Chapter Text
“Babe?” Leslie called out as she entered the house, her arms laden with drinks for the party. “Honey?”
“Here,” she heard faintly from an undisclosed location.
“Marco?” Leslie ventured, setting down wine bottles as her eyes searched the room for wherever the sound may have come from.
“Polo,” the love of her life answered meekly, his skinny arm shooting out from beneath a quilt.
Ah, there he was, lying flat on the couch below one of the blankets she had sown for him back when they first started dating.
“Ben?” She asked, unsure of what it is exactly she was witnessing here. The house was cluttered with boxes, the process of moving into their new place taking a little longer than either of them had foreseen (she has many things and they require great care and no apologies will be made for it), and within the mess lay Ben Wyatt ensconced in cloth.
“Can we please just cancel?” He asked for what must have been the thirtieth time, but the first with his words muffled through fabric.
“Baby,” she started with a sigh, kneeling down to feel for his face. “May I?”
Ben nodded rather than provide her with verbal acquiescence, which was alright. It was rare but not entirely new for Leslie to see him this way – practically non-verbal and verging on catatonic. Her heart gave a powerful beat, contracting in a somewhat painful manner. Lowering the blanket revealed Ben’s forehead damp with sweat, his eyes bloodshot and his hair a little wild from having fingers run through it again and again.
“Sweetheart,” Leslie whispered to him, a hand reaching out to caress his cheek.
“I didn’t mean to,” he told her, his own hand reaching up to grasp hers and press it even tighter against his warm skin.
She knew what he meant. That he didn’t mean to rile himself up this way, that he didn’t want to wind up like this, so nervous over an event that was supposed to be a celebration of them. It was incredibly humbling to be able to read Ben without words, and Leslie distantly thought how lucky she was to know this man so intimately.
“You know we don’t actually have to do this, right? I don’t need any of it. We can go to City Hall tomorrow for all I care or drive down to Vegas and elope. I’ll pack us a bag right now.”
“No, I–” Ben shook his head, his eyes welling up. “I want to do this. Well, no, obviously, I don’t. But I do. I want my family to be able to all be in one room together and be fucking normal for an evening, I just know it won’t happen. And I know it’ll be shitty, and they’ll be shitty, and you’ll realize it may be a little shitty marrying into this.”
“Benjamin Wyatt,” Leslie tried to scold him, but it came off more infatuated than anything else. “I am marrying into this willingly and happily, thank you very much. Families are never easy and I could care less if yours is harder than most, I just want to get to know them. I want them to get to know me, I need them to see how much I love you, okay? Also, and I do hate saying this, but let us not forget my own mother tried to get in your pants. So, it’s not like my family has a clean record here.”
“Oh, I haven’t forgotten,” Ben answered, cracking a hint of a smile for the first time that evening. God damn if it didn’t make Leslie melt.
She moved her palm to his chest, to his heart that was still beating quicker than normal. Ben’s anxiety and occasional panic attacks were something Leslie knew may accompany them for the rest of their joint lives, but it was so incredibly hard to be worried about it when the privilege of serving as anchor for this man was so precious to her.
“I meant it,” Leslie started saying, toeing off her heels and lifting the blanket so she could slide beneath it, right on top of Ben. The weight of her spreading across his tense muscles always seems to do the trick. Leslie covered them both with the blanket and raised it almost completely over their heads, creating a temporary cocoon for them. Ben’s arms immediately came to wrap around her as his features noticeably relaxed. “There is no party I won’t cancel and no caterer I won’t send packing if it means you stay calm and happy. We can stay right here and do dirty things all night and I would be a very happy woman.”
“How dirty?” Ben asked, his hands sliding downwards and pressing her against him. While she did truthfully mean each one of her words, the pressure of him against her hip showed Leslie just how sincerely she had intended the offer.
“Filthy,” she confirmed, leaning down to meet his lips briefly. Thrice.
“I just need a few minutes to breathe it out,” Ben said at last. “Can we do the counting thing?”
“Yeah, of course. What are four things you see?”
“Your eyes,” he said immediately, and it brought a smile to both of their faces. Without fail, Ben always noticed her eyes first. “Your hair, your lips, the freckles on your nose.”
“What are three things you feel?”
“Your jeans,” Ben started, emphasizing the point by squeezing her ass. “My shirt is a little wet, I think I sweated through it. My eyes sting.”
“What are two things you think?” Leslie asked him, rubbing her thumb against the side of his right eye where a tear had silently slipped.
“I think tonight will be a shit show no matter how much you try to orchestrate it otherwise,” he answered sincerely, lines of remorse appearing between his furrowed brows. “I think you deserve this night to go better than it will.”
“What is one thing you know?” Leslie asked, kissing his pink cheek and his temple and his soft lips that she adores.
“I love you. I know that I love you more than anything in this world.”