Boom!Sadness

Starting doing things for people by doing this drabble for amypop. (It mentions Leslie’s hair! I’m sorry! But it comes out of the episode, I swear!)

Deleted/AU scene for 3x13, “The Fight”: Andy lets a vital piece of information slip

“Hey, Leslie?”

“Hmm?” She doesn’t turn around. She can’t. Even humming makes her head spin. Anyway, she knows the person behind her is Andy.

“Um, I do not want to disturb you, because you look super busy—”

“I do?” This time she does turn around, very slowly, her vision blurred as her head rotates past Ben’s vacated chair. By the time she gets to Andy, hunched over in the doorframe, he’s apparently regretting a recent nod of the head.

“But someone, not me, okay it was me—Leslie, I threw up in the hall.”

Oh, god. Her brain, already throbbing, threatens to leak out both ears. 

“Did you clean it up?”

“No, I did not, because I only have shoe-shining rags? I was just gonna wait until tonight, because somehow the building is always clean in the morning, but it turns out people are super freaked out by streaky black vomit.”

“Andy…”

“Chris made me drink this weird thing. It was green.” Andy giggles, hiccups, and—crap on a monitor lizard—chokes back what she can only assume is another round of vomit.

“Andy, go find building maintenance and ask them to clean it up,” she mutters. Slowly, she spins herself back to the table. Not that she wants to turn her back on Andy. She just really, really needs to slump.

Dimly, she becomes aware that someone is sitting in Ben’s empty chair. Andy, judging by the scent of shoe polish, which is awful and makes her brain leak faster.

“Oh, I saw him take off in his car,” Andy says nonchalantly, fanning himself with a few rejected résumés.

“Huh?”

“Ben,” Andy clarifies. “Drove somewhere in his car. Why, is he supposed to be here?”

“Yes,” she whines. Everything hurts and she’s dying, and Ann probably hates her now, and Ben’s abandoned her, and she’s never, ever, ever been this hung over and it’s just the worst. Even stringing all those thoughts together makes her head hurt…more. And…now she’s talking about Ben without realizing it, apparently. Great.

Andy, to her dull, throbbing surprise, giggles.

“That’s gotta be awkward.”

“What? Why would it be awkward, we work together all the time—”

“Well, because—you know.”

“Because we’re hung over?” Leslie’s still slumped over the table, but she glances up in time to see Andy raise his eyebrows.

“No!” Andy giggles again. “Because he has a crush on—wait, no, I’m not supposed to say anything. Leslie, I never said anything.”

“No, of course you didn’t.” She considers abandoning her slump, although being upright still sounds unpleasant.

“So, I’m gonna go find the people with the puke buckets and mops and stuff.”

Being upright sounds less unpleasant. “That’s a good idea.”

“And if I see Ben,” Andy adds helpfully, as he walks to the door, “I’ll tell him where you are.”

“Thanks, Andy.”

“Later, boss.”

After she’s sure Andy’s gone, Leslie sneaks a glance at her watch. Two minutes until the end of the break Ben suggested they should take.

Even as slowly as she’s moving today, that’s plenty of time to make it to the ladies’ room, try to do something a little more appealing with her hair…

Technically, Andy didn’t say anything. So it sort of doesn’t count.

But, as she’s fiddling with a particularly tragic curl, Leslie catches a glimpse of her own tiny smile in the mirror.

She feels a little less hung over.