A/N:This is more of an ensemble with a slighter April/Andy focus because of course, what do you expect from me?
Hope everyone had fun this month! Enjoy!
"Who even sent us this?" Andy held the card up with wonder in his eyes, though he sounded more frightened than anything.
It had arrived without warning, slipped into the antiquated and never used mail slot on their front door, while they ate a late dinner. April noticed it first, eyes going wide at the sudden intrusion into their home. It was almost worse than the prior week's surprise visit from Leslie and Ben while the young couple were busy entranced with one another on the couch. Mostly naked.
"I don't know. Could be cool," April said as she fingered the black card with dark red lettering inside.
"Solve the most horrible of crimes," Andy read from the card and looked over at April, who was nodding with a devious smile.
They finished the sentence low and in unison, one voice in unease and the other excitement, "Murder!"
The letter on Ben's desk looked like something that April would leave as a prank. He took it in a ginger pinch of two fingers and presented it to Leslie. Her eyes went wide, clearly not with the fear they should have. What had he gotten himself into with her?
"Is it an invitation? To a party? A Halloween Party? Oh, did April and Andy give this to you!" Leslie asked in a voice that started interested and accelerated into a more Knope-like effervescence. "Oh, maybe they're throwing a masquerade! I have the perfect costume for tonight."
"Leslie, just because you suggested they throw a..." Ben stopped himself when she opened the little black card and her face dropped. "What's wrong?"
"It's not from them," Leslie looked up at him. "I don't know who it's from."
April had already decided on her costume and this year Andy decided to match. In his case, he meant a literal match. They both went dressed in ill-fitting black suits-and-tie with crisp white shirts, both of them looking amazing in them. On the drive to the Pawnee-Eagleton Motel room this 'murder party' was meant to take place in, it was more or less the most heated argument they ever had. Well, at least since that game show idea of Tom's that neither of them really spoke of anymore.
"No babe, you definitely look way hotter in that suit," April tried to get him to see reason. "You're all... ugh, that actually fits you and your legs look all big and muscular."
"Yeah, well your butt looks awesome in those pants," Andy retorted without looking at her. He had to focus on driving or else he'd focus on the way April curled her hair and lose his mind. "Honestly, honey? Your butt would look great even without those pants."
"Thanks," April said with a sigh and rested her head on her hand, wondering who in the hell would know that the Ludgate-Dwyers would jump at the chance to do something as cool as this on Halloween night. "Oh, and don't take that off when we get home."
"Oh-"
"I have ideas," she interrupted and gave Andy the sliest little grin that he could only catch out of the corner of his vision as they pulled into the motel's parking lot.
"Can you believe that we were invited to this?" Ann said with a laugh while already opening the door to the shady motel room the card told them to find. "Seriously, this is weird."
"Maybe it's for some kind of kinky sex party that only the hottest couples are invited to," Tom piped up with and gave her the worst chipmunk grin he could muster.
"Ugh," Ann groaned.
"What's wrong, boo?" he said and got even closer, linking his arm in hers. She could almost taste the vomit already.
"This was a bad idea," she shook her head. When Ann opened the door she was greeted by two masked people standing over a large, still lump on the ground.
"Oh gross," Tom's horrified voice said, "I really hope this isn't a sex thing."
For a few minutes, April and Andy scope out the room. There are lights on and much to April's chagrin, she's pretty sure she saw one Ann Perkins make her way inside. And with Tom. This could mean one of two things, both lame - either they would be happy and she'd never hear the end of how they're thankful they got together because of her or, and probably worse, she would become their one-stop shop for advice on how to repair their broken, failing relationship again. Andy held both of his hands up to his eyes, curled with index finger touching the tip of his thumb, and looked through the gap between like binoculars.
"Coast is clear, ma'am," he whispered.
"Maybe we'll get to kill Ann," April offered as almost entirely a joke.
"Oh, honey, don't be mean yet!" Andy started to get out of the car with a whine. "It'll be okay, I promise."
"But they'll talk to me," she whined.
"Because they trust you," he said.
"But I don't trust them," she fought back as they made their way to the ominous room number four. "And you better mean it, that promise."
"I'll die before I let one of them annoy you," Andy said and leaned down, engulfing her in a short embrace that began with identically gloved hands on identically clothed hips and ended with a whimper when their lips broke apart after something that could deepen. "Let's go."
When Andy kicked the door in, finger pistol ready and April beside him with hers already pointing inside, they were greeted with a shout and somebody charging at them in a full sprint.
"Sex thing? Wait, did Jerry-"
"Ann! You're here too?" Leslie ignored whatever it was Ben was saying before coughing and keeping her green mask stuck to her face by the long, flimsy stick by which it was attached. "I mean, and who might you be?"
"Leslie, I don't think this is a game. Jerry isn't moving," Ben kicked their coworker gently on the side, but he resisted the tap and remained still. "Okay, very funny. Ha ha. You guys can come out now!"
The other three standing people in the room looked around for whomever Ben could be shouting. The only response was a loud thud on the exterior wall with the only door as an exit. All four jumped at the sound and talked over the whispering they could faintly hear outside.
"So, why are you weirdos here?" Tom asked.
"Why are you here?" Ben dropped the act, letting his own mask fall in a nervous attempt to put his hands on his hips, then put his arm around Leslie, and getting the signals mixed. "And why are you dressed as Allen Iverson?"
"Who?" Tom said and laughed. "No, this is way cooler than some nobody."
"He's actually a really famous basketball-"
"Ja Rule's Furious music video?" Tom interrupted Ben and looked over to Ann for some kind of support in such a trying time. The matching red sweatband and jacket had to be a dead giveaway, right? "What's next, Ann is dressed as Gandalf?"
"Hey just because nobody cares about Ja doesn't mean they won't get my costume," Ann sneered and looked back to Leslie and Ben. "Right?"
"Sexy grunge?" Leslie said with a shrug at the matching red sweatpants and sash-necked top.
"Maybe...?" Ann said with a disappointed shrug.
"Homeless witch?" Ben asked and conferred with Leslie in one short look, a few exchanged nods, and then an awkward smile.
"Closer," Ann said with a sigh. "Zelda, like from Sabrina?"
"Oh!" Ben and Leslie said in unison before tilting their heads to scrutinize the costume further.
Before they could, however, another thud against the door shocked them into silence. It even stirred Jerry into groaning and sitting up. When he did, the look on his face at the four of them with him there on the floor in a bathrobe with the letters JG emblazoned on the chest. He stood up and heaved loudly, running for the door just as Andy kicked the door open and April appeared beside him.
The only thing that ran through Ben's mind before Jerry vomited all over the both of them was the short-lived concern over police and the recognition that they were wearing the same exact costume as one another.
"Andrew, please explain again why April and Jerry are not here today," Ron asked on the following work day.
"Well, sir," Andy was a little busy trying not to pay attention to Ron's unbending stare as he spoke, "We were, as you say, procured upon the means by which... a transpiring of events may occur upon us."
They share a look, that same unyielding glare and Andy's unsure mouth finding the nerve to say it, before Ron simply raises an eyebrow in confusion.
"Andy-"
"We got a weird invitation to a party and Jerry threw up on us," Andy said with a sigh. "I promised April I wouldn't tell anyone because Ann laughed at her and it was super embarrassing."
"Ah, and do you have any idea what was going on in that room before you got there?" Ron asked, again prodding too close but Andy's sharp not-really-detective's instincts found nothing to investigate there.
"Nope, just Tom and Ann and Ben and Leslie... and Jerry, who threw up on me and my wife," Andy finished with a chuckle. "It was kinda funny."
Ron gave him a wry smirk and said, "Oh, I bet."
Again, the general joviality was getting to him.
Not that the success of a department wasn't linked to the happiness of its workers, in fact it was quite the opposite. Ron Swanson knew very well that a little bit of discomfort in the ranks could work wonders in shelving the efficacy of the work force in government between the blinks of an eye.
Trouble was, after that incident with the broken coffee machine, his options were low.
Sitting in one of his cars parked in the lot across from the room numbered four, this vehicle unknown to them, Ron watched with a giddy chuckle forming when Jerry heaved all over April and Andy. The shouts from everyone in that room, the laughter of Perkins mixed with the frustration and fury of April as well as the horror of Knope and Andrew... it was music to his ears. The arguing, which Ben tried to stop to no avail, was immediate and constant.
Jerry had let slip to Ron that he would be going to the motel for a midweek retreat while Gayle and the girls were away. He hadn't the heart to tell him about the Swanson moonshine Ron had delivered in champagne bottles that Ron had blown himself, all under the cover of a gift from Gayle.
It was the perfect plan.
Come the next week, they would barely be able to look each other in the eye. The memory of sick from the office laughingstock would keep April from saying a word or answering a phone, Leslie and Ben would be too traumatized to interrupt her work with campaigning, and Tom would shut up about Perkins for a moment. There would be peace, for a while.
He might even get the pleasure of watching April apologize to Perkins and vice versa, both of them disgusted, and the air of chummy coworkers devolving into discomfort would fuel the apathy in the office for weeks.