Chapter Text
Ben’s tired and the fluorescent lights of the community center are starting to give him a headache right behind his eyes. He should do more to help everyone clean up from the One Day Only Summer Fun Extravaganza!!! but he just needs a bottle of water from the vending machine. Hopefully Pawnee puts water in their vending machines, it wouldn’t surprise him if they didn’t.
“Ben!” Leslie squeals and he blinks, the muscles between his shoulders tensing. “Ben, come play! I beat everyone.”
He looks around the large room and everyone else is cleaning quietly and slowly. Ron is taking bags of trash (mostly colorful construction paper clippings and scraps and lots of glitter) out and Tom is nowhere to be seen. April and Andy are throwing a Nerf football back and forth while Ann picks up the piles of magazines from collage making.
Fine, this even was a good idea and the donation bucket was overflowing. Fine, fine. But he still has a headache.
“Ben!”
He finally looks over at Leslie. She’s wearing a pair of jeans and a baseball-t that has paint and glitter all over it. She got her face painted earlier in the day; he remembers watching her sit there, smiling as the artist (a friend of Leslie, as they all are, he’s come to find out) drew a pink and purple butterfly on her cheek. He almost got a Batman symbol painted on his own cheek but got distracted by a dodgeball outbreak before he could go through with it.
Her shoes are gone and she’s wearing light blue socks with a pattern of brown ponies and rainbows.
In front of her is a Twister mat. That would explain the lack of shoes.
“Play me! I’m very good.”
Ben hopes his neck isn’t red from thinking about her twisting around on that mat. How did he miss her playing this? Was this during the whole situation with some guy named Greg Pikitis that Ann sent him to deal with?
“Oh, I don’t really--”
“Come on, please?” Leslie jumps up and down, her pigtail buns bouncing and he notices one of the wings on her butterfly is smudged.
“Okay.”
Leslie claps her hands and squeals, “Yay,” as he walks up to her and his headache is still buzzing in his head, but it is dulling a bit.
She warns him again about her talent as he toes off his shoes. He tucks his tie between two buttons on his shirt and rolls his shoulders. He looks at Leslie, ready, and she looks away quickly, moving to pick up the spinner.
“Left foot blue,” Leslie announces and Ben steps onto the mat. She does the same, wiggling her toes.
“Nice socks,” Ben says.
Leslie grins but shakes her head as she flicks the spinner. “Don’t try to distract me.”
Right hand yellow, left foot red, left hand green.
Ben’s headache starts again as he bends over but he fights through it. Leslie smells like vanilla and something like deodorant. She giggles when she turns her body so she can position herself like she’s crab walking. She asks him to spin because of her balance and he goes easy and agrees, even though he should use it as a way to sabotage her.
Also, it means he has to reach over her. He can feel her breasts along his stomach and she inhales, only pushing her chest closer. Ben spins and quickly moves back.
“Right foot red,” Leslie says.
They move and laugh their way through a few more spins. Ben forgets about his headache and they start bantering, trying to convince the other to, “Just give up,” even though they aren’t struggling yet. He teases her and she laughs, she bumps his hip with her elbow to sway him to the ground. He pokes the soft spot in her side between her hip and her rib cage and she bursts out laughing and wiggling. She doesn’t fall but Ben’s stomach does a little.
“Right foot green!” Leslie announces, laughing.
Ben looks at his options and laughs along with her. This might be what brings one of them down.
“You first,” Ben says.
“No, you go.”
“I insist.”
She’s giggling and nudging him with her elbow again. “Please, good sir, go.”
“No, you.”
“You!”
“Fine,” Ben laughs.
He pushes off his right hand and launches himself forward sideways as he twists his legs. He’s losing traction. He whispers a curse and wobbles but reaches out for Leslie’s shoulder. She squeals and calls him a cheater and Ben holds onto her longer, convincing himself it’s to bring her down and not to feel the heat radiating off her body. He’s started sweating, too. Ben clenches his stomach muscles and pushes forward, sending his torso over Leslie’s body, one hand still strong on the ground while his other lands on the other side of her. On green.
If he moves his head a little to the right he could kiss her. If he slides his right hand up and lets go and loses this game, he could touch her arm, her shoulder, maybe push his hand through her hair. It’s a little wispy from the day and God, it makes her beautiful. A day of work looks perfect on Leslie Knope.
He keeps his head turned away from her but it doesn’t help whatever’s bubbling in his chest right now. It’s sending waves of electricity through his body and his heart won’t stop hammering in his ears. Leslie’s chest is expanding under his and he can feel her breath on his neck, in his ear. He swallows a moan when he hears her lick her lips.
“I” -- she clears her throat -- “I don’t think I can get to green.”
“Are you claiming defeat, Knope?” He hopes his voice sounds strong and cocky and not at all like the shaky mess he is.
Leslie leans up and he inhales when she speaks directly into his ear. “You wish.”
Ben turns to her and their noses brush before she can look away in time. He closes his eyes and sighs, trying to get himself in control, but then she starts moving beneath him. How stupid of him to think she’d give up like that, as if a whole human body over her could prevent her from accomplishing the impossible. He arches his back to give her more room as she squirms beneath him, grunting and cursing and giggling in a beautiful chorus that makes him need to close his eyes and think about baseball stats.
“Ah ha!” Leslie yells.
She’s curled up beneath him and hardly holding on, her fingers slipping and sliding over her own green circle. She could go down easily, and Ben really should just nudge her and end this ridiculous game, but as usual, she surprises him and makes him want more.
Ben reaches and spins. Right foot blue. Right foot red.
They curse at the same time. Leslie’s is a little more PG-rated and it makes Ben’s heart skip.
“No, no, wait, this can work,” Leslie says. She explains their moves step by step, and Ben listens, nodding along the way. First Ben has to untangle his legs and turn into his own version of Leslie’s crab walk. He spins around and while his foot is in the air, Leslie does her own spin and takes her foot over him. They land their right feet on red at the same time.
Their next words come out in sync again.
“Crazy kangaroos.”
“Good Lord.”
Leslie’s legs are straddling his lap, her torso flat against his. He can’t move any farther away without his ass hitting the mat, causing him to lose, and she can’t get any further away from him because of her short legs. He can feel the round of her ribcage, the nice perk to her breasts, and he’s lost in her sky eyes and rosy lips. She’s been biting her lip like she does sometimes when she’s mad at him or thinking of a way out of one of his “No”s, turning her mouth a nice, deeper pink. She blinks and looks down to his lips and he mirrors her glance.
“Maybe,” Ben whispers, “you should spin.”
She nods, but doesn’t move. He licks his lips and she falls a little onto him, her forehead barely touching his. Ben pushes his chin up so their noses touch. His arms begin to shake, but he pushes up anyway.
Ben yelps as Leslie pinches his side and he reaches his hand up to grab her but he loses balance and falls. Leslie is laughing, the sound echoing off the walls of the community center. Ben flattens out on the mat in defeat, trying to get his heart to beat in a normal rhythm and forget what her nose felt like on his or how perfect her lips looked to taste.
“I win! Suck it!”
Ben looks up at her as she springs up, wiggling her hips and pumping her arms. He wants to be mad and call her a cheater, but he can’t stop smiling at her as she bounces around in victory.
Ron walks up to her, not all fazed by her dancing and gloating. “Congratulations. Are you ready to go?” he asks.
“Rematch,” Ben says, throwing his fist in the air.
Leslie turns back to him, eyes narrowing. “You’re on.”
“I don’t care,” Ron says, dropping the keys at her feet. “Goodnight to you both.”
Leslie grabs the spinner and flicks the arrow, eyes locked on him. Ben smirks at her, stomach burning. She takes a step toward him. The fire in her eyes terrifies him but also makes him want to devour her.
Instead, he’ll play this game. Hopefully he’ll win this time.