Chapter Three
- Wednesday
snl!reader x ben marshall ── grumpy x sunshine, coworkers to loversˎˊ˗
syn: some of the cast sneaks out to the bar to celebrate ben. you've never been one to turn down a drink
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It wasn’t often you were the first one in the building. Of course, the writers were always holed up in their rooms on Wednesday mornings—they never left, for that matter—but usually there’d be at least a few early birds milling about by 7AM.
The sun had just breached the horizon, reflecting off the snow covered city below. The white light streamed through the windows, casting long shadows across the floor and making the place feel even more abandoned.
Your office was laced with evidence from last night. Pillows askew on the couch and the balled up DoorDash bag peeking out of the little trashcan. Soon cast members would be crashing on your couch, spilling their worries and pushing your buttons, trying to get anything out of you that wasn’t instructions and schedules.
In the lull of early morning, it was easy to anticipate their company. Of course, when it came time to be productive you’d do a complete 180.
You discarded your snow covered jacket and kicked on the space heater. The thought popped into your mind that, maybe, you shouldn’t sit down at your desk just yet. You’ll have your hands full with the table read today. It will be go-go-go beyond sunset and if you just gave yourself a little time to rest, it could pay off. Maybe you wouldn’t be dead on your feet by lunch.
It was a nice thought, but abandoned the second you noticed a piece of paper sitting on your laptop.
Despite your desk being entirely covered in papers, you knew this wasn’t your work. You wouldn’t be able to stand looking at a page with ripped edges all day.
You eased onto the cold leather of your desk chair and immediately began to read.
If you’re seeing this, I probably haven’t slept and regret everything. Wish me luck today. Pretty Please
You re-read it again, analyzing the messy, sloping hand writing and the little scribble at the top to check the pen was working.
Your knee jerk reaction was was why the hell was he in my office, but you moved on from that pretty quickly.
Before you could think better of it, you spun around and pinned the note on your corkboard, right in the middle of all the other miscellaneous things that have accumulated there. Exhibit A for the next time you made fun of him for saying “pretty please” unironically.
And when you turned back around, all those schedules and paperwork were waiting there for you.
On Wednesdays, your office went from a break room to an official headquarters for the younger cast. Under these circumstances, you didn’t have the heart to kick them out, so you ignored the itch to get ahead on work and waited for the approved sketch announcement with the rest of them.
The list would give you your own workload, beyond consoling whoever in the room didn’t make the cut. Your internal monologue morphed into your therapist’s voice, telling you a mid-day break is healthy. It didn’t feel that way in practice.
The couch was far past capacity. Those who weren’t piled on top of each other stretched their legs on the floor or leaned against bookshelves. Kam was performing some sort of impromptu tight five to cheer up the room. Ben had commandeered your desk chair without asking.
You pulled your knees into your chest, back against the couch, and rested your head on Veronika’s leg to your right. You found yourself pressing into your thumb, aggravating your cut underneath the band-aid to keep yourself from drifting off.
Ben tapped a key on your laptop, then made no effort to hide his disappointment.
“Can you—” you shot up, “can you get off my laptop.”
He stared up at you as you rounded the desk. You imagine he’d be giving you that one specific look if he wasn’t overcome with nerves. The one he pulled when he’d pushed your buttons in just the right way and now got to watch you squirm.
After a moment of hesitation, he relinquished the chair without protest. On your screen was the production Slack channel, in which Lorne had just sent a message—so recent that Ben never saw it.
The list is complete. Will be sent now.
Your stomach dropped for them. Soon the room would be divided into relief and despair, clashing to create a turmoil that couldn’t be resolved.
You spared them the anticipation and instead, took a breath and appreciated the last moments before shit hit the fan.
The next message appeared shortly after, a list of what made the cut, no care to mention anyone the hard work of those didn't.
You took the briefest moment to do a primary skim. Ben must have seen your expression change because he came up behind you before you had a chance to break the news.
He caught a glimpse of the message before you could navigate away from it. One hand came to the back of your chair, the other to the side of the desk, positioning him over top of you.
“Alright.” You spun around, leaving almost no distance between you two, which forced him to take a step back. “Go sit down, please.”
Again, uncharacteristically, he didn’t fight back, but he didn’t go very far either. Instead, he hovered behind you, just close enough to make you feel crowded.
Thank God above, it was almost entirely good news. Veronika’s sketch was placed first after the monologue—prime positioning. When Jeremy heard he made the cut, a weight was visibly lifted from his shoulders. Kam wrapped him in a hug and shook him around carelessly. He, on the other hand, didn’t get selected. At least he wasn’t expecting to. He admitted himself that the single sketch he pitched was half-assed and had no legs. One less person to piece back together.
In fact, he would have been the only one. By sketch fifteen, Ben hadn’t heard his name. Your preliminary skim of the list told you he was on there. You didn’t tell him that, yet, and when he leaned back in, surrounding you in your chair, you didn’t ask him to move.
“Seventeen. B Marshall, Untitled Airport Bit,” you read, trying to tamper down the pride in your voice because you were the one to tell him.
You couldn’t help yourself from turning around to see his reaction. His brow furrowed as he re-read the line just to be sure he heard you right. Then, his face eased and a grin took its place.
The room had broken out into cheers. Kam moved to dap him up, which he returned, but his eyes remained on you the whole time. You wondered if, in the whirlwind of it all, he was subconsciously attributing the decision in his favor to you. You wished he wouldn’t, because his gaze felt heavy. Undeserved.
Veronika came up next, wrapping Ben in a hug and insisting they celebrate with drinks for getting picked seven weeks in a row.
You assumed that was a later sort of suggestion, but without much discussion, the others filed out of the room before Ben could even make up his mind about it.
“We have an hour before blocking! It’s fine,” someone called from the hall, so quick that they must have already prepared the argument.
Soon, the room was entirely cleared besides Ben. The whiplash from chaos to calm made the moment feel even quieter, which seemed to be a trend when it was just the two of you.
“Why can’t you guys just stay here and do coke like normal cast members?"
“Why do that when you can play hookie and get drunk?”
You spun to face him fully, tucking your legs up beneath you. There was something about his energy, especially as of late, that made professionalism feel inappropriate. Even more confusing was that you conformed to it.
“You guys are probably going to get caught.”
The argument didn’t seem to sway him.
“So,” he folded his arms and shifted his weight, “does that mean you’re not coming?”
You blinked at him. “I didn’t realize I was invited.”
He recoiled like it was the most preposterous thing in the word, which it absolutely was not.
“What? Of course you are.”
“Oh. Then, no,” you deadpanned.
He pouted, and when that didn’t move the needle, he soften his voice and said: “Please.”
“Hmmm,” you fought back a smile. “I need more than that.”
“I’m thinking more like pretty please.”
He stepped away, rolling his head back and groaning loudly. “I should have known better.”
“You should have,” you agreed, letting yourself laugh now. “And now it’s memorialized forever.”
You pointed towards the board where his letter hung.
“No,” he shook his head, levity in his voice still, and beelined towards it.
Despite knowing exactly what he was doing, you lunged forward too late. He snatched the note, the pin ripping a line through the top of it.
“Hey,” you frowned, “you gave that to me. That’s my property now.”
He shoved the note into his pocket, no doubt crumpling it in the process, which upset you more than you realized it would.
He did a quick scan of the room and found what he was looking for rather quickly.
He took your winter jacket off the rack in the corner and thrust it towards you.
“Ben, I can’t. I have work to do.”
“C’mon,” he whined. “What do you have to do in the next half hour that you absolutely can’t do later?”
You worked your hand against the creases of your forehead and, maybe, actually, considered it.
“Anything more important than my sketches getting picked seven weeks in a row?” He cocked his head, an unmistakable impatience in his tone.
The answer was undoubtedly yes. There wasn’t much on the docket less important than that. But at some point he decided you’d gone too long without answering.
He held your coat up and pressed his lips together, attempting to hide a smirk.
“Fine,” you sighed to stop from formulating another rebuttal. “What happens if we get in trouble?”
“I feel like you’re the one who’s supposed to know that.”
He approached you with the jacket when you stood, held out so that he could help you put it on. Apparently, he’d do just about anything to get you out of here.
You swiped the jacket as soon as it was in reach, mumbling, “I can put it on myself.”
He held up both hands in surrender, backing off half a step, though with the amusement on his face, it was clear he wasn't sorry at all.
Anyone who saw you two breezing towards the elevator would assume you were stepping out for coffee or lunch. It was rare for anyone to have that sort of free time, but leaving was permitted if you could manage it.
You felt practically giddy holding in this secret. You weren’t sure you’ve felt this way since you snuck out of the house in seventh grade, only this time you weren’t wearing a raggedy sweatshirt to hide your sparkly cut out tank and you weren’t praying you’d get to hold hands with your crush at the party.
You did a decent job keeping a straight face even down to the lobby, but by the time the icy midday air hit your face, you were smiling uncontrollably. Ben seemed to pick up on it almost immediately.
You looked over at him as you waited at a crosswalk, having to squint to see through the flat white daylight that came with overcast snow days.
“Maybe,” you shrugged, unintentionally and pathetically coy.
You spared one more glance at him before crossing the street. He was looking down, navigating the grey slush piled against the curb, with something warm and soft to his expression. You found yourself stuck on it until the very last second, where you almost soaked your shoes.
The agreed upon bar was a block from Rockefeller, but it felt worlds away. It was a quiet dive, a stark difference from the shoulder to shoulder foot traffic outside. There were a handful of people inside, some in suits sharing food with a friend, some nursing a beer alone, averting their eyes.
At the very end of the bar stood your friends, crowded together on stools and cackling with one another.
Ben held the door open and followed you inside. It was hard to make out much else in the dim yellow light, but the smell of bar food and mildew flooded your senses.
“Well, well. There they are,” Jeremy called out.
Nothing else. No follow up or question mark. Just the two of you arriving together—that was the whole joke. You felt your face heat up the moment it hit you.
“It took some convincing,” Ben said with faux exasperation.
He put a hand on the back of two unoccupied stools to the left of Veronika. Before he could pull the chair out for you, you reached in to do it yourself. This resulted in your pinky brushing his, an awkward dance where you both pulled away, and ended up in him pulling it out for you with your hand still on it.
He kept his eyes forward as if nothing had happened, which felt unlike him but not notable.
You tried for the same, turning your attention down the bar, only to find the other three fully enthralled by the interaction. There was a collective buzz as if nearing bursting from the laughter.
You whipped around to look at Ben, who had noticed the audience at the same time.
“So what are we drinking,” you deflected, regretting how suspiciously upbeat it came out.
“Oh!” Veronika turned back towards Kam and motioned vaguely.
He lifted a balled up jacket off the bar to reveal five small crystal shot glasses.
“Ta-da,” she sang. “Shots!”
Your eyebrows shot up. There were a million different ways this next hour could play out, and it left like a majority of them ending in losing your job.
“I’m a lightweight, guys. I can’t—”
“Me too, it’s fine,” she waved you off and began passing glasses down towards your end.
You looked to Ben for consolation. You nearly pretended not to. You hated feeling the intimacy of looking to him for comfort. The most rational excuse was that he was the one who'd talked you into this. Keeping you from backing out was his problem to solve.
The corners of his lips pulled up as he leaned in.
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” he said, voice low just for you.
You blamed the heat crawling up your neck on Jeremy—on his comment. On the three of them watching the chair event like it was riveting television. Or maybe the jacket you had yet to take off.
Either way, it did nothing to talk you into staying.
He reached across to grab one of the shot glasses, eyes pulling away from yours later than you would have liked. You weren’t brave enough to check who saw.
Kam lifted his glass first, waiting for everyone to catch up. You lifted yours more slowly, already regretting this.
“To Ben making us look bad,” he said, maybe the proudest those words have ever been said.
“To that,” Veronika agreed.
“To Ben,” Jeremy stated ceremoniously. He brought his glass out in front of him, receiving clinks from each side.
As everyone downed their drinks, Ben didn’t move. With the glass to your lips, you gave him a sideways glance, then paused. He was waiting on you specifically, and not being subtle about it.
You blinked at the glass he held out toward you, and it took a beat to remember you were supposed to do something back.
He let the words sit between you, warm and inexplicably permanent, then clinked his drink against yours. You both tapped the bottom of the glass against the bar for good luck before you tossed it back.
Despite your protests, another round shortly followed. You were never one to turn down a drink, so you embraced the liquor’s burn and watched the clock extra closely.
After twenty minutes, a second Moscow mule appeared in front of you. You ordered the first one, sure, but you never agreed to a second. Still, you didn’t argue the point too hard.
“You don’t drink with us enough,” Kam lazily pointed at you from the other end of the bar.
“I drink with everyone after the show wraps!”
You stopped, giving your mind a moment to catch up.
“Wait, do you sneak out and do this often?”
“No,” Veronika said, too fast.
“Not necessarily,” Jeremy added.
Kam put an elbow on the bar and leaned out, not willing to miss a second of your reaction. After a stare down, he tucked his face into the crook of his elbow to hide his growing smile.
You angled yourself towards Ben—your last resort for the truth. He kept his gaze locked on Kam, eyes wide and full of spite.
“Tell me. I’m not the fucking police, guys,” you said, mainly just to Ben.
He propped arm against the bar and rubbed his face, his fear dissolving into a weary smile.
He sighed and nudged his leg into you, the touch much heavier than it should have felt. It was plausibly accidental until he looked down and let his legs fall open. His leg rested against your knee and he, very intentionally, left it there.
“Two times…” he squinted off in the distance. “Pretty sure.”
“You’ve snuck out two times?”
“Seen you outside of work two times. Ever. In the history of us knowing each other.”
You opened your mouth, then closed it.
“Can you even name the first two?”
You were fairly certain he was at Veronika’s friendsgiving. The heavy pours at dinner made everything a little fuzzy. As for the second time… you had nothing.
“See,” he said, too satisfied with himself.
You shrugged it off, despite suddenly feeling you’ve missed so much of something you didn’t even know was an option.
“So what? I see you guys more than I see anyone else in my life, anyway,” you said, intentionally directing the conversation away from Ben. Veronika took the bait.
You almost turned to her to refute the point, but that would mean shifting out from under Ben’s leg. You told yourself moving would draw attention to it than leaving it, which was, at the very least, probably true.
Somewhere in the middle of arguing with Kam about a hypothetical third hangout, you found yourself pressing your leg a fraction closer into him, like it might go unnoticed if you moved slow enough.
Whether detected or not, you had drunk just enough to convince yourself you didn’t care.
Maybe a bit more than just enough. Your thoughts had officially bypassed the filter and were spilling out freely. You actually hadn’t even realized the table read was on your mind until it became a tool to fill a lull in the conversation.
You shifted towards Ben, careful to keep your lower body still. He looked up from his beer, a look of intrigue flashing across his face.
“Soooo, Mister Carpenter.”
He raised an eyebrow, head tilting slightly. “Sorry?”
You let out an airy giggle at his reaction and absolutely resented hearing it.
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“I–” he faltered, a toothy smile following. “Do I?”
You hummed, paired it with a shrug, and took a sip from your near-empty cup.
“Word on the street is you begged Kam on your hands and knees to trade seats. Wanted some one-on-one time with Sabrina, yeah?”
He chuckled, low and breathy, but he wasn’t amused by what you thought he was.
You recoiled and pulled your legs away instinctively, leaving an empty impression on your knee.
“Are you out of your mind?”
You looked him in the eye long enough that he almost believed it. He sobered up right in front of your eyes, like he was realizing in real-time that he might have crossed a professional boundary.
There was a version of you, the one you were familiar with, that would have let him sweat a little longer. Wait for him to be the one to backpedal.
Instead, you shifted back into him, letting your knee settle against his again. Blatantly and undeniably choosing the touch this time.
"Relax. I'm messing with you."
He didn't relax, not back to the way he was before, at least. But something in his shoulders loosened. You looked off towards the exit to prevent reading into it any further.
Veronika huffed and slid something down the bar. “Of course you’d set an alarm.”
4:30PM. This was actually your second alarm—the one you set in case you ignored the first one. The one that was meant to guilt you for not listening to the first one and rub it in your face that you were late.
“Why did you have my phone,” you asked to no one in particular.
Everyone was on their feet before you could process what was happening. Truthfully, you had your head too deep in your copper mug to notice.
You set off to find your phone, purse, and jacket—one at a time, in that order. It was that one-track-mind focus where your brain blocked out anything that wasn’t the task at hand.
You were holding your phone. It didn’t take too long to figure that one out. You spun around, eager to move onto the next task. Veronika, Kam and Jeremey were walking out the door, letting a blinding white light flood into the bar.
You nearly jumped at the sound of Ben’s voice. He was less than a foot in front of you, purse slung over his shoulder and jacket held up as if ready to help you slide into it.
You snatched the long puffer from his hands and strode for the door.
You were aware that you actually needed to put it on before leaving. Even more aware that if there was any time you needed his help getting it on—as mortifying as it was to imagine it—it would be now.
Finally, you realized that you may have come off a little rude back there.
You stopped short and spun on your heel. He caught himself before nearly walking right through you and looked down on you with grave concern.
Your shoulders slumped without meaning for them to. “Sorry.”
His face relaxed once he began to laugh and you spent a little too long wondering if it was at your expense.
“Okay, let’s go miss timer. Put your jacket on.”
He waited patiently as you wrestled with the sleeves, inadvertently making a scene in front of the bar. Once you passed for dressed, he delicately placed your purse over your arm and nodded as if he’d just watched a job well done.
The cold hit you both at the same time, sharp enough to rip off the alcohol blanket you’d built up. You fell into step beside him, the others far off in the distance now. Your boots did a poor job gripping the salted sidewalk—almost as bad as your legs were at navigating the crowd.
“Now I get it,” he said, hands shoved deep in his pockets.
“Why you don't drink with us. You're a menace.”
“No one ever invited me!”
“You're invited now. Historically. Permanently.”
You sat with that, tried to parse through how, what, it made you feel, but gave up pretty quickly once it proved futile.
You squinted at him, or tried to—your face wasn't cooperating the way you wanted it to. “Are you even drunk?”
“God, no. It’s a Wednesday.”
You hummed in mild disappointment.
He sighed, long and dramatic, like the confession physically pained him. “Fine. I'm pretty fucking drunk.”
He looked over at you as if presenting evidence. Glassy eyes, flushed cheeks, lazy smile that he wasn’t trying to hide.
Your jaw dropped. “Holy shit, you are drunk.”
“Shh.” He pressed a finger to his lips, badly, missing by an inch. “Shut up.”
Something about the seriousness of his shushing, paired with how thoroughly he'd just failed at it, cracked you open. You laughed from deep in your chest, and it didn’t take long for him to join in. He laughed right back at you for laughing, which only made it worse. Made it better. You weren't sure anymore.
For once you weren't keeping him in line or shooing him away. You were just as much a mess as he was. How much of a relief it was that it didn't feel like a problem that needed solving. How much more enjoyable time spent with him was when you weren’t managing him.
You were still laughing, breath foggy in the cold, when your foot hit an icy patch under the scaffolding. You’d been so focused on keeping from doubling over that you didn’t have time to prepare for it. Before you knew it, you were heading straight for the other lane of foot traffic.
Ben's hand caught yours before you'd even registered falling. He yanked you back onto your feet with more force than the moment probably called for.
You took a breath to recalibrate and focused all your attention on placing one foot in front of the other. You tightened your grip on his hand, essentially crushing his fingers in a way that couldn’t have been comfortable.
“Good lord, I’m rescinding that invite,” he said, shaking his head. You could feel him looking at you but you were too locked in on the ground to pay it any mind.
He wiggled free from your grasp, leaving your hand exposed to the biting air, but only for a half-second. His hand returned, palm flat and fingers laced firmly in yours, like he already decided this is how the rest of the walk was going to go. How it had to go, evidently.
This felt akin to needing his help with your jacket. Worse, actually, because this time you weren’t refusing the help.
There was a warmth spreading somewhere in you—you weren’t drunk enough to lie to yourself completely. Just drunk enough to ignore it. What you knew for sure was you needed help walking. That was humiliating enough.
“This is…” you searched for an apt word. You couldn’t find it. “Bad. We have work to do.”
