Posts tagged fic!.

Asked by Anonymous

Leslie’s never been known for her patience; she’s eaten her fair share of limp microwaveable dinners because who has the time to let it sit 1-2 minutes after cooking?

So six months? That’s basically a lifetime. Only five of them are up but she’s chomping at the bit to have her boyfriend back. And she’s so happy for him, knows he likes the work he’s doing and knows it’s something important. She can wait the extra month for him to come home, because she loves him and owes him.

But her other plans? They’re getting a little harder to throw on the back burner.

Which is why, on her last visit before he comes home in a few weeks, she finds herself blurting, “We should just get married!” in a moment of happiness as they look at the Washington Memorial in the sunset.

“Um,” Ben replies, cocking his head to the side. But he’s smiling.

“I meant to say that in a better way. And not right now.” She can feel her cheeks burning. Crap, crap, crap.

But they don’t leave the spot until a security guard eyes them suspiciously after dark, and she giggles as she tries to hide her swollen lips and they take the long way back to his apartment.

Patience might be a virtue, but not waiting has its benefits.

Asked by stillscape

So it’s a little weird when Leslie picks him up at the airport looking like she’s about to burst.

“We have to find a table and chairs!” she insists. “Ann’s waiting with the car - just go!”

And once they’re seated on opposite side of a table, her face about to crack in half under her smile, she slips a familiar red box onto the tabletop.

“Leslie,” he starts, confused. “What?”

“I got it out of your stuff last time I visited, I couldn’t wait for you to use it again!”

Of course she did.

“Open it! Or wait, no, I will.”

She cracks the box open. Inside is a brightly polished house key.

“So I know you had a key to my place already. But I had to get the locks changed while you were gone. Raccoons.” He nods in understanding. “And, I thought, we always put stuff in this that pulled us apart. But I say you bring all your stuff back to my place now. And now the box can bring us together.”

—-

The box he pulls out a few months later is the same color, though smaller and velvet. She doesn’t seem to mind.

Asked by cinnamonbunza

Leslie’s been emailing him for two weeks straight, at least five times a day (though usually twelve). Pages and pages of Yelp reviews, transcribed chunks of old guide books, Amazon receipts for new guide books, anecdotes from past trips and hopes for new memories.

He doesn’t have the heart to remind her that he’s been to DC before. And even if he did, she’d keep sending the emails anyway. And they make him smile; especially when she adds a picture in at the end, usually her blurry hand waving into the webcam, a smile on her face.

Two weeks. It’s been two weeks.

She’s coming out for a few days, and in just three more weeks, he’s planning on taking a long weekend in Pawnee. But for now, he just leans against his rental car, tapping his foot against the asphalt in anticipation.

“Ben!” he hears, and he whips his head to see a flurry of blonde hair trying to drag too much luggage. And he’s lost.

Two hours later, she tugs on the sheets and lifts her head off his chest.

“Wait! I wanted to go to the Smithsonian today, and if we don’t go soon, we won’t even see half of it, and what’s the point of—”

He cuts her off with a kiss. Which he’s missed doing.

“I’ve been there three times, and you’ve been there seven times. But we’ve only done this,” and he points around the bed, “twice since you’ve gotten here.”

She giggles and hits him in the chest and doesn’t leave the bed for the rest of the afternoon.

pairing: Leslie/Ben, though this is also an ensemble fic
rating: PG13
words: ~1700
notes: So last night I was like just a ball of feelings and had to get it out and spent all night writing this a bit at a time. This show, you guys. Sitcoms shouldn’t be allowed to make me feel this many things. Also SPOILERS FOR THE FINALE.

“Guys, we’re going to JJs for victory waffles, and then we’re staying up all night talking about our lives and our feelings — non-negotiable.”

Leslie’s a woman of her word.

Asked by fairytiger

“Beeeeen, come on, I really think you should tonight. It’s your last night!”

“I don’t know, Andy, I’d rather keep them out of my hair.”

“Not playing doesn’t keep you safe,” April warns.

“Dude, you’re hardly ever home, and if you are it’s with Leslie. And she’s super cool and the best, but she’s not a roomie like us. Pleeeaaase?”

Ben looks up into Andy’s puppy dog face, and then looks down to the pink plastic in Andy’s outstretched hand. He sighs and runs a hand down his face.

“We can make this night easy, or hard.” April leers at him.

“Fine. Give it to me. But just a quick one.”

The second the handle is secure in his palm, Andy’s shot six marshmallows at his head, ducking behind the kitchen counter with an obnoxious giggle.

“I didn’t do nothin’ wrong!” April shrieks, in that weird voice she does, and runs over to follow him. Ben just stares.

“Come onnnn,” Andy stage-whispers. “It’s no fun if you don’t shoot!”

He pulls and releases, watching the puffy marshmallow arc over the counter.

“Weak!” Andy taunts, and Ben smiles. He might miss them once he’s gone, just a little.

Asked by stillscape

“I told you, Ben, I don’t mind leaving the place like this!”

Ben’s rolling up some odd posters, Leslie packing away the whiteboard. It had been a week since she’d won, and they spent so much time celebrating that no one ever got around to breaking down campaign headquarters. But Ben had started packing his things to move into Leslie’s, and it was time to get rid of the mess.

“You don’t mind having Leslie’s face staring at you from every wall?” he asks Andy, and Leslie giggles.

“Memories. I liked having everyone over all the time! And Champion likes her face.” Andy points down to the dog, happily wagging his tail as he watches them all from next to April on the couch.

It was a lot to get through, and Leslie kept trying to sneak things into a box to take home.

“You heard Andy! Memories!”

“You don’t need a box of leftover fliers for that bowling party, Les. Who needs to remember that?”

“I don’t mind remembering that night,” she says in a low voice, sauntering over to press her lips against his.

“Ew, stop, or I’m gonna hang all these posters back up,” April threatened.

Somehow, Leslie had gotten away with the banner chunk from the ice rink, and hung it up proudly next to Diaphenia.

“Powerful women,” he ruminates, and she nods happily.

Asked by laurenmasterson

Once the rally started dying down, Leslie was too bouncy to quit the party. She somehow coerced everyone to the Snakehole Lounge — she promised Ben that she wouldn’t get sloppy, she was just too excited and had to dance.

“Also,” she whispered to him in secrecy, “Donna wants to kink in Operation Wasted Panda.” She screws up her face. “Manatee? Sloth? Hmm, what animal do you think best represents Jerry?”

So while Leslie and Ann jump around the dancefloor in celebration, Ann yelling “Councilwoman!” at every opportunity possible, Donna and Tom had surrounded Jerry at the bar.

“I don’t know, you guys. Gale is pretty strict, she told me no more for tonight—”

“Leslie just won City Council,” Tom insists, drawing out the words in a whine. “She wants you to have fun. Don’t you want to have fun?”

Jerry looks unsure.

Ben decides to join Leslie, twirling her and attempting not to make a fool out of himself. By the next time he checks back in with Jerry, he’s slumped over on the bar top, muttering nonsense about home repair.

“I think we succeeded,” Donna smugly announces, high fiving Tom. When Ben looks curious, she explains, “He’s only ever gotten drunk off Snake Juice, so we thought it was about time.”

“Operation Inebriated Hippopotamus worked!” Leslie exclaims. “Two wins in one night, wow!” Jerry grunts against the table and she frowns. “Don’t be such a mess, Jerry.”

Asked by intoyoursunlight

“Come on, it’s just a simulation!”

Which sounds really silly when it’s shouted over the noise of a wind machine, going crazy at the bottom of an indoor skydiving bay. He tries to remember how on earth Leslie talked him into this.

“Why?” he yells back, and she gives him a look.

“April,” is all she says, and then he remembers, oh yeah, April had given them some pointer on young kids wanting to see Leslie do something extreme. How was “extreme” still a thing outside of the 90s? Did they want him to put bumper stickers of Calvin peeing on his skateboard too?

Leslie took “extreme” to the, well, extreme, and proposed a small fundraiser at the indoor sports complex on the edge of town. She’d already climbed her way up the rock wall (Ben bowed out at Level 3; heights weren’t his thing), and now, they were at the grand opening of Pawnee’s brand new indoor skydiving simulation.

He feels like he’s gonna barf.

“Come on,” she yells again, gripping his gloved hand tightly. And he trusts her, so they jump together.

As they nurse odd aches and pains later that day (as it turns out, it’s all up to you to keep your back straight), Leslie sighs.

“That plan seemed a lot less stupid in my head,” she grouses, wincing.

“You’re the Knope lady?” asks an approaching teenager, his light brown flippy hair hiding his face. (What is it with kids and hair in the face?) She immediately turns to campaign mode, grinning and nodding. “Dude, that was sick. I’m for sure telling my mom to vote for you, or else I’m gonna blade all over her rose bush again, and she was mad wild last time I did that.”

“Oh, thanks!” She shakes his hand and Ben feels relieved, at least, that this got through to at least one person.

As he takes her hand on the way to the parking lot, Leslie admits, “I don’t know what any of those things he said meant.”

Asked by unicornery

“So I’ve packed all the essentials: towels, swim goggles, a snorkel, sunscreen — you probably won’t need much, sweet, tan Ann—”

Ann’s nose scrunches up in confusion as Leslie keeps going down the list of things in her bulging beach bag. She looks to Ben, who just watches Leslie with a slight smile, nodding occasionally at her list.

Ugh, boyfriends. Ann’s sworn off boys for the remainder of high school ever since Tom tried to ask her to prom by painting a banner of her in her swimsuit and hanging it in the cafeteria.

“Well, it sounds like we’re prepared,” Ben says with affection, reaching over to yank at a curl that fell out of Leslie’s ponytail. And now, Ann’s starting to forget why she bothered third wheeling with them when she could come to the Pawnee Pool any time she wants with Donna.

She spots Donna floating on a pool noodle with a smoothie in her hand, chatting up five senior boys, and that scrawny sophomore Jean Ralphio. Ah, that’s right.

Despite Leslie’s opinion, Ann accepts the sunscreen, frowning when she can’t reach that part of her back that Ben is assisting Leslie with.

“Oh Ann, here!” Leslie takes the bottle and helps her out, patting on her shoulders when she’s finished. “I told Ben that it’s our tradition to do the slides first, so he’s gonna let us get the double tube and he’ll just go behind us.”

She looks questioningly at Ben, who smiles and shrugs.

Okay, so she sorta gets it. And she’s at least glad that, boyfriend or not, Leslie Knope doesn’t change.

Asked by lizdexia

“Leslie, I really think the screw goes in this hole — what else would it be for?”

“Well it doesn’t say that on the instructions, and I told you, Ben. I have a knack for furniture! Now move.”

She shoves him to the side, her tongue poking out the side of her mouth as she focuses on the desk leg. Ben sighs, dusting the cardboard debris off his pants. He reaches for the instructional packet that came with the desk and flips through the pages.

“The instructions are in Swedish,” he says plainly, holding it out for her to see. “How can you even tell?”

“Well ‘skruva’ means ‘screw,’ that isn’t hard. I put together a lot of the furniture in this house, whatever Ron didn’t build for me. And I took woodwork in high school, and got an A+.” She flashes him a winning smile.

“I still really think—” but he’s interrupted as the leg pops into place, tightly connected to the top of the desk. “How did you do that?”

Leslie just winks. She shoos him away as he reaches to help with the next one, assuring him that even though it’s his new desk for her house, she’s the one who knows what she’s doing.

And it’s impressive to watch, as her brows furrow at the instructions and the desk comes together in her hands. She smacks the instructions down with a triumphant “Ha!” when she finishes, wiping sweat off her brow with her wrist.

“Told you, Ben. You don’t mess with the best.”

He makes a show of swiping the instructions off the desk, flourishing his hand, before he grabs her around the waist, gently pressing her down against the top.

“So I think we should skruva,” he says straight faced, and she giggles as he kisses down her neck.