FIC: let’s not take our time (Parks & Recreation, Leslie/Ann, PG-13)

Title: let’s not take our time
Author: aphrodite_mine
Info: Parks & Recreation. Spoilers for the new season. Takes place a few months after “I Am Leslie Knope”

–

Ann steps out of her bathroom, wrapped loosely in a towel, her hair clinging to her head and neck. It’s the sort of shower exit one makes when they are completely alone, have the house shut tight, the curtains closed. She’s humming, some unchained melody (but not “Unchained Melody” and don’t get that stuck in her head — there was this miserable week in college…) that Leslie thinks she recognizes, but quickly puts out of her mind when the towel slips, Ann stretching to flick off the hallway light, the fabric dropping below a perfect breast.

Leslie might — might — make a kind of surprised squeek at that, unintentionally revealing her presence. She had intended to simply shout “Hello!” when using her key to get in, and Ann would poke her head around the kitchen island, smile, and offer to make a hot chocolate. But there was no answer to Leslie’s exuberant “hello” and now it’s too late for any casual introduction of the idea of another body in the house. “Ann!” Leslie tosses her jacket on a chair. “What are you doing here?” It’s the first thing that comes to her mind, watching Ann scramble to cover up, blush creeping up her cheeks.

“I should probably be asking you that question.” Ann has a point.

“You have a point.” Leslie exhales, pbbbt. “I needed you. I mean. I need you.”

“At, ah, 10:40 at night?” Ann hikes up the towel, leaning to look at the kitchen clock. Leslie wonders if shouldn’t put on some clothes, but she’s not going to be the one to suggest it. “You didn’t think maybe you should call first?”

“You gave me a key for this very situation!”

Ann looks at her suspiciously. “You just got bit by a wild animal and the hospital is too far away?”

“A reporter found out about Ben and I.” Ben and me, Leslie corrects herself, but doesn’t say it aloud. It’s too horrible.

Ann’s face drops, but the towel stays in place. “Shit, Leslie. Let me get dressed. Hang on.” She steps back out of view, and Leslie thinks, “Hang on” doesn’t necessarily mean “Don’t follow me,” and really, she can’t be expected to wait any longer just standing around in Ann Perkins’ living room. She had to listen to the water run for hours practically, just waitin for Ann to make an appearance in the first place. So she follows her.

“So it turns out that city hall has some ancient security system and that horrible reporter who spun the raccoon story–”

Ann turns around, clutching at her breasts. They really are perfect. “Jesus, Leslie. Boundaries?” Her cheeks are running scarlet, but she doesn’t look away for a long moment, a long moment during which Leslie’s insides heat up to match. Then, there’s Ann’s bare behind, just round enough, and long legs. Perfectly smooth and tan and warm-looking, and soft. She slides a pair of boxers up, stepping in one leg at a time. Then, still turned around, she reaches for a t-shirt (Scarecrow Boat, Leslie sees, when Ann turns around) and tugs it over her head, shaking her wet hair like a dog. “You really couldn’t wait five minutes for me to be, you know, not naked?”

“I’m trying to tell you, Ann.” Leslie can’t help how desperate her voice sounds. It scares her, a little.

Ann’s face softens, and God, that’s why she loves her. “Tell me what, Les?”

“This is a really horrible time for a scandal, you know? Ben knew that,” Leslie pauses, shakes her head. “I mean, he knows that. And we were careful, weren’t we?”

Ann nods, confirms. “You were careful.”

Leslie plops down on Ann’s bed. It smells like her; clean and faintly of something fruity. Ben always smelled good too, and sometimes when she catches a whif of him in the halls, she stops and just breathes. But it was nothing like the way Ann smells. Not like oh jeez Ann, you smell! You’ve got cooties!, but more like. Leslie shakes her head. Like something she wanted to come home to. And she knew it the first time they met. “You’re my best friend, you know.” The progression makes sense in Leslie’s mind. It’s self-assurance more than anything. Best friends don’t think about things like laying back and pressing her nose to the comforter…

Ann’s smile is slow and sweet. Like caramel. She sits down on the bed next to Leslie. “What can I do to help?” That’s the nurse in her, Leslie thinks, smiling despite the horrible situation.

And it really is horrible. It’s one thing to deal with scandal for love, for someone you really want to spend the rest of your life with. But Ben — as great as he is about all of this — is a chapter Leslie has closed the book on. And maybe she’s mixing her metaphors (she never did all that great with that sort of thing) but Ann — beautiful Ann — is someone Leslie isn’t writing out of her story any time soon. It’s just. It’s such a bad time for a scandal.

“You’re helping already,” Leslie sighs, scooting over and dropping her head to Ann’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I walked in without permission.” She’s frustrated. This is terrible timing, which that damn reporter very well knows, and she could have at least gone after something current, something relevant. “Ann?”

She works her fingers through the drying hair. “Mm?”

“I’m over Ben.”

Ann turns to her and smiles. “I figured you were. You haven’t mentioned him in weeks.” She tucks back a piece of Leslie’s hair behind her ear. “Has he heard about this reporter business? He could get in trouble too.”

Leslie shrugs. “Ron will vouch for us. I mean, will vouch against us.” She frowns. “Not that the truth matters.”

Ann blinks. “Of course the truth matters, Les.”

It’s the kind of thing that Leslie’s worn like a badge for years. The Truth Matters. But real politics, she’s learning, don’t always have so much to do with things like truth, and the right thing. They’re more obsessed with scandals and fixing (but first making) mistakes. Her election advisors keep telling her that she’s been sheltered, and even though that’s ridiculous, frankly, Leslie might be starting to believe it. “What if no one knows the truth, Ann?”

“Not even you?”

Leslie shakes her head, makes a frustrated noise. “Of course I know, don’t be ridiculous.”

“So, then someone knows, don’t they?”

“But what if the truth is incomplete, like that Al Gore movie about the whales.”

“Inconvenient? Then I suppose you have to decide what to do with it.”

“What if it’s a really bad time for the truth, and what if the person who the truth involves doesn’t want to hear it, and what if this could change just about everything, Ann, what then?” Leslie’s sat up, clambored for Ann’s hands and is clutching them with her own. She might be squeezing a little hard.

Ann narrows her eyes, and to her credit, doesn’t try to escape Leslie’s vice grip. “This isn’t about Ben, is it?”

“What if it’s about someone else. Someone whose name rhymes with Man Merkins?” Merkins? Leslie makes a panicked face and scrambles off the bed. Vagina wig. She just said vagina wig, oh god. She’s at the door by the time Ann finds her voice, and it’s definitely because of the vagina wig thing and not because of the giant truth hanging between them like the scent of corn syrup on the drive past Sweetum’s. Sweet, full of promise. No.

“Leslie.”

She stops dead in her tracks, but she’s ready to run if this goes south. She’s always ready.

“What if you don’t know the whole story? Hmm? Have you thought about that?”

Leslie turns around, slowly. She chews on her bottom lip. “I’m over Ben, Ann, and I have been for a long time, and he was sweet — actually, really, sweet — but he isn’t.” She looks worried for a moment, but then determined. All in, she thinks. “He isn’t you.” And Leslie doesn’t know what she expects; for Ann to get up, cup her chin in her hand and lean in for a slow kiss that tastes a little like honey; for Ann to lie back, whisper Oh Leslie; for Ann to slap her, demand she leaves; for Ann to slip past her into the kitchen and ask her if she’d like white or regular hot chocolate…

But she doesn’t anticipate the way Ann just… doesn’t react. Leslie gears up to run, again.

“This is a really bad time for a scandal, isn’t it?” Ann says, thoughtful, but giving nothing away.

“Yeah. It really is.”

“It’s probably a good thing I’m not your boss.”

Leslie surprises herself with the tiny whimper of excitement that escapes. She runs, but back into Ann’s bedroom and jumps onto the bed, jostling her best friend. Her hands are balled up in fists so she doesn’t do something before she’s absolutely sure. “Is it?” she asks with more caution than she’s used in a long time.

Ann reaches over, runs her thumb across Leslie’s bottom lip. “You know, I still have those posters from The Bulge. That’s a pretty significant voting margin.” Leslie can’t stop herself from leaning into the touch, though she grabs at the comforter for leverage against grabbing Ann forcefully, tasting her, whispering against her mouth.

“God, Ann. You’re so beautif–”

The kiss cuts her off, and she’s sure.

So, so sure. Surer than she has been of anything. (Even being the first lady president, and that’s saying something.)