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crack_van2013-06-18 11:42 am
stars-inthe-sky.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2013-06-18 11:42 am
Entry tags:
"The Whole Sky Fell" by ohmyohpioneer (R)
Fandom: Parks and Recreation
Pairing: Leslie Knope/Ben Wyatt
Length: 2808 words
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ohmyohpioneer
Author Website: Unknown
Why this must be read: The Harvest Festival goes off without a hitch, but in a tragic twist, Ben's father dies a few days before it begins. Watching him work through the pain of loss while confronting his complicated history with his hometown and is family is heartbreaking, and his longing for Leslie--even at this earlier stage of their friendship--is palpable.
His father dies the day before the Harvest Festival.
It would just fucking figure.
_
He’s eating waffles.
“Benji, you have to come home.”
His sister’s voice is strange on the other end of the line, but he ignores it with that awkward, stunted laugh he affects when someone asks to keep money in the budget for doughnuts at the weekly staff meeting. And he’s standing from the booth, explaining in his practiced voice that he has Very Important Matters To Attend To and he’s pretending that it’s something other than Leslie as he kicks a stone from the sidewalk.
“Ben. Ben. Dad’s dead.”
He blinks and looks through the slated blinds of J.J.’s at Leslie’s confused smile and is still.
_
Ben hasn’t heard a word that Leslie has said since he walked back into the diner and calmly informed her that his father’s funeral will be in four days.
But he does feel the warmth of her hand through his shirt.
He’s never seen her face so stormy or her eyes bright with tears, and he doesn’t understand why she is upset - she’s never met his father.
_
And maybe they kiss at the festival in the lights and the sounds and the fry-cakes. And maybe it’s whimsical and perfect and she asks him for forever and he stays. And she laughs through the corn maze and grips his hand and sighs his name and blinks awake next to him.
And maybe he’s sleeping in his childhood bed with the Han Solo sheets with feet hanging off the end with shit to show for the inexplicable catch in his chest that feels like his heart is in a perpetual state of sleep start.
_
The morning of the Harvest Festival he wakes to a text from Leslie:
Wish you were here.
He almost calls her right then to tell her that it almost physically hurts him not to see the product of her love and labors. That there was not a snowball’s chance in hell (and okay, maybe he was going to phrase that less like an eighty year old woman) she was ever going to lose her job. That he -
Instead he wipes his hand across his eyes and responds:
Me too.
He hopes she understands.
_
When he stares down into the casket during the wake, he realizes that this is the first time he has seen his father in two years.
For a sliver of moment, Ben feels what he thinks is regret but is probably all that coffee on an empty stomach and seeing a dead body primped and stuffed and masquerading as a sleeping person.
His father wouldn’t have given two shits about Harvest Festival.
The Whole Sky Fell
Pairing: Leslie Knope/Ben Wyatt
Length: 2808 words
Author on LJ:
ohmyohpioneerAuthor Website: Unknown
Why this must be read: The Harvest Festival goes off without a hitch, but in a tragic twist, Ben's father dies a few days before it begins. Watching him work through the pain of loss while confronting his complicated history with his hometown and is family is heartbreaking, and his longing for Leslie--even at this earlier stage of their friendship--is palpable.
His father dies the day before the Harvest Festival.
It would just fucking figure.
_
He’s eating waffles.
“Benji, you have to come home.”
His sister’s voice is strange on the other end of the line, but he ignores it with that awkward, stunted laugh he affects when someone asks to keep money in the budget for doughnuts at the weekly staff meeting. And he’s standing from the booth, explaining in his practiced voice that he has Very Important Matters To Attend To and he’s pretending that it’s something other than Leslie as he kicks a stone from the sidewalk.
“Ben. Ben. Dad’s dead.”
He blinks and looks through the slated blinds of J.J.’s at Leslie’s confused smile and is still.
_
Ben hasn’t heard a word that Leslie has said since he walked back into the diner and calmly informed her that his father’s funeral will be in four days.
But he does feel the warmth of her hand through his shirt.
He’s never seen her face so stormy or her eyes bright with tears, and he doesn’t understand why she is upset - she’s never met his father.
_
And maybe they kiss at the festival in the lights and the sounds and the fry-cakes. And maybe it’s whimsical and perfect and she asks him for forever and he stays. And she laughs through the corn maze and grips his hand and sighs his name and blinks awake next to him.
And maybe he’s sleeping in his childhood bed with the Han Solo sheets with feet hanging off the end with shit to show for the inexplicable catch in his chest that feels like his heart is in a perpetual state of sleep start.
_
The morning of the Harvest Festival he wakes to a text from Leslie:
Wish you were here.
He almost calls her right then to tell her that it almost physically hurts him not to see the product of her love and labors. That there was not a snowball’s chance in hell (and okay, maybe he was going to phrase that less like an eighty year old woman) she was ever going to lose her job. That he -
Instead he wipes his hand across his eyes and responds:
Me too.
He hopes she understands.
_
When he stares down into the casket during the wake, he realizes that this is the first time he has seen his father in two years.
For a sliver of moment, Ben feels what he thinks is regret but is probably all that coffee on an empty stomach and seeing a dead body primped and stuffed and masquerading as a sleeping person.
His father wouldn’t have given two shits about Harvest Festival.
The Whole Sky Fell