though. Fifteen minutes of aimless driving, and they go to town every damn second of it.
“We’ll be back,” the guy promises as his girlfriend tries to comb her hair with her fingers. He counts out twenties with shaky hands, gives them over and scoots out of the car.
“Sir,” says the woman. She gives him an awkward head bob and follows her boyfriend out of the car. Jim watches them head back toward the house, hand-in-hand, and shakes his head.
Good to their word, the lovebirds find their way back a little less than two hours later. This time he gets an address-a house only six miles away-and thirty bucks, which is more than enough to get them home.
God love them.
This time, she climbs into her boyfriend’s lap before Jim even pulls the car away from the curb. Lover boy’s hands find her hips, tugging her forward in his lap, and she groans into their kiss. He suffers a prolonged moment of distraction at the sound before coming to his senses and driving away.
So yeah, it’s basically impossible to ignore them. The little sighs and moans and occasional giggles that accompany their making out-kind of hard not to hear. But since he’s being paid far beyond what they owe him, Jim figures he owes it to them to pretend there’s a force field around the back seat. He attempts to limit his glances into the rear view mirror (can’t really use it anyway, since her head is right in his line of vision most of the time) and tries to pretend they’re not there.
Honestly, it doesn’t work so well.
It doesn’t make sense, at all, actually, because six miles is hell of a lot less than what they clocked earlier, but the end of whatever hellish party they were attending seems to have forced them into overdrive. At least, they’re a lot noisier than they were earlier-way less controlled-and even in just the occasional glance, Jim can kind of tell that they’re grinding against each other back there. And sure, maybe they’re paying for that kind of uninhibited contact, but it’s still surprising.
They’re only minutes away from their house.
He wonders if they’re the type of weirdos who get off on doing it while other people are watching.
“Give me your coat.”
The words-panted out by her in between kisses-startle Jim as much as her boyfriend. But at least Jim is still coherent. The boyfriend only manages to choke out a confused, “Huh?”
She sighs, and then there’s the unmistakable sound of a zipper being pulled down. In his surprise, Jim looks in the mirror, catching a glimpse of her bare back, and suddenly it’s a bit of a struggle to keep his eyes on the road. The guy makes a strangled noise and begins to struggle out of his jacket as he finally realizes what she wants; a minute later there’s a flutter of fabric, the jacket winds up around her shoulders, and his hands have moved decidedly northward.
For two people who both gave him lectures on discretion earlier, they’re certainly not exercising any themselves.
“Oh god…Leslie…”
Lover boy ducks his head as she throws hers back, his lips starting a trail down her neck toward greener pastures. Her hands fall in his hair, encouraging his descent, and the whole time she continues to wriggle her hips against him suggestively.
And damn, in seven years, Jim can’t say it’s the most explicit thing he’s ever seen happen in the back of his cab, but it’s definitely one of the most desperate. The boyfriend’s hands fall back on her ass, helping to press their hips together, while his face remains buried in her chest, doing something that’s causing her to whimper. Neither of them seems the least bit cognizant of Jim or the fact that they’re in a taxi. They’re too wrapped up in each other.
When he pulls to a stop outside of their house, a place lit only by a porch light, he gives them a full minute before he realizes they have no idea they’re home. When he looks back, he sees that they’re back to making out, his hands groping her breasts while hers have disappeared somewhere…
Judging by the groan lover boy lets out, Jim has a pretty good guess.
“Hey kids,” he says, a little louder than necessary. “You’re home. Take it into the bedroom.”
She pulls back first, freezing for a second and then burying her face in her boyfriend’s neck. He kisses her temple and shifts awkwardly, and Jim can read the pain and tension all over his face. But they don’t have enough money left for him to find relief in the back of the cab.
Slowly, she sits up and starts fiddling with her dress. When she finally slides off of her boyfriend’s lap, she has his coat wrapped tightly around her. Her face is flushed, hair even messier than it was earlier, and Jim has to admit, she is damn pretty. She gathers her things and opens the door, no acknowledgement of Jim this time-not that he can blame her-and then hovers by the car while lover boy tries to pull himself together.
“You’re a pretty lucky guy, you know,” Jim can’t help but say, smirking a bit as he meets the younger man’s eyes in the mirror. He looks even less composed than his girlfriend. “Kind of a sucker, but a damn lucky guy.”
“Yeah.” His eyes fall on his girlfriend’s ass where she waits outside, and he smiles. “The luckiest.”
Gone Awry
It’s one of the dumber ideas Ben has had, in retrospect. Which is pretty pathetic, as Ben should have seen the pitfalls of this from a mile away. But Leslie makes this face when he surprises her-this wildly ecstatic, purely joyous face-that he’s developed an addiction to, and thus any opportunity to see it tends to make him throw caution to the wind.
Like today.
Ann was coming over-is here now, actually-and he’d decided it would be a good time to put up some of the outside Christmas decorations (of which Leslie has many). “Nothing crazy,” he’d promised her. “I’ll just get a start on it.”
He’s such a liar.
In some fit of insanity, he decided that it would be a great surprise to get up on the roof and hang lights: frame the house in those colorful bulbs Leslie loves so much. He was high on some vision of Leslie’s face when she saw the results, not thinking things through, and now…
Well, now he’s stuck on the roof.
Chalk it up to inexperience, the fact that he’s never been up on the roof of a house in his entire life, or ignorance or whatever, the fact of the matter is, Ben is sitting on the roof while the ladder lies in the yard, and no one knows he’s up here.
The good news is, he did manage to finish putting up the lights on the house. So Leslie is going to be surprised in more ways than one when she finally comes outside.
The bad news, aside from the obvious, is that it’s freezing up here. The weather has been relatively mild this November, and working in the yard, it had grown too warm for his winter coat. He can see it from up here, an abandoned blot on the ground (pocketing his cell phone, no less), and as inconvenient as it was earlier, he’d give just about anything to have it now. The temperature is dropping as the sun does, and now that he’s not moving, he’s aware that it really is almost winter.
And okay, yes, the lowest point of the roof is maybe ten or twelve feet off of the ground, but it’s still ten or twelve feet off the ground, and with his luck he’d break his leg jumping off.
God, even in his own head, that sounds lame. Not that calling himself a chicken is going to make any difference. He’s not jumping off the roof. Period.
He remembers when he was little-really little, back when his parents were still together and his sister wasn’t even born-his dad used to drag him outside in the freezing cold and they’d sit in the garage testing every damn light bulb that would go on the house. Then he’d have to wait outside while his dad was up on the roof, never allowed to climb up the ladder himself, but watching his dad become a tiny version of himself up in the air.
He kind of realizes now why his dad wanted supervision. Even if it was from a five year old.
Ben glances around the roof, wishing once again that one of the upstairs windows was unlocked. And it’s then that he gets his second brainstorm of the day.
The chimney.
Not that he can go down it, or even wants to try, frankly, but if he can shout loud enough, maybe Leslie will be able to hear him through the fireplace.
It’s worth a shot.
*****
Ann looks overwhelmed. Which is about how Leslie feels at this point, but one of them needs to pull it together and figure this out.
“I just don’t understand,” Ann says again (for the sixth time since she got here), “how you have five hundred people on your guest list, Leslie.”
Leslie bites her lip, looking down at the alphabetized list in her wedding binder, and tries to fend off that slightly sheepish feeling she’s had since she first noticed the final number. Of her list. Ben hasn’t given her his yet-doesn’t know about the five hundred people on hers and hopefully never will since they agreed this is going to be a small wedding. “I guess I know a lot of people.”
“Leslie, some of these people you’ve never even met. Some of these people…I mean, honestly, Joe Biden?”
“I met Joe Biden,” Leslie says quickly, feeling her face flush at the memory. Ann gives her an odd look. “I told you that, right? About meeting Joe?”
“Yes. Several dozen times. But Les, I’m just going to be straight with you, he’s not going to come to your wedding.”
“There’s always a chance-”
“No, sweetie. Come on, we have to start cutting down this list somewhere.”
“But why do we have to start there?”
“Well what about Beyoncé then? I mean, really, Leslie?”
“That’s a mistake.”
“Okay.”
“I meant for her to perform.”
Ann buries her face in a pillow. Leslie wonders if she’s silently screaming a little. She can’t quite blame her. She feels like screaming at herself. “Fine,” she says. “That was a long shot. We can cross her off.”
There’s a muffled grunt from the pillow.
“What?”
Ann lifts her head. “And Oprah, too. And anyone else who you have never actually met in person.”
“Fine.”
“Thank you.”
“But Joe stays.”
Ann mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, “that’s Ben’s problem,” and starts crossing people off the list with a bit more viciousness than what is necessary. This, of course, is why Ann is the best, most beautiful maid of honor anyone could ever have in the history of wedding planning. She’s not afraid to make the hard cuts.
Slash. Slash. Slash. Slash. Slash.
Each movement of the pen across paper makes Leslie wince, a harsh noise in the otherwise quiet house.
“Do you hear that?”
“Yes. It’s the sound of your brutal but necessary editing. Keep going, Ann.”
“No,” says Ann, setting the list and her pen in her lap and furrowing her brow. “Not that.”
Leslie frowns. Poor Ann is suffering from delusions brought on by wedding planning duress. Or maybe Leslie is. Or they both are. It’s hard to say at this point.
“There! That!” Ann grips Leslie’s wrist and jerks her head, and Leslie realizes she does hear something. A faint, low kind of indecipherable moan.
“Oh my god,” she squeals, reaching for Ann’s hand and squeezing. “Do you think we have a ghost? The realtor said there were no ghosts, but I don’t think she really knows anything about it, and oh, Ann, what if I’m finally living in real a haunted house?”
“I don’t think that’s a ghost.”
“Really?”
“It sounds like…Is that Ben?”
There’s another sound. It’s coming from the fireplace, Leslie realizes, and she stands up, dragging Ann with her across the room. She steps forward, turning and sticking her head up the chimney, and shouts, “Hello?”
“Leslie? Hello?”
“Ben?”
“Leslie?”
“Ben, what-Are you on the roof?”
There’s a pause before she hears a hesitant, “Yes. I’m stuck up here.”
What now? She pulls her head out of the fireplace so fast, she almost hits the mantle and looks at Ann, who seems to be suppressing a laugh. “He’s stuck on the roof.”
“Huh.”
Together, she and Ann wander outside, shivering against the biting chill in the air. It takes only seconds for Leslie to piece together what happened, judging by the lights on the house and the ladder lying on the lawn, and she’s honestly not sure if she wants to kiss him or kill him. “Ben?” she shouts, as she and Ann right the ladder against the low part of the roof. She starts to climb up, reaching the top just as Ben does.
“What the hell were you thinking?” she asks. “Going up on the roof by yourself? What if you fell? What if you fell, Ben? Ben-”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t…I just wanted to surprise you.”
He looks at her, all kinds of sorry and bashful and hopeful, and Leslie feels her concern melting a little because he’s just so stupidly sweet sometimes she can’t stand it. “Yeah,” she agrees, a hint of a smile overpowering her. “But promise me you won’t do this again.”
“I promise.” He leans down and kisses her with cold lips, a rather precarious move given that she’s on a ladder and he’s on the roof. “Can I come down now?”
“Absolutely.”
Lighter than Air
Leslie is pretty grateful that this disastrous evening didn’t manage to kill her engagement buzz. Since the moment Ben went down on one knee, she’s been floating on clouds, walking on sunshine, feeling lighter than air-whatever cliché you want to use. In the back of her mind, she’s been a little worried that she’s going to crash back to earth at some point, that something is going to come along to ruin this feeling, but tonight has basically proven that that’s impossible.
Nothing is going to kill her I’m marrying Ben Wyatt, the best man in the universe high.
And damn, if that isn’t a whole other high in itself…
Ben steps out of the cab, finally, clearly inhibited by his erection, but it doesn’t stop Leslie from grabbing him by the tie and pulling him in for another kiss.
The cab driver honks a couple of times as he pulls away. That should bother her more (maybe it will tomorrow, when she’s not, frankly, horny as fuck), but right now all she can think about is Ben. Ben’s lips on hers and Ben’s tongue slipping into her mouth and Ben’s hands cupping her upper thighs and pulling her up until her legs are wrapped around his waist.
It takes a long minute until Leslie realizes that this is a problem. Ben isn’t exactly moving with ease right now, and she has his tie loosened and half the buttons on his shirt undone and they’re on the front lawn.
“Ben,” she half-moans, half-whines. “Inside. Right now.”
He responds by scraping his fingers up her leg, under her dress, and tugging fruitlessly at her underwear. He’s still kissing her; hot, open-mouthed kisses under her chin and down her neck to her pulse point, where he stops and sucks, hard, and once he comes to his senses and realizes he can’t pull her underwear off while her legs are hooked around him, his fingers slip underneath the cotton and start rubbing sloppily against her folds.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She wants him so badly, maybe more than she’s ever wanted him before, and she’s bucking against his hand without thinking about it, but fuck, fuck, fuck, no, they’re outside.
“Ben-” She kicks her heels against his ass, trying to prompt him to move.
“You said inside.”
“God…Inside the house, you perv.”
Ben grins, scrapes his teeth against her neck, and then bites at her, and she groans, loudly. “Quiet,” he chastises. His fingers slow down a bit, caressing her more gently, and she whimpers. “Do you want the neighbors to hear?”
“We can’t do this out here.”
“Can’t we?” Two of his fingers slip inside of her, curling against her front wall, and instinctively, she rubs herself against his stomach. He’s still sucking at her neck, and god, she’s going to have to worry about covering up a hickey too, but no, no, no, she can’t think about that, can’t think about anything but the feeling of Ben’s fingers inside of her and the heat of his lips and how fucking good this feels…
“Ben…” Her fingers claw at his back, up into his hair, outright bucking against him now, and he fucking licks her neck, a long, hot draw of his tongue that makes her feel like she’s on fire. “Fuck,” she hisses, but then her words are lost in his mouth, muffled moans as he grips her ass with his other hand and holds her tight against him, fingers moving faster inside of her, and Leslie almost wants to cry because it’s all too much.
“Come on,” he whispers, kissing along her cheek up to her ear. He tugs her earlobe between his teeth and eggs her on. “Baby, come on. Let me see you…”
She buries her face in his neck, babbling nonsense into his skin, so close to the edge she’s about to go crazy, and then Ben twists his fingers, brushing against some sensitive spot inside of her, and she shatters. She clutches to Ben as her orgasm rips through her, pulling him tight against her, just holding him as close as she possibly can. Ben’s fingers are stroking her gently now, helping her ride it out, and god, what the fuck are they doing-this is so inappropriate.
“You’re going to pay for that,” she pants, nipping a little too hard at the skin of his neck.
Ben kisses the top of her head. “Looking forward to it.”
Hope - Ben/Leslie on election night.
Wedding Plans - Ann and Leslie discuss the wedding.
Anniversary - The anniversary of the events of Smallest Park (requested by thisbuildinghasfeelings)
Move Out Already - Leslie/Ben cuddling (requested by galentines)
Christmas Lights - Leslie decides to decorate for Christmas the minute Thanksgiving ends.
Coat Season - Leslie looks for her gloves.
Six Miles - Ben and Leslie make out in the cab on the way home after "Ben's Parents" (requested by ballroompink)
Gone Awry - Ben gets trapped on the roof putting up Christmas lights (requested by ohlittlerachel)
Lighter than Air - NC-17 continuation of "Six Miles" (cab make-out fic)
Hope
“Are you okay?”
Leslie nods, swiping her hand over each of her cheeks, her eyes still shimmering with tears, and turns to him with a shaky smile. “You know how sometimes you can feel like a firework?”
“Uh-”
“Like you’re just so happy that you could explode, but it’s the kind of explosion that’s beautiful and exciting and reminds everyone of Independence Day and is so awesome you can hardly stand it.”
Ben is pretty sure he hasn’t stopped smiling since he got down on one knee this afternoon, but if it’s possible, his smile grows now. It’s about as accurate a description he’s heard for how he feels at this moment-how he’s pretty sure he’s going to feel for the whole rest of his life. “Yeah. Yeah, I know that feeling.”
“That’s how I feel right now. I mean, I thought this was going to be the worst election day ever. Not that election day can ever be bad, but you know…I woke up this morning thinking you weren’t coming back. It kind of put a damper on things.”
He reaches for her hand, brushing his thumb over her knuckles. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She shifts, crawling into his lap and looping her arms around his neck. They’re both in various states of undress-honestly, Ben can barely remember the election coverage because he spent most of the night making out with Leslie or staring at Leslie or thinking about all the various other things he wants to do with Leslie (said things they’d kind of been in the middle of until the ill-timed announcement of Obama’s win when Leslie became, understandably, distracted). Now the blanket that was on her lap slithers to the floor, and the chilly November night makes goosebumps rise on her bare skin. Immediately, Ben settles his hands on her thighs and rubs them over her skin. “This was definitely the best election night ever. Nothing’s going to compare until I’m elected president.”
“Of course.”
She cocks her head, smiling at him in a way that makes him feel warm inside and out. “There’s nothing more hopeful than an election. But this one especially…”
“Leslie, nothing gives me more hope for my future than the fact that you agreed to marry me. Not even the presidential election.”
“God, you say the best stuff.” She kisses him, a slow but brief movement that he tries to capture and extend, groaning a bit when she pulls away from him. “You know, four years ago I was watching the election alone.”
He nods, hearing but not understanding, more concerned with getting back to their earlier activities. He tries to lean forward and kiss her again, but she puts her hands on his cheeks, holding him back.
“That night,” she says quietly, dropping her eyes, “it was all about hope. Maybe more so than any other election. And I remember sitting there watching Obama speak for the first time as the President-Elect, and feeling…” She trails off for a moment, one hand coming to rest over his heart, and when she looks back at him, she’s on the verge of tears again. “I mean, I had a job I loved and I was happy, but I couldn’t help thinking that night, would it really be wrong to hope for just a little more…?”
She takes a deep breath. Ben brushes her hair away from her cheek, waiting while she composes herself, thinking about his own life four years ago, how he’d basically be unrecognizable to that version of himself now. His whole life is better, so much better, than he ever could have dreamed back then.
“And now,” says Leslie, laughing a little and crying at the same time. “Now I have Ann, beautiful best friend Ann, and the best coworkers in the world and two jobs I love and you, and it’s more…Ben, it’s more than I ever really thought I’d have. And I’m just so, so, so, so unbelievably happy-”
He cuts her off. Doesn’t mean to, but actually cannot wait another second to kiss Leslie. This time, though, she melts into him-kisses him like maybe she can’t stop herself either. The news still flickers in the background, a low murmur of cheers and the dulcet overtones of the news anchors, but for the two of them, there are no more words. Nothing else that can be said to explain how much this night means.
Wedding Plans
”These shows are stressing me out.”
“Leslie-”
“I mean, first of all, that woman just spent $26000 on a wedding dress. Is that normal? That can’t be normal! How is that dress even worth $26000? There’s barely any fabric-the top is see-through!”
“Les-”
“And I had no idea that there were so many different types of wedding dresses. Princess? Mermaid? Mermaid, Ann? All I can picture is standing there with seashells over my boobs, and the last thing I need is to attract seagulls when I’m trying to get married. Ben doesn’t like birds, Ann. They freak him out, and I don’t want him to run away because our wedding has turned into a Hitchcock movie-”
“Yeah, but-”
“Oh, and this show! This is the worst! What does David Tutera have against the color green? Green is spring and grass and parks and dragons, sometimes, and-”
Ann reaches out and puts a hand over Leslie’s mouth, holding up the pointer finger of her other hand in warning. “Leslie,” she says, calm and authoritative, “take a deep breath.”
Leslie obeys-maybe her heart is racing a little bit now that she stops to think about it (thank god for beautiful nurse Ann)-and Ann lowers her hand. “Okay, first of all, I warned you about these shows. They’re over the top and manufactured for drama. Planning your wedding isn’t going to be like reality TV. David Tutera won’t be involved at all.”
“I don’t understand what he has against drinking beer either…” Leslie mutters.
“You don’t need a David Tutera. You plan huge events all the time. You planned the Harvest Festival! This definitely can’t be any harder than that.”
“That’s true.”
“And I promise, I will not let you try on any dress that is $26000 or see-through. Or,” she adds, almost as an afterthought, “one with seashell boobs. Although you should know that’s not what a mermaid cut means.”
“And you won’t suddenly decide to hate me forever or threaten to stop being friends with me because you have to wear a bridesmaid dress?”
“Absolutely not. Leslie, you could make me wear a trash bag, and I would do it for you and not complain.”
“Oh Ann, even a trash bag would look fantastic on a beautiful parakeet like you.”
“Thank you?”
Leslie sighs. “I don’t know why this is stressing me out so much.”
“Well watching wedding shows for eight hours straight is certainly not helping.”
“I mean, it’s just not something I’ve spent a lot of time planning in my head. And I want it to be perfect. Beyond perfect.”
“It will be. I promise.”
Leslie reaches out for Ann’s hands, clasping them in hers and staring into her eyes with typical Leslie, stress-induced intensity. “Ann,” she says, as seriously as if they’re about to make vows themselves, “as my maid of honor, best friend and fashion guru, you have to help me decide what would be appropriate wedding-wear. Promise me, Ann.”
“Leslie, whenever you want, I will be there to help you pick out a wedding dress. I promise. And you will look gorgeous.”
“Thank you.” She smiles, and then abruptly drops Ann’s hands and reaches for her padfolio, abandoned on the table. “Now I was thinking, instead of a veil, what about a big, red, floppy hat?”
Anniversay
“What did you do?”
Ben shrugs, feigning modesty; his eyes are lit up, though, letting her know that he’s secretly thrilled-with his surprise or her reaction or probably both. Leslie squeezes his hand and steps closer to give him a soft kiss.
It’s cold, near freezing on this November evening, but Ben hadn’t protested when Leslie suggested they celebrate this particular anniversary with a picnic in their park. Not that anyone could argue that there’s anything more romantic than a nighttime picnic with good food and plenty of stargazing.
And making out.
Lots of making out.
Especially since Ben has gone and done this, and she kind of wants to jump his bones right now.
“This is perfect,” says Leslie, reaching out and running her fingers over the bright red ribbon Ben has wrapped around the perimeter of the tiny park. It’s sealed with a large, cheerful bow, just the way she envisioned it one year ago-everything she had planned before she tried to sabotage her own project; before Ben decided to fight her passive aggressiveness with his own; before everything very nearly went to hell. “Except for-”
“Some over-sized ceremonial scissors?”
“God,” sighs Leslie, staring in awe at the large scissors Ben has produced from their picnic basket, “I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted you more than I do right now.”
Ben grins, wrapping one arm around her waist and pulling her close. “I just thought that it’s about time we dedicate this park properly.”
“Yes.” Leslie nods, thinking back to last year, when they nearly dedicated this park in a much less appropriate way. When Ben’s arms were around her for the first time in months, and she’d never felt so wholly loved in her life. Somehow-she’s not sure how it’s actually possible-she thinks she loves him even more now than she did then. “Absolutely.”
They fumble with the scissors for a minute, hands over hands, trying to find the best way to hold them together. When they finally position them at the ribbon, Ben is behind her, almost hugging her as they prepare to cut. “The Smallest Park in Indiana,” he says, his breath warming her cheek.
“Our park.”
“Our park.”
This time, they cut the ribbon together.
Move Out Already
They’re doing it again.
In the past year, April has overheard a lot of stuff. Ben and Leslie are over here all the time because Ben thinks Leslie’s house is terrifying or something, and despite being old and lame, they have sex.
A lot of sex.
It’s kind of hard to ignore, being in the same confined space with them. A space with stupidly thin walls that make it impossible not to hear Leslie’s giggling and Ben’s gross sex noises and not know exactly what’s going on. Whatever. April can deal with that. Especially because it’s fun to do impressions of what she overhears and watch Ben ooze embarrassment like an infected pustule.
What she can’t deal with is this.
They’re on her couch, Ben lying on his back, Leslie mostly draped over his body with her head resting on his chest, watching some old black and white movie together. One of Leslie’s hands rests over Ben’s heart and he’s covered it with his own, his other trailing lightly over her skin where her shirt has bunched up in the back.
Ugh. Their cuddling has always been bad, but since they got engaged, it’s downright unbearable. She keeps walking in on them all over the house: Leslie sitting on Ben’s lap; the two of them wrapped around each other all the time; holding hands while they eat breakfast; making out in the laundry room. There’s something uncomfortably intimate about it that April hates, like actually having to see their love take a physical form. It’s a monster taking over her house and ravaging everything in sight, making it unsafe to leave the confines of her bedroom.
Andy thinks it’s sweet.
He’s wrong.
“This part makes me crazy,” Leslie says, all soft and not at all like her real voice. “I always thought it was pretty wimpy of Ilsa to have Rick make the choice for her. You’d think she’d have bigger things to worry about.”
Ben smiles and kisses the top of her head. “Fighting fascism?”
“Exactly.”
Leslie shifts, lifting her head so she can look at Ben. April waits for her to notice that she’s come in the room, but Leslie’s too busy gazing. “You know, my favorite part is already over.”
“Yeah?”
She nods. “When they sing ‘La Marseillaise’ in spite of the Nazis. It’s the heart of the movie.”
“Most people would say the love triangle.”
Leslie wrinkles her nose. “Ew, no way. I don’t get nearly as emotional when Ilsa gets on the plane.” Ben smiles, brushing a bit of her hair aside, as Leslie says, “Anyway, my point is, maybe we should just make out now.”
And before April can blink, they’re all over each other, kissing with a lot of tongue while Ben’s hands start to wander, and yeah, she definitely can’t take much more of this. She flicks on the lights, annoyed when Leslie merely pauses for a second to say, “Hey April,” before she goes back to sucking Ben’s face.
“God,” April groans, stomping back toward her bedroom. “Move out already!”
Christmas Lights
“Oh my god.”
Ben stops short in the doorway, looking at the remains of their formerly neat living room, not quite sure he hasn’t entered the Twilight Zone. How the hell did this happen? He doesn’t like to throw around the word literally-too many years with Chris-but he literally just left the room to get a piece of pie, and somehow in the three minutes he was gone, Christmas has exploded in their living room. Various Santas and snowmen stare up at him with jolly eyes; several strands of garland litter the floor; there’s even a miniature Christmas tree and a toy train already set up in the corner of the room. Not for the first time, he wonders if Leslie can secretly move at the speed of light. “Leslie…?”
His fiancée is buried waist deep in a cardboard box, and as he calls her name, she catapults backward in surprise, tipping over the box as she goes. She spills onto the floor, tangled in a web of Christmas lights, and blinks up at him, slightly dazed.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“What…” He looks around the room again, not quite sure which of the dozen questions he wants to ask, and settles for: “…is going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what is all this, Leslie?”
“Christmas.”
Ben raises an eyebrow. “We just finished Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Yeah…” There is an implied what’s your point? attached to that acquiescence that both confuses the hell out of him and makes him want to kiss her senseless. It’s an ambivalence he’s come to expect from Leslie. “I always put up decorations on Thanksgiving night. I mean, not last year, obviously, because we were at your place, but it’s tradition, Ben! It’s the official start of the holiday season!”
“It’s November 22.”
“Which just means we get a whole extra week of Christmas this year!”
“Uh huh.”
Leslie smiles, amused despite of (or maybe because of) his skepticism, and sits up, starting to untangle herself from the lights. Ben sets his pie on top of one of the other boxes and kneels down to help her. “At least promise me you’re not proposing we go climb on the roof to put up lights tonight.”
“What? Of course not.”
“Good.”
“These are the indoor lights!”
Ben stops short, trying to mentally calculate how many feet of lights are wrapped around Leslie-how many more lie in a knot on the floor and in the box. At his pause, Leslie furrows her brow. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those people that only believe Christmas lights are for outside.”
“You mean like for the tree, right?”
“Yeah. And the fireplace. And maybe a few of the bookshelves. And around the frame of the bed.”
“The bed?”
“Of course. It’s Christmas.”
“Um…”
Leslie finishes pulling off the lights and crawls toward the box, fishing out another strand. “I don’t see the point of confining Christmas to one part of the house. And the lights are the best part! Except for the tree. And the cookies. But there’s something magical about Christmas lights, you know?…Like you can’t look at them and feel sad. It’s impossible.”
Ben leans in and kisses her, slow and soft, and as he pulls back, he takes her hand and presses his lips to her knuckles as well. “That’s how I feel when I look at you.”
The sincerity in his voice lessens how corny the words are, and Leslie ducks her head, smiling and blushing and rolling her eyes. It’s insanely cute.
“Fine,” he says. “You’ve convinced me. We can put lights up in every room if you want.”
“Yay!”
“But seriously, Les-You have to explain one thing.”
“Yeah?”
“How the hell did you get all this stuff out here so fast?”
Leslie grins mischievously, leaning in to give him another quick kiss. “Christmas is a magical time, Ben. Anything is possible.”
Yeah, he thinks.
At least it is with Leslie Knope around.
Coat Season
“Your hands are freezing.”
Ben squeezes her fingers, and it’s more the sting of his warm hands than anything else that tells her he’s correct. In fact, she might have bypassed cold and went straight to numb, which would explain why she didn’t notice. “Yeah,” she agrees, dropping his hands and shoving hers into her pockets. “Hang on…I might have gloves.”
“You might?”
Leslie ignores him, digging around in the pockets of her coat. It’s only just now that the weather has taken a turn toward winter (about time if you ask her, since it’s nearly Christmastime, and snow is practically a requirement), and in her hurry to leave this morning, she’d flung on a coat but hadn’t been able to find her gloves. Which means there’s a good chance she accidentally left them in her coat pockets last year.
“Here,” she says, pulling out her right hand. A large number of papers, some change and a button almost spill over, but she manages to dump them into Ben’s outstretched hand without losing any cargo. “Hold this for a second.”
“O…kay.” He stares down at his hand and then at her, an incredulous look that grows more convincing when her left hand produces a similar load. “Leslie, what is all this? Why is there so much garbage in your pockets?”
“Garbage?” She digs back in-really, deep pockets are an advantage in coats-and comes out with a pair of scissors. Whoops. That’s actually a bit dangerous. “This isn’t garbage.”
“Um…Yeah. It is.” He sits down, depositing her findings into his lap, and opens up a folded piece of paper. “This is a J.J.’s receipt. From last January. And you paid cash…Les, you don’t even need this for record keeping. Why is this in your pocket?”
Leslie raises an eyebrow. Is he serious? He looks kind of serious…actually, more like he’s kind of concerned, which would be sweet if it wasn’t so unnecessary. “This is the best part of coat season, Ben.”
“What is?”
“The artifacts. You know, digging through last year’s stuff and remembering what you were doing on a particular day. It’s like an actual walk down memory lane.”
“Okay,” he says, more acknowledgement than agreement, which is a little frustrating, to be honest. “And then what?”
“What?”
“What do you do with the stuff after your walk down memory lane?”
“Oh…Well…Scrapbook it, maybe. If it’s worth keeping. Or…you know…Throw it out?”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“Because this movie stub is from three years ago.”
“I must have missed that one.”
“And this list: ‘Christmas Presents’-When is this one from exactly?”
“Pfsh…Last year, I’m sure.”
“Really? Because Ron, Jerry and Donna are just about the only names I recognize on this list. Not even Ann is on here.”
“Typo.”
“It’s handwritten.”
Leslie reaches out and snatches it from his hand, folding it and putting it back into her pocket, at which point Ben gives her an accusatory look. Without warning, he pulls her forward and digs both of his hands into her pockets, upending everything that’s still inside-a considerable amount of paper, a few Tootsie rolls, a rubber ducky, three marbles, a small glass unicorn…
“Oh hey,” she says, reaching out and taking the unicorn. “I remember this. My ex-boyfriend gave me this for my birthday-” She shuts her mouth, realizing what she’s just admitted, and Ben grins triumphantly.
“Ah ha! I knew it! Leslie, your hoarding is going to a new level here. It’s time to clean out your coat pockets.”
She sighs. Maybe he has a point. After all, those Tootsie Rolls might be dangerous to consume at this point. She can’t even remember the last time she ate a Tootsie Roll. And now that she’s thinking about it, there probably aren’t gloves in these pockets because she didn’t have room to keep them there. “Fine. You win.”
God, he looks smug when he’s right. He’s so infuriating sometimes. “Great,” he says, gathering up all the papers and depositing everything else back into her hands. He heads over to the garbage can, and Leslie has to fight the compulsion to tackle him and steal back the paper; she quells the urge by stuffing all of her other belongings back in her pockets.
“Happy now?” she asks as he returns to her side.
“Slightly less concerned, at least.”
She huffs a bit and sticks her hand into his coat pocket, since it is still freezing outside and hers still have a considerable amount of junk in them. Immediately, her fingers run over something soft, and she pulls it out. “What the hell?”
Ben glances down at her; in her hand lies her mitten-the very one she was looking for this morning. He raises an eyebrow and digs into his other pocket, producing its mate and handing it to her. “Right…” he says, as she tugs on her gloves and shakes her head. “You might have asked me to hold on to those for your last year.”
“Because my pockets were too full.”
“Probably.”
She pulls him down by his jacket and kisses him firmly. “You see?” she says. “This is why we make a good team.”
Ben nods and gives her another quick kiss.
“But you’re still going to have to clean out your other coats, Leslie.”
Six Miles
In the seven years that Jim has been driving a taxi, he’s seen a lot of crazy shit; driven a lot of desperately horny people home. He pretty much figured he was beyond the point of being surprised anymore.
But tonight is a whole new ballgame.
Setting aside the fact that he’s made the easiest two hundred bucks of his life, the real kicker is that he’s met the only two people in the world who are apparently going to pay to make out in a taxi. It’s the kind of thing no one asks permission for, usually just falling into the back seat slightly intoxicated and going to town.
The thought doesn’t even seem to have crossed the minds of these two. Which he should of figured, he thinks, given that the guy paid him a hundred bucks just to sit outside a house for a few hours. It’s kind of a sucker’s move. So really, maybe he shouldn’t be surprised that he was able to squeeze another hundred out of them, but he is.
They get their mileage out of it, though. Fifteen minutes of aimless driving, and they go to town every damn second of it.
“We’ll be back,” the guy promises as his girlfriend tries to comb her hair with her fingers. He counts out twenties with shaky hands, gives them over and scoots out of the car.
“Sir,” says the woman. She gives him an awkward head bob and follows her boyfriend out of the car. Jim watches them head back toward the house, hand-in-hand, and shakes his head.
Good to their word, the lovebirds find their way back a little less than two hours later. This time he gets an address-a house only six miles away-and thirty bucks, which is more than enough to get them home.
God love them.
This time, she climbs into her boyfriend’s lap before Jim even pulls the car away from the curb. Lover boy’s hands find her hips, tugging her forward in his lap, and she groans into their kiss. He suffers a prolonged moment of distraction at the sound before coming to his senses and driving away.
So yeah, it’s basically impossible to ignore them. The little sighs and moans and occasional giggles that accompany their making out-kind of hard not to hear. But since he’s being paid far beyond what they owe him, Jim figures he owes it to them to pretend there’s a force field around the back seat. He attempts to limit his glances into the rear view mirror (can’t really use it anyway, since her head is right in his line of vision most of the time) and tries to pretend they’re not there.
Honestly, it doesn’t work so well.
It doesn’t make sense, at all, actually, because six miles is hell of a lot less than what they clocked earlier, but the end of whatever hellish party they were attending seems to have forced them into overdrive. At least, they’re a lot noisier than they were earlier-way less controlled-and even in just the occasional glance, Jim can kind of tell that they’re grinding against each other back there. And sure, maybe they’re paying for that kind of uninhibited contact, but it’s still surprising.
They’re only minutes away from their house.
He wonders if they’re the type of weirdos who get off on doing it while other people are watching.
“Give me your coat.”
The words-panted out by her in between kisses-startle Jim as much as her boyfriend. But at least Jim is still coherent. The boyfriend only manages to choke out a confused, “Huh?”
She sighs, and then there’s the unmistakable sound of a zipper being pulled down. In his surprise, Jim looks in the mirror, catching a glimpse of her bare back, and suddenly it’s a bit of a struggle to keep his eyes on the road. The guy makes a strangled noise and begins to struggle out of his jacket as he finally realizes what she wants; a minute later there’s a flutter of fabric, the jacket winds up around her shoulders, and his hands have moved decidedly northward.
For two people who both gave him lectures on discretion earlier, they’re certainly not exercising any themselves.
“Oh god…Leslie…”
Lover boy ducks his head as she throws hers back, his lips starting a trail down her neck toward greener pastures. Her hands fall in his hair, encouraging his descent, and the whole time she continues to wriggle her hips against him suggestively.
And damn, in seven years, Jim can’t say it’s the most explicit thing he’s ever seen happen in the back of his cab, but it’s definitely one of the most desperate. The boyfriend’s hands fall back on her ass, helping to press their hips together, while his face remains buried in her chest, doing something that’s causing her to whimper. Neither of them seems the least bit cognizant of Jim or the fact that they’re in a taxi. They’re too wrapped up in each other.
When he pulls to a stop outside of their house, a place lit only by a porch light, he gives them a full minute before he realizes they have no idea they’re home. When he looks back, he sees that they’re back to making out, his hands groping her breasts while hers have disappeared somewhere…
Judging by the groan lover boy lets out, Jim has a pretty good guess.
“Hey kids,” he says, a little louder than necessary. “You’re home. Take it into the bedroom.”
She pulls back first, freezing for a second and then burying her face in her boyfriend’s neck. He kisses her temple and shifts awkwardly, and Jim can read the pain and tension all over his face. But they don’t have enough money left for him to find relief in the back of the cab.
Slowly, she sits up and starts fiddling with her dress. When she finally slides off of her boyfriend’s lap, she has his coat wrapped tightly around her. Her face is flushed, hair even messier than it was earlier, and Jim has to admit, she is damn pretty. She gathers her things and opens the door, no acknowledgement of Jim this time-not that he can blame her-and then hovers by the car while lover boy tries to pull himself together.
“You’re a pretty lucky guy, you know,” Jim can’t help but say, smirking a bit as he meets the younger man’s eyes in the mirror. He looks even less composed than his girlfriend. “Kind of a sucker, but a damn lucky guy.”
“Yeah.” His eyes fall on his girlfriend’s ass where she waits outside, and he smiles. “The luckiest.”
Gone Awry
It’s one of the dumber ideas Ben has had, in retrospect. Which is pretty pathetic, as Ben should have seen the pitfalls of this from a mile away. But Leslie makes this face when he surprises her-this wildly ecstatic, purely joyous face-that he’s developed an addiction to, and thus any opportunity to see it tends to make him throw caution to the wind.
Like today.
Ann was coming over-is here now, actually-and he’d decided it would be a good time to put up some of the outside Christmas decorations (of which Leslie has many). “Nothing crazy,” he’d promised her. “I’ll just get a start on it.”
He’s such a liar.
In some fit of insanity, he decided that it would be a great surprise to get up on the roof and hang lights: frame the house in those colorful bulbs Leslie loves so much. He was high on some vision of Leslie’s face when she saw the results, not thinking things through, and now…
Well, now he’s stuck on the roof.
Chalk it up to inexperience, the fact that he’s never been up on the roof of a house in his entire life, or ignorance or whatever, the fact of the matter is, Ben is sitting on the roof while the ladder lies in the yard, and no one knows he’s up here.
The good news is, he did manage to finish putting up the lights on the house. So Leslie is going to be surprised in more ways than one when she finally comes outside.
The bad news, aside from the obvious, is that it’s freezing up here. The weather has been relatively mild this November, and working in the yard, it had grown too warm for his winter coat. He can see it from up here, an abandoned blot on the ground (pocketing his cell phone, no less), and as inconvenient as it was earlier, he’d give just about anything to have it now. The temperature is dropping as the sun does, and now that he’s not moving, he’s aware that it really is almost winter.
And okay, yes, the lowest point of the roof is maybe ten or twelve feet off of the ground, but it’s still ten or twelve feet off the ground, and with his luck he’d break his leg jumping off.
God, even in his own head, that sounds lame. Not that calling himself a chicken is going to make any difference. He’s not jumping off the roof. Period.
He remembers when he was little-really little, back when his parents were still together and his sister wasn’t even born-his dad used to drag him outside in the freezing cold and they’d sit in the garage testing every damn light bulb that would go on the house. Then he’d have to wait outside while his dad was up on the roof, never allowed to climb up the ladder himself, but watching his dad become a tiny version of himself up in the air.
He kind of realizes now why his dad wanted supervision. Even if it was from a five year old.
Ben glances around the roof, wishing once again that one of the upstairs windows was unlocked. And it’s then that he gets his second brainstorm of the day.
The chimney.
Not that he can go down it, or even wants to try, frankly, but if he can shout loud enough, maybe Leslie will be able to hear him through the fireplace.
It’s worth a shot.
*****
Ann looks overwhelmed. Which is about how Leslie feels at this point, but one of them needs to pull it together and figure this out.
“I just don’t understand,” Ann says again (for the sixth time since she got here), “how you have five hundred people on your guest list, Leslie.”
Leslie bites her lip, looking down at the alphabetized list in her wedding binder, and tries to fend off that slightly sheepish feeling she’s had since she first noticed the final number. Of her list. Ben hasn’t given her his yet-doesn’t know about the five hundred people on hers and hopefully never will since they agreed this is going to be a small wedding. “I guess I know a lot of people.”
“Leslie, some of these people you’ve never even met. Some of these people…I mean, honestly, Joe Biden?”
“I met Joe Biden,” Leslie says quickly, feeling her face flush at the memory. Ann gives her an odd look. “I told you that, right? About meeting Joe?”
“Yes. Several dozen times. But Les, I’m just going to be straight with you, he’s not going to come to your wedding.”
“There’s always a chance-”
“No, sweetie. Come on, we have to start cutting down this list somewhere.”
“But why do we have to start there?”
“Well what about Beyoncé then? I mean, really, Leslie?”
“That’s a mistake.”
“Okay.”
“I meant for her to perform.”
Ann buries her face in a pillow. Leslie wonders if she’s silently screaming a little. She can’t quite blame her. She feels like screaming at herself. “Fine,” she says. “That was a long shot. We can cross her off.”
There’s a muffled grunt from the pillow.
“What?”
Ann lifts her head. “And Oprah, too. And anyone else who you have never actually met in person.”
“Fine.”
“Thank you.”
“But Joe stays.”
Ann mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, “that’s Ben’s problem,” and starts crossing people off the list with a bit more viciousness than what is necessary. This, of course, is why Ann is the best, most beautiful maid of honor anyone could ever have in the history of wedding planning. She’s not afraid to make the hard cuts.
Slash. Slash. Slash. Slash. Slash.
Each movement of the pen across paper makes Leslie wince, a harsh noise in the otherwise quiet house.
“Do you hear that?”
“Yes. It’s the sound of your brutal but necessary editing. Keep going, Ann.”
“No,” says Ann, setting the list and her pen in her lap and furrowing her brow. “Not that.”
Leslie frowns. Poor Ann is suffering from delusions brought on by wedding planning duress. Or maybe Leslie is. Or they both are. It’s hard to say at this point.
“There! That!” Ann grips Leslie’s wrist and jerks her head, and Leslie realizes she does hear something. A faint, low kind of indecipherable moan.
“Oh my god,” she squeals, reaching for Ann’s hand and squeezing. “Do you think we have a ghost? The realtor said there were no ghosts, but I don’t think she really knows anything about it, and oh, Ann, what if I’m finally living in real a haunted house?”
“I don’t think that’s a ghost.”
“Really?”
“It sounds like…Is that Ben?”
There’s another sound. It’s coming from the fireplace, Leslie realizes, and she stands up, dragging Ann with her across the room. She steps forward, turning and sticking her head up the chimney, and shouts, “Hello?”
“Leslie? Hello?”
“Ben?”
“Leslie?”
“Ben, what-Are you on the roof?”
There’s a pause before she hears a hesitant, “Yes. I’m stuck up here.”
What now? She pulls her head out of the fireplace so fast, she almost hits the mantle and looks at Ann, who seems to be suppressing a laugh. “He’s stuck on the roof.”
“Huh.”
Together, she and Ann wander outside, shivering against the biting chill in the air. It takes only seconds for Leslie to piece together what happened, judging by the lights on the house and the ladder lying on the lawn, and she’s honestly not sure if she wants to kiss him or kill him. “Ben?” she shouts, as she and Ann right the ladder against the low part of the roof. She starts to climb up, reaching the top just as Ben does.
“What the hell were you thinking?” she asks. “Going up on the roof by yourself? What if you fell? What if you fell, Ben? Ben-”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t…I just wanted to surprise you.”
He looks at her, all kinds of sorry and bashful and hopeful, and Leslie feels her concern melting a little because he’s just so stupidly sweet sometimes she can’t stand it. “Yeah,” she agrees, a hint of a smile overpowering her. “But promise me you won’t do this again.”
“I promise.” He leans down and kisses her with cold lips, a rather precarious move given that she’s on a ladder and he’s on the roof. “Can I come down now?”
“Absolutely.”
Lighter than Air
Leslie is pretty grateful that this disastrous evening didn’t manage to kill her engagement buzz. Since the moment Ben went down on one knee, she’s been floating on clouds, walking on sunshine, feeling lighter than air-whatever cliché you want to use. In the back of her mind, she’s been a little worried that she’s going to crash back to earth at some point, that something is going to come along to ruin this feeling, but tonight has basically proven that that’s impossible.
Nothing is going to kill her I’m marrying Ben Wyatt, the best man in the universe high.
And damn, if that isn’t a whole other high in itself…
Ben steps out of the cab, finally, clearly inhibited by his erection, but it doesn’t stop Leslie from grabbing him by the tie and pulling him in for another kiss.
The cab driver honks a couple of times as he pulls away. That should bother her more (maybe it will tomorrow, when she’s not, frankly, horny as fuck), but right now all she can think about is Ben. Ben’s lips on hers and Ben’s tongue slipping into her mouth and Ben’s hands cupping her upper thighs and pulling her up until her legs are wrapped around his waist.
It takes a long minute until Leslie realizes that this is a problem. Ben isn’t exactly moving with ease right now, and she has his tie loosened and half the buttons on his shirt undone and they’re on the front lawn.
“Ben,” she half-moans, half-whines. “Inside. Right now.”
He responds by scraping his fingers up her leg, under her dress, and tugging fruitlessly at her underwear. He’s still kissing her; hot, open-mouthed kisses under her chin and down her neck to her pulse point, where he stops and sucks, hard, and once he comes to his senses and realizes he can’t pull her underwear off while her legs are hooked around him, his fingers slip underneath the cotton and start rubbing sloppily against her folds.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She wants him so badly, maybe more than she’s ever wanted him before, and she’s bucking against his hand without thinking about it, but fuck, fuck, fuck, no, they’re outside.
“Ben-” She kicks her heels against his ass, trying to prompt him to move.
“You said inside.”
“God…Inside the house, you perv.”
Ben grins, scrapes his teeth against her neck, and then bites at her, and she groans, loudly. “Quiet,” he chastises. His fingers slow down a bit, caressing her more gently, and she whimpers. “Do you want the neighbors to hear?”
“We can’t do this out here.”
“Can’t we?” Two of his fingers slip inside of her, curling against her front wall, and instinctively, she rubs herself against his stomach. He’s still sucking at her neck, and god, she’s going to have to worry about covering up a hickey too, but no, no, no, she can’t think about that, can’t think about anything but the feeling of Ben’s fingers inside of her and the heat of his lips and how fucking good this feels…
“Ben…” Her fingers claw at his back, up into his hair, outright bucking against him now, and he fucking licks her neck, a long, hot draw of his tongue that makes her feel like she’s on fire. “Fuck,” she hisses, but then her words are lost in his mouth, muffled moans as he grips her ass with his other hand and holds her tight against him, fingers moving faster inside of her, and Leslie almost wants to cry because it’s all too much.
“Come on,” he whispers, kissing along her cheek up to her ear. He tugs her earlobe between his teeth and eggs her on. “Baby, come on. Let me see you…”
She buries her face in his neck, babbling nonsense into his skin, so close to the edge she’s about to go crazy, and then Ben twists his fingers, brushing against some sensitive spot inside of her, and she shatters. She clutches to Ben as her orgasm rips through her, pulling him tight against her, just holding him as close as she possibly can. Ben’s fingers are stroking her gently now, helping her ride it out, and god, what the fuck are they doing-this is so inappropriate.
“You’re going to pay for that,” she pants, nipping a little too hard at the skin of his neck.
Ben kisses the top of her head. “Looking forward to it.”