Escape Hatch, a parks and recreation fanfic

Escape Hatch

A/N: This was written for nbckink for the prompt of "Ben/April, mind games." Because I didn't even want to tryto imagine a world where Andy and April were not together and ridiculously happy after "Fancy Party" . . . this veers off the canon timeline about mid-way through "Media-Blitz" imagining a reality where April never forgave Andy and took the job with Chris, and Ben never really recovered from the Perd Hapley debacle so he went back to Indy before the Harvest Festival went up. So while there is background Andy/April and Leslie/Ben neither one of them are in a relationship. Okay, everyone oriented? Let's go.

There are days Ben is pretty sure Chris does things just to fuck with him.

Like the time in Wabash when he inexplicably managed to put his hands on wheatgrass and celebrated Ben's birthday with 'smoothies for everyone!'

Or the time in Hookersville, when he invited everybody to a town-hall meeting "because we want to hear all of your wonderful ideas" (the fact the town is still named Hookersville should be enough to tell you no one there has even a decent idea, let alone a 'wonderful' one).

But this. Hiring April Ludgate as his assistant? This is Chris's piece de resistance. His Sistine Chapel and Mona Lisa and Hallelujah Chorus all rolled into one.

Chris doesn't have to come up with ways to fuck with Ben any more. April does it for him.

All the time.

It starts with the post-its. Chris's stupid color-coded post-its with cheerful little messages like "Good job" and "Superstar" and occasionally "Rework budget projections factoring in 3-year tax abatement" (That's the problem with Chris's post-its. Every sixth one or so there's a truly brilliant idea tucked away amidst the unnecessary positive reinforcement, so you can't just throw them all away. You actually have to read them first).

Except suddenly the post-its have gotten exponentially less positive and a lot more creative. The first one is on his desk one afternoon when he comes back from lunch, simple and eloquent and to the point.

"LOSER"

Ben looks up to find April just staring at him, face completely blank. He looks back down at the note, fiddles with it for about three seconds too long, then tears it up and throws it in the trashcan.

Yeah, that's his first mistake.

Looking back he realizes he shouldn't have acknowledged it at all, should have just ignored it completely. Put his files down on top of it and kept on working like it wasn't even there. But he did and she knows it and she knows it bothered him and now she's got a new toy. An amusement. A plaything.

It's a very similar feeling to being the 'catnip mouse' dangled from a bit of string when said cat still has her claws.

The post-its keep coming in rapid succession after that. All pretty scathing, most profane, and some more than a little sexually inappropriate when you consider she's barely an adult and he's kind of her boss. He keeps throwing them away (or shredding them depending on content), but for some reason he doesn't say anything. Some days when he thinks of Leslie and her Harvest Festival and the way he just left her to it after the catastrophe of Perd Hapley, he knows he doesn't say anything because he feels like they're kind of true. Because he feels like he kind of deserves it.

Then one morning he gets in to find one waiting for him on his computer screen an hour before he has to go in to do the debriefing meeting on the Pawnee Audit, and he's already pretty wired having been up all night trying to figure out a way to explain how he got talked into something as insane as the Harvest Festival that doesn't include 'I got stupid' or 'I lost all perspective' or 'Have you met Leslie Knope?'

"Fuck-up"

It's underlined this time and strangely she's added a gold star from Chris's stash which is actually ten times more disturbing than the words would have been alone.

And the thing is as he stands there staring at it, he realizes he doesn't know how it got there. Because she's not here yet, and she definitely wasn't here last night when he left, and he thought she didn't have a key to his office.

The idea that she's somehow gotten hold of one makes him break out into a cold sweat. But weirdly it also makes him pissed off enough that he's able to shed some of his steadily building anxiety, so that when the meeting comes at nine he speaks articulately and logically about all the factors that went into his decision to approve the Harvest Festival and how given its projected revenue Pawnee will be completely on track to stay within the restrictions set by the state despite not making all the initially recommended cuts.

It's a pretty good meeting and all in all he's feeling kind of generous, so when the coffee-shop makes his latte wrong and asks if he wants to give the second one to someone he only thinks for a second before saying 'yes.' Gets half-way out the door before an idea hits him and he turns back to ask to borrow the barista's sharpie.

Five minutes later he sets the latte down on April's desk, making sure it's turned so she can see the 'Fuck-up' surrounded by the five stars he's drawn around it on the side of her cup in thick black marker. Smiles.

"Thanks for the pep-talk this morning." Does Chris's little double finger point just to seal the deal. "April Ludgate. Literally the best assistant, ever."

The knife points of her glare in his back should not feel as good as they do.

After that it's war.

April misorders his lunch for a week straight. Ben eats every single meal he gets and thanks her for the variety.

She purposely drops five phone-calls in one day. He has Kathleen the grandmotherly executive-assistant for the Budget Director 'let' April shadow her for three afternoons until she 'gets the hang of it'. (There is something about sweet, elderly women that is apparently April's kryptonite. He files that away for later and doesn't notice that he's starting to devote maybe more attention to this thing than is healthy).

She 'forgets' to tell him Chris rescheduled a seven am meeting. He 'forgets' to tell her when Chris leaves early for the weekend and says she can take off too if she wants.

Then one afternoon he has to legitimately give her a rush set of edits he doesn't have time to do himself before he heads into the prep meeting for Snerling (no games, no ulterior motive).

April follows him back into his office and throws the stack of papers down on his desk, crosses her arms over her chest.

"I don't know why you gave me this. We both know I'm not going to do it."

Ben just stares at her for a second in disbelief. "It's your job."

She shrugs. "So? Maybe you should fire me."

And there's something about it, about the insolence of it, and the pretense, and supposed lack of caring. He has never met anyone so fucking determined to ruin their life before it's even begun, to completely and utterly screw up their future just out of sheer obstinacy. Because there's a mind at work somewhere under that apathy, an insane, brilliant, completely terrifying mind that's copied his keys and locked him out of his computer and basically made his life a living hell, but done it all with a kind of panache you've just got to salute.

She could be something, could probably be anything she wanted, and he cannot tell you what he would have given to have still had those kind of options at the age of twenty-one. And here she is, standing in his office, slumped against his wall and trying to throw all of hers away. And he can take everything else, can take the caustic and sometimes sexually-inappropriate post-its inside his copies of reports, can take the liverworst sandwiches and split-pea soup. He can even take having to call IT and discovering his login has been changed to 'micropenis' (he is still trying to figure out how she pulled that one off). But he'll be damned if he lets her get away with treating opportunities he would have killed for like garbage.

He loses it. Absolutely, fucking loses it.

"What the hell is your problem? Do you really think that you're going to be able to get through the rest of your life like this? Because you won't. You've gotten lucky because you don't actually take responsibility for anything, but sooner or later you're not going to have a choice and all it takes is one real screw up and everyone will turn their backs on you. Trust me you have never been that alone in your life."

April just rolls her eyes at him like he's an idiot. "Whatever. I hate people, anyways."

That is the most completely bullshit response he's ever heard. "Doesn't mean you don't need them."

"Um, yes it does."

"Fine. Then you can stay up here when we go to Snerling. Just you in this office, alone. All day. Every day. For three straight months. Take messages, file papers and not have to talk to anyone. It should be like heaven for you."

That gets her. He knew it would. Because if she's alone, it means he's not here to screw with. And as best he can tell he's at least a good five to six hours of her day, every single day. She'll be climbing up the walls in less than forty-eight hours without him and they both know it.

Still he's got to give her credit for trying to play it off. She just picks despondently at her nails and mutters, "You know if you leave me here I'll just skip work and go out with my friends."

"Got a lot of those up here in Indy, do you?" That makes her glare at him, but they both kind of already knew the answer to that. She's about as good at making connections with people as he is. They've simply got too many edges and too much plating. Nobody other than a fool or an optimist would throw themselves against their fortresses (except maybe someone equally well protected, but he doesn't even acknowledge that thought before he's pushed it aside). He let his drop for awhile only to be reminded why it was up in the first place. And he doesn't know what put hers there but he's sure as shit not about to be the one to tell her to lower it.

Bizarrely he realizes that having her for a nemesis might be the closest thing either one of them has to a friend anymore.

And then it trips across his mind that his life is going to be incredibly boring if she doesn't come to Snerling and he's almost sad about it.

God this has gotten so fucked up.

Sighing he picks up the stack of papers, walks over to the doorway where she's slumped and holds them out in front of her. "Either do it or pack your desk. But when you go back to Pawnee and everyone asks what happened don't tell them you were fired. Tell them you choseto leave. Because that's what I'll tell them. I'll tell them you missed all of them like crazy, that you couldn't return fast enough, that you went running right back to whatever it is you're running away from."

And he's knows it's harsh, knows it's almost borderline cruel, but he kind of wants to see what she'll do if pushed. Wants to see just how thick that plating has gotten, just how stubborn she can be. And if he's honest with himself he's half-hoping she'll crumble, that she'll give. Go back. He thinks. Get out. He begs. Turn around and run back to Pawnee where people smile and put up with you and love you. There's only room for one Tin Man in the story. I missed my chance but it could still be you. So go. Run back to the Wizard and get your heart.

For a second she just looks at him, and there's something in her eyes, something soft and a little bit scared and impossibly young, and he thinks she's going to do it. And he thinks he's really going to miss her.

Then she snatches the sheaf of papers from his hand with a truly impressive eye-roll and a groan. "God, I hate you. Why can't you just be like normal people and avoid me?"

"Believe me, I'm trying."

But he's not trying nearly hard enough, and they both know it, and there's something really wrong about that.

April goes back to her desk and sure enough ten minutes later he's treated to the sound of incredibly angry typing and a lot of expletives.

He'd whistle if he knew how.

Snerling is where everything gets weird.

Not that it wasn't already weird.

But, you know, weirder.

Which of course for them, means it actually starts to get kind of comfortable.

She deliberately books him a smoking room (he didn't even know places still had those). He takes her key and makes them trade.

Ben is not even surprised to come back two nights later to find her sitting on his bed in an oversized t-shirt and what look like his boxer-shorts, eating a pint of 'Chunky Monkey' straight out of the carton.

He is surprised to find out she wears glasses and for some reason that's the thing that makes him stop and stare at her far longer than is appropriate (though given his twenty-one year-old subordinate is sitting on his bed in his boxer shorts after leaving him a very explicit post-it this morning about everything she imagines to be wrong with his cock, appropriate is becoming an extremely elastic term).

Finally April tears her eyes away from the TV and gives him one of her patented 'what is your dysfunction?' looks. "That room smells like ass. I'm sleeping here tonight. It was supposed to be mine anyway."

He should kick her out. He knows this, knows that is the logical and adult response here. She shifts to tuck one of her legs under her, and it makes his boxers ride up so high on her thighs that it looks like she's wearing nothing but that t-shirt, and he can feel something inside him (something those sexually explicit post-its have tugging at for weeks now) shift left of center, and he knows kicking her out is also the safe response here.

The problem is there's something about April that makes his logic shut down, makes his first instinct be to hold his hand over the flame just a little longer.

Also protesting would just escalate the issue and possibly result in her doing something drastic designed to get him in trouble like running outside and yelling at the top-of-her-lungs, so really he's got very few choices here. (Or at least that's what he tells himself because it absolutely cannot be that he is simply this fucking lonely).

Ben walks over, picks up the remote, and changes the channel over to the Cubs game he'd been looking forward to watching in peace.

"Hey!" she protests, "I was watching that."

"Watching what?"

"The other thing."

And it strikes him that she's gotten very comfortable in his room given she only left the office thirty minutes before he did. He crosses his arms and levels her with a knowing look. "Tell me the name of the show and the channel it's on and I'll change it back."

They wind up watching the Cubs game.

Well, he watches it. April puts in the ear-buds of her iPod and turns her music on with a pointedness that tells him this probably used to bother someone in her past. (He's betting her parents, and it rolls through his head that he should be a lot more bothered by the fact she's given him equivalent status, and that's followed close on its heels by the counter thought that no he should not be bothered about having parental status at all). After about twenty-minutes when it apparently sinks in with her that he does not care one iota about whether or not she pays him any attention tonight, she stops being so fucking emphatic about not giving him the time of day and just lays down cross wise on the bottom end of the bed and lets herself focus on listening to the music rather than ignoring him.

It's the most peaceful he's ever seen her. Her whole body relaxes with it and something that on anyone else's face would be the start of a smile plays at her lips and every once in awhile her mouth moves a little with the words.

For awhile they just stay like that, him sitting up at the top of the bed drinking a beer and watching a Cubs game. Her laying at the foot, listening to music, the slowly melting pint of ice-cream forgotten on the floor.

When he mutes one of the commercials to call for a pizza, he can hear her saying something and it takes him a moment to realize she's singing. Softly, quietly singing.

She doesn't have the world's most beautiful voice, but like so much of the rest of her it's unique and striking. Like stumbling upon a cracked desert cliff after spending all your days in a rain-forest. You know it's harsh and unforgiving, know can't support life and you'd die if you stayed, but you can't help but marvel at it a little.

Without thinking he leans forward and pulls out one of her ear-buds.

April's eyes pop open to stare up at him and her hand flies up to the spot on her ear where his finger-tips brushed her skin. "What?"

It should be sharp. Out of her mouth it should be demanding and bored, and practically scream 'you are lame and creepy' (it would have been really helpful if she had at least managed the 'creepy' part), instead it comes out soft, and a little startled. And it's the fact he startled her, actually managed to legitimately surprise her with one impulsive act after nearly five weeks of barely being able to rattle her with anything planned that makes him do what he does next.

Reaching out he brushes his fingertips along her forehead, feathering her bangs. And for a second, just a second April tilts her head back into his touch like a cat, baring the long pale line of her throat and he has the overwhelming impulse to run his tongue along it, bite down hard on that cord of muscle connecting to her shoulder. He wonders exactly what he'd have to do to make her beg.

God, he bets it would take him weeks to discover that, and he's always loved a challenge.

That's what it is he thinks. The riddle of her, the puzzle. When he was fifteen his dad gave him a Rubix cube in his stocking at Christmas, an after-thought of a gift, just something to fiddle with while waiting for the grandparents to get there for the main event. Except Ben couldn't put it down, couldn't let it go, carried it around with him for weeks until he finally solved it. And for those weeks it occupied nearly his every waking thought. He stared at it, manipulated it, calloused his fingers twisting it this way and that, all in an effort to make it bend to his will.

He is in serious danger of letting April become his new Rubix cube.

And before he can stop himself, the question he's been wanting to ask for weeks slips out. "What are you running from?"

It's the wrong move.

Her expression slams shut with such force he swears he can hear the rattle of the drawbridge chain.

"I dropped your toothbrush in the toilet."

Aaaaand just like that, they're back.

"Yeah, okay." Ben sits up and rubs a hand over his face with a sigh. Reaches behind him for the telephone.

"What are you doing?"

"Calling for pizza."

"If you get it with onions, I'll breathe onion breath on your face all night."

"Who says I'm ordering any for you?"

So if anyone ever told him that sleeping with his twenty-one year-old kind-of assistant (he can still only get her to do about ten-percent of what he asks, but it's progress) would become a common everyday thing along the lines of doing his laundry or reading the morning paper he would probably have them submit to a drug-test. Because really, have you met him? He is not that type of guy. Even if he wanted to be that type of guy, he is not that type of guy.

Which is okay because he is apparently still not that type of guy.

Because when he says he sleeps with his twenty-one year old assistant, that's exactly what he means. He sleeps with her. Nothing else.

It should be really weird. Correction. It is really weird. And what makes it even weirder? That they both treat it like it's not weird at all. Like it's totally fucking normal.

That's mostly April's doing. She's simply so matter-of-fact about the whole thing from the very first night. After eating three pieces of the pizza (and complaining about the mushrooms the whole time, but not picking them off), she just gets up and walks over to the bathroom, and proceeds to brush her teeth with his toothbrush (which she apparently did not drop in the toilet because if she did, well . . . He makes a mental note to pick up a new one tomorrow anyways). Then comes back out, climbs into bed on the right side (where he usually sleeps) and rolls over without so much as a good night.

When he wakes up in the morning it's to find her staring at him through a curtain of hair.

"I thought you would drool."

"Sorry to disappoint you."

This is the full extent to which they talk about it.

Still there's this moment every night, this ten minute stretch when he first lays down and he can smell her hair, feel the weight of her body shifting on the mattress just a few feet away. And during that ten minutes he is incredibly aware that there's a part of him that desperately wants to just roll over on top of her and press that deceptively lithe body of hers into the mattress and call her bluff (wants it not to be a bluff at all). And he's aware there's a part of him that half thinks of her as some kind of annoying kid-sister, that he's developed this oddly protective streak for her, where for all he'll push her buttons from sun-up to sun-down and laugh while doing it, when he overheard some twenty-three year-old asshole from the Transportation Department call her a 'freaky bitch' in the hallway the other day it took everything in him not to turn around and deck the guy.

And he is incredibly aware that this is not normal.

And for those ten minutes when he first gets into bed, he can't think about anything else. Can't stop the insane, giddy hysteria of 'what the fuck am I doing?' that makes his muscles almost vibrate with the urge to laugh and cry simultaneously. But it only ever lasts for ten-minutes, and after that ten-minute panic attack (and he thinks that's the entire reason she does this, just to put him through that ten minutes of hell) something else takes over, something he's beginning to think of as the 'April effect': this heretofore undiscovered part of him that rolls with the punches, that mentally shrugs his shoulders and goes 'fuck it'. And he just lets himself enjoy being in bed with another human being, the implied connection of it, because honestly he misses that in a way that's completely separate from any sexual desire.

There are some days when he thinks not wanting to lose that is probably the only thing keeping him from kissing her.

Well that and the fact he's not entirely sure she won't simply turn around and castrate him with a butter knife.

It goes on that way for about a week.

Nothing else changes. She still leaves him post-its inside his binders. (There was one with a stick figure labeled 'Loser' and what might have been a dog that probably would have gotten him fired on the spot.) He still occasionally brings her coffee with profanities written under the sleeve, just to let her know he's not done playing.

Sometimes he can't believe Chris hasn't figured it out yet. Not that he's entirely certain what 'it' is, but he's pretty sure that from any angle you view it, whatever he and April are doing violates Chris's rules (god knows it's a scandal waiting to happen at the very least and Chris hates a scandal). But then again maybe it's not such a stretch. At work he and April are still always one step away from mutually assured destruction, and Chris is not a guy who can see anything beneath the surface of a conflict like that. He just sees the conflict and wants it to stop.

Which is how Ben winds up with April shadowing him while he does the departmental evaluation meetings because "I just know if she gets a chance to see how dedicated you are to your work, she'll appreciate you more. Also, you know, smile at her a little, maybe take her out to lunch and ask about her ambitions. I bet you'll be a great team."

If you can think of a more uncomfortable meeting than letting him take apart your department's budget expenditures piece by over-inflated piece while April stares at you like she's just waiting to see how long it will take you to cry, Ben would honestly love to hear it.

In case you're wondering, the longest someone goes without crying that day is fifty-five minutes. The shortest is four. (That is, by the way, a new record for him. Really he's very proud.)

When that meeting disintegrates and the assistant director of Snerling's library department runs out of the room sobbing, Ben leans back in his chair and presses the heels of his palms to eyes with a sigh. "That went well."

"You're an asshole."

Oh for the love of- He drops his hands and looks over at her. April's eyes have narrowed to tiny slits, and he can feel her glare cutting into him like razor wire, and really? She's really judging his people skills, here? Then he thinks about the woman who just left in tears—two years past her pension and smelling like baked goods and Bengay. Yes, he thinks, she's really doing this.

"Yeah, because you're such a ray of sunshine. I'm sure having you over there doing your Wednesday Adams impersonation really put everyone at ease."

"Whatever, you're still an asshole."

He snorts a mirthless laugh, and starts to gather up his things. "Okay then. Glad we got that cleared up."

And he's just at the door only a few seconds away from freedom when April speaks up again.

"Did you make Leslie cry?"

At the mention of Leslie's name, it's like something's reached in, grabbed him by the throat and squeezed. And for a second he can't breathe, can't move, can't do anything other than stand there and hate himself.

He closes his eyes and forcefully tears away from the attack. Beats it back with a viciousness that would probably surprise even April.

Yanking open the door, he grinds out, "Get the meeting notes on my desk before you leave tonight, or I'll have Chris to send you back to Indy."

Leaves the room without looking back.

What are you running from?

April drops two pages of typed notes on his desk at six that evening without a word.

They're flawless. Not a single profanity. Not a misspelled word or a comma out of place.

It feels like she's yelling at him.

That night when he gets back to his motel room, Ben hesitates outside the door, tries to decide if he thinks she's going to be there or not. Tries to decide if he wants her to be there or not. Can't quite make up his mind.

She's there.

And she's not.

There's a routine to how this goes. April gets here before him. April wears his boxers and drinks the last of his beer and turns the TV to anything other than the baseball game and then proceeds to hide the remote. April sprawls across the bottom of his bed and messes up his papers and generally ignores him until she's hungry, at which point she won't leave him alone.

Tonight however she's still in her work-clothes, sitting at the top of the bed, knees pulled up against her chest in a tight ball of anger. She doesn't look up when he comes in, doesn't scowl or roll her eyes or anything, just continues staring straight ahead at nothing. The TV is already turned to a baseball game and the remote sits on his pillow.

April has never been more considerate.

It's awful.

He hates it. It's like he's beneath her contempt. Like she's so disgusted she can't be bothered to even punish him because that would involve acknowledging his existence. And it's strange but in the loss of her, the hundred constant tiny irritations of her, he realizes that she's been the thing keeping him to together, the release valve that lets him siphon off just a little the pressure, of the self-loathing, lets it manifest itself into something bizarre and fucked-up and more than a little self-destructive. But as long as it's out there, as long as it's directed at her, it keeps everything inside him from building up, from pressing against his walls until he fractures.

Which is probably why he starts pushing back, turning her consideration on its head, just trying to get a rise out of her. Any kind of rise.

He turns the channel to one those horrible 'reality' shows she likes to mock everyone in.

April puts on her iPod.

A little while later when he gets up to go to the bathroom and change into sweats, Ben lays out a clean pair of boxers and a t-shirt for her at the foot of the bed.

She sleeps in her clothes.

The next morning he leaves her meeting notes on her desk with the word "Outstanding!" written at the top in bright red marker.

She hangs them up like a certificate of commendation.

He invites her to lunch in front of Chris. "We can talk about where you want to be in five years."

April gives him in a bright, fake sunshine smile and says "Great." She brings a notebook to lunch and three different colors of pens and takes copious notes.

It feels like she's mocking Leslie.

Ben wants to reach across the table and strangle her.

Halfway back to the office, while April is still chattering on about her "ambitions" and her "love of public service" he jerks the car over to the side of the road so hard her shoulder slams into the passenger-side window.

Reaching across the console, he rips the pages of brightly colored notes off her pad, and crumples them into a ball. Tosses it out the window.

"But I need those!" April protests, "They were color coded."

Before he even knows what he's doing he's got her by the shoulders fingers digging-in hard, shakes her a little. "Stop it. Just fucking stop it!"

Her false demeanor dissolves and finally, finally, the April he knows stares back up at him, face flat, eyes hard.

"Did you make Leslie cry?"

"Son-of-a-"

"Did you?"

He sighs, relents, because she's obviously not going to let this go, and he's tired now, just so desperately tired. "No. I definitely did not make Leslie cry."

She chews on that for a moment, then adds, "I don't remember you being such an asshole in Pawnee."

"Yeah, well. That was Pawnee, wasn't it?"

Something flickers across April's face at that, and he can't quite decipher it, but he files it away. Feels like if he could just get that one piece the whole puzzle of her would unlock.

"You don't think Leslie cried when you left?"

Ben can feel his mouth twist in a pained sardonic smile. "I doubt it. I really, really doubt it."

"Do you think you would have stayed if she'd cried? If she'd begged you and said she was sorry for anything she did, do you think you wouldn't have left? That you'd, you know, not be such a loser."

"I-" He squeezes his eyes shut, realizes somehow this conversation has veered into new and unfamiliar territory. "Wait- what are we talking about now?"

April tries to shrug his hands off her shoulders, but he holds on. "April?"

She whips her head around and glares at him, "Nothing. Geez, we're talking nothing okay. Just that you're such a lame-ass and your face is so stupid it's like painful to look at it. And-"

"And?"

"And you- I-" And for once April's endless supply of insults seems to run dry, he can see the frustration and anger mounting on her face, and he really should be prepared for what happens next, but he's not at all.

With a muffled cry in the back of her throat, April reaches up, fists her hands in his hair and drags his mouth down onto to hers.

It's an all out assault, a brutal attack, punishing and angry and needy. And probably if he was still the man he'd been in Pawnee or even the man he'd been before Pawnee, he'd push her away, he'd obey his better angels and not take advantage of the emotionally distraught woman (girl) having an obvious breakdown in the passenger seat of his car, over something he doesn't entirely understand.

But he's not that man anymore. And that's at least fifty-percent because of her. She's molded him, warped him, turned him into her creature.

He reaches over and unhooks her seatbelt.

April doesn't miss a beat, climbs across the console in an elegant movement that feels almost predatory in its expediency and straddles him, rocking against his erection in a blatant invitation that's really a command.

Even as he's bringing one hand up to massage her breast, enjoying the way she presses into it, the fact he can make her just a little less impassive, he can't help but know this is crazy. That the fact he's even thinking of doing this—of fucking his assistant in his car, in the middle of the afternoon, on an open stretch of highway, just outside the town he's in the midst of hacking to pieces—is proof he has a self-destructive streak a mile wide.

Then it doesn't matter because April's got his pants undone and her hand is closing around his cock, even as she's leaning forward to whisper in his ear, "Stop being such a fuck-up and just do it, just fuck me already."

It's the insult that does it. Not because of any of kind of need to be humiliated or chastised or anything, but because it means he's got her back, that she's done with whatever she's been doing for the last twenty-four hours and they can go back to screwing with each other on a regular basis.

And maybe even add new tricks to their repertoire.

She's wearing a skirt for once, something dark and almost knee length, with a little white button-down and a long yellow cardigan. Her attempt at a 'professional' look that she did just to get under his skin. He shoves the skirt up to her waist hoping (insanely) that it holds the wrinkles, and runs the pad of his thumb over the damp cotton of her underwear. It's the pair with the Smurfs that he keeps finding in random places around the room. Briefly it skitters across his mind to wonder exactly how long she's been thinking about this, and then April is guiding his hand to shove her underwear to the side and lowering herself onto him and he's not thinking about anything at all.

There's nothing romantic about it. There's barely anything nice about it. They don't gaze into each other's eyes or whisper encouraging words. It's fast and frantic and sloppy. April keeps her hands fisted in his hair using the sharp points of her elbows on his shoulders for leverage, and his fingers bite into the angles of her hipbones so hard she will probably bruise. (It's disturbing how much he looks forward to the possibility of checking on that tonight.) And when she whispers things to him, it's little impatient demands like "Come on, already" and "Harder, God," and he says things back like "Shut-up" and "You're not helping."

When it's done, April climbs off him with all the ceremony and self-consciousness of someone who just borrowed a cup of sugar, tugs down her skirt and looks at the clock, then back over at him with a little smirk.

"You're going to be late for the meeting with the Parks Department. Chris will be pissed he has to do it."

Ben drops his forehead to the steering wheel and bites down on a strained, hysterical laugh. "I'll live."

When they get back to the Snerling municipal building, April drops the notebook and multi-colored pens in the trash can outside.

It's the last time they ever talk about Leslie.

He would love to tell you that he comes to his senses after that. That at some-point during the remaining work-day he gets his sanity back and chastises himself and resolves it won't happen again.

Ben would really love to tell you that.

Instead he spends most of his meeting with Chris ignoring the gentle rebukes and imagining exactly what those bruises on April's hips will look like by tonight, and when he comes out and April hands him the files for the Transportation Department, with a bored, "Have fun being a jackass," all he really wants to do is drag her into a storage closet.

There's a pink post-it on the top of the budget analysis he put together last night.

"Fuck-Up"

Two gold-stars this time. He crumples it up and puts it in his pocket.

The twenty-three year-old asshole who called April a 'freaky bitch' is in the meeting. It takes Ben exactly twelve-minutes of grilling him on his contributions to reduce the guy to a blubbering mess.

All in all it's a pretty satisfying afternoon.

Before April leaves that night, she drops a stack of information he requested from the Police Department on his desk and adds, "If you care, Chris wants you to look at page ten."

"Did he say why?"

She shrugs. "I don't know I stopped listening."

Page ten contains a series of handwritten notes from Chris regarding potential efficiencies to be captured in restructuring how the force operates (yeah that's going to be fantastic news to deliver). There's also two orange post-its detailing all the 'Reasons Ben Wyatt Sucks.'

Number one is "He's scared to go down on a girl because his tongue is lame."

They pretty much go on from there.

When he gets back to the motel that night neither one of them watch a baseball game or anything else.

The bruises on her hips are beautiful, by the way.

The strange thing is the sex doesn't really feel like sex. At least not sex the way he usually thinks of it. It's not about trying to connect on a deeper, more intimate level, not even about solace or comfort or staving off loneliness or any one of the hundreds of other reasons people give for one-night stands.

Instead it just feels like an extension of what they've been doing all along, a new facet of this game they've been playing since the beginning. The rules are the same-they've just advanced a few levels, bought the expansion pack.

She blows him against the door of his motel room before he leaves for work, and then writes 'LOSER' on the inside of his thigh with a sharpie while he's recovering. Punctuates it with a nip of her teeth as a period.

He's half hard all day.

He recommends to Chris that she be given more responsibility for coordinating the budget meetings, and when she follows him down the hall to complain, he pulls her into a file room and fucks her with his fingers until she's panting and desperate and muttering the longest string of expletives he's ever heard. Then leaves her there on the brink of orgasm with a smug "I think it's time you take a little responsibility, don't you?"

The truly filthy things she calls him as he leaves are the closest he's come to getting her to beg so far.

Not quite, but he'll get there, give him time.

When he catches her miming stabbing the City Comptroller in the back and barely manages to keep a straight face through the rest of the conversation, he takes her scissors away and replaces them with the bright plastic safety ones you give to kindergarteners.

She reciprocates by buying a new pair on the way home, and proceeding to cut his shirt off him. ("It just makes you look tragic and stupid anyway").

The next day when she comes into the office wearing a strip of the orange and blue plaid as a headband, he nearly chokes on his coffee.

And even as all this is going on, they are becoming bizarrely domestic. Not romantic, god knows, but comfortable, easy. Like a long-married couple who don't really love each other anymore, but stay together because it's routine.

April goes out while he's working and brings food back because the good people of Snerling have started the ever so original game of deliberately screwing up his orders or refusing to feed him at all, and she's gotten tired of eating 'crap' from the vending machines. Why they don't screw things up when April orders them he doesn't precisely know, but he's betting it has to do with either sex or fear or both (He watched her talk a policeman out of his pepper-spray in three minutes flat the other day. It was terrifying how oblivious the guy was to his imminent demise).

He goes down at midnight and does their laundry because the one time she tried all her clothes came back with ink splotches from a sharpie she forgot to take out of her back pocket.

She pesters him on the weekends that she's bored and the town is 'awful' and 'stupid' until he gives her money and the car keys just to get her out of his hair. He always figures there's a fifty-fifty chance there's going to be a policeman knocking on his door at the end of the day to tell him she's either dead or in custody, but somehow there never is.

(Sometimes he puts a grocery list on a post-it for her when she goes. Usually if it includes beer and ice-cream and an appropriate number of expletives he can get about thirty percent of the rest, but it's a crap shoot as to which thirty).

Then about six weeks in there's a Saturday when it's cold and pouring rain, and generally a pretty crappy day to go out all around. Which of course means April is bored and needs something to do.

So she defaults to her favorite pastime. Fucking with him.

And any other Saturday, Ben would be more than receptive to playing but he just came out of a three hour meeting this morning with the City Council and on Monday he has to sit down with the Police Department and walk them through Chris's restructuring plan, so he is looking at five days worth of work in the next forty-eight hours.

Long story short, he is decidedly not in the mood.

This of course doesn't stop her. And when he moves to the table to get away from being repeatedly kicked in the thigh, April just follows, drags the other chair next to him, throws her legs over one arm and starts swinging her feet back and forth in an insistent distracting tattoo against his side.

Without thinking, he grabs one of her ankles on the back-swing and glares over at her, "Do that again and I'll tie you up."

For a split-second she stills, then with an insolent deliberation that is clearly an invitation, she lifts her free leg and pokes him in the ribs with her toe.

These days she's got him so well trained he doesn't even hesitate before reaching up to undo his tie.

April is oddly calm about the whole thing, doesn't fight him or protest, even helps a little as he's tying her to the chair, checking the positioning of her wrists and ankles so they won't get too sore. And there is something disturbingly tender and intimate about the experience of being on his knees before her as she trusts him to do this. Askshim to do this even.

As he finishes with the final knot he looks up at her, and finds her looking down at him and there it is—that peaceful look that makes her almost beautiful.

Ben stands and without knowing what he's doing he lifts his hand to feather her bangs in a way he hasn't since that first night. April arches into it, and he drops a kiss to her forehead, murmurs so softly he's not even sure she hears:

"Now can you stop running for a little while?"

He leaves her lashed to the chair for most of the afternoon. Keeps the TV low on some kind of inane reality drivel that he's able to push into the background of his consciousness while he works. And she's so quiet and still there's a few times when he actually looks over to check and make sure she's still awake.

She always is.

Briefly it flits across his mind to wonder what someone else would think if they knocked on his door right now. If Chris, or the coffee shop barista she flirts with to get an extra shot for free, or god forbid Ron Swanson were to suddenly show up and see him sitting here working blithely away, while April Ludgate sits three feet from him, clad in a pair of his boxer shorts and little t-shirt for some band he's never heard of, tied to a chair with four of his ties.

He should probably find the idea more terrifying than he does.

Honestly though, he thinks he'd like to shock someone. Just once.

Around five she starts to make those little irritated shifting motions that means she's either hungry or bored. Mentally he flips a coin and takes a guess.

"I could call for a pizza."

She shakes her head. "The pizza here is gross."

He raises his eyebrows in a silent 'I'm open to suggestions.'

"There's a place over on fourth that makes chili. I'll have to get it though. They'd probably just throw it on you."

Chili sounds as good as anything. He takes out his keys and peels off a twenty and a five from his money clip. Holds them up in inquiry. April nods.

Folding them into her hand, he adds, "Change."

She rolls her eyes.

Well, it was worth a shot.

Sighing, he gets down on his knees and unties first one leg and then the other, massaging his hands up her calf muscles to help restore the circulation, and he's just about to move on to her arms, when April catches his eyes and slides her hips forward to the edge of the chair in a silent entreaty.

They watch each other for the first time as he eats her out. Him kneeling on the floor looking up at her, her tied to the chair staring down at him, the power dynamics between them just as fluid and messy and unclear as the picture would imply.

All in the eye of the beholder.

Ben thinks the sight of April Ludgate finally breaking off her gaze to close her eyes and throw her head back as he makes her come is something that he will be able to recall until the day he dies.

That night when he climbs into bed beside her, he swipes a thumb along the curve of her shoulder before rolling over to turn out the lights.

The next morning when he sits suspended on the edge of the bed for that half second pause before he stands up to greet the day, he thinks he feels her reach out and brush the base of his spine.

But that's probably a hallucination.

Still there's a new note to them now. Not quite tender, but maybe . . . appreciative? Like this has moved beyond something needed into something enjoyed, even relished.

He's not entirely sure, but whatever it is, it's enough that when everything starts to collapse, he selfishly wants to stop it.

It happens on what actually starts out looking like it will shape up to be a pretty good day. They've got only a week left in Snerling, so they're in the close-out reviews. Those self-congratulatory meetings when everyone who managed to survive the massacre pats themselves on the back for still being alive (which is such bullshit because despite his best efforts they're almost always largely made up of the exact same idiots who got the town into this mess in the first place). The president of City Council is mid-way through an extremely long speech about everyone's dedication and hard-work and resilience when his phone buzzes with a text from April.

Kill me now.

Briefly Ben flicks his eyes across the conference table to where she's sitting, face blank as always.

Lowering his phone beneath the table he texts her back:

Don't tempt me.

That gets him the ghost of a smile.

A few more minutes pass then his phone buzzes again.

Drop your pen.

Setting down his phone, he lifts his head, locks eyes with her and without breaking off the gaze to check whether anyone else is paying attention, knocks his pen off the table. Ducks down to retrieve it, pausing to look across at whatever she might want him to see.

April's spread her legs open just wide enough for him to make out the "Fuck" she's written up the inside of one thigh and the "Me" down the other.

Ben has no idea how he sits back up without giving himself a concussion. But he does. Barely. After he lets a few minutes go by to try to keep anyone from making the connection, he picks his phone again, scrolls through his schedule and then sends her a meeting request for 2:00 pm. Leaves the subject blank.

The narrowing of her eyes tells him she's not pleased with how long she has to wait, but it's not as though she doesn't know his calendar today.

He doubts either one of them remembers anything that's said in that meeting.

It's okay with him. April's the one who has to type the notes.

His lunch meeting with Chris somehow turns into a trip over to 'Grain 'n Simple' because they have "literally the best flaxseed" and Chris needs to stock up before going back to Indy. (Ben's not sure how one judges flaxseed, but as long as he's back by two he doesn't really care.)

They're wandering up and down the aisles (because apparently flaxseed cannot be purchased until Chris has greeted every person here) when suddenly there's an excited exclamation and big, teddy-bear of a man who Ben vaguely remembers to be the shoeshine guy at Pawnee City Hall is bounding over to them.

"Chris. Dude! It is awesome to see you. Look at me I'm shopping for groceries!"

He says this like it's the accomplishment of the century and he's waiting for applause or a high-five or maybe a lollipop.

Apparently it's the high-five because the guy (who Ben now remembers is named Andy) holds his hand up expectantly, first for Chris to slap enthusiastically and then again for him. For a second Ben just stares at the meaty palm and then with a mental shrug and 'whatever' that would make April proud (if, you know, she was ever inclined to be proud of anything) he high-fives back.

Chris and Andy fall into an excited exchange about the 'awesomeness' of fruit. Ben tunes it out and checks the time on his phone - 1:20 pm. This is getting ridiculous.

"Wait. Man, is April with you guys?"

At the sound of April's name his head snaps up to find Andy looking back and forth between them like his whole happiness hinges on the answer.

Ben feels something turn over in the pit of his stomach, and strange pressure start behind his eyes. His hand clenches tight on his phone and he looks down again at clock read out.

1:23 pm.

Time is running out.

Somewhere in the background of his consciousness he can hear Andy rambling on about how if April was with them that would just be "the best" because she's "been ignoring like all my calls ever since she left. And I tried calling from Burley's number but she hung up on me and then started ignoring that" and how he's "really sorry for not getting there in time to pick up her sister before she walked home that day" and could Chris tell her that and that "I miss her like crazy and also tell her I haven't kissed anyone else."

"Come with us and tell her yourself!" Chris encourages, "Ben won't this be exciting? Our very own romantic reunion? Like the 'Notebook'."

"Exciting." Ben repeats automatically, still not looking up from his phone, too busy reading the text April just sent him.

Bored. Stop being so stupid and slow. Just tell Chris to fuck off and leave already.

And he knows he shouldn't, knows he doesn't have any right, any claim or ownership. Knows this thing they do to each other is unhealthy in the worst way and if he has a single ounce of decency left he won't do anything to interfere with what's about to happen.

He texts her back. Go start boxing things up in the file room on the third floor.

She won't actually start boxing anything, but that's not important as long as she isn't at her desk when Andy gets there.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he can hear April's voice.

I don't remember you being such an asshole in Pawnee.

Yeah, well. That was Pawnee, wasn't it?

He leaves Andy and Chris looking for April and goes up to the third floor to fuck her against the wall of file cabinets, her nails digging hard into his scalp.

The pain feels about right.

Andy's gone when he gets back downstairs, but there's a ridiculous stuffed teddy bear sitting on April's desk holding a heart that says "I'm Beary Sorry."

He can't be serious . . .

But when April comes back down fifteen minutes later and sees the bear, she freezes and for a second there's something on her face that's just so heartbreakingly . . . real. That's the only word Ben can come up with for it. He doesn't know exactly what the emotion is, can quite place it, but he knows it's truer and deeper than anything he's been able to evoke from her in the twelve weeks they've been doing whatever it is you want to call this thing.

She looks up and catches him staring at her. Like the flick of a switch, her face closes back up and she drops the bear in the trash.

And Ben can feel that final piece of her puzzle slide into place with a deafening click.

And he can't help but wish he'd never solved her.

They don't talk about it. Because, you know, they never talk about anything. But for the next two days, Andy starts hanging out at the Snerling municipal building and following April around like a lost puppy. Which usually results in a lot of yelling of "Go away" and "I don't care," and Ben getting slammed against any hard surface April can find the moment they're alone for two-seconds.

He knows it's not really about him anymore. Knows maybe it was never really about him in the slightest. But he can't quite bring himself to stop it, not just yet.

The problem he thinks, the thing that keeps pulling him up short, is if it isn't him then it would just be someone else. Maybe the coffee-cart guy or the asshole in Transportation or the idiot cop who would probably give her his handcuffs if she asked.

And he could give her to Andy. Andy who opens her up and makes her real. Andy who has so much heart, Ben sometimes wonders if he isn't holding on to April's for safe-keeping. He could give her to Andy, but not anyone else.

No one else.

The situation becomes untenable on night three when Andy shows up at the motel with his guitar and knocks on Ben's door. And when he gets up to go to answer it (because ignoring it is just making Andy yell louder) April's hand clamps down on his wrist like a vise, and she looks up at him with wide, terrified eyes.

"Don't."

He doesn't know whether she means 'don't answer the door' or 'don't tell him I'm here.' She doesn't elaborate.

It doesn't matter.

Slowly he pries her fingers from his wrist and walks to the door, slips the safety chain free and steps outside closing it behind him, maybe protecting April, maybe keeping her to himself. He's not sure.

"Hey Ben, do you know where April is? I've been knocking on the door of her room for like an hour."

Ben thinks of the dark, twisted creature who regularly occupies his bed and how she really only bears a passing resemblance to the girl who looked at that teddy bear, and gives Andy his best confused frown and head-shake. "Nope, sorry."

"Well do you think she might just be, you know, ignoring me?"

"Possibly."

"'Cause I wrote her this song and she's never heard it. I was thinking maybe if she finally heard it she'd forgive me."

Ben just stares at him.

"If she's in her room, maybe if I sing it really loud she'll hear it?"

"Either that or the motel manager will kick you off the property."

"Yeah, but April is totally worth the risk. Thanks man."

Really it was less than nothing.

Andy bounds off up the stairs to where 'April's room' is located just above Ben's. Ben goes back inside and shuts the door. He's just sitting down on the edge of the bed and turning his head to tell April what happened when somewhere in the silence the strains of a guitar chord starts up. And for a second they both freeze and stare at each other.

"November . . ."

The next thing he knows April is pushing him down on the bed and climbing on top of him, kissing him with a fervent need that has nothing to do with him at all.

"April-" he starts to protest.

"November . . ."

She pulls her t-shirt over her head and kisses him again, trying to crawl out of her skin and under his. And he's grown so used to having her there it takes all his willpower not to automatically let her in.

"Stop- You need- We need to stop."

"November . . ."

"Please," she whispers, "Please just- God, just fuck me, please."

And it's the please that does it. Even though he knows it's not his doing. Has nothing to do with him at all. Twelve weeks of trying to get her to beg, and Andy does it in three minutes flat with a song about the wrong fucking month.

Still, he's been waiting to hear it too damn long to remain unaffected. He rolls her over under him and presses her into the mattress.

It's simple missionary sex, slow and soft and bittersweet. Almost tender in a way that's completely wrong for them. An empty facsimile of something they both want from other people. She buries her face in his neck and kisses him in a way he knows is meant for someone else entirely, and the whole time it's happening he can hear Andy serenading her outside a room she hasn't slept in since this started.

It is, without a doubt, the worst thing he's ever done.

Including bankrupting Patridge.

And leaving Leslie behind in Pawnee.

When it's over and April curls up on her side in a small ball, Ben gets up and goes into the bathroom.

Stares at himself in the mirror for a few seconds before he has to throw-up.

That night after he's certain April's gone to sleep, he gets up and pulls her phone out of the pocket of her sweater. Goes outside and scrolls through the missed call log. There's a number on there that called twenty-five times in the past day. He punches it into his phone and dials.

When Andy picks up, Ben doesn't waste any time. If he delays he might lose his resolve.

"Tell me about the thing with not picking up her sister."

After Andy's done explaining about April's things-she-hates-to-do list and how because he didn't do everything she asked April went to Indy and he's so sorry for screwing it up, Ben closes his eyes, half caught between wanting to laugh and cry at the thought that it really could be that simple.

Of course it is not that simple at all. It never is. But something about Andy's childlike belief just makes him want to believe to.

"Okay." He exhales, "Okay, come in tomorrow at seven and I'll give you April's entire task list for the day. Worth a shot, right?"

"Aw, thanks man, you are awesome!"

Yeah, he's a regular fucking cupid.

He goes back inside and climbs into bed. Reaches out to swipe his thumb along the curve of April's shoulder one last time.

I'm going to miss you.

Andy's attempts to complete April's task-list go wrong from the start. And somehow, for some reason (Ben honestly has no idea), by eleven am he's being chased through the halls by building security, screaming April's name at the top of his lungs.

"April!"

Ben stands in the office doorway, transfixed as the security guys corner Andy and instead of surrendering, he climbs up onto a folding table that had been set out to hold flyers.

"April Ludgate! I think you are the most awesome woman in the world, and I am not leaving this building until you agree to come back with me!"

In a turn of events that should shock absolutely no one, the folding table collapses out from under Andy.

At the sound of the crash and the muffled "ow!" that follows, April finally leaps up from her desk and comes to stand beside Ben in the doorway. And even though Andy is now sitting cross-legged on the floor, his hands cuffed behind him, at the sight of April his entire face lights up.

Ben has never seen anyone look so happy in his life.

"April!"

Beside him, he can feel the woman in question take a stuttering half step forward and then pause, suspended, uncertain. Look back over her shoulder at him.

Ben puts two knuckles against the small of her back and pushes her forward. Whispering as he does so, "Just do it. Stop being such a fuck up and just go already."

And she does. Takes one step and then another and another.

And then she's running.

Ben watches her go.

That's it. He thinks. Don't stop. He begs. Just go. Keep going. Run back to the Wizard and get your heart.

That evening when April comes back to the office hand in hand with Andy to give Chris her letter of resignation, ("I quit" written on an orange post-it) she's smiling so broadly, Ben almost doesn't recognize her.

She doesn't say goodbye to him. He doesn't expect her to.

But somehow when he comes into work the next morning, there's a hot-pink post-it smack-dab in the center of his desk.

"Fuck-up"

She's put five gold stars around it.

He tucks it in his money clip with a smile.

Two days later when he goes to clear out her desk before he and Chris head back to Indy he pulls open the top drawer to find pads of post-its in every conceivable color, five sharpies, four sheets of gold stars, and nothing else.

Ben closes the drawer and leaves them in Snerling.

A month later he's up north of Indy on a one week due-diligence review, when he gets an email from her on his phone.

It's an e-vite to April and Andy's "Rockin Dinner Party" tonight at eight pm.

They're asking everyone to bring things. His items are as follows:

Avatar

50 pairs of 3-D glasses

A 3-D capable television

Two wedding rings (in the sizes specified) – "so you have to come or it will screw everything up"

That last one makes him blink and then it sinks in what's going on and he grins. Good for you.

He scrolls back and forth through the email a few times before realizing April's added a post-script to it as only she can:

Leslie asked about you yesterday. She's so weird and awkward anytime your name comes up. And then she always wants to talk to me about you while I'm trying to read a magazine. It's annoying. I want her to leave me alone. So just come back already. Stop being such a fuck-up and just come back here so she'll leave me alone.

Ben excuses himself from the meeting and goes outside. Looks south.

Towards Pawnee.

Towards Leslie.

He pulls out his car keys and holds them in his hand. He should leave now. True to form April hasn't given him time to think about it (she's still got him trained). He needs to find rings, and it'll take him three hours to get there.

Three hours down the yellow brick road of I-65. Three hours to get back to the Wizard and ask for his heart.

Maybe, just maybe, there's room for two Tin-men in this story after all.

- fin -