Roommates, part 1/?
Title: Roommates, part 1/?
Author: sunnyday678
Characters/Ships: Ben/Leslie
Rating: G/PG - early chapters; PG-13/R - later chapters
Summary: Leslie invites Ben to be her roommate; begins at the end of "Master Plan".
Author's Notes: First time fanfic-er here. I already have the first few chapters written, but feedback on where this story may go is welcome!
(1)
Ben hid the smirk on his face at her "Whoomp - There It Is!" joke. He looked down at the bar and lightly rubbed his fingertips over the napkin that was under his beer bottle.
Leslie was sharp and witty... And pretty. Professionally pretty and put together, he mentally corrected himself. He was glad he'd asked her out for a beer at 10:30 in the morning -- clearly not your typical Happy Hour, but what felt like a good time to get away from the office and office politics, more importantly. But still, he couldn't figure out what had come over him: he's usually not so bold with women, in a non-professional capacity that is. That was it then: he'd already acted bold and brash and, according to Leslie, ass-like with her over the needs and demands of her government, so that had clearly spilled over. Yep, that was it.
But their conversation at the bar had veered slightly off the professional course when they started talking about his brief time as Mayor of Partridge, Minnesota, and he liked how sweet and almost shy she got when he asked her about her own political aspirations. He smiled at the thought, and caught the goofy smile in the slight reflection the bar made. He looked up quickly hoping Leslie hadn't noticed.
She had though. She was looking straight at him, squinting her eyes a little in confusion. But she didn't say anything, and soon turned her attention to the bartender, who had taken up her credit card and the bill. He was chatting with a vendor pushing a delivery cart, and Ben watched Leslie's eyes widen when he disappeared through the kitchen door with the vendor without ringing them up.
"Crap, he's going to make us late getting back to the office," she said. She turned to look at him again, sighing a little. "I guess that's what we get for coming to a bar at 10:30 in the morning: you can't exactly expect the best customer service."
"Yeah..." Ben said, trying to think of something else, something as sharp and witty as her past several zingers, but coming up empty.
"So," Leslie began again, interrupting his thoughts. "Where are you staying while you're here in Pawnee?" Her face had lost the lightness it'd had when they were talking politics (particularly his failures in politics). She looked like a little bored, like she was trying to be polite and make conversation while they waited for the bartender to return.
But Ben pressed on. "The Pawnee Super Suites," he replied. "It's really very charming if you find a musty and dark bedroom charming. And if you like to be woke up at 3AM every night to the green glow of the Sweetum's factory sign coming through your window. And if you think bedbugs are cute..." he trailed off.
Leslie's eyes squinted again, and her mouth puckered a little. "Hang on," she said. "You're staying at the Pawnee Super Suites?"
Ben looked at her in confusion. "Yeah?"
"And where's Chris staying?"
"He has an old college buddy who lives just outside of town, so he's staying with him."
"Huh," she smirked, the lightness coming back. But there was something else there too, and Ben couldn't decide if he liked where this was going.
"Where are you going with this?" he asked slowly.
Leslie's smirk transformed into a big, devious smile. She kept her eyes trained on him while folding her hands on top of one another on the bar and seeming to sit up a bit straighter.
"So you're telling me that my department is wasteful and maybe even frivolous with our spending, and at the very same time you're staying all expenses paid at the Pawnee Super Suites on the Indiana tax payer's dollar?" When she finished she quirked her head up a bit to the side.
Ben's face scrunches up a bit as he leans back in his chair. He immediately decides that's uncomfortable, so he sits up straight, only to lean back again quickly. He never was good at looking casual.
Leslie, on the other hand, looks perfectly at ease, although her voice rises and falls at a rapid pace. "How much does it cost to stay there a night, hmm? $40 bucks? No, I heard they're fumigating so they must have lowered the price to $29.99... And you've been there 3, 4, 5 nights so far? And you may be there all summer on top of that? I know they don't offer a cheaper monthly rate, not after that Zorp cult moved in a couple of winters ago and said they wouldn't leave until Zorp himself landed his ship in the parking lot to rescue them. That didn't happen, as you can imagine, but the police couldn't get a warrant to remove them until after the Memorial Day weekend, meaning they were there for nearly half a year. Are you going to be there half a year, Ben? Or maybe 10 years? Because according to my calculations that's at least $3 million dollars of hard-working Indiana tax payers' money being thrown down the drain on you and your high thread count sheets and your continental breakfasts and your turndown service and your Pay per View movies and..."
"Whoa!" Ben interrupted. He'd quickly gone from embarrassed and uncomfortable, to confused (Who the hell was Zorp?), back to uncomfortable (Had some of the cult members stayed in his room?), and finally to angry. "You're from here, so I'm sure you're aware that the Pawnee Super Suites does not have high thread count sheets or turndown service or any of those things. They do have HBO but it's really grainy... Anyway, it is by far the cheapest motel in the city, and workers who travel, government or otherwise, get travel comp's, okay? So I'm not going to apologize for what is a standard industry practice, especially when I'm not taking advantage of it. I'm not staying at the Four Seasons. I'm not even staying at a Super 8, and, believe me, after staying at the Super Suites I have a whole new appreciation for them."
"It doesn't matter where you stay. And it doesn't matter if you're entitled to free room and board while on travel." Leslie said, the slightest bit calmer but still with a great deal of force. "If you're spending money that would otherwise go toward government salaries -- the very salaries you plan on cutting from our budget -- then no one on your Budget Task Force, no one at City Hall period will take you seriously. Your partner, for crying out loud, is staying with a friend and not spending his travel comp's!"
Her eyes narrowed and her voice dropped lower. "You may end up gutting our budget with a machete, firing people, burning down City Hall even, but it won't matter. In the end you'll be something a lot worse than a jerk or an ass or a facist tard -- you'll be a hypocrite. And everyone will know it." With that, she leaned back thoughtfully in her chair, and turned her gaze back toward the kitchen door that the bartender had left through.
Ben stared at her, a bit dumbfounded but also angry. Angry because, while her argument was entirely ridiculous (travel comp's are standard!), she was right that it would be a long, hard-fought battle with the Pawnee government when they learned he was spending their money on himself. It was reasonable to, and any sensible person would understand that, but she was right: it wouldn't matter to them. He'd get the evil eye all summer. He'd have to deal with snarky, passive aggressive comments in the Budget Task Force meetings. He'd walk down the hall and hear the low murmur of conversations that were surely about him and how much of a hypocrite he was. In his job, he'd dealt with a lot of bad treatment, that's for sure, but he'd never had Leslie Knope egging it on.
"What do you propose I do, then?" he said, trying to look calm and sincere on the outside, while on the inside he was anything but.
Leslie turned to him. Her eyes looked up to the ceiling, and her mouth puckered again. She was clearly thinking. He smiled a little, one because she looked cute when she was thinking, and two because he was sure she wouldn't be able to come up with anything since there was no other option for him but the Pawnee Super Suites. He could try and live out of his office, but that wouldn't work because it wouldn't make Leslie look good, and that's what this was ultimately about. He'd come in and threatened her department -- her very existence, really -- and now she was grasping at straws, trying to regain the upperhand any way she could.
He reached for the bottle in front of him to take the very last swig of now warm beer. His smile turned a little devious.
Unfortunately, so did hers.
"You could stay with me. I have a spare room."
He nearly choked on the beer.
On to chapter 2, part 1: http://sunnyday678.livejournal.com/2012/02/17/