fic: first thanksgiving, leslie/ben, pg
title: First Thanksgiving
author:
shornt
pairing: Leslie/Ben, some ensemble~
rating: PG
words: ~1130
notes: I kept waiting for someone to write this and then decided it needed to just exist no matter what, so. Happy Thanksgiving to all fellow Americans, let's all be thankful for this stupid ship together.
“Bennnnnnnn, Ann’s gonna be here in a few hours, and we haven’t started the turkey, and--”
She’s cut off by another press of his lips, and she can’t help but dissolve into happy giggles as he drapes himself over her, mouth moving insistently against hers even as she feels the curve of his smile.
“Relax and enjoy the day, Les.”
“I will! It’s just, my grandma’s stuffing recipe takes forever, and--”
He’s been interrupting her with kisses for nearly an hour now, pulling her back between the sheets and into his arms. Since moving in together, his intuition about her waking up has vastly improved, and he managed to catch her around the waist as she tried sneaking out of bed at six.
“Why are you even up now?” she mumbles against his lips, and his palm slides up to graze her breast.
“It’s quite jarring when your thrashing suddenly stops in the morning,” he answers mindlessly, starting to kiss a trail down her neck. “I always wake up when you do, I just tend to fall back asleep.”
“Oh.” She should probably feel guilty, but Ben’s started easing her shirt up her ribcage. When his mouth starts wandering lower, she feels pretty damn thankful, so maybe it’s okay to sleep in on holidays.
---
Leslie’s thrown parties, but usually somewhere else. She takes over Ann’s house, or rents out the rec center, and she’s super good at that. She can hire caterers and DJs and put together the most fun night for Pawnee. It’s on her resume: ‘skilled at party planning.’
But this? This is different. This is a major holiday dinner, at her own home, and as half of a couple. Her and Ben hosting their first holiday together in their home. In their home. She has a ring on her finger, and a fiance, and they have a house together. It’s the weirdest and also the best and she can’t stop herself from pecking him on the cheeks and the lips and, in a weird miscalculation, the shoulder. And he similarly keeps touching her; a hand at the small of her back as she stirs the homemade cranberry sauce, squeezing her hand when he finishes stuffing the turkey.
While a few recipes come from the Knope side, this is a decidedly Wyatt Thanksgiving, as Leslie isn’t accustomed to so much cooking. She’s always lived alone, and always had JJs on speed dial for food emergencies. And there’s something thrilling about Ben taking charge, even if she’s dictating where everything goes and what order they do it in. He’s the one at ease in the kitchen, who fixes the green bean casserole when she “accidentally” burns it. (Who eats green beans, anyway?)
He lets her control the pies, because baking is something she can do, and she toils away at pumpkin and pecan and chocolate cream.
They leave the turkey for Ron to carve, and collapse into the couch in a heap. Ben reaches over to wipe a smudge of flour off her cheek, and she pushes him flat on his back and doesn’t come up for air until Ann interrupts with the doorbell.
---
After a long retelling of the first Thanksgiving, complete with historical massacre and deceit because there’s no sense in sugar coating history, Leslie makes everyone at the table rattle off something they’re thankful for. It’s more of a chore than it should be, but her and Ben’s first Thanksgiving at this house is going to be perfect, and there’s no better time than the present to start life-lasting holiday traditions.
Marlene kicks things off, praising Ben and Leslie as a couple as his hand finds Leslie’s thigh under the table and squeezes. Ann’s thankful for her friends, Andy for his “super hot wife,” Tom for his own business finesse (and after more badgering, for Ben’s help). April won’t give thanks for anything but the fact that Jerry’s spending his holiday at home with his own family, though Leslie doesn’t miss her whisper something sincere in Andy’s ear when everyone moves on. Donna’s thankful for the new Twilight movie, though a little precarious over the series’ end. Ron takes a lot of prodding and bugging, but eventually gives gruff thanks for Diane and abruptly forces everyone to start on something else.
Leslie lets Ben go before her, which was a bad idea, because his heartfelt thanks for Pawnee and his life now and "Leslie, especially," is making her more than a little misty, and he takes her hand and rubs his thumb against her ring, before April throws a few kernels of corn at his forehead.
And Leslie manages a few shaky words about friendship and love, gives thanks for her town and her family, and before she can even get into her diatribe on Ann as the perfect best friend and April as a beautiful young woman and Ben as the sexiest fiance ever, April and Tom both start chanting about food, and Leslie hopes every year is just like this one.
---
“We really have to watch White Christmas?”
“Thanksgiving is over. It’s Christmas now, Ben.”
“It’s been over for two hours.”
After the pies had been quickly inhaled by all involved, there seemed to be a mass exodus. Ron had plans for a later dinner with Diane and the girls, and Andy had promised Mrs. Ludgate to drag April to their dinner (their third of the day, after an earlier one with the Dwyers). Tom and Donna decided to catch the next showing of Breaking Dawn Part 2; her seventh time, his fifth. Marlene wished them all a good night with a round of hugs, and Ann took the cue and excused herself shortly after.
Once Leslie pressed play on the dvd, she started pulling boxes out of closets, untangling twinkly lights and piles of garland. Ben paused the movie and forced her to put everything down.
“Can we start Christmas tomorrow?”
“Black Friday, though! I have to be at Lady Place at 5am to get Ann something really good for Christmas!”
“Fine, tomorrow night. Or even Saturday. But can we please just enjoy tonight?”
She took a look around her. There was a fire crackling, Bing Crosby’s happy face in mid-song on the television, and Ben’s yawning through an oncoming turkey coma, his arm lazily but snugly wrapped around her waist.
“Okay.” She grins.
As Ben pulls her on top of him on the couch, draping the Unity quilt over them before resuming the dvd, she’s so stupidly grateful for her life right now.
He falls asleep within half an hour and she doesn’t wake him, just snuggles into his chest and listens to Rosemary Clooney croon, knowing that Thanksgiving can be like this every year for the rest of their lives.
author:
shornt
pairing: Leslie/Ben, some ensemble~
rating: PG
words: ~1130
notes: I kept waiting for someone to write this and then decided it needed to just exist no matter what, so. Happy Thanksgiving to all fellow Americans, let's all be thankful for this stupid ship together.
“Bennnnnnnn, Ann’s gonna be here in a few hours, and we haven’t started the turkey, and--”
She’s cut off by another press of his lips, and she can’t help but dissolve into happy giggles as he drapes himself over her, mouth moving insistently against hers even as she feels the curve of his smile.
“Relax and enjoy the day, Les.”
“I will! It’s just, my grandma’s stuffing recipe takes forever, and--”
He’s been interrupting her with kisses for nearly an hour now, pulling her back between the sheets and into his arms. Since moving in together, his intuition about her waking up has vastly improved, and he managed to catch her around the waist as she tried sneaking out of bed at six.
“Why are you even up now?” she mumbles against his lips, and his palm slides up to graze her breast.
“It’s quite jarring when your thrashing suddenly stops in the morning,” he answers mindlessly, starting to kiss a trail down her neck. “I always wake up when you do, I just tend to fall back asleep.”
“Oh.” She should probably feel guilty, but Ben’s started easing her shirt up her ribcage. When his mouth starts wandering lower, she feels pretty damn thankful, so maybe it’s okay to sleep in on holidays.
---
Leslie’s thrown parties, but usually somewhere else. She takes over Ann’s house, or rents out the rec center, and she’s super good at that. She can hire caterers and DJs and put together the most fun night for Pawnee. It’s on her resume: ‘skilled at party planning.’
But this? This is different. This is a major holiday dinner, at her own home, and as half of a couple. Her and Ben hosting their first holiday together in their home. In their home. She has a ring on her finger, and a fiance, and they have a house together. It’s the weirdest and also the best and she can’t stop herself from pecking him on the cheeks and the lips and, in a weird miscalculation, the shoulder. And he similarly keeps touching her; a hand at the small of her back as she stirs the homemade cranberry sauce, squeezing her hand when he finishes stuffing the turkey.
While a few recipes come from the Knope side, this is a decidedly Wyatt Thanksgiving, as Leslie isn’t accustomed to so much cooking. She’s always lived alone, and always had JJs on speed dial for food emergencies. And there’s something thrilling about Ben taking charge, even if she’s dictating where everything goes and what order they do it in. He’s the one at ease in the kitchen, who fixes the green bean casserole when she “accidentally” burns it. (Who eats green beans, anyway?)
He lets her control the pies, because baking is something she can do, and she toils away at pumpkin and pecan and chocolate cream.
They leave the turkey for Ron to carve, and collapse into the couch in a heap. Ben reaches over to wipe a smudge of flour off her cheek, and she pushes him flat on his back and doesn’t come up for air until Ann interrupts with the doorbell.
---
After a long retelling of the first Thanksgiving, complete with historical massacre and deceit because there’s no sense in sugar coating history, Leslie makes everyone at the table rattle off something they’re thankful for. It’s more of a chore than it should be, but her and Ben’s first Thanksgiving at this house is going to be perfect, and there’s no better time than the present to start life-lasting holiday traditions.
Marlene kicks things off, praising Ben and Leslie as a couple as his hand finds Leslie’s thigh under the table and squeezes. Ann’s thankful for her friends, Andy for his “super hot wife,” Tom for his own business finesse (and after more badgering, for Ben’s help). April won’t give thanks for anything but the fact that Jerry’s spending his holiday at home with his own family, though Leslie doesn’t miss her whisper something sincere in Andy’s ear when everyone moves on. Donna’s thankful for the new Twilight movie, though a little precarious over the series’ end. Ron takes a lot of prodding and bugging, but eventually gives gruff thanks for Diane and abruptly forces everyone to start on something else.
Leslie lets Ben go before her, which was a bad idea, because his heartfelt thanks for Pawnee and his life now and "Leslie, especially," is making her more than a little misty, and he takes her hand and rubs his thumb against her ring, before April throws a few kernels of corn at his forehead.
And Leslie manages a few shaky words about friendship and love, gives thanks for her town and her family, and before she can even get into her diatribe on Ann as the perfect best friend and April as a beautiful young woman and Ben as the sexiest fiance ever, April and Tom both start chanting about food, and Leslie hopes every year is just like this one.
---
“We really have to watch White Christmas?”
“Thanksgiving is over. It’s Christmas now, Ben.”
“It’s been over for two hours.”
After the pies had been quickly inhaled by all involved, there seemed to be a mass exodus. Ron had plans for a later dinner with Diane and the girls, and Andy had promised Mrs. Ludgate to drag April to their dinner (their third of the day, after an earlier one with the Dwyers). Tom and Donna decided to catch the next showing of Breaking Dawn Part 2; her seventh time, his fifth. Marlene wished them all a good night with a round of hugs, and Ann took the cue and excused herself shortly after.
Once Leslie pressed play on the dvd, she started pulling boxes out of closets, untangling twinkly lights and piles of garland. Ben paused the movie and forced her to put everything down.
“Can we start Christmas tomorrow?”
“Black Friday, though! I have to be at Lady Place at 5am to get Ann something really good for Christmas!”
“Fine, tomorrow night. Or even Saturday. But can we please just enjoy tonight?”
She took a look around her. There was a fire crackling, Bing Crosby’s happy face in mid-song on the television, and Ben’s yawning through an oncoming turkey coma, his arm lazily but snugly wrapped around her waist.
“Okay.” She grins.
As Ben pulls her on top of him on the couch, draping the Unity quilt over them before resuming the dvd, she’s so stupidly grateful for her life right now.
He falls asleep within half an hour and she doesn’t wake him, just snuggles into his chest and listens to Rosemary Clooney croon, knowing that Thanksgiving can be like this every year for the rest of their lives.