Chapter Text
Ben Wyatt has known Leslie Knope for a while now. He got approved by Ann, and he studies with her every afternoon on the bench in the courtyard. Sometimes, when she's tense, they go out and have some beers. Leslie talks a lot, and it seems like she trusts him enough to talk about things she wouldn't tell him if they had just met. Which is why he knew about Dave.
Dave was a red-headed boy who wasn't in any of their classes because he actually didn't take any classes. He was training to be a cop and did online courses. Even so, Ben was terrified of even the idea of meeting a cop-in-training, and avoided doing so as much as possible. Some nights, Leslie wasn't at the bench. The first few times, he called to check in. She was with Dave. Those days he felt too alone on the bench without her. Those days he either studied in the library or just went back home and studied in his room.
One day, as he's passing by the courtyard, on his way to another building, he spots her. She's in her favorite red coat even though the weather is warm. She's looking down but there's no binder or papers.
He runs over to her.
Even from a yard or two away, he knows she's crying. Not loud, hard sobbing, but she sniffles and lifts her quivering finger to her face.
"Leslie?" His voice is shaky. He doesn't know if he should whisper or not.
She pats the space beside her, and he sits in it, body turned to face her, elbow on the backrest of the bench and his other hand on his lap.
"What's up?" He asks.
She turns her body, but her head is still facing he shoes. She motions with her arms for him to come closer, and he scoots towards her. Soon, her arms are under his armpits so that her hands are pressed against his upper back and her head is on his shoulder, eye closed against is throat so he can feel her eyelashes, soggy and short and ticklish but he doesn't laugh. He can feel her body vibrate with every raspy breath she takes.
He embraces her, too, his satchel still on so he has to move as little as possible so the brass buckle won't hit Leslie in the eye. He pats her back.
He closes his eyes and he forgets about everything, including to freak about about missing what he was going to do. He continues to pat her back, and then to rub her neck with his thumb. After a while, she stops whimpering, each breath calm and sturdy.
She choses to speak. It breaks the trance. "Dave left."
He stays silent. He knows she's going to keep on talking. He doesn't bother.
"He's moving. To continue his training."
He feels her eyelids shutting tighter, and she pulls him closer so that her nose is now also against his throat, her ear against his chin. He can feel each breath on her skin. He can smell her scent. She wears perfume that smells like wildflowers. It smells so real he doubts it even is perfume. It probably is actually real wildflowers, and the warmth of the Sun.
He continues to stay silent.
"I liked him. He was nice to me."
When she speaks, her top lip brushes against his skin. When she speaks, the feeling in his stomach he has every time they're together knots in it's self. It hurts but he stays still for her.
"I'm going to miss him. I really am."
"I'm sorry."
And now it's her turn to fall silent. He doesn't mind. His breathing is steady now, too. She's warmer than usual, on her face and on the tips of her fingers and on her stomach and chest. His eyes are still closed and every time he breathes in, her wildflower scent makes him picture a long field of flowers. Their petals are the same color of her hair, a pale butterscotch. The Sun that shines on them is feverishly warm like her.
—
When his watch beeps and they have to part ways, he asks if she's okay. She gulps and nods her head quickly, but her hands are fists and her eyes are clenched shut. He brushes some strands of hair out of her face, and she grips onto his fingers, her palms pressing against his joints. She squeezes his hand twice, both times looking up at him with glassy eyes, and then she stands, without his help.
He walks with her out of the courtyard, and then he says goodbye to her. He watches her walk away, and when she's far enough away that if she turns around, he won't see her eyes, he turns around, too.
He knows it's too late to go to his club, so he sits down in his car and turns the air conditioning on. He reclines the seat so that he's laying down, and throws his satchel into the back seat. He closes his eyes and presses his thumbs against his eyelids and watches the strange shapes that form in the dark. He does this until he doesn't feel sweaty anymore.
He puts his seat back up and clicks on the seat belt. His whole drive home, her words replay in his mind, only that she's shouting them. It's like she wants him to know that she will miss him. He wants him to know that she liked Dave.
—
He has nothing to do when he gets home so he naps. Andy and April wake him up. They tell him he was shaking and whimpering a lot. April tells him that he was being annoying. She leaves when Andy asks him what's wrong. Ben tells him that he's fine, and that he doesn't recall anything from his dream, if he even had one.
He washes his face off in the bathroom sink and takes off his shirt so that he's in a white undershirt and he removes his belt and untied his shoes and strips off his socks. He stares at the ceiling for a while. Leslie's voice is a whisper now. He wouldn't know what she was saying if it wasn't etched in his mind.
He took some Asperin and has started working on a project when his watch beeps. He puts on a coat and slips on his shoes with no socks and gets in his car. He drives by the campus courtyard, but there's no sign of her. That's what he expected. He drives back and finishes his project with noise canceling headphones. Now, everything is completely silent, even in his mind. It hurts more than Leslie's voice shouting. It makes his hands tremble but he continues writing, he drinks some water and continues typing up his essay on his laptop. He forgets to eat, and when he showers, he stands his back to the showerhead so the water falls on his shoulders.
He turns off the lights and locks his door. He calls Leslie, the light of his phone flooding the room with a white glow that makes his eyes burn. It rings and rings and he yawns and then he goes to voicemail. He holds the phone away from his ear when the beep sounds so it doesn't worsen his headache, and then he leaves his message.
"Hey, Leslie. I passed by our bench and I didn't see you, so, uh, I wanted to check in to see if you're all right. I hope you're okay. If you need anything..." He goes to hang up, but he thinks of something to add. It makes the feeling in his stomach shake. "Also, um, maybe we can go out and have a beer some time." He apologizes and hangs up.
He thinks about what he apologized for; Dave breaking up or him asking her on a date. A semi-date. It wasn't romantic, was it?
He's asleep by then.
He dreams that he's soil, one with earth. He's looking up at the sky. It's blue and there's white clouds that don't move, so perfect and beautiful that it looks like a painting. There's a Sun, too, but it's so bright and big and white-hot that it's a big shiny blotchy dot on the canvas. He can see a woman. She's planting seeds in the soil. She waters them, him. And then she's gone. Time passes, night never falls, but the seedlings grow into wildflowers, their roots digging into him. Soon, she comes back. She's dressed in yellow and is accompanied by a faceless boy in red. They sit in the field. They chatter. The wind that passes by is colder. He feels colder, he envies the faceless boy. And the boy rips a flower out of his skin, and it doesn't hurt as much as watching the boy put the flower in her hair. She smiles and they kiss. They kiss all the way out of the field, holding hands so hard their knuckles are both white like the Sun. They want to have eachother for a long time. Time passes, night doesn't fall.
The flowers all wilt.