Ron Swanson's office was not designed to be open and inviting, which reflected the man who worked in it. Even those in the parks department knew not to go inside unless it was absolutely necessary, and maybe not even then. Yet whether it was necessary or not, Leslie Knope always managed to barge her way in there, for whatever she needed from him, without a second thought.
But for the first time ever, Leslie actually felt the kind of dread at coming in that Ron had always wanted to inspire. She knew it was irrational, since she knew that he'd say yes to what she wanted to ask him- eventually. In any case, if she was apprehensive about this, then it didn't bode well for the second big meeting she had planned for today. Yet for the third time in the last few minutes, she was turning back towards her office, instead of finishing the walk to his.
However, she stopped before opening the door to her office, as she tried to steel herself up once again. She reminded herself that Ron wasn't as likely to say no to her as other people, and that she was one of the few people that could make him care. It took a special art to convince Ron Swanson to do anything other than sit down, whittle, eat horrifically unhealthy foods, and rant about the government. And Leslie was one of the master artists in Pawnee- and had more of a reason to paint her masterpiece than ever today.
Yet she still wound up running the distance to Ron's office, before any more doubts could catch her.
Once she got in and closed Ron's door, she realized just how smart it was for her to run, before she chickened out again. But since she was now in Ron's office, it was too late to listen to her fears now.
"Judging by all the exercise you've been doing outside, I have a feeling you have something long and unpleasant to say. If that's the case, say it now so you can jog back faster and keep up your regimen."
That wasn't the most promising thing for Ron to say off the bat, but Leslie figured she'd have to take it. She was playing on his turf, so the best thing to do was spit it out now, and hope it didn't turn into word vomit.
"I'm dating Ben Wyatt!" That was a little louder than she wanted, but at least it was short enough to keep her from rambling- she'd save that tactic for later. With her opening statement finished, she waited for Ron's reaction.
"Very well. Have a good jog, then." Technically, that was a longer opening statement than Leslie's. But since Ron clearly wanted it to be a closing statement, that didn't bode well.
"Didn't you hear me, Ron? I said I'm dating Ben Wyatt. Assistant city manager, giant nerd, ex-mayor, great kisser Ben Wyatt?"
"Leslie, you were sickened whenever I talked about my unbridled, Hellishly hot sex life with Tammy. So it would be hypocritical of you to go on about your sex life to me, however Hellish it may be for you. Now is that all?"
"Ron, we haven't had sex yet, not that I….damn, I'm off track already, that's not good!" Leslie brought herself to remember her script, not her super secret fantasies. "Besides, you didn't let me finish. I was also going to say great kisser, fellow employee, guy I can't date or else it'll violate Chris's office dating policy, but I'm dating anyway, Ben Wyatt. But you had to make it dirty, didn't you?"
At those details, Ron's look of indifference…..still looked indifferent, but at least he was looking right at her now. "So you, of all people, are actually in an illicit, secret affair with this man?"
"If that's your dirty old man way of saying it, yes. Yes, I am." Ron actually seemed to be thinking about this, instead of just dismissing it, so that was a much needed boost to Leslie's confidence.
"Leslie, you are many things, but someone capable of a forbidden love affair is not one of them. In fact, you've already defeated the purpose of a secret relationship by telling me about it. That should tell you something right there."
That was as good an opening as Leslie would get for the next part of this talk. "Well, if it tells me that I'm going to tell Chris too, tell it I'm way ahead of it already."
Leslie took note that Ron's frown was now just an inch tighter than usual, and hoped that meant what she hoped it did.
"That's right Ron, you're right, I don't do secrecy well. I've tried to fight it for as long as I can, but I can't stand having to keep Ben a secret anymore. This is already my favorite relationship ever, and I can't even enjoy it without worrying about my favorite job ever! So we're both going to tell Chris, try to convince him that we shouldn't get in trouble for being in love, and go on from there."
"Then…..why are you in here talking to me, and not in there?" Leslie made one final silent prayer that Ron wouldn't hate the answer.
"Because I want you to come with us and help speak on our behalf."
Unfortunately, Ron's frown tightened by about a few more inches. "Come again?"
"Chris might not listen to us, but if you tell him that it's no big deal, he might listen to you! You're my boss, and you know that office dating won't affect my job performance, or compromise our integrity or anything! If he hears that from you, he might back off and show us mercy, and then we'll both get to stay and be together! Isn't that worth giving one little speech?"
Leslie willed herself to stay perfectly still, instead of twitching nervously while she waited for Ron's answer. But she almost flinched anyway when Ron actually got up from his chair.
"As I said, Leslie, you are many things. You're the type of person who's willing to get into messy public spectacles, make noisy demonstrations on behalf of a cause, get into a media firestorm, and draw all kinds of attention on yourself, and anyone around you. But I'm not that person, and I don't particularly want to change that at the moment."
That sounded like a semi-nice Ron way of saying no. For a minute, Leslie was reminded of how Chris broke up with Ann without actually saying so either- and how he'd probably suspend or fire her and Ben the same way. If that was what she'd be in for, then she'd have to stay strong while Ron used some of the same tactics here.
"But you don't need me to be that person, because you are capable of getting into, and solving, your own messes without outside help. You've done it before, and Benjamin should be able to help you do it again. So go on and take Chris down, two on one, and I'm sure I'll wind up hearing you brag all about it at work tomorrow."
"What if I'm not at work tomorrow? Or the next day, or the next day, or about 1,000 more days after that?" Leslie was a bit proud of herself for such a quick comeback, since at least her brain wasn't paralyzed quite yet. "I really think that if we had someone else speaking for us who works here, that wouldn't happen."
"Ann is someone else who works here now, and she could stomach Chris longer too. This sounds more like her kind of thing to me." Now Leslie wound up flinching, cursing that Ron could have quick comebacks too.
"Ann will just remind Chris of how bad dating can go, and that's not what we need right now. We need an impartial, but powerful figure to help defend us, and I can't wait for Ann to climb up the City Hall ladder! Even she's not that brilliant!"
"I'm still confident that you and Ben have enough brilliance to make up for it. So go get him." For a minute, Leslie actually felt flattered at Ron's nice words- until she remembered that none of them were a yes. No wonder Chris kept saying nice things to disguise bad news, it really was effective even if used by Ron- and even against someone who prepared herself for it all day. "Fine, fine, we're brilliant, but I don't know if we're brilliant enough for this."
"Then don't do it. Keep your dalliances a secret, and wait until you are ready, or until Chris does something to lose his job. Either way, secrecy and keeping things to yourself are your best option."
"You think I don't know that?" This was ahead of schedule, but Leslie had no choice but to start using the big guns early. "You think I want to go out there and risk losing my job, because that's not my idea of a fun work day! But I have to….Ben was a lot braver in wanting to be with me than I was at first, so I want to be brave for him. I want a real relationship with him, and I can't have that with this craphole policy around. So if I don't grow a pair to tell Chris that now, when will I?"
"That answer is between you and your secret boyfriend, your friends and your God," Ron offered. "They care more about these things, have more expertise in them, and like being in other people's business. You'll be a lot better off trusting their nosy opinions, instead of mine," Ron concluded as he sat back down.
Leslie didn't want nosy opinions, she wanted Ron's. She really thought he would have caved by now….she knew a part of him wanted to. Why else would it have made him convince her to stay in Pawnee five years ago, or stick up for her in lots of other things since? He swallowed his dumb pride and privacy for her before, so why couldn't he do it now, when she really needed it?
He swallowed it a few times before when she really needed it…and now one particular time was coming to mind more than the others. "You're why we're even together in the first place, Ron!"
"Where in the name of all that's good and fattening did you dream that up, exactly?" Ron countered.
"At wherever your budget task force meeting was a year ago! Ben was going to fire me, because he was still mean and evil and hated everything cool! Then you told him that no other department had a Leslie Knope, and then you blabbed about Freddy Spaghetti! And that's when Ben went there and got him, and that's how I knew he wasn't a monster, and that's when I started to like him, and that's when we started to like each other, and that's why we're here now."
"But….I'm not the one who kissed Ben during all that."
"But you started the chain reaction that turned Ben into someone I wanted to kiss!" Leslie argued. "So since a lot of this is your fault, you should be the one to sack up and make sure it doesn't get us fired! At least I want you to….at least I need you to."
Leslie had been proud of how she pointed out Ron's role in this whole thing. But once she got to how she needed him to do more, she felt herself starting to crumble. That was one of her best big guns, and it still didn't look like it was working. Once again, the full force of what she was asking, what she was preparing to do, and what she was trying to put on the line was hitting her, and at the worst time. No pre-determined plans or speeches or talking points could convey all of that, so then she let the word vomit come.
"I'm actually pretty scared, Ron. I've risked my job a bunch of times before, and I always figured I'd win, but this time I don't know. I tried not to let it get this far, but I'm tired of trying too hard to pretend I don't want to be with Ben. Now I'm bringing myself to risk getting fired for that, and you know me well enough to know how hard that is for me. And still….I might actually love this number crunching, giant nerd as much as I love working here. I don't know if I do for sure, but today I'm going to find out for sure, and I want to get the right answer so badly. But I can't do that alone. I need my boss to have my back. And I need my friend, too. Please, Ron…."
It would really hurt Leslie's case to start tearing up, so she took herself off the edge right on time. Instead of looking at Ron, which might get her going again, she just sat down on his bench and closed her eyes, trying to recompose herself. But after having her eyes closed for a minute, she realized that not only had she not made another sound, Ron hadn't either.
After another 30 seconds of silence, Leslie finally opened her eyes and looked ahead at Ron. He wasn't looking at her, but seemed to just be sitting around, like he always was. Leslie briefly thought he was ignoring her and everything she said, which almost made her get up and really lay into him.
However, she then detected that Ron very nearly opened his mouth to speak at that second, yet held back. Then she really studied how he was sitting still, not saying or doing anything- but clearly thinking the whole way through.
And that's how Leslie figured out that she actually pulled it off. If she hadn't, then Ron would keep saying no, and trying to brush her off to Chris's office. But he wasn't saying anything. He couldn't. Because he'd already said yes in his head, and now he was trying to admit it to himself.
As much as it made her sad, Leslie knew that Ron wasn't the guy to just open up and admit he liked someone, or that he wanted to fight for someone. He had to hide behind his political ideals, his misguided vows on not to help anyone or anything, and his own uncaring image. If he was going to make an effort on anything, he needed to justify it in a way that still followed true to those ideas- even if they really didn't.
Leslie already knew that about him, and that's how she was better at getting through to him than anyone. Now that she remembered that, it all became clear to her. After all her fear about how she would convince Ron, she had the easiest answer she'd had all day- maybe all week or month, actually.
She hoped that she still had some great ideas left after this to battle Chris. But for now, she'd have to get one victory at a time.
"All right, fine, Ron. If you don't want to help, I can't talk you out of it. Me and Ben will go to Chris on our own, lay it out there, and let the chips fall where they may. It might just get me suspended and Ben fired, but who knows? It's just a shame that the damage won't be limited to us. I mean, if I'm suspended, Chris will have to choose a temporary deputy director, and who knows how he or she will mess things up." Leslie got up off the bench, and headed back towards Ron's desk to drive the next point home.
"Since its Chris's call, he'll probably pick someone as happy, perky, and as obsessed with disgusting health food as he is, and he'll try to push them on everyone in this office all day. He might be on so much health junk, he'll forget that the deputy director does most of the work around here. He wouldn't know that the director doesn't have to do much of anything, and he'd mess up the perfectly good system it took you years to perfect. And since you haven't had that kind of workload in years, it could throw too many things off for me to clean up when I get back."
As he had been for the last few minutes, Ron wasn't making a sound. But Leslie saw how different his face looked during this silence- although it would still look the same to everyone else. Yet Leslie knew better, and knew she had his strict attention now.
"Of course, if I came back while Ben was still fired, I might forget to clean up that mess. Like I said, I don't know if I really would lose this job for him, but by then, I might have already made my decision. I might be too busy making public spectacles to get him back, and then I'd be fired for sure. Especially if no one saner, or more impartial, was there to keep me in check," Leslie said quite pointedly.
"But without that, I'd probably get myself kicked out pretty quick, and then that temporary replacement that changed the whole work system, and threw everyone off balance, would be there forever. And then how would the work day go? I wouldn't know, because I'd be gone, so that would be someone else's big, busy, public problem. A guy could only have time to eat two lunches with changes like that, I don't know. I hope I never have to find out, if that's at all possible."
It took everything Leslie had to not downright smirk, both at how well she put that nightmare together, and how much Ron was trying not to visibly squirm. In any case, if she was seen taking joy at that, it might hurt her case with Ron at the very last minute. So she got back to speaking instead of smirking.
"You and I both know I don't want that to happen. And you and I both know that's not the reason you're going to help us. But if that's what you have to tell yourself to do it, I don't care. I'll take anything I can get, but I just want to take it, and so does Ben."
That wasn't the right imagery Leslie wanted to use, so she figured she should wrap up while she was still ahead. "I'm going to jog back to my office, like you wanted. Me and Ben will be at Chris's office in a half hour, and Chris should be done yelling at us about five minutes later. That'd be a good time for anyone else to talk to him, if they're waiting around to."
Leslie took one last look at Ron's deceptively still face, before actually taking a light jog out of the office. Once she got back into hers, she had a hard time getting herself to stay still, resisting the urge to peek out and see what Ron was doing. As convincing as she thought she was, Ron wasn't going to just come out and say it worked- if he felt it did at all.
After a minute, Leslie let herself take a tiny little peek out her office window. It almost looked like Ron wasn't in his office, but she had looked too briefly to be sure. But when she looked for longer than a half-second, she could see him making his way towards April.
So she got herself up and out of the office, and made it look like she was getting documents elsewhere, with her back turned to Ron and April. But she wasn't so far away that she couldn't faintly hear them.
"April, I need to prepare something for a meeting in a half hour. So I need you to work harder than usual to make sure I'm not disturbed."
"Work? That wasn't what we agreed to when I took this job, Ron."
"Just make extra sure that no calls or people get through here for a while. I apologize for the inconvenience, but at this meeting, I'm going to make everyone know that it's only a one-time thing. And I mean everyone….and I mean one time."
Sure, it still sounded like he wasn't happy about it. And it sounded like Leslie wouldn't be allowed to get any more favors from Ron for a very long time, if ever. But in that special, coded message, Ron had given Leslie everything she wanted, and confirmed what she had always known about him and his squishy insides. It wasn't just cholesterol that was making his heart big after all.
Leslie headed back into her office with a lot more confidence than she did when she left it. And for the first time, she started to think that when she left it again in a half hour, she'd actually be allowed to go back in before the day was over.
At the least, she was now halfway there, and that was farther than she'd felt in a while. Having an inspiring boss could do that for someone.