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crack_van2013-06-25 09:56 am
stars-inthe-sky.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2013-06-25 09:56 am
Entry tags:
"Sweet and Low" by whyagain (PG-13)
Fandom: Parks and Recreation
Pairing: Mostly gen with Chris Traeger/various and Leslie Knope/Ben Wyatt in the background
Length: 2692 words
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
whyagain
Author Website: Fic tag
Why this must be read: I've long wondered why a lot of people put up with Chris after the first impression, especially Ben, who has to always be the one to say no. This fic pretty much explains exactly how and why, sketching out our favorite state auditors' relationship over the years and their subtle understanding of each other. It's just the right amount of melancholy and ultimately hopeful, and the ending makes me want to cheer.
Chris is the reason he goes back. His recently acquired, cartoonishly optimistic partner Chris calls the office, packs his things, and throws him into the car. Chris keeps an arm over his shoulder the whole time and cries more than anyone else.
He starts to tell him a thousand times that he doesn’t have to do this, that he’s really all right. But he doesn’t think Chris would believe him anyway.
And it’s kind of nice. He likes having someone to support, someone to delicately sneak tissues to during the service, someone to hold. He gets the ridiculous urge to introduce him as “my wife, Chris.” The thought almost makes him laugh.
Almost.
-
They have to fire a woman named Joanne three months later in Montpelier.
Chris looks sideways at him along the conference table. Chris tells her she’s a wonderful person, but that they’re downsizing, cutting fat from the budget.
He actually calls her the fat, and it’s outrageously endearing that he’s doing this. For him. It hits him somewhere in the recesses of his mind that Chris would fight for him.
-
It is inevitable that Chris will find someone to love in every single place he stays longer than five minutes. And not just someone, because Chris will love anyone if given a name and thirty seconds, but a woman. A nice, beautiful, usually semi-vulnerable woman. Sometimes he thinks Chris considers them as projects, but most of the time they’re worse for the wear when Chris leaves.
The first time he witnessed it happening, he was truly worried for the other man. He could easily believe that Chris would have a hard time leaving, and maybe somewhere in the back of his mind he pictured himself ditching Chris before their partnership had even begun.
It is the first time Chris surprises him.
Now he thinks it’s some kind of mechanism, some sort of self-preservation device he uses to make sure at least one person remembers him in a role other than his professional one. But the thing is, Chris genuinely seems to like these women.
But he doesn’t.
Not really.
He says all the right things, looks and acts the part, but then he throws his luggage in the trunk, climbs into the passenger seat and never says another word about them. In fact, Chris is usually more upset in the days leading up to a breakup than the days after one.
And somehow being there for Chris shifts into breaking up for Chris, and it’s such a natural extension of what they do together that he couldn’t tell you how it happened.
But he doesn’t refuse.
-
He walks along the Wabash with a woman named Ellie. He buys her an overpriced ice cream from a stand by the bridge. She squints at him through the sun.
“Chris is breaking up with me, isn’t he?”
She doesn’t deserve this. And neither does he, he thinks. But sometimes he thinks it’s part of his job. Sometimes he thinks he’s become a no-man, and sometimes he thinks he’s always been one. He finds himself forgetting that he once said yes to an ice rink, to big dreaming and the end of his comically short political career.
Saying no is comfortable. It’s safe and it’s easier than emulating the decision that shaped his jaded life.
But then he gets back to the office and sees Chris and all he can say is yes. Because Chris fights for him. Because for some madcap, crackpot reason, Chris is there for him. It might be only half of what he wants, but it feels so good and he doesn’t want to lose an inch.
Sweet and Low
Pairing: Mostly gen with Chris Traeger/various and Leslie Knope/Ben Wyatt in the background
Length: 2692 words
Author on LJ:
whyagainAuthor Website: Fic tag
Why this must be read: I've long wondered why a lot of people put up with Chris after the first impression, especially Ben, who has to always be the one to say no. This fic pretty much explains exactly how and why, sketching out our favorite state auditors' relationship over the years and their subtle understanding of each other. It's just the right amount of melancholy and ultimately hopeful, and the ending makes me want to cheer.
Chris is the reason he goes back. His recently acquired, cartoonishly optimistic partner Chris calls the office, packs his things, and throws him into the car. Chris keeps an arm over his shoulder the whole time and cries more than anyone else.
He starts to tell him a thousand times that he doesn’t have to do this, that he’s really all right. But he doesn’t think Chris would believe him anyway.
And it’s kind of nice. He likes having someone to support, someone to delicately sneak tissues to during the service, someone to hold. He gets the ridiculous urge to introduce him as “my wife, Chris.” The thought almost makes him laugh.
Almost.
-
They have to fire a woman named Joanne three months later in Montpelier.
Chris looks sideways at him along the conference table. Chris tells her she’s a wonderful person, but that they’re downsizing, cutting fat from the budget.
He actually calls her the fat, and it’s outrageously endearing that he’s doing this. For him. It hits him somewhere in the recesses of his mind that Chris would fight for him.
-
It is inevitable that Chris will find someone to love in every single place he stays longer than five minutes. And not just someone, because Chris will love anyone if given a name and thirty seconds, but a woman. A nice, beautiful, usually semi-vulnerable woman. Sometimes he thinks Chris considers them as projects, but most of the time they’re worse for the wear when Chris leaves.
The first time he witnessed it happening, he was truly worried for the other man. He could easily believe that Chris would have a hard time leaving, and maybe somewhere in the back of his mind he pictured himself ditching Chris before their partnership had even begun.
It is the first time Chris surprises him.
Now he thinks it’s some kind of mechanism, some sort of self-preservation device he uses to make sure at least one person remembers him in a role other than his professional one. But the thing is, Chris genuinely seems to like these women.
But he doesn’t.
Not really.
He says all the right things, looks and acts the part, but then he throws his luggage in the trunk, climbs into the passenger seat and never says another word about them. In fact, Chris is usually more upset in the days leading up to a breakup than the days after one.
And somehow being there for Chris shifts into breaking up for Chris, and it’s such a natural extension of what they do together that he couldn’t tell you how it happened.
But he doesn’t refuse.
-
He walks along the Wabash with a woman named Ellie. He buys her an overpriced ice cream from a stand by the bridge. She squints at him through the sun.
“Chris is breaking up with me, isn’t he?”
She doesn’t deserve this. And neither does he, he thinks. But sometimes he thinks it’s part of his job. Sometimes he thinks he’s become a no-man, and sometimes he thinks he’s always been one. He finds himself forgetting that he once said yes to an ice rink, to big dreaming and the end of his comically short political career.
Saying no is comfortable. It’s safe and it’s easier than emulating the decision that shaped his jaded life.
But then he gets back to the office and sees Chris and all he can say is yes. Because Chris fights for him. Because for some madcap, crackpot reason, Chris is there for him. It might be only half of what he wants, but it feels so good and he doesn’t want to lose an inch.
Sweet and Low